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North Kingdom, summer, Third Age 2981
A cheerful little hussy, Aggie always called her. She had loved him, old as he was, for whatever it was worth. Maybe more so now that he is dead, but isn’t that the way it always works? He had been kind where others weren’t, in the least. And she had learned to milk the cow.
She would be dead too, and the baby in her belly, if the Grey Company hadn’t rolled in when they did. Cleaned the Hai out of the barns and hovels. She and Aggie and Old Bertha had been the only ones there in the dead old dairy, only for a few days to rest, trying to make it East to the camp between the rivers. Last night when the goblins had showed up she had been ready in the heart to make it to the Doomsman’s halls, instead.
But now the Rangers are here in their grey uniforms and you can tell at a look that they are ready for a good scrap, but that is not all they are ready for. They laugh a lot, amongst themselves. Elves, and the Men of the West, as if they have run together a long time. Two of them find Aggie’s body and roll him out of his bloody slump and tug free the arrows and lay him under the eaves of the burned-out house with a cloak over his face, as if he is someone to honor, a knight, or an elder.
Old Bertha goes out to meet them but Dandy stays back in the hovel, needing a minute. Those clutching cramps are back.
It had not been clear at first who was their captain but that tall one with the shaggy hair meets Old Bertha and they speak together a moment, though she cannot hear what they say. The old woman turns and beckons to her, and Dandy realizes then that they will make it. The Rangers make it their business, after all, to see folk like them across the line to safety.
She steps over the threshold into the sooty daylight and hears it like the snap of an early-morning joint, and then because this day hasn’t been horrible enough, she feels hot water go down her legs as if she has wet herself.
Even she isn’t too stupid not to know what has to happen next.
-o0o-
When first he comes into the little room she is mortified. He is far too noble to be here. He is as fair as a prince, even in his roadworn fatigues, his dark hair shorn high and short, a smudge of black grime thumbed over his cheekbone. He eases around the door and lowers his great pack to the floorboards.
It enters into her mind to demand he leave her there, alone in the quiet of the corner of the barn. Later she will understand he would not have, no matter how she might have railed at him. Old Bertha has made it clear she will have no part in midwifing for any creature with less than four legs. This Ranger with the bright little star on his shoulder same as the others is the only help at hand. And as something in her belly closes like a fist Dandy realizes that she is fearfully afraid to be alone. She remembers what her own mother died of.
Another of his fellows comes in behind him but they will prove to be little more than an extra set of hands, there when he has need of something. The real work is hers, and his with her.
He has a band of pale silk sewn high around his sleeve.
Seven hours later they are good friends. She could kiss him, or weep with gratitude. She does the latter, a little, when he lays that tiny, gasping, purple person on her chest.
Her companion’s name is Elrohir, and she says it a few times, because he is there with a certain sort of shared joy in his bright Elvish eyes. His blue-gloved hand over hers on the baby, until she gets a better grip. Slippery little…
“Elrohir…”
“You’ve got him. Good girl, lean back now.”
Him!
Elrohir snares up a blanket to lay over them both, now that he has a hand free. Her son has milky blue eyes rolled up staring at her. Black hair in a wet thatch. Skin starting to go pink now, as Elrohir gives his back a brisk rubbing, and molds the edge of the blanket up to cover his head. A quick gentle swipe of his littlest finger through her baby’s mouth coaxes a soft croak from him.
He doesn’t belly up and wail like she’s heard babes do. Does that mean something is wrong with him? She says, “Should he cry more? Some folks say you have to wallop them to get them to cry.”
“He’s okay,” says Elrohir, his other hand still spread over her baby’s back. “See his color changing? That means he’s getting enough air in, we don’t need to pesk him about it. He’s never had to breathe before, you’ve always done it for him. Give him a few minutes to get the hang of it.”
She had done it for him. For him, her own sweet son. His flawless flat little ear. He is still looking at her, right up at her eyes. Maybe he can breathe on his own now, but he needs her still. She will keep him so close. Safe from cold and hunger, safe from all the evil things. He sits in her cupped hand, a perfect solid wad of baby, still folded up from his long confinement.
