Queen of Swords

by Sara Donati

  “Luke won’t like it,” she told Hannah. “No more do I.”

  “Luke wasn’t there,” Hannah told her. “For my part, I would have done the same thing.”

  Jennet didn’t know if that was a lie meant to calm her, but she was thankful nonetheless.

  For the next hour they worked without trying to talk over the noise of the battle, and Jennet studied Hannah’s face. She looked far more healthy and rested than she had in many months, which most certainly had something to do with the fact that her father and uncle had come. At least in large part.

  Three hours after the first shots were fired, something changed. The timing or rhythm of the battle had shifted. Hannah straightened and turned toward the windows, her head tilted to one side as she listened.

  Finally she said, “One side or the other has stopped firing.”

  “The Americans?” Jennet could barely say the word.

  “Most probably the British,” Hannah said calmly. “Apparently they are very low on powder and ammunition.”

  Jennet heard herself squeak. “How do you know such things?” And then: “I hope you do more than talk of war all night.”

  At that Hannah flushed so completely that Jennet was reminded of her as a young girl, before she had known anything of men. When they had played together at Carryck, and climbed trees, and shared secrets.

  She said, “He is a good man, is he no?”

  Hannah nodded. “Yes, he is that.” Her gaze flickered toward Jennet and then away again.

  “Do you regret Wyndham?”

  The question took Hannah by surprise. She paused, a pillow in her hands, and seemed to be trying to recall something specific. She leaned against the wall with one shoulder, her head lowered, and when she raised it again there was a distance in her expression, the look that came over her when she was contemplating a patient, and the nature of whatever illness had brought that person to her.

  She said, “When I think of Kit, I can see him in my mind doing simple things—looking at a chart, talking to the sailors, eating an apple—but I can’t recall his face, or the sound of his voice. But I do remember the things he told me, his own stories. He had a need to hear them told, I think. I don’t think he heard himself, it was more in the way of praying that some folks have, repeating words for the sound. Kit was always reminding himself what others expected of him, and why those things were good and necessary. So when I think of him, I wonder if he’ll ever find his way and I wish him well, but he feels far away from me. As he always did, even when he slept beside me. A man away from himself.”

  She stood straight and flexed her shoulders as if her muscles were cramped. “I was glad to know him, but I have no regrets. And now if you have any love for me at all, Jennet, you’ll stop there and ask me no questions about Ben Savard.”

  Jennet opened her mouth, but Hannah stopped her words with a severe look. “I mean what I say, cousin. Every word.”

  If she had stopped to think about it, Hannah would have known that this conversation with Jennet would be shared with Luke, and from there would make its way to Nathaniel Bonner and Runs-from-Bears. What did surprise her, though, was the speed with which it all happened. Less than twenty-four hours after she had forbade Jennet questions about Ben Savard, her father and uncle sought her out.

  She had already retired for the evening, taking with her one of Paul Savard’s books on anatomy and a brace of good candles. Ben was likely to be out on patrol all night, and she worried she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The greater implications of that worry only made things worse, and the solution, she decided, was to focus on facts and medical histories and diagrams.

  So lost was she in a drawing of the nerves of the arm and shoulder that she didn’t hear the steps on the stair until the last moment. And then her father’s voice.

  A wave of panic flooded up from her gut, spread over her breast and throat and down her arms until her fingers jerked with it. As though she were a little girl who had misbehaved and must now face the consequences.

  The fact that Runs-from-Bears was with her father made things a little easier in one way, and much worse in another. Together there was no escaping them.

  She said, “News of the battle?”

  Her father said, “Nobody’s hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about. After yesterday’s drubbing it’ll take a few days for the Tories to work themselves up to another run at Rodriquez.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  Runs-from-Bears huffed a short laugh. “Every man jack is out there shoring up the fortifications. Except for the rifles, of course. They’re not so reckless as to put a shovel in your father’s hands.”

  “Hey, now.”

