In The Library Ch. 13

"Odette, bring hot water, it has begun!"

Aunt Catherine's voice reached through the house, and the sound of her servants' feet could be heard running to and fro in the long halls. Alexandra had been patient during the final stages of her confinement, but now just wanted it all to be over. It was winter, the house was bleak in the cold and snow, and the final weeks had been long and slow. There was little she could do to entertain herself.

Catherine had made arrangements for an experienced midwife to attend, and was hoping that the birth would go smoothly - although she was worried that the slim hips of her niece meant a tight birth passage and the attendant dangers. But now Alexandra's birth pains had started, and the long beginning had begun. It was the shortest day, and she had woken to the first of her labour pains, and to the subsequent inspection from the midwife. But she was only a little dilated, and was told that she had many hours to go. So she and Odette began to pace the halls, for she found that movement was best. Every fifteen minutes she would stop, her body seized by a contraction which took her breath away and doubled her over with the pain.

So the morning passed. For an hour Octavius the cerval cat walked with them, brushing around Odette's ankles and circling but never touching Alexandra. Her heaviness was upon her, and she was already weary. But she learned a new stoicism, and as minutes slowly fell off the time between each contraction, she gritted her teeth and bore it. After five hours she was again inspected and was found to be opening. But the babe was also found to be lying on its back, its spine pressing against its mother's spine, so that was why the pain was more extreme. For the child was coiled the wrong way in the womb, and there would need to be an attempt to turn the babe.

The afternoon wore on, and the contractions were now closer together and the pain more constant. Alexandra was now too tired to walk, and lay on a bed, warm blankets about her, and a heated bedpan to her back for warmth. For she shivered now, in those times between the depths of the pain, and it was vital she be kept warm. Odette sat at the head of the bed and held her mistress' hands throughout each long throb of pain, through each long breath, through each pant and moan. They lost count of the times between each contraction, and the afternoon turned to early evening, time measured only by the goal of making it through this contraction, and then the next one, and then the one after that, and the next one, and the one after that.

And slowly the babe was moving down its tightest channel, slowly making its way from the heart beat darkness and the kicking time, down the blinkered tunnel towards the light and the awakening time. The pain was near constant now, and laudanum was prescribed and taken, injected by a syringe straight into the spine, the latest technique. This dulled the pain, and Alexandra could finally bear it. And now she was commanded to push down with each massive clench of her muscles, and to grunt deep into the guts of her, and, "push now girl, push now."

The midwife brought forceps, and the head of the babe was found high in the birth canal, and a long steady pull on the tiny head helped the movement with each push, and finally, "bear down now girl, push now, long and slow, for I can see the hair on the babe's head, and there is the shoulder," and with one long, final, gut wrenching grunt, Alexandra delivered her babe, and the baby was born. And it lay silent, the cord still beating with the mother's pulse, and the tiny creature was red and tiny and perfect, its hands miniature perfection. And then there was a tiny mewl, and a quick intake of breath, and the babe was naked and new and alone in this world. As the midwife cut the cord and lifted the tiny thing to its mother's breast, its sharp little finger nails glanced across the top of the mark on Alexandra's thigh and a trace of blood was drawn there. So Alexandra was blooded.

"Show me my baby, is it a boy or is it a girl?" and she wept with the beauty and grief of the moment, for she knew the babe would not be long in her arms before it was given to a wet nurse.

"It is a boy, my child," spoke Aunt Catherine, "a boy of the blood. You have birthed a boy." And she looked down upon her dark haired niece, this girl who could have been a daughter or a sister, the blood line was so strong. "You have birthed a son."

"I shall call him Alexander, that through his name he might know me, even though he will never know me." And Alexandra took her child into her arms and laid him to her breast and held him close. And they were alone together in their most intimate moment, the child's tiny hands grappling with the air, his perfect lips finding her nipple, her deep longing letting down her milk, and he fed. This tiny child clutched at his mother and grappled with her flesh, and she fed him, her warm wholesome milk sweet in his mouth, and he fed.

And the other people in the room were silent; the wet nurse pressed down on Alexandra's belly and the after-birth was delivered. Catherine took the after-birth, for there were special things to be made from it; and Odette held the girl's hand and then helped swaddle the babe. And it was deep in the night, and the slender youth came into the room and gazed down at the young mother and her child, and reached out one slow hand and touched the girl's forehead, gently. But he would not touch the babe.

And so the child was born.

---000---

Alexandra is leaving.

It is three months since the child was born, and Alexandra and Odette are to return to their home across the ocean. The child Alexander will stay in England with Catherine as his guardian, and her house shall be his house. The babe has thrived and grown strong on the girl's milk, and Catherine has determined that he shall continue on the breast of the wet nurse, a sturdy girl from the village, for as long as he chooses. A mother's milk is best, and the village wench, who lost her own babe shortly after its birth, is glad to serve the lady from the big house.

But Alexandra is pining her loss already, and is now gaunt and pale, only her breasts remaining full. Her slender frame is now thin, she has lost all the weight gained from her carrying, and both Catherine and Odette know that they must complete the wrench in the girl's life as quickly as they can, so that she can move on as best she can. And Odette too will suffer her own wrench, for she must leave the cerval cat in the day and the delectable youth in the night. The carriage is summoned for the morning, so this is their last night.

"Aunt, how will I bear it, my little sweet boy no longer mine, and I am forbidden?" Alexandra knows what must be done, but she still aches at the idea of it. But she knows too that Catherine has carried a similar loss, and look at the strength of her!

