Bride of Thunder (39 page)

Mercy gripped the vein and pressed tightly, stopping the stream. Then she got Paco, a younger male assistant, to hold the pressure while she sewed up the cut. Working with difficulty because of the blood and her own squeamishness, she dabbed on a salve of egg yolk, wax, cypress root and
ylin,
put a heavy pad over it, and bandaged this in place with clean strips of cloth.

Telling the old woman to come for help if there was much bleeding, to keep on rubbing the blood-starved hand and wrist, and to bring the young man back the next day for a change of dressings, Mercy sent them away with some of the willow water that had such beneficial effects on headaches and fevers. She tossed her thoroughly disgusting smock into the laundry basket—Eric had assigned the infirmary a laundress and cleaning man—scrubbed her hands, and rode home feeling she could never face food again, but knowing that a man who'd surely have died soon in agony now had at least a chance of living and keeping his arm.

The young man not only lived, but he regained the use of his hand. Don Manuel requested a jar of burn salve to keep near the boilers for immediate use. The old man recovered from his malaria, and he had enjoyed the bustle and company so much that he asked to be the night watchman and aide to the regular person on duty, and he made himself useful as a handyman and herb collector.

Now people began to come whose disorders were beyond Mercy's skill or the wisdom of her helpers, people with growths or complaints of pain in their entrails or convulsive fits. But when no treatment could be thought of, Mercy and her staff listened, gave out pleasant herbal teas that would give temporary relief, and, in cases of extreme pain, gave native pain-killers or morphine and laudanum.

Paco and Juan had gone to the loggers, carrying a chest of medical supplies and instruments, but there were two new male recruits, an older man eager to leave the strenuous labor of the fields, and a young man, Natividad, who'd lost a hand in the cane crusher and became intrigued with the infirmary when he was brought in for clean amputation of the shredded stump. He had a gift for diagnosis and some degree of unexplainable healing power, for he had cured or relieved the pain of several people ho one had been able to help.

Celeste always accompanied Mercy to and from the infirmary, but she got sick at watching any pain or ugliness, so she spent the mornings with her mother, who lived in the village. Celeste seemed puffy-eyed one day and Mercy asked her if something was wrong.

At first Celeste evaded her, but finally she wailed that she wished to marry Thomas.

Mercy gazed at the flower-graceful young woman and couldn't believe any man would resist her. “Doesn't he want to marry you?” Mercy asked.

He wanted to. The trouble was that Celeste was having a baby and it wasn't that of Thomas. He'd be very angry when he found out. Thomas, like the master, was an adherent of the Church of England, and he didn't share the tolerant views some blacks had of premarital sex.

“
Madame
must have a secret,” Celeste wept. “Please help me!”

“But Celeste, if you love Thomas, Why did you get mixed up with another man?”

Dark uptilted eyes studied' her somberly. “And why does
madame
sleep with the master? In your sleep I hear another name. I think you love someone different, yes?”

Mercy's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't thought about whether Eric still used estate women, told herself she didn't care, and yet, astoundingly, there was an odd, strong stab of jealousy, a sense of having been betrayed.

“Do you mean the baby is Mr. Kensington's?”

Celeste's drooping head was answer enough. “He doesn't care for me, madame, but the prettiest girls—he always tries to sire a child from them. He says it's the best way to increase the size and strength of estate people.”

Mercy had noticed a few ruddy-haired or fair children tumbling about the village, but she had thought them to be the offspring of
ladinos,
mestizos, or even McNulty or Pierre. She felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach, was furious that she should care. Was it possible that though she still loved Zane, her body was becoming dependent on Eric, as it might after a time of forced use come to crave a drug? Humiliating—not to be allowed! But just now Celeste's trouble took precedence.

“How far along are you?”

Celeste spoke so rapidly that Mercy was sure the desperate girl had counted over and over, hoping there was a mistake.

“It's two weeks since I should have had my time,
madame
.”

