But before she had time to adjust to what was about to happen, she found herself bent over uncomfortably, her head and hands locked into the wooden stocks. Not a soul stirred in the streets or the Place d’Armes to witness her humiliation as Diego yanked away the blanket, exposing her totally.
“There you are, my fine lady!” Diego spat at her. “You’ll have time to think through your multiple sins before the rowdies come to jeer and gawk at you!”
And then he was gone. She was all alone in the moonless night, water swirling about her ankles, splinters on the rough bench tearing at her bare buttocks with the slightest move she made. She could neither free herself nor cry out for help—only endure the pain and pray silently for an end to this horror.
The burning cramps began as dawn was streaking the sky. Choking sounds from Nicolette’s dry throat could travel no further than her mouth. Her body raged with a feverlike heat, then abruptly turned cold, as if icy water had been thrown over her. The pains came and went. After a time, she was so weak she could no longer hold her head up. She drooped forward until her hair completely covered the incriminating sign Diego had lettered.
Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter any more. She knew with an awful certainty what the pains meant. The first telltale wetness only trickled out of her. Then she felt a wrenching gush soak the bench. She bit down hard on the gag in her mouth and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
I’ve lost Jean’s baby! she thought, and immediately lost consciousness.
Chapter Twenty-One
Père Antoine, like many a priest, was an early riser. He valued the quiet hours of the day, feeling he could commune with God best as he watched the sun pour out its virgin gold over the river.
The old priest stood on the steps of the cathedral for several moments, enjoying the daily miracle of the birth of a new day, before he noticed a form huddled in the stocks.
Odd, he thought, they never leave those poor devils locked in overnight, and I don’t remember anyone there yesterday.
He moved down the steps slowly, holding up his plain brown robes to keep them dry. When he came close enough to make out Nicolette’s naked form and the blood all about, he let his robes drop and cried, “Holy Mother of God! The poor child! Who could have done such a thing?”
He hastened back to his quarters to get a robe to cover her. Then he went to the Cabildo and demanded a key to unlock the stocks.
“Take it easy, Padre!” the sleepy guard said, scratching for a flea in his scruffy beard. “I don’t know what the fuss is all about. Ain’t been a soul in the stocks all week, but I’ll give you the key if you’ll let me get back to my nap.”
In no time, Père Antoine had Nicolette in his stark cubicle. When she was lying comfortably and almost conscious, he blessed the aborted child, though it was not yet formed well enough to be recognizable as such, and hid it away for burial later.
Nicolette’s first waking vision was the old priest’s kind face, staring down at her with concern in his eyes.
“My baby?” she whispered.
“With God, my child,” he answered, making the sign of the cross. “You must try to sleep now. I will contact your father to come for you.”
“No!” Nicolette cried out, trying to rise. “He isn’t in the city. He’s upriver at the plantation.”
“Then whom should I send for? Your husband?”
“I have no husband,” she muttered too low for him to hear, then said aloud, “Please, Father, send for Jean Laffite.”
Père Antoine frowned and glanced at the shameful sign resting against the wall. His mind whirred with possibilities. He could send her to the Ursuline Sisters at the convent to be cared for, but they had their hands full with fever victims. The hospital, too, was overflowing. He could have her taken by coach to Belle Pointe, but after what she had been through, she needed rest, shelter, and caring for.
“Please, Père Antoine. He has a house in Bourbon Street, and he doesn’t know where I am. When I left yesterday to come to the cathedral, I said I’d be back within the hour. He’ll be so worried!”
The priest’s snow-white eyebrows drew down, forming a shaggy bridge. “And rightly so! What manner of man allows a woman to wander about a fever-ridden, half-flooded city in the first place? I’m not at all sure he is the one who should look after you.”
Nicolette wanted to defend Laffite to the good priest, but she was too weak to fight. However, the dilemma solved itself when Jean Laffite pounded on the priest’s door a moment later.
