City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling

distance of maybe ten yards.
    Lucas took a few steps toward her. Her face was unbruised. For the space of two heartbeats she stayed where she was, then walked on.
    “Wait,” Lucas called softly. “Wait.” In these days of warpath and siege when almost the entire colony was sheltering behind the wall, the street was full of people. “Mevrouw, please, if I might speak with you a moment …”
    Marit turned. She looked at him—so much love and longing in that look, though only Lucas could see it—then shook her head and hurried on.
    Sixty guilders. It might as well be six hundred. Or six thousand. It was a fortune and he had no means of getting it.

The summons came the following Wednesday at midnight. “Barber! Barber! Are you in there? Open up.”
    Lucas stumbled half asleep to the door. “Yes, what is it?” He flung open the top half of the door but could see nothing. “Who’s there, what’s—”
    “It’s me, barber, Stuyvesant’s Micah. The governor sent me.”
    Lucas blinked, looked again. It was a night of heavy cloud, without stars or moon. Only the whites of the black slave’s eyes showed in the dark. “What’s wrong?”
    “The governor wants you, barber. He says you’re to come right away. He’s waiting.”
    Lucas did not need to be told to bring his instruments. There was no other reason for Peter Stuyvesant to summon him.

Judith Bayard’s bedroom was across the hall from the room where Lucas had operated on her husband. She lay in a traditional Dutch bed, built into the wall, framed by the paneled doors of many cupboards. There was a small log fire, and a single candle stood on the table beside the door: light enough for Lucas to see her pale blond hair spread across her pillow, and to see how flushed she was. He put his hand on her forehead. The skin was exceptionally dry and hot to his touch. “She’s burning up with fever.”
    “I know.” Stuyvesant used his silver-topped stick to support his weight while he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. He reached for his wife’s hand. Her fingers lay unmoving in his. “She cannot seem to hear me. I talk to her, we all do, but she makes no reply.”
    Every breath first rattled in her chest, then came harsh and whistling from her nose. Lucas had heard such breathing before, always from patients near the end. “How long has she been like this?”
    “Two days. The sickness came on so suddenly. … She was well, a hoarse throat, nothing more.”
    “I see. And what’s been done for her?”
    “Anna has been at my dear wife’s side all the hours of the day and night. She has tried to get Judith to take some nourishing broths, but she will not.”
    “Listen to her breathing. Her lungs are full of fluid. You must not force her to drink broth or anything else in such a condition, mijnheer. She could choke to death.”
    Stuyvesant nodded. “I know. Anna knows, as well. But we are at a loss. I thought perhaps you …”
    Lucas bent over the woman a second time. Then straightened. “I presume you have consulted Van der Vries. What’s his opinion?”
    “I have not called on Van der Vries.”
    Lucas folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Ah, how interesting. A physician specially dispatched by your employers, but the governor of the colony does not summon him to treat his wife’s terrible fever?”
    “Stand up straight, man. And stop your baiting. It doesn’t matter what you think of me. Or of Van der Vries, for that matter. My wife has grave need of your skills. As a Christian you have no choice but to lend her what assistance you can.”
    Lucas shrugged. “I would not refuse to help your wife if help were in my power. It’s not.”
    The Dutchman used his stick for leverage to stand, and took a few paces toward the fireplace. Each move was accompanied by the double tapping made by the stick and the peg leg strapped to his right knee. A man of few vanities, they said. Only his unshakable belief that he was always right, and the