Namedays
Six-and-fifty winters is he, when his daughter is born into her very first.
No one recalls. Even he had not recalled, not till now, long after the nurse carried her up the stairs, wrapped her up tenderly and lay her down in the quiet of the nursery for a few bells' sleep. Not till now -- when, having hauled himself up after them and crept in through the door, he looks down at her pink and tiny, impossibly tiny face -- does he realize that all of Heavensturn's come and gone, and that the sun that now rises over Abalathia is the second of Halone's moon.
"You must get some rest, milord," says Nurse Berthoise from the couch, herself groggy. "You've been up more than twenty bells."
"I will," he lies, and he stands there, his knuckles white on the cot's railing.
The babe, though, sleeps; eventually, so too does the nurse. He at last sits in the chair beside, to relieve his lightheadedness -- but he continues to watch. For one bell, two bells, he watches, almost without blinking, hand tight on his cane, till she just begins to rouse. At her first murmur, he stands straight up, startling the nurse awake -- and so she is swiftly borne away, back downstairs, before she even gives her first cry for milk.
Rosaire is left behind.
He looks after them long after they've departed, then sits down again, slowly, in the chair.
Fifty Namedays ago, he was playing by the pond at the country estate with his two siblings nearest in age. His own nurse and a footman had meant to keep an eye on them, but their eyes proved too full of each other, and soon he and the girls had ventured, against instruction, onto the ice.
He does not remember the moment he went in -- nor, truthfully, does he remember much of what happened after, save being bathed and made to give thanks to Halone (though not to the lowborn who rescued him) that the water was shallow -- but he remembers the feeling: the shock of cold, the flood of overwhelming fear, his head emptied of everything else. Time became immensely slow, seconds stretched out into years and years -- and yet in all that luxury of time there was nothing he could think of, nothing he could do but sink down, down into the numbness, down into himself, powerless.
It is the same feeling he has now, and has had for these past twenty bells.
Not at first. At first he was afraid, yes -- but he was also Rosaire Ledigne, the logical, the Staid. He simply had Helenne summon the midwife and bid the maids make ready, set the book-cradle at the bedside and lay in it his codex open to the relevant page, then sat down next to his lady to murmur encouragement and wait. Such was his duty and his role: to be calm and remain calm, to stand out of the way but ready to assist -- to put the nightmare out of his mind, to pray without speaking, and to give no evidence of aught but a placid heart.
And so he remained, steady and dutiful, keeping his countenance as she suffered and wept. He even flattered himself with the thought that he might be able to feign tranquility and comfort her through her screams -- until, a mere few bells in, the midwife drew him aside.
"You'd best call the chirurgeon," she murmured. "The local one -- then ring your specialist in Ul'dah and give the linkpearl to me."
"Is something wrong?" he asked, like a fool.
She looked at him, weighing an answer, then shook her head. "For now, just call them," and she turned to go back into the room.
It was then that he began to feel it, and felt himself sink down, down into the cold and dark.
One chirurgeon became two, when Doctor Tristelle arrived from the south. They timed Gwenneth's pulse, put an ear-trumpet to her chest, inspected the swelling of her feet, then shook their heads and argued in whispers in the corner. For a long time he could not persuade them to enlighten him, but at least the heat of his frustration provided some sort of relief from the numb fear; but he tamped it down and held her hand when he was not gently cooling her face and neck with a cloth.
When they finally offered her the option of a draught for the pain, she didn't answer; words, if they were words, came from her mouth in a jumble, and she looked at Rosaire only a moment before her eyelids fluttered and her cloudy gaze went back up to the ceiling.
Some time after that -- minutes, bells, years, he was no longer sure -- he was taken aside again.
"You'd best call the priest, my lord."
The words he'd prayed, bargained, and begged not to hear.
He listened to the Reconciliation and observed the anointing, though he could hardly hear or see. 'He' was there, listening and watching and even taking Mother Judithe aside to grasp her hand and thank her, but he -- he did not quite feel present in his body, as it went through those movements and spoke those words mechanically. He was somewhere else, floating in the ice-cold water, looking down at the scene as it unfolded with painful slowness.
