Queen of Swords

by Sara Donati

Maman Antoinette shook her head. “She would let it starve. If you can’t find a wet nurse, feed it goat’s milk from a rag. If it lives out the night.”

  From the near cot, Helen’s voice came thin and high. “Let it go,” she said. “Let it go.” And then she groaned, a sound that came up from her belly.

  Rachel said to Hannah, “I’ll take the baby to Jennet. Jennet will know what to do.”

  Jennet had no idea what to do. She looked at the newborn, red of face and squalling, and she looked at Rachel.

  “Even if you don’t want to keep him—”

  “Keep him?”

  “—you could nurse him. He’s so hungry, Jennet.”

  He was hungry, no doubt. Jacinthe’s son was hungry, as Jennet’s son had once been hungry and needed nourishment. That this was also Honoré Poiterin’s child was something she must ignore for the moment. She sat down and held out her arms for the baby, who began to root against her breast even before she had uncovered it.

  When the small red mouth snapped down on her nipple, she let out a sharp sound. Pain, and surrender. The round cheeks worked at her breast with such need, Jennet wondered if any woman in the world could refuse it.

  Rachel said, “I’ll bring warm water and clean towels.”

  Jennet should have stopped her. There were so many questions: How Jacinthe had come here, if she had run away, where she was now. Why she had not nursed him. If she was alive at all. But the simple fact of the child, the heat and damp weight of him, the dark eyelashes and feathering curls, those things were more powerful than any questions.

  When his gulping slowed and then stopped, when he was asleep, Jennet used the tip of her finger to loosen the small mouth from her breast.

  Rachel came back with a basin of water and a pile of clean linen. Together they washed him and tied a long strip of gauze around his belly to protect the umbilicus until it was ready to fall away. Jennet fashioned a clout out of linen and finally they wrapped and swaddled him. In an hour or two he would be hungry again, and the whole process must be reversed and repeated, and then again, and again, through the nights and days to come.

  “Jacinthe?”

  Rachel shook her head. “She repudiates him. And she’s—” The young woman hesitated, looking for a word.

  “A runaway?”

  “Out of her senses,” Rachel said. “And a runaway. But she will be all right. Clémentine’s people will see to it that she gets away.”

  Jennet stroked the baby’s head with its fine black curls. He was very pale of complexion, his eyes the muddy color of all newborns.

  “The sins of the fathers,” she murmured.

  “What?” Rachel said, almost sharply. Jennet glanced at her.

  “A Greek writer said it. The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”

  “Not any God of mine,” said Rachel stiffly.

  “Nor of mine,” said Jennet with a sigh. And then: “Tell Hannah I’ll be down to help as soon as I’ve got him settled.”

  “You mean to keep him, then?”

  “She saved my son’s life,” Jennet said. “She showed him kindness and love. I can do no less for her.”

  Long after dark, Jennet returned to the Livingstons’ simply because there was no bed for her anywhere at the Savards’. In the clinic patients slept two to a cot, on pallets in the hall, on chairs. The Savards’ apartment was just as crowded, and the servants’ quarters.

  There might be room in Ben Savard’s small apartment above the kitchen, but Jennet was not so tired that she would intrude there. Instead, two soldiers who were well enough to be sent back to their companies walked her to the rue de Conde, one carrying her basket and the other Jacinthe’s infant son. They were both militiamen from Tennessee, capable, quiet men and exceedingly shy. As she was too tired to try to draw them out, they made the trip in silence.

  In her arms Nathaniel, sleeping, felt very heavy. He was a healthy child, well fed, round of limb and cheek, flushed with color. His personality was more pronounced every day, a cheerful boy who exchanged periods of contemplation for bursts of activity that ended in crowing laughter or tears of frustration. When Jennet came to take the boy from Clémentine, she found him in earnest study of a darning egg, entranced by its shape and smoothness. She knew without a doubt that, left to his own devices, her son would have tried to fit the whole thing into his mouth.

