16

Several times she was conscious of being carried, handled, of voices she knew she could recognize if she tried. It was too much effort. She didn’t want to know them, or where she was, or even who. Her throat ached. Her head hurt. Best to drink whatever they gave her and sink back to soft darkness.

“Madame,” insisted a gentle voice. “Pierre begs that you have some of the creamed crab he’s made especially for you, and a bit of lovely jelly—in three colors it is! Please, madame! Monsieur has gone riding and Pierre is in utter distraction with no one to taste his food!”

Mercy opened her eyes and smiled shakily at Celeste. “Is it dinner time?”

“Indeed, madame, and past!”

It was deep sapphire twilight through the windows, and the glow of the bedside lamp was muted by its azure glass shade. Mercy tried to sit up. Immediately her head seemed occupied by a pounding drum.

It was so easy to lie back and sleep. At that moment it even seemed desirable to shutter the windows during the day and live in that great bed, pretend to be sick when Eric came, and drift in and out of dreams. She still had in her mouth the taste of brandy someone had forced down her. Between brandy and sleep, she might escape Eric by lying in this chamber.

And she might cease to be herself, too, atrophy till there was no chance of ever finding Zane. Mercy lifted her feet off the side of the bed. She mustn’t let Eric cow her, but she would have found it hard to go downstairs if Celeste hadn’t said he was riding. She had been undressed and put to bed in a loose peignoir. With Celeste’s help she slipped into underthings and one of her native dresses.

“Tell Pierre I’ll have a little food on the terrace, but not too much,” she said, brushing her hair, unable to tell in the dim light if there were bruise marks on her throat.

“I understand, madame.”

Celeste went out quietly with a consoling backward glance. What did she know? How had Eric explained Mercy’s condition? Not that he had to explain. If he had killed her, there was no one to demand that he explain.

I have only myself to rely on, she told herself as she plaited her protestingly curly hair into one thick braid and let it hang down her back. But she remembered Dionisio, knew there was at least one other defiant soul on this estate, and somehow that cheered her, made her feel not quite so alone.

He could die or she could die without the other knowing. They might never meet again. But Mercy had felt a closeness with him that day, gloried in his pride, and she knew she’d never forget him.

Mercy touched her cheek, swollen where Eric had struck her, decided there wasn’t much she could do to hide it, and went downstairs.

Lamps burned in the halls and a few were scattered around the terrace, but Mercy reached the table before she saw she wasn’t alone. Eric rose from a chair in the corner, came forward, and took her hands before she could retreat.

“I thought you might come down if Pierre’s grief and my absence were presented to you,” he said lightly, but strain showed around his eyes and mouth, “I … I’m sorry, Mercy, mia. But when will you learn not to madden me?”

Strange, but she almost laughed. “Probably when you learn not to make me angry.”

He kissed her eyes and mouth, then the throat that still pained from his grasp. “It seems I must learn,” he said huskily. “You’re too small and fragile for such handling. I’ll have to master you by other means. Come now and sit down before Pierre has apoplexy!”

After dinner he played the piano for an hour while Mercy lay on the chaise, pretending to read, but actually listening. He played with vigor and sweep, stormily, and she wondered if he ever imagined that Alison stepped out of her portrait and played her long-abandoned harp.

He shared Mercy’s bed that night, but his kiss was brief, and though he held her in his arms, it was protectively. Only who was there to protect her from Eric himself?

The next day at dinner Eric had considerable news, garnered from an English logger from Belize on his way to cut mahogany on lands rented from Marcos Canul.

The emperor was rallying for what could only be defeat in Mexico, deprived of the support of his poor, demented empress. In Yucatán, Peraza’s forces were growing as he gained daily support in the north. Mérida would soon be under siege, if it wasn’t already in that familiar and unhappy state.

“And there’s a joke from your country, love,” Eric concluded as Mercy wondered if Zane was safe and if he found winning more to his taste than losing. “Secretary Seward seems about to get his wish! Alaska! Can you imagine that frozen wasteland? It’s got a new name: ‘Seward’s Folly.’”

“Was there anything else?” Mercy asked wistfully. It seemed so long ago since she left Texas! But the news she hungered, for would scarcely filter to this crown colony—how her neighbors were, what had happened to the farm, what was really happening with Reconstruction.

