Violya

Chapter 17 Jessima-2

Jessima nodded. Eddie’s face scrunched up tight and his mouth turned down at the corners with a quivering bottom lip. Servants arrived and Jessima placed a cool compress across Eddie’s forehead in an attempt to bring down his heat. It only made him scream more. She bathed him in cool water, to no avail.

After a little while, Ernie entered the room. “My dear, the messenger has returned. Martha cannot attend Eddie here. She cannot leave her hospital. It seems there is a crisis with many sick babies.”

“We shall go there. Martha will know what to do.”

“I’ll get the carriage,” Ernie said.

“No,” Jessima said. “It’s faster on foot.”

Jessima handed Eddie to Georgina. “Hold him while I change out of this dress.”

A few moments later, Jessima hurried through the streets in a shirt and men’s breeches holding a screaming Eddie in her arms and surrounded by soldiers.

Thankfully it was early afternoon and the streets were relatively quiet as Lianites took their midday meal. When Eddie’s screams picked up and he felt like a burning coal in her arms, she ran.

At the hospital, Jessima demanded to see Martha. She was pointed in the direction of the children’s ward.

It was overflowing when Jessima arrived. Screaming babies, panicked mothers holding them, nurses running here and there. And in the midst of the chaos stood Martha directing her team, seeing each child in turn.

Jessima bundled her way towards her.

“Martha, Eddie is sick,” Jessima said, her voice a pitch higher than usual.

Martha glanced at her and continued her administrations. Checking over a baby and then telling a nearby nurse what medicine to administer and in what dose, depending on the severity.

“So are all these babies,” Martha replied.

She held her hands out to the next baby in the line, rather than Eddie.

“Martha, you need to help Eddie,” Jessima insisted. “He is your king!”

“Do you want to tell all these mothers that your baby is more important than their own? Because he happens to have a title?” Martha gestured behind her.

Jessima turned to the line of frightened mothers who clasped their screaming babies as tightly as Jessima held Eddie. They all stared at her. She glanced at Martha and retraced her steps to join the end. Martha gestured the next baby forward.

“Get those soldiers out of here,” Martha said after examining the baby and giving an order to a nurse, who struggled to get close to her. “They are taking up space and preventing my nurses from doing their jobs by getting in the way.”

“Wait outside,” Jessima said.

The soldiers shuffled out as the line shuffled forward. More mothers clutching squalling babies joined behind Jessima.

Finally, it was her turn in front of Martha. The medic touched the back of her hand to Eddie’s forehead, pulled back his eyelids to look at the whites of his eyes, checked the splotches on his torso and peeked into his nappy.

“Mild case,” Martha said to a nurse. The nurse held her hands out and took Eddie from Jessima.

“What now?” Jessima said, watching where Eddie was being taken like a hawk.

“You wait or you go and come back later,” Martha said impatiently. “Either way, you get out of our way. We are understaffed and the babies keep coming. This is the most severe outbreak of baby dysentery I’ve ever seen.”

“What are the other mothers doing?” Jessima asked.

“Most have to go back to work,” Martha said, waving Jessima to one side so she could attend the mother and screaming baby behind the queen. “You need to move on now.”

“I will help,” Jessima said.

Martha raised an eyebrow. “It’s messy work.”

Jessima nodded.

Martha turned and caught a nearby nurse’s attention. “Penny, this one will help you. Tell her what she needs to do.”

Penny frantically beckoned Jessima to her.

“We need to keep their nappies clean. They are filling them constantly. Other nurses will be around to give them water and others are administering the right medicine. These babies are our responsibility,” Penny indicated an area of the ward, with cots containing four babies each, “they have severe cases. I suggest you roll up your sleeves or they’ll get covered in you-know-what.”

Jessima did as told as Penny continued.

“Fresh cloth for nappies is over there. Take the dirty nappies and put them in that cart. The washer women are trying their hardest to keep up, but the clean cloth is running low. Martha will tell us what to do when the nappies run out. Right, you start on that side and I’ll start here. We work our way into the middle and then out again. If the nappy is clean, leave it. It won’t be clean for long.”

“I understand,” Jessima said, but Penny had already moved to a cot.

The nurse leaned over the first baby. As her deft hands worked to check the contents of the nappy she whispered tenderly to the child, as if it were her own.

Jessima considered her first baby. It screamed and screamed. The purple splotches deeper and darker than on Eddie’s skin. A girl. And her nappy was full. Jessima got to work, whispering soothing words in between gagging at the smell.

Later, as Jessima’s hands had begun to work methodically as if they had a life of their own and her nostrils had become numb to the smell, she realised two things: her feet were screaming at her and her babies’ nappies were not filling so regularly. She looked up at Penny. The nurse smiled at her. Night had settled and Jessima wondered how long she had been there. It felt like minutes.

She took in the ward. The line of mothers was no more and the franticness of earlier had subsided with nurses pausing and looking around at one another. The babies, although still grumbling, were not as vocal.

“We’ve made it this far, ladies,” Martha announced across the ward. “But we’re not done yet. These babies are stable but still need constant care. Some of the mild cases might be able to go home in the morning. Not one babe has succumbed to the illness. Well done. I’m proud of you all. We can do anything if we work together.”

The nurses clapped and cheered and Jessima joined in. Her mind then turned to Eddie.

“Whereabouts are the mild cases?” Jessima asked Penny.

The nurse pointed to an area in the far corner of the ward.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Jessima said as Penny continued with her work.

