The Harem Midwife Read Online Free Page A

weakly, Hannah motioned two slaves to help the Sultana onto the divan and settle her into a reclining position.
    Safiye’s eyes widened when she saw Hannah’s birthing spoons. “You plan to use those?”
    “Do not be frightened. I have done this many times before.”
    The jugglers ceased tossing balls; the astrologer looked up from his charts; the dwarf’s gymnastics came to an abrupt halt. Everyone was staring at Hannah as though she were a magician.
    Hannah announced, “This is an instrument to help ease the child into the world. You will see.”
    A look passed between Hannah and Safiye.
    The Sultana nodded. “If it will help my son.”
    All labouring women wished for a son. None had more need of one than Safiye. Hannah unhinged the spoons and worked first one and then the other into Safiye’s passage until Hannah could feel them slipping into position, the baby’s temples cupped in the shallow bowls of the spoons.
    “Now, push.”
    Safiye gave a grunt and tried her best.
    Hannah gently compressed the spoons and as the womb contracted, she pulled. The baby’s head emerged. Hannah felt a wave of relief. The Sultan was a small man, built low to the earth, with a large head and broad shoulders. If his baby shared these traits, it would not bode well for his wife’s confinement.
    At the next contraction the shoulders should have slipped out, then the rest of the tiny body. But that did not happen. There were two more pangs accompanied by much pushing and groaning, yet the shoulders would not emerge.
    Hannah said, “Do not lose courage. You and I are working together and with God’s help will get this child born.”
    The Sultana groaned in reply.
    Not for the first time, Hannah was struck by the absurdity of a fully formed baby trying to pass through such a tiny orifice. It was a blasphemous notion, which many might construe as a criticism of God’s design. “Take a deep breath. Rest while you can. Your pangs are good and strong. It will not be long now.”
    “I am trying,” said the Sultana.
    “I know you are—”
    Just then, Safiye screamed and arched her back, her hands clutching at her breast.
    A babe could suffocate if it lingered too long in the passage. Hannah did not waste time listening for a heartbeat. She withdrew her birthing spoons and reached her hands into the passage, thanking God for her small fingers. One tiny shoulder was caught fast on the sharing bones, the girdle that held the pelvis together.
May it signify a healthy, broad-shouldered boy
, Hannah prayed. A lusty heir was all that was lacking in this palace of sloe-eyed, heavy-lidded, voluptuous beauties, but the child was jammed inside its mother like a chimney sweep caught in a chimney pot atop one of the grand palaces in Venice.
    “Another moment and we will have your baby out,
cara
.” Hannah should not have addressed the Sultana with such familiarity, but the endearment came involuntarily to her lips.
    She rotated the head and compressed the infant’s shoulders to draw it out. Newborns were always malleable, theirlittle bodies as soft as warm wax. A moment later, she felt rather than heard the burst of noise, like the small explosion of a cork withdrawn from a wine jug. The child had been so compressed that its shoulder had come loose of its moorings. The small bone of the upper arm had slipped from its socket. The baby slithered out, screaming. Hannah held it tucked under one arm and studied its angry red face. Poor mite. The shoulder joint was an angry red knob. No wonder the infant wailed so.
    Perhaps a shoulder dislocation was not an unusual problem, but it was Hannah’s first experience with it. There must be something she could quickly do to persuade the shoulder back into place. She searched her memory for advice from other midwives.
    Safiye clenched so hard at the folds of Hannah’s skirts that her knuckles were white. “Please help my baby,” she whispered.
    The musicians played more loudly, shaking their tambourines