“Père Antoine, are you in there?” Laffite’s voice boomed through the heavy wood. “I have to talk to you. It’s a matter of life and death!”
When the priest opened the door, Laffite quickly explained his plight: Nicolette’s disappearance and his unsuccessful search for her. He couldn’t see her lying there on the cot behind the open door.
“Monsieur Laffite, if you will only stop long enough for me to speak,” Père Antoine interrupted, and Laffite fell silent. “The woman you seek is here.” He motioned toward the shadowy corner.
Rushing in, Laffite knelt beside the bed and took Nicolette’s cold hands in his. “Darling, what happened?”
She tried to answer, but couldn’t speak, her throat was so clogged with tears. She wished so that she had told him about the baby when it could have been a time of shared happiness. Now her news would only be a painful occasion for mourning.
“Nikki, speak to me!” he begged, closing his arms around her and laying his cheek against hers.
“Don’t press her now, son. She’s had a terrible night. Take her home. Put her to bed. Then come back here and we’ll talk.”
Laffite turned to stare at the old cleric. Something in the tone of his voice, his guarded manner, set Laffite on edge. There was more to Nikki’s disappearance than he understood.
“Did Diego Bermudez have a hand in all this?” he asked in a quietly deadly voice.
The very mention of the man’s name set Nicolette to whimpering. She tried to control her body, to stop the violent shivering and the terror that consumed her, but it was no use. She realized suddenly and to her horror that she would never feel safe again until the man who called himself her husband was dead. This thought terrified her even more. Never in her life had she wished another human being in his grave. It was against everything she had ever lived by.
God help me, she thought, I would kill him myself if I could!
The priest hesitated. He had no answer for Jean Laffite. He didn’t know who did this terrible thing.
“Never mind,” Laffite growled. “Just looking at Nikki, I have my answer. Father, will you see that she’s taken to my house? There is a woman there who can look after her until I finish some business.”
“No, Jean!” Nicolette cried, holding out a hand to him. “Please, don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone. I feel so empty. I can’t stand it if you go!”
Laffite looked at her closely. She was shaking all over and her face wore a haunted look. “What’s he done to you, my darling? I’ve never seen you this way before.”
“She’s very weak. She lost a great deal of blood,” the priest said. “This is never easy for any woman, and under these particular circumstances.
Laffite grasped his meaning at once. “He made you lose our baby!”
Nicolette felt her whole world crumbling. Her painful sobs echoed through the room.
“Don’t cry, darling. We’ll have others.” He picked her up gently and kissed her forehead, then her lips. “We’re going home now.”
Laffite had noted when he lifted her that she wore one of Père Antoine’s robes over nothing at all. He worked at controlling the new fury that filled him. Whatever that maniac had done to Nikki, he would receive full payment in return!
All the awful tortures of the Inquisition passed through his mind, offering themselves as instruments for his revenge. But he knew, once he found Diego Bermudez, he wouldn’t have the patience to administer the slow and painful death the man deserv
ed. No, it would be quick and clean, but very final.
Diego Bermudez lay on the filthy reed pallet on the boat. He had come back to rest and try to recover some of his strength after locking Nicolette in for the night. But sleep eluded him. The fever raged. His whole body ached as if he had been badly beaten. His throat burned with thirst, but he had nothing to drink onboard and he was too weak to rise from where he lay.
“Help me, someone,” he called out repeatedly in a cracked voice.
He could hear talking from the boats tied up on either side. But in The Swamp, one human being neither asked for nor was given aid by another.
As the day wore on, the summer sun blazed down on the canvas covering above him, turning the makeshift cabin into an inferno. Diego felt as if his life were streaming out through every pore in his body. The sound of the river lapping against the sides of the flatboat only encouraged his raging thirst, taunting him into delirium.
He began to see horrible things: spiders crawling about the pallet and over his body, dead men’s eyes floating through the air, he even imagined the face of death peering in at him through the opening beyond the canvas flap. The eyeless sockets never left his face and the gaping mouth seemed to smile expectantly at him.
