Of Noble Family

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “Vincent—”

  “Jane, I am not going to lie here.” He held out his hand to Zachary. “Steady me, please.”

  Zachary hesitated, looking to Jane for guidance. In the time it took for her to nod, Vincent growled and rolled onto his hands and knees. He braced himself there, head hanging, and let out a steady stream of profanity.

  Jane slid forward on her knees and put a hand under his arm. “Lean on me.”

  With a hand on her shoulder, Vincent got one foot under himself and pushed upright. Even so, he swayed, and would have fallen again if Zachary had not rushed forward to catch his waist. Not yet fully upright, Vincent stood, balanced between the two of them. “Wait. Give me a moment.”

  “Would it not be better to wait until the dizziness has passed?”

  “It can pass in the carriage.” He nodded to Zachary, face set. “All right.” With painful care, he let go of Jane’s shoulder and straightened slowly. Another string of curses in at least three languages emerged as he stood, Zachary bracing him.

  Keeping his arm around Vincent’s waist, Zachary moved to his side. “Put your arm over my shoulder, sir.”

  With a grunt, Vincent did so. The activity in the ballroom had come to a complete stop as all of the glamourists watched Vincent’s halting progress across the floor. Without a doubt, all of them recognised the pitching, spinning sensation that came of working too much glamour.

  No. No, that was not what the looks of concern were. How stupidly self-centred of her. Some of them had friends or family who worked at the distillery.

  Jane gathered her gown and began the process of raising her gravid form off the floor. When Louisa appeared to help her to her feet, Jane was deeply grateful. Standing, she faced the women and young men in the room. “If any of you have nursing skills, I would be most obliged if you could go to the great house at our estate. We will be sending the wounded there. Likewise, if you have family there…”

  Nkiruka stepped forward from where she had been working. “You go with him. We’ll take care of the house.”

  “Thank you. I will send a message to Frank to let him know you are coming.” Jane hurried across the floor to catch up with Vincent.

  He had become steadier but was still clearly using Zachary for support. As Jane caught up with them, Louisa turned and darted across the room. Jane spared her a glance, but Vincent occupied most of her attention.

  His eyes were squinted nearly shut with concentration. “Jane, I do not want you to come.”

  “I will make a note of that, but you are mistaken if you think I will remain behind.”

  “I do not think you understand how bad this will be.”

  “That is not a reason for me to stay when I might be of some use.”

  “Jane—”

  “Besides, unless I miss my guess, you will be occupied with Mr. Pridmore. I can direct the care of the wounded.” Jane tightened her mouth. “When you can stand unassisted, then you may argue with me.”

  “I will not.” They arrived at the carriage. Vincent transferred his grip from Zachary to the carriage door. “Thank you.”

  “Good.” Jane turned from Vincent as Louisa ran up to join them, a bundle of cloth in her hands. “Please go to the great house. Mrs. Whitten will give you the use of her carriage if you explain the situation. Ask your father to arrange for the spare rooms to be used for the wounded—”

  Zachary interrupted her. “He is at the distillery, trying to see to the wounded there.”

  “I will see to it, madam.” Louisa held out a bundle for Jane, which she took mechanically before recognising it as Vincent’s coat and her bonnet. The young woman turned to Nkiruka. “May I ask for your assistance? You have more experience nursing than I do.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Thank you. My father has some bandages prepared, but we shall need more.”

  Jane said, “Sacrifice the sheets if there is no other clean linen.”

  “Yes, madam. I will arrange the carriage.” The young maid did not wait to be thanked or dismissed, just hurried back into the Whittens’ great house.

  Jane spied Zachary’s lathered horse tied outside the ballroom. She turned to the young man, pulling on her bonnet as she did. “Zachary. Please go fetch Dr. Jones at once and ask her to meet us at the great house.” Over a dozen wounded, he had said. That would be an enormous undertaking for just one doctor, even with the help of the women here. She swallowed. “Please also fetch Sir Ronald.”

  Vincent turned with alarm and had to fling out an arm to steady himself against the carriage. “You cannot be serious.”

