The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich

him down, he was so beautiful. A Jewish child would now be oiled and covered in a layer of salt for his own protection. On the eighth day, he would be circumcised. None of these things would be done for this child of nobility.
    In the corner stood the cradle with four marble posts supporting the canopy of red silk, embroidered with fauns.She placed the child inside and pulled the coverlet up to his chin. Swaddling would have to wait until she had attended to the Contessa.
    The afterbirth, like a veined piece of calf’s liver, should have glided out of its own accord and fallen into the basin. In biblical times, a Jewish midwife would have straddled the mother’s thighs, ramming her head into the mother’s belly until the liver cake dislodged. Hannah’s method was kinder. She tugged on the navel string that hung out of the birthing passage, but as she pulled, the cord, engorged with blood, broke. Was it too much to ask of God that one small detail go smoothly? If Lucia had been able, Hannah would have asked her to stand so that the liver cake would drop from between her legs, but Lucia could no more stand upright than could the baby she had just birthed. If the afterbirth did not emerge, putrefaction would result. There was only one thing to be done.
    “Giovanna, clasp her by her shoulders. I must feel what is wrong.”
    Hannah pushed back the bloody sleeves of her
cioppà
. She plunged her forearm into the warm darkness of the womb, clutched the resistant afterbirth, braced herself, and tugged. Lucia’s back arched. There was a tearing sound, and Hannah staggered back, gripping a raw piece of the organ. She dropped it to the floor and reinserted her arm, groping in the womb, seizing more spongy flesh, tugging, holding it fast, and reeling back with another purple fistful. Her arm was shaking and glazed with bright blood. This time, Giovanna held a basin for her to cast the tissue into.
    Once the afterbirth was extracted and the matrix cleaned of tissue, the flow of blood slowed to a trickle. Now, according to Jewish custom, the placenta should be wrapped in a clean cloth and buried in the ground. For reasons Hannah could not fathom, Christians preserved it in a jar of fine oil.
    A clicking sound brought Hannah to attention. Lucia’s teeth were chattering and her whole body trembled. Hannah grabbed a feather quilt from the armoire and buried Lucia under it. She put a hand on Lucia’s forehead. The Contessa was burning with fever. Hannah prayed there would not be prodigious bleeding that could not be staunched.
    Hannah’s vision was blurry with fatigue; her arms ached from the effort of extracting the afterbirth. She had been at Lucia’s bedside the entire night and needed to sit down, drink a bowl of strong broth, then sleep—but her work was not yet completed. She pulled up a chair and sat next to Lucia.
    “It is over,
cara
. You did well.” She took Lucia’s hand. “You have suffered, but you have a beautiful boy to show for your pains. A boy with a large head, as I do not need to tell you, and your husband’s blue eyes. Just wait until you see him.”
    Lucia squeezed Hannah’s finger. Motioning Hannah to lower her head, she murmured, “You have been so kind. The Holy Virgin will watch over you all the days of your life.” And then her eyes fluttered closed.
    Rest and nourishing food were all the medicaments Lucia needed now. In a few months, God willing, she would be well again.
    “We should change the bedding, Giovanna.”
    They tackled the task together, rolling Lucia from one side of the bed to the other as they worked, the bed linen so drenched they could have wrung it out and filled a laundry tub with the blood. But there was colour in the Contessa’s cheeks and her pulse was growing more regular.
    From her bag, Hannah took out packets of fennel and some wild sage and handed the herbs to Giovanna. “If you combine this with some wine, honey, and hot water, we will feed the infusion to her. It will