“My da was a first mate on a warship when it captured an enemy ship worth thousands of pounds. My da’s share wasn’t enough to buy a farm in England, where he grew up, least not a farm big enough to sustain a family. So he bought him some land in the north of Ireland and that’s where I grew up. But he told me stories, and about foolish first mates who thought they could balance a load by eyeballing and guessing.”

  “You don’t hold with guessing.”

  “What can’t be known, you guess at,” said Jedediah. “What can be known, you figure out. My da’s words.”

  “Have at it,” said Alvin. “I’ll stay out of your way.”

  Jedediah started ordering his crew to carry things below in a certain order. “No, no, we can’t get that down by carrying it. We’ll sway it down in a minute or two.”

  Alvin reached for Lovey’s hand, and she gave it to him readily. “Take me to Rosheen, would you, Lovey?”

  “I can fetch her for you, if you like!” said Lovey eagerly.

  “Thanks, I know you would, but I want to go see her at her work.”

  Getting down the gangplank took some concentration, particularly since he was holding on to Lovey behind him and half-dragging her. She was terrified of the harbor water, of falling in. And Alvin didn’t blame her—it wasn’t the cleanest water in the world, with all kinds of detritus floating and soaking or dissolved in the water.

  Soon enough, though, they were on firm land, and Lovey let go of his hand and bounded on ahead, her pigtails dancing. “Wait for me!” called Alvin. “I can’t keep up when you run!”

  She slowed down and then stopped, waiting for him to catch up. Of course he could outrun her any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but walking was safer than running into people. The Quay was busy today, as every day, with all the people doing their jobs. No slackers among them, Alvin was happy to see. And many had found ways to use their knacks to help. But there was no job that able-bodied people didn’t do, right willingly, whether they were trained for it or practiced in it or even fully understood what the job was. They knew their lives depended on it. Being sentenced to transportation to the New World by the Catholic Inquisition only marked them more surely for death as long as they were on Irish soil—nobody believed that the Church of Ireland wasn’t aware of who they were, where they were, and what they were doing.

  Rosheen was not indoors on this clear sunny day. Near her in a couple of rows were men lying on the ground, with scarce a blanket to smooth and soften under them. But as Alvin stood and studied Rosheen’s patients, he realized what her knack really was. Because every broken bone—and there were six of them, divided among four unlucky (or clumsy) men—had been expertly set and was already half healed. Only Alvin himself could have done better.

  So he didn’t interfere by completing their healing. Rosheen’s knack was sufficient and Alvin would leave it to her. Someone had once accused him of having no respect for anyone’s knack except his own, and he made it a point to let others do what they knew how to do.

  The gashes were bandaged, but Alvin could tell that when the bandages came off, there’d be little sign of a healing wound, perhaps not even a scar. Skin and muscle healed up faster than bone.

  Lovey went up to Rosheen and whispered in her ear. Rosheen didn’t lose concentration on the man whose crushed hand she was working on. Alvin walked over to her and stood behind her, using his doodlebug to see what she was dealing with. It was a mess, and no regular surgeon would have had any idea but to cut off the whole hand before a bad infection set in. And there was an infection taking hold within the bloody mass. Had the man caught his hand between ship and dock? He couldn’t think what else could have done this.

  Rosheen seemed to have no knack with infection. Why would she? She could knit together bones and flesh, but something as small as the animalcules that caused infection would be beyond her ken. It had taken Alvin a good while before he even discovered what infection was. So he took a while, standing there, to purge the man’s mangled hand of the gangrenous humors that he found there.

  If Rosheen noticed what he had done, she gave no sign. Her concentration was obviously devoted to putting bones back together, encasing them with the cartilage that held it all together.

  “So now I know your knack,” murmured Alvin.

  “Didn’t know myself,” said Rosheen. “But now I see why people came to me back home, when they had cuts and breaks.”

  “And bashes,” said Lovey.

  “Bashes are the hardest,” said Rosheen.

