The labour went on hour after hour. Poor Margaret felt exposed and vulnerable in the birthing chair, perched on its back ledge and racked with pain. I pointed out how she might grip the arms and push and the position would allow the baby to arrive more easily and not fall to the ground and so she agreed to bear it, at least for a while. But at length she no longer had the strength to grip and we lifted her back to the end of the bed where the midwife could tend to her while she lay back, exhausted, on pillows.

‘Is there any sign of the head?’ I asked Mallt in a whisper, after she had felt under the bedcovers for what seemed like the hundredth time.

She nodded. ‘I can feel the crown but it is all too slow. The babe will die if I do not help.’

At that moment Margaret let out a piteous moan, which escalated into a full-blooded scream as a new and prolonged contraction tore at her fragile body. Mallt called for a light as she ripped off the top quilt and tented the sheet beneath, thrusting her head under it. I held a lamp near so that its light shone through the white linen.

Tense minutes passed. It did not seem possible that Margaret could have the strength to scream any louder but then she did and moments later a red-faced Mallt emerged from under the sheet … to my horror, her hands and the sheet were covered in blood. ‘I have had to cut her,’ she said. It was then that I realized with horror that the midwife’s long thumbnail was sharpened like a blade.

I stumbled away, gulping for air as my mind filled with dreadful and bloody images and the lamp nearly dropped from my hand. Trembling violently I set it down and then another prolonged groan filled the room and Mallt’s urgent cry called me back to sense and duty.

‘Jane, bring a towel quick – I have the babe!’

15

Jasper

Pembroke Castle