Chapter 18
18
My heart was different now. I was still subject to my guardian’s moods. When he spoke, I had no choice but to listen, and when he questioned me, I dared not flout him. I remained his unwilling passenger, but softly I was changing course.
This was not rebellion, nor was it madness that came over me. I was rational and I remembered all that I’d been taught. One encounter would lead to another, and from there, a maid would tumble into sin. So said the book on how to be a lady. But where were the books on voyaging? My education was for land, not ships. And when I considered lessons, only one rang true. Once begun, I could not stop. After hearing the secretary’s story, I longed to be with him again.
Alas, I could not slip out the next day or the next because Damienne was poorly and she needed me. The summer heat oppressed us all, and now we lost the wind. Under the burning sun, we floated in a stagnant haze.
Our men cursed and bickered and gambled so that every night money changed hands. Three sailors broke into kegs of ale and got so drunk they could not stand. Then my guardian had them flogged. The poor wretches sobbed with pain, and after their punishment was done, they lay bleeding on the deck. Their fellows stepped around them, but my guardian was quick to strike or kick any man lying in his way.
“Move,” he barked to the beaten men. Such was his mood as we lost time. No longer did he talk of ivory tusks.
My guardian rebuked Jean Alfonse that evening. “You were wrong. We will not arrive in eight weeks.”
The navigator answered, “That depends on the wind.”
“And as you know, the wind is undependable.”
Jean Alfonse said, “Well, we shall see.”
Roberval growled, “Don’t ‘we shall see’ me.”
To this, the navigator said nothing. He could not oppose his commander, but he would not appease him, either.
“Give us a galliard,” Roberval told the secretary, who rose to retrieve his instrument.
As he unwrapped his cittern, the secretary pushed his chair back to tune, testing notes as he turned pegs. All this I saw furtively, but when he began to play, I raised my eyes, because I had an excuse to look at him. Music filled our cabin, a melody debating and repeating.
“What do you think?” my guardian said.
“Pardon?” I asked, startled to hear him speak to me.
“Are you listening?” my guardian said.
“Yes.”
“What do you hear?”
The music slowed. The secretary was watching.
“Play on,” Roberval told him.
The young man bent over his instrument and played from the beginning. His sound was bright, his fingers clever. “What do you think now?” my guardian asked me.
“I do not know enough to say.”
I wished to leave, but I could not. Roberval drew his chair close and spoke so softly only I could hear. “Does he play well?”
“Yes,” I said, “but you play better.”
He frowned. My response had been too quick, too frightened. “What does the Lord do to flatterers?”
“I wasn’t flattering.”
“What does he do?”
“Cut out their tongues.”
“What are the Psalmist’s words? What will the Lord do to those with double hearts?”
“Try them in the furnace seven times, as—”
“As what?”
In the heat of that room, so near to him, I could scarcely breathe. “As silver tempered and purified.”
“Good.” Roberval sat back again.
But I had a double heart, just as the Psalmist said.
—
That night in the heat, I lay above the counterpane and remembered the secretary’s voice and music. I will go, I thought. I will escape to the deck.
But Damienne lay awake as well. “Don’t.”
“I must have air,” I told her.
She pulled me close. “Don’t walk alone.”
“The sailors won’t approach me.”
“What of the secretary?”
“I hardly see him.”
“You see him all the time.”
Our bed was narrow; there was scarcely space to lie, but I insisted, “Only as I must. As I see everyone.”
“I warned you about Alys.” Damienne faced me in the dark. “And I warn you now about the secretary. If you meet with him in the morning or the evening—if he speaks to you alone—your guardian will catch you.”
“I would not do anything improper.”
“Every man aboard belongs to Roberval,” my nurse reminded me. “Every sailor at his watch and every cabin boy. Your guardian commands three ships, and he will punish those who cross him, as he has shown. The navigator and the captain sail for him. The secretary serves him.”
So, she tried to hold me, and if I had listened, I might have saved her and the secretary, and myself as well. But I did not. I slipped from her embrace and left our bed. I stepped into my gown and tied it over my shift. “I must get out. I must go somewhere.” Restless, yearning, curious, I felt my way to the ladder and climbed up to the deck.
