Bride of Thunder (38 page)

“And you haven't mentioned them before?” Eric frowned. “That almost makes me angry! Tell me now.”

Mercy hesitated, not sure which request would be less likely to irritate him. “Turn the quetzals loose, and let me start a hospital,” she said in a rush.

His jaw dropped. “The quetzals in my court?” he said at last.

“Quetzals don't belong in cages,” she said. “It makes me miserable to think of them.”

“So that's why you keep the shutters closed on that side,” he mused. “But they're a king's ransom and I love the glimmer of their plumes. Let me think about it.” His frown deepened. “What kind of hospital?”

“There must be injuries in the fields and refineries, with cattle and logging. Then there are ordinary ailments, and sometimes women have trouble giving birth. There should be something more than a hut where people die or recover without much help.”

“I've tried to bring doctors here, but only drunkards will come, and they're worthless.”

“I'm not a doctor, but my father taught me some things, and I learned from a woman at La Quinta who Knew about herbs. If you'd let me train a few people and equip a building, it'd pay off in the loss of fewer working days and better health and productivity.”

His lip curled. “Not that you give a damn about my profits!”

“But you do.”

He let out a gusty breath of annoyance. “I don't want you fooling with dirty field hands!”

“I could see the women and children, except for emergencies, and if you let me find some volunteers, they could take care of the men.”

“You wouldn't start spending all your time aping Florence Nightingale?” he demanded. “You'd remember you're here for me?”

“How could I forget?” she asked wryly.

“An infirmary
is
needed,” he said, as if convincing himself. “And I suppose it's futile to expect you to read or embroider all the time you're not with me. Give McNulty a list of supplies and in a day or two we'll find a building.”

Rising, he nodded dismissal to Celeste, dropped on his knees in front of Mercy, and began to nibble and kiss her stomach and breasts, cupping her to him with his hands. When her legs refused to hold her, he laughed softly and carried her to the bed.

McNulty nodded approval when she gave him a list compiled from experience and her father's books and letters: quinine; morphine; laudanum; calomel; chloroform, which she knew Queen Victoria had taken to ease the birth of one of her children back in 1853; scalpels; probes; needles; scissors; suturing silk; bone saws; tweezers; cloth for bandages; several iron cots with mattresses and sheets; a variety of basins, pails, bowls, and cups.

“I've long been after Mr. Kensington to bring in a nurse, since those rascally doctors were of no use, and set up a place where the workers could have some care, at least.” He looked more dubiously at a second list, longer than the first, naming plants, herbs, and roots that Chepa had used with good effects. “You think this stuff does any good, ma'am?”

“If it came to choice, I'd rather have them than the supplies from the city,” Mercy said.

McNulty scratched his fringes of red hair and peered through his glasses. “Well, I'll send some Indians who claim to know plants on a gathering expedition,” he agreed. “But some of these things will have to come from England.”

“Then the sooner they're ordered, the sooner they'll come,” said Mercy.

Slowly, McNulty grinned. “Be more to ye than a pretty face,” he admitted. “I'll get a messenger off this very day.”

She thanked him and went her way, almost happy for the first time since her abduction. She was doing something useful without accepting Eric's mold; she'd have something outside herself to stay busy with several hours a day. All this gave her a bracing sense of potency; she felt less a victim.

She awoke her birthday morning to soft Spanish singing under the balcony. “On the morning you were born, were born the flowers.…”

“I arranged for—you to be serenaded.” Eric smiled, stretching lazily. “But that doesn't mean you have to leap up!”

Going to the window, he called his thanks and tossed down a handful of coins before returning to her.

There was the usual opulent breakfast, which Mercy never more than sampled, but which was evidently, for Eric, one indispensable heritage from England. There was always ham, tongue, pheasant, and frequently grilled fish, turkey, quail, partridge, or curassow. There was oatmeal, cooked without salt, and viewed by Pierre with considerable disgust, which was what Mercy ate, unless she had an omelet and toast. There were deviled kidneys, a variety of mustards, chutneys, and sauces, and tempting arrays of fresh fruit, pitchers of juice, and silver urns of coffee, hot milk, and tea. Pierre always made croissants, crisp and buttery, and today there were delicate almond pastries.

