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As the morning wore on and more and more people arrived to serve as witnesses, it became clear to everyone that the queen was in labor; the pains came more and more frequently, though the midwife said that it could still take days. The Lord Chancellor and Lady Sunderland arrived, and one by one, all of the Privy Council. The lady of the bedchamber and the midwife turned back the covers at the bottom of the bed so that everyone could see the queen’s bare feet and knees under the expensive nightgown. The Dowager Queen, Catherine of Braganza, entered as if she were expecting a party and remarked that the room was overcrowded and the birth taking too long.
“He’s so high,” Mary Beatrice said pitifully to the king. “I can feel him so high!”
“He will come.” The king nodded towards Father Petre. “We’re all praying for him, my dear, and for you.”
She moaned as the pains came again, gasped when they stopped, and the king pulled off his wig and held it before her face to shield her from the staring faces of the official witnesses. She clutched his hand as the pain came again, and Livia edged towards the door, unnoticed by all the people, the senior nobility, the Privy Council and the ladies-in-waiting who were watching the bed. Livia got silently out of the room and ran downstairs to the queen’s private kitchen two floors down, halfway between the cellars and the ground floor of the palace. Here the queen’s private cooks made her hot chocolate or a light breakfast to eat before the meal served to the full court. Here they made little pastries, which they served in her rooms with the tea that they blended and brewed for her.
Now, they were cooking tisanes and heating birthing ale, boiling up kettles of water for her to wash her face and hands. One cook wasmaking a sustaining broth in case labor lasted for hours, another was making sweet jellies and pastries to tempt her appetite. Others were preparing glasses of wine and dishes of tea for the guests and witnesses in the bedchamber. Livia went through the kitchen without a word to anyone, took a cape from the back of the door, crossed an inner court at a gliding walk, and entered the gardens, heading towards the shelter of an overgrown arbor. Rob Reekie rose up from the hidden seat and Livia hid a sigh of relief. He was hunched with one arm held awkwardly inside his coat. She saw, with a leap of delight, that he had a tiny bundle tucked under his jacket.
“You’ve got him,” she breathed.
“I have him,” he said, opening the front of his jacket and transferring the tiny bundle into her arms.
“Why doesn’t he cry?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me he’s weakly?”
“No, he’s just fallen asleep, he’s a healthy baby.”
“Newborn?”
“Born this morning. His mother bled to death, God bless her. I couldn’t save her. I’ve left the cord on him.”
Livia stood still before him and let him open her cape, press the baby into her arms, and close the cape over them both. She realized that he had no awareness of the intimacy of the gesture. He touched her waist, pressed the baby against her breast; but all he was thinking of was keeping the baby warm.
“We’ll never speak of this again,” he told her. “And you will write to the Alderman.”
“I will,” she promised. “And I will tell Matteo something to make him release Hester from their betrothal.”
“You won’t tell him the truth? And you will never use his fathering against me again?”
“How could I?” she said reasonably. “It’s a weapon that can only be used once.”
He ducked his head and turned to leave. “God bless you and keep you safe,” he said tenderly.
Livia warmed for a moment and then realized, with a little jolt, that he was not blessing her, but speaking to the baby. “He will be King of England!” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t need your prayers.”
“I don’t want to know,” Rob said and disappeared.
Livia cleared the kitchen, saying that she needed privacy to make a special caudle for women in childbirth that only her family knew. Even in the kitchen, two floors below the bedchamber, Livia could hear the sound of people walking anxiously backwards and forwards. The whole palace, all of England, everyone was waiting for the news. There was an urgent clatter of wooden clogs on the stone stairs and the midwife came running into the room and looked around for the cooks. “She wants small ale!” she exclaimed.
“In the jug,” Livia said. “I’m bringing a warming pan.”
The midwife grabbed the jug and dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. As soon as she was gone, Livia lifted a warming pan down from the hook and opened it. It was dusty with ashes and blackened with soot. Livia swept a cloth around, and tucked the sleeping baby, nestled in his blankets, in the pan. She unwrapped the rags around the baby to see a long trail of the cord and smears of dried blood. Livia opened the door to the meat larder and put her hand into the butchered belly of a hanging buck. She scooped fresh blood and smeared some on the baby’s head, and dripped some on his little belly. He stirred, but he did not wake as she closed the lid on the warming pan, and taking it by the handle with a cloth over her hand to protect her from imaginary heat, ran up the stairs after the midwife and pushed her way through the crowd of onlookers into the queen’s bedroom.
Mrs. Cellier, the queen’s midwife, lifted a corner of the bedding, and Livia thrust in the pan, so that it lay next to the queen’s open thighs. The queen was writhing in her pain, crying out in a deep lowing voice like a tortured animal.
“Can you not give her brandy or something for the pain?” Livia demanded.
“The king says no,” a midwife replied, gesturing to the knot of men standing at the foot of the bed and half a dozen more behindthem. The king himself was with his wife, at the head of the bed, bare-headed, his huge wig in his hand.
“Has he been here all this while and not thought to get her a screen?” Livia said to herself and went to the head of the bed on the opposite side to the king. Mary Beatrice was half raised on pillows, the veins standing out in her temples, her cheeks blown out, bellowing with pain. “Not long now…” Livia promised.
“I die! Oh! You kill me!” the queen screamed.
“Now!” the midwife exclaimed. “Now he is coming. Push, Your Majesty!”
Mary Beatrice screamed like a woman being stabbed. “Now be still!” commanded the midwife. “Gather your strength. Rest.”
The queen dropped back panting; they saw her look around the room at the staring faces, then her face contorted with pain and the midwife shouted: “Now! Push again! Now!”