Waves and tides were now invisible. The ship itself was dark. Stumbling more than once, I walked to the forecastle and leaned against its wall. I felt the heavy air, its warmth, its weight.
I saw no moon. Only stars shone in the night. At first, they seemed like dust, and then they were a thousand birds flying together, rising and falling. Watching, I could breathe again. I had outrun all warnings.
“Is it you?” the secretary whispered in the dark.
I did not answer but held out my hand.
Then he drew me to him. We stood so close our bodies nearly touched. Although the night was warm, I shivered.
“You came to find me,” the secretary said.
“Yes.”
His hands rested lightly on my shoulders. “How did you get out?”
“I walked and climbed the ladder.”
He laughed a little. “I meant, how did you escape Damienne?”
“I cannot escape her—but she will not betray me.”
“You trust her.”
“More than I trust myself.”
He lifted his hands. “I wouldn’t tempt you.”
“To do what?” I stood so close I heard him breathing. When he spoke, I lifted my fingers to his lips. I was so curious, for I had never touched a man, nor had I felt a man’s hand on me, not willingly. The secretary spanned my waist. I felt his hands travel up and down, brushing my skirts and bodice and my arms.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.
“Because it tickles.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, and I remembered his promise as he helped me from my guardian’s room.
“You are nothing like your master.”
“What did he say to you tonight?”
We heard voices. Sailors were calling to each other, and I held still. The secretary’s arms closed about me.
The night watch was ending and the morning watch began. “Get up. Get up! Wake up.”
“Who’s there?” one deckhand said.
“You know who,” said his fellow. “It’s me. Get out of my way.”
“No, you.”
“This isn’t safe,” the secretary said, but we stayed together in the dark. We could not see, and yet he kissed my hand. “You should sleep.”
“How can I?” I said. “Just a little longer.”
He traced my shoulders and my arms. He held my waist and touched my wrists under the edges of my sleeves.
“We’ll go together,” he said at last. He took the ladder first and then, standing below, lifted me down. He returned to his bunk, and I went back to mine.
—
We should have been afraid. We should have stayed apart, but once again, we met at night outside the forecastle and whispered, although sailors surrounded us, working, waking, sleeping. We slipped from our beds, although Damienne noticed, as did the navigator, who shared his bunk with the secretary. They knew, but we were hopeful because the navigator was discreet and Damienne was loyal.
In darkness, we imagined ourselves safe, almost inaudible above the surging waves, and we spoke freely and called each other by our names. The secretary called me Marguerite, and I learned his name was Auguste Dupré. We spoke of La Rochelle and of his master’s temper. I told of Alys, and he confessed that when I came down for lessons he’d listened at the door.
One night when he took my hands, I turned my face up to his.
“Would you let me kiss you?” he asked. Even as he spoke, his lips brushed my cheek, my nose, my mouth.
“Aren’t you kissing me now?”
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
“When will you then?” I said. And now I felt the pressure of his open mouth, his tongue against mine. “Wait,” I said. “I have to catch my breath.”
I leaned against his chest and told him what I could not tell anybody else. How I lay awake at night, just waiting.
He asked me of my home, and I spoke of Claire and her mother and the girls we taught. I asked him of his work and how he learned his instrument.
“My master taught me,” Auguste answered. “And he gave me the cittern along with my fine clothes.”
“And so, you became a gentleman.”
“Do you think worse of me?” He meant because he had a lowly start.
“I think better of my guardian.”
“He can be generous,” he said.
“And cruel.”
Auguste considered this. “He is a cruel enemy—and a jealous master.”
“Jealous of your time?”
“Of my life.”
“So, he would possess you, too,” I said slowly.
“Of course.”
“What would he do if he found us together?”
“Kill me.”
I started back, breaking his embrace. “How do you know?”
“He told me.”
“He suspects you.”
“Yes.”
“How can you risk coming here?”
“He has risked our lives already,” Auguste answered.
And I knew what he meant. A storm might take us, or we could die in wilderness. Our journey was treacherous enough. Must we also live apart? “He might kill anyone,” I said, thinking of the hangings.
“Are you afraid?” Auguste asked.
“Yes.”
He spoke gravely. “Then we will not meet again.”
“No, don’t say that,” I whispered. “I am not afraid enough to stop.”
“Tell the truth.”
“You know the truth,” I told him.