Chapter 15
15
The sailors loved to sing and play at dice and talk of wonders. They spoke of floating islands and white cliffs, for they had heard of places where waves froze, and ice mountains crashed together and crushed ships. Our men liked nothing better than disasters and so they boasted of masts shattered, ships cut in two by sawfish with razors on their backs, and passengers devoured by spiny crocodiles.
Sailors lowered their voices when I passed for they knew my guardian would punish any who so much as looked at me. Even so, there were no great distances on the Anne . I could not help overhearing, and sometimes I stood on the quarterdeck to listen to the men below. In this way I learned of serpents cracking hulls like walnuts, and great-jawed fish that swallowed vessels whole. This had happened in the Northern Sea. A leviathan gulped down a fishing boat—but, distempered by the meal, the creature beached itself in shallows where folk cut it open and discovered one man dead and one alive. The dead man was half-digested. His fellow emerged without a scratch, except his hair was singed and burnt. These were the sailors’ stories. Tales of mermaids upon rocks and cannibals eating a ship’s company, reports of sharks and sea wolves, and whirlpools drowning vessels with all hands.
Were the stories true? Although the tellers were rough men, I half believed them. Hearing of sea monsters, I looked with fear upon the water— but at my guardian’s table, the talk was quieter. Our captain was a stolid man from Normandy, and our navigator an astronomer who did not drink or shout. This expert seaman, Jean Alfonse, was Portuguese. His face was brown and weathered, for he had sailed more than any man aboard, and he knew the stars and tides. He kept a book where he drew fish and turtles and slithery eels, which he described in closely written lines. He showed this volume to the company, and I thought the drawings very fine, but the captain remarked, “These creatures are common.”
“I only draw what I have seen,” the navigator answered. “If sea serpents and sawfish exist, I have not found any.”
He did not fear whirlpools because he had never known the tide to swallow ships entirely. Nor did he worry about sea wolves because he said in all his travels he had never come across them—but he dreaded sickness and starvation. When voyages outlasted their supplies, he had seen men weaken until they could not stand. Their bodies hollowed, their teeth loosening, these hardy deckhands looked like skeletons. For this reason, Jean Alfonse thought our strong winds augured well. He said we would be safe if we were not delayed.
As of yet, we flew before the wind. We made a great beginning, and while we skimmed the water, our colonists stepped as boldly on deck as they did on land. Some were gentlemen with wives and squalling infants. Some were artisans, builders, and farmers. Some were speculators, and spoke hopefully of gold. All were hopeful, starting out.
We sailed steadily so that even Damienne revived. Her color returned, and she took up her needle. The officers gave her shirts to mend, and some colonists’ wives commissioned work as well. They paid her with silver, and with buttons, and with a small pot of quince jam. This pleased her, and she set her earnings by, saying, “While I can sew, I will be useful, even here.”
But at night, her sadness and her fear returned. As we lay down to sleep, Damienne cried, “Oh, how will we live? Surely, we will drown.”
“Surely not,” I said. “The ship is sound. The weather fair.”
“Alas.” She buried her face in the pillow. “Fair winds will bring us closer to the wilderness.”
And I could not answer that because it was my fear too—the wilderness where we must live, and Roberval would rule. In New France, he might make any law he pleased. That place would be his country, and as he would possess it, so he would have me.
Sometimes I imagined a reprieve. My guardian would find a ship to take me home because I was too stupid or too tiresome. Other times I told myself I would be safe in the New World because my guardian was so strict and godly. But even then, I felt a sick foreboding, knowing he was taking me to live with him.
“I wish we had our Virgin,” Damienne said, but, like my virginal, our picture had been packed away. We could not see the Virgin’s face, nor had we space to kneel and worship as we did at home. We could only whisper prayers in bed.
“ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I need, ” I recited. “ He leads me to pastures/ I lie near clear streams. ”
“There are no clear streams here, and we are far from any pasture,” mourned Damienne. “I wish we were at home in our own chapel.”
“I wish we had the book of ladies.”
“Ah me,” Damienne said. “Can you remember it?”
“Let me think.”
“The virtuous women,” she prompted.
I smiled in the dark. “Yes, I know.” Then as we lay together in our narrow bed, I told of Pamphile, who observed silkworms and unraveled their threads to weave fine cloth. Of Esther, who won favor for the Jews and saved them from death. Of Dido, consumed by such love for her husband that, when he left her, she threw herself into the fire.
Damienne raised her head. “That was a great sin.”
“But Aeneas abandoned her,” I said. “So she had cause.”
“Even so.” Damienne sank back again. “Even if he left her. Oh, what a story.”
“She is your favorite,” I suggested.
“No!”
“You always ask for her.”
“Never! She was an idolator.”
“Shall I speak of Sarah or Rebecca, then?”
“Of Ruth,” said Damienne.
“She was a lady so chaste and good that when her husband died, she remained with his mother and her people who were Jews.”
“And she gleaned in the fields of a great prince,” said Damienne.
“Yes, she crept at night amongst the harvesters and slept at the feet of their prince, and when he woke, he saw her, and he married her.”
“Ah, Ruth,” said Damienne. “You were always faithful, and God remembered you.”
