City of Dreams (102 page)

The colonel motioned the hangman forward. The man picked up the noose, testing it for strength. Damn him for a fool, Morgan thought. From this distance, with the knife that usually lodged in his boot, he could easily have killed the hangman. But he’d bloody left it between the shoulder blades of the sailor who had raped Clare.

His gaze went to the handle of the short sword of the nearest redcoat, just a tantalizing few feet away. He could grab it, toss it to Nat. They’d be two against nine then.

The plan was a jumble of thoughts that were rejected in the time it took the hangman to satisfy himself that the noose was serviceable and drop it around Hale’s neck.

Now or never. The bad plan was the only one he had so it would have to do. Morgan inched forward on his belly. Closer. Close enough. He reached for the guard’s sword. A hand grasped his hair, yanking his head back. He stared up into the lined and grizzled face of the redcoat who had blindsided him.

“I say, look what’s come crawling on its belly to join the party. At least one of them play soldiers isn’t spendin’ all his time runnin’ away.”

In one motion the guard hauled Morgan to his feet and whipped his hands behind him. At that very instant he heard the trapdoor open and the snap of the rope. When he looked toward the gallows it was the tips of Nat Hale’s boots that were level with his line of sight.

VI

“Who did this?” Andrew looked up from the examining table.

Roisin stood across from him, holding her daughter’s hand. “Doesn’t matter who did it. It’s done. Can you stitch it back on?”

Andrew looked again at the girl’s left breast. The marks on the soft flesh were starting to scab over, but they were recognizable as bites. As for the nipple, it was connected with barely an eighth of an inch of
membrana adiposa.
The wound, however, had been carefully cleaned and packed with fresh lint.

“Stitch it back,” he murmured. “Yes, probably I could. But even if I do, and if the wound closes properly with no poison entering the blood, she’ll still not be able to suckle a babe at that pappe.”

“So be it. I don’t want her scarred.” Josie Harmon must find no imperfection when she inspected Clare. Apart from that, the wound wasn’t important. There would be no child as a result of this outrage, Roisin would see to that. As for the future, you could feed a babe with one pappe if needs must. Besides, Clare was going to be rich. She could afford a wet nurse. “Can you make it look as if nothing has happened?”

Andrew never had a clue what went on in the heads of women. He knew he hadn’t a prayer of making sense of the thoughts of this devilishly attractive redheaded creature. Looked as if she should be a sister to the girl she said was her daughter. And if she really was the girl’s mother, couldn’t she see there was more to be concerned about than a wounded breast?

The girl hadn’t spoken a word since they arrived. She moved like a puppet, with jerky unnatural motions, and stared glassy-eyed at the ceiling. “The wound’s been carefully dressed. I can see that. How long ago was the… the accident?”

“Nine days past. The night of the fire.” Roisin adjusted the bodice of Clare’s dress now that Dr. Turner seemed to have finished his examination. Morgan’s cousin, she knew, though he didn’t look a bit like Morgan. As fair as Morgan was dark. “I can keep the poison away from the wound. Leastwise, I can if I’m able to find a few simples now that everything’s burned. But I’m not skilled with a knife or a needle. You are. That’s why we’ve come.” She lifted her face and looked straight at him. “The only reason, to be frank.”

He saw the contempt in her face. Only her daughter’s need had brought the woman to his Tory household. “I’ll stitch it, if you like. But it won’t—”

“No.” The girl jerked away from her mother’s touch and spoke her first words in his consulting room. “I want it left as it is.”

Roisin tried to put her arms around Clare. The girl shrugged her away. “Ah, darling child, you’re making a huge mistake. It will be a sadness to you all your life. Let Dr. Turner stitch it back in place. He’s brilliant at such things. The whole town says so.”

“No.”

Andrew cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’d rather I simply cut it off altogether. That’s possible if you—”

Roisin gasped, but it was Clare who answered. “No. I want it to stay as it is.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Roisin said, her patience worn thin by the terrors of the past days. She nodded to Andrew. “Put it back.”

