Chapter 19
19
In daylight, we feigned indifference so that even Damienne could not complain. We never spoke. We scarcely glanced at each other, and even Roberval seemed satisfied. He did not threaten Auguste, nor did he chastise me. His secretary copied Roberval’s notes into his log. I sewed with Damienne. In silence, we sat at table. Only at night did we meet on deck. In darkness, we whispered, and we kissed, and no one caught us. We were giddy. We were sober. We were dreaming. We were wide-awake. We speculated about the future.
I said, “He might separate us when we arrive.”
Auguste said, “We might run away in the New World where he will never find us.”
“But how would we survive?” I asked.
Then Auguste said what I would remember later. “If we are together, we will have nothing to fear.”
So we spoke during the strange idyl that we passed together. If we were reckless, our voyage seemed riskier than any action we might take. If we drifted from our rightful places, the world itself was water. Every moment the ship sailed into the map’s blank space. And so we lived from night to night, whispering, embracing, and delighting in each other.
—
Alas, we were deceived by joy, for as Damienne warned, there could be no secrets aboard Roberval’s ship. The deckhands glimpsed us. The navigator knew we met. My guardian suspected us, but did not speak of it. He showed no anger, nor did he confront his secretary. Strangely jovial, he gave his orders. Cheerfully, he sat down to cards and spoke to everyone but me.
At first, I felt relief, released from lessons and questions, but gradually, I sensed danger in this silence. Anxiously, I gauged my guardian’s mood. I believed he would confront me, and yet he waited, accusing me of nothing. Clever as he was, he found another way.
Smiling one morning, he leaned over Damienne’s chair. I was sitting near, and Jean Alfonse worked across the table as my guardian said, “Good woman, please tell me. Are you surprised to wake alone?”
And my heart stopped because I knew how my nurse feared him. I understood her honesty as well—but she protected me. She told my guardian, “Never.”
“You never wake alone?”
“I do not understand,” my old nurse answered, flustered.
What have I done? I thought. I have endangered Damienne. For Roberval would not speak to me, but he would terrify my servant and make me watch.
“I hear your mistress walks the deck at night,” Roberval said pleasantly.
Damienne gazed at the work in her lap and did not answer.
He pressed. “Is it true?”
She raised her eyes, and still she would not speak.
My guardian persisted, “If it is not your mistress, who might this sleepwalker be?”
Silently, she endured the question, but her sewing slipped onto the floor.
I reached to pick it up—even as Jean Alfonse intervened. “Do you think this woman knows who walks the deck? Leave off. Speak to the sailors and check their veracity.”
“I did speak to them,” said Roberval, “and listened.”
“But you know that they exaggerate.”
“And who is it you defend?” Roberval turned on the navigator.
“I am not defending anyone.”
Roberval’s eyes were lively. “Is it you who walks?”
The navigator’s voice was steel. “What are you suggesting?”
Before Roberval could answer, we felt a shock. Table and chairs rattled; the very ship was shuddering.
What was it? A quake? A storm? All was confusion. Bells ringing, men scrambling, colonists crowding up the ladder. Roberval, the navigator, and the secretary rushed above deck, but I stayed below with Damienne.
“Oh, what is it?” she cried.
“I do not know,” I told her.
“Is it cannon?” she pleaded, for we could hear the sailors shouting and then our trumpet sounding, and a moment later, trumpets from the other vessels. “Will we drown?”
“I cannot tell.” I knelt before her. “But Damienne, if we must die, forgive me for bringing down his anger.”
“Do not say it,” she begged, afraid I would confess what she did not want to hear. “Do not speak of it again.”
Once more, the ship quaked under us. We heard the timbers groaning. Was it pirates? Had we struck an island? I stood and pulled Damienne to her feet. “Come up to the deck.”
“No!” Such was her terror; she could scarcely take a step.
But I said, “If the hull cracks, you cannot stay below.”
She argued, but I would not listen. With sudden strength, I pulled her up the ladder into sunlight, where passengers and sailors crowded the rail.
Beneath the waves, I saw a shadow. No, not a shade. A black fish the length of our own vessel—the dark twin of our ship. The fish was large enough to swallow all of us. Its jaw gaped like the gate of hell, huge, cavernous, rimmed with jagged teeth. And from this monster’s head, a mist blew upward so that everyone who saw it started back. Our ropes were thread, our weapons pins next to this creature—for this was what the sailors called a whale.