Elrohir interrupts her methodical admiration for the damp little person lain close on her chest. He says, “I’ve got to intrude again now, sweetie, I’m sorry. You talk to your new friend and try not to pay any attention to me.”
Easy enough, for a while, paying little mind to the milder cramps—pesky little twinges compared to the ones that had brought her baby to her—until he presses down her belly so firmly she gasps and doubles forward.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know that’s tender, Dandy, I’m sorry. Dag, would you grab me two amps of oxytocin. Should be there by the morphine, but with the green label.”
“What does that mean?” she asks, seeking out his eyes in the lanternlight.
“You’re bleeding a little too much, I’m going to give you medicine that will slow it down.”
He smiles at her while they wait. His face at first so high and foreign now familiar as an old friend’s. “I told you you could do it.”
“You did! You were right, and I was wrong.”
“Next time you’ll believe me.”
She blanches. “There isn’t going to be a next time.”
He laughs quietly and pats her elbow and turns to his assistant as Dagomir returns with the requested materials, two odd little cylinders, clear as a dewdrop.
She is supposed to ignore him while he goes to work but still she finds herself watching in baffled fascination as his hands closely garbed in those strange, stretchy gloves—so thin like a bright blue skin themselves she can make out the shapes of his tendons and fingernails—rip open a little paper packet and tug from it a tiny translucent kerchief, already wet.
“I have to put it in here,” he says, tapping the front of her thigh. “It’s going to pinch like the dickens, but only for a minute.”
She has never encountered pinching medicine. Her mother’s had only ever been horrendous to drink. Her stomach is queasy already so a pinch would be better. She nods her permission and watches him brush up the hem of her shift and apply the cold cloth firmly as if cleaning away something stuck there. Dagomir hands him one of the little cylinders and Elrohir breaks the cap off a bright needle and picks up her skin between his finger and thumb.
“Look at your baby, sweetie,” he tells her, and she does. That sweet little mouth. His impossible hand spread out against her collarbone. Her leg flinches at the sharp hornet-sting but Elrohir is right again, it does not last long. Only a dull ache when the needle is gone. He kneads the place with his thumb and slots the empty cylinder into the little orange box on the floor. Dagomir’s hand similarly gloved comes again with a brown tag stuck to the forefinger and Elrohir peels it off and swipes it over the little bead of blood that has swelled up on her skin.
It stays all by itself. Elf-magic.
His cheeks so round, so soft. White grease caked in his creases. She has seen babies before but never up close, and never so new. Never hers. What will she name him? She had been fond of his father but Aggie is an old man’s name. Not one for such a sweet squint-eyed thing as this. Her love for him is like a sudden dizzying drench, and she bends and lays the corner of her mouth against his velvet, moleskin head.
He smells like everything hers in the world. He is, all that’s left. All she wants, and safety for him.
His little lips are busy and his little fist there close to them like he’s trying to get it in to gnaw and she knows enough to know what he is thinking about.
“I think he’s hungry,” she says aloud.
“If he wants to try, you should go ahead and let him,” says Elrohir, not looking up from his own preoccupied hands. “It’ll help this bleeding.”
“It will? That is strange,” she says, fumbling with the blanket.
“It is,” he laughs, and helps to cover them both.
Clever baby. Good thing he knows what to do; she feels like she has grown ten thumbs
Elrohir makes a low sound in his throat and she glances up to see his brow creased. His hands still out of sight beyond the blanket. The sharp press comes down on her belly again and she pants through it while he murmurs apologies but does not relent.
“Still bleeding?” she asks, breathing hard, her head lolling back, when it is over at last, for a moment at least. She suspects it will happen again; that line is there still between his dark brows.
“Mmm.”
“Another pinch?” she says as he paws around and produces a second paper packet.
“Afraid so, kiddo.” The wet cold scours over the other leg, this time.
When her hand relaxes he smiles wryly at her. “Come on, now, that’s not as bad as those nasty contractions, is it?”
“Mostly I am tired of hurting,” she confesses, and her voice sounds close to the edge, even to her.
“I know it, hon.” He pats her arm again. “If you have a bite to eat, I can give you something for that, too. Take the edge off these afterpains.”
She does, and he does, and she sleeps for a while until her baby wakes her, and the next day the Grey Company takes them east.