Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 74

"Are you unwell?" he asked.
Hannah knew that she must find out if this man was enemy or friend. If he was an enemy, they would have no one to trust on the ship. Her voice trembled because she could not help it. "Hakim, did you know about this?" She gestured with one hand to the porthole and the sea beyond.
Puzzlement showed on his face in a line that ran down between his eyebrows. "Did I know that we were to sail? Yes."
"Did you know that we were to sail without my parents or grandfather?"
A ripple of surprise and disquiet moved across the even features. "I did not," he said. "Perhaps you would like to tell me what has happened."
While Hannah talked--in halting words at first and then more quickly, pouring out what she knew and what she only guessed--he stood listening, the high brow under the neatly folded red turban creased.
Hakim Ibrahim said, "Your stepmother was to sail with us to Scotland, as I understood it."
Hannah's head came up with a jerk. "We never agreed to sail to Scotland! We just wanted to go home to New-York."
For a moment the Hakim considered the basket in his arms.
"Perhaps there is some reasonable explanation. I shall make inquiries. But first I should like to talk to you about how best to care for your brother and sister until your mother is restored to them. Perhaps you will share my breakfast with me while we talk."
It might have been the steadiness of his hands, or the calm expression in his eyes, or perhaps it was just that he gave her a problem to work through, but Hannah felt some relief, a loosening of the knot in her belly. She nodded.
There were small dark fruits in the basket that he called dates, smooth-shelled nuts, and shiny, coarse-skinned globes of a deep orange color that Hannah associated with falling leaves. The Hakim held one out to her: a small sun caught in a web of fingers the color of earth mixed with ash. Hannah made a bowl of her hands and took it. It was heavy and dense, smooth to the touch, warm. She sat down with it, and resisted the urge to rub it against her face. But he was waiting for her to speak.
"They sent in a woman to nurse the twins," she said. "Mrs. MacKay." She did not care to speak Moncrieff's name out loud ever again, and was glad to see that it was not necessary.
"Ah." He pushed his thumb into one of the orange fruits, and the scent of it burst through the room in a shower, light and still faintly sharp. "She is not yet healed from her loss, either in mind or body."
"My sister and brother do not like her," said Hannah, not wanting to hear about the Scotswoman's problems. And then, in a rush: "I think her milk must be as bitter and mean as she is."
Her grandmother would have chided her for her lack of charity, but the Hakim merely blinked. He tore the golden globe apart with a simple twist of his hands, and then he held out half of it to her, dripping with juice that ran in a river over the strong brown wrist. "Then we must find a better way. But first I must check on Mrs. Freeman, and you must eat."
To Hannah's surprise, there was livestock on board, some of the animals now on the open deck in pens and others in the hold. She did not see them, for she refused to leave Curiosity and the babies, but the Hakim sent the cabin boy away and he came back with eggs still warm from the nest and a jug of fresh goat's milk. On the small stove where he made his decoctions and teas and cooked his own food, Hakim Ibrahim boiled two eggs until the whites had set, mixed them with a little coarse salt and some soft cheese, and gave them to Curiosity with his curious flat bread. He made a new tea while she ate, this one of horehound, bayberry, valerian, and little-man root. Hannah was given a cup of the goat's milk and more of the bread.
"Never thought I'd be so glad of a nanny goat," said Curiosity. She had Lily in her lap, simply because the baby would not let her go, just as Daniel clung to Hannah, touching her face with both hands, patting her cheeks as if to hold her there with him. Both of them were agitated, as unsettled as they had been as newborns although Hannah reckoned them to be a full sixteen weeks old.
Hakim Ibrahim worked the goat's milk into the finely mashed rice until it was a smooth gruel. He looked up from the bowl at Lily and she stared back, round eyed.
"She ain't in a flirting kind of mood," observed Curiosity.
"But she is hungry," said the Hakim. He murmured to the baby in his own language and her brow creased, whether in fear or at the novelty of it, they could not tell. On Hannah's lap, Daniel fidgeted and yanked at her plaits.
Curiosity said, "Let's see, then." She dipped her finger in the warm gruel and touched Lily's full lower lip with it. Lily took the finger after a moment, sucked once, and her face crumpled in dismay. She let out a squeak.
"Try again," said Hannah, shifting Daniel. He was watching the whole undertaking closely as he mouthed his fists.
This time Lily took Curiosity's finger with less hesitation, and her expression turned from dismay to cautious interest.
"I have added a very little cooked honey and a bit of weak fennel water," said Hakim Ibrahim. "To quiet them and help them digest."
"My grandmother would give them a little tea of parsnip root, and maybe blueberry." Hannah was watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Hakim Ibrahim smiled. "I hope you will tell me more of your grandmother's medicines."
"Now you in for it," muttered Curiosity, but she hid a smile against the crown of Lily's head.
With a small flattish spoon Curiosity began to feed Lily, and to Hannah's surprise the baby was swallowing most of what she took in. As if to remind them all that he also had an empty stomach, Daniel thumped Hannah's chest, his expression darkening rapidly. She blew air gently into his face and he stopped, looking both hopeful and confused, for this was something Elizabeth did to get his attention when he was out of sorts.