Eric frowned, trying to remember. “The government’s setting up reservations in Indian territory for what are called the Five Civilized Tribes and making a reservation for the Sioux in the Black Hills. And they say buffalo cover the plains and that hunters are going after them thick and fast. If I weren’t so busy here, I’d be tempted to go up and see that western country. And I’d take some of those cattle that’re being butchered in Texas for their hide and tallow up north, where they’d fetch real money.”

“It’s a long way to a railhead,” argued Mercy.

“Cattle can walk and men can drive them.” Eric shrugged. “Would you like that, Mercy? To go home?”

He seemed to mean it. Mercy’s heart leaped. Then she remembered Zane. Where he was would always be her center now; she’d never be at home without him.

When she didn’t answer, Eric swore. His gaze fell on the gold band on her finger. “Will you satisfy my curiosity?” he asked in that leashed way she had come to dread. “I’ve assumed that ring was Philip’s, but you aren’t the type of woman to wear a ring for convention’s sake. Where did you get it?”

“It … it’s an heirloom.”

“Your mother’s?”

“No.” Why couldn’t she lie?

“Your father’s?”

She shook her head.

Eric’s breath went from him in a sigh. “It must be Falconer’s—belonging to his sacred mother, no doubt. I’m sure he kept nothing to remind him of that trull, his wife, except the child.”

“It’s his mother’s.”

“So you believe he meant to marry you,” said Eric in a pitying tone.

“I know he did.”

“Such faith, and from one who should know better!”

“It wasn’t the way you think at all!” Goaded past keeping her secret, Mercy fought to steady her voice and hold back tears. “Zane … we weren’t lovers till two nights before he left, after Peraza’s messenger came.”

Eric’s eyebrows rose. His gaze probed hers. “Is this true?”

“Why should I lie?” Mercy asked bitterly. “You’ve treated me like a whore! Why should I care what you think?”

“I’ve treated you like the one woman I’ve had to have.”

She shuddered involuntarily. Eric muttered something, grasped her hand, and slipped off the ring. Mercy leaned forward, catching at his large, hard fingers, trying to pry them apart. “Give it back! Please, let me have it!”

“So you can consider yourself married in all but fact to that pirate’s son?”

“I … I won’t wear it if you’ll only let me keep it.”

He shook his head. “I know so well the use of shrines, sweet Mercy. However, I won’t throw it away. It’ll go in my vault, along with deeds, wills, mortgages, and other important items.” She knew that begging would make him more adamant, perhaps anger him into throwing the ring away, but she couldn’t hide her intense sense of loss.

Springing up from the table, she ran blindly into the hall, groping for the stairs so she could go to her room and vent her helpless wrath. Eric seized her by the shoulders, turned her against him, and stood immovable as a rock while she sobbed and beat at him.

“I’ll give you another ring,” he said when her outrage was spent and she fell stonily quiet under his hands. “I can marry you as I offered in the beginning, now that I know you didn’t live complaisantly as Falconer’s concubine. From what you say, it’s possible he meant to marry you. I can see how you might feel, with some justice, that I owe you a husband.”

She stared up at him, unable to believe her ears. “I don’t just want a … a husband! It’s Zane I love!”

“An unfortunate predilection, Mercy, since I love you.”

“Not me, God help you! A likeness to your half sister!”

“That drew me to you at first. But I have glimpsed a fire in you that Alison was too gentle and young to have. That’s why I hunted for Philip all the way to New Orleans and brought him to La Quinta in the hope that Falconer might feel obliged to sell you back to your repentant husband.”

“But you meant to buy me from Philip.”

“Exactly, though I thought you to be Falconer’s woman. How did he resist, or is he softer toward tears than I? I couldn’t marry his mistress, but I meant to keep you as long as that sweet fire warmed me.” He passed one hand lightly over her face. “It hasn’t warmed me yet, but one day it will. You will love me. A woman, in time, must love the man who delights her body, protects her, and sees to her needs.”

Mercy stayed mutely defiant. He drew her against him so that she heard the steady, strong pounding of his heart.

“She comes to love the man who fathers her children,” he finished. “That’s how I’ll have you at last, Mercy, if not before. A baby will fill your hearty preempt first place. Loving the child, you’ll love something of me that will lead you to forget what’s past and gone.”

