The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Author:Philippa Gregory
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781451626070
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2012-08-13T23:00:00+00:00

The pains start at midnight, just when I am going to sleep with Isabel in the big bed beside me. I give a little cry and within moments she is up, throwing a gown over her shoulders, lighting candles from the fire, sending the maid for the midwives.

I can see that she is afraid for me, and her white-faced ordering of ale and her sharp tone to the midwives make me afraid in my turn. They have a monstrance with the Host inside it set up on the little altar in the corner of my room. I have the girdle that was specially blessed for Isabel’s first birth tied around my straining belly. The midwives have spiced ale for me and everyone else to drink, and they send orders to the kitchen for the cooks to be woken to make a great dinner, for it will be a long night and we will all want sustaining.

When they bring me a fricassee of game followed by some roast chicken and boiled carp the smell of the food turns my stomach and I order it from the room and prowl up and down, turning at the window and at the head of the bed while outside, in the presence chamber, I can hear them eating greedily and calling for more ale. Only Iz and a couple of maids stay with me. Iz has no appetite either.

‘Are the pains bad?’ she asks anxiously.

I shake my head. ‘They come and go,’ I say. ‘But I think they’re getting stronger.’

About two in the morning it gets a lot worse. The midwives, flushed and merry from the food and drink, come into the bedroom and walk me between the two of them. When I pause they force me to walk onward. When I want to lie down and rest, they cluck and push me on. The pains start to come more closely together and only then do they allow me to lean on one of them and groan.

At about three in the morning I hear footsteps coming across the bridge from the great chamber, and there is a knock at the door and I hear Richard calling: ‘I am the duke! How is my wife?’

‘Merrily,’ says the midwife with rough good humour. ‘She’s doing merrily, my lord.’

‘How much longer will she be?’

‘Hours yet,’ she says cheerfully, ignoring my moan of protest. ‘Could be hours. You get yourself some sleep, Your Grace, we’ll send to you the moment she takes to her bed.’

‘Why, is she not in bed now? What is she doing?’ he demands, puzzled, the door barred to him, knowing nothing of the mid-wives’ arts.

‘We’re walking her,’ the older one replies. ‘Walking her up and down to ease the pain.’

Pointless to tell them that it does not ease the pain at all, for they will do this, as they have always done it, and I will obey them, for I can hardly think for myself now.

‘You are walking her?’ my young husband demands through the closed door.

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