Jessima walked around the cots, looking in each for Eddie. When she spotted him, he was sleeping soundly in a cot with three other babies. The colour had returned to his cheeks and the purple marks were barely visible. She gently stroked his cheek.

“Thank you,” Jessima said to the nurse who flitted about the area, checking on all the children there.

“You’re welcome. Thank you for helping Penny,” the nurse replied. “We appreciate all the help we can get. I think every mother would’ve stayed if they could’ve. But most have families and businesses they’re supporting.”

“Do you know who I am?” Jessima asked.

“No,” the nurse replied, confused.

“I’m Queen Jessima. This is King Edward Hugo Cleland.”

The nurse gaped then looked down at Eddie. “Well, he’s just another babe to me. And you’re just another mother kind enough to help us. There’s no special treatment here, Martha makes sure of that. She’s an inspiration. There’s nothing she’ll ask another to do that she won’t do herself. And she listens to us, really listens.”

In between directing staff, Martha beckoned to Jessima from across the ward. “Thank you for your assistance. Now this is under control I must check on my other patients.”

“How many patients do you care for?”

“Oh, hundreds,” Martha said.

“Hundreds?”

“I run the biggest hospital in the city. I took over the job of three men when they went off to war. I’m exceedingly busy. My women are exceedingly busy, too, all stepping up to take on the men’s work.”

“It’s exceptionally well run, Martha. Thank you.”

“Yes, I have an excellent team. I trust them and they trust me. You have to have the right people around you to lead,” Martha said. “It’s not an easy job, but if I didn’t do it, then who would?”

At dawn, Jessima walked home from the hospital with a sleeping Eddie in her arms. The soldiers encircled her but there were few people in the streets. She was exhausted yet elated. She had made a difference, had saved lives. She’d never worked as part of a team before, had never trusted that others would do their tasks and that they trusted her to do her own. It was true what the nurse had said, Martha was an inspiration.

As Jessima entered the fortress courtyard a steward rushed up to her.

“Your Grace, they await you in the breakfast room,” the steward said.

“Who awaits me?” Jessima replied. With each step closer to her bed, her mind slowed in anticipation of sleep.

“The monthly breakfast meeting with Ernie and his administrators. You wanted to attend, your Grace,” the steward said.

“Yes, of course,” Jessima replied. “Lead the way.”

Half awake, Jessima followed the steward into the breakfast room. She was so tired she barely registered who was there, mostly elderly men though, she noted. The chattering of voices quietened as she sat in her usual position.

“Ah, Queen Jessima, we didn’t know King Edward would be joining us,” Prince Charles said.

He laughed and a number of the men snickered with him. The few women gathered did not.

Jessima frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to her not to bring Eddie. She bit the inside of her cheek to try to wake herself up and adjusted the baby in her arms so she could sit up straight. “King Edward is unwell and is recovering. It is best that he remains with me. Let us start the meeting, we have much to discuss.”

Ernie spoke then about the city’s roads and the ones that were in need of repair and a discussion began with those sat around the table. The droning voices and Eddie’s soft snuffles cushioned her like a lullaby.

“Queen Jessima,” a voice said gently in her ear.

Jessima woke with a jolt to see Lord Chattergoon’s face.

“Apologies, where were we?” Jessima said quickly, realising with frustration that she had fallen asleep.

“The meeting was adjourned,” Chattergoon replied moving out of her line of vision, “everyone has left.”

Jessima stared around the empty table, seeing the plates of half eaten food and empty teacups. The room was deserted. “Why wasn’t I woken?” Jessima said.

Lord Chattergoon didn’t reply. It was obvious. Ernie hadn’t wanted her there in the first place, neither had the administrators. Not one of them believed she would bring anything valuable to the meeting, so they had left her asleep during the proceedings. She was angry at herself for having failed once again to be a queen.

“If I may, your Grace,” Chattergoon said.

Jessima gestured for him to continue.

“In my experience, to rule you don’t need to make every decision. Often it is valuable to leave some decisions to those who excel at making them. That enables a leader to consider matters of greater importance.”

Jessima blinked at Chattergoon, no words coming to her lips in response. He bowed and took his leave.

Exhausted, Jessima sent away the historian who had come to teach her regular lesson. She checked on Eddie. He was fast asleep, with a peaceful countenance that showed none of the previous day’s distress.

She mused, focusing on the valuable lessons from Martha’s hospital. The people had no desire to worship her at grand, formal events, had no need for an arrogant, aloof queen as she had been in Fertilian. She connected with them when she was one of them.

And did she need to know all the administrative intricacies, as she had believed? To rule you don’t need to make every decision, Chattergoon had said. Consider matters of greater importance.

A brisk knock on the door made Jessima snap into a Peqkian warrior’s defensive stance, fists balled, ready to deflect or attack. A move Ramya had shown her in Riaow and one that Jessima had laughingly practised with her friend, not ever thinking she would use it. But, instead of jumping like a startled bird, she had reacted instinctively to a potential threat.

“Come,” she said, relaxing, and a steward promptly entered.

“Prince Ernest and Lord Chattergoon require your presence urgently in the courtyard,” the steward said.

Jessima gave brief orders to Eddie’s nurses and followed the steward down the stairs to the courtyard. She made her way to where the two men stood. Betsy was sat on Ernie’s feet.

Chattergoon bowed to her. Ernie dipped his head in greeting.

“What is this all about, Lord Chattergoon?” Ernie said while leaning forward to tickle his dog’s ears.