Queen of Swords
Page 37

Julia put a hand on Jennet’s arm. “I’m going back to sit with Hannah. Will you come, too?”
“In a moment,” Jennet said. And then: “The only weapon we’ve got against Poiterin is the news Hannah brought us yesterday. He is spying for the British. If they don’t care about what he did to Hannah—” her voice cracked, and Julia’s hand on her arm tightened, “—they must care about that.”
“Jennet—” Luke began, and she whirled toward him.
“Don’t say it.”
“I have to say it. We’ve got no evidence on Poiterin beyond Hannah’s word.”
“We’ve got more than that,” Jennet said. “We’ve got Wyndham, who is somewhere in this city right now. Once he’s in custody he’ll give up Poiterin.”
“You can’t know that,” Luke said. He looked as though he would be sick, with sweat on his brow in spite of the underheated room. He looked miserable, and it struck Jennet that she was punishing him because she could not strike out against Poiterin.
She went to him and put her head against his chest, felt his arms come up around her while she wept out her anger and frustration. The door opened and closed beyond them and they were alone.
When there were no more tears left, she took the handkerchief he offered and wiped her face, taking deep, shuddering breaths.
“I promise you he won’t go unpunished,” Luke said quietly.
“What are you going to do?” Jennet asked. Her head ached and her throat was raw and she was deeply weary, but she couldn’t clear her head of the image of Hannah.
“I’m going to talk to Ben Savard,” Luke said. “As soon as I can find him. In the meantime, Livingston has arranged for armed guards, here and at his house. You are not to step out onto the street without them, do you understand me?”
Jennet managed a half smile. “I wish Poiterin would approach me,” she said. “I wish he were so rash. I would like to see him die.”
Luke’s expression tightened. “Do not put yourself at risk,” he said. “For our son’s sake, Jennet, promise me you won’t go anywhere alone.”
She gave him her promise, but Luke’s expression didn’t change at all. He didn’t trust her, and with good cause.
Jennet moved through the next five days like a woman caught in a maze, unable to stop, always turning the same corners.
The clinic was so overrun that Julia and Rachel both were pressed into full-time duty during the day, and so Jennet became Hannah’s nurse. Hannah, in the grip of a fever like a winding-sheet.
Jennet bathed her with cool water laced with vinegar, fed her water and tea and the medicines Dr. Savard supplied, teaspoon by teaspoon. There were different salves for her many scrapes and cuts and seeping bruises. Dr. Savard showed Jennet how to change the dressings. The biggest danger was that there had been some damage to the lungs, and that she was bleeding internally. Jennet held her breath when she checked Hannah’s pulse, but by the third day when there was no sign of infection, she allowed herself to hope.
Hannah must be bathed, and dosed with the medicines and teas Dr. Savard brought, and her dressings and soiled bedclothes changed. She must be given boiled water by the teaspoonful every hour, and after the first day, chicken broth as well. All the while she worked or sat next to Hannah, Jennet sang and read and told stories. The work was exhausting, but Jennet was more glad of it with every passing day.
Now she went to fetch water and paused to look out of the courtyard. One of the armed guards on duty turned and bowed from the shoulders. They were simple men but good at their work. Three times a day they escorted her back to the Livingstons’ so she could see to her son’s needs, and then back to the clinic so she could see to her cousin’s. The Indian woman who had first found Hannah came to look after her while Jennet was gone. Yellow-Sapling was a somber woman who seemed to speak neither French nor English, but she was devoted to Hannah and brought medicines of her own with every visit. When Jennet came back the room smelled of herbs burning, and the air itself had taken on a new color.
Jennet saw far more of the guards than she did of her husband, whose every minute was monopolized by Livingston. Luke came by the clinic at midday and again in the late afternoon, stayed long enough to tell Jennet his news and hear hers, to spend a few minutes by his sister’s bedside, and then he was gone again. It was eleven or later when he came to bed, and he often fell into an exhausted sleep before he was completely out of his clothes. At sunrise he was gone again, and Jennet was on her way to the clinic.
On the sixth day, Jennet was changing the sweat-soaked bedding when she realized that Hannah’s eyes were open. She went very still while she composed her face and her voice.
“Cousin,” she said calmly. “It’s me, it’s Jennet.”
“I see you,” Hannah said. Her mouth, still swollen and bruised, barely moved, and her voice was hoarse.
Jennet sat down heavily beside the bed. “You’ve had a—”
“—relapse,” Hannah said. She closed her eyes, and drifted away into sleep.
Jennet pressed her face into the damp bed linens and wept.
When Luke came to the clinic on the rue Dauphine in the early evening, he found his sister sitting up in bed supported by bolsters, with young Henry Savard by her side. There was no sign of Jennet.
Luke had been raised by a kind and loving grandmother, but Wee Iona had rarely hugged or coddled. Jennet was made of different stuff, and Luke realized that a great deal of her need for physical touch had rubbed off on him. He crouched down at the side of the bed and took his sister’s hand in his own, raised it to his mouth. His voice came rough.