Miolleane, though acquainted with the Ledignes for just one sennight, broke down crying in the hall; Helenne sent her home, then ushered Clavis into his carrying-cage and took him to the Fortemps aery, leaving Berthoise in charge. She brought Rosaire a cup of strong coffee; it rattled so much in his hand he had to drink it at the dining table.
For lack of elsewhere to look, he fixed his eyes on the Starlight Sentinels, still bright and in good needle: the first, in bluish-green, slim and delicate -- the second, in silver, tall and thick at the middle. And then, between them, the miniature, less than a fulm tall -- the representation of a wish they'd made at last year's Starlight, both her little hands enfolded in his.
How could I?
His throat tensed around the slug of cold water he'd breathed in; his eyes stung. But he was stopped from drowning by one of the chirurgeons rushing in. "Well, if you think you're still able to help with the physicking -- 'tis the time now."
At first he knew her only by her cry -- less a cry, he later thinks, than a hearty and rather indignant exclamation of surprise. Though she was borne away immediately to receive the attention of the priest -- to whom he barely remembered to mumble the name they'd chosen -- she was soon returned, brought before him in the arms of the smiling Berthoise. "She is much improved already, milord -- a strong and healthy daughter."
He must have looked at her face then, but his eyes were too full of the blood on the sheets to see it.
"Bring the babe here -- 'twill help stop the bleeding --"
"This is a task for a conjurer -- pray, stand aside!"
Someone's hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him back to make room for the bustle of healers. He looked at Gwenneth's face -- pale and wet -- a worse sight than the blood -- and feared for a second his knees might buckle. They didn't -- he couldn't let them -- so instead of sinking to the ground, he sank further into himself, down, down.
When it was not his turn to channel physicks, he stood silently at the side, looking at the statuette of Nymeia they had placed at the bedside just a few suns before. The Weaver, friend of laboring mothers, smiling beatifically -- the promise of health and fortune, threatening to be broken -- and prayed.
He prayed to Her -- cursed Her, in a moment of rage, then prayed again -- to Nymeia, to the Twelve, even to Nophica. And he prayed, desperately, to Halone: Fury, please spare Gwenneth. Fury, please save Gwenneth. O Fury, I will serve you faithfully -- only let her live, so she may serve you far better than I. O Fury, I will do penance -- I will make pilgrimage -- anything, Fury, anything, anything, anything, only give her strength. Let her live. Let her live. I beg you -- let her live.
The gods were slow to answer. The bleeding did stop, but the chirurgeon's faces remained grave. She had faded to an awful pallor -- he wished, in sick despair, she might begin again to scream in pain, for that sound was easier to bear than the sight of her arm falling limp from one of their hands. But a bell later, they were less solemn. The Ishgardian chirurgeon went home, to sleep a few bells before dawn; Judithe followed, though not before pressing his hand in hers and telling him to have faith, be strong.
"She's made it through this night," the midwife told him. "If she stays strong through this fortnight, she will be out of danger." Unspoken, the obvious corollary -- that till then, she was not safe. He nodded dumbly, sent her home as well.
Helenne -- Fury-sent Helenne -- took watch in the bedroom till the chirurgeon returned, bag full of potions from the apothecary. It was then that Berthoise suggested taking the babe up to the nursery, to let her rest a little away from the commotion, and the chirurgeons permitted it -- and soon insisted that Rosaire go up, too, to rest and replenish his energy.
But he sits in this chair instead.
Since the date of their marriage two summers ago, they have a few times slept apart -- once due to the pressing business of the Bellworks, a few times when Institute affairs took him to southron Eorzea and Gwenneth was too ill to join. He managed, but hated it; so many years a bachelor snoring away contentedly, yet after holding her only once, gently and chastely, he could not bear to be apart from her -- her warmth, her soft skin, the scent of her hair.
He cannot bear to think of it now.
But, when Berthoise returns to lay the babe down and smiles at him compassionately, he looks down into the cot, at the child who lies there -- sleepy features squashed like all newborns', little ears with little points still flat against her head, wisps of honey-brown hair on her head -- and realizes that he must, even if fitfully, in this chair.
He -- and Helenne, and Berthoise, and Clavis, when he returns -- must watch over her and keep her warm till the fortnight's end, when Gwenneth rises, and the time at last comes to celebrate their Nameday.