A/N - Just a quick warning that this chapter deals with the birth and death of a baby.

Chapter 5 – Mother

Mother was sitting outside, carefully stitching together some of the soft rabbit skins Alec and I had been tanning over the summer. With a soft smile Mother held it up to show me and Alec.

"It will be a wrap for the baby," she told us cheerfully. "I've used the softest furs, so it will be cosy and warm."

I cursed silently when I saw that she was using some of the larger ones with the thicker fur, the ones I had intended to trade. Rabbits were so plentiful it astounded me that there was a market for cured skins, but many people weren't interested in the work it took to make the small skins soft and pliable. Easier for them to have Alec and I do the work for a few coins for a bundle, or something in trade.

I didn't say anything to Mother though. She rarely remembered what I told her, and I doubted she'd even considered that I might have had plans for the skins.

Besides, I didn't like talking about the baby that was coming and Mother's preparations for it. I didn't know which of the village men had filled her belly and I was angry with her for allowing such a thing to happen. We had enough trouble feeding the three of us…what were we supposed to do with a baby?

"Alec and I found a beehive," I told her instead, changing the subject. "We took it to the manor house and traded them for some apples. They're a bit wormy and well past their best, but we got a lot of them and we can bake them or stew them." I scratched Bran's ears as he came and sniffed at the apples I held in my tunic.

Mother struggled to rise, and Alec ran to help her as I piled the apples in a basket and hung it from the hook, high in the hut. Hopefully high enough to keep it away from the rats and squirrels for a little while, I thought, as I grabbed the heavy earthenware jug and carried it outside.

Mother was slightly hunched over, her hand on her belly and her face strained. Despite my frustration with the situation I couldn't help but feel a stirring of pity. Mother was so uncomfortable, and she must have been feeling anxious at the thought of the impending birth. Her mother, my grandmother, had been a wisewoman who attended the village women at their laying-ins and all of us knew the odds for a successful, healthy birth.

"Will it be soon?" I asked, half unwillingly.

Mother nodded and straightened up. "By the next full moon I would think. I hope it's soon, because it's rather awful to be so big in this heat!"

"I'll go and get some fresh, cool water," I promised, pouring what little remained of the lukewarm water in the jug out and then hefting up the heavy container in my arms. "Alec got some berries and we've got the apples now too, that will make a nice meal when I get back."

I took my time walking down to the river, and when I got there I stripped off my scratchy, sweat dampened woollen tunic and plunged into the cold water. I could swim a little and I went out into the deeper middle, holding my breath and sinking down into the green tinged water. I saw a flash of silver, a fish, and thought that Alec and I should really go out this evening and check the lines we set further upstream. Maybe we could stop by the Goddess tree on the way, and leave an offering for a safe birth for Mother. By the time I left the water I felt much better in both body and mind.

There were no fish on the lines when Alec and I went to check in the early evening, but one of our snares had caught a rabbit. I broke its neck to end its suffering, and then carried the limp body home for skinning and gutting. Bran gobbled up the innards that we couldn't use, and Mother cooked the rest of it into a stew, adding some apples and berries. It was delicious, and both Alec and I had a second helping, although Mother only picked at hers a little. The sun had dropped below the horizon by then, but the night time brought little relief from the heat and it was with some reluctance that we all went into the hut and lay down for the night.

I don't know if it was the fleas or Mother that woke me. But I came back to consciousness in the darkness of the hut, my hands scratching feverishly at the bites on my neck and hearing Mother moving around in the straw.

"Mother?" I whispered.

"Hush little one." There was a slight lightening of the darkness as the curtain was pulled back from the opening, and then I saw Mother's bulky silhouette move across. "I'm just going outside."

"Are you okay?" I asked. "Is it…"

"Just the heat." Mother was trying to sound cheerful, but it wasn't hard to detect the note of anxiety in her voice. "Go back to sleep Janey. It's nothing."

But it wasn't nothing.

I slept a little more, and when I woke in the morning with the sun already blazing down and the heat making the air shimmer, Mother was gone. I woke Alec and the two of us called for her and then followed Bran as he hopped through the forest to the Goddess tree. It was there we found Mother.

Mother was on her knees in supplication before the sacred tree. The bits of glass and shiny stones that we had decorated it with were glinting in the sun, familiar and comforting, especially in the face of what else was glinting in the sun…the blood, pooling between Mother's knees and shining red before it soaked into the earth beneath her as she screamed.

"Mother!" Alec dropped to his knees beside her. "What are you doing here? We have to take you home."

"I came to pray," Mother gasped. "I knew it was beginning, but…ooohhhh." Her face contorted and she gripped Alec's hand so tightly I saw his fingertips turns purple.

"We have to do something." Alec turned to me. "Jane, we have to do something!"

"Do what?" I asked flatly, watching in horrified fascination as a rush of blood splashed again. "Mother didn't prepare me for so much blood…I don't know anything about this!"

"Mother, Mother, what can we do?" Alec asked her gently, stroking her arm. "Please, tell us how we can help you."

