Chapter 38
élisabeth pushed the door open and was struck by a waft of pipe smoke and the smell of sour wine.
Half a dozen heads turned towards her. She cringed to be back in Folleville’s tavern so soon; she could not quite remember what had happened when Marcosi confronted the governor but realized that many of the men staring at her certainly did.
She had nowhere else to turn but to the sorry little tavern. She had half a notion that Anne Lamarque, with the taint of witchcraft upon her, would somehow help release Jeanne Roy. Or, élisabeth thought, if she were indeed a witch, perhaps Anne could fly to Jeanne’s aid.
élisabeth strode up to the bar, looking for the innkeeper. Instead, she saw Anne Lamarque’s husband staring at her. He had a soft, grey beard and gentle eyes, quite the opposite of his hard-bitten wife.
“Can I help you, mistress?”
élisabeth stumbled as her muddy skirts clung to her legs. She tried to kick herself free, like an animal caught in a trap.
“May I speak with your wife, Monsieur de Folleville?” she asked, loosening her legs from the clinging cloth and bobbing politely on the spot.
“She’s not here,” he said, eyeing her warily. élisabeth saw that her association with Barbe Poulin, Anne Lamarque’s bitter rival, made the innkeeper doubt her intentions.
“It is very important.” She lowered her voice. “It is about Jeanne Roy.”
“She’s most certainly not here,” he said more emphatically. élisabeth’s heart sank. Everyone in the village knew it had been her accusation that had brought Jeanne to justice.
“Please, I won’t cause any trouble. I am so very desperate. I need help—”
“élisabeth.”
She turned so quickly she felt lightheaded. It was Francoeur. Her Francoeur.
“It’s you.” Her eyes lit up. “I was praying for a miracle. And the Virgin sent you.”
Her husband’s beard was shaggier, his chemise dirty around the collar. “I’ve not been sent. I’ve been staying here this past fortnight.”
“It feels like a miracle to me.”
Francoeur clenched his teeth. He held out his arm, indicating that she join him at a table away from the bar.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when they were seated.
“I came to free Jeanne,” she said. “Though I am armed only with magic and prayers, and it has all gone wrong. She is so battered, so weak, I doubt she can even walk. Francoeur, you must help her—”
“I have been trying to help her,” he said tersely. “The priest will not listen to reason. There is no governor here now to counter his authority, thanks to my petition. There is nothing I can do.”
“Knock the jailor down! Carry her out of the fort! Do something!” she pleaded.
Francoeur’s lips pressed into a firm line.
“If I steal one witch, do you not think they will come for another in her stead? You, perhaps? Or your sister? Or all of the girls-for-marrying who came over on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste last summer? Not only would I spend the rest of my days with Jeanne, running from the Sulpicians, but you would all be suspect.”
She grabbed his hands. “Marthe will die in childbed if Jeanne is not freed. She is trying to birth twins and I fear she will not survive the night.”
Francoeur pulled his hands away. He looked down at the table, rubbing the edge of the maple, as if checking the grain. “So, you are here to save your sister. Do you even regret accusing Jeanne?”
“I do. I came to Ville-Marie to recant. I told Father de Sancy that I lied. But he did not believe me when I said that Jeanne was innocent, or that I was a shrew and a gossip.”
“But you agree that I was right, that Jeanne is not a witch?”
élisabeth hesitated and his face instantly fell.
“No, wait! Francoeur, listen! I know now that Jeanne means us no ill will. She has not made a pact with the Devil. She merely believes in things like black bile and melancholy and strange humours because she read about them in her books. It is only…” She searched for the words.
Consider, consider. Witchcraft is real.
If only she could explain how she felt, how a witch’s curse had changed her, but somehow not for the worse.
How she could feel that Marcosi’s blood coursing through her veins made her bold and resilient, how his rage had protected her when she could not protect herself.
How she had grown strong with the knowledge that she had chosen her own path.
She took a deep breath.
“I have spent a lifetime in prayer. Yet at times it felt as though the saints had turned their back on me and my prayers. My mother died before she could raise me. I saw my father work in the fields until he was too sick to stand. For all his work, for all my brothers’ toil, some years we never had enough to eat.
” élisabeth struggled to find the words.
“In my life, I have felt so powerless, Francoeur. But in a world where there are witches and demons and magic, there is hope.”
