Lenobia's Vow Read online

  “Cherie! You cannot help her!”

  Martin’s voice was an oasis of calm in chaos, and Lenobia’s body went limp. She let him pull her back out of range of the burning aft deck. But in the midst of the flames Lenobia saw Marie Madeleine stop struggling. Completely engulfed in flame, the nun walked to the railing, turned, and for an instant her gaze met Lenobia’s.

  Lenobia would never forget that moment. What she saw in Marie Madeleine’s eyes was not pain or terror or fear. She saw peace. And within her mind echoed the nun’s voice, mixed with another that was stronger, clearer, and otherworldly in its beauty. Follow your heart, child. The Mother shall always protect you …

  Then the nun stepped over the railing and purposely leaped overboard into the cool, welcoming arms of the sea.

  The next thing Lenobia remembered was Martin ripping off his shirt and using it to beat out the flames that had been licking at her skirt.

  “You stay here!” he shouted at her when the fire was out. “Don’ move, you!” Lenobia nodded woodenly, and then Martin joined the other crew members as they used clothes and pieces of sails and rigging to pound out the fire. Commodore Cornwallis was there, shouting orders and using his blue dress jacket to beat out pockets of fire, which now seemed to extinguish with an unnatural ease.

  “I was trying to help! I did not know!” Lenobia’s gaze was drawn by the Bishop’s cries. He was standing at the railing, looking over into the sea.

  “Charles! Are you burned? Are you injured?” Lenobia watched the Commodore hurry over to him just as the priest swayed and almost fell overboard. The Commodore caught him in time. “Come away from the railing, man!”

  “No, no.” The Bishop shook him off. “I must do this. I must.” He lifted his arm, made the sign of the cross, and then Lenobia heard him begin the last rites prayer. “Domine sancte…”

  Lenobia had never loathed anyone so much in her life.

  Simonette lurched into her arms, pink and singed and sobbing. “What do we do now? What do we do now?”

  Lenobia clung to Simonette, but she could not answer the girl.

  “Mademoiselles! Are any of you injured?” The Commodore’s voice boomed as he waded through the group of weeping girls, pulling out those who had been closest to the flames and directing the ship’s surgeon to them. “If you are uninjured, go below. Clean yourselves. Change your clothes. Rest, mademoiselles, rest. The fire is out. The ship is sound. You are safe.”

  Martin was lost in the smoke and confusion, and Lenobia had no choice but to go below with Simonette still holding tightly to her hand.

  “Did you hear her, too?” Lenobia whispered as they made their way, trembling and crying, down the narrow hallway.

  “I heard the Sister scream. It was terrible.” Simonette sobbed.

  “Nothing else? You did not hear what she said?” Lenobia persisted.

  “She said nothing. She only screamed.” Simonette gazed at her with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Have you gone mad, Lenobia?”

  “No, no,” Lenobia said quickly, putting a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “I almost wish I was mad, though, so I would not have to remember what just happened.”

  Simonette sobbed anew. “Oui, oui—I will not leave the room until we have reached land. Not even to go to dinner. They cannot force me!”

  Lenobia hugged her tightly and said nothing more.

  * * *

  Lenobia did not leave her quarters for the next two days. Simonette needn’t have worried about being forced to the Commodore’s room for the evening meals. Food was brought to them instead. Sister Marie Madeleine’s death had cast a spell over them all, and the normal fabric of shipboard life had unraveled. The loud and sometimes bawdy songs the crew had been singing for weeks were no more. There was no laughter. No shouting. The ship itself seemed to have gone silent. Within hours of the nun’s death a fierce wind came up from behind them, caught the sails, and propelled them forward as if the breath of God were blowing them from the site of violence.

  In their quarters, the girls were in shock. Simonette and a few others still wept on and off. Mostly they huddled on their pallets, talked in hushed voices, or prayed.

  The galley servants who brought them food assured them all was well and that they would make land soon. The pronuncement evoked nothing but somber looks and silent tears.