“No! No!” Diego rasped. “Get away from me! I’m not ready. You leave me alone!”
“Well, lookie here!” a woman’s voice said. The death’s head became her painted face. “If it ain’t himself, all stretched out and sweatin’ like the pig he is!”
Female laughter punctuated her words. The woman hadn’t come alone, but Diego couldn’t see the others, who remained on the boat’s deck.
He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision. “Banshee, is that you?” he asked, recognizing the Irish accent of one of the prostitutes he had recently evicted from his floating brothel.
“Sure, it is, mate! Come back for me belongins, since you never gave me a minute’s warnin’ to collect ’em before you kicked my arse off this stinkin’ tub. Niver figured I’d come back in the nick of time to give me death-scream to herald your passin’! A fine honor, indeed!”
“Don’t say that! I’m not going to die! If you could only give me a drink of water,” he begged.
A shrill, wailing laugh split the close afternoon air. The sound, which gave Banshee her name, was a familiar signal along the levee. It announced to all within blocks, danger approaching, a full bottle to be passed around, customers to be taken care of, or a trick’s climax and her own simultaneous, feigned ecstasy.
“For the love of God, please!” Diego groveled.
“Oh, so now it’s himself doin’ the beggin’, is it? Well, it won’t do you any more good than it did me an’ the girls! You ain’t got the compassion God give a duck! And so I’m not bound to waste any of me own, scarce as it is, on the likes of you! Besides, we all seen what you done to that girl last night. Me, I’ve had me share of hard knocks at a man’s hands, but I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that! You’re dirt, mister! Too filthy for even a hog to waller in!” She came close enough to spit in his face.
“Water,” he moaned, reaching for her in vain.
Pretending not to hear, the once-pretty Banshee went on, “Back in Erin, we hold a wake over the corpse. Course, that’s done after the fact. In your case, I figured as how we’d take our pleasure aforehand—sort of enjoy your passin’. There’s many in these parts ’ll be saying their beads in thanks to be rid of you!” She pulled back the canvas flap. “Come aboard, girls. It won’t be takin’ long now!”
Squeals and giggles filled the stale air. The two women who had been waiting outside pushed their way in, crowding around the prostrate figure and further polluting the atmosphere with the odor of their unwashed bodies.
“Himself’s been beggin’ for water,” a smiling Banshee informed the other two. Then she raised a bottle in front of his face and watched his dry, swollen tongue dart out over cracked lips. “A shame we ain’t got none, eh, girlies? This here Irish rotgut might kill you, sweetie, so we best just drink it our own selves.”
Banshee tipped the bottle up and swallowed several gulps while Josepha and Spanish Aggie looked on and giggled. They passed the bottle around until it was empty and they were tipsy, then tossed it out into the river.
“What next?” the black-eyed Aggie asked. “The señor should have more of a sendoff, si?”
“Like the one he give us!” the tiny, blond Josepha said. “Not even a ‘By your leave, ladies.’ Just threw us out on our derrières, he did! This business ain’t tough enough, we got to put up with sons-of-bitches the likes of him!”
A gleam came into Banshee’s green eyes. “Sure, the man’s well-heeled and more often than not carries a sizeable poker stake on his person. What say we have a look-see, ladies? He sure as hell ain’t got no use for his ill-got gold in the hereafter, and he’s headin’ thataway fast!”
Six sharp-nailed hands flew to Diego’s aching body, tearing at his clothes, rummaging his pockets, ignoring his anguished protests. They took it all: his gold watch, a pouch containing several hundred dollars, two rings from his fingers, and finally they stripped off his boots. Then they searched the boat for anything of value he might have hidden on the premises. Finding another fat purse stashed under a loose board beneath the woodbox, the ladies decided to depart and hide their loot.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Banshee called. “We’ll send another bunch to wait out your dyin’! I couldn’t stand to be here when it really gets bad anyways. They say it’s somethin’ fearsome to watch. The body suffers the agony of hellfire before the end.”
