JULY 1197
Beaucaire Castle, Toulouse
Raimond was standing in the inner bailey, gazing up at the window of the tower in which his wife was laboring to give birth to their child. The sun had set several hours ago, and the whitewashed castle walls glowed in the soft moonlight, but the day’s stifling heat still kept the cooler night air at bay and the window was open to any vagrant breezes. Several times he had heard Joanna cry out, stifled sounds of pain that caused him to flinch and pace restlessly. He hated feeling so helpless, hated being banished from her lying-in chamber, hated knowing so little about childbirth. Her pangs had begun that morning, more than twelve hours ago. Should she not have delivered the baby by now? Or was it natural to take so long? Women guarded the secrets of the birthing chamber well, the one realm in which the wishes of men did not matter and female instinct and intuition ruled.
He’d long ago concluded that women had much in common with the Cathars, both forced to live in a world in which law and custom conspired to keep them silent and submissive, although that was not an idea he’d ever shared. He suspected that even Joanna would find his mental musings to be unsettling, for he’d known since boyhood that his brain was as determined as Luc to lead him astray. Inquisitive, whimsical, and irreverent, it balked at following the well-worn path set down by Church and society, constantly veering off into forbidden territory and getting him into trouble with his father, his tutors, his confessors—until he finally learned to control his tongue, if not his thoughts. So he had not blamed women for defending their only sanctum—until tonight, when he was exiled out in the bailey whilst Joanna was struggling to bring a new life into the world without losing her own. For that much he did understand about childbirth—how dangerous it could be.
His pacing had taken him closer and closer to the tower doorway. He’d made several trips up the stairs to the upper story, and although he’d been denied entry, one of his sisters or Mariam would come out and reassure him that all was going as it ought. But would they tell him if it were not so? If the birthing was dragging on too long? If Joanna was weakening? If she’d begun to bleed?
“MAMAN!”
“I am here, dearest, right here.” Eleanor took a towel and wiped the perspiration from Joanna’s face. She was no stranger to the lying-in chamber, having given birth to ten children and attended numerous female friends over the years. But when she’d assisted in the birth of her grandson Wilhelm during Tilda’s English exile, she’d discovered that it was as difficult to watch a daughter’s travail as to endure it herself. And on this summer night at Beaucaire Castle, she was suffering Joanna’s pain as if it were her own.
Esquiva, younger than most midwives but with a serene self-confidence that women in childbirth found soothing, knelt before the birthing stool and poured thyme oil into her hands so she could check the dilation of the cervix. “It ought not to be much longer, my lady.”
Azalais brought over a cup of wine mixed with bark of cassia fistula, urging Joanna to take a few more swallows. “It is sure to be a boy,” she assured her sister-in-law, “for males like to tarry in order to make a grand entrance. Girls are more biddable than their brothers, even in the womb.”
Joanna was drenched in sweat, her eyes smudged with dark circles, and her lips were cracked and bleeding. She mustered up a wan smile, for she remained convinced that her baby was a son. Why was it taking so long, though? Bohemond’s delivery had been quicker . . . or had it? She was so exhausted now that even her memories were becoming muddled.
The opening door drew all eyes toward Mariam, who’d gone on another mission of mercy to Raimond. “You’re doing better than your husband,” she said, bending over to brush Joanna’s hair back from her forehead. “The man is as jumpy as a treed cat. He wanted you to have this.” She opened her hand to show Joanna a coral ring. “He remembered hearing that coral eases childbed pains and sent servants rummaging through every coffer in the castle until they found this.” It was too big even for Joanna’s thumb, but she closed her fist tightly around it, not because she believed it had magical powers, but because it was Raimond’s.