Duty to the Crown

by Aimie K. Runyan

  “I’ll go with you,” Gabrielle announced at once. “I won’t pose any threat, either, and they’ve seen me there with Manon.”

  Manon nodded her agreement. All the better, I was coming with you anyway.

  “I’ll come along as well,” Emmanuelle volunteered, placing her book on the table. “An extra pair of hands may be useful.”

  “You’ve had a sore throat, darling,” Nicole said. “You shouldn’t be out at night. Why don’t you stay here in case they come back?”

  “Your sister is right. You can coordinate efforts here and send out servants if they’re found. Claudine, you will go with Gabrielle and Manon. Nicole and I, along with a few of the men, will fan out and search some of their other favorite spots nearby in case they were less foolish than we fear.”

  “You want me to ride along to that place just to get pitched out again? We’ll be lucky not to get scalped.” Claudine tossed her embroidery aside on the settee.

  Manon’s glare made it evident to everyone in the room that she was in danger of the very same fate right there in her sister’s parlor if she continued on her current tirade.

  “You’re not riding anywhere,” Manon declared, throwing Claudine her cloak. “We’re walking.”

  “Of all the . . .” Claudine began.

  “If we walk we won’t be heard. If we’re not heard, they won’t be alarmed by the sound of French horses and wagons and they won’t be expecting hostility. Putting them on their guard, I promise you, is the last thing we want.”

  “Amen to that,” Gabrielle interjected. “And the sooner we go, the more light we’ll have. Can we please move along?”

  Armed only with an unlit lantern and a tinderbox, the girls departed into the twilight.

  “When we find those boys I’m going to wring their necks,” Claudine declared as they left the wide streets of town for the path that led toward the Huron village.

  “Let’s just hope the job hasn’t been done for you,” Gabrielle spat. Your own nephew is out and alone in the woods, you cow. Gabrielle refrained from screaming the oath at Claudine, saving her energy for whatever lay in store. Gabrielle didn’t fear their fate with the natives all that much—they were just boys and accompanied by one of the tribe—but there were any manner of beasts that might decide to make a meal of them. Not to mention protective farmers too fond of shooting off their muskets before bothering to see who or what had trespassed on their land.

  “I just don’t see why the three of us are out here instead of some of the men.”

  “For once think beyond the end of your own nose.” Gabrielle liked the girl, really. And she hadn’t so many friends that she could afford to offend any of them, but Claudine Deschamps had a special way of dancing on her nerves. Would that Emmanuelle had been up to accompanying them that night instead of her sister.

  “Don’t act like I’m not worried for Frédéric and the others. I’d just prefer not to be out in the mud with dark hard on our heels.” Claudine quickened her pace to bridge the gap between herself and Manon, who was several yards ahead.

  “Better an inch or two of mud than two feet of snow,” Manon retorted. “Now let’s have some peace so we can hear if the boys are trying to call for us.”

  Gabrielle nodded her approval. The fewer words Claudine spoke, the better their chances she and Manon would be able to stay their temper and not shove their companion into the rushing swell of the St. Lawrence. She scanned the area for the sight of her Pierre’s mop of brown curls, just as she was sure Manon looked for Théodore’s jet-black hair and Claudine watched for Frédéric’s dark hair and proud chin that so resembled his father’s.

  For the better part of a half hour, they walked along the muddy path in silence, Manon clutching the lantern at her side. The dark was looming, but not heavy enough to entice Manon to attract attention by pulling out the tinderbox and lighting the candle.

  The faintest rustling from the underbrush caused Manon to start and raise her hand for Gabrielle and Claudine to remain motionless. Gabrielle was reminded greatly of one of her few hunting excursions with her brother when they spotted a deer in the midst of a meadow. As soon as she’d stepped on a twig, its ears pricked up and every sinew became taut, ready for flight. So stood Manon as her eyes scanned the surroundings for the source of the barely perceptible noise from the thicket.

