Clent appeared to have noticed as well, for he turned faintly grey and lost his grip on the collar of the pale- haired youth with the ewer, who scampered to the fireside.
‘That’s it!’ The dark-haired woman by the fireside had scrambled to her feet, her eyes somewhat manic, rebellious hairs escaping the confines of her braided bun. ‘That’s what we need! Again! Quickly!’
Mosca faltered under her zealous, glittering gaze.
‘What…?’
‘Scream! Quickly! You’ve a fine pair of lungs, let’s hear you use them again! Our “scaring” won’t work unless we get some more sound!’
The woman on the floor clenched her eyes shut and gave a small pained whimper.
‘He’s coming, Mistress Leap. I don’t think he’ll wait much longer…’
‘Hold your siege there, Blethemy, he’s not here yet,’ the dark woman muttered. ‘We’ll scare him off for that half an hour we need, or burst our lungs trying. You, sir!’ Clent shook himself out of his paralysed horror just in time to catch a bouquet of bundled spoons flung at his chest. ‘Rattle them for all you’re worth. And you, lass – come to the fireside and take these!’ The rushlight was firmly and fearlessly snatched from Mosca’s hands, and suddenly she was gripping the handles of two heavy, battered-looking pans. ‘Bang them together and scream! Tell the world you’re setting fire to the house, so the little one’s skithered to come out!’
‘But…’
‘What…?’
‘Wind and whistles! If you’re going to argue,’ Mistress Leap snapped, settling herself down by her patient once more, ‘then at least do it at the tops of your voices!’
The young man launched into a bellow that startled all of them, and Clent responded with a shocked-sounding yell, and the youth pitched in with a yodelling wail to show solidarity, and Mosca released the scream she had wanted to give vent to ever since she had seen Goshawk riding past. Everyone rattled cutlery, stamped feet, banged pans, rang Clamouring Hour bells or beat pewter plates like gongs.
Meanwhile Mistress Leap unfolded a great bundle and pulled out a slope-backed chair, a tiny metal bath, folded linen and some small bottles. Evidently she was some form of midwife.
‘I’M GOING TO BURN YOU ALL!’ screamed Mosca.
‘THAT’S BETTER! HOW LONG HAS SHE HAD THE PANGS, BLIGHT?’ Mistress Leap asked in a confidential screech.
‘SIX HOURS!’ shouted the young man, veins standing out on his face with the effort of continual bellowing. ‘COULDN’T SEND FOR NOBODY – WE DIDN’T EXIST…’
‘THAT’S ALL RIGHT, BLIGHT,’ answered the midwife in a kindly banshee wail, patting at his hand. ‘NOW, BLETHEMY, I NEED YOU TO TRY TO RELAX.’
The prone woman nodded feebly. Mosca could see now that it was perspiration that made her hair straggle.
Now that Mosca was seated closer to the hearth, the dark midwife’s features were clearer. She was probably nearer forty than thirty, but had a fine-wired bone structure that gave shape and character to her face. A fan of lines creviced the corner of her eyes, the tidemark of a thousand smiles. Despite the drabness of her dress and the pallor of her skin, the brown hair under her linen cap was tied up into braided whorls bristling with pins, from which only a few spidery wisps escaped. All this could have been confidence-inspiring if she had not been battering the coal scuttle with the ladle in her free hand.
‘NEVER LIKE HAVING MEN IN MY BIRTHING CHAMBER,’ she shrieked conversationally. ‘CANNOT BE HELPED THOUGH. FACE THE WALL, WILL YOU, BOYS?’
Clent, the pale youth and the young man with the squashed nose all obediently turned to face the wall.
The midwife shouted a question at Mosca several times before it was finally audible.
‘I SAID. WHAT. IS. YOUR. NAME?’
‘MOSCA MYE!’ The name was out before Mosca had time to think.
‘CONGRATULATIONS, MOSCA MYE. YOU ARE ABOUT TO HELP DELIVER A BABY.’
While the menfolk obediently yelled at the unoffending wall, Mosca helped the dark-haired Mistress Leap to guide the pregnant woman into the slope-backed birthing chair and then returned to pan-banging. Mosca had just about gleaned enough to guess that the ruckus of the ‘scaring’ was designed to persuade the baby that the world outside its mother was far too noisy, so that it would hold off from being born until everything was quieter.
Mosca banged the pans with her eyes closed, because there was something disturbing about looking at the stretched stomach of the pregnant woman and watching her skin glisten as she gasped for breath. And yet she could not help sneaking glances now and then, fascinated by the idea of an angry little scrap of life striving to force its way into the world. The fire was stoked to heat a kettle of water and a little crock of oil that filled the air with the smell of almonds.
The half-hour passed with painful slowness, the midwife consulting her battered pocket watch again and again. At last she called for silence.
‘He’s coming.’ Her voice was hoarse from continual strain. ‘Everybody stop; it’ll do no more good. He won’t hold off any longer.’
Even after the ‘scaring’ had ended, the birthing took a long time. For what seemed an age, the midwife talked in a quiet calming tone like one soothing a stallion with colic. The pregnant woman’s face was creased and flushed, and she gave a series of long, pained sounds of effort, like somebody trying to heave a cart off their chest.
‘Take her hand,’ said the midwife. Mosca obeyed, and found her fingers all but crushed in the pregnant woman’s grasp. Everything smelt of sweat, tallow and almonds, and Mosca watched the face of the mother-to-be like one hypnotized. Making a new life. A new person, right here and now.
‘There he comes… just a little more now, Blethemy… once more… and there he is…’
The mother slumped back on her little chair, her face so slack that for a moment Mosca feared she had died. Her chest was still moving, however. While the midwife was busy with wet cloths and linen and her knife, Mosca hung on to the mother’s hand, watching little moth-wing pulses flutter in the woman’s temples and throat.
Even after the midwife had cleaned up the baby in the miniature bath, it was still a prune-faced thing with a gravylike splat of dark hair and a swollen purple knot on its stomach. The midwife gave it a business-like slap and it emitted a vibrating cry, tiny fists trembling as it was slathered in oil and swaddled in clean linen. Mosca had seen mother cows, cats and dogs drop their young into the world like glistening parcels. This birth had been just as noisy and messy, and yet somehow it felt different.
The new mother’s damp lashes fluttered as her eyes opened and sought out the midwife, who was cradling the child in one arm and fumbling for her pocket watch with her free hand.
‘How long…? Which…?’
‘Four minutes after the hour.’ Mistress Leap closed her pocket watch with a click, and sat back. ‘Did you hear that, Blethemy? An hour sacred to Goodlady Twittet. He waited just long enough. You can give your boy a daylight name.’
Blethemy, the new mother, managed a smile of exhaustion and relief, and then her face unexpectedly crumpled and she started to sob.
Half an hour after the birth the midwife had settled Blethemy back on her low bed with a cup of spiced wine and a loaf of bread. The new child, who had been swaddled into fat caterpillar proportions, lay over her heart. Mosca thought of her own mother dying in childbirth and wondered where she herself had lain on her first night of life.
‘What ’bout them?’The young man nodded fiercely towards Mosca and Clent. ‘They can’t stay here. Least of all
Noting the direction of his pointed gaze, both Mosca and Clent made belated attempts to clutch at and conceal their visitor badges.
‘No.’ Mistress Leap tied up her bundle again, her brow creasing as her eye rested on Clent’s daylight badge. ‘No -
there’ll be a muckle of trouble if it’s even known we’ve talked to them. We’re done for if we harbour them.’
‘What? You can’t throw us out on to the streets!’ Mosca was shrill with outrage. ‘We screamed our lungs raw for you!’
