Isola

Chapter 21

21

I scarcely knew what I was saying as Jean Alfonse helped me to the cabin. “Let me see him. Let me go below.”

“I cannot,” he said.

“I must do something!”

“Beg forgiveness,” he advised. “Ask for mercy when your guardian returns.”

At the table, Damienne gasped to see me, disheveled, frantic. “What have you done?”

Bitterly, I said, “Ask what Roberval has done—not me.”

“Hush.” She glanced at the navigator—but he knew everything.

“If Cartier submits, your guardian’s mood will change,” he said.

No, I thought. You cannot guess his character. He is more difficult than tides.

—

All that day, I waited and imagined punishments. That my guardian might hang Auguste. That he might kill me as well. It was treason to draw a sword upon our commander. Insubordination to meet secretly. I thought of falling, strangled on a rope. Floundering and drowning. My guardian would kill Auguste first and make me watch. That was how he’d torture me. Indeed, he tortured me already, for I envisioned every violent end. By the time my guardian returned, I was as wretched as he could have wished.

He stepped cheerfully; his voice was bright, but I was not deceived. I knew he was a killer. He had hung four men. “Now we will proceed,” he told the captain. “We will sail for Charlesbourg-Royal in the morning.”

“And Cartier?” the captain asked.

“He will accompany us.”

“How did you subdue him?” said Jean Alfonse.

“With threats,” my guardian said. “With a show of force. With the King’s name.” And he called for food and drink, and he dined heartily.

I sat with my meal untouched, as Roberval told his captain and navigator, “I reminded Cartier I am his commander—and that our men outnumber his. I spoke of cowardice and all its consequences.” My guardian’s voice rang with his success. “And I persuaded him to turn back and sail with us to Charlesbourg-Royal.”

“What of your secretary?” Jean Alfonse dared to ask when my guardian finished eating.

For a moment Roberval did not answer. Then he pushed back his chair and told the cabin boy, “Bring my servant’s food below.”

Tears started in my eyes, but this was what my guardian expected. I longed to plead, except that he enjoyed it. Knowing this, I stood to go, and Damienne stood with me.

“You are not excused,” my guardian said quietly.

“I am ill,” I told him.

He poured me a glass of wine. “Drink this.”

I shook my head.

“I do not ask,” he said.

But I would not take the glass. I would take nothing from his hand.

Now I saw a flash of anger in his ice-blue eyes. “Will you stand there?” He might have struck me then. He might have forced me back into my chair, but he chose differently. “Go then.”

Contempt was what I felt as I undressed in my cabin. I told myself I did not care what this man thought, but I felt him shamingme.

I lay down, and Damienne lay with me. In bed she said her prayers, and I prayed with her, but after that, I did not speak. I could not ease her distress when I was the cause.

—

Although I had defied my guardian, he did not lock me up. As always, he allowed me the illusion I was free.

I must do something. This was my incessant thought that night. I would steal below to find Auguste. But no. It would be worse for him if I provoked his master. I crept to the deck instead, to wait for dawn.

The sea was still in shadow. Our anchored ship rocked gently, and I thought, If only I were dreaming. If I could wake and find the dark world altered—but I knew that could not be.

The sunrise stole upon me softly, dim at first and gray. In a haze the ocean showed itself, and I saw our sister ships moored close to us. Beyond them—I blinked and looked again because the world was different. My view was changed. Scarcely believing my own eyes, I leaned against the rail. Where Cartier’s three ships had been, I saw only sea and gold-streaked sky.

A cry went up as sailors roused themselves and saw what I did. Three ships were gone. They had vanished into air. No. They had sailed in the night. Cartier had done what I could only dream about; he had given Roberval the slip.

The sun rose high, and the view was bright without shadow or ambiguity. In the tumult above deck, the navigator came, the captain, and, finally, my guardian. He arrived last because none wished to tell him.

On deck he stood and gazed out at emptiness. For once, his voice was soft with surprise. “He swore to me.”

The next instant, Roberval turned on his own men. “How is it that three ships vanished in the dark? You.” He pointed to the night watch, standing down. “You were sleeping.”

“We were not!” one man protested. “We were—”

“Liar.” My guardian cut him off.

“I swear we were awake,” another man said.

A third insisted, “We heard nothing!”

“Impossible,” my guardian declared, because a windlass was a heavy creaking thing.

And yet the sailors swore on the cross that they’d heard nothing.

“Shall we flog you then?” my guardian asked. “Shall we beat the truth from you?”

Sullenly the sailors stared at him. “You can beat us,” the third brave soul called out. “But it won’t change anything.”

“Come here,” my guardian said. “And we shall try you.”

But the captain intervened. “The men are honest. They heard nothing.”

“When they stood watch on deck?” demanded Roberval.

“Cartier cut his ropes,” the captain said.

Roberval turned to him, astonished. “You saw this?”

“No, I didn’t see, but that’s what his men must have done.”

Now my guardian was silent, acknowledging the captain’s logic. Instead of weighing anchor, cranking heavy windlasses, Cartier had cut his ropes so that, like fish breaking their lines, his vessels slipped away.

“He is a deserter. And he will hang in France.” This Roberval vowed, and all who heard believed him. He would find Cartier when he returned—but until that time, the deserter and his ships were safe. We could not track them on the open sea.

If there had been any chance for Auguste, there was none now. A better mood. A plea for mercy. All that was impossible as Roberval raged silently.