  “Nathaniel, if they need somebody to shoot the eye out of a squirrel at a hundred yards you’re their man, but a shovel just ain’t your kind of weapon. You’d likely take off a toe out of pure boredom.”

  Many white people were so intimidated by Runs-from-Bears that they never imagined that he might have a sense of humor, but in fact he had always laughed easily and as a young man, the stories went, he had been prone to play tricks on everyone. Now his smile was friendly and easy, which thoroughly alarmed Hannah. Something was coming, and she had an idea it wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation.

  “You’re as jumpy as a flea,” her father said to her. “Settle down, daughter.”

  And so she did. She sat straight of back and let herself be engaged in conversation, listened to the things they had to tell her, stories about the things they had seen that day, including their first sighting of an alligator. They had been sitting up in a cypress tree with a view to picking off a few British officers when the creature came up out of the depths. A hard-shelled overgrown lizard, said Runs-from-Bears. With too many teeth.

  Now he was determined to get an alligator skin to take to the Kahnyen’kehàka at Good Pasture; otherwise, they would never believe his descriptions. The subject, Hannah realized finally, was about going home.

  “I figure this business with the redcoats will be finished in a week or so, and then we can head out,” her father said. “We’ll have to wait that long just to get the horses we’ll need and a wagon or two. You think you’ll be ready?”

  Hannah drew in a sharp breath. “Of course I’ll be ready,” she said, and she heard the sharpness in her tone. “I can’t wait to get home.”

  “Good,” said her father. “That’s as it should be. I’m thinking I’ll take your stepmother a few saplings. A pecan tree, maybe, and I hear the magnolias are pretty in the spring. She’s got into the habit of planting trees, or better said she keeps Gabriel busy digging holes. She’s been talking about that greenhouse we saw in Scotland back when you were a girl, and you know what that means. Traveling in caravan like we will be, I expect I can get a few saplings back to Paradise for her to coddle through the winter. Young Rachel will have more than a few trunks with finery and such, and then our Jennet has taken to collecting infants.”

  Hannah said, “Da, will you get on with it and say what you came to say?”

  He tilted his head at her. “I’m talking about the journey home, getting ready to go.”

  “Packing,” added Runs-from-Bears, helpfully.

  “I don’t have anything to pack,” Hannah said. “I lost everything when I fell sick, even the knife you gave me when I was a girl.”

  “That’s right,” said her father. “I recall, now that you mention it. I’ve been keeping an eye out, and I picked this up for you.”

  He unbuckled a scabbard Hannah had never seen before and handed it over to her. It was a short sword, the kind that officers carried. A very fine weapon with an inlaid grip, double-bladed, well balanced. A beautiful weapon, of little real use to her, but beautiful nonetheless.

  Hannah said, “Why, thank you.”

  “It’s pretty to look at, ain’t it? When we get home I’ll see to it you get a proper knife, but I don’t like the idea of you depending on borrowed weapons when you’re near the fighting out at t
he field hospital.”

  “And now you’ve got something to pack,” said Runs-from-Bears.

  Hannah looked back and forth between her father and her uncle. “I’m still waiting for you to get to your real point.”

  Bears grinned at her, and her father cleared his throat and looked away.

  “You were always bright,” her father said. “My ma was teaching you your letters when you was no more than four. Learning come easier to you than it does to any of your brothers and sisters, even Daniel. That book there in your lap, I doubt I could make any sense of the title, and were you to take the time to explain it to me. But in some things you’re plain slow, girl, and I suppose it falls to me to tell you so. If Elizabeth were here she’d do it without stumbling all over herself, but she ain’t.”

  Hannah felt her color rising. She opened her mouth as if to protest but her father held up a hand to stop her.

  “You’ve been torn up inside since before we got here, and it’s worse every day. Now I’m not talking about the wrong done to you, that’s something different. That calls for a certain kind of healing, and maybe it won’t ever find an end. What I’m talking about is the pain you cause yourself.”