  “Is anyone there?” Claudine said after a few moments of heavy silence, her voice booming. Whatever her faults, cowardice isn’t one. If Manon were annoyed with Claudine’s outburst, she hid her feelings admirably. They were close enough to the settlement that whoever might be in the thicket was likely French. Manon might be their key to safe passage onto the native lands, but Claudine and Gabrielle would ensure their safety on French soil. They were from known families and meddling with any of them wouldn’t be worth the consequences. Wolves, however, were not so capable of reason.

  “Skenandoa!” a small voice screamed. Théodore emerged from under a pile of dried pine needles and flung his arms around his sister’s waist.

  The pair exchanged a few words in their native tongue, and Manon sprang into the thicket with Théodore close behind her. She dove into the pine needles and extracted Frédéric from beneath a massive pile. He was limp and looked as white as death. Théodore emerged with a branch laden with shining white berries, presenting them to his sister, his expression grave.

  “Pierre?” Gabrielle croaked. Théodore pointed to a second pile of pine needles and grabbed her hand. She parted the needles as though swimming through the lake of scratchy dead flora until she felt Pierre’s form beneath the mound.

  Still warm. Still breathing.

  His eyes fluttered and he moaned in misery, but he was very much alive. Tears of relief burned her throat, but she did not give in to them. He clearly wasn’t well and she needed her wits about her for a long while yet. She lifted Pierre from the pile and placed him on the path next to Frédéric so she could examine him.

  “What is wrong with them?” Claudine demanded as she knelt at Frédéric’s side.

  “They ate snowberries,” Manon said, examining the branch Théodore had procured. “Quite a few from what Tawendeh—Théodore says.”

  Manon put her ear to Frédéric’s chest. “His heartbeat is still strong, but we need to get them home.” The boy moaned in protest, but hadn’t the strength to argue in earnest.

  “Are they very poisonous?” Gabrielle nearly choked on the words and pulled Pierre’s limp form to her chest. He was everything to Elisabeth and Gilbert. He was not one of a dozen children, but the much-cherished oldest boy. Odds were good that the Beaumonts would never have another child, and Gabrielle could not imagine they would ever recover from the loss.

  Manon shook her head. “You and I could eat a few and never feel any ill effects, but children don’t fare as well. All the same, if they ate as much as Tawendeh says, they will be sick enough to get on with. They haven’t anything like the strength to walk back to town. I’ll carry Frédéric. Can you manage Pierre?” Manon asked. Gabrielle nodded, lifting the boy into her arms, not overly burdened by his slight form.

  “I’ll carry my own nephew,” Claudine demanded, taking Frédéric into her arms from Manon’s embrace.

  Manon said nothing, but grabbed Théodore by the hand and led the way down the darkening path, the lantern now lit against the falling night.

  “How is it our boys came to be ill and not your Théodore?” Claudine managed to grunt a few minutes into the walk.

  “He stopped to . . . relieve himself . . . and came back to the boys feasting on a fresh crop of the berries. He tried to stop them, but they’d eaten enough to do damage already. Pierre stopped right away when Théodore told him to, but Frédéric apparently didn’t believe him.”

  Sounds like his aunt. Gabrielle chased the uncharitable thought from her mind. Poor Frédéric was paying dearly enough for his arrogance now.

  The trudge back to the Lefebvre house seemed to take hours longer than the trek int
o the woods, when in reality, their extra burden and the falling light only added a quarter of an hour onto the journey back into town.

  Emmanuelle greeted them, her face draining when she saw the condition her nephew and Pierre were in. She barked orders to the staff with as much efficiency as either Nicole or the master himself.

  Manon took charge in the nursery, freeing the boys from their soiled clothes and requesting water, rags, and other supplies from the nanny.

  “They’ve been vomiting . . . and worse . . . for the better part of two hours. We must get them to take water, and soon.”

  Claudine did her part, making sure the staff fetched what was needed and sending orders to find the rest of the search party. Gabrielle, unsure of how to help, offered her services to Manon directly.

  “Fetch me my box of herbs from my room,” she said, not looking up from Frédéric’s pale face. Pierre was now growing more lucid, his breathing strong. He was clearly dizzy and unwell, but he was nowhere near as ill as his friend.