"Child, you will, for you must; and you must continue strong, for our bloodline twists and turns and is forever changing and unpredictable. I can foretell certain things, and I am certain from the divinations from the part of your womb shared with your child, that he is your first but not your last." Catherine has something of the priestess about her, and she carries dark wisdom from deep time past, and some lingering threads unravelling down from future time. "But there are blurs and shimmers in my eyes, so some things are hidden, and I fear some things will bring horror, but I cannot see what. So as you get older, you too must teach yourself from the blackness, and you must learn the strength from your sex, for the black learnings thrive on seed, and you must seek the visions of rapture to guide our blood."

There was so much confusion in the young girl's heart, but she knew there was solace in her aunt's words and her knowledge. So, there was some darkness in her future, but she must apply herself to the sexual arts. Would she too construct a fantastic engine like the one in Catherine's library?

But this night there is a strange quietness on the house, and silent longings linger in the long halls. Alexandra sleeps, her babe wrapped swaddled (for he has restless hands, and his little fingernails scratch his face unless they are bound tight to prevent him squirming and grasping in his sleep), wrapped tight and held tight to her breast; and she breathes in his sweet breath. And the sun breaks.

"Mistress, oh my God, mistress, please help me, I am hurt." Her maid Odette comes running down the hall to her lady's room, her feet bare and her golden mane of hair wild, and her simple flowing gown, white cloth, filling the air behind her as she ran; her white cloth threaded with long traces of brilliant blood. She is cut, her flesh streaked with long ribbons of crimson threads, her belly and haunches laced with threads of five long slices.

"Odette, what is it, what has happened here, and my God, what is that long whiteness in your hair?" For the maid's beautiful golden hair was laced through, from the crown of her head to the very longest length of her waved hair, threaded through by a long band of pure white, perhaps an inch wide, where all colour had gone. And the frantic girl tore the white red striped shift from her body, and there on her strong hips and haunches were threads of five long slices in her luscious flesh, blood swelling in long lines, some two inches long, sliced cuts.

"Oh child, I did not think to warn you," Catherine was there and her voice was shocked, "I did not think to warn you, to leave Octavius before the dawn. For his instinct returns as the sun returns and his changing is furious and fast, and he cannot help himself." And there was the explanation for the aged scars and slices on Catherine's own skin - for when she was younger, she too had discovered the agony and the ecstasy of delaying her leaving the beautiful youth for one more hour. How many times had she delayed the dawn before she knew the cat could not help its instincts?

So they bound the cuts on the shocked maid, and soothed her skin with creams, and Catherine gave her some of the same laudanum that had eased Alexandra's pain during her long night of birth.

And the morning dew lifted, and the party was gathered on the steps of the house, their trunks were lifted high onto the top of the coach, and the girls prepared to leave this place of the boy's birth, the place of Odette's delight and now terror of the change she had not expected. The shock would show in her golden hair forever. But look, there is the cat, its tail low, its head down. The creature comes to the feet of Odette and looks up to her face, and there is a strange longing look in the cat's slitted eyes. The maid gazes down at this wild creature, and a flurry of emotions flicker across her face. But she is a forgiving creature herself, a thing of female instinct, and she lowers her head and her hand to caress the cat's head. As she does so, the cat rears up on its rear legs and reaches up its front paws to her neck and her face, and hugs her throat with its paws. She holds its paws in her hands, and caresses her cheek to the cat's head, and the animal is forgiven. With a chirrup deep in its throat, the cat turns from the girl, and, its tail held high, it runs from the scene.

Odette climbs aboard the coach. Alexandra, weeping, passes her swaddled child, a last kiss on his forehead, to the village girl. She too is weeping, and says nothing (for nothing can be said), but gently presses Alexandra's hand. She will care for the babe as best she can, and will do as the lady of the house demands. As Alexandra relinquished the babe, she feels one last ecstatic let down of her milk; and her breasts ache in their fullness for the perfect gone suckling mouth of her babe.

Just as Alexandra turns to step aboard the coach there is a flurry at her feet. Octavius the cerval cat has returned, but there is a black struggle in his mouth. He has bought her a gift, as only a cat can - he has caught a bird with his instinctive speed, and the bird lies stunned in his mouth. He drops the bird at the girl's feet and places a single paw upon its body to stop the feathered creature struggling. The girl bends down to him, for she recognises the power of a gift from an animus and she cannot refuse it. She does not pick up the battered body though, but instead plucks two feathers from the breast and wing of the bird, and places them to her chest, in the shallow space between her milk full breasts, hot to the place where her child had rested its head.

"Octavius, Alexandra, what have you done?" Catherine's voice rang high, "what does this gift mean to our blood? For you made an offering that has been accepted, and a bird has been given unto us, to our blood!" And there is fear in Catherine's voice, for something unprecedented has just happened, that was not foretold, and she is afraid.

And another light feather flutters loose from the breast of the bird, still under the cat's paw, and the feather lifts on a small, spiralling current of a breeze, lifting upwards and swaying in the air. There is a silence, as all eyes are upon this feather, including the wondrous blue eyes of the small babe; and the babe reaches out his small hand, his perfectly formed tiny hand, and it is the first controlled movement of his hand (all previous movements merely Instinctive grapplings and scratchings), and with this first conscious clutch of his hand, the babe grabs the drifting feather from the air. And pulls it to his small breast, and both his hands clasp around the feather and holds it to his tiny babe's chest, and he clutches it close.

And from his tiny baby throat, the standing staring adults can hear, as if it were far away, a little baby's laugh, a chuckle. And the cerval cat leaves the bird, now still, and spirals itself around the ankles of the child's mother, a single circuit. And from the cat's throat the standing staring adults can hear, as if from far away, a cat's chirrup, as if in response to that laugh.

Something has passed between the cat and the child, something has been given. Catherine knows, and Alexandra senses, that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, birds are now a part of the bloodline. Catherine is afraid. She had not foreseen this.