The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [247]
Crozie, still sitting on her bed, watched as Fralie cried out and thrashed. Finally the pain passed, and Fralie took a deep breath, but that brought on a coughing spasm, and her mother thought she noticed a look of desperation. Crozie was feeling desperate, too. Somebody had to do something. Fralie was well into labor, and the cough was weakening her. There wasn’t much hope for the baby any more, it was going to be born too early, and infants born too soon didn’t survive. But Fralie needed something to ease her cough and her pain, and later, she would need something to ease her sorrow. It had done no good to talk to Fralie, not with that stupid man around. Couldn’t he see that she was in trouble?
Crozie studied Frebec, who was hovering around Fralies bed looking helpless and worried. Maybe he did, she thought. Maybe she should try again, but would it do any good talking to Fralie?
“Frebec!” Crozie said. “I want to talk to you.”
The man looked surprised. Crozie seldom addressed him by name, or announced that she wanted to talk to him. She usually just screamed at him.
“What do you want?”
“Fralie is too stubborn to listen, but it must be obvious to you by now that she is having the baby …”
Fralie interrupted with a choking coughing spasm.
“Fralie, tell me the truth,” Frebec said when her cough eased. “Are you having the baby?”
“I … I think so,” she said.
He grinned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I hoped it wasn’t true.”
“But why?” he asked, suddenly upset. “Don’t you want this baby?”
“It’s too soon, Frebec. Babies that are born too soon don’t live,” Crozie answered for her.
“Don’t live? Fralie, is something not right? Is it true this baby won’t live?” Frebec said, shocked and stricken with fear. The feeling that something was terribly wrong had been growing in him all through the day, but he had not wanted to believe it, and he didn’t think it could be this wrong.
“This is the first child of my hearth, Fralie. Your baby, born to my hearth.” He kneeled beside the bed and held her hand. “This baby has to live. Tell me this baby will live,” he pleaded. “Fralie, tell me this baby will live.”
“I can’t tell you. I don’t know.” Her voice was strained and hoarse.
“I thought you knew about these things, Fralie. You’re a mother. You have two children already.”
“Each one is different,” she whispered. “This one has been difficult from the beginning. I was worried that I might lose it. There was so much trouble … finding a place to settle … I don’t know. I just think it’s too early for this baby to be born.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Fralie?”
“What would you have done about it?” Crozie said, her tone restrained, almost hopeless. “What could you do? Do you know anything about pregnancy? Childbirth? Coughs? Pain? She didn’t want to tell you because you’ve done nothing but insult the one who could help her. Now the child will die, and I don’t know how weak Fralie is.”
Frebec turned to Crozie. “Fralie? Nothing can happen to Fralie! Can it? Women have babies all the time.”
“I don’t know, Frebec. Look at her, judge for yourself.”
Fralie was trying to control a cough that threatened, and the ache in her back was starting again. Her eyes were closed, and her brows drawn in. Her hair was tangled and stringy and her face shiny with sweat. Frebec jumped up and started to leave the hearth. “Where are you going, Frebec?” Fralie asked.
“I’m going to get Ayla.”
“Ayla? But I thought …”
“She’s been saying you were having trouble ever since she got here. She was right about that. If she knew that much, maybe she is a Healer. Everyone keeps saying she is. I don’t know if it’s true, but we’ve got to do something … unless you don’t want me to.”
“Get Ayla,” Fralie whispered.
The excited tension communicated itself through the earthlodge as Frebec marched down the passageway toward the Mammoth Hearth.
“Ayla, Fralie is …” he barely began, too