City of Dreams (15 page)

The cabin was exactly as they’d left it that last terrible morning.

Every surface was thick with dust. Spiders had spun webs wherever they could find purchase. The blood that had been splashed on the floor and the walls had dried into dark brown splotches.

Sally stood in the doorway a moment, surveying the scene. Lucas watched her. After a few seconds she turned to him. “What happened in this place, Lucas? Why was I was allowed to live?”

“I don’t know, Sal, though I’ve tried many times to understand.”

Sally removed her shawl and hung it in its customary place on the nail beside the door. “Have you, Lucas? You’ve never said.”

“I didn’t like to remind you.”

She laughed. “No fear of that. I carry a permanent souvenir.”

“Not permanent. Only until October.”

“And then?”

“Ah, Sal, I don’t know. I thought we agreed we would address that when we had to.”

A visible shudder passed over her. “So we did, Lucas. When we come to it. Meanwhile I must address this.”

She turned in a circle as she spoke, looking at every corner of the cabin. “And address it I will. I’ve had enough of filth to last me three lifetimes. Fetch us a meal, Lucas. Go see if your traps in the stream are still there. Perhaps there’s a beaver or a duck. Otherwise, bag us a squirrel. Give me an hour and you’ll come home to something worth calling by the name.”

She waited till he’d gone, then rolled up her sleeves and went to the rain barrel. It was full to overflowing. Over and over Sally plunged the leather bucket to its depth and hauled up gallons of fresh clean water and sluiced the walls and the floor of the cabin. The blood of her child’s father ran out the door and soaked into the ground, a rust-colored libation to appease whatever gods had preserved her life and taken his.

At the end of May the child quickened.

The first time it kicked, Sally was working in her physic garden thinning a patch of yarrow. When she felt the movement within her she put down her trowel and clasped her hands over her belly. It was still only a small mound, easily concealed beneath her clothing. And inside that swelling, a life. Her child.

No. What was she thinking? Not a child: a bastard papoose. Born of a brutal attack by a savage.

The baby kicked a second time. Sally moaned. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her sunken cheeks.

Lucas had never permitted her a husband. She had never let herself think of it exactly that way before, but deep in her heart she’d always known the truth. Her brother enjoyed having her around to tend his house and cook his meals and look after his garden and prepare his remedies. That’s why he’d never managed to find enough money to provide her with a dowry. And because she owed Lucas so much, Sally had accepted that her fate was to be a spinster.

But now, as a result of events so terrible she could not bear to think about them, she was to have a child.

Lucas meant to take the babe away from her after it was born. Probably he meant to kill it. And she had allowed him to hint at his plan and never told him that she would not permit such an evil.

Oh, my baby, my sweet child. Forgive me. Forgive me for thinking such a thing with even a tiny corner of my mind. I have been out of my senses. But I am sane now. And I swear to Almighty God that I will see you come to no harm.

The weeks passed. It was June, then July. Unlike many pregnant women, Sally did not grow plump and rosy; only her belly was swollen. No one who saw her from a distance would guess at her condition. To be sure no one got close enough to guess, Sally stopped accompanying her brother to the barber shop and going to the hospital. Sometimes she fretted that staying away would draw the town’s attention as surely as letting them see her.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Lucas insisted. “I tell everyone the same thing. After the siege you have no physics left to dispense, and all your time is spent tending the garden and preparing new remedies. And to any as don’t seem satisfied with that I say that besides you’ve a cough and sometimes a fever.”

“And they seem to believe you?”

“Of course they believe me. Who is not ill after the winter we’ve had? Anyway, almost everyone’s busy trying to rebuild, harvest a few crops and plant new ones. They haven’t time to worry about me and you, only themselves.”

Sally knew him too well. “Almost everyone. But not all. I’m right, aren’t I, Lucas? Who isn’t too busy to think about me?”

“Van der Vries. He’s come to the shop three times in the last five days. He keeps asking me for physics. Laudanum, particularly. Today he specifically asked where you were.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“The same as I told the others.”

“I see. And have you told him that there’s no laudanum left and there won’t be more for two months?”

“I have. He seemed satisfied. Not happy, mind you, but ready to take my word. I promised we’d share our stores with him as soon as we had any.”

“And why would we do that?”

“If you believe what I told him, because his patients feel pain the same as the few I have left. If you prefer the truth, because if I hadn’t made the promise he’d never have finished going on about what he called our secret supply.”

“We have no secret supply.”

“I know that, Sal, and you know it. The fat physician doesn’t.”

“The fat, stupid physician. Don’t forget ‘stupid,’ Lucas. It’s the most noteworthy thing about him.” There was a touch of the old Sally in that remark, a glimmer of the quick-witted companion she used to be. “Lucas, why does he come now for laudanum? He never—”

“Laudanum and other physics,” Lucas corrected. “He says he had his own stores, brought with him from Holland. Now that they’ve run out, he needs to share ours. Says he’ll pay, by the way, either guilders or wampum. As we like.”

They’d finished eating. Sally stood up and carried their bowls to the rain barrel beside the door. “Tell him when we have physics we’ll take wampum for them. Much better than guilders around here.”

