no difficulties, was so huge and overwhelming that he forgot to be scared, forgot to keep his eyes closed. So he was watching the midwife, stunned, as she reached inside the body of the dying woman, and brought out an impossibly small baby, long cord still attached.
It would be dead, he thought fuzzily. Surely it would be dead. But then one miniature fist moved, and the head, and he heard a thin, weak wail.
“Towel, please,” the midwife said.
He had been unable to look. Now he was unable to look away. He fumbled blindly in the satchel for a towel and thrust it toward the midwife with both hands, like a shield. He could not have been more shocked when, rather than take it, the midwife put the new creature down on top of it. In his hands. It was a girl. That was unsurprising. In Darid’s experience, all babies were girls.
The midwife was rooting through the satchel again, this time for a ball of twine. She tied off the baby’s cord and then cut it with another flick of the knife (as black as night now). Instinctively, Darid wrapped the towel around the baby and clutched her gently to his body. She had an alarming shock of dark hair, he noticed. Like her mother, maybe. He found himself filled with a deep, gentle joy. He hadn’t felt anything like this in months, not since he’d come inside, and maybe he hadn’t felt it ever. That something so new, so full of potential, could escape unscathed from the horror that the hounds had left—that life could persist through such depravity—it was as if he had a hearth full of embers inside him, and as the tiny face frowned and yawned a gentle breeze caressed them, and they came to life.
Then he saw the midwife, sitting back on her heels, watching him with a faint, sad smile. “Was going to tell you how to hold her,” she said, “but you’re doing fine, aren’t you?” Then she turned back to the ruined body of the baby’s mother, who no longer seemed quite so horrifying to Darid. She put a hand back on the woman’s breastbone—which, Darid saw now, was nearly the only unscathed part of her—and, as if in answer, the dying woman let out one last rattle and was still.
“Well, that’s that.” Slowly, the midwife climbed to her feet. She shook the dust off her skirts and held out her arms. Darid found that he didn’t want to give the baby up, which made no sense. “Give her to me,” she said impatiently. “I’ve got a good hold around us but it won’t last forever.” And that didn’t make any sense, either, but the authority in her voice was undeniable. He let her take the baby, then stood and watched as she unwrapped the tiny body, rewrapped it in an expert swaddle, and then placed her carefully in the big satchel. Making sure, he saw, that the forceps and other sharp cold things were well buried, and that the bundle of blankets and toweling was tucked firmly down so it wouldn’t cover the baby’s face. Then she brought the opening of the satchel together, leaving a space of an inch or so.
“You’re a good boy,” she said to Darid. “You did well.”
He felt himself blush. “What about—” he said, and couldn’t finish. He nodded toward the mother’s body.
“She’s gone. You can put her back where you found her. She won’t mind now.” With that, she started back toward the courtyard. Darid stood where he was and watched until the white glow of her hair disappeared, feeling a confusing combination of joy and loss. Then he looked down at the body.
“I’m sorry,” he said, although she wasn’t there to hear him. But it made him feel better as he dragged the body back into the kennel and kicked dirt over the place where she’d been, obscuring the puddle of blood.
By morning the hounds had stripped most of the bones clean. In a few days, when they’d lost interest altogether, Darid and Jon carried what was left to the midden yard behind the kitchen. During the day Darid continued to endure Barr’s kicks and cruelty, and at night he endured Jon’s feeble—but increasingly insistent—attentions. He had one free hour a day, one hour that was his own; in the past, he’d used it to crawl off into a corner and sleep, but now he found himself wandering the grounds. Watching the orchardmen, the dairymen,