A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [213]
“Ho, cousin! How is it, then?” he asked cheerfully.
“I need Fergus, Ian,” she said without preliminary. “Can ye find him?”
The smile faded from his face as he took in Marsali’s paleness, and my support of her.
“Christ, the bairn’s coming? But why—” He glanced up the pathway behind us, clearly wondering why we had left Marsali’s cabin.
“Go and find Fergus, Ian,” I cut in. “Now.”
“Oh.” He swallowed, suddenly looking quite young. “Oh. Aye. I will. Directly!” He began to bound off, then whirled back and thrust the rabbits into my hand. Then he leapt off the path and tore down the hillside, rocketing between trees and vaulting fallen logs. Rollo, not wishing to be left out of anything, flashed past in a gray blur and hurtled down the hillside after his master like a falling rock.
“Don’t worry,” I said, patting Marsali’s arm. “They’ll find him.”
“Oh, aye,” she said, looking after them. “If they shouldna find him in time, though . . .”
“They will,” I said firmly. “Come on.”
I SENT LIZZIE to find Brianna and Malva Christie—I thought I might well need more hands—and sent Marsali to the kitchen to rest with Mrs. Bug, while I readied the surgery. Fresh bedding and pillows, spread on my examination table. A bed would be better, but I needed to have my equipment to hand.
And the equipment itself: the surgical instruments, carefully hidden beneath a clean towel; the ether mask, lined with fresh thick gauze; the dropping bottle—could I trust Malva to administer the ether, if I had to perform emergency surgery? I thought perhaps I could; the girl was very young, and quite untrained, but she had a remarkable coolness about her, and I knew she wasn’t squeamish. I filled the dropping bottle, averting my face from the sweet, thick scent that drifted from the liquid, and put a small twist of cotton in the spout, to keep the ether from evaporating and gassing us all—or catching fire. I glanced hastily at the hearth, but the fire was out.
What if labor was prolonged and then things went wrong—if I had to do this at night, by candlelight? I couldn’t; ether was hideously inflammable. I shoved away the mental picture of myself performing an emergency cesarean section in the pitch-dark, by feel.
“If you have a moment to spare, this would be a bloody good time to have a look-in,” I muttered, addressing this remark collectively to Saints Bride, Raymond, and Margaret of Antioch, all presumably patrons of childbirth and expectant mothers, plus any guardian angels—mine, Marsali’s, or the child’s—who might be hovering about in the offing.
Evidently, someone was listening. When I got Marsali boosted up onto the table, I was terribly relieved to find that the cervix had begun to dilate—but there was no sign of bleeding. It didn’t remove the risk of hemorrhage, by any means, but it did mean the probability was much lower.
Her blood pressure seemed all right, so far as I could tell by looking at her, and the baby’s heartbeat had steadied, though the baby had stopped moving, refusing to respond to pokes and shoves.
“Sound asleep, I expect,” I said, smiling at Marsali. “Resting up.”
She gave me a tiny smile in return, and turned onto her side, grunting like a hog.
“I could use a bit of a rest, myself, after that walk.” She sighed, settling her head into the pillow. Adso, seconding this motion, leapt up onto the table, and curled himself into her breasts, rubbing his face affectionately against her.
I would have slung him out, but Marsali seemed to find some comfort in his presence, scratching his ears until he curled up under her chin, purring madly. Well, I’d delivered children in much less sanitary surroundings, cat notwithstanding, and this was likely to be a slow process; Adso would have decamped long before his presence became a hindrance.
I was feeling a bit more reassured, but not to the point of confidence. That subtle