Joanna had known she’d been clutching at a frail reed. That did not make it any easier to accept. “Surely there must be something you can do,” she whispered, although without any real hope. It was then, though, that the other midwife spoke up.
“There is a way,” Dame Berthe said, striding forward to stand beside the bed, “although some are squeamish about it. When a woman dies, her child can survive briefly through the air still in her arteries. If it is done quickly enough, the child can be extracted from her womb in time to be baptized.”
There was a shocked silence as they realized what she had in mind. Joanna’s ladies recoiled at the thought of her body being cut open like this. The physician and her chaplain were clearly skeptical, for midwives were often suspected of baptizing stillborn children in order to comfort their sorrowing parents. But Joanna’s eyes shone with sudden light and Eleanor moved closer so she could look intently into the midwife’s face.
“You could do this for my son?” Joanna reached out, took the midwife’s hand; it was as big as a man’s, the knuckles reddened, the nails bitten to the quick, an old scar burned deep into one thumb. Not a hand to elicit admiring glances, no more than she herself was. But Joanna felt the strength in that ungainly hand, felt as if she’d just been thrown a lifeline.
“I can, my lady.”
That was too much for the physician. “The child is not due for two months or more. How could he draw air into his lungs?”
The midwife met his accusing gaze calmly. “Women often mistake the time of conception. The countess could be further along than she first thought. And it is my understanding that it takes but one breath, however faint, to make a baptism valid.”
“She is right,” Abbot Luke said, speaking for the first time. “One breath is sufficient.”
The other midwife had remained conspicuously silent, an obvious way of conveying her disapproval. Joanna’s ladies still found it abhorrent, for there was an inbred, innate dread of the mutilation of the body after death. But now all eyes shifted instinctively toward Joanna’s mother, watching as she leaned over to murmur in her daughter’s ear. When Joanna nodded vehemently, Eleanor straightened up and turned back to the midwife.
“Do it,” she said.
JOANNA WAS TOO WEAK to rise from her bed to take her vows. But her voice was surprisingly strong as she pledged herself to God, and afterward, it was obvious to them all that she was at peace. She even sought to console her weeping women, assuring them that she was in God’s keeping and, with a flash of the Joanna of old, she scolded Mariam and Morgan, saying that if they did not wed, she’d come back to haunt them both. She asked again for the small ivory casket that held locks of her children’s hair, instructing them to add a long strand of her own hair.
“Give it to Raimond,” she murmured. “Tell him he must not grieve too much, that he made me happy.” When Eleanor reached for her hand, she entwined their fingers together as she’d so often done as a small child. “I will tell Richard that Johnny owes his crown to you, Maman. Knowing Johnny, he is probably jealous that you gave me something far greater than a crown. You gave me eternal life.”
She seemed to have been rejuvenated by the taking of her vows, and her women dared to hope that her death was not as imminent as they’d feared, that they might have more time to say their farewells. Eleanor alone was not deceived by this sudden burst of vitality, seeing it for what it was: the last flaming of the sun ere night came on. She knew that her daughter’s life was ebbing away even as they watched, for her green eyes were darkening. She’d seen Richard’s eyes change, too, in the moments before death, as his pupils dilated until they’d eclipsed all traces of grey.
“Dame Berthe?” Joanna beckoned for the midwife to approach the bed. “You will do as you promised?” The midwife was as phlegmatic as always, repeating her promise without the slightest hint of emotion or empathy, but to Joanna, this rough-hewn, taciturn woman was one of God’s own angels, and she gave Eleanor a meaningful look, wanting to be sure her mother would reward Berthe as she deserved. What value, though, could be placed upon a baby’s immortal soul? No matter, Maman would find a way. She always did.
Eleanor was warned when she felt her daughter’s grip loosen. “There is so much light,” Joanna said, softly but distinctly. She died soon after that, and Eleanor would always believe it was with the name of her son on her lips.