  “You’ve fixed this one up pretty good,” said Alvin.

  Rosheen shook her head. “Pretty good is less than good, and less than good is not acceptable.”

  “I correct myself,” said Alvin. “Your work here is far better than acceptable. It’s superb.”

  “I thank you sir.”

  Her patient held up the bloody hand and flexed and stretched all the fingers. “Lord Almighty, girl,” he said, “it’s like Jaysus himself come and had at me.”

  “I think Jesus had the same knack, most likely,” said Alvin. “Among others.”

  “He had the power of God,” said Rosheen. “Him being God and all.”

  “Are you so sure your knack doesn’t also come from God?”

  Rosheen shook her head. “I always thought my knack was to bring peace to our home. To unify us. Harmonize us.”

  “So it was a peaceful home?” asked Alvin.

  “You were there, inside it.”

  “But your father was away.”

  Rosheen nodded. “That he was. But he wasn’t one of those drunken louts who come home and beat up their wife and children.”

  “Ah. So your house was in harmony all the time.”

  “Liquor isn’t the only thing that causes quarreling,” said Rosheen. “Mam didn’t drink, neither, but she could lay into my da…”

  “It was your mother who started the hitting?”

  “Beating, I have to say. She already knew her fists couldn’t do anything to bother him. She broke more than one broomstick over his back. Got so she’d find a stout limb of a tree, wheedle off the twigs, and use that branch to beat him with. Left him some bloody scrapes.”

  “Did those scrapes heal remarkable fast?” asked Alvin.

  Rosheen rolled her eyes. “He hit her back, of course. Only time he hit her was to defend himself. Grab the broomstick or the branch, pull it out of her hands, throw it out the door.”

  “And what did you do?” asked Alvin.

  “I calmed her down, reminded her how hard Da worked, how he didn’t waste a penny in the public house, how he cared for us children, how he played with us. I’d say, ‘He’s a good da,’ and she’d say, ‘So I’m a bad mam?’ And I’d say, ‘It’s a good mam gave us a da like that, and a good da gave us a mam like you.’”

  “And that worked?” asked Alvin. Having known his share of angry married couples—not his own parents—he had found that calming down a raging parent or spouse was harder than calming down a charging boar.

  “They didn’t want to fight,” said Rosheen. “They didn’t want to hit each other or hurt each other. Talking made the anger cool, too, I think. When I was done, they were reconciled. So much, sir, that my da would even bring the broomstick back into the house. Though not the branch. If she wanted that, she’d send one of the children out to fetch it.”

  “And you did that?”

  Rosheen chuckled. “I never heard her ask me to do that. I can be remarkably hard of hearing sometimes.”

  “I bet you can,” said Alvin, chuckling.

  “I couldn’t think how to use my knack to help, till I realized that sometimes when I bandaged people up, just being helpful, you know, the wound was already healed before I finished, and after a while I learned to feel when I was doing it, and work on that so I could make it happen.”

  “Like everybody with their knacks.”

  “Is it likely I have both knacks?”

  “Could be. Or could be that your peacemaking skills were no knack, just love and wisdom and patience—”

  “Can’t accuse me of patience, just ask Lovey.”

  “She worships you,” said Alvin. “If you had no patience with her, she’d fear you or resent you, but she adores you.”

  Rosheen appeared doubtful.

  “I’m a seventh son in a family that had girls, too,” said Alvin. “I know when sisters don’t get along, and I know when the love beats strong as a tempest in all their hearts. Your sister has a tornado of love for you, as you do for her.”

  “Never thought of love as a tornado,” said Rosheen. “Tearing trees out of the ground and roofs off houses. I read about them.”

  “I’ve seen them. Been inside one once, with a Red Prophet keeping me safe.”

  “Red? A native?”

  “A fine man, and still a friend.”

  “You actually know Red people?”

  “Can’t help but know them,” said Alvin, “at least if you leave your house now and then.”

  “Is it true they’re all drunks who scalp people?”

