Heaven's Bones (2 page)

That way, when she heard the shouts of the slaves saying Sherman was coming and freedom was coming, she knew she had to hide. She bundled herself up in her customary safe place, the nook behind the curtains of the sitting room. She stayed there while different voices, her mother among them, shouted for her. She stayed there as many footsteps rushed by. She stayed there as the air grew thick and heavy and hard to breathe, and as she grew sleepy.

She curled up on the carpet beside the window, pillowing her head on her arms and a corner of the curtain. She thought she saw bits of ash in the air before her eyelids grew heavy and she went to sleep.

When Fanny woke, the air was clear but her throat felt raw and sore. She uncurled herself from her corner, feeling stiff. But walking about loosened her cramped limbs, and nothing seemed to be disturbed in the house.

She spent a long time looking for somebody, anybody, to tell her what had happened. None of the kitchen servants were around, no
maids. The little children that usually hung about the back door, ready to take messages, were gone as well.

Perhaps they had run off with Sherman. She wouldn't blame them. It must be terrible to be a slave.

She ventured upstairs. Her little bedroom, tucked under the eaves, was undisturbed—just as she left it that morning.

Down the corridor was her mother's room. She was forbidden to venture there without specific summons. These were so rare she rather dreaded them.

But perhaps Mama was hurt—perhaps she needed help. Fanny raised her chin, fisted her hands in the folds of her pinafore, and walked, silently as she could, down the hall.

One, two, three doors, seemingly an eternity between each. She counted her steps on the dark flowered carpet, reaching fifty. Her mother's door was in front of her.

First she called. “M-mama? Are you all right, Mama?”

No answer.

Fanny put a small hand, palm out, on the smooth white painted wood of the door. It was warm, almost hot.

“Mama? Are they gone?”

The door was unlatched, and moved inward a little at the touch of Fanny's hand. Biting her lower lip, she took courage and pushed. The door swung open. The room was dim and quiet, with no sign of damage or char. But a strange smell, like roast pig, and the stench of burned hair, came from inside.

Fanny's hackles rose at that smell. She forced herself over the threshold, squinting in the semidarkness.

Something stirred in there, something hunched up against a corner. It shambled toward her, opening something pink and wet inside it.

“Fanny?” it hissed. “Fanny, dear. Come to Mama.”

Fanny felt her face blanch, frozen in horror as she watched the
thing that had been her mama, burnt black and reeking on the outside, with that great moist pink maw. For a second she could not move, jaw dropped open in a scream that would not come.

And then the burnt thing raised a melted lump of a hand, and as it brushed her cheek Fanny moved through sheer will, stumbled back through the room, over the threshold and, gripping the massive door in her small hands, thrust it shut with all her might and ran, ran down the hall and stairs and out the front door and way across the lawn, the meadows, down the grassy banks to where the river shook and sparkled, clean and pure in the sun.

Dr. Sebastian Robarts, his hands slippery with blood, risked a glance at his wife's face. It was a mistake; Margaret's mouth was twisted open in a rictus of agony, and she was looking at him in dumb appeal, like a dog that doesn't understand why it must be hurt in the vivisection lab. Janet was frantically mopping her mistress' forehead.

“Help support her back, girl,” Robarts snapped. “She has to stay sitting up.”

Janet flinched and nodded.

He dropped his gaze to where the baby's head was crowning between Margaret's legs, where it had been stuck for what seemed an eternity. He was going to have to cut her, and although he'd done it more times than he liked to think about during his career, the thought of taking a blade to his wife filled him with horror.

Everything had gone wrong. Where the hell was Symons? It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be an easy birth. Margaret had the best medical treatment available in the civilized world. He had watched her like a hawk through every stage of her pregnancy. She had been cheerful and healthy, glowing with the promise of the new life inside her, his most precious patient. And now the birth was tearing her apart.

It was if he'd been plunged into a nightmare world that a mere hour ago did not exist.

Only an hour ago
. They'd settled in the sitting room after supper. Margaret was embroidering a baby's cap and Robarts was ostensibly finishing his notes on some case studies he was planning to present to the Royal Medical College that autumn.

But instead he kept glancing up at Margaret, unable to avoid smiling at the sight of her, flushed with life, her delicate brow slightly furrowed as she plied her tiny stitches with long, elegant fingers. She propped the embroidery hoop atop the lace-clad bulge of her stomach, which he found ineffably charming.

He was watching when her hands stopped mid-stitch and she frowned.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

She looked at him and smiled.

“Quite all right, love. He's found a new place to kick, I believe. Or else he's following his father's footsteps and is engaged in examining my spleen.”

He was about to make some sort of joke about the future Junior Physician, when suddenly Margaret's warm, open face went dead pale, like a death mask molded in porcelain. For a second he froze, uncomprehending.

