“It is a boy,” she murmured as she helped the exhausted mother up from the stool and eased her onto a nearby pallet, “and he appears healthy. I have instructed that he be placed into the charge of a wet nurse, as arranged.”

The woman nodded. She had seen the gender of the child as he emerged and also the fuzzy growth of down that, moistened by birth fluids, lay like a cap of molten gold on his head. She did not make any protest at his removal. As the infirmarian had said, it had been agreed. And she was exhausted. Her bones felt as though they had no substance and were incapable of sustaining even the slightest movement. All that consumed her now was a desire to sink into the oblivion of sleep.

The woman closed her eyes as the nun, with a cloth dipped in warm water, cleansed her body of the detritus left by the birthing. It was imperative that she regain her strength for the trials that lay ahead. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she thought of them, for she had no doubt they would be even more daunting than the long months of her confinement. She would need all her wits about her if she was to survive.

The infirmarian, her task finished, quietly left the room. Outside, the sister who had taken the babe away returned, her arms empty and her hands folded inside the black sleeves of her habit.

“She will sleep now,” the senior nun said as she removed the capacious apron she had worn to protect her clothing. “I will leave her in your care while I attend to my duties in the infirmary. Sit with her until she awakens and then give her a bowl of hearty meat broth and a cup of ale. Encourage her to take as much of both as she can. She is very weak and her spirits are low; nourishment will help restore her vitality.”

“Is it certain she does not want to see the babe?” the other sister asked, her young face creased into lines of sympathy for the suffering the woman had endured. “Mayhap she will change her mind now that he is born.”