After breakfast Eric suggested a ride, though he ordinarily worked mornings. They started for the sugar refinery. Dismounting by the store, Eric flourished her into the long building next to it.

“Your infirmary,” he said.

The walls were freshly whitewashed, there was a curtained section for privacy, a high wooden table, several iron cots with white sheets, open and locked shelves, and a large washstand. Three older women and two men kissed Eric's hand and would also, have kissed Mercy's, but she put them behind her, uncomfortable with that sort of obeisance.

“These people gathered the herbs, roots, and bark you needed,” Eric explained. “They know some curing and want to work with you. When the men know enough, they'll go to the loggers, so we need to recruit another man or two for the sugar works. The things you ordered should start arriving gradually in a week or so, but I have quinine and laudanum in the highest locked cabinet, and apparently your helpers found most of the native items you want.”

Both elated and awed at the materialization of her wish, Mercy suddenly felt terribly inadequate and wished Chepa or her father was there. But something was better than nothing. She asked the names of the men and women, said how glad she was they would be helping, and promised to come the next day.

“I have two presents for you.” Eric smiled as they rode toward the house. “I wonder which to give you first.”

“The infirmary is wonderful.”

“But hardly a gift for
you
.”

They left the horses with a groom. Eric took her around by a different way to enter the courtyard from the rear. She hadn't been there since the day she arrived. Glancing around the flowering sheltered place, she saw the cages were gone, but her swift delight vanished when she saw the quetzals were still imprisoned by a net above the garden. They could fly from tree to tree now, their wings were no longer tightly cramped, but they were denied freedom, their high cloud forests.

“Well?” Eric asked, tilting up her chin. “Isn't this better?”

“Oh … better, I suppose.”

“Nothing can hurt them here. You can't say they don't have plenty of space.”

“But they aren't free!”

“You think that's so important?”

“To fly free must be the essence of birds, just as blooming is for flowers.”

He shrugged. “Come here, then.” He handed her a rope, then told her to pull on it. When she did, the net slid back along the grooves to which it was attached.

The sky was open. Glinting blue and green, the colors of the gods, of earth and sky, the quetzals perched where they were. Eric clapped his hands. One fluttered up to be followed by another and another; till all were flying, passing out of sight beyond the walls and palms.

“Will they find their way home?”

“Probably.”

He was watching her so strangely that Mercy asked, “Did you mind it a lot—letting them go?”

“Not as much as I expected to.” He kissed her on the mouth slowly, deliberately, claimingly. “I still have my quetzal woman. And here's my other gift.”

He took from his pocket an envelope and shook out a long, glittering strand of emeralds and sapphires mounted on a supple golden chain. “You can weave it into your hair,” he said; “twine it around your neck, or wear it as a girdle. I thought of a tiara, but this seemed less formal.”

“It … it's very beautiful.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you can wear it against your naked body, love, which is where I wish to see it now.” He didn't need to add the rest—that she had accepted his other gifts, the released quetzals, the infirmary. He had been generous. But as they moved inside and he followed her up the stairs, she vowed to resist his indulgence, as she had his brutality, and she swore she would never love him. When, in bed, he festooned her breasts and loins with the sparkling jewels, she closed her eyes and remembered the flash of wings. The quetzals, for no reason they could understand, could go back to their mates and mountains. Someday, perhaps, just as mysteriously, the sky might open for her, too.

Pierre outdid himself with the birthday dinner: capon;
galantine de poulard
with aspic jelly; pheasant; turtle soup; oysters; a decidedly ugly-looking pig's head; mushrooms; candied yams; savory rice; a fantastic trifle in a large-stemmed crystal bowl; with its cake, pudding, jelly, fruit, and whipped cream layers saturated with sherry; Neapolitan cake; jellies in assorted elaborate shapes and flavor combinations; chocolate
gâteau; blanc mange
. Though Mercy ate sparingly, she had a little too much brandy before Eric took her up to bed, and she woke up the next morning feeling bilious enough to use some of her own brews.