  All the while Lenobia thought and remembered.

  She remembered Marie Madeleine’s kindness. She remembered the nun’s faith and strength. She remembered the peace she’d seen in her dying eyes and the words that had echoed magickally through her mind.

  Follow your heart, child. The Mother shall always protect you.

  Lenobia remembered Sister Marie Madeleine, but she thought about Martin. She also thought about the future. It was just before dawn of the third day that Lenobia made her decision, and she crept silently from the room that had begun to feel like a mausoleum.

  She did not watch the dawn. She went directly to the cargo hold. Odysseus, the black and white giant of a cat, was rubbing against her legs as she got close to the stall. The horses saw her first, and both grays trumpeted greetings, which had Martin whirling around, closing the space between them in three long strides, and pulling her into his arms, hugging her close. She could feel his body trembling as he spoke.

  “You came, cherie! I don’ think you would. I think I never see you again.”

  Lenobia rested her head against his chest and breathed in the scent of him: horses, hay, and the honest sweat of a man who worked hard every day.

  “I had to think before I came to see you, Martin. I had to decide.”

  “What is it you decide, cherie?”

  She lifted her head and looked up at him, loving the light olive of his eyes and the brown flecks that sparkled like amber within them. “First, I have to ask you something—did you see her jump into the ocean?”

  Martin nodded solemnly. “I did, cherie. It was a terrible thing.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Only her screams.”

  Lenobia drew a deep breath. “Just before she leaped overboard she looked at me, Martin. Her eyes were full of peace, not fear or pain. And I did not hear her screams. Instead I heard her voice, mixed with another’s, telling me to follow my heart—that the Mother shall always protect me.”

  “The nun, she was a very holy woman—one of much faith and goodness. Her spirit strong. It might have been speaking to you. Maybe her Mary she love so much speaking to you, too.”

  Lenobia felt weak with relief. “Then you believe me!”

  “Oui, cherie. I know there more to the world than what we can see and touch.”

  “I believe that, too.” She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders and, in a voice that surprised even herself by how grown-up she sounded, she declared, “At least now I do. So what I want to say to you is this: I love you, Martin, and I want to be with you. Always. I do not care how. I do not care where. But seeing Marie Madeleine die has changed me. If the worst that can happen to me for choosing to live by your side is that I die in peace loving you, then I choose whatever happiness we can find in this world.”

  “Cherie, I—”

  “No. Do not answer me now. Take two days after we dock, just like I took two days. You have to know for sure either way, Martin. If you say no, then I do not want to see you again—ever. If you choose yes, I will live by your side and bear your children. I will love you until the day I die—only you, Martin. Always only you; I vow it.”

  Then, before she could weaken and beg him and hold him and weep, she walked away from him and picked up the familiar curry brush and entered the Percherons’ stall, caressing the big horses and murmuring endearments in greeting.

  Martin followed her slowly. Not speaking to her or looking at her, he moved to the second of the two geldings and began working his way through the tangle of the horse’s mane. Thus he was hidden from the Bishop’s view when the priest entered the cargo hold.

  “Groo
ming beasts—not a job for a lady. But then you are no lady are you, ma petite de bas?”

  Lenobia felt sickness slick through her stomach, but she turned to face the priest whom she thought of as more monster than man.

  “I told you not to call me that,” Lenobia said, proud that her voice did not shake.

  “And I told you I like a fight.” His smile was reptilian. “But fight or no fight, when I am finished with you, you will be anything I desire you to be—bastard, whore, lover, daughter. Anything.” He moved forward, the light in the ruby cross on his chest glowing as if it were a living thing. “Who will protect you now that your shielding nun has been consumed?” He reached the edge of the stall, and Lenobia cringed, pressing herself against the gelding. “Time is short, ma petite de bas. I will claim you as mine today, before we get to New Orleans, and then there will be no reason for you to keep up this virginal charade and cower with the Ursulines in their convent.” The priest put his hand on the half door of the stall to open it.

