KAYLITH- A Life That Is New
Just as a note, the use of a "sacred stone" or good-luck charm comprised of a precious gem during childbirth was often employed in the Middle Ages. I ripped the "prayer" from an old tract by Hildegard Von Bingen, a twelfth-century nun and leading health "expert" of the era. It seemed to be so easily adapted to a dwarvish theme I couldn't resist :)
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Steam hung heavy all in the air of Dwalin and Freyda's common room. An oblong copper tub had been brought and set close to the fire there. Two serving maids for hire scurried up from their tasks when Meisar announced herself.
"Mister Dwalin has employed us to keep the lady comfortable. She cannot walk to the baths on her own, and the healer with the ear trumpet said it would aid her," the darker girl, Mizri, explained.
"We cook and keep the quarters tidy too," the other, Adina, added. The two curtsied and stood dumbfounded for a moment until Mizri nudged Adina and they withdrew as Meisar knelt on a cushion next to the tub and leaned over to survey Freyda. Her fingers and her ankles had been swollen for more than a month or more, but now her skin broke out in a fine red rash. She was sitting with arms braced outward on either side, the great swell of her stomach poking just above the surface of the water.
"It'll be soon I know. Eda told me. Well, she thinks I've passed the usual time, but babes are like to be late and better late than too early."
"Has she checked you?"
"Oh aye, it's... widening like it should, down there, she says. The cramping is bad, and me back… it's like a pain I can't rid of at all. Oin said the hot water might help."
She lifted her hand from the bathwater, already going lukewarm. The watchful serving girls set two more buckets over the fire to heat.
"Dwalin hired them. They've been good at attending on me. I'd feel like a princess if I weren't so..." she gestured broadly to her swollen stomach, broken-out skin and swollen joints. "Oh Meisar, I hope this child comes soon."
"He can't stay up there forever," Meisar shrugged.
"Might as well be in the tub, warm or no, not ruin another set o' linens. Been tricklin' all day like makin' water but it's not that kind of water. Eda says that's normal, near the end. And the pains. A bad 'afana, like ye do when ye first start as a lass and think yer dying." Freyda laughed dryly. "It'll be soon that I know."
The girls sat agog over the fire, minding back to their tasks when caught goggling, whether at the queen's humble presence in the chamber or the sight of the fully pregnant dwarrowdam it could not be gauged. Either was enough a rarity to be a spectacle, and Freyda, naked as her name-day, was in too much discomfiture to care much about being one. Her breasts were so she winced when water from her sponge sprinkled over them. Meisar took it from her and dabbed lightly at her shoulders, scarlet with rash.
"Look at ye, Meisar, sponging at me like one of these hired lasses might do for me. I thought ye would forget me when ye was queen."
Meisar took her tangled hair and started to squeeze it dry over a pan on the floor. "We're no different than they are. We just married something different than we were used to. There's nothing that will change what we are."
"I wish that were still true," Freyda sighed. She mustered a smile. "The babe was here, and now he's here," she said. She was no longer quite as rotund, but pear-shaped at the belly, with the mass of her dwarfling settled just above the pelvis. "He presses on me back so."
"I must admit I am bemused not to see Dwalin here," Meisar remarked.
"There's a chance o' unrest, but ye can't blame Thorin. Nay, Dwalin refused to leave his side. Thorin told him he ought to be here with me until the child's come."
"So I have heard," Meisar nodded. On the outskirts of Dale, there had been squabbles between the remaining dwarves in their steads, and the men of Dale, who were keen to break ground on a new section of wall too close to their plot for liking. Dwarves and men had shouted each other down for days in a special court Thorin was presiding over, and Bard's silence on the matter was irking him.
"I think he's afraid to be around me so. I think childbirth terrifies any man," Freyda supposed smartly. "They can't handle it.'
Dwalin walked through the door and through the steam at that precise moment.
"M'queen," he hung up his cloak swiftly. He returned to close the door but several sets of feet or more were trodding giddily through as he did.
"Any baby yet?" the recognizable drawl of Lofar pierced the veil of steam. Freyda grimaced.