She thought of the dwarf poinciana flowers, but she knew better than to tell him she would use every means in her power not to be with child by him. A primitive part of her nature told her that the instincts and biological drives of a mother were directed at the child’s safety and good. Even if she kept from developing a feeling for Eric, having a child by him would make it harder to find a way back to Zane.

“Why,” asked Eric abruptly, “did you never conceive by Philip?”

“He was at the front for a good part of our marriage, and then when he came home …” Mercy fell silent, hating to remember those drunken fumblings, her pain and humiliation. “It … just never happened.”

“I suspect he didn’t come to you often.”

Mercy averted her face. In spite of all that Eric had said and done to her, she found it shaming to discuss sex, and especially her relations with Philip.

“Blushing, sweetheart?” Eric laughed softly. “Never mind. “I’m in no wild hurry, but if you don’t root one of my seeds by Christmas, I’ll think myself a poor planter! And if there’s some problem with how you’re made, we’ll find a doctor who can set it right.”

Would a doctor be able to tell she was using a draft? Christmas was a long way off. Mercy refused to worry that far ahead. “When a baby starts, you’ll want to marry,” Eric said. “But why not do it now? We could go to Belize City this week. The governor’s my friend. He’ll give a reception and do all the honors. You’ve never been to Europe, have you? We could go to Paris or Rome, stop in London. And New York has wonderful shops, if you’d enter Yankeeland.” His face glowed with eagerness. “Let’s do it, Mercy! You won’t be sorry!”

It was strange that she should hate to dash his excited boyish planning when he had forced her from her love’s house in a way that would surely cost her Zane’s trust.

“Well?” Eric persisted.

“No, I can’t”

He was very still. Only his powerful heart pumped its secret rhythm against her cheek. “I’m going to take you upstairs and have my pleasure with you,” he said at last. “I’m going to give you pleasure, too, however you fight it, for that lovely body craves what I can do. Why not protect yourself, be able to go anywhere with pride?”

“I could never be proud again if I did what you suggest.”

He stiffened. Fear made the flesh seem to move on her bones. She knew how swiftly, ferociously, he could attack. His strength and size were such that even when he was trying to be gentle, he sometimes hurt her. But he only swept her up and buried his lips against her throat.

“Then we must make a baby! That’ll change you!”

He used her skillfully that day, coaxed and brought her twice to that shivering, tremulous pulsing during which he entered and prolonged her sensations. Then with an inexorable, hushed intentness, he strove for and reached his own summit, his steel-muscled body locked over her so quietly it seemed she could hear him pumping into her.

Let me not get a baby, she implored in the sort of desperate prayer that wells out of human impotence, made without any clear idea of to whom it’s directed. Let me not conceive, but if I do, let the poinciana work.…

Eric liked to watch her bathe, to watch Celeste rinse her with clear water and help her dry off after she stepped onto the soft wool mat. One day he brought a crystal flacon. After Mercy was toweled dry, he told Celeste to rub the perfumed oil into Mercy’s skin.

Though she was embarrassed at being touched all over, lingeringly, by another woman, Mercy didn’t argue. She’d learned that the only medical facility on the estate was a hut near the cane fields where the contagiously ill could stay till they died or recovered. Celeste said Eric had twice hired English doctors, but both had been such drunkards that they were of no use, and workers had to rely on their own smattering of herb knowledge. Having learned this, Mercy had been trying to think of a way to persuade Eric to let her run a sort of clinic and teach interested people what she knew so the widely scattered cattle and lumber workers wouldn’t be far from someone with a certain degree of medical knowledge. Mercy, of course, needed the task for her own sanity, but since the good of other people was involved, she didn’t feel guilty about catering a bit to Eric in the hope of achieving her aim. So she stood quietly while Celeste rubbed in the spice-scented balm and Eric watched her with lazy eyes beneath slightly drooping lids.

“The oil’s not a hint that you’re wrinkling, my dear, but it’s my opinion that any body stays more beautiful if it’s pampered and cherished. How old are you?”

“Almost twenty-five.”

“Such an age!” He grimaced. “Would you guess that in August I’ll have twelve years’ seniority over you? When’s your birthday?”

“This month.”

“What day?”

“The twenty-eighth,” she said unwillingly.

She didn’t want one of Pierre’s feasts or gifts from Eric, which could only seem like manacles of gold. But then she remembered that she did want some things that were within his power.

