"Narcisse," Valentine said, not to his nurse, but to the ceiling of the cell. "That's a lovely name."
"Twenty years ago, I was a lovely girl."
"You still are. Nobody is more beautiful than someone who takes away pain."
She half snorted, half laughed. "Child, you're a charmer. Now you're three rungs up."
Valentine unwrapped a piece of cheese and nibbled at it with sore teeth. "Good of them to let you in here."
"Captain Boul's orders. I heard the men talking. They want you to live."
Valentine probed a loosened tooth with his tongue and refrained from comment.
"Ten minutes, and you'll need to pass water, bad," Sissy predicted. "I'll be back with a basin."
She swung herself to the door and glared up at the man blocking it. "Thank you," she said as he moved aside. Valentine almost felt the air chill at her tone.
Sissy helped him urinate at the end of the predicted ten-minute interval in such a matter-of-fact fashion, Valentine almost laughed at the procedure.
"Christ that burns," Valentine groaned.
"Pain means you're still breathing," she commiserated. "Told myself that before-and before that, too."
She put his head in her lap again and started to sponge blood clots out of his hair. "You're wondering, and you're too polite to ask. I'm like this from my own beatings, from trying to run away out of here. I started out in the sugar fields. Tried to get away once too often. I'd be dead, except I can cook better than anyone this side of the island. And they're afraid of my juju."
"Actually I was wondering about the watch. It doesn't fit you."
"Hmpf. Most people just see a woman with stumps. This belonged to my man, Robert," she said, pronouncing the name Rowberr. "He went to join the guerrillas, and I never seen him since. I think he's dead."
Valentine lay back, trying to fall asleep. There was no pain in sleep. "Do you ever think of running again?" he breathed, his voice hardly a whisper.
"Hard to run with no legs, child," she said, cradling his head again and bringing her face close to his so he could hear.
"When you bring me dinner...," Valentine began.
Narcisse listened, gently stroking his head. But Valentine felt her body tremble with excitement as he spoke.
Valentine lay down, and tried to sleep away the afternoon. He'd gotten up and walked around the cell. There was one final wall of pain to get through as he did so, and then he felt his strength coming back to him as though a dam had burst. He put his back to the wall where the guard couldn't see him and squatted and stretched and tried a few push-ups. The exertion left him as limp as water. He tried to sleep. He told himself he would never be able to rest: there were gaping holes in his plan, beginning with the necessity of him staying in this cell for another meal. He tried to relax, worried that a change in mood could alter his lifesign signature. He hadn't seen any Reapers on Haiti yet, or felt their presence, but that didn't mean they would not come for him. And with all those worries, sleep still ambushed him.
He woke with a start at the sound of Sissy's voice outside the door. "What, you on hourly wages? Food's getting cold, boy. Get this thing open."
The door swung inward, and Valentine rolled over to see Narcisse. She had changed into heavier long-sleeved clothes, and the yellow bandanna had been replaced by a blue-green one.
Valentine rolled onto his side and knelt, as a hungry man looking forward to his meal. The guards looked in Nar-cisse's bag, poking through the contents.
"Awful lot in here."
"You know the cap'n's orders. He wants him well fed. He didn't eat much earlier owing to the beating-he'll be healing-hungry now. I'm going to give him a wash, too. That's what the water's for."
The jailers exchanged a look. One stepped aside so she could pass. She executed a neat hop over his foot, but her
trailing culottes caught on his boot. Something fell from between her stumps and clattered to the floor.
The guards and Valentine looked down. It was a filleting knife-with a razor-sharp blade and a sturdy handle.
The guard outside the door reached for his rifle. The one inside bent to grasp at the knife. Valentine took his chance. Excitement overrode the stiffness in his body.
He sprang, bringing his fist forward. The defunct but heavy watch that once belonged to Narcisse's lover was wrapped around his hand in an improvised brass knuckle. The jailer turned his head at the blur of motion. What was left of the crystal shattered against the bridge of his nose, even as he tried to bring up the knife.