  Jacinthe’s son was less than a day old, and there was nothing to read of his personality. If he was to stay with them—and Jennet could think of no alternative—she would watch his mind come alive to the world, and his spirit. He would grow to look like his mother, or his father. By that time, she told herself, she would love him for his own sake. That would make the difference. It must make the difference.

  They would call him Adam, she decided, trudging along the street. It was a name that marked him as a man who would be the start of his own line. When he was old enough to ask about his people, she would tell him stories of Scotland and the Carrycks, of Dan’l Bonner, called Hawkeye for his skill with a rifle, whose adoptive father was Chingachgook. He would hear stories of Chingachgook, a Mahican sachem who had taken in a child who was not of his blood and raised him as a son.

  She would send away for books on Africa, and together she and Adam would read those stories, too.

  Jennet resolved that she would do everything in her power for this boy, who had been sent, she had no doubt, to take the place of the child she had conceived on the night Honoré Poiterin agreed to take her own son away to safety. The child she had wished dead, and who had died, but was now given back to her.

  Jacinthe had brought him into the world alone, crouched in some alley in her travail. That he had survived at all was a miracle. He might have come dead to the world, as Helen’s child had. A dead daughter born of a dead mother.

  It was always a surprise, how much blood the human body could hold. Hannah and Maman Zuzu had worked hard to stop the bleeding, and then Dr. Savard had come, fetched by Julia, and together they had failed. Helen was gone, and somewhere in this overcrowded city the four children she had hidden away were waiting for her to return.

  To Maman Zuzu, Hannah had said, “Will you ask? Will you see if you can find out where they are? I will pay to have them brought here.”

  The old woman hadn’t been cruel, but neither had she offered any comfort. The chances were slim, but she would ask.

  Then Dr. Savard had put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder. He said, “She has her own to worry about now, but ask Ben. Ben will find them, if they are anywhere to be found.”

  He could do more for the young Chickasaw girl, who would be alone when her grandfather died, as must happen within hours or days. She would be brought into the household, Julia told Jennet. There were so many orphans, they would do what they could for her.

  Jennet should have fallen directly to sleep, once she had washed and changed and nursed both babies. When the nursemaid came to fetch Nathaniel and found two children where there had been one, she hadn’t even blinked, nor had she asked any questions. Jennet was thankful. Tomorrow was soon enough to cope with Mrs. Livingston.

  The maids had done their work, so that if she had wanted occupation, there was precious little to do. Her few gowns were clean and carefully pressed, as were all of Luke’s things. This household, overseen by Mrs. Livingston and her formidable mother, was ordered enough to please even the housekeeper at Carryckcastle; everything smelled of freshly aired linen, lavender water, starch, beeswax.

  She had been far more comfortable in the crowded apartment above the kine-pox clinic, with Hannah sleeping beside her and the smell of damp swaddling clothes in the air.

  On the table that stood between the windows was a porcelain vase that held a long spray of ivy, and Jennet’s tarot cards. Mrs. Livingston had got into the habit of coming by to ask Jennet to read the cards for her. A small secret, she whispered to Jennet. A diversion in difficult times. Her mother would not understand, of course, but she and Jennet were w
omen of broader experience in the world.

  Now Jennet took the cards in hand and sat for a moment concentrating on the weight and shape of them. The softened edges, slightly rough against her palm. She tried to recall the first deck she had had, which she had left behind her in Canada, the shapes and colors. No more could she remember the face of the lady who had given them to her, on her way to Canada for the first time, excited beyond measure. Mme. Rojas had told her she would travel, and Jennet had laughed in delight at this new game. She had understood very little, but she had learned. She had come to understand how the cards worked, how they could open the mind to possibility. One card was sometimes enough.

  She turned it, and setting her hands on the table, Jennet let her weariness and imagination lead the way.

