by John Smolens
He looked up and saw that Marie had stepped inside the tent.
“It is their only chance,” Bradshaw said.
“No, Doctor, it’s not.” Giles was surprised by the vehemence in his own voice.
“You’re piling hot rocks on them,” Bradshaw said hoarsely, “and that is no remedy.”
“At least it doesn’t kill them.” Immediately, Giles regretted what he had said.
“I’ll not have a surgeon telling me how to tend to my patients,” Bradshaw yelled. “Bleeding is sound medical practice.” He stood up and left the tent.
Giles looked down at the dead woman as he removed his waxed coat, streaked with blood. Marie came over and stood beside him, and after a moment she placed one hand lightly on his shoulder. “Did you know her?”
“I know most everybody in Newburyport,” he said quietly. “Mrs. Bundt’s husband was one of the Hessian soldiers that stayed on after the war ended. Had a leather-dresser’s shop on Green Street and made a fine pair of boots. He died here last week. They had a daughter who married and moved to Vermont. She will learn of her parents’ death weeks from now.” Giles got to his feet, but he couldn’t yet bring himself to leave. “There will be no ceremony, no one to mourn for these people, they’ll just be added to the pit up on Old Burying Ground Hill,” he said. “And that fool Reverend Cary is out there, preaching that they’re dying because they’re sinners. And there’s this weather, hot and damp, and we have hardly any medicine left. It’s only going to get worse.”
“Then we must to pray for them,” Marie said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” She blessed herself and began murmuring in French.
Giles stared down at Greta Bundt. Already, her body seemed to have deflated. Her mouth was pulled down at the corner, creating deep wrinkles in her chin. Now she looked as though she might have been in her seventies. A cart drew up outside, and two men came into the tent to take her away.
After supper, Leander went up to lie on his cot. His face felt taut, burned by the sun. He removed his shirt and sat on the stool by the water bucket. As he washed himself with the rag, he noticed the skin around Horseshoe’s bite was changing colors, as Cedella had said it would—red and yellow mostly. The punctures left by his teeth were surrounded by swollen skin, purple and black. She had taken his hand and placed it against her cheek—so simple a gesture, yet it was as though she had reached down inside of him and left a mark, a brand, Cedella Evora. He wanted to run his hands over her skin, to feel her fingers on his back. She had lost family to a fever, too, and when she looked into his eyes it was as though she heard him, not what he said, but what he could not say. Cedella Evora.
As he toweled off, something unusual about his cot caught his attention. He went over and looked at the pillow. The shape was not right. He picked it up with one hand, but immediately let go, startled by its heavy weight. Then there was the foul smell as the slimy entrails poured out of the slit in the back of the pillow—fish guts, pink and purple and bloody, saturated the straw mattress.
Miranda went into the kitchen and found Cedella filling a teapot with boiling water. There were rolls and a bowl of chicken broth on a tray.
“Who is this for?”
The girl stared at her nervously.
“You always seem like you’re hiding something,” Miranda said. “You’re worse than the papists. You’re all so … guilty. I asked a simple question.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” The girl had removed the bandage and linen from her forehead; the bruise there had begun to turn yellow at the edges, and the swelling had gone down.
“This tea, it’s for Master Sumner?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“He was not at dinner. He has succumbed to his daily ration of drink already?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Is he ill?”
“I believe so, Ma’am.”
“I see,” Miranda said. “All right. I’ll finish preparing his tea and bring it to him.”
“Ma’am?”
“I am his mother. Might I not tend to my ailing son?”
“Of course, Ma’am.”
Miranda went over to a counter and picked up a sugar bowl. “Is he in his library?”
The girl nodded and put the kettle back on the hook in the fireplace. “Shall I carry the tray for you, Ma’am?”
“Nonsense. You have other duties to attend to, don’t you?”
“Of course, Ma’am.” The girl curtsied and left the kitchen.
