Silence of Stone (20 page)

“We can speak of Isabelle's Latin tomorrow.”

“I do not wish to speak of Isabelle. Or Latin. I wish to speak of…other things.”

“What other things?” But I already know. Lafrenière would ask me about Marguerite.

“Please. Open the door.”

“I will answer none of your questions.”

“Then I will ask no questions. But I will not leave until you open the door.”

I crack it open.

His face is flushed, his forehead beaded with sweat. He smells of mud and fresh air, and stale wool. “Please,” he says. “May I come in? I cannot speak to you through the door.”

I stand for a long time, staring through the narrow gap.

“Shall we walk then?”

I open the door wider and Lafrenière steps in. His breeches and doublet are rumpled. Brown mud clings to his stockings and boots. His white collar and cuffs are smudged and threadbare. He looks around, then remains standing. There is only the bench near the hearth and the bed.

I close the door behind him. He removes his cap and holds it before him, as if expecting me to invite him to speak. I cross my arms over my chest. Let him say whatever he has to say and then leave, quickly.

He proceeds without my invitation. “My half-brother knew Monsieur de Roberval.”

“So you have told me.”

“I want you to know,” he blurts, “that I believe it was Roberval who was the sinner.”

I shrug. I do not care what Lafrenière believes about Roberval.

“My brother, my half-brother, went with him on his expedition. He did not return.”

Michel? I put a hand to my heart to quiet its loud beating.

“Saintonge…Roberval's pilot. He told me my
brother drowned when he went with Roberval on one of his forays from Charlesbourg Royal.”

Non
, not Michel. My heart slows.

“Searching for gold and jewels,” Lafrenière says bitterly. “My brother drowned for Roberval's folly and greed.”

I realize then that Lafrenière's brother was among the pathetic noblemen who stood aside, hands folded over their codpieces, and did nothing when Roberval abandoned Marguerite, Michel, and Damienne to their deaths.

I cannot hold back my snort of contempt. “So you wish me to weep for him?”

“
Non
, of course not, but I thought…”

“What?”

“That it might be some comfort…” He searches for words. “I do not believe that you and your husband did anything wrong.” He pinches the brim of his cap, folding and unfolding. “Or scandalous…”

So this is what he wants. Monsieur Lafrenière would have me whet his carnal appetites. He thinks that if he offers forgiveness and understanding, I will be eager to speak of such things, then he will smile unctuously and watch my mouth speak of lascivious behaviour, desire, scandal.

“You are mistaken,” I say. “That was not me.”

He steps back. “Are you not Marguerite de la Roque de Roberval?”

“You said you would ask no questions.”

“Was it not you that Roberval left on the Isle of Demons?”

“She died. I lived.”

“I don't understand.”

“We have talked too long,” I say. “You must leave now.”

“
Non
, please. Not before I beg your forgiveness on behalf of my brother. He was young and he lacked the courage to oppose the viceroy.”

I see again the eyes averted, hands folded over codpieces, balance shifting from foot to foot. “Many lacked such courage,” I say.

“Please, I beg your forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness is not mine to give.”

“But you–”

“It was not me!”

Lafrenière cocks his head, just like the Franciscan. He stares at me for a long time, eyes the colour of iron, deep lines at the corners. He is not a man without worries – or intelligence. His grey eyes soften then and he nods slowly, as if he understands. “Of course,” he whispers.

What can he possibly understand about Marguerite? Or me?

He persists, speaking softly now. “Saintogne's biggest regret, he told me, was that he could not persuade Roberval to return with Cartier to France.” He presses the cap to his chest. “And that he could not prevail upon the viceroy to punish y–” He stops, then continues, “to punish Marguerite in a different way.”

“I know nothing of Roberval or Saintogne…or Marguerite.”

Lafrenière's eyes glisten, as if he might weep. He goes down on one knee. “Please, let me beg your forgiveness on behalf of my brother.”

“I told you, forgiveness is not mine to give.” I turn away from his show of weakness. Just like his half-brother. Weak and lacking courage, fondling his cap instead of his codpiece.

He speaks to my back, his words rushing out, “Roberval should never have taken you…I mean Marguerite…with him. Why take a young noble-woman on an expedition like that?”

Pourquoi? Km-mm-mm. Pourquoi?

“You would have been justified in killing him.”

La vengeance. La justice. Murderer.

“Murderer,”I answer, turning around.

His flushed cheeks pale. “
Oui
,” he says finally. “Roberval was a murderer. And I, for one, am glad he was assassinated.” Peering at me warily, he stands.

La culpabilité. Debts must be paid.

“You have said what you came to say. Now you must go.”

“Of course.” Lafrenière bows his head, a supplicant. “But please think upon what I have told you. And search within your heart for mercy and forgiveness.”

I hear mocking laughter:
La pitié et le pardon. Le cœur tendre. Être indulgent, c'est mourir.

“
Oui
,” I agree, “to be soft is to die.”

He shakes his head. “
Non
, Madame de Roberval, to be soft is to be merciful.” He places a hand on the open door, pauses. “You are bitter…understandably
so. But beneath your bitterness lies goodness, and mercy.”

