City of Dreams (60 page)

Jennet ran to the window and pushed aside the lace curtains. She saw the light of many torches bobbing and weaving in the dark, coming up Nassau Street, converging on—

“Psst … Mevrouw, it be me. Jan Brinker.”

She pulled back, startled almost out of her wits by the misshapen creature leering in at her from the other side of the glass, mouthing words she couldn’t hear. “Go away! What are you doing in my garden? Go, or—”

Brinker looked over his shoulder. The torches were coming closer. He raised one small fist and knocked urgently on the pane that separated him from DaSilva’s wife. “Mevrouw, there be no time. Open this window and come!”

“Go away!” If only she could summon Clemence, he would get rid of this awful creature in seconds. But Clemence had gone with Solomon. She was alone except for Flossie and Tilda.

Brinker looked around. The mob was no more than fifty yards back. He had to get her out of here. If he saved Solomon DaSilva’s wife, the man’s gratitude would be enormous and the reward would make him safe for the rest of his days. There was a round boulder at his feet, part of a decorative edging to the flower bed beneath the window. The dwarf reached down, summoned all his strength, and hoisted the stone and threw it through the glass.

Jennet barely had time to jump out of the way. “Are you mad! I’ll have you ar—”

“Mevrouw, if you value your life, come with me! Now! Listen to them!”

The sound was all around her now, a roar she had to recognize for what it was. Hatred. She heard Solomon’s name and she knew it was said as a curse.

“Now, mevrouw!” Brinker reached in and tugged at her skirt. “Come. There be no more time!”

She tried to make a decision. If she ran God alone knew what would happen to this house. And what of Flossie and Tilda? She couldn’t go off and leave them.

The voices in the street grew louder. The first of the torches lit the road in front of the house next to hers in a crimson flush. In seconds the shadows in her own garden would be gone.

She had one obligation above all others, to protect Solomon’s child. Their child. With one hand she gathered up her skirts, with the other she thrust open the remains of the shattered casement and stepped into the garden.

“
Ja
, good! Quick, mevrouw. Follow me.”

III

Martha Kincaid’s bawdyhouse had changed little since the first time Jennet saw it. Men and women, black and white crowded together in the taproom. The man with the horn on his head still served the tankards of ale or rum or geneva. And the woman with the terrible red devil’s mark covering her face was sitting beside a legless man who was openly fondling her half-naked breasts.

Jennet felt that mixture of fear and pity that had struck her when she visited this unholy tavern nearly six years before. But this time she was the supplicant.

“What you bringin’ her to my place for?” Martha demanded of Brinker. “She ain’t gonna help any what’s here.”

Brinker opened his mouth, but Jennet answered first. “I’m the one who needs help this time, Mistress Kincaid.”

“You? Needing help from the likes of us? Not likely. Besides, why should I help you?”

The room was well lit by the fire and dozens of candles, and Jennet couldn’t even see a scar from the surgery on Martha Kincaid’s face. “My father served you well,” Jennet said softly. “Perhaps you will help me for his sake, if you will not do so for my own.”

Martha Kincaid said nothing, then turned to the wooden counter that ran the length of the room. Barrels of ale were set at intervals on the countertop, pewter tankards lined up in the spaces between. She grabbed one of the tankards, lifted it, and took a long swallow, then set it down and shouted for the barkeep. “Tom!”

The man with the horn came rushing over to get her a refill. Martha lifted her hand to her face and rested it a moment against her smooth cheek. “For your pa’s sake. Aye, I expect there’s something to that. What do you want?”

“Sanctuary,” Jennet said.

“Her husband be away somewheres. And with the election and all…” Brinker’s words tumbled over themselves in his anxiety to make Martha understand. “The folks in the town, crazy they be. Screaming for Jews’ blood. They be murdering her if I let ’em.”

“She ain’t no Jew.”

“No, but she be married to one. That’s why I brung her, Martha. The crowd be screaming how she be a whore, and threatenin’ God only knows what.”

“God ain’t the only one as knows.” Martha Kincaid propped herself on her elbows and leaned back on the bar. “Any fool can figure out what a crowd of men would like to do to a lady like this. You thinkin’ you want to work here, mistress? Lie down with Tom there, him with the horn on his head? Or maybe old Seth. He’s the fellow ain’t got no legs.”

“I’m asking for shelter, not work, Mistress Kincaid.”

“Shelter, is it? Can you pay?”

“Yes, but not immediately. We left in rather a hurry. As soon as my husband returns he’ll—”

“
Ja
,” Brinker said anxiously, “her husband be Solomon DaSilva.”

“I know who her husband is. So tell me somethin’, Mistress DaSilva. Under the circumstances, seein’ as how you’re in a bit of bother, how come you didn’t run to one of your husband’s fancy bordellos and ask for sanctuary there? Know about ’em, do you?”

“I know.” Jennet stared unflinching at Martha.

“I be bringing her here,” Brinker said again, dancing up and down with impatience. “It not be her idea, Martha. I be bringing her because Solomon DaSilva, he be grateful like you never seen. Everyone knows he be mad for her.”

“I know,” Martha said wearily. “Stop fussing, Jan. You’ll get your reward for rescuing Mistress DaSilva. She can stay long as she likes and pay when she—” Her eyes came alight. “No. Mistress DaSilva can pay for her lodging this very night.”

The girl was pale and sullen, staring silently at the two women who stood beside her bed. “This here’s Ellen,” Martha said. “She’s four months gone. She don’t want the babe. Take it from her.”

Jennet gasped. “I can’t. And I wouldn’t if I could. How can you suggest such a wicked—”

“It’s her own pa as made her breed. Been doin’ it to her since she was eight. She’s twelve now.”