  “With the number of wounded? Yes.” Serious, if still uneasy at the prospect of being anywhere near the man. “He is a competent doctor, and Dr. Jones will need the help.”

  “I cannot call a man who nearly killed you competent.”

  “Nearly, but not quite. Given everything, you cannot still believe your father’s claim that what Sir Ronald did was not calculated?” Jane wiped her hands on her gown, trying to brush some of her fury away. “I am sorry. My anger is not directed at you.”

  “I know. God … I know that feeling well enough.” Vincent nodded to Zachary. “Do as she says. And during this, if we disagree, trust her over me. My judgement may be clouded.”

  * * *

  Jove guided the carriage down the winding road at the quickest pace that was safe. During the first part of the ride, Vincent sat with his eyes closed and his hands clenched into fists upon his thighs. Watching him, Jane wet her lips. “Nausea?”

  “Yes.” After a few moments, he added, “It is the motion, not the … the other.”

  She had wondered if his nervous condition would be a concern, since she felt sick with anger at Mr. Pridmore and she would not be the one confronting the man. “Try watching the horizon. It helped during my seasickness.”

  “There are only horses in front of us.”

  “Ahead and to the right.” She glanced over her shoulder at the view across the cane fields. “You can see the horizon.”

  Vincent cracked his eyes, looking where she indicated. The fields stretched across the plateau at the base of the hill in green waves. The wind stirred eddies of grey and brown through the leaves. The set of Vincent’s face relaxed a little, and he nodded, not taking his eyes from the horizon. “Thank you.”

  When the carriage swung around a bend, he transferred his gaze to the horizon on the left side of the carriage and cursed. Sitting forward in the seat, Vincent’s face tightened again as he leaned towards the window. Jane sucked in a gasp of dismay. Ahead of them, a double plume of smoke billowed into the air.

  With the twists in the road, it would take them another twenty minutes, at best, to reach the boiler. As the carriage jostled and bounced closer, Jane could only stare in horror. There must be significantly more than a dozen wounded, with the size of those clouds.

  They rounded the next bend, and the smoke was hidden behind them. Vincent sank back against the seat, his face grave. “When we arrive, I am going to help you out of the carriage. If I am still unsteady, I shall offer you my arm. I hope I will not need to, but…” His face twisted in a grimace. “It will be hard enough to play the nobleman in my shirtsleeves, without worrying about pitching onto my face.”

  “Oh, I have your coat.” In their haste, Jane had forgotten the bundle. She lifted it from the seat where she had tossed it. Louisa had snatched his waistcoat and cravat as well, thank heavens.

  “You are a wonder, Muse.”

  “It was Louisa. I should not have thought of it myself.” Jane leaned to the window and looked up the side of the hill towards the Whitten estate. Close to the top, a cloud of dust indicated that another carriage was on its way down. She sent a silent thank you to Mrs. Whitten and to Louisa. She held up his waistcoat and helped him slip his arms into it. “If you are steady on your feet, I will help Frank with the wounded. Otherwise I shall stay by you.”

  They discussed their plans as Jane helped him dress in the car
riage. Though slightly wrinkled, by the time they arrived, he once again looked the part of Lord Verbury’s son. If that look were confined to his clothing, Jane would not have minded, but the cold and bitter expression regained its hold on his face.

  Simply rolling into the yard of the distillery was enough to make Jane’s stomach churn. The baby kicked wildly in answer to her agitation. Through the windows of the carriage, the sweet scent of rum mixed with smoke and cooked flesh. Audible over the sound of the horses’ hooves, ragged screams cut through the air. In the centre of the long stone building, the smaller of the two plumes of smoke rose from a yawning hole in the roof. The larger column of smoke came from a flaming mass that lay twenty feet away.

  “It blew through the roof.” Vincent ground his teeth together. “I told him that the patch would not hold.”

  Jove pulled the carriage to a halt in a cloud of dust. His outrider jumped down and ran to catch the horses’ bridles as the beasts snorted with fear at the smoke billowing across the yard.