  PART III

  The Chariot: Strength, bravery, vigilance, endurance, discipline. In troubled times the efforts of one extraordinary person can turn the tide.

  Chapter 44

  Jennet found the letter on her pillow, along with a note in Mrs. Livingston’s delicate hand.

  Mrs. Bonner, this letter came with the post-rider some days ago, and was waiting at the post office to be claimed. My brother August D’Avezac saw it there today and took it in your name. I pray that the news it brings you in these difficult days is welcome.

  Louisa Livingston

  The letter, stained and creased from a long journey, had first gone to the care of Mrs. Preston on the Bayou St. John, and then been returned to the post office because no one had been at home at the Maison Verde.

  Elizabeth Bonner had written the address.

  She should wait for Luke, or go to Hannah; she could rise and dress and ask for an escort to walk with her back to the clinic.

  Jennet opened the seal, and unfolded the two sheets of paper, closely written.

  Dearest Children,

  We are in possession of the letters you wrote to us in late August from the Island of the Manatees in the French Antilles, as well as Luke’s letter from Pensacola written almost two weeks later.

  To say that we were relieved to hear your initial report of Jennet’s safe recovery would be an understatement of the first order. Indeed, we talked of little else for three days, all of us gathered together either here in our kitchen or in Mrs. Freeman’s. The letter from Pensacola arrived yesterday, and has brought us back together to discuss your difficult situation.

  You must understand that we are full of gratitude that Jennet has been safely returned to the care of her family. Once young Nathaniel has been restored to you, and she has had sufficient time and peace of mind, I believe she will recover. We hope that you will come to us for that purpose.

  No doubt you can imagine that there has been considerable debate here on how best to help you. Uncharacteristically we came to a common resolve very quickly: None of us can bear to sit by and wait for word. In the end we have come to a conclusion that may not surprise you.

  Your father and your uncle Runs-from-Bears are on the way to New Orleans. As war has rendered travel by sea and overland both exceedingly unreliable, they are resolved to start the journey by traveling west to Pittsburgh. From there they will set out southwest by means of the Ohio River. They have with them enough money to lease a keelboat and hire a crew that will take them all the way down the Mississippi. If all goes according to plan they should arrive within a week or ten days of this letter depending on the postal service, the state of the roads, and, of course, the war.

  You know your father and uncle well enough to believe that they are capable of this, and more. And to tell the whole truth, I believe that they look forward to this journey with great eagerness and anticipation, first and foremost for the chance that they might be of service to you, but also because it is a very long time since they have had any kind of adventure. In truth, I envy them the opportunity to act on your behalf. If it weren’t for the baby (who thrives, and is a joy to us all) I think I would be easily talked into making the journey myself.

  This letter must go out with the post-rider this afternoon if it is to have any chance of reaching you before our men do. Thus I close in haste, sending you my best wishes and prayers for your continued health of mind and body and quick success in your search. When you are safe home we will have much to celebrate. Your loving mother and stepmother,

  Elizabeth Middleton Bonner

  Paradise, on the west branch of the Sacandaga

  New-York State, the 20th October, 1814

  Dear brother & sisters,

  Da and Runs-from-Bears are coming to save you, because Da says he will go simpleminded sitting idle while you are fighting alligators and redcoats, and Many-Doves says she will go simpleminded watching Runs-from-Bears pace, and anyway, who better to help you in your time of need?

  I think I could, as I have a rifle of my own now and am reckoned a good shot, but no one listens. I have to stay here and go to school, with my own brother Daniel as the teacher. It was hard enough to have my mother as teacher, but this is worse still, I promise you. When you come home with the new baby who is my nephew, I am sure I will be far kinder to him than Daniel is to me, and never scold him for his penmanship, which as you see is perfectly easy to read.