Meisar turned back to Freyda before she rose toward them to shoo them off. Dwalin had already vanished through a cloud of steam to the other side of the apartment, badgering Mizri and Adina for reports of her condition. Meisar quickly knelt over the tub again next to Freyda and draped a large towel over the top of it, the company too wrapped up in talking over each other to have heard her. They plunked in the sofas across the common room and began to nosh at the leftover bread and porridge from breakfast.
Her modesty guarded, Freyda glared at Vestri and Lofar, who were swatting aside the steam to greet her once they had eaten.
"Get out!" Freyda groaned. "Who'd ye think ye are, bursting in on a lady like this? And in this condition?!"
"Came to see if there's anything we could do," Hepti whined. Vigg insistently tore half of the loaf of bread from his hand. "The thanks we get, eh?"
"Out!" Dwalin insisted brusquely of them, rustling Lofar and a reluctant Hepti from the sofa and chair. "Stress enough without ye louts. No manners, do ye have?"
Hepti reached for the sweet-bread he had put down and Dwalin swatted his hand away, irritably. The hired girls took the bread and strawberries from the table, played keep away with Lofar and Vestri all the way back to the kitchen.
"I've got enough to worry for, not them," Freyda groused. "This whole process has me weary, the baby coming."
Meisar gave a stink-eye to the lingering figure of Vestri, wringing his hands in the common room door.
"I am sure it is a trying process, but I know… I know that your child will bring you a greater joy than any, when you first see him. Her. I suppose you can never be sure," she said.
"Aye, 'tis true, but I would tell ye not to envy me in this state. It's unbearable! And the birth… well, no-one's ever told me much 'bout that. My mother died when I was so young," Freyda confided with a hue of dolor to her voice.
Meisar pressed a hot towel to her neck as she reclined. Dwalin tried to shoo Onar's friends out but his arms could only span enough to coral two at a time toward the door. Hepti ducked out ahead of them, a loaf of bread tucked under his arm.
"You're the strongest and most formidable dwarrowdam I know. He'll shoot out like a cannonball with your brawn," Meisar chuckled reassuringly, but Freyda's obvious discomfort made her uneasy. Her shoulders flexed above the water, sending little ripples over the surface, their strength still conspicuous.
"Don't feel brawny, just… oh!" Freyda arched her back under the water sharply.
"Your back?" Meisar lifted Freyda by her cheek, slumping and moaning as another wave seized her and rendered her face pale and scrunching in pain.
"No! No! It's..." She grimaced down at the bathwater where a where a cloud of fluid stirred beneath the surface. Freyda watched it distend into an opaque cloud, her mouth agape, emitting small frightened squeaks.
"DWALIN!" Meisar shouted. Freyda's fingers squeezed hard at the sides of the tub and her legs quaked, splashing bathwater over the sides. "DWALIN!"
He rushed back in from the other side of the apartment and bellowed something in alarm, unintelligibly. Lofar and Vestri were still standing there, arms in the air, beginning to jump around frantically.
"Freyda! Freyda! What can we do!?" the two garbled in alarm.
"OUT!" Dwalin hollered as they surged toward Freyda in all their imperfect chivalry. Lofar was lifted by the collar of his tunic and Vestri had scrammed by the time Dwalin had hauled him to the doorway and tossed him out.
"Me waters! It's time, Dwalin! The babe!" Freyda hollered unevenly. She gazed up helplessly at her husband, equally uncertain if the stolid form of him was any indication.
Soon enough he moved, efficient and swift like the soldier he was. "Come lass, I have ye," he reached for the towel to wrap her in but realizing it would only soak if he lifted her out, grunted and threw it aside. Meisar reeled back as Dwalin whooshed in over her.
"I can," Freyda protested in a grimace, trying to raise herself from the tub on her own. Another stab of labor pain send her splashing back in, and as soon had Dwalin hoisting her from the water under her knees and back, rushing her into the bedroom. He set her on the low birthing bed that Eda had brought the day before, and none too soon. The hired girls were like spooked horses, dashing from one end of the apartment to the next, scurrying blankets and a new bucket of water over the fire to heat.
"Have them stay here. I will fetch Eda and Virta," Meisar told Dwalin. "They are on watch in the healers' halls."
He looked at her disagreeably. "Nay. I'm taller and faster than ye. I'll get to them."