  Though it looked as if Vincent wanted to spring from the carriage the moment it stopped, he rose more deliberately and held the door as he stepped out of the carriage. Jane watched his face as he turned to help her out. When she was out, he gave a tight nod. “Help Frank.”

  She squeezed his hand, reluctant to let him go. “Be careful.”

  He gave that cold, bitter smile belonging to a man she did not know. “I think we are beyond that.” And then he was gone, striding through the dust and smoke to where Mr. Pridmore stood. With him, in a cluster of pristine linen and cotton, stood a small collection of white men. Their faces were pink with the heat, but none of the soot or blood had stained their trousers. Their contrast to the rest of the scene appalled Jane.

  Vincent had been right. Jane had not understood how bad it would be. A woman, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, staggered in circles. A severed arm, twisted and blackened, leaked blood into the dust. Bodies lay sprawled on the side of the low hill that Jane had chosen for the site of the future hospital. The screaming sobs continued, coming from that area. The explosion had been more than an hour ago, and these people had been in agony that whole time.

  Her first instincts were both to run towards that sound and to run away from it. The indecision held her, frozen, in the shade of the carriage. The carriage. She must find Frank. They could put some of the wounded in the carriage.

  Between her and the hill, black men in ragged clothing were rolling enormous barrels out of the rum factory. One of them had removed his shirt, and the sweat on his back had varnished a twisted mass of scars. Another had dried blood crusted on one arm. If not for her conversation with Louisa, Jane was not certain that she would have noticed how very dark these men were compared to the house slaves.

  They laboured to roll one of the massive barrels down a long, gradual ramp. At the foot of the ramp, a line of five low, open wagons waited to be loaded. Other men stood by the wagons, soothing the mules or oxen harnessed to them. At the foot of the ramp, a thickset man with freckles upon his deep brown skin directed the loading of barrels.

  In the other direction, Frank knelt, consulting a woman of colour in her middle years. The woman’s ragged calico dress had bloodstains at the waist, but Jane did not think the stains were hers.

  She swallowed and smoothed the folds of her dress. “Jove? Can your outrider manage the horses without you?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Pointing to the woman who staggered in circles, Jane said, “Help her into the carriage and then follow me.” Clenching her jaw, Jane strode towards the hill.

  Doing so required her to pass close to Mr. Pridmore’s group. He had turned to meet Vincent and seemed to be smiling at him. “Of course, but we have to save the stock first.”

  “The rum does not have precedence here.” Vincent’s hands were clenched behind him.

  “Your liberality is to be honoured, but there are practical matters to running an estate. If Captain Caesar is to sail with the tide, we need to get the stock to his ship quickly. Let me do my job without interference.”

  “You forget whose estate this is. My apologies, Captain Caesar, but we have wounded people.” The man he addressed was a black African with a long narrow nose that put Jane a little in mind of Ibrahim from the ship.

  The part of her mind that was desperate to think of anything except the gruesome details of the scene wondered if the captain was Somalian and if his ship was bound for Africa or somewhere else.

  Pridmore cut in before Captain Caesar could answer. “We’ll send them back to their homes as soon as we’re done here. Everybody will get the day off tomorrow, but we have to get the rum out before we lose it.”

  Then Jane was past them, and the screaming drowned out Vincent’s reply. Frank looked up as she approached. His cravat was missing, and blood flecked the cuffs of his shirt. For a moment he did not seem to recognise her, then his face cleared and he looked past her to Vincent. “Thank God.”

  The person he knelt by was identifiable as a woman only by her dress. The skin on the right side of her body was raw and weeping and her ear was completely gone. Jane had to cover her mouth to keep from being sick on the spot. Swallowing heavily, she gestured to the carriage. “I thought you could put the worst of the wounded in the carriage and send them to the great house directly.”

  “Good.” He turned to the woman beside him. “Ellen, help me get Kate into the carriage.”

  Ellen moved to the woman’s feet, which were bare and swollen with blisters. “It goin’ hurt her more.”

  He nodded grimly and slid his hands under Kate’s shoulders, provoking fresh cries of anguish.

