A footfall came outside the window. A small face looked in on us, grinning. Then a shout came from outside: Georgine's owner man. Georgine screamed, "Who is it?" and shoved her clothing down over her thighs.

"Just one of the little boys," I told her, loud so the carpenter would hear. "Get dressed." O Lasir?n, let him not beat the child. I stepped outside. It was Ti-Bois, all of his skinny six-year-old soul case quivering with excitement.

"Sorry, Mister Pierre," I mumbled at the carpenter. He grunted, nodded, his eyes searching within my hut for Georgine. Ti-Bois had gotten off light this time.

I hissed at Ti-Bois, "Why did you push your face in my window? Little door-peep. If you make the backra man vexed, you and me both could get whipped. Maybe we should call you Ti Malice, hein?"

His face twitched a frightened, apologetic smile. "Sorry, matant, sorry Auntie Mer. It's the book-keeper who sent me. You must come quick; Hopping John stepped on a centipede in the sugar cane and it bit him. He's in the mill house, no time to take him to the slave hospital. Quick, Auntie; come!" He turned on his heel, running back for the canefields. I shouted for him to wait for me, then said to the carpenter: "Mister Pierre, Georgine's coming out now."

He was frowning. He really looked fretful for his Georgine. "How is her health?"

She was living; Hopping John might be dying. "She will be well, Mister Pierre. I already told her what she needs to do." His face cleared a little.

"Good. You're to be with her when her time comes, at our house."

"How...?" "Your master gave permission." "Yes, Mister Pierre. I will send her out to you now." I dashed back into my room. "Someone's sick," I told Georgine. "I have to go and help." "But-"

"You must grow beets and eat them, make yourself strong for the birth. And get ginger root and make a poultice, put it down there every night, on the opening to your bouboun." She got a scandalised look. I didn't have time for that. "Not strong enough to burn, mind. It will make the skin supple so the baby will pass through without tearing it. And tell your carpenter not to touch you until after you wean."

She gasped. "So long?" "So long. Or your milk will be weak and your child won't thrive."

Georgine looked down at her big belly like she was just now thinking of all that it signified.

"Your baby is coming in two months, not more. When your birth time comes, I'm to be there with you, Master says. I have to go now." I ran through the door, leaving her questions on her lips. Maybe they would let Tipingee come with me to Georgine's birth.

Lasirèn, pray you a quick death for Hopping John. Pray you no more of this life for him. Even though no gods answer black people's prayers here in this place.

Halfway to the mill house, I had to pass under the big kenèp tree. I just had time to hear a rustling in the leaves, when a body jumped down out of it in front of me. It landed on its two feet, then overbalanced, but only had one hand to put to the ground to steady itself. Makandal. Come all the way from Limb? to make mischief.

"Salaam ale ikum, matant," he greeted me. Peace be upon you. I didn't give him back his blessing. "Get out my way," I panted. "Someone's sick."

He straightened, cradling the long-healed stump of his right arm in his left hand. After his accident, he wouldn't take food from the same pot with us any more. He was a Muslim, and they count the left hand unclean.

Makandal stood tall. Grinned at me. "Tales flow from Hopping John mouth the way shit flows from a duck's behind," he said around a kenèp fruit in his mouth. "Always talking my business. Nayga-run-to-backra sometimes is in such a hurry to tell tales, he doesn't look where he's walking. Steps on something nasty. Gets piqué." He jabbed with a fingertip, a thorn biting into flesh. He put a fake sadness on his face. "It's a bad way to sicken, matant."

"It's you made Hopping John ill!" Not a centipede, but a piquette in the fields; a piece of sharpened bamboo the brute had jammed into the ground, smeared with his poison on the tip. His smile brightened like the day. "I told the piquette to catch whoever was talking my business. Looks like I aimed it true." He spat out the pale ball of the kenèp seed. "Where's Marie-Claire?" he asked. "In the kitchen, you think? I have a new herb for her to flavour your master's food with."