He dashed from the room, leaving Freyda baying and howling on her back, tended to by the skittish serving girls, who were attempting to dry her off. Meisar tried to calm her by rubbing the soft towel over her wet hair, back and forth. She tilted Freyda's scrunching face upward to look at her.
"I must alert Thorin then. Stay here. I will return, I promise," she avowed, gasping for breath herself.
"Promise...?" Freyda's voice broke apart in her throat.
"Promise."
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"Thorin! Mahal, it is time!" Dwalin called out thunderously. Outside the door to the council chamber, on his tail, he could see Eda and Virta sprinting by.
"The birthing pains are true this time," Meisar confirmed, straggling in breathless behind Dwalin.
"At last!" crowed Balin, throwing his arms in the air in thanks.
"You should be with her then, adyum," Thorin recommended, rising from his table swiftly. He took Dwalin by the arm gently. "Dwalin and I will take our time here, as menfolk do during the birth of a child."
"What?" Dwalin snapped, pulling away from Thorin enough to render his eyes surprised, even a little wounded. Balin tried to guide him back, away from the door. "I'll go to her, I will!"
"Women alone attend on births. I think you shall prefer to keep your distance, trust me," Meisar advised gently.
"Nay!" Dwalin protested.
"It is true, the birthing chamber is not a place for men, even the father," Balin asserted with careful firmness, Dwalin shifting impatiently from foot to foot, his fists clenched, exhaling through his nose harshly.
"Neither man nor elf nor dwarf has ever meddled in that business. Come then, we shall have ales and wait, together. If my wife is not to leave your wife's side, then surely I cannot leave yours," Thorin said gently.
Dwalin's hands were on Meisar's shoulders with a forceful grip suddenly. She squirmed, never realizing quite how strong they were. "Take care of her."
She nodded wanly. The grip tightened in demand of a verbal confirmation. "Promise me, my queen."
"I promise."
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Meisar and Eda nearly collided in front of the door to Freyda and Dwalin's quarter. Virta brought up the rear, lugging her tools in an oversized bag.
As soon as they entered Eda swooped in to work. Freyda was lying on her side on the birthing bed, legs bent backward against waves of pain and trembling hard. Bidding her roll on her back, Eda ordered Virta and Meisar to hold her legs askew as she examined her internally, ascertained the position of the baby with gentle but crisp hands, efficiently working every aspect of her condition.
"The child is certainly ready to be born, and it is about time," Eda confirmed. "How oft do the waves come?"
"Every fifteen minutes!" gasped Freyda, as the next rolled in.
"Hmm... quick onset then, and your waters have burst already. I think this shall be not such a arduous process. Relax yourself now, Freyda. We will get there," Eda cooed.
She rolled onto her back and clutched at an amulet of Yavanna, carved in iron, the substance of their dwarven life-blood, which Dwalin had made her. Her swollen belly heaved and heaved. Mizri and Adina were sent to alert Emli, Dis and her nursemaid, and Gyda. The birthing chamber was never to be too crowded, Eda warned, but the company of dwarrowdams was a salve of its own, she advised also.
They came, just as breathless, Emli setting to ordering the girls to boil water, prepare fresh linens, keep the air circulating. Joining Meisar, Gyda sat on Freyda's opposite side, holding her hands as the waves of her contractions surged up again and again with greater intensity. As the frequency narrowed and her pain steepled, Eda rechecked her progress. Her water had broken just before the noon-bells in Dale tolled, and now the bells of eventide were chiming in Erebor too. The hours had floated by in a haze, like walking through a tub of molasses.
The flux of her pains was finally reduced to mere moments apart, and she could not longer walk her legs were in such a trembling state along with the pain in her stomach and back. "He's comin', I feel it! Will he come out now? I want to push!"
"Not yet, not yet, soon," Eda assured, making sure her pillows were plumped, her amulet clutched against her breast. "Soon."
"It stings like a snap o' birch!" Freyda gasped. She rolled out of the bed and onto her knees, both hands clutched against her female part in a paltry attempt to alleviate the pain.