  Jane took an involuntary step back; then she braced herself and stepped forward again. “What should I do?”

  “Secure some wagons for us. While Mr. Hamilton has Pridmore occupied, you can cow the wagon driver into obeying.” He looked across to Ellen. “On three.”

  Together they lifted the shrieking woman from the ground. Jane followed, feeling utterly useless, but she had to acknowledge that in her state, she could not carry anyone. The sound dragged the attention of one of the wagon drivers towards them, and he stared at Frank and Ellen as they carried the woman to the carriage. He did not see Jane until she cleared her throat.

  The freckled man stared at her in some surprise and jerked his hat off his head, revealing a frizz of black hair around a bald brown pate. “Ma’am?”

  “We need to transfer the wounded to the great house. Bring your wagon around to the hill.”

  “I—um.” He glanced to the cluster of men. “I have orders from Mr. Pridmore.”

  “And I am the master’s wife, on an errand from him. I am afraid that his orders overturn Mr. Pridmore’s.”

  “I goin’ need to ask him.”

  If he asked, Pridmore would say “no” at best. Jane bit the inside of her cheek in vexation. “You must see the desperate need these people are in. Surely your compassion alone tells you what is right.”

  “Compassion don’t nothing to do with it. Ah have orders.”

  Jane turned her face away so the frame of her bonnet would hide her distress. The view of the thickset man was replaced by the smoke-covered yard, and across it, the carriage. Frank and Ellen had help from Jove now to load the wounded, but the carriage could hold no more than four. Why had Frank thought she could sway this man when he could not?

  Because she was white. Jane swallowed and lifted her chin. Then she would be white. She turned back to the man. “What is your name?”

  “My—um. Silas.”

  “Silas.” She thrust her stomach at him like the prow of a ship-of-the-line, using every weapon at her disposal. “You will release these wagons or I promise that I will let the master know who left me standing in the heat and argued with me.”

  “I—”

  “Now! Or I shall have you whipped.” The scars on the men rolling the giant hogshead of rum and the sudden tension in Silas’s frame made it clear that whippings
happened with some regularity. Just having to make the threat made Jane’s skin crawl. If he still refused, Jane could not have it carried out.

  Silas stared at the swell of her figure and swallowed. “Ben! Lady want the wagons.”

  A tall mulatto with stooped shoulders and a scar along his nose turned and scowled. Ben held a whip, which he tapped against his thigh. “What?”

  “De boss wife say dem wan’ take the wounded to the manor.”

  He spat on the ground. “Pridmore not goin’ like it.”

  “And my husband is his employer. I promise you, you do not want to face his displeasure.”

  “Pridmore say he’s soft.”

  Jane took a step closer to him. “He is Lord Verbury’s son. Do you truly doubt that he will hesitate to punish you if you continue to disobey me?”

  Ben pursed his lips at that, studying her, then shrugged. “Rum or wounded. Make no difference to me.” He turned back to the three ragged black men rolling a barrel towards the ramp. He snapped the whip over their heads and bellowed, “Hold!”

  They slowed the great barrel, bringing it to a halt on the broad flat area at the top of the ramp. One of the men behind the barrel bent down and drove two wooden wedges under the curved wood to keep it from rolling. The most heavily scarred of them leaned against the barrel and crossed his arms over his sweating chest. He glared past them towards the hill, jaw clenched tight.

  Shaking, Jane clasped her hands under her stomach to hide their tremors, then lifted her chin still higher. “I shall also require those men to help load the wounded.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “You lot! Move! You hear she.”

  He cracked the whip towards them again, but they needed no encouragement for this task. As Silas urged his mules forward, the barrel rollers jumped off the ramp, racing towards the hill. Jane turned to Ben as they went. “The other wagons, too. I shall not brook delay.”

  He grunted in reply and with shouted orders quickly got the line of wagons in motion after Silas.

  Only the second had moved away from the rum house before Pridmore noticed. He turned from Vincent and shouted, “What the devil is happening?” Charging across the yard with Vincent close behind, he snatched the nearest mule’s reins and brought it to a halt. “Ben!”