Mercy sighed. Another month or six weeks and she'd have confronted Eric, urged him to talk to Thomas and make whatever reparation that would induce his man to overlook what was scarcely Celeste's fault. Mercy was reluctant to give the poinciana to other women since Chepa had warned that it could have harmful effects, but she wasn't able to refuse to Celeste the deliverance she might need at any time herself. So, at the infirmary, she made the potion and sent Celeste to her mother's home to drink it, saying she'd stop by at noon to see how she was.

At noon Celeste was pale and trembly but relieved of the threat to her marriage. The mother, a silent wraith, with signs of having once possessed her daughter's startling beauty, nodded when Mercy said Celeste might hemorrhage if she rode and had better stay in the village overnight.

Riding home alone, Mercy brooded, sad and oppressed at serving death instead of life, though she still believed the choice was right and one she'd make for herself. A child of Celeste's and Eric's would have to be beautiful, but its face and body and mind would never form now, never exist. How fragile life was, how full of chance and miracle and grief.

She passed the small church and saw that a bier stood just inside the doorway, holding a small body wrapped in a paper garment trimmed with red and gold tinsel. A woman knelt beside it, supported by an older woman. The religious needs of the people were dependent on a worker who'd been a sacristan and knew many rites by heart. The women must be waiting for him to come in from the field and bury the child.

Mercy started to ride on, helpless before such loss, but light gleamed on golden hair, and she stopped, tied Lucera up, and went into the church.

The baby's eyes were closed, but curls clustered around the small face were golden and the skin was much fairer than the lovely young woman's. Mercy knelt and mourned for the tiny life ended here and the one snuffed out back in the village hut. She was sure Eric had fathered this child, but the woman buried it alone, would grieve alone. It was her baby, not an improvement of working stock.

A worm edged out of the baby's nose. “How long till the
maestro
comes?” Mercy asked.

The grandmother hunched a thin shoulder. “At sunset we brought the
angelito
here because there are other children in the house and my daughter needed peace.”

“I'll send the
maestro,
” Mercy said She rode back to the village, found Don Gerardo at his meal, and said the
maestro
must come at once and end the women's heartbreaking vigil.

“But Doña Mercy!” protested the mayordomo, nervously smoothing his moustache. “To bring a man from work to mumble a few prayers! He's not a real priest, you know. And these women enjoy their mourning; it gives them an importance.”

“Fetch the
maestro
or I'll get him myself!” Mercy ordered. “And don't subtract the time from his wages.”

“Wages?” Don Gerardo laughed harshly. “Why, that Indian has such a debt at the store that he couldn't pay it off if he worked double the rest of his life!”

“Then a few hours won't matter,” Mercy said. “Are you going for him, Don Gerardo?”

He bowed. “But Doña Mercy! Of course, I am at your orders! I only wished to explain …”

“Explain what?” Eric's great body filled the doorway and he ducked to step inside. “So here you are, my sweet! When you were late, I came looking for you.” He glanced around, frowning. “Where's Celeste?”

“She's at her mother's. She doesn't feel well so I said she could stay there for the night.”

“You know I don't want you unattended.”

“Oh, what does that little way from here to the house matter? I would have been there by now, but I saw the dead child in the church and came back to send for the
maestro
.”

“You're taking a lot upon yourself.”

Mercy drew in a deep breath. “Did you see the child?”

Eric raised a warning hand. “Bring the
maestro,
” he told Don Gerardo, who was watching them with considerable interest. As soon as the mayordomo was gone, Eric turned again, his voice purring silkily. “Now, my love, what of the brat?”

“He was very pretty, very blond.”

“So? I saw a couple of women bent over a bier, but I didn't go to look.”

“No,” agreed Mercy, aware of saying a foolhardly thing but too angry to care, blaming him for the load on her conscience, as well as for the child in the church. “I suppose you can't keep track of all your bastards. After all, their mothers can bury them, just as they give them birth!”

Eric loomed over her. She braced for a blow, staring into his eyes, which had dilated in the poorly lit room. “Why, Mercy! Under all that indignation, you're jealous!”

