“Aye, well, they do that, men,” said Mrs. Bug tolerantly, coming in with a lighted taper. “No sense at all to them, but they mean weel. I heard ye clickin’ away with that steel like a deathwatch, Mrs. Claire; why would ye no just come and fetch a bit o’ fire like a sensible person?” She touched the taper to the kindling in my brazier, which promptly popped into flame.

“Practice,” I said mildly, adding sticks to the infant flame. “I have hopes of eventually learning to light a fire in less than a quarter of an hour.”

Marsali and Mrs. Bug snorted in simultaneous derision.

“Bless ye, lamb, a quarter-hour’s no time at all! Why, often I’ve spent an hour and more, trying to catch a spark in damp tinder—in Scotland, ’specially, since nothing’s ever dry in the winter there. Whyever d’ye think folk go to such trouble, a-smooring the fire?”

This caused a spirited discussion of the best way in which to smoor a fire for the night, including an argument over the proper blessing to be said while doing so, and this lasted long enough for me to have coaxed the brazier into a decent glow and set a small kettle in it for tea-making. Raspberry-leaf tea would encourage contractions.

Mention of Scotland seemed to have reminded Marsali of something, for she raised herself on one elbow.

“Mother Claire—d’ye think Da would mind, if I was to borrow a sheet of paper and some ink? I’m thinkin’ it would be as well if I wrote to my mother.”

“I think that would be an excellent idea.” I went to fetch paper and ink, heart beating a little faster. Marsali was entirely calm; I wasn’t. I’d seen it before, though; I wasn’t sure whether it was fatalism, religious faith, or something purely physical—but women giving birth seemed very often to lose any sense of fear or misgiving, turning inward upon themselves and exhibiting an absorption that amounted to indifference—simply because they had no attention to spare for anything beyond the universe bounded by their bellies.

As it was, my lingering sense of dread was muted, and two or three hours passed in quiet peace. Marsali wrote to Laoghaire, but also brief notes to each of her children. “Just in case,” she said laconically, handing the folded notes to me to put away. I noticed that she didn’t write to Fergus—but her eyes darted toward the door every time there was a sound.

Lizzie returned to report that Brianna was nowhere to be found, but Malva Christie turned up, looking excited, and was promptly put to work, reading aloud from Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.

Jamie came in, covered with road dust, and kissed me on the lips and Marsali on the forehead. He took in the unorthodox situation, and gave me the ghost of a raised eyebrow.

“How is it, then, a muirninn?” he asked Marsali.

She made a small face and put her tongue out, and he laughed.

“You haven’t seen Fergus anywhere, have you?” I asked.

“Aye, I have,” he said, looking slightly surprised. “D’ye want him?” This question was addressed to both Marsali and myself.

“We do,” I said firmly. “Where is he?”

“Woolam’s Mill. He’s been interpreting for a French traveler, an artist come in search of birds.”

“Birds, is it?” The notion seemed to affront Mrs. Bug, who put down her knitting and sat up straight. “Our Fergus speaks bird-tongue, does he? Well, ye just go and fetch the mannie this minute. Yon Frenchman can mind his own birds!”

Looking rather taken aback at this vehemence, Jamie allowed me to usher him out into the hallway and as far as the front door. Safely out of earshot, he stopped.

“What’s to do wi’ the lass?” he demanded, low-voiced, and darted a glance back toward the surgery, where Malva’s clear, high voice had taken up her reading again.

I told him, as well as I could.

“It may be nothing; I hope so. But—she wants Fergus. She says he’s been keeping away, feeling guilty for what happened at the malting floor.”

Jamie nodded.

“Well, aye, he would.”

“He would? Why, for heaven’s sake?” I demanded in exasperation. “It wasn’t his fault!”

He gave me a look suggesting that I had missed something patently obvious to the meanest intelligence.

“Ye think that makes a difference? And if the lass should die—or mischief come to the child? Ye think he’d not blame himself?”

“He shouldn’t,” I said. “But rather obviously he does. You don’t—” I stopped short, because in fact he did. He’d told me so, very clearly, the night he brought me back.

He saw the memory cross my face, and the hint of a smile, wry and painful, showed in his eyes. He reached out and traced the line of my eyebrow, where a healing gash had split through it.

“Ye think I dinna feel that?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head, not in negation, but in helplessness.

“A man’s wife is his to protect,” he said simply, and turned away. “I’ll go fetch Fergus.”



THE LAMINARIA HAD BEEN accomplishing its slow, patient work, and Marsali was beginning to have occasional contractions, though we had not really got down to it, yet. The light was beginning to fade when Jamie arrived with Fergus—and Ian, met on the way.

Fergus was unshaven, covered with dust, and plainly hadn’t bathed in days, but Marsali’s face lighted like the sun when she saw him. I didn’t know what Jamie had told him; he looked grim and worried—but at sight of Marsali, he went to her like an arrow to its target, gathering her to him with such fervor that Malva dropped her book on the floor, staring in astonishment.

I relaxed a little, for the first time since I had entered Marsali’s house that morning.

“Well,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Perhaps we’ll have a little food, shall we?”

I left Fergus and Marsali alone, while the rest of us ate, and returned to the surgery to find them with heads close together, talking quietly. I hated to disturb them, but it was necessary.

On the one hand, the cervix had dilated very appreciably, and there was no sign of abnormal bleeding, which was a tremendous relief. On the other … the baby’s heartbeat was skipping again. Almost certainly a cord problem, I thought.

I was very conscious of Marsali’s eyes, fixed on my face as I listened through my stethoscope, and I exerted every ounce of will in order to let nothing show.

“You’re doing very well,” I assured her, smoothing tumbled hair off her forehead and smiling into her eyes. “I think perhaps it’s time to help things along a little.”

There were assorted herbs that could assist labor, but most of them were not things I’d use, were there any danger of hemorrhage. At this point, though, I was uneasy enough to want to get things moving as quickly as possible. Raspberry-leaf tea might be a help without being so strong as to induce major or abrupt contractions. Ought I add blue cohosh? I wondered.

“The babe needs to come quickly,” Marsali told Fergus, with every appearance of calm. Obviously, I hadn’t been as successful in hiding my concern as I’d thought.

She had her rosary with her, and now wound it round her hand, the cross dangling. “Help me, mon cher.”

He lifted the hand with the rosary, and kissed it.

“Oui, cherie.” He crossed himself then, and set to work.

Fergus had spent the first ten years of his life in the brothel where he’d been born. Consequently, he knew a great deal more about women—in some ways—than any other man I’d ever met. Even so, I was astonished to see him reach for the strings at the neck of Marsali’s shift, and draw it down, exposing her breasts.

Marsali didn’t seem at all surprised, merely lying back and turning slightly toward him, the hump of her belly nudging him as she did so.

He knelt on a stool beside the bed, and placing a hand tenderly but absently on the bulge, bent his head toward Marsali’s breast, lips slightly pursed. Then he appeared to notice me gaping at him, and glanced up over her belly.