  Barely familiar with the layout of the upper story of the Lefebvre house, Gabrielle took it upon herself to open doors until she found the room that belonged to Manon. The austere simplicity of the nanny’s quarters . . . The juxtaposition of tidiness and joyful clutter in Emmanuelle and Claudine’s room . . . Finally, a sleeping chamber with soft pink papered walls and a massive desk of shining dark mahogany that dominated the room. A small bed was wedged against the wall to make room for the enormous wooden behemoth.

  Given the quantity of books and loose papers on the desk, it had to be Manon’s room. The only other family member with such a space was Alexandre, who kept a study below stairs. A scarred box sat to the side of the papers. Hazarding a guess, Gabrielle opened the lid and found numerous leather pouches bulging with pungent herbs.

  Gabrielle ran back to the nursery and thrust the box into Manon’s hands. Manon handled each pouch delicately until she found her prize and placed it back into Gabrielle’s hands.

  “It’s wild bergamot. Brew it into a tincture with water. We need to settle their stomachs so they can take water and induce sweating. It will flush the poison.”

  With shaking hands, Gabrielle boiled water over the nursery fire, adding the dried bergamot leaves to steep in the ceramic kettle. Manon had not specified how many of the dried leaves to add, nor how long to let them steep, so she emptied a liberal amount into the strainer and let the brew steep until the water took on a yellowish-green color.

  The concoction smelled strong, but Gabrielle cared not. If it restored the boys to health, it could taste as vile as death itself. Gabrielle passed off the bitter-smelling brew to Manon, who sniffed the cup and nodded approvingly. She put the cup to Frédéric’s lips, and he sipped tentatively at the tincture. He used what little strength he had to wrinkle his nose at the foul liquid.

  “If you keep this down and drink some water, we can sweeten the next cup with honey,” Manon promised. He could only manage a few sips of the tincture before having to lie his head back down into the pillow. Gabrielle had never seen the robust boy look so weak. Mercifully, he was able to keep the bergamot from resurfacing. The unspoken fear in the room was that if they could not stem the vomiting, the boys would suffer permanent damage from dehydration.

  Pierre was able to hold his head up long enough to consume half his portion of the brew, but his eyes were still glassy and his skin only a shade or two darker than the shimmering white berries that caused his illness. You must get well, little brother. One so young as you cannot comprehend how much he is loved.

  It wasn’t long before Emmanuelle ushered in Frédéric’s anxious parents to the nursery, having briefed them on the events of the evening. Pierre’s parents, Elisabeth and Gilbert, had gone farther to the southeast to search near Pierre’s favorite stretch of riverbank, but one of the servants had been directed to find them and let them know their son had been recovered.

  “Fetch the doctor here at once,” Alexandre called out to the hallway.

  “It’s already been done,” Claudine said. “He’s away for the night, seeing to a patient halfway to Trois-Rivières, from what I heard. We’ll have to trust Manon.” Claudine’s expression was grim as she admitted that Manon was their best hope for restoring their boys to health. The seigneur acquiesced to the truth soon enough, though the throbbing vein in his jaw looked as if the good doctor was not on the list of people he held in high esteem at the moment.

  Nicole flurried about trying to find an occupation for herself while Manon and Gabrielle tended to their patients. The tisane finally consumed, and the boys resting in relative comfort, they were able to offer them sips of water at regular intervals to replenish their exhausted bodies.

  With each mouthful of cool water Pierre managed to keep down, Gabrielle muttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving. When at last he was sleeping peacefully, a healthy glow resurfacing to his skin, Gabrielle finally allowed the pent-up tears to spill down her cheeks. He would be well.

  She felt Manon slip her arm around her and hold her in a firm embrace for a few moments. Claudine had taken over administering water to Frédéric, who was having less success at keeping the water from coming back up.

  Gabrielle was surprised to see how Claudine dealt with the boy with such tenderness. He emptied the contents of his stomach repeatedly on her favorite skirt, but she spoke not a word in remonstration.

  “Is he doing any better?” The question sounded pathetic as it exited Gabrielle’s weary lips.