A single croissant and coffee righted her. Then after Eric shut himself up with McNuIty, she called for Lucera, and, accompanied by Celeste, as earlier agreed upon with Eric, she went to the infirmary. She had her supplies and books, including the irreplaceable
Badianus
translation. Francisca, a wrinkled woman with graying hair, explained that Maria and Concha were helping at a childbirth and would be along later.

“Women can have their babies here,” Mercy said in broken Mayan.

Francisca looked aghast and said there was no need for that; the mother was healthy, the baby in position, and a steambath was ready for her cleansing when she had delivered. That sounded good and natural. Mercy was more than glad to leave childbirth to the midwives as long as there were no complications. Their experience was greater than hers, and a woman was sure to be more relaxed and comfortable in her own home.

It was an interesting morning: a child wheezing with asthma who got relief from the smoke of
toloache;
an old man with no family, with the fever and chills of malaria, was dosed with quinine and put to bed in a hammock, given water in which willow leaves had been steeped, and bathed with the same liquid when he felt he was burning; several babies with festering sores from
garrapata
bites, which Francisca poulticed with crushed pulp from maguey leaves; a man burned badly on his shoulder and arm where he'd fallen against one of the refinery boilers. Mercy used Chepa's remedy on him: lime juice mixed with egg yolk. Sweat stood out on his face at the first application, but in a few minutes he cast Mercy a thankful look and mumbled that it was better, so he was given a few eggs and limes and sent home.

Mercy guessed, of course, that she was getting those with nothing to lose, or else with trifling but nuisance ills, like the infected bites. It would take time and successes to win people's confidence. That was fine. It was going to take
her
time and some degree of success to gain confidence.

Concha and Maria returned from the birth in time for the consultation Mercy and the staff were having. Since all had some cures and experience, it seemed wise to have these discussions to share knowledge and problems and work out the best ways of serving.

It was agreed that one person would sleep at the infirmary to tend overnight patients and respond to emergencies. Morning would be the main treatment period, though the helpers would stay in shifts during the afternoon. Contagious diseases would be tended to by visits to the home, though it would be a good idea to partition off a room in the infirmary for this purpose.

Most procedures were fixed upon by common consent. Mercy wanted this center to continue, whatever happened to her, so right from the start she tried to let these experienced people do the planning. She did insist, though, on washing with soap between seeing patients and frequent changing of the loose white smocks supplied by the sewing women. Since daily baths were a part of Mayan tradition and her helpers appreciated cleanliness, Mercy didn't have to battle for these simple hygienic measures, as she would surely have had to do with almost any group of doctors from Europe or the United States.

Encouraged by the acceptance of the staff and the fact that so far they'd been able to help everyone who'd come, Mercy was just leaving when a frazzled little woman brought in a young man, apparently her son, gripping a hideously swollen arm crusted with blood and oozing pus. He had cut himself several days ago while cutting sugarcane and had held the wound with his hand till he got home to his mother, who had finally stopped the blood flow by tying one cord beneath the wound and another at the bend of the arm about it.

The flow had stopped, but circulation had been cutoff and the hand and wrist dangled like those of a corpse, while the bound-off part of the arm stank of putrefaction. Mercy's stomach turned, and none of the helpers came forward. While they shook their heads and murmured, she cut the cords and explained to them and the mother that such bindings might stop the blood from pumping from a cut, but that it also prevented any blood from reaching the affected parts, causing them to become poisoned and to rot.

She rubbed the withered-looking hand and wrist, massaged where the cords had marked, and set the mother to chafing her son's fingers while she opened the suppurating wound. A mass of evil-smelling blood and pus oozed out. While Mercy pressed gently, Francisca caught the vile discharge on swabs of wild cotton, one luxury that cost nothing. A final jet of yellow, blood-tinged foulness spurted out, and then came a burst of blood that Mercy knew was from an artery because of its darkness and the way it maintained a rhythm.