Miranda surveyed the kitchen. Every surface had been scrubbed down and wiped clean, and all the iron pots were hung up. There was the pungent smell of soap that had always appealed to her. This was a clean, orderly house because she made it so. She took the small vial from the pocket of her skirt and removed the cork. After one more look around the kitchen, she poured a few drops into the bowl of broth, and a few more into the teapot.
Scrubbed down with vinegar, Giles waited for Marie outside the pest-house gate. She arrived in a fresh change of clothes that were nothing like the silk dresses she’d worn previously; the white blouse had simple embroidery around the neckline, and her striped skirt gave a pleasant swirl as she walked.
“Sameeka’s doing,” he said.
“She is a fine seamstress. In the islands you wear clothes that allow one to breathe.”
They crossed the Mall and went down State Street to Wolfe Tavern. It was about ten o’clock at night, yet there were few patrons. Marie consumed a bowl of fish chowder, but Giles wasn’t hungry; instead he drank a pitcher of dog’s nose.
When he ordered his second pitcher, Mr. Ellsworth, one of the senior constables, came in and stood at the bar. Giles refilled his tankard and looked at the man who, despite the heat, insisted upon wearing a wig. There had long been rumors about Ellsworth, flaunting his authority, yet it was widely held that he would be the next high sheriff, after Thomas Poole.
“What is it?” Marie asked. When he didn’t respond, she said, “I do not understand this expression. One minute you have the look of exhausted—and now you look to be the one with angry.”
“It’s because I was thinking of a Mr. Clapp,” Giles said, loud enough for Ellsworth to hear. At the bar, the constable looked over his shoulder. “A gentleman from Boston,” Giles continued. “A Mr. Uriah Clapp—he came to Newburyport to represent a group of men who wished to remain anonymous. He said it was a matter of ‘privacy and decorum.’”
Ellsworth glared at him for a moment, and turned back to the bar, where he was speaking to Darby Conover, who operated a chandlery down on Middle Street. Giles got up from the table. Marie took hold of his hand, but he pulled it away. He went over to the bar and said, “It’s a crime—the lives of our friends, our neighbors.” When Ellsworth looked at him again, he added, “They will have less of a chance to survive this fever because the apothecaries were pilfered by an anonymous party, represented by this Boston man.”
“You sound like you’re making an accusation, Doctor Wiggins.” Ellsworth was taller, far more substantial, and though he might be a decade older, he was still a very imposing figure.
“I’m making an inquiry,” Giles said. “What have the authorities done to retrieve this stolen property and apprehend these thieves?”
“I assure you we are conducting an investigation.” Ellsworth turned back to the bar and leaned over his tankard of ale.
“Do you know how many new cases of fever we have admitted to the pest-house?” Giles asked. “How many bodies have been thrown in the pit? You’ve seen this before, so you know how such an epidemic goes.”
The room had become silent.
Reluctantly, the constable faced Giles again. “What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying look about you. It’s a summer’s night and there’s hardly anyone here at Wolfe Tavern quenching their thirst. State Street is quiet. And the harbor—” Giles glanced at Darby Conover—“not a ship has entered or left the Merrimack since this began, and the merchandise on you
r shelves gathers dust. The price of food, what there is available in Newburyport, it increases daily. Even the cost of fish taken from the river has risen sharply.” There was a low murmuring in the room. “I’m asking, Mr. Ellsworth, would you be acquainted with this Mr. Uriah Clapp?”
“I would not,” Ellsworth said. “I don’t know anyone from Boston, now that my Uncle Elliot has died, and Aunt Rebecca has removed to Providence to live with her sister’s family.”
“Then perhaps some of the other constables might know this man from Boston.”
“That is a question for the high sheriff, Thomas Poole. Next time I see him, I’ll make a point to ask him.”
“Do, and ask about the night the three apothecaries were robbed.”
Ellsworth’s arm came up quickly, and he slapped Giles across the face with the back of his hand. Giles took a step sideways to keep his balance.
“I suggest you’ve had enough to drink.” The constable turned back to the bar.
No one said anything. No one moved.