Her Banshee scream-laughter followed her words and lingered in the stifling cabin long after she and the other two departed. But true to her word, Banshee sent others to strip Diego of what little the first scavengers had left, until he lay naked and gasping on the pallet.
Systematically, prostitutes, pimps, and other riff-raff of the docks dismantled the old boat in search of gold, which Banshee had assured them they would discover. Finding none, the treasure hunters took out their anger on the dying man.
Near midnight, Diego Bermudez breathed his last, never having received his requested drink of water.
Jean Laffite remained at Nicolette’s side for an entire day. By the next afternoon, his rage returned in full force and he was ready to ferret out Bermudez. Nikki, he knew now, would recover, and Marie Louise had assured him she could still have a child. But the abuse and indignity Nicolette had been forced to endure would not go unpunished.
Laffite was armed and ready to let blood when he located the boat owned by Diego Bermudez. His first reaction to the sight he found onboard the rained craft was disappointment. He had been cheated of the sweet revenge he craved. But that feeling quickly turned to nausea.
The naked corpse lay bloated and discolored on the filthy planks. Rats had done their work on the body during the night, especially on the fingers, toes, and face. Human vermin had also taken their toll. There were cigar bums all over the deceased and one of the pimps had carved his name and the date—two days before—into Diego’s sunken chest, surrounding the letters with a fancifully etched heart.
Laffite didn’t stay in the stinking cabin long enough to determine the full extent of mutilation. When his stomach lurched threateningly, he hurried out into the fresh air, gulping great drafts of it to clear the fetid odor from his lungs and nostrils.
Diego Bermudez had died as he had lived—miserably and without dignity. There was nothing left for Laffite to do. He lit a pine knot he found on the levee and tossed it into the cabin. With one swift motion, he untied the wreck of a boat and set it to drift with the current. He stood on the levee and watched until the craft burned to the water-line and then, caught in a swirling eddy in mid-river, sank beneath the surface.
“Burial at sea, eh, cap’n?” a woman said behind Laffite. He turned, but she hurried away with a Bansheelike laugh before he could answer.
Jean Laffite went home to Nicolette, who remained in
bed under Marie Louise’s care. He had been afraid at the time that neither he nor Nikki would ever be the same again—that the shadow of Diego Bermudez’s insane cruelty would forevermore darken their lives together.
But when Laffite told Nicolette quietly and without details, “He’s dead,” the lines of strain smoothed from her face in an instant, and seeing this, he let go all his bitterness and went into her arms.
Their pact went unspoken, but they both understood. The name of Diego Bermudez would never again pass their lips, even as the man himself would never again blight their lives.
Now they could be married, legally. They could look forward to a real future: children, a home, a happily normal life together.
Laffite settled his large frame on the bed next to Nicolette and slipped an arm beneath her neck, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“Ever so much, darling. Marie Louise is a wonderful nurse.”
“Yes, she’s done a lot for both of us. I wish I could return the favor by getting Pierre out of that rathole before time for the baby to come. It would mean so much to her—to both of them.”
She turned to him, full face, shocked with herself for letting her own troubles wipe everyone else’s from her mind. “Grymes and Livingston haven’t made any headway yet?”
“I’m afraid not. For every step we think they’ve taken forward, Claiborne finds some way to push them back two.” He brushed a wisp of hair back from her forehead and smiled. “But I don’t want you worrying about this or anything else, darling. You have only one job to do: get yourself completely well again so we can go home to Grande Terre as soon as possible.”
“Home!” she breathed, settling in his arms and closing her eyes. “It will be good to get back. I don’t like New Orleans when the fever’s here. All that thick smoke makes it like night in the middle of the brightest day. And the cannons booming all night! It’s terrifying to be awakened by firing.”
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