Dark and brooding, turning, rolling underneath the waves, the whale had struck our hull, and we had felt its force and weight reverberate. Only by God’s grace had we escaped—but the whale loomed near even now. Broad as our own bow, his tail rose and opened like a sail, fanning out until we gasped, thinking it might strike again. House-high, mountainous, the tail rose. Then smooth, sleek, black, the broad fan slipped away, and the whale descended out of sight.
How far could such a creature dive? And to what purpose? So that he might attack us from below? Open his jaws and bite our ship in two?
“Christ, save us,” came a cry from the other side of the ship. “It has come again!”
Half-fainting, Damienne clutched my arm as the captain said we must turn the ship and sail away.
“No,” said Roberval. “The monster might pursue us.”
The captain sent our cabin boy up the mast to watch, and the child called, “There are more.”
“How many?” my guardian asked.
“Four others. Five!” And a moment later, “They swim to the Valentine !”
We saw that it was true. Five black fish swam together to batter and besiege our vessels. At first, they made for the Valentine, but they brushed past and swarmed the Lèchefraye. They surrounded her, and we stood hushed because she could not escape. These whales might have smashed her to kindling, but even now, God saved us. The black fish swam past the Lèchefraye, leaving all three ships alone upon the sea.
Trembling, we stood on deck. Even the bold sailors crossed themselves, and my guardian did not let the moment pass. He climbed to the quarterdeck and spoke to all of us—colonists, sailors, and officers alike.
“Were you frightened?” His voice was grim but also taunting. “I heard you cry out, and some of you began to pray. Do you pray now? Good for you—but will you remember this danger now that it has passed?”
All hushed as Roberval said this.
“Some evils are visible, and some lurk beneath the waves. We have seen whales swim away—but what faults do we carry with us?” Roberval gazed upon his colonists, disheveled after weeks of voyaging, chastened by the danger they had felt and seen.
“God helps the good. The Lord will defend those who praise him with their words and deeds—but wanton sinners will be damned to hell. Whether aboard ship or in the New World, I will punish them. I will exile them like lepers from our gates, and they will not profit but die like animals in wilderness.
“Those with black souls we will cast out. Those with lustful hearts we will purge from our company. We will separate ourselves as wheat from chaff and let the wicked blow upon the winds.”
Ruddy in the sun, Roberval declared, “Our commission is clear, and it is godly. Our work is difficult and requires perfect faith in Christ and King.
“If you do not maintain that faith—if you imagine your own soul an exception—then remember that the Lord will find you, and he will punish drunkenness, and thievery, and lies. The Lord will know, and I will execute his judgment, whether by flogging, or by shackling, or by hanging. Think of it and take this day as warning.”
Roberval’s voice rang across the Anne, and when he was done, all heads bowed. No wind stirred. No voice spoke. Even the sea lay flat and quiet.
—
“We are easy prey while we are becalmed,” the captain said that night at table.
“What could whales want with us?” the navigator said. “Surely they hunt fish, not ships.”
My guardian frowned. “They might have destroyed us in an instant.”
Under the table, I took Damienne’s hand. I knew that, like the black fish, Roberval might destroy me—except he did nothing in an instant. Even now, he preferred to break me slowly.
After the cabin boy cleared the table, I took up my needle and helped Damienne with her mending.
All was still until my guardian called for music. Then Auguste played, but Roberval did not correct him. Instead, my guardian studied me. For the first time in days, he gazed upon me only.
I lowered my eyes. I watched my own hands stitching, but I knew what he was thinking. Fool. Liar. Slattern. I know what you are doing.
He watched. I faltered. My needle slipped and pricked my index finger. Dark red, almost black, a drop of blood welled up.
Damienne snatched my sewing so I would not stain the fabric. “Take my thimble.”
I shook my head. I rose from the table, and my guardian did not stop me. I turned to leave, and Damienne followed.
The secretary stood to bow, even as I pressed my thumb against my bleeding finger. “Good night,” he said, as did the captain and the navigator, but my guardian said nothing.
In that close cabin, all knew what was happening. All felt my guardian’s silent wrath and my distress. Even as I left the table, I could not take a step without brushing past Auguste. My skirts touched his legs, and my sleeve grazed his arm—but Roberval had divided us. It would mean death to meet again.