Isola

Chapter 16

16

The next morning, I woke early but I did not venture out, nor did I speak to the secretary. The deck was crowded with men working, and my guardian kept me close. In the afternoon, he asked me verses and he searched my face. Always he surveilled me. If I recited well, he was well pleased. When I stumbled, he enjoyed correcting me.

“What does it mean to misremember?” he asked, and then he answered for me. “It shows that you don’t hold God’s words in your heart.”

It was true. I did not hold psalms close—not when he used them against me. I recited You prepare me a table before my enemies, but I sat at my enemy’s table. I watched my guardian command his men and understood that he commanded me. When he leaned close, my ideas fled. He imposed his with such force and certainty.

Only at night, with Damienne asleep beside me, did I hear my own thoughts rushing back. In waves, they broke upon me.

The secretary loved me.

How was that possible?

It was wrong, but this is what he told me.

I had asked how he served his master. And he said no.

I said, You speak plainly.

Perhaps my guardian was using him to test me. Roberval would have done it. I thought he would have enjoyed trapping me. And yet the youth seemed honorable. He never wrote me poetry or sent me messages. At home, he had not sought me out. It was I who had begun our conversations questioningly. As for fortune, I had none, which the secretary must have known. He kept my guardian’s accounts. Why, then, did the young man declare himself tome?

In the mornings, I saw the secretary take dictation. At night, I watched him at cards—but he did not play eagerly. My guardian partnered with the navigator and paired the secretary with the captain. Thus, they began a complicated game of Kings, but while the secretary played capably, he did not seem to care about the outcome. He took up his cards because Roberval needed a fourth man. You cannot refuse him, I thought. Again, he was likeme.

What was it about the secretary? His smile was lightning quick, as though he knew more than he could say. His hands were big, but he played his cittern lightly, as though he would not take a melody by force. I watched him copy rapidly, his writing bold and crisp with looping l’ s and f’ s like daggers and h’ s like crimped ribbons. He looked up as he dipped his pen. I glanced away.

Don’t you think him handsome? Alys had asked. And I had answered that I did not think of him at all. Of course, I had not considered him, but that was when I walked upon the ground. I was unmoored now, floating without a home or dowry or prospect of a family. In this place that was no place, I did think about the dark-eyed secretary. I believe in symmetry, he said. He was serious but young enough to look on the world hopefully. He was reserved but had risked speaking to me.

—

The winds lightened, and our progress slowed. The sun beat down, and two men sickened in the heat and lay below. Without winds to catch, our sailors idled, gambling at cards and squabbling. Roberval walked amongst them, and he kept the peace, but word came that men brawled on our sister ship, the Valentine. Their captain came over on a boat, and he was red, burnt by the sun, and angry.

“Come in and cool yourself,” Roberval said, inviting him to join us at table. But he spoke in jest because the heat in our little room was suffocating.

We could scarcely lift a glass without jostling and dined together, sweating. Roberval, two captains, Jean Alfonse, the secretary, Damienne, and me.

“Tell me,” Roberval turned to the Valentine ’s captain. “Was it really such a battle?”

The captain answered testily, “They fought with knives.”

“And were there injuries?”

“Slashed faces. Broken noses. One broken shoulder. One lost eye.”

“How many do you have in custody?” said Roberval.

“Four,” said the captain.

“And these were the instigators?”

“Yes.”

“And have they said their prayers? And have they begged forgiveness?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” my guardian said. “Now hang them.”

My hand flew to my mouth.

And Roberval saw this as he saw everything. “Cousin. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You are troubled.”

“If those men brawling have repented, and if they have killed none—” I began, but I broke off. I could not defend others without questioning him.

My guardian smiled. “You see the difficulty.”

Silenced, I ate my meat. Without tasting, I sipped wine. If I refused food, my guardian would chastise me. If I left the table, he would call me back again. And so I sat and listened as the officers planned a hanging the next day . There must be discipline, and these executions would serve as an example. My guardian added, “Without wind, our men have had little work and no diversion.”

The next morning, colonists hurried above deck to stand with sailors for the spectacle—but Damienne said, “I will stay below. I have seen enough hangings in my day—and burnings too.”

“I will stay with you,” I told her.

But my guardian told me, “No, you will see justice done. This is education too.”

“If you please—” I began, but he took my hand and led me to the deck, where all gave way to him.

“Stand here.” He placed me at the rail with the officers.

Colonists were jostling behind us, and sailors climbed the rigging for a better view. My guardian was taking the ship’s boat to the Valentine so that he might preside, and our sailors shouted enviously to his oarsmen because they would have a better view. “Lucky!” the sailors called out. “Lucky dogs.”

From my place of privilege, I saw sailors and passengers watching on the other ships, and I felt our own colonists crowding behind me. Nor was I the only woman, for the colonists’ wives had come up to look as well, bedraggled as they were in their limp gowns. Miserable and cramped as they had been, these women looked eagerly to the Valentine . All waited for Roberval to board our sister ship and then strained to see the first victim strung from the yardarm.

Instead of a white sail, this wretch rose, ghastly as a scarecrow. Up and up, he ascended, a scruffy bleeding puppet of a man, and as he rose, all watched until, with a surge of stamping, taunts, and cheers, his body dropped. His corpse swung in the wind as the ship’s company applauded.