After a moment, Giles felt a hand grip his arm and he looked at Marie, who was standing beside him. “Come, Doctor,” she said. “I wish it that you would walk out with me.”
Giles stared at Ellsworth’s back for a moment. The constable didn’t turn around, though he was looking at Giles in the mirror behind the bar.
Marie squeezed Giles’s arm and guided him toward the open front door, where Roger Davenport stood, his arms folded. Glaring, he whispered, “Don’t you be coming in here again, thinking you can stir things up. Hear?”
Giles was about to speak, but Marie pulled him through the door and down the front steps to the street.
Leander walked into the blacksmith’s shop, where Horseshoe and several other men were passing a jug. Their sweaty faces were illuminated by the dying red coals in the fire pit. Horseshoe, leaning against the bellows, was still wearing his leather apron. His eyes, curious, drifted down to the sack dangling from Leander’s hand.
“What you bring that foul-smelling thing in my shop for?”
Leander tossed the sack, which landed before Horseshoe’s feet, spilling fish guts over his boots. Horseshoe took a step backwards, angry now. Leander turned to go, but he heard the sound of metal and saw the other men rise up off the crates and barrels they’d been sitting on.
“You want to stay here longer?” Horseshoe said. Leander turned around. “We’re going to have to brand you—as a sign of ownership.” Horseshoe held a poker which had a glowing ES on the tip. He nodded, and the other men closed in on Leander, taking firm hold of him. “Where might we mark him?” Horseshoe asked pleasantly. “His arse? Or his back, where everybody can see it?”
Leander’s shirt was yanked up over his head, and he was forced to bend over until his arms were held across the top of a barrel. He struggled against the strong hands that gripped him but they only held him tighter—and then he felt the heat of the poker near the right side of his back, just below the shoulder blade.
“This’ll only take a moment,” Horseshoe said pleasantly.
But then the heat disappeared, and the hands suddenly released him, allowing Leander to stand up. He turned at the sound of flesh on flesh and saw Horseshoe lying on the ground, rubbing his jaw. Benjamin was standing over the blacksmith, who said, “I got no complaint with you.”
“No?” Benjamin looked around at the other men. “None of you?”
They didn’t move, and some drifted back toward the door.
Benjamin grabbed the poker, which lay on the dirt floor. “Well, come on, Horseshoe. You dropped this. Take it back.” He extended the hot tip toward Horseshoe, who scuttled away on his hands and knees. “You been here longer than Leander or me—shouldn’t you have the honor of being branded first?”
Horseshoe got to his feet. He smiled, looking about at the others, until he realized that they weren’t interested in any further involvement. A couple of them went out the door, and some sat down again as a sign of submission. After a moment, Benjamin tossed the poker into the fire and walked outside. Leander followed, tugging his shirt down over his back.
They walked in silence, the cool night air a relief after the blacksmith’s shop.
“Thanks,” Leander said.
“He’s done this before. Branded new boys. I’ve been waiting years to catch him at it.” As they reached the back door of the stable, Benjamin added, “I’ll bet you’re thirsty.”
“That I am.”
They went inside and found Mr. Penrose smoking a pipe as he sat in his office.
“Evening, Father.” Benjamin picked up the bottle of whiskey on the desk, took a pull, and handed it to Leander.
Lunt’s Wharf was dark and unusually quiet save for the creak and groan of dock lines. Below, the river current lapped against the pilings, and men’s voices came across the water from grog shops on Water Street. It was a warm night, and Marie pressed close as she walked next to Giles, holding his arm. They paused by a shack to look at the moon, low in the sky above Plum Island, casting a shimmering beam of light on the river. She stood in front of him and drew his arms about her narrow waist. Her hair was soft, smelling of perfume and vinegar.
“You are comfortable on board Emanuel’s ship?” he asked.
“Oui.”
“You do not find the tight quarters too cramped, after my brother’s house?”
“These past few years I have spent many the times aboard sheeps. Do not think I must have the need for the maids and cooks and servants. I am.…” She paused, looking for the right English word. “I am the bastard.”