She squatted and began rubbing the bowls with a handful of grass to remove the last of the pigeon fat from the surface. “Tell him I’ll prepare him some physics when the plants are full-grown, and we’ll agree on a fair price then.” Sally dipped her hand into the rain barrel and sprinkled the bowls with water, then dried them on her skirt.

“I’ll tell him. Somehow I don’t think it’ll keep him from coming back.”

“He hasn’t enough to do,” Sally said. “When you’ve a house inside the town and haven’t been burned out like all the farmers in this benighted colony, you’ve time to waste bothering other folk.” She set the bowls on the shelf above the fireplace, then remained with her back to her brother. “Lucas, I’ve been thinking … after the baby comes.” She heard his sharply indrawn breath, but forced herself to continue, “We must do nothing evil, Lucas. Nothing we will spend our lives regretting.”

“And what was done to you,” Lucas said softly. “Was that not evil?”

“Yes, but that’s not to say—”

“What the burgomasters will do to you if they find out you are with child, is that not evil?”

“Lucas, I know all that. But—”

“What will happen to me if you are found out, that I will be forced to forfeit all I possess in reparation for your wrongdoing, does that not qualify as evil?”

Sally turned to face him. She put her hands over her ears. “Stop! I know all these things, Lucas. I think of them night and day. But I cannot—” There was no reason to say more. Lucas had left the cabin.

IV

High summer. Fierce heat and no rain. The air was full of mosquitoes and flies and gnats and wasps. Lucas left for town by dawn. Sally was in the garden well before seven and by ten she was back in the house, hiding from the heat and the bugs until the sun went down. It was a routine that went on day after day without change.

Until the second Friday of July, when Sally was pulling weeds from among the barley plants.

“Good day to you, Juffrouw Sally.”

She knew instantly who it was. She took a deep breath, and tried to compose herself. “And to you, Mijnheer Van der Vries.” She did not stand up. She was almost seven months along. These days she had to kneel beside her plants, because squatting was no longer possible. And from any position, getting to her feet was an awkward and difficult chore.

The Dutchman’s plump, stockinged legs came level with her eyes. Sally raised her face so she could see the rest of him. “If you’re looking for Lucas, he left for town two hours past. I’m sure you’ll find him there.”

Van der Vries was breathing hard; drops of sweat trickled down the red mustache and hung from the pointed red beard. He took a handkerchief from his sleeve and began wiping his face. “I apologize, Mistress. The path is very narrow. I had to leave my wagon a distance back and walk.”

“And you’ve missed Lucas. I am sorry for your trouble, mijnheer.” She still hadn’t figured out a way to stand up without calling attention to her belly. Dear God, make him leave.

“Actually, I was looking for you.” The Dutchman put away his handkerchief. “Here, juffrouw, allow me to help you up.” He extended his hand.

She had no choice but to take it. His flesh was moist, soft, the palm sticky with sweat. Sally hauled herself to her feet. She exerted every scrap of will to make the movement seem lithe and easy, but judging from the way he was looking at her, she hadn’t succeeded.

Van der Vries spoke slowly, looking her up and down with every word. “Your brother tells me you have not been well. Indeed, that’s partly why I called. Perhaps you are in need of my care?”

His eyes continued to study her. Sally could feel that some strands had come loose from her bun and were hanging beside her face. The dress she wore was one she’d made seven years before in Rotterdam, from a length of calico Lucas had given her as a present for her twenty-first birthday. Once pretty, it was now faded and worn. Shapeless as well. Sally had discarded the dress’s sash. The garment hung loose from her neck, covering her swollen belly. But not entirely hiding it.

That’s what Van der Vries seemed most interested in, the bulge where her waist had been. She spoke quickly, without thinking. Anything to get his eyes to leave her stomach and look at her face. “You are kind to be concerned for me, mijnheer. But I am not ill, only tired after our hard winter. You said my health was partly your reason for calling. What, then, is the other part?”

He was still holding her hand. “You are sure, juffrouw? You are entirely well?”

“Entirely.” Sally took her hand from his. “If you came here to treat me, mijnheer, I thank you for your concern. But I’m in no need of your services.”

“
Ja
, so I see.” He was speaking very softly, looking into her eyes now. As if he dared her to flinch or look away. “I think I begin to understand that you and your brother have everything you need out here in the woods. Mostly, of course, you have each other.”

She felt the fury rise like bile in her throat. “You are correct, mijnheer. Everything we need.” She spoke the words with studied innocence, like a woman with no secrets. “Now, please. Tell me the second reason you have come.”

“Ah, yes. The second reason. Apart from my concern for you, of course. That is precisely it, juffrouw. I treat so many in Nieuw Amsterdam that I have run through the physics I brought with me. I am in need of more. And while there are others in the colony who grow all the signature herbs, none compound the receipts with skill approaching yours. What is your English word for the art? ‘Simpling,’ is it not?”

“Simpling, yes. And I thank you for your compliment, but just now I have no physics to give you.”

“Sell me, juffrouw. I told your brother I would pay, and I will. Guilders or wampum, as you choose.”

“Yes, so he said. But I believe my brother also told you that our stores ran out during the winter and we’ve not yet replenished the supply.”

“But you have been here now since April. You and your brother only. In this fastness where none come and trouble you.” He was looking directly at her again. Much as she wanted to, Sally would not let herself be the first to look away.