At last, she closed her eyes and drifted off—but I lay awake. What if I was pure as Ruth and loyal as Damienne? Would the Lord seek me out? Would he protect me? I knew I should believe but I did not. I knew goodness shone forth in the dark, but I was not good enough. When I closed my eyes, sleep did not come.
At dawn, I slipped from bed and dressed. Softly I crept up to the main deck and then to the quarterdeck above. Wrapped in my cloak, I climbed to view the ocean at first light.
The night watch was standing down, and the morning watch beginning. The sky was pink—but I was not the only one admiring it. The secretary was standing at the rail.
“Why are you here?” I asked, unthinking.
Startled, he bowed and made a place for me. “I woke early.”
The light was soft, the sea air gentle. Our sister vessels sailed near, but beyond them, the world was water.
For some minutes, we watched the waves. We stood side by side as we had once looked at my guardian’s map.
I murmured, “The men talk of monsters, but I have never seen such emptiness.”
“The sea is not empty,” said the secretary. “Some say there are as many creatures in the ocean as on land.”
“Do you believe that?” I asked.
“I believe in symmetry.”
“Do you believe in providence?” I said. “Do you think God brought us here upon this ship? And that every circumstance is by design?”
“I do believe in providence,” the secretary said. “Although I cannot always understand it.”
“Your master might find fault with that.”
“He has high expectations.”
“Of you?”
“Of everyone.”
I turned toward him. “You knew my guardian would take me.”
“Yes, but I could not speak.”
“Could not or would not?”
He looked troubled. “It was not my place.”
“Was that your main concern?”
Stubbornly he said, “It would not have made a difference.”
“You’re blunt,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“You speak plainly.”
“Do I?” he asked, with a hint of a smile.
“And questioningly.”
“You think it’s wrong,” he said.
“I think it’s impolite.”
“Forgive me.” His dark eyes searched my face.
“You said you do not obey your master with your heart and mind.”
“Yes.”
“But why did you say it?”
“I wanted to explain—to answer truly.”
“Why did you confide in me?”
He said, “Because I love you and wanted to offer something—and I had nothing else to give.”
“Love me?” I took a full step back. That was wrong. He was a servant. He could not love me.
“Admire you,” the secretary amended.
But I scarcely heard. He belonged to his master, as did I. When the secretary looked at me, when he spoke gently, when he took my arm, when he confided in me—those were moments so sweet and dangerous I had kept them secret almost from myself. Love—or admiration—must be silent. “You cannot say you love me.”
“I should not,” he answered. “I would not if I could help it.”
“Then how…”
“Shh.”
The captain had appeared. We saw him on the main deck below. The secretary turned away, and I took the ladder down to Damienne, who was dressed and sitting at my guardian’s table. Without speaking she bent over her work, while I opened my book. I turned pages of prayer and praise but read not a word.
First, the secretary said he did not love his master; now he declared his love for me. It was a mad confession. Did the young man mean it? Or did he hate Roberval so much that he would toy with me? Courting me was treason, an assault on my guardian’s authority. But the secretary did not speak with rancor, nor did he attempt to flatter me. His words were reckless, but his tone was sober.
That night as we dined, I did not look at him. I kept my head down as the officers spoke of joining Cartier at the colony he had established.
Roberval said, “We shall see what he has discovered of the gold mines in Saguenay.”
“If he has discovered anything,” the navigator cautioned, as he always did.
“He is a poor diplomat,” said Roberval. “But if he has displeased the warriors in this wild place, we will do better. We’ll take natives with us when we sail inland.”
“You would not fear treachery if those men boarded us?” the captain said.
“We would outnumber them,” Roberval answered. “And frighten them. For they have not sailed on ships like ours, or seen firearms in quantity.”
The navigator spoke in his quiet way. “There is much you have not seen as well.”
Quick to take offense, Roberval demanded, “Do you think the prospect frightens me?”
“No, not at all,” Jean Alfonse said.
The captain steered the conversation into safer waters. “I have seen strange creatures on the Isle of Canada. Behemoths weighing two thousand pounds and more. Their ivory tusks are more than three feet long, but their hides are so thick no lance can pierce them.”
“We will shoot them then,” my guardian said.
“If it is the season,” the captain allowed.
“And how do you know the season for these creatures?” asked Roberval, amused.
Jean Alfonse interjected, “In five weeks more, we will find out.”
Five weeks. The secretary looked up but said nothing. In this he was like me. We could not interrupt at table.
“If the winds hold,” the captain said.
The navigator said, “I think they will.”
“What do you wager?” Roberval asked. “Shall we arrive after only eight weeks at sea?”
Jean Alfonse demurred, “I will not wager anything.”
“You are unsure.”
Coldly, the navigator answered, “I am not a betting man.”
“Then we shall have some music,” my guardian declared.
The secretary fetched his instrument from his curtained bunk. Lightly, he played an air, but even as his music danced, he looked up, earnest, questioning. Then I wished we were alone, so we could finish speaking. I wished he might confess again, even if I must berate him. This was how his words worked on me. I was awake and dreaming, confused, and drawn to him. He had endangered and delighted me so that I could no longer choose when to consider or ignore him. He who had admired me from a distance now seized my imagination. His sound was silver. His eyes were fixed on me.