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“To knock her unconscious. For the pain. She’ll be in so much pain.”

Bhatair nodded at the cask he’d brought. “Uisge.”

“Yes, that might be our only option. Alcohol should be avoided, of course, I don’t want the baby to be born drunk, but it shouldn’t affect its development too much. And I suppose herbs might have side effects on the baby.”

She nodded. “Okay. I suppose that’s our only option. Mhairi, sweetheart, you’ll need to drink a lot of uisge.”

As Seoras gave the exhausted Mhairi the cask, and she diligently drank the amount that two grown men could sustain, Jenny poured more uisge right onto the woman’s round belly. Then she poured it all over her own hands and Bhatair’s. He mumbled something angrily but allowed her to do it.

“Scalpel, Bhatair,” she said as she stretched out her hand.

“What?”

“That knife, please. The sharpest one you have.”

He handed it to her.

“Now please prepare the needle and the thread in the same way. Lots of uisge. Soak them in it if you have to.”

He nodded and began cleaning the hooked needles and the threads, then inserted the thread in one of the needles. As he did, Mhairi’s cries became weaker and weaker, and she finally dozed off.

Jenny breathed out and looked at everyone in the room. “Be prepared, everyone,” she said. “She will probably wake up from pain, so Aulay and Seoras, you both must be strong and hold her in place. Her life will depend on you holding her in place. If you don’t, I might accidentally cut the baby… Are you ready?”

“Aye,” said Seoras.

Aulay nodded.

“Making the incision.” She nodded and brought the knife to the belly and cut it. Aulay couldn’t watch. It was butchery, and there was so much blood he only had seen the like on battlefields. Mhairi opened her eyes and gave such an agonized cry, Aulay’s heart wrenched. He and Seoras held her down on the table. They’d both seen men scream like that on the battlefield and after as their wounds were cauterized, limbs amputated, and arrows pulled from their bodies.

But it was different when a woman cried like that, the one you loved.

He held her tightly for her own life.

Then there was another cry.

A newborn’s.

Aulay and Seoras lifted their heads. Jenny was giving Bhatair a baby. He was bloody and wriggling and crying his wee arse off.

Bhatair took the bairn and looked at Seoras. “Ye must take yer son, I need to tend to yer wife.”

As Seoras left her and took the baby into a clean swaddling cloth, Aulay’s eyes watered. “Hold on, lass,” he whispered to Mhairi, who looked more and more ashen but had stopped screaming, and was watching her son with tears. “Just hold on a wee bit longer.”

The bairn was still attached to the mother through the cord. Bhatair tied the cord in two places with strings, and Jenny cut it with scissors. Then they kept working and using linen, and other things—it was all a blur to Aulay. He kept holding Mhairi down and saying calming things. She kept whimpering and moaning, but she sounded weaker and weaker.

After a while, the afterbirth was delivered and Jenny and Bhatair became agitated.

“Hemorrhage!” Jenny muttered. “Bhatair! Clamp!”

Mhairi resumed whimpering and screaming.

Jenny kept throwing out commands like a wee general.

“More linen. We must control the bleeding. Okay, this is good. This should hold. Feel her pulse.”

“Her what?” asked Bhatair.

“The beating of her pulse on her wrist.”