He turned to get a needle and a fresh ligature. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl reach up and draw her mother’s face toward hers. The older woman stayed bent over the younger, listening to the girl’s urgent whispers. Andrew busied himself with the strand of sheep’s stomach.

A moment later the redhead gasped and pulled back, her hands clasped over her mouth as if to stifle a scream. The girl returned to staring at the ceiling. Andrew lifted the threaded needle so they could both see it. “Am I to proceed, mistress?”

“No.” Roisin’s voice was a whisper. “No, that’s all right. We’ll leave it be. The way she wants.”

Andrew put down the ligature and helped the girl off the table. “I think it best… Perhaps your daughter can wait outside with my wife, mistress, while you and I discuss the care of the wound.”

A moment later he’d turned Clare over to Meg—who was, as always, hovering in the hall in case he needed her—and closed the door. “Mistress Healsall, isn’t it?” He’d been treating the burns of British soldiers and sailors for days on end, with almost no sleep. Otherwise it wouldn’t have taken him so long to figure out who she was.

“Mistress Healsall, yes.”

“And you live over on the Church Farm.”

Roisin nodded.

“The destruction was worse there than anywhere. How are you getting by?”

“Same as everyone else.” They had managed to secure two of the blankets being distributed by the charity circle of St. Paul’s—the Anglican chapel over on the Broad Way and Fulton Street hadn’t been touched by the fire—and they’d made themselves a nest of sorts in the burned-out ruins of the Fiddle and Clogs. “With pain and difficulty. Like all the rest who haven’t kissed the British backside.” Dear God, was she mad? She’d heard that Andrew Turner was doctor to General Howe himself. He could have them locked up, or worse, with a single word.

“It’s not politics saved my house from the fire,” Andrew said softly. “All Ann Street was spared, Tory or rebel. The wind doesn’t blow at the bidding of the English, whatever you—or they—may think.”

“It’s what you think that matters, isn’t it, Dr. Turner?” Holy Virgin help her. She couldn’t help herself. It was the bones of the dead that did it. All the flesh burned off them, scattered on the streets of the town as if Satan himself had ridden through New York. As well he might have done.

“What I think is of very little importance. I’m a doctor. I help who I can where and when I can.”

As he spoke, Andrew opened the door of a cabinet and began taking out various jars and flagons, lining them up on a small table. “Witch-hazel water, tansy, stanching powder, extract of peppermint, some poppy syrup,” he recited. “I presume you lost your stores in the fire.”

“Every scrap.”

“I thought as much. Take these. Your neighbors will probably be glad of some Mistress Healsall care.”

“Thank you. I can pay.” The pouch full of coins was still in the pocket of her underskirt, saved only because it had been on her person since Cuf gave it to her.

“That won’t be necessary. Here”—he took down a small vial from the top shelf—“you can—“He broke off. “But this is antimony. I’m told you don’t approve of it.”

“I do not. It purges the good along with the sickness.”

“And no tartar emetic, no mercury…?”

“None. I use only herbs and seeds and leaves.”

“And seaweed.” He spoke with his back to her.

Ah, she might have guessed. Like most men, he couldn’t stand the notion that a woman might stop their seed from growing. Forced it in wherever they liked, then hated for it to be scraped out and thrown away with the slops. “Seaweed’s natural,” she said.

Andrew’s flesh crawled. Filthy business, abortion. But in the case of the daughter, for example. . . . Raped, no question about it. Andrew put the antimony back in its place. “The quacks and their vegetable wars,” he said evenly. “I’d forgotten. But I’ve seen the results of your treatments more than once. Quack or no, you do good work, Mistress Healsall.”

She couldn’t choke out another thank-you. Not to the devil. “My daughter,” she said, taking a step toward the door.

“Meg will look after her. My wife can be trusted, I assure you. She’s totally without political sentiment.”

Roisin hesitated a moment more, then went to the table and began filling her pockets with the medicines. “I can ease the hurt of quite a few with these.” Not a proper thank-you, but the best she could do.