"I know, I know. Breathe deeply like we talked about. Come now, breathe," soothed Virta, setting a poultice upon her stomach, a warm towel on her forehead. Freyda inhaled and exhaled in several ardent breaths, uneven with the crests of pains that were coming even more swiftly now. She leaned forward and braced herself against the side of the bed before the women worked together to help her back into it when her knees gave way under her.
"Don't push ye say? I don't know if I can... I need to!" Freyda wailed.
"I know the feeling. It's the worst of all," Dis knelt beside her, calming in her loose over-gown of marine-blue and cream-and-gold kirtle rather than her usual dolorous shades. "I've done it twice, you must trust me, Freyda."
"Dis..." Freyda's voice was reduced to a mouse's peep. Her eyes filled with tears as they gazed up into the calm robin's-egg of Dis's, placid as a summer mill-pond. "If mine ought be brave as yers and... oh!" She writhed again over to one side as the women braced her. Sweat was beading on her forehead and neck, the veins all standing up there.
"I... must!" she hissed at Eda.
"I know it feels so, but if ye can hold on a little longer, I promise," Eda pleaded. She felt for the baby again, nodded up toward Virta. "So close now."
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After what seemed like a eternity of Freyda's miserable throes, Eda told her it was time, and she lay on her back while she and Virta crouched between her legs and bade her push. Push. Push. Push. The women surrounded her with quiet encouragement. Meisar and Gyda held her legs at the knees and apart, their musculature raw and bold, pressing and squeezing and using every fiber to pushing. Her strength was something to behold.
"Do ye see the head?" Freyda gasped.
"Aye, and it's a big one. You're going to have a large baby coming down," Eda replied, her voice straining against revealing its concern.
Emli fanned herself dramatically across the room, pacing, clinging to Gyda's side as they waited. Freyda bore down again and Gyda, woozy from the view, buried her head into Emli's shoulder. Freyda puffled loudly against the next wave, that gauged her before the push was even complete.
"Any more? Is he coming?" she gasped. The girls rushed in and out with clean linens.
"Large, as I said. It might take some time," said Eda, squinting upward between her legs. She pursed her lips against wanting to gasp. "Fear not, love. He's dropped to where he should be. Just gonna take all of your energy to get him out."
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An hour passed and nothing came.
Freyda's strained cries deepened until she was hoarse, and barely able to moan. Sweat soaked her to the skin and puddled on the sheet below her. Meisar exchanged the warm towels for bundles of ice that melted as soon as they touched her skin through the fibers.
"The baby is stuck," Eda concluded witheringly. "The stubbornness of dwarves."
Silently, Meisar clutched Freyda's hand but her own grip was starting to loosen.
"He must not stay up there much longer or she will bleed internally, and she and the child will both be lost," Virta murmured. Emli swooned.
"What'll we do?" pleaded Gyda, rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet in an effort not to faint. She leaned on Emli but she wasn't much to rely on for that.
"Bring me the Hematite, child. The big one," Eda demanded.
"What for?" Virta inquired.
"An old bit o' luck," said Eda vaguely. Freyda cried out again miserably. Meisar wiped her forehead again, her lips stringy with drool and the white film that gathered at the corners. Sweat had soaked her sheets through.
"You mean superstition?" Virta drew back with the large black stone in hand, Eda snatching it tempestuously from her.
"Anything that is at my hand, I shall utilize. It can't hurt, not now," she said. Eda laid the stone on the blanket near Freyda's agonized passageway, laid her hand upon it and closed her eyes. "Just as you, stone, by the order of Mahal, shone upon the seven fathers in their sleep, so you, child, come forth a light from the dark. Come now, child, from your mother's halls to the king's."
"What is she doing?" demanded Emli, the heat in the room rendering her a perspiring mess too.
"Praying," Virta replied dismally.
"Praying? Do something! Help me!" Freyda thundered in her agony. She slid her hand down and cried out at the hot bloody fluids that coated it when she raised it back up again. "What's happening to me? Eda! Meisar!"
"How much time is there until it is a grave danger?" Virta demanded, eyebrows quirking fast.
"Grave danger?! What!" Freyda cried. "Dwalin! I must see... my husband, please." She slumped back half in delirium.