Behind me, our men shouted, “Next!”

“Again!”

“Go on!” men shouted.

“Cut him down.”

“Don’t you have another rope?”

This while the corpse was dangling.

I had never seen an execution, nor had I stood in such a seething, reeking crowd. My face burned, and I felt bile rising in my throat.

I tried to step away and yield my place, but I had nowhere to turn. Bodies pressed me up against the rail, and in the crush, the crowd renewed their shouts and cheers. A second man was rising on a rope.

In the frenzy and the noise, I could not move; I could not breathe, and now my heart was racing. I was suffocating, and for a moment, I saw black.

“Back up. Step back,” I heard a voice call out. “She’s ill; she cannot stay.” Taking my arm, the secretary broke a path through the crowd. Tall as he was, he strode between the colonists, and they gave way. He pulled me from the crush and guided me. Gently, he helped me to the forecastle, where he set a chair for me.

Here, I tried to find my bearing. Dizzily I sat, and the secretary sat with me. The place was dim, with small windows set high in the wall. The table was covered with papers, bottles, cups, and pieces of cutlery.

The secretary took a bottle and poured a cup of ale. “Drink this.”

“I don’t want anything,” I told him.

“Try.” He held the cup for me until, at last, I sipped.

He said, “I thought you would faint. Your eyes were closing.”

“You noticed that?” Lightheaded as I was and overwrought, I might have wept, but I did not. I set the cup upon the table. “I am grateful.”

He said, “I would serve you if I could.”

I drank in those words. “But you are serving him.”

“A servant cannot choose.”

You are nothing like a servant, I thought.

All around us, we heard cheers and stomping. “Let me help you below to Damienne,” the secretary told me.

“He will punish you if he finds out.”

The young man did not deny this, and in truth, we were safer where we were. His master stood aboard the Valentine and all eyes were fixed upon the hangings. There was such a noise on deck I could speak freely.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you grow up in my guardian’s house?”

“No.”

“How did you become his?”

The secretary shook his head slightly. “It is not worth telling.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My story would not entertain you.”

The noise outside grew louder. “Why do you think I wish to be entertained?”

“I don’t know what you wish,” he said very quietly.

To know you, I thought, and this surprised me. My deepest wish had been to stay at home, but that was over now. My life had contracted to the space of this small room, and his eyes filled me. “Tell me how you belong to Roberval.”

“My father was a voyager,” the secretary began.

“And did he know my guardian?”

“No. My father was a merchant. When he was home, he taught me to read and write. While he was at sea, my mother and my sisters and I lived comfortably in La Rochelle—but when I was ten years of age, my father sailed to Cádiz, and his ship was lost.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed.

“Are you surprised?”

I did not know how to answer that. I said, “I’m sorry.”

“Then my mother was left with four children to feed—but she married an innkeeper in the country. This man was kind to her but indifferent to my sisters and me.

“My older sisters helped about the house, but I was a scapegrace in my stepfather’s eyes, and he cuffed me often when my mother could not see. As for my youngest sister, at six years of age she took sick with trembling and fainting fits. Although my mother nursed her tenderly, the child grew weaker until one day she could no longer walk. A few days after that, she could not stand.”

On the deck, we heard men stamping. “Was it her heart?”

“I do not know, except she grew so frail that she could scarcely raise her head. Like an infant, she lay helpless on my mother’s pillow. The apothecary came, but no poultices or herbs would help. My mother held her day and night, and, at last, she knelt and begged God to take her instead. She prayed for this, and yet my sister died.

“Then my mother grieved so that I was afraid she would not live. But after three days, my stepfather ordered her to rouse herself, so she took up her work again, managing servants and larder. The next year, she gave birth to a fine baby boy.”

The secretary paused, but I said, “Go on.”

“Now that he had his own son, my stepfather did not conceal his antipathy, and he would not have me in the house. My mother begged for me to stay because she said she had already lost one child, but her husband did not listen, and he found me a place with a tanner five leagues away. I was bound apprentice to this man, and my stepfather provided me with shoes.”

“Only shoes?” I said.

“He had paid my master,” the secretary explained. “And he gave me new shoes for the journey. My mother sent me with my dinner and her blessings and a piece of silver she had saved. And so, at thirteen, I went to learn my trade.”

“She must have wept to see you go,” I said. “And you must have grieved to leave her.”

“But I knew my stepfather would be kinder to my mother without me,” the secretary said. “And I promised I would finish my term and prosper in my trade so I could come back for her.”

“Did you?”

A flash of light as the door swung open. It was the navigator, who found us together talking.

“I beg your pardon,” Jean Alfonse said as the secretary sprang to his feet.

The navigator started back but did not chide us. “They are finished,” he said, and we knew what he meant. Roberval was now returning.

Jean Alfonse gestured for the secretary to go and then he held the door for me. “How do you fare?”

“Better,” I answered.

Our colonists were standing back now that the spectacle was over, our sailors climbing down from all their perches. I looked into the navigator’s weathered face and prayed he would not report us. “Please do not speak of this.”

The navigator answered in his quiet way, “I won’t. There is no reason.”