Queen of Swords
Page 65

“Of course,” said the priest, inclining his head in apology.
The chief’s son was no more than seventeen years old, but his nose and cheeks were a mass of fading scars, and there was an indentation in his skull that made it clear he had survived a blow with a war club sometime in the last year or so. Spider legs of blood ran over his forehead and eyelids from a bullet wound that had plowed through his scalp and along the skull. He was concussed and would not fight again this night, but he would most likely survive.
His eyes fluttered open. Hannah leaned over him with a candle to look at his pupils, and was glad to see that they were equal in size and that they reacted to the light.
He muttered something she couldn’t make out, and she dredged up the bit of his language that she had.
“Ak akostinincho.” I don’t understand. The priest was waiting to be asked to translate, but she didn’t look at him.
The boy’s throat worked. “Water.”
She gave him what he wanted, helping him take small sips from the tin cup. Then he closed his eyes.
“Yokoke.” Thank you.
The doorway filled again, a tall militiaman in the nut-brown homespun coat of the Battalion of Free Men of Color. Another limp form hung over his shoulder.
To Dr. Rousseau he said, “Pris un dans l’estomac.”
“Mousquet?” Hannah asked. “Carabine?”
The soldier looked at her for the first time. “Baïonnette.”
In a firm voice, one she had not had to use now for a very long time, Hannah replied, “We will take care of him now. You can go.”
“You understand soldiers,” Dr. Rousseau said to her later. “All they want are clear orders.”
When the buglers called retreat some three or four hours later, Hannah went out into the night to lean against a rough wall and clear her head. She stayed there for a half hour, watching the troops pulling back, gathering what information she could by listening to scraps of conversation.
Jackson’s offensive had taken the British completely by surprise, and he had pressed his advantage. Now, with the fog so heavy, the fighting had been suspended and he withdrew his men to the Rodriquez Canal—Hannah tried to remember if Dr. Rousseau had pointed that landmark out to her—and would dig in there for the next battle.
Some of the troops were going back to the city. They drifted down the Levee Road, their voices warping and weaving together in the fog, loud and soft. Now and then a bit of rough laughter, or a shout as friends caught sight of each other. The men were exhausted but too satisfied to give in to it, in the way of men who had won a battle they had been expected to lose. Telling each other jokes at the expense of the British, who had been caught looking the other way and pounded to dust by the Carolina.
If not for the fog, Hannah heard more than once. If not for the fog we would have sent the Rosbeefs back to the Gulf once and for all.
Dr. Rousseau had gone back to the city with one of the wounded, and in the cabin Père Tomaso sat beside a still form, the young man who had taken a bayonet to his belly and bled to death before they could do anything for him. Giles Hermange, the son of a barber, twenty-one years old. Père Tomaso knew the family well, and he would take the boy home to them.
Of the six men they had treated, three had been able to walk away once their wounds were cleaned and bound. To Hannah’s relief and surprise, they had not done a single amputation, and the only serious wound left was the young Choctaw. She wondered about the other troops, if they had come away so easily.
There had been no word of Luke or Ben.
Hannah went to the water barrel in the corner and drank from her cupped hands, splashed her face and rubbed her eyes. She offered the dipper to Père Tomaso and watched him drink, thinking that she could go back to the city now, and sleep in her own bed. In Ben Savard’s bed. She wondered how much Ben had told the priest, and found the idea irritated her more than it should have.
She turned at a sound. Juzan and the Choctaws crowded into the cabin, all of them at once, to stand around the table. The war chief looked at Hannah.
“He will live?”
Hannah believed he would, and said so. If the Choctaw could carry their brother to the little clinic, she would look after him there tonight. Tomorrow he would likely be well enough to rejoin them.
Two of the warriors picked him up at a flick of the war chief’s finger. They filed out, one by one, leaving Captain Juzan behind for a moment. He studied Hannah for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what to say.
“You’re taking him back to your camp,” volunteered the priest.
Juzan gave a weary grin, and nodded.
Hannah said, “I thought you might. Bring him to me if he gets worse.” And: “What of Ben and Luke?”
Juzan looked over his shoulder. “They’ll be along,” he said. “Soon. Père Tomaso, Dr. Bonner. Thank you.” He touched his cap and disappeared into the fog.
The jangling of a harness announced the arrival of a mule cart. The priest went out to greet the driver, and together they moved Giles Hermange to the wagon bed.
Père Tomaso gave Hannah a kind smile. “I fear we’ll see each other again.” Because of course this had only been the beginning. There would be another battle, and another, until one side or the other surrendered. He had been an excellent assistant, quick to understand, nimble in his reactions, and able to stay out of the way.
She said, “You were a great help. Thank you.”
“I go where I’m needed,” he said. “Of course that’s not always where I’m wanted.”