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Everyone stopped for a few moments to visit and offer moral support as the day progressed, but the encouraging smiles had a quality of sadness. They knew Fralie was facing an ordeal that had very little hope of a happy outcome. Time dragged for Frebec. He didn’t know what to expect and felt lost, unsure. The times he had been around when women were giving birth, he didn’t remember that it took so long, and it didn’t seem to him that childbirth was this difficult for other women. Did they all thrash and strain, and cry out like that?
There wasn’t room for him at his hearth with all the women there, and he wasn’t needed, anyway. No one even noticed him sitting on Crisavec’s bed, watching and waiting. Finally, he got up and walked away, not sure where to go. He decided he was hungry and headed for the cooking hearth hoping to find leftover roast or something. In the back of his mind, he thought about seeking out Talut. He felt a need to talk to someone, to share this experience with someone who might understand. When he reached the Mammoth Hearth, Ranec, Danug, and Tornec were standing near the firepit talking to Mamut, partially blocking the passageway. Frebec held back, not feeling like confronting them, to ask them to move.
He hesitated, but he couldn’t just stand there forever, and started across the central space of the Mammoth Hearth toward them.
“How is she, Frebec?” Tornec asked.
He was vaguely startled by the friendly question. “I wish I knew,” he replied.
“I know how you feel,” Tornec said, with a wry smile. “I never feel more useless than when Tronie is giving birth. I hate seeing her in pain and keep wishing there was something I could do to help, but there never is. It’s a woman’s thing, she has to do it. It always surprises me afterward how she forgets the trouble and the pain as soon as she sees the baby and knows it will be …”He stopped, realizing he had said too much. “I’m sorry, Frebec. I didn’t mean …”
Frebec frowned, then turned to Mamut. “Fralie said she thought this baby was coming too soon. Crozie said babies that come too soon don’t live. Is that true? Will this baby die?”
“I can’t answer that, Frebec. It is in the hands of Mut,” the old man said, “but I do know that Ayla isn’t giving up. It depends how soon. Babies born early are small and weak, that’s why they usually die. But they don’t always die, especially if it’s not too early, and the longer they live, the better their chances are. I don’t know what she can do, but if anyone can do anything, Ayla can. She was given a powerful gift, and I can assure you, no Healer could have had better training. I know from firsthand experience how skilled Clan medicine women are. One of them once healed me.”
“You! You were healed by a flathead woman?” Frebec said. “I don’t understand. How? When?”
“When I was a young man, on my Journey,” Mamut said.
The young men waited for him to continue his story, but it soon became apparent that he was volunteering no further information.
“Old man,” Ranec said, with a broad smile, “I wonder how many stories and secrets are hidden within the years of your long life.”
“I have forgotten more than your full life’s worth, young man, and I remember a great deal. I was old when you were born.”
“How old are you?” Danug asked. “Do you know?”
“There was a time when I kept track by drawing a reminder on the spirit skin of a hide each spring of a significant event that happened during the year. I filled up several, the ceremonial screen is one of them. Now I am so old I no longer count. But I will tell you, Danug, how old I am. My first woman had three children.” Mamut looked at Frebec. “The firstborn, a son, died. The second child, a girl, had four children. The oldest of her four was a girl, and she grew up to give birth to Tulie and Talut. You, of course, are the first child of Talut’s woman. The woman of Tulie’s firstborn may be expecting a child by now. If Mut grants me another season, I may see the fifth generation. That’s
how old I am, Danug.”
Danug was shaking his head. That was older than he could even imagine.
“Aren’t you and Manuv kin, Mamut?” Tornec asked.
“He is the third child of a younger cousin’s woman, just as you are the third child of Manuy’s woman.”
Just then, there seemed to be some excitement at the Crane Hearth and they all turned to look.
“Now, take a deep breath,” Ayla said, “and push once more. You’re almost there.”
Fralie gasped for breath and bore down hard, holding on to Nezzie’s hands.
“Good! That’s good!” Ayla encouraged. “Here it comes. Here it comes! Good! There we are!”
“It’s a girl, Fralie!” Crozie said. “I told you this one would be a girl!”
“How is she?” Fralie asked. “Is she …”
“Nezzie, will you help her push out the afterbirth,” Ayla said, cleaning mucus from the infant’s mouth as she struggled to take her first breath. There was an awful silence. Then a heart-stopping, miraculous, cry of life.
“She’s alive! She’s alive!” Fralie said, tears of relief and hope in her eyes.
Yes, she was alive, Ayla thought, but so small. She had never seen such a tiny baby. Yet, she was alive, struggling and kicking and breathing. Ayla put the baby face down across Fralie’s stomach, and reminded herself that she had seen only Clan newborns. Babies of the Others were probably smaller to begin with. She helped Nezzie with the afterbirth, then turned the infant over and tied the umbilical cord in two places with the pieces of red-dyed sinew she had prepared. With a sharp flint knife, she cut the cord between the ties. For better or for worse, she was on her own; an independent, living, breathing human being. But the next few days would be critical.
Ayla examined the baby carefully while she was cleaning her. She seemed perfect, just exceptionally small and her cry was weak. Ayla wrapped her in a soft skin blanket and handed her to Crozie. When Nezzie and Tulie had taken away the birthing blanket, and Ayla made sure Fralie was clean and comfortable, packed with an absorbent padding of mammoth wool, hen new daughter was put in the crook of Fralie’s arm. Then, she motioned to Frebec to come and see the first daughter of his hearth. Crozie hovered close.
Fralie unwrapped her, then looked up at Ayla with tears in her eyes. “She’s so little,” she said, cuddling the tiny infant. Then she untied the front of her tunic and put the baby to her breast. The newborn nuzzled, found the nipple, and from the smile on Fralie’s face, Ayla knew she suckled. But in a few moments, she let go, and seemed exhausted from the effort.
