Order of Good Cheer (26 page)

But Ndene is also angered at Membertou's behaviour this evening. She tells and shows Lucien that he had arrived wearing a small bird tethered to his longest hair, tied by the tiny leg with three strands of it. (Lucien saw it himself, it was a type of sparrow or chickadee.) This ornament, Ndene explains now, is reserved for the grandest of weddings, and Membertou, after goblets of wine, had shouted in Mi'qmah that tonight he was being married to the god of Christians, and in his shout he meant the carnal embrace, the kind a man sometimes forces upon a woman. She seems to insinuate that Membertou's passion was a ruse, perhaps even a joke, and that his true desire was simply the ability to lay claim to the Christians' guns, hats, bread, spices, and ships. But the reddest blood of her anger lies with her uncle's bird. Three days prior it had been trapped and imprisoned for this evening's rites, and it hadn't eaten or taken water and was very weak; so though it managed to flutter up and about Membertou's head for the first portion of the evening, frightened no doubt by the lamps and smoke and noise, and lumbering humans poking at it and trying to tease it, it soon sank upon Membertou's shoulder and, not long after, died. Ndene told him it had shit its life out in fear upon her uncle's shoulder-front, and Membertou, proud and drunk and soon-to-be-Christian, had demanded,
in French
, of Poutrincourt's boy
that he clean it off with wine! And then as the evening progressed and the rites were conducted, he gave no further notice to the dead bird bouncing at his chest, still an ornament, but one that had changed its nature.

Lucien grips her hand as they near her place. They can see two small fires, which appear and then disappear behind trees as they approach. They smell smoke and then see it issuing white from the tops of each of the ten or so mounded dwellings, which are black under the moon. Though it is too cold to stop, they do so now. Lucien knows it isn't the bird's death that angers her, for her people eat such creatures wantonly and by the score. It is more the manner of its death — wasteful, heedless, to adorn an act of self-aggrandizement. Some law, a law of her own gods perhaps, has been broken.

He reaches into his clothes and around to the small of his back and withdraws the small loaf he has kept for her, for they have walked far, and made love, and the night will be too cold and long to have no food to burn for one's blood. She lets the loaf cradle between their chests as they hug, the side of her forehead against his cheek. He would welcome the chance to simply walk into her family's house with her and curl up under her skins and sleep — or first make love again and fall asleep from it without fear of freezing to death. To be her natural husband. She has made clear to him that her people would not mind. Not her mother, or her three brothers, whom he knows. (Her father is long dead. A drowning.) He has made it equally clear to her that his people would do more than frown at this union of theirs, that it is dangerous to an unknown degree, and even possibly fatal. Fatal for their union, in any case. And though her people know about him, he thinks it best to remain hidden to them, lest his presence become so casual a thing that Membertou or his sons casually make mention to the nobles. Ndene has not
accepted this state of secrecy and he can tell she does not yet understand. And the moment he dreads begins now.

“Ndene, Lucien,” she says, touching their chests in turn. Then she points to one of the black domes. “House of Ndene.” He likes that for her house she always uses the Mi'qmah word
atsonch
, while for his she uses the French. When Lucien called his abode an
atsonch
, she assured him disdainfully that that was not an
atsonch
. And of course she was right.

“I cannot,” says Lucien. “No.”

“Yes,” she says, not smiling.

At this he merely points in the direction of the compound, which she will understand means Poutrincourt, and the King's laws, and danger. He has performed enough times before the drawing of a knife blade across his neck, which, not surprisingly, is in their lexicon of gestures too.

Ndene points to the heavens and says, simply, “God,” and shrugs.

At this, Lucien cannot tell if she means that it is God's law also that prevents him from staying, or if she means that tonight, since she has become Christian, they are newly sanctioned.

“God,” he agrees, nodding sadly, uncertain what he has agreed to.

“Yes?” she says to this, and pulls at him more vigorously.

