Queen of Swords
Page 48

Luke would be angry if he knew what she was doing, but Luke was not here, and she had no one but herself to call on.
She turned into the narrow street, and stopped short. Where the Redbone village had been was now a sea of army tents. The militia were turning out to be mustered under the hectoring cries of their officers.
Hannah slipped back into the shadows and away, and didn’t stop until she was out of breath.
How stupid she had been, not to realize. Of course her patients hadn’t come to the little clinic. The Redbones were gone; there was no room or tolerance for them with the English so close. The three who had come to her were here only because they were too sick to go. She wondered fleetingly where Helen had hidden her other children. She thought of the labor to come. Even with Yellow-Sapling it would be difficult and dangerous, but without her—Hannah forced herself to breathe deeply and think. After a moment, she set off again for a different part of the city.
She found Maman Zuzu and Maman Antoinette together, drinking coffee. Hannah had time to think about that, as coffee was precious now and expensive, but she didn’t ask. Nor did they ask her questions, once they understood she needed help with a difficult delivery. Both of them got up and put things in baskets, pulled shawls around themselves, and waited for her to show the way.
When they got to the little clinic, Rachel met them at the door. She was very pale and her face was damp with sweat, which must mean something; it was hard to upset this girl, for all her youth.
“What is it? Has the labor started?” She had dosed Helen before leaving, because the effect of the tea would take a little while to be felt. Sometimes things moved more quickly than expected, and Hannah had been longer on her errand than she meant to be.
“Step aside, missy,” said Maman Antoinette in a creaking English, no hint of deference or apology. “Let us see to her.”
Rachel stood aside.
Things were as Hannah had left them. Rattling-Gourd on one cot, staring at the ceiling. His granddaughter on a pallet beside him, asleep now that she had eaten, with a thick rug folded over her thin frame. Helen on the other cot, the great mound of her belly with her hands crossed over it. If she was in labor, she was hiding it well.
Then Hannah saw that there was someone else. She sat on a stool near the hearth, a slight form wrapped in a blanket that was more holes than wool. She raised her head to look at Hannah. A brand on her cheek, so new that it was still mostly blister. How beautiful she had been.
“Rachel,” Hannah said. “Who is this?”
“She won’t give me a name.”
“Jacinthe,” said Zuzu. “She’s called Jacinthe, her. Belonged once to Poiterin. They sold her because she let the white baby get stole away.”
Hannah knew that she had heard the young woman’s name, and now she remembered. The young woman who had nursed Jennet’s son. What Ben had done for them wasn’t without cost.
“She’s asking for Jennet,” Rachel said. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“You leave her to us,” said Maman Antoinette. “We care for our own.”
“Jacinthe,” Maman Zuzu said.
She said the name aloud, and the girl rose from her stool. She was unsteady on her feet, which were bare and filthy with dirt and dried blood. And in her arms was a bundle that flexed and squirmed.
Hannah and Maman Zuzu reached her at the same moment. Zuzu helped her to sit back down, and Hannah found herself holding the child that Jacinthe had almost dropped. It was no more than a few hours old. Still streaked with the evidence of the womb, its head lopsided from the birth canal. Too small, but it breathed and mewled and flexed, a living child.
“Poiterin’s?” She asked the question though she already knew the answer.
“Who else?” said Zuzu.
The two old ladies spoke to Jacinthe in a low singsong, their tone comforting but firm. They asked questions in quick patois. Hannah caught only one word in five, but she understood what they wanted to know, because the same question was foremost in her mind.
Where had Jacinthe been, and how did she get here?
But the young woman only looked at them, dry-eyed, uncomprehending. Blank. When they pressed a cup of water on her she took it and drank, and then she took the bread and chewed it slowly and swallowed.
Hannah had passed the baby to Rachel, and now it let out a thin cry. Jacinthe didn’t even blink at the sound.
In the local French Rachel said, “Your baby needs you. Do you have milk?”
Jacinthe turned her face to Rachel. “I have no baby,” she said. “I have no milk.”
“Jacinthe,” said Maman Zuzu in a sharper tone. “Wake up, now. We got no time for such foolishness.”
Jacinthe looked at her finally, some life coming back into her expression. “I am looking for Honoré.” As if it should be obvious, as if it were Zuzu who were not in command of her senses.
“You don’t need that man,” said Zuzu. “You don’t need that devil.”
“His grand-mère is dead,” Jacinthe went on, and then she smiled. It was a young girl’s smile, simple and pure and frightening. “The woman who carries fire came, and now his grand-mère is dead. He will need me.”
Hannah thought, the woman who carries fire, but she asked a different question. She said, “What can we do for her?”
“You can’t do anything,” said Zuzu. “Maman will take her home. We can hide her until we can send her west.”