The Harem Midwife Read Online Free

cheekbones. Rumour was that she was from Rumelia and had been brought to the palace when she was twelve.
    Many busybodies thought Safiye overly interested in affairs of the state and other matters of no concern to women. Some feared the Sultan relied too much on his wife for advice. Whatever the truth of it, she would not be eavesdropping at the grilled window of the Privy Council, listening to state secrets, anytime soon. If Safiye survived, this birth would weaken her for months to come.
    Kübra, a slave girl dressed in a plain blue kaftan with a long braid down her back, approached Hannah and said loudly, “Safiye must scream more softly. The Valide is trying to pray and finds the noise unsettling.”
    Hannah opened her mouth to protest, but the girl, bending low as if to readjust her belt, said in a whisper only Hannah could hear, “The Valide wishes me to convey herthanks for your assistance last month in a certain matter.” The girl cast a sympathetic look at Safiye and walked off in the direction of her mistress’s private quarters. Hannah was touched by the Valide’s message, but tried to put the embarrassing event out of her mind and concentrate on Safiye.
    The dwarf, swaying from side to side, turned clumsy cartwheels around Safiye. He bobbed up behind her birthing stool and then performed a somersault, as though fired from a cannon. How anyone could imagine that a woman in labour would enjoy all of this noise and confusion, Hannah could not comprehend. At home in Venice, the birth room was a hushed, secluded space, with only a midwife and perhaps the labouring woman’s mother and mother-in-law. Here the entire harem believed a mother’s suffering was cause for celebration. Perhaps if the confinement was an easy one such antics would comfort and divert the labouring mother, but when a labour was difficult, it could only make matters worse. And suppose in the end, there was no reason to rejoice? Suppose the confinement concluded with a dead mother or a dead baby? Or both? A crowd would only amplify the sorrow.
    Hannah motioned to a nearby musician playing a stringed instrument. “Play something soft and soothing. Her Excellency is tired. Help her to relax between her pangs.”
    Hannah rubbed almond oil on her hands and bent her head close to Safiye’s ear. “I am Hannah. I have come to cajole this baby out of you.”
    The Sultana tried to smile but her lips quivered. “I am in so much pain. Is there something you can give me?”
    Hannah took Safiye’s hand. Opium would deaden thepain but it would also weaken the birth contractions, and this child had already dawdled in the birth passage too long. “Let us first see what can be done without opium. The poppy sometimes slows the baby’s breathing.”
    “In that case, I will manage.”
    “Brave and wise,” said Hannah as she squatted in front of the birthing stool. She waited for a pang to pass and then felt Safiye’s abdomen, moving her hands up and down and around. The child’s head was in a good position. A steady pull from the birthing spoons might ease it down farther. Hannah pressed her ear to Safiye’s belly. The baby’s heartbeat was slow and faint.
    Hannah loosened the drawstring of her linen bag and took out her birthing spoons, which had been fashioned in Venice by a silversmith. They resembled two soup spoons with shallow bowls and gently curved handles, fastened together in the middle by a removable pin. Hannah blew on them for luck and cradled them in her hands to warm them. Her reflection in the spoons showed a drawn, white face with large black eyes, surrounded by a cloud of dark hair. She recited the prayer she always murmured at such times: “If it pleases God, may I do no harm.” Then she said softly to Safiye, “The birthing spoons are of no use if you are sitting upright. I know it is not the custom to give birth in a prone position, but if you lie down I can reach inside you and grasp the baby’s head.”
    When Safiye nodded