  “They’re all different kinds,” said Alvin, “just like White folks. My friend drank some for a while, and then he stopped.”

  Rosheen brightened up. “Mam told me that Da used to drink up a storm. Drunk whenever he had a tuppence. A nasty drunk, too, Mam said. She had to fight him off many a time.”

  “I take it something changed him?”

  “I didn’t believe her, when she told me that,” said Rosheen. “Because I never saw it. But she said it was so, and here’s what changed him. He nearly killed a man. She was there and saw it—I was a babe in her arms at the time, so I saw it too, but I didn’t remember. Da got in a fight outside the pub—well, it began inside, but moved outside the pub, and Mam said Da was a powerful fighter and he beat that man down to the ground and he was too drunk to know that he already won so he kept pounding, even though his own hand was most as broken up as the other man’s head.

  “Well, that’s what Mam said,” Rosheen went on. “And then she said that when Da was finally pulled off the fellow, some men thought he must be dead, he lay there so still and quiet. But then he sat up, holding his head, complaining of a headache. Mam says he shook his head and said it was all better. His jaw wasn’t even out of joint, which, the way my da beat him, his jaw should have been lying in the road with all the teeth knocked out of it.”

  Alvin chuckled.

  “Mam said,” Rosheen insisted. “She’s no liar, sir.”

  “Oh, I believe every word of the tale. I’m just surprised you didn’t see what was really going on.”

  “I wasn’t two years old, sir. Whatever I saw, I don’t remember now.”

  “I’m saying that given your knack for healing, I bet you were healing that fellow even while your dad was pounding him into the cobblestones.”

  “No cobbles in that village,” said Rosheen. “And I don’t know how I could have been healing anybody at that age. I couldn’t even concentrate on burping without getting whupped on my back by Mam’s hand.”

  “You had nothing else to concentrate on. I think the man’s pain spoke to you. Or maybe it was the breaking and the tearing. But Rosheen, you already had your knack, even as a wee baby.”

  “Maybe,” said Rosheen. “Can’t say.”

  The man held up his naked, pristine arm. “Sure got it now, girl,” he said.

  “If you’re healed,” said Alvin, “don’t you got some work to do?”

  The man sprang to his feet. “Thanks for saying that, I still have a lot of hauling to do.”

  “Just keep your hand out from between boats and docks,” said Alvin.

  “How did you—” He left his sentence unfinished. Then he got up, thanked Rosheen, and went on his way.

  “Now there’s a man whose heart you stole,” said Alvin.

  “Nothing of the kind. I’m not old enough to steal no hearts,” she said.

  “Well, be prepared. That time will come.”

  “Not for me. Not pretty enough.”

  “Where’d you get that silly idea?”

  “I was an ugly baby,” she said, “Mam said the angels got mad at me and uglied me up before I was born.”

  “Which means that your mam knew you were remarkable pretty and called you ugly to keep you from becoming vain.”

  Rosheen looked skeptical.

  Alvin patted her shoulder. “You’ve got work to do,” he said.

  “You can stay and help. I have a feeling you’re a better healer than I am.”

  It was true, but mostly because he’d had a lot more experience. “I’ve met no better healer than you, Rosheen.” After all, a man can never say what day he met himself.

  “I’m sad to hear that,” she said, “since I work so slow.”

  “Rosheen,” Alvin said, “I can’t help but wonder. Do you have to be right close to help a body heal?”

  “I don’t know, it just makes sense to be close.”

  “I wonder if you could try being a little farther off, and then a little more the next time.”

  “Wouldn’t that slow me down even more?”

  “Might,” said Alvin. “But I’m thinking, what if you’re in one boat and a man with a broken arm is in another boat, but close by, close enough to see him.”

  Rosheen’s eyes went wide. “You’re thinking about the voyage west.”

  “I don’t know how to get you safely from boat to boat, especially in seas rough enough for a man to break a bone, but if your knack has some reach to it, maybe the whole expedition can benefit from your healing gifts.”