“No!” he answers. He points to heaven, says yes, then points to l'Habitation and says no. Then, his catchall punctuation, he shrugs for her, his hands palm up, and in performing this gesture for her many times he has come to learn that it can mean several things. He closes his eyes and tilts his head heavenward to show that it is the meaningful, not the ironic shrug which is given with humorous eyes and lips suppressing a smile. Tonight, he also stiffens his fingers and shakes them a little, to show his yearning and sincerity and frustration.

Ndene accepts this as she always does, and with some slight anger, but they fall to embracing again, which is easiest, and it is only practical to share heat in this season, and they grow reluctant to leave the cave of each other's warmth. He hardly notes her smell now, and in the cold it is still less. Now Ndene has begun to softly moan, and Lucien can hear it is a song. It is not a tune constructed as he is used to, but he can tell it is sad. He feels it hum through the bone of her head to the bone of his face. He hears it as her talisman against what has happened to her tonight — a rite forced upon her, and wine that has worn off and drags on her spirit. He listens to her song; it's mostly in a minor key and sadly repeats, and repeats, much as monks will chant, and he hopes he is understanding in it what there is to understand. Almost sleeping on his feet, Lucien revisits the notion that, since she is now Christian, perhaps their union is — no, because now their grave sin is that they are not married. So tonight he still must leave her. And walk, cold, the long way back to the compound, shout at the gate, bear the sight of Poutrincourt's boy's sick eye through the Judas hole, climb the stairs to the men's quarters, also cold, and leap under raw blankets only to listen, while he tries to bleed some warmth into his coverings, as two — or perhaps now it is three — men moan a far sadder, colder song, as their legs ache and their teeth bleed and they try to sleep while dying.

WHEN, TIRED AND COLD
, Lucien gains l'Habitation and its gate, he suffers a remarkable confrontation. He has taken but two steps inside the gate — which is unguarded, strangely — when he meets Samuel Champlain, who stands directly in his face.

“
Stop
!” the mapmaker exclaims in a hiss that is as much a whisper.

“Sir, it is only me.”

“
Get out. Go back from where you came.”

“Sir? I —” Lucien sees no evidence of drink upon the man. If anything he is calm and clear-eyed behind the hissing. He is as if performing in a play.

“
Walk off your bestial heat. Be gone, for one hour. No, for two.”

The mapmaker stands his ground. He casts a quick glance behind him, then turns back to face Lucien with as fierce a face as before.

Lucien says nothing, and there is nothing to do but what he does. He raises his eyebrows in amazement, and then turns slowly around, and walks. He leaves the gate. Outside, he pulls his collar tightly around him and, lacking gauntlets, thrusts his fisted hands deeply into pockets. He stops, looks about, wiggles his toes to find feeling in the small ones, and he wonders where he might go.

SAMUEL WRITES BRIEFLY
in his journal:

25
décembre
1606
Joyeux Noël. Praise be to Him for giving, to us all, his Son.
Cloud cover, and windless.

He sits and soon sees he has laid his nib against the paper, releasing ink to create a period the size of a capital O. It's all he'll write today. He has been thinking that he has yet to recruit a coffin maker. He will insist on two. He will ask Lucien his knowledge, and ask him also to train Simon. He trusts the carpenter has forgiven him now. Perhaps he has not. Samuel has not seen him since the night in question.

Samuel is not sure that he forgives himself, though he has wondered time and again what there was in his action that needs forgiveness. Because, simply, Lucien had entered the compound with Poutrincourt standing, not thirty paces away, by the well, in ill humour, discussing this very man, Lucien, and inquiring as to his relations with the savage girl. The Sieur was righteous with baptism and more than a little drunk. In any event, it would not have been opportune for the carpenter, fresh from dalliance, to encounter the Sieur at this time. Simply, Samuel had saved his friend from punishment far graver than a two-hour march.

Yes, but also, no. For guilt persists. Because Samuel also felt, and still feels, his own anger at sighting Lucien arrive there that night, at ease and content from spending time in the arms of his paramour. Was it jealousy at his own friendship with Lucien? Was it envy that this man had what Samuel lacked? Samuel prides himself on the fullness of his heart while exploring; he is not lonely. Perhaps the sight of a man, a friend, with a woman did serve to unbolt that particular door to that particular want, however briefly. For he did feel his anger soothed when he sent Lucien packing.