“We must celebrate,” he said, catching her hands and kissing them. “I have one thing for you, but perhaps you have a few secret longings?”

Absorbed in this chance, Mercy scarcely remembered she was naked, her flesh warming and giving out the piquant sweetness of her anointings. ‘There are two things I want very much.”

“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.

Mercy gripped the vein and pressed tightly, stopping the stream. Then she got Paco, a younger male assistant, to hold the pressure while she sewed up the cut. Working with difficulty because of the blood and her own squeamishness, she dabbed on a salve of egg yolk, wax, cypress root and ylin, put a heavy pad over it, and bandaged this in place with clean strips of cloth.

Telling the old woman to come for help if there was much bleeding, to keep on rubbing the blood-starved hand and wrist, and to bring the young man back the next day for a change of dressings, Mercy sent them away with some of the willow water that had such beneficial effects on headaches and fevers. She tossed her thoroughly disgusting smock into the laundry basket—Eric had assigned the infirmary a laundress and cleaning man—scrubbed her hands, and rode home feeling she could never face food again, but knowing that a man who’d surely have died soon in agony now had at least a chance of living and keeping his arm.

The young man not only lived, but he regained the use of his hand. Don Manuel requested a jar of burn salve to keep near the boilers for immediate use. The old man recovered from his malaria, and he had enjoyed the bustle and company so much that he asked to be the night watchman and aide to the regular person on duty, and he made himself useful as a handyman and herb collector.

Now people began to come whose disorders were beyond Mercy’s skill or the wisdom of her helpers, people with growths or complaints of pain in their entrails or convulsive fits. But when no treatment could be thought of, Mercy and her staff listened, gave out pleasant herbal teas that would give temporary relief, and, in cases of extreme pain, gave native pain-killers or morphine and laudanum.

Paco and Juan had gone to the loggers, carrying a chest of medical supplies and instruments, but there were two new male recruits, an older man eager to leave the strenuous labor of the fields, and a young man, Natividad, who’d lost a hand in the cane crusher and became intrigued with the infirmary when he was brought in for clean amputation of the shredded stump. He had a gift for diagnosis and some degree of unexplainable healing power, for he had cured or relieved the pain of several people ho one had been able to help.

Celeste always accompanied Mercy to and from the infirmary, but she got sick at watching any pain or ugliness, so she spent the mornings with her mother, who lived in the village. Celeste seemed puffy-eyed one day and Mercy asked her if something was wrong.

At first Celeste evaded her, but finally she wailed that she wished to marry Thomas.

Mercy gazed at the flower-graceful young woman and couldn’t believe any man would resist her. “Doesn’t he want to marry you?” Mercy asked.

He wanted to. The trouble was that Celeste was having a baby and it wasn’t that of Thomas. He’d be very angry when he found out. Thomas, like the master, was an adherent of the Church of England, and he didn’t share the tolerant views some blacks had of premarital sex.

“Madame must have a secret,” Celeste wept. “Please help me!”

“But Celeste, if you love Thomas, Why did you get mixed up with another man?”

Dark uptilted eyes studied’ her somberly. “And why does madame sleep with the master? In your sleep I hear another name. I think you love someone different, yes?”

Mercy’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t thought about whether Eric still used estate women, told herself she didn’t care, and yet, astoundingly, there was an odd, strong stab of jealousy, a sense of having been betrayed.

“Do you mean the baby is Mr. Kensington’s?”

Celeste’s drooping head was answer enough. “He doesn’t care for me, madame, but the prettiest girls—he always tries to sire a child from them. He says it’s the best way to increase the size and strength of estate people.”

Mercy had noticed a few ruddy-haired or fair children tumbling about the village, but she had thought them to be the offspring of ladinos, mestizos, or even McNulty or Pierre. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, was furious that she should care. Was it possible that though she still loved Zane, her body was becoming dependent on Eric, as it might after a time of forced use come to crave a drug? Humiliating—not to be allowed! But just now Celeste’s trouble took precedence.

“How far along are you?”

Celeste spoke so rapidly that Mercy was sure the desperate girl had counted over and over, hoping there was a mistake.

“It’s two weeks since I should have had my time, madame.”