  Martin stepped from the shadow of the horses to stand between Lenobia and the Bishop. He spoke calmly, but he was brandishing a hoof pick in his hand. The lantern light caught it and it glistened, knifelike.

  “I think you not be claiming this lady. She don’ want you, Loa. Go now, and leave her be.”

  The Bishop’s eyes narrowed dangerously and his fingers began to stroke the ruby stones of his crucifix. “You dare speak to me, boy? You should understand who I am. I am not this loa you have mistaken me for. I am a Bishop—a man of God. Leave now and I will forget you ever attempted to question me.”

  “Loa is spirit. I see you. I know you. The bakas has turned on you, man. You evil. You dark. And you not wanted here.”

  “You dare stand against me!” the priest roared. As his anger grew, so too did the flames in the lanterns that hung around the stalls.

  “Martin! The flames!” Lenobia whispered frantically to him.

  The priest began to move forward, as if he would attack Martin with his bare hands, and two things happened very quickly. First, Martin lifted the hoof pick, but he didn’t strike the priest. Instead he wielded it against himself. Lenobia gasped as Martin slashed his own palm and then, as the priest was almost on him, he flung the handful of blood at him, striking him in the middle of his chest, covering the red jewels with living scarlet. And in a voice that was deep and filled with power, Martin intoned:

  “She belong to me—and hers I be!

  “Of loyalty and truth,

  “This blood be my proof!

  “What you do to her you do in vain.

  “What you cast come back on you tenfold the pain!”

  The priest staggered to the side, as if the blood had been a blow, and the geldings laid their ears back flat on their enormous heads and, with squeals of rage, struck out at him with their great, square teeth.

  Charles de Beaumont lurched back, stumbling out of the stall, clutching his chest. He bent over and stared at Martin.

  Martin raised his bloody hand and held it, palm out, like a shield.

  “You asked who protect this girl? I answer you—I do. The spell is cast. I seal it with my blood. You don’ have no power here.”

  The priest’s eyes were filled with hatred, his voice malicious. “Your blood spell may lend you power here, but you will not have power where we are going. There you are only a black man trying to stand against a white man. I will win … I will win … I will win…” The Bishop muttered the words over and over as he left the cargo hold, still clutching his chest.

  As soon as he was gone, Martin pulled Lenobia into his arms and held her while she trembled. He stroked her hair and murmured small, wordless sounds to soothe her. When her fear had ebbed enough, Lenobia moved from his arms and ripped a strip of cotton from her chemise to bind his hand. She didn’t speak while she was bandaging him. It was only when she was finished that she clasped his wounded hand within both of hers and looked up into his eyes asking, “That thing you said—that spell you cast—is it true? Will it really work?”

  “Oh, it work, cherie,” he said. “Work enough to keep him from you on this ship. But this man, he filled with great evil. You know he cause the fire that killed the holy woman?”

  Lenobia nodded. “Yes, I know it.”

  “His bakas—it strong; it evil. I bind him with tenfold pain, but come a time maybe when he think having you worth the pain. And he right. In the world we go to he have the power, not me.”

  “But you stopped him!”

  Martin nodded. “I can fight him with my maman’s magick, but I don’ fight white men and their law he can bring against me.”

  “Then you have to leave New Orleans. Get far away, where he cannot hurt you.”

  Martin smiled. “Oui, cherie, avec tu.”

  “With me?” Lenobia stared at him for a moment, worry for him foremost in her mind. Then she realized what he had said and she felt as if the dawn had risen within her. “With me! We will be together.”

  Martin pulled her into his arms again and held her close. “It is what made my magick so strong, cherie, this love I have for you. It fills my blood and makes my heart to beat. Now my vow you have in return. I will always love you—only you, Lenobia.”

  Lenobia pressed her face to his chest and this time when she wept, her tears were of happiness.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was that evening, March 21, 1788, as the sun was an orange globe settling into the water, that the Minerva sailed into the port of New Orleans.

  It was also that evening that Lenobia began to cough.