Up and down he paced, acknowledging no one, seeing nothing. And now his colonists began to gather. His artists and farmers and adventurers. They gazed upon the empty sea, and understanding what had happened, they looked to their commander. Did they think he would give up? No one could imagine that. But Cartier was gone with his remaining men, his ships and knowledge of this place.

“We will sail on,” Roberval announced at last. “And we will have no cowards in our company. The riches that we find will be ours only. We will not divide this land except amongst ourselves.”

Hearing this, the colonists cheered lustily, and prepared to make for shore—and yet the winds were fickle. The brisk winds of the night had fled with Cartier, and our ships floated idly. Suspended on the water, our men had no choice but to wait. Silently, I waited, too, for Roberval’s decree, but he said nothing of the secretary.

Tersely he spoke, but made a show of equanimity. “We will use this time,” he told the captain and the navigator, and he returned to the cabin, where he sat reading. Absorbed in his own logs, he reviewed memoranda.

Had Roberval once praised his servant’s writing? He looked disdainful now. Had he depended on Auguste to rule paper and prepare pens? My guardian did not free him to do this work. With his own hand, Roberval wrote rapidly, recording Cartier’s crime.

I sat at the same table. I watched in agony, but Roberval did not so much as glance at me.

When the cabin boy arrived with our noon meal, my guardian ignored all refreshment. He kept working, and none dared to eat or drink before him. Covering a page with dark thick strokes, he wrote for half an hour before he picked up a glass of wine.

Only now did the navigator risk a suggestion. “My lord, while the wind is down, I ask leave to take the boat again.”

“For what reason?” Roberval asked.

“To continue charting islands and the coast.”

Roberval studied the navigator for so long that I began to think even Jean Alfonse was suspect. No question was permitted. No idea acceptable. But I was wrong. My guardian was pleased by the navigator’s request.

“Good!” he told Jean Alfonse. “And you will do something else for me.” Calling back the cabin boy, Roberval said, “Bring up our prisoner.”

My heart jumped, yet I held still. Don’t move, I told myself. Don’t make it worse. But when Auguste appeared, pale from the darkness of the hold, I gripped my chair’s seat.

All eyes were on Auguste—and I saw that Roberval looked upon him with some feeling. With care he took a knife and cut the secretary’s ropes. He freed his prisoner, as a hunter loosens a snare gently. And as he worked, my guardian spoke softly. “I gave you a place. I gave you a profession. I taught you. I raised you up and trusted you—and how did you reward me?”

Roberval waited as though expecting an answer, but none came. Auguste offered no plea or apology.

“You said you would not see my ward,” my guardian said, “but you continued. You said you would not speak to her, and still you met with her. Rabid as you became, you dared attack me.” Roberval gazed at his unshackled servant. “What do you say to this?”

The secretary’s voice was hoarse. “Do what you like with me. I will not hear you abuse her.”

No, I thought. You cannot speak that way. Such was my fear for him. If he would not abase himself, I would. I knelt before my guardian. “I beg you—”

He looked down in mild surprise as though he had forgotten me. “You beg me?”

“Forgive your servant,” I said.

My guardian’s eyes met mine. “Should I forgive you as well?” he asked as though he was considering it.

Auguste said, “Punish me instead of her.”

And now my guardian looked wearily on him, and his bright tone faded. “I see you are attached to her. And you,” he turned to me, “have allied yourself with him. For this reason, I will let you live together.”

I sprang to my feet in my relief and my surprise, but Roberval lifted his hand. “I will leave you on an island.”

An island? I hardly understood him.

“Jean Alfonse will find you one,” said Roberval. “And we will leave you both.”

“Here in the gulf?” the captain said.

I stammered, “But how?” Surely this was one of Roberval’s cruel jests. Not a sentence but a humiliating lesson. “How long will we live there?”

“As long as you can,” my guardian answered.

As long as we could? I had feared living with colonists. I had thought it desolate to settle with a hundred souls or more. I had not imagined this. To live together on an island? To die together. That was Roberval’s intent.

I was dizzy. On our anchored ship, I felt adrift. I turned to Auguste, and he stood pale and silent. I glanced at the captain, and he said not a word. At the door the cabin boy was watching with round eyes. No one could believe it, and no one could oppose Roberval’s decree.

Only the navigator dared to speak, asking, “Will you leave them without anything to eat? What of food and drink?”

“Take them,” my guardian said. At first, I thought he was ordering his men to carry us away—but he was speaking of provisions, and he was instructing me. “Take all that you can carry. All that belongs to you,” he added, indicating Damienne.

Then my heart broke because I had exiled Damienne as well. I’d risked my life without considering hers. “She is blameless.” I grasped her hand. “Do not cast her off with me.”

“I do not want her,” my guardian answered.

“But how will she—?” I began.

“Go prepare your things.”

“What of weapons?” Auguste asked.

“You may arm yourself just as you please,” my guardian answered. And his voice was careless as though he were relieved. For if he could not change our hearts, still he could banish us. He would not execute us now, but he would kill us slowly, leaving us to perish out of sight.

He did not ask me to repent, nor did he chastise Auguste further. No longer did he seem aggrieved. He had swallowed his own bitterness. And now he picked up Auguste’s cittern and offered it to him.

“Take this with you.” My guardian spoke sweetly but with a challenge in his voice, as if to say, And play it if you can.