Tudor Pavanne: The Request

The winter continued dragging its muddy feet through the countryside, limping on towards spring, and the residents of Mauvais Loup waited it out as best they could. They couldn't be sure, of course, with the primitive obstetrics knowledge of the day, but it seemed that both Belle and Catherine were due in mid-April, just before the Easter Holy Week (coming late that year). The two women made a private bet over which of them would deliver first, both admitting the universal maternal wish for it to just be over.

John did his best to keep them both diverted, with such games and amusements as were to be found in a small country estate, and passing along bits of news that he received in letters from various correspondents at court. The former Archbishop of Canterbury had unexpectedly passed away, and King Henry had been constrained to cut short his Welsh progress to return to the capital and deal with the vacancy. Several names had been put forth by various factions, including one heavily backed by John's friend Sir Thomas, who was busy pulling all the strings he could find. "He's playing a dangerous game," John quietly confided to Belle, "and making even more enemies. He needs to have care, that he doesn't overreach himself." Belle agreed with him, while privately glad that John was safely out of the political turmoil himself.

Meanwhile, the temporary residents of the nearby village had been augmented, yet again, with a contingent of officials awaiting the birth of the prince or princess. Among them were no less than three experienced midwives, who did their best to reassure both the Queen and the Viscountess of their abilities, claiming to "hardly ever" lose either newborn or mother. Belle fought a continuous, silent battle with her growing terror of giving birth in these primitive times, knowing she had zero choice in the matter. (Although she did sometimes toy with the idea of using the time jumper to get herself to a proper hospital when the time came, she knew she would never get the chance. And how could she ever explain where she'd been when she came back?) She wondered occasionally if she'd gained enough influence and respect with her own staff to insist on them boiling some water for washing the newborns, but hadn't quite had the courage yet to find out by suggesting it.

^..^

Belle entered the big, warm sitting room downstairs one morning to find the Queen settled into her favorite chair, but holding a letter in her lap in lieu of her usual stitchery. She was staring into the fire, a drawn and worried look on her pale face.

"Your Grace?" Belle tried not to add an unladylike grunt as she settled her ungainly bulk into the nearby settee. "Is something wrong?"

Catherine sighed, folded the letter and slipped it into her yarn box. She turned to look at her companion.

"Bella..." she began. "You are determined to nurse your child yourself, aren't you, rather than hire a wet-nurse?"

"Yes, I am," came the reply. She held up a hand to forestall the expected argument. "I know, it's not considered proper, but I just cannot hand my baby over to a stranger's care." The practice of the day among the nobility of farming infants out to wet-nurses and barely seeing them thereafter was so alien to Belle that she had no intention of following it, regardless of how others would view her oddity. She grinned at Catherine, impishly. "You could do the same..."

Catherine scoffed. "Henry would never allow it. I am surprised that John is doing so. A wife is expected to be buxom and bonair in bed – and how can she be so if she is constantly seeing to an infant's demands, exhausted from lack of sleep and with her breasts chewed and swollen?"

Belle simply smiled. She had no desire to rehash that argument yet again. "Why do you ask, Your Grace?"

Catherine peered at her sharply, as if gauging something, and then gestured at the folded letter. "I have just found out that the woman we hired to be my child's wet-nurse has died in childbirth. Now we must try to find another one that we can trust – more than that careless slattern who allowed my bonny prince to die." She pursed her lips, then pushed past the memory. "And there is so little time. I do not know if my Lord can find one before my niño is born." She shook her head, then turned back again. "Bella... If he cannot find one and get her here in time, and if your baby is born first, would you also nurse my child? Just until a wet-nurse is found? You are the only one I trust. And I remember well how much you loved my bonny prince. I told you then you were ready for a family of your own. And I was right, wasn't I?"

Belle's jaw had dropped, and she stared at the Queen in amazement, her mind whirling a mile a minute. The whole child-rearing issue in Tudor England just kept getting stranger and stranger. Henry is going to find a wet-nurse? And you're so under his thumb that you can't hire one yourself from the local women – let alone nurse your own baby? And overriding those thoughts was the even greater one. Me? Play wet-nurse to a princeling? Wait, what?

Over the long preceding months of her advancing pregnancy, she had slowly come to accept the idea that she would never be going "home" again to her own time. She had a home, a husband – and now a family. How could she ever think of leaving them behind? And for what? To become a call girl again? Living all by herself in a lonely flat, with a sister and parents she almost never saw, who had no idea how she really made her living? No, her life was here now. She was still going to do her best to ensure one of Catherine's boys grew up to become the King, but it was less and less these days out of any remaining sense of responsibility to the future (well, and wanting to stay alive herself – she didn't want to blink out of existence like the poor Norman Rose had), but simply out of love and loyalty to the woman sitting across from her. She was damned if she'd sit by and watch her get pushed out of her place down the road by some wanna-be queen if she could help it. But no, even if the time jumper ever did change colors, indicating that time had split, she wasn't going to leave John and her baby.

Her baby... She'd already decided she was going to use one of the remaining shots to vaccinate him or her; royalty be damned. That was also one of the reasons she refused to bow to local custom and hire a wet-nurse. She was well aware (having suffered many lectures on it from her sister, who had given birth to two children and conscientiously breast-fed each of them for an entire year) how important breast milk was, both for nutrition and to pass along her own immunities...

Oh. My. God. Is that what this is all about? She'd managed to turn her gaze to the fireplace, so hopefully Catherine couldn't read her face. I'm supposed to breastfeed the prince, too, to give him immunity? Are you fucking kidding me? Even in her own thoughts, she boggled, mentally speechless for a moment, before the old helpless fury came rushing back. DAMN you, Jared!

"Bella?" Catherine's concerned voice broke in on her thoughts.

She closed her eyes, took a few breaths, then turned back to her friend and managed a small smile. "All right."