Giles laughed. “Not exactly.”
“This is not the right word?”
“It’s close enough.”
After a moment she turned in his arms and kissed him—and as she did so she moved him, her hands determined, out of the moonlight, until his back was pressed against the wall of the shack. Her mouth was warm, eager, her tongue furtive. Finally, she tilted her head back and gazed at him. “In America royalty does not exist, am I right?”
“As I said, only to fools like my half-brother. When we fought England, some, like Enoch, didn’t believe we were rebelling against sovereign rule, but merely replacing British lords with a new breed of American royalty.”
Her arms encircled his neck and she drew him close. “Royalty is in the deed, not the blood,” she whispered.
“That depends, I suppose, upon the deed.”
“It is in the way you care for people who take with this fever.”
“But it is only what I am—a surgeon, a bone setter.”
“Perhaps, but when we leave Wolfe Tavern some of the men they stare at you with—oh, my English—with reeespect.”
“It is more fear. A surgeon is necessary, but feared. There are ministers who preach against my profession, claiming that I must be possessed, that I do the devil’s work. And I am an unmarried man, which gives me a dubious reputation.”
“Very stronge.” Her breath was warm, her lips against his cheek. “But it is this reputation that appeals to me. I do not climb up in the carriage with just any man, you know.”
“I know.”
“It is a pity there is no carriage available now, or some other—what do you call it, ‘tight quarters’?” She laughed, and it seemed her voice shimmered, much like the moonlight on the water. “But must it be possible to make the love standing up, no?”
“Oui,” he said. “It must be possible.”
It was never easy to understand what Mr. Penrose said because he had only a few teeth left, but now he was drunk and Leander could barely understand him. And at first Leander didn’t like the taste of the whiskey—it burned from his throat all the way down to his stomach—but every time the bottle was passed his way he took a pull, and after several turns the sharpness in his mouth seemed to have disappeared.
“Gon’tah get worse, you’ll see,” Mr. Penrose said. “Gon’tah kill lots more New’breepottahs. You go inta tha’ pest-house an’ ya ain’t gon’ta come
out ’cept on ya back. It’s a short ride, then, uphill tah the cemetree.”
After taking a drink, Benjamin said, “He lost his family,” as he passed the bottle to the old man, who stared at him with large, watery eyes.
“How many, boy?”
“My mother. My sister. My grandfather. And my father, he died when our house burned to the ground.”
Mr. Penrose leaned forward, so close that Leander could smell the foulness of his breath. “But you ain’t got no tee-ahs?”
“No,” Leander said. “No tears.”
Mr. Penrose sat back in his chair. “He’s a strong’un, ain’t he then.”
“Seems so,” Benjamin said.
“We gon’tah need that strength fah what be comin’. They doctahs ain’t got no medicine, no quinine watah, no nothin’, an’ y’know why?” He smiled, revealing his few remaining teeth. “They was stolen. Robbed.”
“Who was?” Leander asked.
“Ain’t yah heard? Word has it all the ’pothicaries was robbed. All in one night. Them medicines valuable as gold now.”
“Who did this?” Leander asked.
Mr. Penrose shrugged. “The high sheriff’s men, the constables, they don’t know nothin’—” He laughed, until he began wheezing, bent over and spitting on the floorboards. When he’d cleared his lungs, he sat up and said, “And men that don’t know nothin’, y’know they-ah more often on the lyin’ side of a thing. Somebody’s gon’tah get rich, and a lot more New’breepottahs gon’tah get sick with fevah an’ die. It be just like the wah, they-ah. Things like this happen, somebody’s always gon’tah make money on it.”
“Quinine water?” Leander said. “What’s it do?”
“It helps,” Benjamin said. “If you have the fever, it can help.”
Mr. Penrose took another pull on the bottle. “What is it, lad?” he asked as he handed the bottle over to Benjamin, but kept his eyes on Leander. “Somthin’ they-ah in your eyes. What might it be? What do you know?”