Queen of Swords
Page 24

The temptation was to break into a canter, but the road was unknown to her and the combination of the dusk and fog called for caution. Beyond that, Hannah had been raised by men who spent a good amount of time traveling through the endless forests, and she knew the importance of paying attention in strange territory.
The path ran between the canal on one side and the beginnings of the swamp on the other. The smell of the canal was strong in the air despite the rain. Rotting fish and waterweeds and dung. A half dozen mules stood at the open half door of a stable, waiting to be let in after a day of treading the towpath, oblivious to the rain. Shacks and small cabins straggled along the way, weathered board walls festooned with fishing nets and lines. The tools of men who made their living on the swamp were everywhere: crates and barrels and wooden tubs, flat-bottomed boats dragged onto land and turned over to show scarred underbellies, piles of fish bone. A pack of dogs watched them passing from a shadowy corner, and Hannah was glad of the pistol she had tucked into her belt.
In the open door of a cabin that seemed filled with smoke, a man with a pinched face was skinning an alligator carcass that looked to be twice his own length. Inside her deep hood Hannah was glad that he didn’t try to talk to her. If he knew the boy who rode behind her there was nothing of recognition to see in his face.
The land changed suddenly from swamp to the cultivated fields of a large plantation, acres of cut sugarcane and, just visible in the distance, a cluster of cabins around a larger house. Michel saw her looking.
“Michie Fauchier’s place,” he said, pointing in one direction, and then in the other: “Michie Dejan.”
The swamp closed in again and then opened suddenly where the canal joined the bayou. The rain had faded away to a despondent drizzle by the time they turned west to follow the waterway to the settlement. There was no one to be seen out-of-doors, which was a great relief. Hannah was just about to ask Michel to point out Maison Verde when the boy gave a great wiggle and slid off the saddle. He looked up at her and pointed to the nearest house, and then ran off.
Uneasy now, and thinking of Leo’s warnings, Hannah hesitated. She remembered that a stranger had come by the little clinic to see her today, a white man; she wondered now which of the houses on the bayou belonged to the Poiterins. She had two choices: to trust the boy, or to turn the horse around and go back to the city.
She walked the mare around the main house to a small cluster of buildings: stable, barn, kitchen, others she could not put a name to. The door of the kitchen building opened and a woman beckoned to her. She was strongly built and tall, wrapped in a white apron that seemed to glow in the growing dark. She gestured again, and called a word over her shoulder. Michel came running, his mouth still full of food.
“Amazilie says to come right in, you shouldn’t be out here where anybody could see you. I’ll look after the horse.”
Hannah had understood that for herself, but still she hesitated. There was a tingling in her hands, and her mouth had gone dry. Something was about to change; she knew that without a doubt. Whether it would be for the good or bad was unclear, but what she did know, with certain dread, was that it would start here and now. She slid off the horse and started toward the woman in the doorway.
Luke woke early in the evening from a deep sleep and sat up, disoriented and sweat drenched.
The dream was gone. Nothing to hold on to beyond a sense of something very wrong, someone in trouble. It was a familiar dream, one he had been living with since the day Jennet had been taken away from him. He rubbed his eyes and drew a deep and shuddering breath.
Beside him she was deeply asleep. Beneath the covers she was naked, a thought that made his flesh stir. He would have liked to look at her while she was quiet like this, but the room was chilly and he was not a boy, after all. He didn’t have to indulge every urge. He was repeating this to himself when he realized that he was not the only one who was awake.
The baby was lying on his side in his cot, his wide eyes fixed on Luke. He looked content, his round cheeks flushed with color. Luke wondered if the boy was capable of curiosity about this man who had appeared out of nowhere. A man who took liberties with his person and, no doubt more troubling, with his mother’s. But there was nothing of fear in the small face, and so Luke got out of bed as quietly as he could manage, and dressed.
Then he stood over the cot and considered. He had little experience with infants, and remembered only vaguely things he had heard over the years. Luke remembered that his grandmother had had great success in quieting unsettled infants by wrapping them firmly in warm flannel and then rocking them, but this boy stood, sturdy and curious, and wanted something other than quiet cuddling.
Luke leaned over and picked up the boy, gingerly, carefully, and tucked him into the crook of his arm. He smelled of his mother’s milk and his own soggy linen, and of something that was unfamiliar to Luke and was most likely simply himself.
“Let’s go find some tea, you and me.” He glanced at Jennet, who had not moved an inch. “Leave your mother to catch her breath.”
The boy lifted his fist to his mouth and began to mouth it.
“At least until you can’t wait any longer,” Luke amended.
Luke knocked lightly on the parlor door, where he found Julia and Paul Savard sitting alone at the table over a simple supper of bread and cold pork and tea. Julia would have got up from her place to see to the baby had not Clémentine come in with more water. She scooped him up like a gold coin found on the street, and bore her prize off to his bath and clean linen.