  The first flush of embarrassment was giving way to anger, but her father wasn’t finished yet.

  He said, “We like the man, Hannah. He’s quick, and he’ll do what needs to be done without shirking or excuse. Everybody who knows him—white or black or red—likes and respects him, and the few who don’t have reason to fear him. And here’s something I cain’t often say: He’s smarter than you.”

  “Is he.” Hannah’s voice sounded strained to her own ear.

  “Some smarter,” agreed Runs-from-Bears. “He’s got you tied up in knots, and you never even saw the rope coming.”

  Hannah got up and walked across the room and back again. Sat down and stood, crossed her arms and then sat again. Her father and uncle watched her impassively. They would wait all night if she made them.

  “So you’re saying I should marry Ben Savard.”

  “That would be the sensible thing to do,” said Nathaniel. “As attached as you are to the man, and he to you.”

  “You don’t want me to come home with you. You want me to live here.”

  “Hell, no,” Nathaniel Bonner said. “That’s not the idea at all. We’d hog-tie you and cart you home on a mule if need be.”

  “Gag you, too, if it came to that,” said Runs-from-Bears.

  “Then I don’t understand,” Hannah said. Her hands were trembling, and she wound them together.

  “You see?” her father said to her uncle. “It’s a wonder how a smart woman can be pure blind at times.” He turned back to her. “You cain’t stay here, and he doesn’t have to, either. You bring him on home with you to Paradise.”

  Hannah took a deep breath. “This is his home. This is everything he knows. What makes you think he would leave here?”

  Bears said, “What makes you think he wouldn’t?”

  Her father said, “Have you ever asked the man?”

  Hannah drew in a sharp breath and held it.

  “She’s never asked him,” Bears said to no one in particular. He shook his head in disbelief.

  Nathaniel Bonner stood. “Time to get some sleep. You think about asking Ben Savard to come north, will you?”

  “You want me to ask Ben to marry me.”

  Her father raised a brow. “You’re a Kahnyen’kehàka of the Wolf Longhouse. You pick your own husband and do the asking.”

  “This is Louisiana,” said Hannah. And: “I wouldn’t know how to ask.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” her father said. “Your stepmother managed when she asked me, and she had more than a little to do with raising you.”

  Before he went through the door, Hannah put a hand on her uncle’s arm. She said, “He might say no.”

  That earned her a gruff laugh. “I guess you don’t see what you do to the man.”

  “But he might,” Hannah insisted. “He might say no.”

  Her father winked at her. “We got plenty of rope,” he said. “And I’m right good at knots myself.”

  Chapter 60

  Honoré Poiterin wakes gasping in the cold night air, fumbling for flint and striker and candle.

  The small light hauls him from the dream world back into the realm of the living. Slowly his breathing comes back to normal, sweat dries on his brow, and he becomes aware of his physical self: the itch in his eyes, his tongue, the palms of his hands. The misery of the rash that covers his face and neck.

  Every day he is more reluctant to move from the bed, terrified of dreams, afraid to look out the window for fear of who he’ll see there, staring up at him. The boundary between the living and the dead has thinned to the consistency of gauze.

  When he mentions this to Noelle she doesn’t laugh or call him names. Instead she looks thoughtful, and stands staring out the window herself for a long minute. Honoré’s throat constricts in fear. She’ll turn now and tell him that he’s absolutely right: The dead do walk the streets.

  He thinks now and then about the priest who came into this room to marry them. His friends would convulse with laughter if they knew that Honoré Poiterin is longing for a priest. But he imagines that a priest might be able to set his world right again. He would gladly pray a hundred rosaries, if it rid him of the dead. Certainly it seems that Noelle doesn’t know what to do for him.

  She says, “You’ll be better once you can get out in the daylight. It’s the drink, and too much thinking.”

