SILENCE’S HANDS TREMBLED as she wrung out a cloth and patted Mary Darling’s little cheeks. The toddler was so hot that Silence could feel the burning of her skin even through the cloth.
The heat worried Silence, but it was Mary’s awful listlessness that struck terror in her heart. Mary’d had chills and fevers before. She’d once whimpered all night long, tugging on her ear fretfully, until in the morning a clear liquid had drained from the ear and she’d slept calmly. Silence had stayed up many nights rocking and walking Mary Darling when she wasn’t feeling well. And in all those times Mary had been grumpy and sad and fretful, but she’d never been listless.
“Himself has sent for the doctor,” Fionnula said as she came in with a fresh bowl of water.
“She’s just so hot,” Silence murmured as she wrung out the cloth and applied it again. “I’ve taken her out of her frock and stays, but she’s still on fire.”
“Me mam used to say as the fever was to burn away the illness inside,” Fionnula offered.
“Perhaps so, but I’ve seen fever kill, as well,” Silence murmured.
There had been a little boy, new to the home and rather sickly. Winter had suspected he’d not had enough to eat in his short life. The child had caught a fever and within two days had simply faded away. Silence had wept quietly in bed that night, holding Mary close to her chest. Winter had said with awful pragmatism that some children didn’t live and one just had to face that fact. But even he had worn a drawn expression when he’d said it and he was especially nice to the small boys in the home for weeks afterward.
Silence shuddered. Mary couldn’t fade away. She couldn’t imagine living if the little girl died.
There was a murmur of voices in the hall and then the door opened to reveal Mickey O’Connor ushering in a rotund little man.
“What have we here?” the doctor asked in a bass voice that seemed too large for his body.
“She’s burning with fever,” Silence said. She had to fight to keep a quaver out of her voice.
The doctor placed a hand on the baby’s chest and stilled.
Silence started to ask something, but the man held up his other hand.
After another moment he took his hand off Mary’s chest and turned to Silence. “Pardon my rudeness, ma’am, but I was feeling for the wee one’s heartbeat.”
“I understand.” Silence grasped her hands together at her waist to still their trembling. “Can you help her?”
“Of course I can,” the doctor said briskly. “Never you fear.”
He opened a black case, revealing a half dozen sharp lancets in different sizes. Silence rubbed her palms together nervously. She knew that the doctor meant to cut Mary.
Mr. O’Connor had been lounging by the fireplace, but he stirred at the sight of the lancets in their fitted pockets. “D’ye have to cut her?”
The doctor’s face was serious. “It’s the only way, sir, to let the evil drain from her body.”
Mickey O’Connor’s mouth tightened, but he nodded once before turning his face to the fireplace.
The doctor chose a delicately wicked looking tool and then fished out a little tin dish. He looked at Silence, his face grave. “Perhaps you can hold her upright upon your lap. If you can keep her from moving in any way, it’ll be for the best.”
Silence picked up Mary gently. She’d always hated bloodletting, ever since she was a little girl and had had to be bled three times for some childhood illness. If she could save Mary’s tender skin the sharp scalpel, she’d offer her own arm, but this must be done. She knew that.
The doctor had been watching her and now he nodded at her approvingly. “Can you hold the cup for me?” he asked Fionnula.
The maid stepped forward and took the cup.
“Easy,” the doctor murmured, and with quick efficiency, lifted Mary’s chemise and made a cut high on her thigh.
Mary flinched but made no sound.
Bright red blood flowed from the wound.
It seemed to take forever before the doctor murmured, “I think that will do it.”
He pressed a clean cloth to the wound and wound a strip of linen around Mary’s leg, tying it off neatly.
“Now then,” the doctor said as he wiped and put away his lancet. “A little broth will help enormously, I believe. Take a small piece of chicken and boil it with a sprig of parsley and two of thyme. Strain the broth and add a spoonful of white wine, the finest you can find. Serve this broth to the child thrice daily, making sure she drinks a full teacup if possible.” He glanced at Silence sharply. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, stroking Mary’s hair.
“Good. Good. I also have this elixir.” He produced a small blue glass bottle. “My own concoction and I fancy a very effective one. A spoonful in a small cup of water before bedtime. Now”—he picked up his bag and stared severely at Silence and Fionnula—“should she come out in spots or vomit up bile, you are to call for me at once, yes?”
Silence nodded again, her lips trembling. “I will.”
The doctor laid his hand on Mary’s head and turned toward the door without another word. Mickey O’Connor turned and silently followed him, pausing before he exited. “Do ye have all that ye’ll be needing for her?”
Silence bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I believe so.”
His hesitated and for a moment she thought he was about to say something, but in the end he left without a word.
“WE’LL STORM HIS cursed palace and take her out by force if need be!” Concord Makepeace declared ferociously the next day. “Bad enough that she’s ruined her own reputation, but to sully the good name of the home is too much!”
Concord’s graying hair was coming down from his queue and he looked rather like an aging Samson.
A hotheaded, aging Samson who’d not fully thought through the consequences of an attack on an armed pirate stronghold.
Winter sighed to himself. He’d known the drawbacks to informing his brothers of Silence’s plight, but he couldn’t in all conscious let them remain in the dark.
Even if Concord’s undirected anger and worry were giving Winter a headache.
“The palace is a fortress,” Winter pointed out calmly. “And we are only two. If we—”
“Three,” came a voice in the doorway of the home’s kitchen.
Winter met the green eyes of his brother Asa, his own eyebrow slowly raising. Although he’d sent word to Asa’s rented rooms, he hadn’t expected him to actually show up. Asa hadn’t been heard from in nearly a year. For all Winter had known, his middle brother had sailed overseas.