Andrew watched her. Once or twice she seemed unfamiliar with something and pulled the cork and smelled it, then nodded and tucked the remedy away somewhere on her person. She definitely had knowledge. Different from his, sometimes possibly better. God knew she was right about the antimony—it forced everything out of both ends of the patient. And he’d never been entirely convinced about purging, whatever they’d told him in Edinburgh. Himself, his professors, sweet Christ, sometimes he didn’t think any of them knew a thing.

All those burns. Most of the victims died in a matter of hours after unspeakable suffering and screaming. But some lived on and suffered on. There was so damned little he could do. Truth was, the longer he practiced medicine, the more sure he was that surgery was the true healer. Skill with the scalpel could be measured. Except these last days. What surgery was there for the victims of the fire? The only thing he could do was cut away the worst of the charred flesh, then wait to see if poisoned blood followed. As it usually did.

“Mistress Healsall.” She stopped squirreling things away, looked at him. “Many of your neighbors … I’d venture they’ve been burned.” She nodded and he could see their agony reflected in her eyes. “If you could have one thing to treat the burns, what would it be?”

Holy Virgin. A man, the most famous doctor and surgeon in New York, asking her. He truly wanted to know; she could see that in his eyes. There wasn’t a Woman of Connemara would believe it. “Honey,” she said.

“Just ordinary honey?”

“Yes. Though I’ve heard it’s best if the bees come from a hive near where sage is growing. But any honey will do. Mixed with powder of balsam, if possible.”

Andrew considered for a moment. “You’re sealing the wound so the air doesn’t get in.”

Roisin nodded. “I expect that’s what is meant to happen. My mother taught me my cures. And her mother taught her. That’s all I know. Honey for a burn. With balsam to cleanse the humors. And for the pain, a tea made of willow bark.”

Sweet Christ. Willow bark. Like animals in the woods. Honey, though, that might not be as mad as it sounded. “Thank you. I shall try honey. And look”—he nodded toward the now empty table—“if you tell me where you can be found, I’ll see you get more remedies of the type you approve. And a supply of honey.”

“I can be found where I’ve always been. The Fiddle and Clogs. Only there’s but a few sticks left of it now.”

“You’ll have more supplies by tomorrow afternoon,” he promised.

“I’d be grateful, but I wouldn’t suggest you… What I mean… It would be best if you don’t bring them yourself, Dr. Turner.”

Andrew managed a smile. “Or the locals will tear off my legs and twist them around my throat. I know. Don’t worry, I’ll send someone who won’t attract attention.” She started for the door. “Wait,” he said. “Don’t go yet. I need to ask you one thing more.”

She turned back to him.

“Prisoners,” Andrew said. “Rebel soldiers. The ones who aren’t sent to the prison ships… There’s talk that they’ll be lodged in various parts of the town—“He broke off, seeing the way her shoulders had stiffened, the way she was looking at him.

“And?” Roisin said. “Do go on, Dr. Turner.”

Andrew shook his head. “There’s no point in our arguing, mistress. I was simply wondering if you might visit the prisoners occasionally. Not on the ships, that wouldn’t be safe. But if any are kept here in the city, as I expect they will be, perhaps you could go in occasionally. See if there’s anything to be done for their wounds. I can’t do it myself,” he added softly. “I’m charged with looking after the British officers, and I’m to see to the British troops if any time is left. You understand.”

“Indeed.” Perhaps she did. The way he was looking at her… Her palms were suddenly sweaty. Roisin wiped them on the skirt of her dress. The only one she owned now, stained with soot and singed along the hem. “As for visiting any rebel prisoners there might be, I’ll go gladly. If you can arrange for me to be allowed to do so.”

“I think I can. If there are any. That’s why I suggested it.”

Holy Virgin, he must be living in the very pocket of General Howe. “Then of course I’ll go. Gladly.”

“Good. Should the need arise, I’ll send word. And you’ll have more medicines tomorrow.” Then, as she was leaving, “Mistress Healsall, I knew Cuf most of my life. He was my aunt’s—”

“Yes. I know.”

“I haven’t seen him anywhere. He didn’t join the British forces like most of the Negro slaves, did he?”

She was on her way out, and her back was to him by then. She didn’t turn around when she spoke. “Why should he? If you know Cuf, you know he’s no one’s slave.”