That was too near the truth, depriving her of an effective retort. “Come along,” he said, slipping his big hand beneath her arm.

As they passed the church, he reined in and called.

The young woman came out, as if sleepwalking. He put some coins in her hand. She looked up at him and said, “
Señor,
his hair was gold.”

17

Eric was so gratified by what he considered her Jealousy that he laughed at her barbed comments about being the father of his people and about how amazing it was that a well-born Englishman didn't think more of his bloodline than to scatter it through his fields and industries.

“Why, love, half the county had my grandfather's nose,” he said. “Painless way to breed up the stock.”

“But what if the girl's in love with someone else?”

“Wonderful! I certainly don't want them in love with me.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her till his mouth grew hot and seeking. “But I'm not doing well by the estate girls anymore. I spend myself with you.” Holding her face, he frowned. “When are
you
going to conceive? There's plenty of time, but as much and as often as I'm with you, it's a marvel you aren't increasing.”

She hadn't yet needed the poinciana. “I think it may be difficult for me,” she said. “I was my parents' only child, born after ten years of marriage.”

“We'll do better than that,” he vowed.

That may have been the day his seed rooted, because her flow, due a week later, didn't begin. Eric noticed this, for he was one of those men who was excited by the odor and swelling of the menses, so unlike Philip, who'd treated her as unclean and repellent at such times. She liked to think that Zane would find her periods neither erotic nor disgusting, would kiss and hold her without pressing on, as Eric did, even when it was painful or she was embarrassed by the stains.

“Isn't it your time?” Eric asked when she was four days late. He smoothed her stomach and slowly kissed it, her loins, and breasts. “Maybe you've kept a little something of mine!”

So Mercy drank the brew and was soon wracked with cramps and an unusually heavy flow, so nauseated that she couldn't eat and missed, for the first time, going to the infirmary.

“This seems rather more than late flowers.” Eric used the English euphemism. As he watched her and she didn't look at him, she could sense his concern was changing to suspicion. Taking her hands, he insisted silently that she meet his gaze. When she did, those crystal eyes seemed to reflect her secrets. “You took something,” he said positively. “You know a good deal about herbs and potions, don't you, sweet? And you know as well as I that my child would link you to me.”

Mercy, more frightened by his contemplative words than she would have been by anger, stared at him, unable to speak. “I can take all your herbs away and keep you out of the infirmary, set a guard on you,” he mused. “But that would make you feel oppressed, perhaps to the point of some irreparable foolishness.” His words fell on her like cold, shrouding sleet. “I'll have to think of something. As a last resort, I can bar your windows, quite literally lock you up till you're not only heavy with child,” but delivered. I know how you hate cages. And it may be romantic of me, but I'd prefer our baby to be carried in contentment, if not in happiness.”

Mercy laughed bitterly at that, then shrank as his falcon's gaze hooked into her again. “Take note,” he said at last, heavily, “if I ever come to believe you can have no softness for me, never be my love, even I am afraid to think of how I might use you before I throw you away. You may despise it, Mercy, but my need for you is your only safeguard.”

He left the room and the solid planks reverberated with his weight.

Shaky from the draft, feeling overpowered, crushed down, Mercy tried to gain some strength and comfort from writing a letter to Zane, a letter he'd never get, but it was a way for her to feel she was talking to him, telling him of her narrowing choices, the slow, steady pressures. She wrote painfully:

Is the revolution over? Are you at La Quinta? Did you believe what Eric made me write? Do you hate me now? Oh, my darling, if you're still alive, let me know it! Somehow, sometime, let me see you again!

Celeste tapped on the door. “
Madame,
luncheon is waiting.”

“I'll be right down,” Mercy called. But Celeste opened the door and looked sympathetically at Mercy. “It is better now?”

Mercy nodded. “But
he
knows.”

They exchanged glances of mutual female comprehension, the ancient understandings going back through thousands of years of male domination. “I'm sorry,
madame
. You know I will do for you anything.”