Tudor Pavanne: The Moment
As if the decision had somehow precipitated events, Belle went in to labor not two days later. She tried to put into practice the few things she remembered from modern pop culture references about breathing through the pain, and staying off her back until the later stages, but found she was fighting Catherine as well as the midwives, especially on the latter score, and finally didn't have the strength. Reversing their previous roles, the Queen stayed at Belle's bedside throughout, applying cool wet cloths to her forehead and holding her hands through the worst of the contractions.
Looking up at her friend between the pains that were now coming rapidly, Belle was startled to see Catherine's face twist momentarily, and realized that her labor had also started. She drew breath to protest that she should be in her own bed, but Catherine saw and forestalled her, squeezing her hands gently. "No, Bella, there is plenty of time. I will see your child arrive first."
And he obliged her, coming into the world a short time later and announcing his displeasure at it with a lusty wail. The midwives joyfully proclaimed his sex: male; and his health: good; then cleaned him up (with non-boiled water) and laid him in his tearful mother's arms. Catherine leaned over to kiss him her blessing.
"Tell John," Belle whispered to her, exhausted. "His son is here." Then she speared her with a fierce look. "And then get to your own bed, Your Grace."
Catherine smiled and obeyed both directives, and Belle sent the midwives scurrying after her – their primary charge, after all. Her own maid, Mary, helped her get cleaned up before finally allowing John to come in. His reaction was all Belle could have ever wanted; she could almost believe that the boy really was his, and was sure no one else would ever guess the truth. "We'll call him John, too. Johnny," she told him, to his beatific assent.
Catherine's labor was even shorter than Belle's, and the new Prince Henry was born before sunrise. The witnesses, a selection of ministers and Lords called in from their long wait in the village, did their duty, and were dispatched immediately to take the joyous news to the King.
Of course, the new wet-nurse had not yet arrived from London (if one had even been found already), so Belle more-or-less took over nursery duties, ably assisted by Mary and another girl from the village. One day of them running back and forth between her room and the nursery down the hall and Belle intervened, insisting that both cradles be moved into her own room so she could keep an eye on them – apologizing profusely to John, who merely smiled and moved his own things back to his old room temporarily. "I'll come back when things calm down," he told her with a smile. Mary and the new girl took turns sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the hall just outside her door, so as to be in earshot, yet give her privacy and quiet.
The two baby boys looked so much alike to Belle's eyes that she wondered no one else saw it – but if they did, none of them breathed a word around her. She tried to keep as much distance between them at all times as she could, so nobody else could do a direct, side-by-side comparison. Luckily, Catherine stayed completely in bed for several days and didn't visit the makeshift nursery, and Belle only sent the Prince in to see his mother when she called for him.
Henry had immediately sent word – along with profuse, flowery exclamations of love and admiration for his "Beloved Queene and Ladye Wyfe" – that he would send for Catherine and the new Prince in one week's time, to bring them to London for the christening. He had found a wet-nurse and would send her out then to take over feeding the Prince and carry him back personally.
With that deadline in mind, Belle made sure to inoculate both babies on their second day, discovering to her consternation that this used up the last of the vaccine. There would be no more chances unless she jumped forward to the future to try to get more. On impulse, she threw the now-useless med kit down the latrine and felt better for having gotten rid of the evidence. She wasn't even certain the vaccines were really accomplishing anything anyway – wouldn't the diseases have mutated in five hundred years? Whatever bugs those vaccines were inoculating against may bear little resemblance to the bugs in the wild in this time period.
The royal coach caravan, including the new wet-nurse, arrived late one evening, and it was decided that the return journey would commence very early the following morning. Catherine had a private interview with the woman, who had left her own baby at home (just ready for weaning, and shifted to yet another woman to accomplish the transition), and gave her provisional approval of the arrangement. The Prince had his first meal from her breast that same night and seemed to approve, but Catherine allowed him to stay one more night in Belle's room so she could suckle him one final time before their departure. It was going to be hard to see little Henry go. Belle and her family were not returning to London, but staying on at the estate. John, still the Queen's official host, would be escorting her back to the King's side, then returning on horseback the following day.
True to form, the Prince woke her up in the wee hours for his meal, and she cherished this one last time, laying him back down to sleep beside her on the wide bed afterwards – carefully face up as always so as not to risk crib death. She herself stayed awake after that, listening to the distant sounds of preparation drifting in through the window from the courtyard below: horses being led out and hitched up to the carriages, luggage tossed up and secured, men – including John, she could just make out – talking in low voices. Soon they would all be gone and peace would at last descend over Mauvais Loup.
Little Johnny woke up then and began fussing, wanting breakfast, and she smiled and brought him back to bed with her. She thought of nothing at all while she nursed him, just letting her mind rest, watching his hunger slowly turn to contentment. It wasn't until he was finished, and she was holding him against her shoulder to coax out the tiny air bubble that the utter silence and stillness from the nest of blankets beside her drew her attention.
Prince Henry was still. Too still. Even before she reached a hand to touch his small chest, then gave him a tiny shake, then a harder one, panic lapping at the edges of the bed – she knew. He was gone. The tiny body, already cooling, told its own tale – he must have silently slipped away soon after she laid him down.
