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I frowned when I realized the baby wasn’t in the birth canal at all. I placed a hand on Agnes’s belly and pushed, trying to see if I could confirm my suspicion.
“I think it’s breech,” I said, trying to feel deeper within her. “In fact, I’m almost certain of it. The baby hasn’t entered the birth canal at al.”
“Can you turn it?” Appius asked, his voice strangely calm, considering that the more I poked and probed, the louder Agnes screamed. “I turned a baby once in the infirmary. Just last month. I might be able to do it if you need me to—”
I withdrew my hand from Agnes, covered in blood, and all at once, she fainted.
No, she didn’t faint. I knew what fainting looked and felt like, and I knew what death looked like too.
“A knife,” I said, moving quickly to shift my position so that I could put a hand to Agnes’s heart to confirm my suspicion. My heart sank with grief for the woman I only barely knew, but who I cared about. “Bring me a knife. The sharpest knife in the inn.”
“You can’t possibly mean to—”
“Now!” I shouted. “Agnes is already dead, but there’s a slim chance we could save the baby.”
“If she’s already dead….” Mara said with a heavy sigh, then pulled a sharp, slim dagger from inside of her coat and offered it to me.
Her action made me realize that I hadn’t even had time to take off my coat. I did that now, rolling off the bed and dropping my coat and waistcoat to the floor, then pushing up my sleeves for the grim task ahead of me. The girl who had left the room with the basin came back with fresh water, and even though it was too late for Agnes, I washed my hands anyhow. There was no telling what I would have to do for the baby, if it was alive.
Appius and Mara worked to lay Agnes flat on the bed and to feel her stomach, wiping away blood as they did, so that by the time I climbed back onto the bed with the knife, Appius was able to draw a line across Agnes’s belly with his finger and say, “There. Cut there.”
I nodded and, without a moment of hesitation, did what I needed to do. I’d cut into people more times than I could count in the infirmary, so it wasn’t a shock to me as Agnes’s skin pulled away at the loss of tension after being cut, and as blood seeped everywhere. Cutting the muscle of her womb was harder, but I’d managed that in the past too. The most difficult part was making a big enough incision to bring the baby out without cutting the baby itself.
“Hold the sides back,” I said, not even sure who I was ordering.
Appius rushed to help spread things out of the way, and when I saw what had to be the baby’s shoulders and the back of its neck, I handed the knife off to Mara and reached in to get it.
My heart hammered so hard that I felt it everywhere. The warm wetness of Agnes’s bloody body made it feel like I was reaching into a furnace. But I managed to feel my way around the impossibly small body within her until I had its head cradled in my palm for protection. I shifted the baby so that I could pull it free without breaking its neck or anything else, and then I lifted.
The entire room held still, the mountains themselves seemed to hush, as I took the tiny, wrinkled body of a baby girl from Agnes’s womb. The cord was not wrapped around her neck, and her head wasn’t squashed or elongated from the birth canal. In fact, she looked perfect. Absolutely perfect.
And then, as I drew her close with shaking hands, she opened her mouth and let out a strong, heartrending cry.
The world and everything in it flew back into motion again.
“Towel, towel!” Mara ordered the young woman, who still held the basin.
“Give me the knife and I’ll cut the cord,” Appius said. “We need something to clamp it.”
“Will this do?” Larth’s wife said, her voice weak with amazement as she took a barrette from her hair.
“It’ll have to,” Appius said, accepting it from her. He moved quickly, closing the barrette over the baby’s cord a few inches from her belly.
I couldn’t do anything but hold the baby in increasingly shaky hands as Appius sliced through the cord. Once that was severed, I reeled back, instinctively bringing the baby to my body as I landed unsteadily on the floor.
“Clean her off and tend to her,” Mara said, handing me a wet towel. “We’ll deal with Agnes’s body.”
I nodded, but I’d only barely heard her. I took another step back, then another and another until my back slammed against the wall. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the baby as she wailed and raged against the unfairness of being brought into the world moments after her mother had died.
I had enough presence of mind to sink into a chair that had been moved next to the door, then to rest the baby on my legs as I wiped off the blood with the wet towel. Larth’s wife and the other woman crouched on either side of the chair, helping me where they could. They gave me a new rag to wash the baby with when the towel fulfilled its use, then a blanket to wrap around her so she could be warm and dry.
“Strip off your shirt,” Larth’s wife said through tears. “Hold her against your skin.”
It took me a long moment to register her words. Then I blinked at her. “What?”
She shook her head and tugged at my shirt. “Just do it. It’s good for the baby, good for you too. It helps with bonding.”
“Helps with….”