But nor can he explain any of this to Lucien, not without betraying his station and his avowed allegiance to their Sieur. And so the secret must stay within, even if Lucien is left to surmise that Samuel is less his friend than his commander.

Sadly, it is something about which two men, even two friends, cannot talk.

VERMOULU THEIR PRIEST
has sickened to the point that he could not rouse himself for Mass last night. Lescarbot said some words, there being those amongst them who think that, considering the times, they could and should give the Holy Sacrament to one another. And there are those who think not. Earlier in the day, Samuel had climbed to the priest's quarters, held his breath as best he could and, apologizing for the disruption, asked for a learned opinion on this vital concern. Vermoulu's shrug shocked him to the quick. Not because he took from it a meaning — he could not tell if the priest did not know, or did not care — but because it was either way a shock. After, standing outside, unmoved in the blowing snow, he did not know what news to conjure to bring back to the men, most of whom honour this priest (as he does not but dares not show it). In the end
Samuel told them he found the priest in a rare restful sleep and would not be cruel and wake him. A lie on Christmas Eve felt like mortal harm upon him, but that is what he did. And so Lescarbot leapt to his feet to say Mass of a kind.

Yet this grand day they will celebrate, and take from it and bring to it what good cheer they can. Membertou has hunted up and this morning delivered to the cookhouse three woodland birds as he long boasted he would, after hearing about this especial Christian day. One fowl he has stored overlong and in a thaw it has turned, but not badly, and Bonneville reckons a handful of juniper berries will o'ercrow it. Membertou will bring his family tonight to join them, as they wish to be all the more Christian. With their respectful visit in mind, Samuel hopes that the men — he includes himself — do not make too merry, for drunkenness may shine a bent light on how it is they honour the Birth.

There has been absolutely no wind all day and it is mild. Samuel decides that, with cloud cover so gentle and uniform, there is no weather at all.

HE CAME TO AT
his window, checking his watch. In five minutes he had to put on his coat, shovel the drive, leave for work. He'd been watching a purple and black sunset change more from wind-pushed clouds than from a seemingly sinking sun. He watched the water too, as some crabbers rounded the point. That straggler looked like Leonard's boat but, black against the silver water, it could be anyone.

He'd been imagining Laura living here with him. It was months now and they were comfortable together — she was sitting in her chair in that corner watching him. From her perspective he saw himself staring out the window. He heard her observe, “How much time you spend staring at that water.” Well, it was true. At work, he read. At home, he watched the water. Sometimes he had a book going — but he was always watching the water.

How much would he want to reveal to Laura about himself? He owned a hundred and one crazy ideas, odd inner strings that had tugged on him for years. Some were a bit lame, like how, ever since reading about magnetic fields and their subtle effects on the brain, he slept with bed pointed north. Or how he always put on left sock, shoe, sleeve first, because if he didn't, something bad would happen, and now it was a life habit. Some ideas maybe weren't as silly, for instance, his beavering out the white inner peel from grapefruit for the bioflavonoids. Or another, always taking vitamins during meals so they'd bind with the food and
fool the stomach into thinking they were natural. Another, he tried his best not to eat near bedtime because the monastics of no less than a hundred percent of the major religions thought an empty stomach during sleep helped cultivate compassion itself. He also took ginseng for “masculine vigour,” as well as a daily cup of green tea to prevent osteoporosis, though he knew this was an estrogen thing and told no one. He had plenty of other notions like these, and while they didn't often come to mind he saw he lived in them like clothing.

One of the larger notions was serious. Even in childhood he understood how charming water was. Wind, tide, waves, rips, patterns of breeze tickle. Logs, garbage, jumping fry, seals, tugs, unidentified floating objects that might be sea monsters. Framed in his window, no minute was like the next. No second. The Ripley Island light never stopped its rhythmic flash, a kind of counterpoint, or metronome, for the random ocean. It was quiet chaos out there, it was never not busy. Even a rare calm day was flux, the mirror sea welling up, the blue heat expanding down, birds and boats coming through on a line, for these moments a simple direction their only need.