Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [9]
“M’ap rantré,” Zabeth said. I’m going in. She paused on the corner of the street which led in the direction of the house the doctor was currently sharing with his sister, Elise.
“Tell my sister I will be there within the hour,” Doctor Hébert said. Picking up his pace, he went on down the hill, turning his face into the breeze that blew back from the harbor. He emerged on the waterfront near the customs house, which was just shutting its doors for the night. Beyond the shelter of the buildings the wind was stiff indeed; he took off his hat and held it fluttering in his hand as he walked into the wind down toward the battery of the Carénage. The wind whipped his few remaining strands of hair around his bare sun-freckled crown, and stuffed wisps of his beard, which wanted trimming, into the corners of his mouth. He continued until he came to the fountain at the end of the esplanade, then stopped and turned to face the wide oblong of the harbor.
Black mouths of cannon poked from the embrasures of the Carénage battery, aimed fanwise across the water. The Merry Bell was moored far out, beyond the reef, the colors of the North American Republic just discernible to the naked eye. She had already exchanged her cargo, but would not put to sea without her captain. Doctor Hébert had ordered the ship quarantined as soon as he’d remarked the yellow fever. His close relationship to Toussaint Louverture gave him the power to enforce such measures, though he had no official function in the port.
By irony, the Merry Bell had brought him out of South America a substantial shipment of cinchona bark. At first the doctor had taken it for Providence, when the men from the ship began to fall ill, and had so informed James Howarth. The bitter brew of cinchona bark was almost magically effective against malaria in the early stage. He’d begun the treatment straight away, but a day or so later, when his patients suddenly turned yellow, he’d known it to be useless. Therefore he had substituted herbe à pique, an herb he’d learned long ago from Toussaint to be effective in many fevers. It too was useless against la fièvre jaune but could be harvested locally, unlike the precious cinchona. It was necessary to give the sick men something to shield them from despair.
Then the black vomiting had begun. Such was always the course of the yellow fever. A man would reduce his bulk by half before he died, in three days or two or sometimes one. Or if he lived. The difference lay in the will to live and the grace of God.
Above Fort Picolet, a great frigate bird was wheeling against the rapidly paling sky. The doctor’s spirits lifted when he saw it. It was rare to see one of these huge birds so close to land, and somehow it felt to him like a good omen. Then a huge wave slapped against the pilings, showering him with spray, and he let the dousing chase his frustration with the fever from his mind. Turning his back to the wind, he walked back in the direction he had come, whitecaps hurrying behind him over the water.
When he reached the townhouse he shared with his sister, he found her in the company of her bosom friend, Isabelle Cigny. No surprise, for her own house was just around the corner. Till recently, both he and Elise had used the Cigny residence as their base when in Le Cap. But two months ago, Elise, who enjoyed a considerable inheritance from her late husband Thibodet, had purchased the present house at a very advantageous price; it had been left vacant by the demise of one of the colored gentlemen who had for a season ruled the town, but had then been so unwise as to mount a rebellion against Toussaint Louverture and his overwhelming black armies.
Isabelle turned her bright black eyes on the doctor