"Can't…the baby…" Mother screamed again, a guttural sound from deep inside. "Too much blood…"

"We'll get the baby out," Alec said, sounding surprisingly calm and comforting. "You can do it Mother. Once the baby is born it will all be well. Jane, help me."

Mother wanted to sit up, and between us Alec and I managed to turn her around so that she was propped up against the sacred tree, her tunic bunched up over her swollen belly. She smiled vaguely at us, her eyes glassy and unfocussed, and then curled forward over her belly as she screamed again. All I could see when she did was the gush of blood, pouring out between her legs in ribbons of ruby red that flowed across the earth as it soaked in. Her legs looked as though they were clad red stockings and when I glanced between them I looked hastily away.

Mother slipped from consciousness then, her head lolling against the rough bark of the tree. The Goddess tree…why hadn't she come? The Goddess was supposed to be there for mothers, why was she letting my Mother shed her life blood right into the roots of her worship tree?

"I'll go back and get water," Alec said. "We need water, and something for the…something for the baby, when it comes."

I nodded, but I knew even then that any effort would come to nothing. The blood kept coming and Mother's stark white face and colourless lips told her story, and even if the babe could be birthed the chances of survival were slim. Without Mother there would be no milk, and we didn't even have the goat any more. A wetnurse maybe, but only if they'd take in a strange baby from the kindness of their hearts because Alec and I had nothing to give in exchange.

It didn't matter anyway. Slipping in out and out of consciousness, her body seeming to take over when her will failed, Mother birthed the baby. A boy. Red with the blood covering every inch of him, limp and lifeless, he never drew breath despite my best efforts to rouse him.

"Is the baby…?" Alec came hurrying back, the water jug in one hand and a blanket and the rabbit skin wrap in his other.

"It's dead," I said brusquely. "Help Mother."

I pushed the tiny body away from me, and knelt beside Mother, combing her hair back from her face with my fingers as Alec gently poured water over her. The water felt cool and refreshing on my hands, but Mother didn't stir.

"Can we not stop the bleeding?" Alec asked anxiously.

The afterbirth lay between Mother's legs, still attached to the baby by the thick, twisted cord, and I looked at it, remembering some of what Mother had told me. "It can help stop the bleeding," I said to Alec doubtfully. "If you eat some…I don't know if she can."

"We must try." Alec tugged the knife from Mother's belt and sawed desperately at the purplish red meat, finally cutting off a small piece. "Mother, please…just try."

I didn't have his optimism. Mother's mouth was slack and even if Alec could put the disgusting thing in it she wouldn't be able to chew and swallow it. The blood was slower now, a trickle rather than a flood, but Mother seemed to be near as lifeless as the baby.

"Mother…please Mother…" Alec looked up at me helplessly. "She's not answering."

"I don't think she's going to," I said quietly, and I knelt by his side. "I don't think she can."

Silently, Alec and I gripped hands. Mother slumped against the tree, the movements of her chest as her breath rose and fell becoming shallower and further apart, until they stopped altogether. She was dead.

"What do we do?" Alec said eventually, his voice flat.

"Bury her." In the numbness of shock, I sounded as flat and cold as Alec. "By the river I suppose…it's the only place where the ground might be soft enough to dig deep."

"I'll go and get the shovel," Alec said. "If you take the…the baby, I'll meet you by the river. We'll come back for Mother, it will take both of us to get her down there."

I nodded silently and Alec squeezed my shoulder before he turned and ran, disappearing into the trees. I gently tugged mother's tunic down to cover her decently and then turned to the baby.

I didn't want to touch it. The body was covered in blood, so small and pathetic that even though I could have hated it for killing my mother I felt pity stirring in me instead. Grimacing a little I hacked at the thick cord until it separated, and then picked up the baby and carried him towards the river. He was so light I could barely feel him in my arms.

I reached the river before Alec. The baby felt sticky against my arm, and I thought that perhaps I ought to wash him before we buried him, so picking my way through the stones near the bank I laid the baby gently on a large rock, careful even in death not to be too rough.

If I'd been a few minutes earlier or later, it might have been different. But I was there when I was there, and the lifeless, blood stained body of the baby was laid out on the rock in front of me like a sacrifice, and Alec had come with the shovel. So that's what he saw.

One of the lord's men, riding a sweat soaked pony through the forest, came through the trees and saw us. His face blanched, and a look of terror twisted his mouth as he crossed himself in the gesture of the Christians. He didn't let us explain. He didn't let us tell him that the baby was our brother, and he had been born dead, and that our mother had died too. He didn't hear a word as he dug his heels into the pony's sides and fled, away from the horror of what he thought he saw.

A/N – I really do like to write birth scenes, but I didn't like this one so much! I like my characters having positive, healthy birth experiences, and this one was anything but. Sadly normal for the time and place though- prior to the advent of trained midwives and doctors and emergency medical care, birth could be a pretty perilous business.

As a point of interest, there is some evidence to suggest that eating a piece of placenta directly after birth actually can help with postpartum haemorrhage. While I personally availed myself of drugs and a surgeon to deal with it when it happened to me, they really didn't have that many options back in 8th century England so Jane's suggestion here wasn't that far-fetched.