  “Slowly improving, I think,” Claudine answered, her eyes never leaving Frédéric’s face. “His color is a little better, and he’s keeping more water down for longer. More of Manon’s tincture might help.”

  While Manon set to brewing more, Gabrielle doused some clean cloths in cool water for Frédéric’s forehead.

  “Thank you,” Claudine said as Manon handed her the cup. Claudine did not make eye contact with Manon, but grasped her hand in appreciation for just a moment.

  “Time for bed,” Nicole announced, seeing the residue of Gabrielle’s tears as she entered the room. She had adopted the tone of the Dame Lefebvre, which dared not be questioned.

  Emmanuelle and Nicole, joined by the recently arrived Elisabeth, relieved the girls of their duties so they could find some much-needed sleep. Elisabeth had some choice words about the doctor’s absence, but thanked Manon profusely for her ministrations to the sick boys. The three weary girls stayed in Claudine’s room, Manon taking Emmanuelle’s vacant bed, and Gabrielle taking the spare mattress hidden under the bed for guests. With Elisabeth tending Pierre a few doors down and Gilbert notified of the situation, no one would pause to worry that she had not slept at home that night.

  “I could still strangle those boys,” Claudine admitted as they were settled in their beds. Gabrielle expected they were both struggling, as she was, to keep their minds from reeling. “How they could be so irresponsible I’ll never understand. They ought to know better than to eat anything they aren’t sure is safe. My own papa hauled us out to the woods in France to teach us which berries we could eat.”

  “Do you think the good seigneur takes the time to do those sorts of things with Frédéric?” Gabrielle found herself asking. It pained her to speak ill of a decent man who loved his children, but she could not harness her words.

  “It’s of no matter. I’ll take the boys out myself as soon as they’re well enough,” Manon vowed. “Alexandre, wise as he is, doesn’t strike me as much of a botanist.”

  Claudine laughed, her white teeth visible from across the darkened room lit by a solitary candle Manon had yet to extinguish. The idea of the proud landowner mucking about the weeds in his best boots was almost as ridiculous as the three of them dragging two sick boys from the thicket in the dark of night. It was one of those bizarre evenings where absurdity took a foothold on the day and made itself at home.

  “I think you’re probably right,” Gabrielle agreed. “It’s better we stick to our strengths anyway.”

&n
bsp; “You were good to share your expertise with us tonight, Manon,” Claudine said, sincerity ringing from her voice.

  “Knowledge is worth nothing if not shared,” Manon reasoned.

  Gabrielle said nothing, but wondered if she would ever have such a gift to share, or if she would be destined to remain forever a helping hand to those more able than she.

  CHAPTER 4

  Manon

  June 1677

  Manon had every medical text Alexandre Lefebvre owned, more numerous than she expected, piled on the massive mahogany desk Alexandre had gifted her years before when he acquired a grander showpiece for his study. She thought both desks were far more elaborate than necessary, but the gift was a testament to his admiration of her studious nature, so she accepted the offering with grace. He may not have been a demonstrative father figure, but he always seemed to take an interest in her studies, having been a scholar himself. It was at least a common chord.

  She had pored over the texts so long she felt as if a hot needle were pricking the back of her eyes and the book dust, usually one of her favorite odors, burned at her nose. As the boys had recovered from their misadventures, she had resumed her research into the treatment of infectious fevers. She found nothing. No remedies that promised results better than the ones she’d used on Mother Onatah and the others. Nothing more useful than the suggestion of secluding the ill. The finest surgeons in Paris could have done no more than she did.

  How could that be true?

  How could the most educated men in the entire world be so helpless against such a simple illness? That her own people, so reticent to give up their traditional ways, could fare no better against the scourge of fever did not surprise her. But the French were supposed to be better. They were supposed to be gods among men.

  Some days she was still the neglected seven-year-old girl in the woods spying on the chestnut-haired angel who lived in the little cabin on the outskirts of the French town. She made up stories in her mind about what the angel’s life was like. The food she ate, the friends she had, what she did to pass the time.