Eda sighed. "It has been two hours already. That much more and…"
"That should be enough then. Wait for me. Please, please, wait," Virta peeled off her bloodied pinafore and fled the room on swift feet.
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"It's been some time," Dwalin worried aloud. Pacing the chamber floor, he had nearly worn circles in the rug. Balin tried to coral him back toward the table.
"Patience, brother. You should eat. You haven't eaten all day," he admonished Dwalin, urging him to sit and avail himself of the capon and mushroom that had been brought for supper. "You cannot greet your new child on an empty stomach."
"Off with ye, Balin," Dwalin snapped, his face pinched under his beard. "I'll handle myself."
"Saw a sheep birthing once," Vestri piped up, Vigg swatting his hand away from Dwalin's untouched plate. "Don't look too pleasant to me. A bloody business." He raised his tankard against Dwalin and Thorin's paired glaring. "To being male on such a day. When are reminded how easy we have it in the bringing forth o' children."
"Sure no more than a minute for you, had you a wife," cracked Lofar.
"I'll wring every last drop from yer gullet ye think to drink before she's delivered safe," Dwalin barked at Vestri. He set the tankard shaking down upon the table and whined like a dog. Lofar hid behind him.
"Make not light of what a dwarrowdam goes through in birth," Thorin hastened to admonish further. He remembered a winter night, not like this one. Kettle after kettle of water on a fire that refused to stay properly lit, Dis's wails. It had been the whole of the night with sun just cracking at the eastern horizon when Fili finally came.
"Takes time," Onar tried to reassure Dwalin more gently, prodding him at last to sit. "My lady wife was a half or day or more with Freyda and her brother. Each came fine and pink and squallin'." Onar rubbed Dwalin's shoulders, cajoling. "These lasses are tough. They're built for the like."
He saw that Dwalin was grateful but his silence spoke of little relief. Onar crossed his arms and stared at the full tankard before him, not daring to drink, in spite of the dry clap his throat was making. "Me daughter's a strong lass. She'll come through. She'll come..."
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"…it seems the baby is quite large, mother. He's stuck in the tunnel. I thought you might know what to do," Virta's voice returned with the opening of the door on the other side of the partition. Waddling in Bira was red in the face and fanning herself profusely, her usual elaborate coiffure but a simple pale braid hanging down her back, her apron donned and still streaked with pie-filling. Summer blackberry. She gazed down at Freyda with pity.
"Good grace, why didn't you call me sooner?" Bira rolled up her sleeves and was helped to kneel by her daughters at the foot of Freyda's bed. "Easy now, Freyda. I know a thing or so about getting a big baby out. I'm here to help."
"Who..?" Freyda struggled to recognize her. "Do I know ye? Strangers now?"
"Bira, wife of Bombur, mother of fourteen, grandmother of five. My sons are big. My daughters by birth and by law are all as stout. Their babies are stouter yet and I have delivered the latter myself several times over."
"Please," mouthed Eda, gripping under Freyda's knee tight, holding her as far askew as she would stretch. She squinted against tears.
"Ah, what a twofer o' woes," Bira clucked her tongue, after a quick survey. "Big baby, very big indeed, and stuck like a wagon's wheels in muddy ruts. He's against the bone there at an odd angle, and needs to get up a bit to pass."
"Mahal!" screamed Freyda, her stomach contracting around the alien shape it had taken on as the baby writhed along his final journey, trying to come the motion of her stomach seemed to scream, but falling back each time.
"What'll ye do?!" wailed Gyda. Virta wordlessly echoed the sentiment, holding fast to Freyda's hair as she spewed up into a dish beside the bed.
"What I did with enough of your sisters and brothers and nephews, daughter. Get them out myself, by hand," Bira said stoutly. She washed thoroughly and then coated her hands in a flax-seed oil. Standing at her feet, Emli and Gyda recoiled as she went to her task. Freyda let out a resounding howl.
"And turn now," Bira dictated to herself. "Good, good, little one, there you go. Turn about the right way. I have you." Her voice soothed the whole room like honey, as sweet and reassuring. But she pursed her lips in all seriousness up at Freyda. "Brace, Freyda. You'll feel it when I do this."