Chuckling echoes off the walls:
La bienveillance et la pitié de Marguerite. La bienveillance et la pitié de Marguerite.

“Please forgive my forwardness, but I can see that in you. And I believe Isabelle sees it as well.”

I want to laugh out loud with the voices. No matter what he and Isabelle might wish to see, there is only savagery in me. No goodness, no mercy.

“May I visit you again?” he asks stupidly. “To hear your answer. Perhaps in a more appropriate place…where we can speak of more pleasant things.”

“You must go now.”

“Of course,” he says. “Of course.”

He presses his cap between his palms, trying to gather his dignity. Finally Lafrenière dons his cap, squares it, and closes the door behind him.

My day of freedom, my day with the ravens, has been ruined.

I listen to the girls recite prayers to Saint George, slayer of dragons in the defence of young maidens. Tomorrow is the saint's feast day – another day of freedom from the girls and Thevet. The Franciscan will spend the day on bended knee before his Christ, praying for the strength to slay dragons.

For now, though, I must listen to the girls' halting Latin, voices disharmonious, words garbled.
Only Isabelle says the words precisely and correctly. I listen for her voice: “O God, who didst grant to Saint George strength and constancy in the various torments which he sustained for our holy faith, we beseech thee to preserve, through his intercession, our faith from wavering and doubt, so that we may serve thee with a sincere heart faithfully unto death.”

Isabelle studies me as she recites, as if she would confirm her suspicions that I teach what I do not believe myself. I wonder what her father has told her and what she watches for in my face. Yesterday, after Lafrenière left, I went to the window and examined my reflection in the blue-green glass. I lit a candle and gazed long into the night. I could see no goodness there, no kindness, no mercy. Only the hue and texture of granite.

The striped cat did not come back.

When the girls have finished the prayer and taken up their slates to practise forming letters, Isabelle approaches. She is bored with simple letters and words, but I have no other books to give her.

“Madame de Roberval, Papa has shown me some of his maps. Did you ever see the dragons?”

“I know nothing of dragons.”

“You didn't see any?” Her face is bright with the thrill of danger. “Not one? Even way out in the sea?”

“
Nullus,
” I say firmly in Latin.

“Oh.” Her shoulders slump in disappointment.

I walk to the window. Isabelle follows relentlessly. Her small hand tugs on my skirt. “But they are very ugly, aren't they?” Her small body shudders.
“And dangerous. Do you believe Saint George really killed one? All by himself?”

“Isabelle,” I sigh. “I know nothing about dragons.”

“But what do you believe?”

“It matters little what I believe.
Nullus
.

” Isabelle considers this a moment, then says, “I saw a very ugly man once. One with scars all over his face. He was like a monster…or a dragon. He came to our door, and Papa let him in.” She mimics dragging a leg. “He walked like this.”

I spin away to hide my distress. The pockmarked man, Roberval's colonist. He was not a dream, not an apparition.

“They went into Papa's study.” Isabelle covers a mischievous smile behind her hand. “I hid behind the door and peeked through the keyhole,” she confesses.

I hear again Lafrenière's words:
I am glad Roberval was assassinated.

Did he pay the pockmarked man? Is this what he came to tell me?

Murderer. Le sang rouge. Grievous sin.

“
Non
,” I answer softly. “Not murder…justice.”

“
Jus, juris,
” Isabelle says in Latin.

The pockmarked man, a slayer of dragons.

Debts must be paid. Km-mm-mm.
“

Oui
, Isabelle,
oui
.”

The Franciscan has already asked, again and again,
what I ate that summer. He is infinitely interested in how I survived. He is obsessed with angels and demons. He has made me repeat my rescue by angels so many times that I see them now, with their golden hair and golden wings, hovering above him. They giggle when their wingtips brush the bald circle at the top of his head. He reaches up to scratch it.

“Did many ships pass by the island?”

“A few.”

“How many?”

“I did not count.”

“You kept careful count of the days but not of the ships?”

“The days are always there,
Père
, but sometimes my eyes conjured sails from the wings of gulls.”

The monk's scowl tells me that my answer does not please him, but I cannot explain to him that I did not keep watch for ships because I neither expected, nor wished, to be taken from the island. Every dawn I scraped a new line on the wall, but I did not light a signal fire near the harbour.

Over that summer I gathered and dried berries, collected eggs. I also dried fish and seal meat. Even so, my stores of food remained small because I spent hours studying the colour and shape of each bloom as it appeared: white blossoms sweetly scenting the air, tiny pink bells trailing close to the ground, dark rosy clusters and bunches of white filling the bogs, bright yellow buttercups and daisies dancing in grassy meadows.

My hipbones were sharp and protruding, my
fingers like bony claws. Though I had no mirror, I knew my face looked like a skull, the bronzed skin drawn tight over jawbone and cheek.

Nonetheless I was content to live out my life on the island. I no longer cared how long that life would be. I cared only that he would come to me again.

Le compagnon. L'amour et le désir. Les esprits de cet endroit.

I smile inwardly.

“But the sails of the Breton ship were real,” says Thevet. “Those were not gulls' wings.”

“
Non
, but they might have been.”