Chapter 17
17
“We shall add this to the record,” Roberval said at table. “Four men were hung this day for brawling and injuring their fellows, and their bodies are now buried at sea.”
The secretary scribed these words into my guardian’s log, but as he wrote, I asked him silently, What happened when you left home? And how did you fare in your apprenticeship? Was that when you met Roberval? All that day, I longed to speak to him, and at night I could not sleep for wondering.
At dawn, I slipped from bed and dressed as softly as I could, tying on my gown and pinning my hair—but the cabin was so close that Damienne heard.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To the deck,” I said.
“Why?”
“I am unwell.”
“In that case,” she said, “you should stay here, away from the night air.”
“It’s morning now and I must breathe,” I told her. And I unlatched our door and climbed the ladder.
Above deck, I did not know what I would find, nor did I admit to myself what I was looking for, but I stepped lightly onto the wood planks—and stopped. Mist covered the main deck as though we sailed in a cloud. I could see the upper masts, but below, they seemed to float in vapor. Everything below my waist was now invisible. My skirts, my slippers, and my lower arms. The ship was soft and muffled, cloudy white. Such was the fog filling our vessel, like froth in a cup. And there at the rail, the secretary was standing.
Was he waiting for me? He shouldn’t have been. Did I come to meet him? I should not have done that either. Turn back, go back, I thought as I stepped toward him. There is still time. And then, strangest of all, I told myself, I am not meeting this man. It is not happening.
It was true that in the fog, I could not see myself walking, nor could I see the secretary’s legs. Only his face turned toward me and his arms, his broad shoulders, and his chest. He bowed. “Good morning.”
But I said, “Tell me the rest.”
“The rest?” Already, men on morning watch were rousing themselves. We heard but could not see them joking, groaning, cursing.
I said, “You left off just as you would make your fortune.”
He smiled wryly. “Do you think I managed that?”
Then I realized that all my life, I had learned of goddesses, and kings and queens and saints triumphant. Even those suffering and dying became legends or martyrs crowned in heaven. I had never heard of a man failing. “Forgive me,” I said.
“For imagining me better than I am?”
“I am not imagining,” I said in some confusion. “I only want to know what happened.”
“I was a poor apprentice,” the secretary told me.
“In what way?”
“I made mistakes. I ruined a kidskin so that nothing could be salvaged. My master beat me, and when I was too bruised to stand, he kicked me as I would not kick a dog. Then I resolved that when I recovered, I would run away.”
“But if your master caught you?”
“I was lucky,” the secretary said. “Under a harvest moon, I slipped from his house and began walking to La Rochelle.”
“Alone?”
“There was no one to come with me.”
“Did you have food?”
“Only a little I had begged to eat.”
“How did you—”
“Come here.” The secretary took my arm and guided me through mist to a more sheltered place near the forecastle wall.
“Did you reach the city?”
“Yes. On market day, I stole inside, and, wandering the streets, I found the stables behind your guardian’s house—although I did not know the place was his.”
“So that was how you came to him.”
“I hid there at night, and in the morning, Roberval’s stablemaster found me in the straw. When I begged for work, he told me no, but even as he spoke, the cook your guardian then employed came rushing out, calling for the errand boy. This cook was a huge man, roaring like a giant, ‘Where’s my meat?’ And still, the errand boy did not return from market.
“Seeing this, I offered myself and said, ‘I will run for you.’
“In this way, I found employment, running errands for my keep.” The secretary paused because the fog was lifting.
“Go on,” I said.
“One day, returning from the market, I unloaded baskets in the kitchen, where the steward recorded all the items and their prices in his book. As he was writing, he split his pen and splattered ink upon the page. He took out his knife to make repairs, but once again the nib split, and he was annoyed and ordered me upstairs for a new quill.
“Then boldly I said, ‘I can mend it.’ And I took the steward’s knife and cut off the pen’s broken part and mended the nib neatly.
“When I returned the pen, the steward said, ‘How did you learn this?’
“I told him, ‘From my father.’
“?‘And can you write?’ he asked.
“?‘Yes, sir.’
“Then the steward turned the pages of his ledger to the end, and he said, ‘Show me.’?”
Yet again, the secretary stopped as we heard voices. “You should go.”
But I pressed. “What happened when the steward asked you to write?”
“He said, Write the Our Father, and I was afraid that I would blotch the page, but when the steward saw my work, he said, ‘You write a good hand, beggar that you are.’?”
“Did he call you that?”
“He did, but he was charitable. He said, ‘Come upstairs. I have copying for you.’
“After that, I worked as undersecretary for your guardian because he had a different secretary at the time. I prepared the pens and ink and wrote receipts, and I lived in the house. When the secretary left, I replaced him. I copied my master’s letters, and I kept accounts. I wrote as beautifully as possible, and Roberval favored me. He gave me clothes and boots and gloves. He let me eat at his own table and took me when he rode to Périgord.”
“Where you saw me.”
“I saw you in a gown of olive green. You had a ring too big for your finger, and my master took it from your hand and held it to the light.”
“Do you remember all of that?”
“I loved you—even then. I loved you when you were little and later when you were bold. When you asked for money, and when you caught the purse my master threw at you.”
My voice was hushed. “You noticed everything.”
“I loved you when you came to the city, and my master gave you Psalms, and when you showed me what you wrote to thank him. When you practiced your virginal upstairs. Even when you schemed to get away, and my master read your letter, and he laughed.”
“He laughed?”
“I loved you when we stood before the map. And when I heard your music, I imagined you.”
I touched his hand. “What did you imagine?”
“Go now,” he told me, but he did not step away.
His fingers played on mine, and I was awake, alive to everything.
“Hurry,” the secretary said. “You will be missed.”
Then, at last, I went below, where I found Damienne waiting for me at the table. She looked as though she wished to speak, but I stepped into our cabinet.
Closing the door behind me, I dove into bed. My skirts flew out around me and my sleeves spread like wings.