  It’s true that his mind never seems to shut off. If he drinks himself into oblivion, the memories fill his dreams and mix together with the visits from the dead. There is simply no escape.

  On the seventh of January something changes. He wakes to the smell of good coffee, burnt sugar and cinnamon, a fire of seasoned wood. The air is as sweet as his mouth is sour. Honoré opens his eyes and watches as Noelle picks up the room, her movements quick and efficient. There is a fresh white linen cloth on the table where she has laid out his breakfast.

  She says, “There is water beside you.”

  He drinks until his throat stops hurting and his tongue unglues itself from the roof of his mouth. Then he allows himself to be helped out of bed and into the hip bath, where she cares for him as if he were an infant. Finally she shaves him, and helps him into clean clothes, and then there is breakfast.

  Honoré considers asking about his brandy bottle, but he is unsettled by Noelle’s easy smile, her odd mood. What have you done with the harridan, my wife? He keeps himself from asking the question aloud. Instead he lets her pour him more coffee and hot milk.

  While she makes the bed and moves around the room, he tries to sort it all out.

  “Is the war over?” he asks finally. “Have the British taken the city?”

  She pauses in folding a blanket and then comes to sit across from him.

  “No,” she says. “I am afraid that things don’t look good for the English.”

  Honoré huffs a laugh. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true,” Noelle says. “I know it’s hard to believe, but they are at a great disadvantage, and Jackson has been both clever and lucky.”

  “But Pakenham hasn’t surrendered,” Honoré says.

  “No. The rumor is that the last battle will be fought tonight or tomorrow. What did they call it—the big push.”

  “Then it’s not time to panic yet.”

  She shrugs. It is the kind of shrug that requires close analysis, so full is it of meaning.

  “You should consider,” she says finally. “What you will do if the worst happens.”

  Honoré laughs, his voice hoarse. “In that case I have two options,” he says. “I can give myself up and hang, or I can flee to the islands.”

  Another shrug, and now his irritation has the upper hand. “What is it you’re trying to say?”

  “Nothing. Except there is a third possibility.”

  He
makes an impatient gesture and she spills it all out before him. What if he were to join the British? Fight in this last battle on the other side. If they do take the city, so much the better; he has proved his allegiance. If they lose, he will have a better chance of escape when they retreat to the ships waiting off Pea Island.

  “Your concern for my well-being is touching,” says Honoré. “Worried that I’ll give you up if I’m caught?”

  “Of course,” Noelle admits without hesitation. There is a flicker of her real self in her eyes, hard as obsidian. “And about the possibility that the courts will seize all your property. All our property.”

  It is something that has occurred to him before, an idea he has always dismissed without close thought. He finds the missing brandy bottle a real trial.

  “With my luck,” he says, “Pakenham would shoot me for a double spy, and on sight.”

  “Then you must bring him some evidence of your loyalty,” says Noelle. “Something he needs very badly.”

  “Jackson’s head on a platter.” Honoré coughs a laugh.

  “The word,” says Noelle, “is that they are very short of powder and ammunition.”

  “Oh, well,” says Honoré. “I’ll just load up a wagon and drive it down to them.”

  “You could name your own reward.”

  “That’s easy. Wyndham’s head on a platter.”

  Noelle rises, her mood finally as sour as his own. “Have it your own way,” she tells him. “Sit here and wait for the gendarmerie to find you.”

  She is gone before he remembers to ask about the brandy.

  Honoré reclines on the divan and finds himself thinking through Noelle’s suggestion that he make himself useful to the British. To Pakenham, the hero of Salamanca.

  It isn’t often he is in the position of having to win over another man. His habit has always been to dispose of men who stood in his way, and negotiation does not come easily to him. That is part of the reason that he has never run with the Baratarians. Lafitte requires loyalty of the men who work with him, a concept which has never meant very much to Honoré. There is something unnatural in Lafitte’s ability to bind other men to him, to have them do his bidding in order to earn a place in his kingdom.