Herbert Mary H.
Legacy of Steel
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Mary H. Herbert
Legacy of Steel
1
The pain came again in the deep hours of the night. It began as a dull ache of despair in the center of her heart, where it found her own grief and joined with it, opening her old wounds and thrusting her back into that raw, quivering emptiness. She tossed and turned under her blankets; tears trickled down her sleeping face, but still she could not draw away from the bitter sadness.
The pain increased in the course of her dream and radiated outward toward her arm and back. The dull ache turned into a throbbing agony that burned like acid across her upper body.
Help me. An inhuman voice cried from a long distance away. Help me! The plea filled her mind with need. The voice struck a chord of familiarity, yet such as this creature had not spoken to her in years.
A persistent pounding suddenly filled her dream.
"Help me!" The words were repeated but the voice was different-human this time.
"Sara! Sara, please, I need your help!"
The dream voice dwindled into the darkness. The pain drained away, leaving only a residue of tension in her back muscles. Sara woke up and dragged herself upright. She was in her own bed, in her own cottage. Night lay thick and cold around her. The human voice without cried again, "Sara! Are you there?"
"Yes, yes, Jacobar. I'm coming," she answered. Through the haze of weariness and the sadness left behind by the dream, Sara stumbled across the dirt floor to the door. She flung the door open to greet her night visitor.
A young man, tall and brawny and very worried, rushed in. "Sara! Thanks be. You've got to come. It's Rose. She's delivering, and I think the babe is stuck."
Sara summoned a patient smile from somewhere within her. She was getting quite used to these nocturnal visits. Her reputation for skilled care was rapidly spreading through the countryside. While Jacobar paced by the door, Sara hastily threw on her work clothes: an old pair of men's pants, boots, and a clean but worn tunic. Grabbing her cloak and her healer's bag, she hurried out into the blustery night after the young farmer.
The cold air struck her like a blow. Although it was nearly spring, the past few days had been tempestuous and unseasonably chilly from a storm that moved in from the north. Sara pulled her cloak tighter and shivered. She just hoped the laboring mother was in a warm place.
Close on Jacobar's heels, she hurried with the man along the village road to a path that led east past the common pastures to a small cot and barn that sat huddled in a shallow dale. The house was small and neat and surrounded on two sides by a hedge of trees that grew as a windbreak. Pens and corrals clustered around the barn.
For a moment, Sara feared the farmer was leading her to one of the muddy pens-she had delivered more than one baby in the mud before-but Jacobar veered toward the barn and threw open the door. Lamplight spilled out into the windy darkness, and the sheltering walls of the barn welcomed her. Sara indulged in a small sigh of relief and stepped into the barn.
Her patient lay on her side in a bed of clean straw, her great flanks quivering with her effort. Rose was a plow horse of mixed breeding, thus not worth a great deal to anyone but a farmer. To Jacobar, she was priceless for her gentle disposition, her strength, her patience, and mostly for the fact that he could not afford to replace her. To him, she was everything.
"Can you help her?" he asked anxiously as Sara stripped off her cloak.
The woman nodded. "I think so. Bring me some hot water and soap if you have it."
Gladly Jacobar ran out to fetch what she needed.
Sara carefully laid her tools on a clean cloth, then methodically inspected the mare. She was pleased to see Jacobar had not waited too long to fetch her. Others had put off the call, not wanting to pay her fee, and finally ended by summoning her in a panic when it was often too late to save both the foal and the mare. This time Jcobar had recognized the mare's difficulties and acted swiftly. Sara gently patted the mare's brown head and murmured encouragement in her ear.
Jacobar soon returned, a