Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly [Barbara Hambly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2018-03-22T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Too-ample experience with the quack medical theory that ranged abroad – like a Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse – in America, made January ready for almost anything as James and Luc helped him up the steps, across the gallery, and into Jules Mabillet’s room. Completely aside from medicines which consisted chiefly of poisons like lead and mercury, he had encountered practitioners – well-paid and greatly in demand – who claimed to cure cholera with decoctions of camphor and gunpowder, to banish yellow fever by placing sliced onions under the patient’s bed, to restore male ‘vigor’ by means of warm ale and mesmerism, and to dispell madness by shaving the patient’s head and raising blisters on the flesh with Spanish fly. One of the problems he encountered regularly in America was the nearly-unshakable belief, held by most Americans, that any man was qualified to be his own physician. In his somewhat sketchy career as part-time healer among the librés of the French Town he spent a good deal of his time trying to convince people that just because a medicine was advertised on its label to cure rheumatism, kidney-stones, rabies, fever, and indigestion didn’t mean it would actually do so.

As they crossed the gallery January smelled sulfur, and heard from within the room the frightened mewing of a kitten.

Damn it!

He thrust the French door open without knocking, pretty sure what he’d find.

Madamoiselle Charlotte Viellard sprang to her feet from beside the bed, brown eyes flared with guilt, and in doing so knocked against the shoulder of the young woman who sat beside her: Gayla, the maid who looked after all three of the younger Viellard girls. Gayla lost her hold on the struggling black kitten she held, and the little animal turned nimbly in her grip, raked her hand with her claws, and bolted past January and out the door.

‘Don’t you friggin’ knock, nigger?’ demanded Gayla furiously.

Shaking free of his two supporters, January limped to the bedside and looked down at Charlotte. The tisane in the water glass she held smelled of honey and sulfur and something else.

‘I apologize for breaking in on you like this, Mamzelle Charlotte,’ he said, with as much respect as he could manage considering the amount of pain he was in, and the degree of his disgust. ‘I hope you didn’t give any of that to M’sieu Mabillet?’

The girl looked quickly from him to Gayla, who had likewise risen to her feet.

‘And what you know about it?’ the maid demanded, clutching her bleeding hand.

Keeping his voice gentle, January replied, ‘If it’s what Queen Regine makes up to cure all ills, I’d advise you against giving him any, Mamzelle. It’s moonflower, isn’t it? Zombie cucumber? Mix it with honey and sulfur, and rub it against a black cat?’

‘Queen Regine give me this miracle herself—’

‘And my sister Olympia Snakebones taught me,’ returned January quietly. ‘And moonflower – datura – has to be used very carefully.’ Tactfully, he added, ‘Have you ever used this remedy before? It takes a touch—’

‘I used it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.