  Ma says that I am unfair, and that Daniel is an excellent teacher, which indeed everyone who doesn’t sit in his classroom agrees to be the case. He has endless patience with everybody but me, and I forgive him that only because I think that has to do with his arm, which is still not healed and causes him pain in spite of all the medicines Many-Doves and Curiosity and the new doctor give him. I hope his arm is better soon and that his mood gets better with it. Ma and Da are very worried about you. I am not but I think you should come home quickly all the same.

  Your brother

  Gabriel Bonner, aged ten full years

  Dear Brother and Sisters,

  I am sending along my rifle for Luke’s use or Hannah’s. If I were able, I would carry it to you myself to repay some part of the debt I owe you. The newspapers say there will be a battle for New Orleans that will make what has come up to this point look like child’s play, but for me this war and every war is over. As it is I stay behind to look after my mother and the children, and to carry on teaching school, but my thoughts and good wishes are with you every step of the journey you must make, home to safety.

  Your brother, Daniel Bonner

  The morning was overcast and wet and very cold, but Jennet could hardly contain her eagerness to be on her way to Hannah. Good news was rare, and Jennet didn’t want to hold it back from her one minute more than necessary. She was busy getting both babies ready to go when there was a knock at her door.

  Mrs. Livingston had heard of the new child brought into her house and must have the opportunity to examine him. Jennet stopped what she was doing and made every effort to sound pleased at the delay.

  “But, Mrs. Bonner,” Mrs. Livingston said, pulling up her skirts so that she could sit on the edge of the bed where Jacinthe’s son—Jennet told herself she must start thinking of him as Adam—lay swaddled and asleep. “You will adopt this child?”

  “Yes,” Jennet said, and flashed a quick, tight smile. “I owe—rather, I owed his mother a debt, and she is gone. He has no one else in the world.”

  Mrs. Livingston’s pretty mouth pursed thoughtfully as she reached for Nathaniel, who was crawling across the wide plain of the bed with the obvious intent of crawling off into space. “You must pardon me, Mrs. Bonner,” she said. “But is this a colored child?”

  Jennet had believed herself ready to answer questions, and found that she was not. Righteous indignation would do no good, nor would it be possible to distract Mrs. Livingston from this topic. She glanced down at the baby’s fragile skull with its dusting of dark hair over a high brow. His skin was lighter than Jennet’s own after a summer in the sun. No doubt if she declared the boy to be white, Mrs. Livingston would take her word. But she could not make herself say the words.

  “Of course.” The lie came so easi
ly to Jennet, she found she could look Mrs. Livingston directly in the eye and say the words with complete composure: “His mother was a free woman of color.”

  Mrs. Livingston sat back and pulled Nathaniel into her lap. He wiggled and twisted, full of energy and determined to be on his way, but all her attention was on Jennet. Her thoughtful, charitable attention.

  Finally she said, “If you like, I can ask Marie to help you with him. She is nursing a daughter, and has enough milk for two. You know I’ve got enough willing hands to look after both these boys. That way you could return to help at the clinic, if you care to.”

  Jennet agreed that it would be a great relief to her to have competent help, and they did expect her at the clinic.

  Mrs. Livingston said, “You have fallen into our ways very quickly. Here it is common to bring a colored child into the nursery when a new child is born in the family. Our Susan’s daughter Pauline has been with Cora since she was a few weeks old. This kind of companion is an excellent thing.”

  What Jennet wanted to say was that Adam would not be Nathaniel’s companion, but his brother. She looked at Mrs. Livingston directly, determined to say this, and then knew that she could not. She was a guest in this woman’s home; her husband had rescued them from the need to hide from Honoré Poiterin. They owed the Livingstons as much as they owed the Savards, and she could not repay them in harsh words.

  Instead she said, “I would like to get to the clinic. Hannah should see this letter that came yesterday as soon as possible.”

  “Ah.” Mrs. Livingston got up and smoothed her skirts. “On today of all days, a distraction will be very welcome. Things have reached a critical point. Mr. Livingston did not come home before three last night, and he says the major general has not slept at all in two days. He thinks the fighting will begin tonight.”