Mercy sighed. Another month or six weeks and she’d have confronted Eric, urged him to talk to Thomas and make whatever reparation that would induce his man to overlook what was scarcely Celeste’s fault. Mercy was reluctant to give the poinciana to other women since Chepa had warned that it could have harmful effects, but she wasn’t able to refuse to Celeste the deliverance she might need at any time herself. So, at the infirmary, she made the potion and sent Celeste to her mother’s home to drink it, saying she’d stop by at noon to see how she was.

At noon Celeste was pale and trembly but relieved of the threat to her marriage. The mother, a silent wraith, with signs of having once possessed her daughter’s startling beauty, nodded when Mercy said Celeste might hemorrhage if she rode and had better stay in the village overnight.

Riding home alone, Mercy brooded, sad and oppressed at serving death instead of life, though she still believed the choice was right and one she’d make for herself. A child of Celeste’s and Eric’s would have to be beautiful, but its face and body and mind would never form now, never exist. How fragile life was, how full of chance and miracle and grief.

She passed the small church and saw that a bier stood just inside the doorway, holding a small body wrapped in a paper garment trimmed with red and gold tinsel. A woman knelt beside it, supported by an older woman. The religious needs of the people were dependent on a worker who’d been a sacristan and knew many rites by heart. The women must be waiting for him to come in from the field and bury the child.

Mercy started to ride on, helpless before such loss, but light gleamed on golden hair, and she stopped, tied Lucera up, and went into the church.

The baby’s eyes were closed, but curls clustered around the small face were golden and the skin was much fairer than the lovely young woman’s. Mercy knelt and mourned for the tiny life ended here and the one snuffed out back in the village hut. She was sure Eric had fathered this child, but the woman buried it alone, would grieve alone. It was her baby, not an improvement of working stock.

A worm edged out of the baby’s nose. “How long till the maestro comes?” Mercy asked.

The grandmother hunched a thin shoulder. “At sunset we brought the angelito here because there are other children in the house and my daughter needed peace.”

“I’ll send the maestro,” Mercy said She rode back to the village, found Don Gerardo at his meal, and said the maestro must come at once and end the women’s heartbreaking vigil.

“But Doña Mercy!” protested the mayordomo, nervously smoothing his moustache. “To bring a man from work to mumble a few prayers! He’s not a real priest, you know. And these women enjoy their mourning; it gives them an importance.”

“Fetch the maestro or I’ll get him myself!” Mercy ordered. “And don’t subtract the time from his wages.”

“Wages?” Don Gerardo laughed harshly. “Why, that Indian has such a debt at the store that he couldn’t pay it off if he worked double the rest of his life!”

“Then a few hours won’t matter,” Mercy said. “Are you going for him, Don Gerardo?”

He bowed. “But Doña Mercy! Of course, I am at your orders! I only wished to explain …”

“Explain what?” Eric’s great body filled the doorway and he ducked to step inside. “So here you are, my sweet! When you were late, I came looking for you.” He glanced around, frowning. “Where’s Celeste?”

“She’s at her mother’s. She doesn’t feel well so I said she could stay there for the night.”

“You know I don’t want you unattended.”

“Oh, what does that little way from here to the house matter? I would have been there by now, but I saw the dead child in the church and came back to send for the maestro.”

“You’re taking a lot upon yourself.”

Mercy drew in a deep breath. “Did you see the child?”

Eric raised a warning hand. “Bring the maestro,” he told Don Gerardo, who was watching them with considerable interest. As soon as the mayordomo was gone, Eric turned again, his voice purring silkily. “Now, my love, what of the brat?”

“He was very pretty, very blond.”

“So? I saw a couple of women bent over a bier, but I didn’t go to look.”

“No,” agreed Mercy, aware of saying a foolhardly thing but too angry to care, blaming him for the load on her conscience, as well as for the child in the church. “I suppose you can’t keep track of all your bastards. After all, their mothers can bury them, just as they give them birth!”

Eric loomed over her. She braced for a blow, staring into his eyes, which had dilated in the poorly lit room. “Why, Mercy! Under all that indignation, you’re jealous!”

That was too near the truth, depriving her of an effective retort. “Come along,” he said, slipping his big hand beneath her arm.

As they passed the church, he reined in and called.

The young woman came out, as if sleepwalking. He put some coins in her hand. She looked up at him and said, “Señor, his hair was gold.”