Reluctantly he loosed her, his eyes warm and caressing. “Skye
sweet Skye! How you intoxicate me, my love! Come, sweetheart
Let us return before I lose my head.” He took her hand and led he
slowly back to the castle.

Anne O’Malley watched them enter the hall, and silently she
despaired. Skye’s cheeks were flushed, her lips softly bruised with
recent kisses, her eyes dreamy with anticipation. Anne rose from
her chair. She had to talk with her husband! Suddenly a pain tore
through her belly, her waters broke, soaking her stockings, shoes,
and her petticoats. “The baby!” she cried, doubling over clutching
her swollen middle. Instantly she was surrounded by the women.
Dubhdara O’Malley shouldered his way through the crowd and,
picking up his wife, carried her out of the hall and upstairs to their
bedchamber.

No one could believe that a woman who had borne three children
so easily would have such a difficult labor with the fourth, but Anne
O’Malley struggled for two days. Eibhlin, trained in midwifery,
worked hard. But the child was large, and turned the wrong way.

Four times the young nun turned the baby to the correct position,
and four times the infant reversed itself. Finally, in desperation,
Eibhlin turned the baby a fifth time and, finding its small shoulder,
gently grasped it and drew the child slowly down the birth canal.
After that, Anne was able to finish the job. As Anne had predicted,
it was a son. The boy weighed over ten pounds. He would be named
Conn.

Dubhdara O’Malley came to his young wife’s bedside. They had
bathed her and put her between clean, lavender-scented sheets. She
had been given a nourishing drink of beef broth mixed with red wine
and herbs, which would stop the bleeding and help her sleep. She
was exhausted.

The room emptied. O’Malley bent and kissed his wife’s cheek.
He looked somewhat older, for he had suffered untold agonies at
the possibility of losing this loving woman.