  She started feeling ill just after she returned to her quarters. At first she thought it was that she hated leaving Martin, and that the room that had seemed a sanctuary when Sister Marie Madeleine had been there now felt more like a prison. Lenobia could not make herself eat breakfast. By the time the excited shout of “Land! I see land!” was ringing across the ship and the girls were hesitantly emerging from their rooms to huddle together on the deck, staring at the growing mass of land before them, Lenobia was feeling flushed and had to muffle her coughs in her sleeve.

  “Mademoiselles, I would not usually have you disembark in darkness, but because of the recent tragedy with Sister Marie Madeleine, I believe it is best that you are landed and safely within the Ursuline convent as soon as is possible.” The Commodore made the pronouncement to the girls on deck. “I know the Abbess. I will go to her immediately and tell her of the loss of the Sister, and announce to her that you will be coming ashore tonight. Please take only your small casquettes with you. I will have the rest of your things delivered to the convent.” He bowed and headed to the side of the deck from which the rowboat would be lowered.

  In her feverish state, it seemed her mother’s voice returned to Lenobia, admonishing her not to call it a word that sounded so much like casket. Lenobia moved slowly belowdecks with the rest of the girls, feeling eerily like the voice from the past was an omen of the future.

  No! She shook off the melancholy she was feeling. I have a slight ague. I will think of Martin. He is making plans for us to leave New Orleans and go west, where we will be together—forever.

  It was that thought that propelled her forward as she settled, shivering and coughing, in the small boat with the other girls. Once she was seated between Simonette and Colette, a young girl with long, dark hair, Lenobia looked around listlessly, trying to summon the energy to complete her journey. Her gaze passed over the rowers and olive eyes caught hers, telegraphing strength and love.

  She must have made a sound of happy surprise, because Simonette asked, “What is it, Lenobia?”

  Feeling renewed, Lenobia smiled at the girl. “I am happy that our long voyage is over, and eager to begin the next chapter of my life.”

  “You sound so certain it will be good,” Simonette said.

  “I am. I believe the next part of my life will be the very best,” Lenobia responded, loud enough for her voice to carry to Martin.

  The rowboat rocke
d as the last passenger joined them, saying, “I am quite certain it will be.”

  The strength she’d found in Martin’s presence turned to fear and loathing as the Bishop settled into a seat so close to her that his purple robes, blowing in the warm, humid air, almost touched her skirts. There he sat, silent and staring.

  Lenobia pulled her cloak closer to her and looked away, focusing on not allowing her gaze to turn to Martin while she ignored the Bishop. She breathed deeply of the muddy, earthy aroma of the port where river met sea, hoping the warm, moist air and the scent of land would soothe her cough.

  It did not.

  The Abbess, Sister Marie Therese, was a tall, thin woman who Lenobia thought looked oddly crowlike standing on the dock with her dark habit blowing around her. While the Commodore helped the Bishop exit the boat, the Abbess and two nuns who were pale faced and looked as though they had been weeping, helped the crew members pass the girls from the rowboat to the dock, saying, “Come, mademoiselles. You need rest and peace after the horror of what happened to our good Sister. Both await you at our convent.”

  When it was her turn to climb onto the dock, she felt the strength of familiar hands on hers, and he whispered, “Be brave, ma cherie. I will come for you.” Lenobia’s touch lingered in Martin’s for as long as she dared, and then she took the nun’s hand. She did not look back at Martin, but instead tried to muffle her cough and blend in with the group of girls.

  When they were all onshore, the Abbess bowed her head slightly to the Bishop and the Commodore and said, “Merci beaucoup for delivering my charges unto me. I shall take them from here and will shortly place them safely into the hands of their husbands.”

  “Not all of them.” The Bishop’s voice was like a whip, but the Abbess hardly raised a brow at him when she responded. “Yes, Bishop, all of them. The Commodore has already explained to me the unfortunate mistake in the identity of one of the girls. That does not make her any less my charge—it simply changes the choice of husband for her.”