She sat frozen, one hand on Henry, the other still holding Johnny to her shoulder. Horror tunneled her vision, blackening around the edges until all she could see was the silent form on the bed. The stars were roaring in her ears, blocking out all other sound. Her bones had turned to hollow lances of ice, the winds of space and time whistling through them like piccolos.
The only warm, living being in all the wide universe was her son, lying heavy on her shoulder, so heavy... so warm... so alive... She felt the tug of other lives upon him, stretching out and away, forming an infinite, invisible web off in the vast unseen distance. He became too heavy to hold, the weight of all that life, all that destiny, pushing him down onto the mattress before her.
Without a conscious decision, somehow knowing underneath that if she stopped to think, she wouldn't be able to do what she now had to, her hands moved of their own volition and began stripping off her son's clothes. She reached for the heavy robes laid out for the Prince to wear on his journey and wrapped him up tightly in them. Then – trying desperately now to stave off thinking – she stripped the tiny corpse of the royal blanket and wrapped it in her son's less opulent one, then draped a sheet mostly over the body, partly hiding his face so he appeared to be fast asleep.
Johnny gurgled up at her, and she snatched him up again, wrapping the purloined blanket around him before holding him close, so close, breathing his sweet baby scent as if it were to be the last smell she ever knew in her lifetime – someone was coming, tapping softly on the door and then opening it: the new nurse.
"My Lady? It's time."
No, no... one more second. One more hour. But time was up. She somehow forced herself to open her eyes and allow the nurse to take the precious, precious bundle from her arms. "He just ate," she managed to say in an almost-normal voice.
The woman smiled and turned away, carrying Johnny – no, the Prince – carrying Prince Henry out the door. He would ever be Prince Henry, every moment, every day, forever after.
Suddenly her husband was there beside her, surprising her by kissing her cheek in farewell, then leaning past her to kiss his son – and she came to with a start and staved him off, explaining the baby had just finally fallen asleep after a fretful night. He looked straight at her, then, asking what was wrong, and she dissembled, saying, "I'm just tired, John, exhausted from looking after two babies. I'll be fine. In fact," she added with a rush of panic, trying desperately to keep her voice normal, "tell Mary that I'm not even going to get up today, or tomorrow, but just stay in bed alone with the baby. She can bring trays up, but I just want to rest."
"Of course," he replied. "Get some sleep – what sleep you can." And, kissing her again on her forehead, he was gone.
It wasn't until the door clicked closed behind him that the world seemed to snap back into focus, the early morning sun now peeking through the windows, and the rushing in her ears dying instantly away as the door click reverberated through her nerves, and she nearly cried out from the sudden normalcy of light and sound. She threw back the covers and ran on unsteady legs to the window, just in time to see the nurse carefully climb into her carriage and then hold her arms out for the bundled-up baby to be passed up. The royal blanket disappeared, and Belle stared down at the carriage roof as if trying to see through it. Out of the corner of her eye, she registered Catherine climbing ponderously into another carriage, still far too soon after childbirth to travel, really, but when did another's comfort impinge on King Henry's decisions?
And then John came striding out the front door and down the stairs, pulling on his coat and gloves, swung himself into his saddle, and the caravan set out. Belle stood at the window, staring blindly out and down the drive, long after the last glimpse had vanished from sight, the utter stillness of the room behind her sucking all the joy from the world.
^..^
How she made it through those two days, Belle never knew. She stayed in bed, keeping the horrible truth hidden, keeping the world away. Only Mary was allowed through the door a few times a day with food on trays, or to whisk away dirty clothes and dishes. Belle pretended to be nursing the baby twice while Mary came in, then claimed he was asleep the other times, and she rearranged his position on the bed and even changed the baby blanket to masquerade continued life. Shuddering, she used the contents of her own chamber pot to fake used diaper cloths, and forced herself to eat a few mouthfuls of the sawdust food from each tray.
Finally, near the end of the second day, she gave up, retreating into silent stillness, as the sun went down and the blackness hovering in the corners of the room began to close in again. She sat in the chair by the window, watching down the lane, and after uncounted long, aching hours, finally saw a lone figure approaching on a tired horse. Closing her eyes tightly for a moment, she heaved a long, shuddering sigh. It was John, and he was alone, not surrounded by soldiers. The switch had not been discovered.
She didn't move as he rode up and dismounted, and disappeared through the door below her. As she expected, he came directly up, knocking lightly on the door and then entering, a broad smile already on his face – which faltered and faded away as her utter stillness registered. He froze a moment, then took another step forward, so he could see her pale and masklike face. Then his eyes were drawn inexorably to the cradle by her side, and the stillness of the form within told the story.
The laughter dying in his eyes tore Belle's heart out, but still she couldn't move. Even as he sank to his knees and put his head on her lap, sobbing, even as the tears came pouring down her own face at last, even as she reached to hold him, she knew.
She could never, ever tell him the truth.
Because if she did, she would force him to decide between her and Henry.
She couldn't do that to him. But more, she never, EVER wanted to find out what his choice would be.