  Rosheen thought for a moment. “Who knows, until I try?” she said. “I’ll experiment with trying to heal from afar. Like on that man.” She pointed at a fellow lying on the ground.

  “Rosheen, you healed that fellow’s sprained ankle before he finished laying himself down.”

  “I did?”

  “Somebody did,” said Alvin. “Right now he’s just idling because he’s so tired. I’ve learned in my life that you can’t heal weariness, it has to be healed by rest and sleep.”

  “Well, let him sleep, then,” said Rosheen.

  “Oh, he’s awake now, and listening, and I reckon he’s so ashamed of slacking when you work hard that he’s about to bound to his feet and run back to work on his perfectly good ankles.”

  The man stood up and bowed sheepishly to Alvin and Rosheen. Then he did indeed run off, loping without a sign of a limp. He did have work to do. Rosheen laughed as he sped away.

  16

  “IT’S KIND OF my sister-in-law to take time away from running this whole shebang in order to talk to me, a young man of no office or function in Crystal City.”

  “One might wish that it were so, but office or not, you definitely function. Not a bad word for it. Functioning.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Calvin. “Would the fine lady like to sit down on my third-hand furniture?”

  “Are you indicating the chair least likely or most likely to collapse under my weight?” Margaret smiled, and her amusement seemed genuine.

  “Even if I had such a prank in mind,” said Calvin, “and even if you laughed when it was done, and were not injured at all, I think I’d have a heavy price to pay when he gets back from Ireland.”

  “So you think ahead before you do mischief, is that it?”

  Calvin spread his hands in a shrug.

  “Have you thought ahead to what happens when at least fourteen babies are born in Crystal City that bear a much stronger resemblance to you than to their putative fathers?”

  “Putative,” said Calvin. “You lost me, Mistress Larner.”

  “You’ve been providing your favorite function to many ladies of mature enough years to be married to men who aren’t you,” said Margaret.

  “Putative,” said Calvin. “Does that mean not, but people think it is?”

  “Your recreational activities are known to few, but word is spreading,” said Margaret. “This will be damaging to the social fabric of this community. Most recently Goody Lamb, a woman worth ten of you.”

  “She asked me to call her—”

  “Jane Grey, the name her mother called her,” said Margaret.

  “So you’ve been watching,” he said, nodding wisely.

  “I still see it in your heart. How little it meant to you, considering how much it will cost her.”

  “Meaning there’ll be some screaming and hitting?” asked Calvin. “I don’t think so. In fact, I daresay that not one husband will speak to his wife in such a way as to imply he suspects her of being untrue to him.”

  “Mayhap you’re right. Mayhap there’ll be no open arguments at all.”

  “Count on it,” said Calvin. “Though what this has to do with—”

  “Spare me. Spare us both. Every lie makes you look more like a … like a liar to me.”

  “Since you can see into my heartfire, Mistress Larner, can you tell me where this ruinous path will lead me in my life?”

  “You already know,” said Margaret.

  “I don’t know with the clarity you have.”

  “Alvin will come home and find your crystals in his walls.”

  “Did he forbid me to create new blocks for Crystal City?” asked Calvin. “I have no memory of that.”

  “Nobody ever sees anything in your—”

  “Nobody sees anything they understand,” said Calvin. “But that’s true of most of the visions in Alvin’s crystals, too. It’s a tricky thing, understanding what you do and don’t see. I reckon heartfires is more sure-sighted.”

  “Alvin will come home,” said Margaret.

  “I’m glad to have your assurance of his safety during his ocean crossing.”

  “And even if the husbands and wives you’ve poisoned don’t quarrel openly, you’re sowing distrust in marriages and—”

  “But am I? The distrust is surely warranted and completely rational, wouldn’t you say, considering that so many of these women have alien babies in their wombs.”

  “Calvin, I know what you—”

  “If you really do,” said Calvin, “then you can look into my heartfire and discover that I did nothing to compel my paramours. I always waited for them to make the first overt move or say the first clear words. It was by their free choice.”