“Dear God,” Jennet whispered. “Her father … How can you know this is true, Mistress Kincaid? What if—”

“Ain’t no whats in it. I been listenin’ to stories like this for quite a time now. I know which ones is true.”

The girl watched both women through slitted eyes, but when she spoke it was to Martha. “She got the stuff that’ll make the babe come out afore time? She looks too grand to be a witch woman. Even if her dress be torn.”

She’d torn it racing through the woods with Jan Brinker. And once she’d fallen in the mud beside the path. “I’m not a witch,” Jennet said. “And I don’t know how to—”

“Yes, you do.” It was Martha who interrupted. “I talked to Ada Carruthers. All of them in the tanneries said how you could use the knife good as any surgeon or barber. Good as your pa. Till you got so high and mighty you wouldn’t do it no more. Well, you ain’t so high and mighty tonight. Not with half the town baying for your blood and worse. So do it. Help Ellen here and I’ll help you. Fair exchange.”

Jennet shook her head. “I stopped doing surgery because I promised my husband.”

“Well, he ain’t here to see, is he? And Jan says he ran off and left you to the mob. So—”

“He didn’t! Solomon would never do such a thing. He’s been gone three days. Traveling north.” Jennet broke off, but not before she saw the look of calculation in the other woman’s eyes.

Martha Kincaid’s expression was neutral, and her voice sounded weary. “Ah, stop your blatherin’. Don’t I know how a woman tells herself her man is good whether he is or not? Anyways, this ain’t about you or him. It’s about Ellen. A pa gives his daughter a babe, it’ll be a freak. Like one of them cursed souls out there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the taproom.

The girl in the bed sat up and grabbed Jennet’s arm. “Please, mistress, you got to do somethin’ for me. Any in the town finds out, they’ll put me in the ducking chair. Flog me, even.” She moaned. “I’m gonna hang myself if nobody—”

“You need do no such thing,” Jennet said, removing herself from Ellen’s grasp. “If you’re determined not to have the child, there are powders you can take that will expel the babe.” She’d heard the women in the tanneries talk about the potion. Some swore it was always effective, others said it worked only half the time, but they all knew where to get it. “I know someone who can make it.”

“Sweet Christ!” Martha Kincaid’s words dripped scorn. “Don’t you think I know about that?”

Jennet didn’t flinch at hearing the woman curse like a man. Not after all the time she’d spent in the tanneries. “Then why haven’t you gotten the powder for her?”

“The black lass in the apothecary as makes it ain’t there no more. The mistress won’t do it. Not for the likes of us.”

“Tamsyn? No, probably not. But what do you mean Phoebe isn’t there?”

“She ran away, three weeks past. Christ, you rich folks; sometimes I wonder if you need someone to wipe your arse when you shit. Don’t hear nothin’ livin’ like you do, behind them fences in your fancy houses.”

“Ran away! If they catch her she’ll be flogged. But why would Phoebe run away? She loves being an apothecary.”

“That’s as may be. But it won’t keep her warm on a winter’s night or give her a babe of her own to suckle. Wanted to marry, she did. One of Craddock’s other slaves. Craddock wouldn’t give permission. So they runned away together.”

“Stop goin’ on ’bout some blackbird ain’t even here!” Ellen shouted. “I’m the one’s in trouble. You be all I got to help me, mistress. You don’t take the babe, I be cursed and I might as well be dead.”

Jennet shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I haven’t the skill.”

“You never asked me ’bout Meg and Peg,” Martha Kincaid interrupted, watching Jennet. “You remember, the twins what was stuck together.”

“I remember,” Jennet whispered.

“Didn’t see ’em out front, did you?”

“No.”

“Good thing that is. ’Cause if you had you’da been seein’ ghosts. Dead these past two years, are Meg and Peg. Want to know how they died, Mistress DaSilva?” Jennet shook her head, but Martha Kincaid went on. “Cut ’emselves apart. With the knife I use to butcher a pig if I can catch it. Did it together, like they did everything else. Two hands on the one handle. Only, after it was done they couldn’t stop the bleedin’. None of us could.”

Jennet felt the vomit rise in her throat. She swallowed and gripped the wooden bedstead.

Ellen started to sob.

Martha ignored the weeping girl. “You said your husband was away on business. And what sort of business might that be, mistress? Them Indians to the north ain’t too friendly. Not the French soldiers, neither. Real dangerous it can be to go traveling these days.”

Jennet’s knuckles were white on the bedpost. Martha Kincaid knew. “My husband has many interests.”

“He’s rich as a lord, that’s for sure, but them as has always wants more. That’s how the world works, isn’t it, Mistress DaSilva? Specially with Jews. Nothin’s too dangerous if it’s likely to make a profit.”

“I’ll need hot water,” Jennet said. “Plenty of it. And rags, and a darning needle, and some yarn. And a stick or a poker long enough to reach up into her belly.”

She chose a thin wooden stick, nearly two feet long, made out of dense oak so it was strong. “Black Bento,” Martha explained, “he whittled that for me. To use when we boil clothes over the fire.”

The end of the stick was rounded, and the whole was well smoothed. It seemed to Jennet safer than the two knives and the metal skewer that were her other options.

Martha had begun pouring rum down Ellen’s throat. The girl choked and sputtered and whimpered, but she drank. When it seemed as if she’d had enough, Martha carried the empty tankard back to the taproom and returned with four women: the one with the red devil’s mark, one who had lost an eye and most of her nose to the pox, one whose right leg was considerably shorter than her left, and a huge black woman.