City of Dreams (3 page)

Word was that Peter Stuyvesant ruled with absolute authority and that any who questioned him paid a heavy price. Right then, ashen, sweating with pain, the man lying in the bed looked small and insignificant.

Lucas put his hand on Stuyvesant’s forehead. The flesh was cold and clammy. “Where does it hurt, mijnheer?”

“In my belly, man. Low down. Fierce pain. And I cannot piss for the burning. My sister is convinced it’s a stone.”

Anna Stuyvesant was in the room with them, huddling in the gloom beside the door. Some mention had been made of a wife, and when they arrived Lucas had heard the voices of children, but none had appeared. He’d seen only a black serving woman—from what he’d heard of this place she was probably a slave—and the man in the bed. And, in control of all, the sister. Obviously married, or had been, since the clerk at the dock had called her mevrouw, but one who, following the Dutch fashion, hadn’t taken her husband’s name. Looked like the type who wouldn’t take willingly to his cock, either. Lucas was conscious of her fierce glance drilling a hole in his back.

He leaned closer to the patient, observing the clouded eyes, the pallor, the sour breath that came hard through a half-open mouth. “Judging from the look of you, mijnheer, Mevrouw Stuyvesant may be right. And if she is, if it’s a stone, I can help you. But…” He hesitated. Afterward, some men thought of the relief, and were grateful. Others remembered only the agony of the surgery, and those hated you forever. God help him and Sally both if the governor of Nieuw Netherland hated him forever.

“But what?” Stuyvesant demanded.

“But it will hurt while I do it,” Lucas said, choosing not to dip the truth in honey. “Worse than the pain you’re feeling right now. After the operation is over, however, you will be cured.”

“If I live, you mean.”

“The chances are excellent that you will, mijnheer.”

“But not certain.”

“In this world, Mijnheer Governor, nothing is certain. As I’m sure you know. But I’ve done this surgery dozens of times.”

“And all your patients lived?” Wincing with pain while he spoke. Having to force the words between clenched teeth.

“Perhaps six or seven did not, mijnheer. But they were men of weak constitution before the stone began plaguing them.”

Stuyvesant studied the Englishman, even managed a small smile. “I am not a man of weak constitution. And you, you’re a strange one, barber. Despite your mangled Dutch, you speak like a man with his wits in place. But the way you look, not to mention how you smell… Ach, but then my sister tells me you only just got off the
Princess,
so per—”

The pain must have been savage. The Dutchman gritted his teeth so hard Lucas thought he might break his jaw. The sweat poured off him.

Lucas leaned forward and wiped the governor’s face with a corner of the bedding. Half a minute, maybe less. The wave of agony abated. Stuyvesant drew a few deep breaths. “This operation…” He whispered the words, his strength sapped by the pain. “How long will it take?”

“Forty-five seconds,” Lucas said. “Start to finish. You can time me.”

The governor stared into Lucas’s eyes. “I will. Forty-five seconds? You’re certain of that?”

“I am.”

Stuyvesant flung back the covers. “Took them forty-five minutes to do this.” His right leg had been cut off at the knee.

Lucas looked down at the stump, then at the face of the man in the bed. Pain had hollowed his cheeks, but when their eyes met Stuyvesant did not look away. Finally Lucas nodded. He turned to the woman beside the door. “Bring some rum, mevrouw. He must drink as much as we can get down him.”

Anna Stuyvesant stepped out of the shadows. “There is no rum in this house.”

“Then send someone to get some. Your brother cannot—”

“Yes, I can.” Stuyvesant’s voice, sounding firmer than it had, trembling less with agony. “I must. I take no drink stronger than ordinary ale.”

“But under the circumstances …” Lucas looked again at the stump of leg.

“Not then, either,” Stuyvesant said quietly. “I fear the Lord more than I fear pain, barber.”

“As you wish. But perhaps I can satisfy both masters. If you will excuse me for a moment…”

Lucas stepped into the narrow hall. Sally was there, sitting at the top of the stairs, clutching her basket and the small leather box that contained his instruments. She jumped up, pressing her bundles to her, her narrow face shriveled with anxiety. “How is he? Can you help him without cutting?”

“No.” Lucas was sweating. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his black jacket. The accumulated filth of the journey left a dark mark. “God help me, I must remove the stone.”

“But—”

“There is no ‘but.’ If it doesn’t come out, like as not he’ll drown in his own piss.”

“What if he dies of the pain of surgery? What if he bleeds to death?” Her voice was an urgent whisper.

“This man can bear suffering.” Lucas looked anxiously toward the bedroom door. “He’s had one leg cut off at the knee, and he doesn’t take more than an ale to quench his thirst. No strong spirits, not even to dull the onslaught of the knife and the saw. As for bleeding to death, I must see that he does not. Say your prayers, girl, and give me my instruments.”

“Lucas, if anything happens, what—”

“Nothing is going to happen. Except that mijnheer the governor will think I’m the greatest surgeon since Galen.”

“But you’re a barber, Lucas. In heaven’s name, your surgeon’s instruments are what got us hounded out of London in the first place.”

“I know. But we’re in Nieuw Amsterdam, not London. We must take our chance when it presents itself. See if you’ve any stanching powder in your basket.”

Sally hesitated.

“Do it, Sal. Otherwise I’ll go ahead without it.”

A few seconds more. Finally she began pawing through her things. “Yes, here it is.” She held up a small pottery crock. “Stanching powder. A fair supply.”

“Excellent. Now some laudanum.”

Sally shook her head. “I have none. I swear it, Lucas. I only brought a little aboard, and we used—”

“Damnation! Look well, Sal. If any’s left, I can use it to advantage.”