Then she crumpled in on herself, grasping her middle. Robarts dashed to her side, scattering papers everywhere. He kneeled by her, hand on her forehead. It was clammy and cold.

Margaret drew in a great, gasping breath, a scream in reverse. A dispassionate part of Robarts' mind noticed that she'd driven the needle deep into her finger, and all her delicate work was smeared with blood.

And with horror he saw more blood, blooming down the length of her white peignoir, bright red, arterial. Without leaving her side he turned to the door.

“Meadows!”

He bellowed for the servants, loud as a bull, and almost
immediately the houseman, who was serving as an in-town butler while Simpson readied the country house for the great event, appeared, startled and confused. His eyes widened at the sight of his mistress, coiled in pain, a study in white and red.

“Fetch Doctor Symons,” growled Robarts. “If he's out, find him. And send Janet on your way. The baby is coming early.”

Before Robarts could draw breath for further orders, Meadows was gone, leaving the door wide open. Margaret was grasping Robarts' arm with a preternatural strength, still convulsing in pain.

“Steady, love,” he whispered in her ear, struggling to make his voice gentle and calm. A great coldness was spreading in his guts. “Try to breathe, my dear. Help is on the way.”

He loosened the top of her peignoir. The metal of her medallion of St. Margaret, which she'd picked up on their honeymoon through Rome and worn, half as a joke, ever since she'd found she was pregnant, shone dully forth.

St. Margaret, burst forth from a dragon, protectress of women in childbirth.

Robarts did not consider himself superstitious. But now a heartfelt appeal sounded in his mind.

Margaret, watch over your namesake. Guard my love in her hour of trial.

A little sound at the door brought him to his senses. Margaret's maid stood there, hands over her mouth at the sight of her mistress.

“Damn you, girl,” Robarts began, and then breathed deeply. It wasn't her fault.

“Come, Janet,” he said in the voice he reserved for his clinical work. “Help me take her to her room. And then I'll need you to boil water, and bring clean cloths. A lot of them.”

Robarts fumbled at the instruments on the bed, scattered by Margaret's writhing and his own clumsiness. He cursed his lack of foresight in not engaging a nurse in time, to have nearby, just in case. The Sims Speculum and the forceps were half-buried in the damp sheets, and his fingers felt big and unwieldy; he had no idea how to use any of his tools, as if he were a first-year student as ignorant as mud.

There—the scalpel. He was going to have to make an incision. He lifted the tool in shaking hands, unable to still himself, unable to find that professional, detached calm center that had allowed him to preside over hundreds of births.

Her flesh was so tender, so torn as he lifted the knife unsteadily over her. He had to control himself. He had to do it, now.

A huge hand closed over his shoulder.

“For God's sake, man,” said Symons. “Stand aside. You're in no shape to do this.”

Robarts almost sobbed. “The position—it's stuck …”

Symons' professional gaze took it in. “Yes, a posterior presentation. And the baby further along than we thought. Here, you …” He eased the instrument from Robarts' grip and indicated the sweating Meadows, who panted in the doorway. “Take Doctor Robarts outside, and come back to see what's needed. Sebastian,” the measured tones were close to Robarts' ear. “You're of no help here, not now.”

“Sebastian!” Margaret's breath came in painful gasps, and she was holding Janet so tightly that the girl's hand was turning white. “Don't leave me!”

“Now, Mrs. Robarts,” said Symons. “We'll take care of you, not to worry.”

Robarts felt Meadows grasp his shoulder, and all the strength seemed drained out of him. Symons' assistant hurried into the room, a competent doctor of much promise who Robarts had met often
enough but whose name he could not recall.

Symons followed Robarts to the door while the assistant instructed Janet to keep wiping Margaret's forehead with a clean, wet cloth. “I fear she's too narrowly made to push it out easily. But we are here now, and I've seen harder births.”

“Where the mother lived?” hissed Robarts.

Symons wrapped a great beefy hand, so incongruous with the delicate work he was capable of, around Robarts' upper arm.

“We will do our best,” he said, “but this is not the place for you now. You must wait outside.”

“No! I want to help—I must help!”

But Symons was gently forcing him out.

“You know this is not the place for you, Sebastian,” he said. “Now let us do our work.”

“What can I do?” said Robarts. The feeling of helplessness was intolerable.

“Pray,” said Symons, and closed the door in his face.

So Robarts pressed against the door and prayed, while Margaret's groans sounded over the clinical, impersonal mutters of Symons and his underling, and when he could straighten up he saw he'd left bloody handprints on the painted surface.

Saint Margaret with the Wyrm, Saint Katherine with the Wheel, Saint Teresa in her Tower …

Where had he heard that? In Rome?