Francoeur raised his eyebrows. “The priests would call that heresy, I think.”
“No, not at all. The priests believe in demons and witches too. They are, somehow, proof of God.” élisabeth leaned forward.
“And I believe that even if witches are frightening and dangerous, they do lend us their power from time to time. And isn’t their magic our only hope in a world where God has made everything so hard? ”
Francoeur continued his study of the tavern’s woodwork until she grabbed his hand and made him look at her.
“You see, it’s not that I still believe that Jeanne Roy—the Lady Angélique—is a witch.
It is that I hope for it, I pray for it.
I wish for it with all my heart. I need her to be a witch, to save us. We need her magic.”
“She is not a witch,” Francoeur said evenly. “She is an ordinary woman who will soon be put to death.”
“Then let us break her out of jail.” élisabeth slapped the table. “Break her free so that she might save Marthe, and then I will run with you, and her, for the rest of our lives.”
Francoeur stared, as if he were seeing her for the first time. She was suddenly aware how dishevelled she was; her hair was tangled and wild, the ribbon that laced her bodice was coming loose. She returned his steady gaze.
“If we are going to break her out of the fort…” Francoeur said slowly. “We will need a distraction. And some help.”
élisabeth’s heart skipped and she caught her breath. “Jambon and Lajeunesse will be here soon with Rose and Lou. Jeanne’s friend Wari went east to fetch them.”
Francoeur rose. “Very well. We will do this. But afterwards, élisabeth, we will treat your melancholy—”
“My demon,” she corrected him.
He hesitated as he opened the tavern door. “When this is over, you must seek help.” He stopped when he saw two men rushing towards the tavern, one tall and skinny, one short and wide. élisabeth stifled the urge to cheer at the sight of Jambon and Lajeunesse hurrying to join them.
“Our wives have gone to the bakehouse to attend to Marthe,” Jambon said. “We are at your disposal.”
“We will speak more later,” Francoeur said to élisabeth in a low voice before turning to his comrades.
“So, lads. How would you like to break the law?” Lajeunesse grinned and Jambon rubbed his hands together.
Francoeur nodded. “Good. Do you remember the night at Fort Sainte-Thérèse when we gave Lafred the runaround?”
Lajeunesse chuckled. “Of course.”
“Never seen the governor so confused,” said Jambon.
Francoeur managed a grin. “Then you know what to do.”
Jambon slapped his thigh and hooted. Lajeunesse adjusted his hat on his head and pulled a flask from his pocket. He took a gulp and then passed it to his friend.
“Ready?” Jambon asked, pulling a knife from his belt.
Lajeunesse nodded. With a flash of his blade, Jambon cut the sleeve off his friend’s shirt as if he were skinning a hare.
Then, with a clean stroke he slashed the knife across Lajeunesse’s arm.
The tall lad flinched. Blood ran towards his fingers.
“Smear it,” Francoeur ordered. They painted their arms and faces red. When they looked as if they had mauled each other like dogs, Francoeur took Lajeunesse’s ripped sleeve and tied it around the wound. “Now go.”
The two men lurched forward, staggering, swinging at each other and shouting, as if they had been born to the stage and not the plough.
As they tumbled along Rue Saint-Paul, the residents of Ville-Marie began spilling from their houses, checking to see what the matter was.
The first cry from the crowd was fear for their own safety—Iroquois!
—but when the villagers saw it was only two old soldiers in a drunken tussle, they were glad to gather round and cheer them on.
The long winter had left everyone in need of entertainment and the crowd quickly swelled.
Jambon and Lajeunesse led them down the street until they reached the Little River.
The young jailor stepped out of the guardhouse and eyed them warily.
Jambon threw a punch at his friend, made a show of missing, and spun in a pirouette.
“Follow me,” Francoeur said to élisabeth. Together they approached the boy standing guard outside the fort. “Aren’t you going to stop them?” Francoeur asked.
The executioner’s son craned his neck to see which fighter would get the better of the other and shrugged.
“You’re right,” Francoeur said with a shake of his head. “The short one’s got a knife. Takes a braver man than you or me to get in the way of that.”
The boy threw Francoeur a defiant look, then cast aside the twig he’d been chewing. He strode into the crowd, grabbing first for Jambon, then for Lajeunesse. The fighters evaded his reach, keeping up their drunken charade, dancing and weaving away from his grasp.
“Now,” Francoeur urged.