After a few moments groping, she produced a tiny pewter vial of the kind she’d used to store the last of the chamomile powder. “This held laudanum. But it’s empty.”

Lucas snatched the container, uncorked it, sniffed, squinted to peer inside. “A drop, perhaps. It will be better than nothing. Aye, I can see a drop or two at the bottom.” He recorked the vial and slipped it into the side pocket of his breeches, then turned back to the bedroom. “Wish me luck, Sal. And stop up your ears. But don’t worry, the shouts won’t go on for long.”

Sally went again to sit on the top step, clutching her basket in her lap, as if her simples were the only thing she had to remind her of who she was and how she came to be in this place.

The house at the corner of the fort built for the governor of Nieuw Netherland was nothing like as grand as places she’d seen from afar in London and Rotterdam, but it was the grandest she’d ever been inside. Two stories, and both of them for the living of this one man and his family and his servants. Brick outside and polished wood within. Even the wooden steps were buffed to such a gloss that when she leaned forward she could see her reflection, her face peeking over the toes of her scuffed boots.

Lucas had bought her the boots before they left Holland; he said clogs wouldn’t do for such a long and perilous journey. The boots had pointed toes and laced to well above her ankles. She’d thought them incredibly grand at first, but less so now. And the sturdy Dutch folk in gilt frames looking down at her from the walls seemed unimpressed. God knew, they were not the first.

Back in Kent, in the barn behind their father’s Dover taproom, the eleven Turner brats had slept tumbled together in the straw because all the beds were rented for a penny a night to travelers. There Lucas had protected her from the despicable things that befell their sisters and brothers (often with their father’s connivance). There Sally believed in Lucas’s quest to be better than he’d been born to be. When he taught first himself to read, then taught her, she believed. When he wrangled a barbering apprenticeship to the Company of Barbers and Surgeons by showing a member of the gentry the sketch Sally had made of the men, bare arse in the air, rutting with a boy of six beside the stable (and never mind that the child was a Turner), Sally believed. When Lucas sent for her to come to London to join him, and two years later the wrath of the Surgeons drove them both into the street, his sister believed in the rightness of her brother’s aspirations. Now, when they had come so far to this strange place, and he was yet again rushing headlong into conflict with authority; now, she was less sure.

Lucas returned to Stuyvesant’s bedroom. His patient lay silent in his bed, rigid with pain. The governor’s sister was leaning over him, bathing his face with a cloth dipped in scented water. Lucas leaned toward her. “Send word to the barracks that we’ll need three strong men,” he said softly. “Make sure they’re young, with—”

“No.” Stuyvesant’s word was a command. “I’ll not be held down.”

“I didn’t intend for you to overhear me, mijnheer. But I don’t mean you to be held down, only held in position. It is through no lack of courage that a man twitches under the knife.”

“I will not twitch, barber.”

“Mijnheer—”

“Get on with it, man. Else I’ll have you hanged as a charlatan who offers hope when there is none.”

Lucas hesitated, looked at Anna Stuyvesant. She shook her head. Lucas took the pewter vial from his pocket. “Very well. Please open your mouth.”

“I told you, I don’t take strong drink.”

“This isn’t drink. It’s a medicinal draught made by my sister.” Stuyvesant still looked wary. “Consider the size of it, mijnheer.” Lucas held the tiny pewter tube in front of the other man’s eyes. “Could this hold enough rum or geneva to satisfy even an infant’s thirst?”

The governor hesitated a second longer, then opened his mouth. Lucas shook the single remaining drop of laudanum onto his tongue. The argument had been pointless; there wasn’t enough of Sally’s decoction to do any good. On the other hand, sometimes what a patient believed to be true was as good as the reality.

“That will make things very much easier,” Lucas said. He even managed to sound as if he meant it. “Now, mijnheer, in a moment we must get you out of your bed and over to that chest by the window where the light’s best. I’ll want you to lean on the chest, support yourself on your elbows. But first”—he turned to Anna Stuyvesant—“bring me a bucket, mevrouw. And some cloths. And a kettle of boiling water.”

She left. Lucas checked the contents of his surgeon’s case. A dozen ties made of sheep’s intestines. Three scalpels of different sizes, a couple of saws, a needle threaded with catgut, and, for stone cutting, a fluted probe and a pair of pincers with a jointed handle that could be opened to the width of four spread fingers.

The sound of flies buzzing in the sun beyond the window was the only noise. The man in the bed gritted his teeth against the agony and said nothing, just kept looking at Lucas. Lucas looked back. Finally Anna Stuyvesant returned. “Hot water, you said, and clean cloths and a bucket. It’s all here.”

“Thank you.” Lucas stood up and removed his jacket. He began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. “Now, mijnheer, may I assist you from the bed?”

“Yes, but first… Anna, go. Leave us alone.”

“I do not like to go, Peter. If you should—”

“This is nothing for a woman to see. Go.” And after she had gone, “Very well, barber, let’s get this over with. If you hand me my stick I can—” Stuyvesant broke off, gritted his teeth against another wave of the pain. “Do it,” he whispered finally. “I don’t care how much it hurts or for how long. For the love of God, man, do it now.”

“Forty-five seconds,” Lucas promised again. “From the first cut. I swear it.”

He helped Stuyvesant hobble to the chest beside the window. The governor leaned forward, taking his weight on his elbows as Lucas directed. In fact Lucas would have preferred that his patient stand on the chest and squat, but a man with one leg couldn’t be asked to assume such a position. Bent over like this was the next best thing. Lucas pushed up the governor’s nightshirt, exposed the Dutchman’s plump buttocks, then, a moment before he began, “There is one thing, Mijnheer Governor.”