"Mahal, Yavanna, Meisar, help me!" Freyda clutched her hand hard enough to rattle the bones. Virta kept the poultice tight on her stomach, as it roiled and heaved beneath her hands, manipulated by Bira's.
"Ah, come now. Come, come," Bombur's wife urged gently, her smile never receding, in spite of the dwarrowdams about looking half ready to faint at the sight and sounds.
"Meisar, are ye there?" Freyda blubbered. Blood and myriad fluids in every shade of gore coated her thighs thickly.
"It won't be long now," Meisar whispered, cringing with fear. "This is it. It must be. It must..."
"I want to die," Freyda moaned, as the grip of her fingers loosened around the amulet, until it fell.
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The languid humidity of the early summer night was making its way, a bready scent like yeast, through the halls of Erebor from the terrace. Dwalin had come up to the foyer, alone, bent forward at the waist with his arms around his torso. In the wee hours the whole of the hall was empty and the night air coming in cool and refreshing. Only Donbur remained, packing in his leftover food at his cart. He had tried to eat but Donbur's onion soup was itself too heavy and made his stomach ache. In spite of his warnings to Lofar and company, the mead and ale were drunk and in quantities too great he realized then. They hadn't realized just how many tankards had gone as the hours passed, with no news.
He didn't even see Thorin come into his peripheral, so swift-moving it would have brought him to soldiery attention any other instance. Now his head just swam, and as he turned it he could see Meisar trailing behind him, clutching a rolled up and bloodied pinafore against her stomach.
"Thorin?" Dwalin barked suddenly, springing to his feet.
"It is a son, Dwalin. A healthy son," Thorin smiled, embracing him close. Balin joined on Dwalin's opposite side, tears coming down his cheeks into the snowy-white of his beard.
"You are a father now, brother. I tremble with joy, I do," he acclaimed, through sniffles.
"An enormous healthy son," Meisar added with a pinch of caution. Adina, following at length, took the soiled apron from her discreetly and trundled off.
"And my lady wife?" Dwalin took Meisar's hands close in his, pleading. Never had such profound fear clouded his eyes.
"She was strong and brave through a trying birth, Dwalin, and trying it was indeed. They are both going to fine, but she must rest up quite awhile now."
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"Freyda!" the door slammed open across the apartment so loud it woke both Freyda and the child, on his mother's chest for the moment. He began to wail. "Where is he, my son?" Dwalin inquired with all the patience of a bull, entering the room.
"Here, here, Mister Dwalin," Virta laughed. A determined cry broke forth from the gentle sloshing of the warm basin water over the newborn dwarf, Virta cleaning him up again, swaddling him in clean linens, presenting him to Dwalin. A boy. Big and sturdy, with Freyda's fair hair and his nose. Dwalin unwrapped the swaddling, checking fingers and toes (all chubby and fully formed). Wisps of blonde hair dusted down his little cheeks, red from crying.
"Bonny fair like my lady and a fine beard too boot," chuckled Dwalin, a bristly kiss making the baby scrunch up his little face and wail again. Placing the bundle next to her, Dwalin sat down beside Freyda and embraced her, kissing her face all over as she lolled in his arms, exhausted.
"Careful ye brute!" Eda scolded him, trying to shoo him off the bed but he would not be moved. "It's a delicate condition she's in now."
"He is here, Freyda, to see his son," Meisar beamed, watching Freyda loll up at the crying dwarfling in his bundle, which had been placed in her arms by Dwalin.
"A boy?" she whispered in a haze. "I dreamed I had a wee lad."
"A fine boy," Dwalin confirmed. "Not a dream."
"A brave wife you have," Meisar sought to remind him. "Praise Mahal this child is here now."
Freyda was still woozy, the clean linens under her betraying none of the bloody business that had gone down not an hour before. Her hair, drenched in sweat, was braided and covered in a nightcap. Thick squares of flannel and calico were wedged between her legs under her sleeveless shift to staunch the bleeding, soaked in healing emulsion that smelled of mint and stung every time she moved. She managed to get into a sitting position so they could hold him together.
Dwalin gave the queen a gracious nod, and Thorin. "As we praise Mahal each day, that you and my king will be so fortunate also."
Meisar looked away from him quietly. "Perhaps you ought stop praising and start begging."