Silence of Stone

by Annamarie Beckel

  L’idiot. Marguerite’s sin had naught to do with her sex.

  The candles smoke and drip great pools of stinking tallow. The gorge rises in my throat at the odour of putrid flesh roasting. I look behind the monk’s bland face and see a rotting seal wedged in a crevice, eyes hollow, picked by ravens. I smell rancid grease dripping into flames and taste slimy flesh on my tongue.

  N’oubliez pas, do not forget. Grievous sin. Impardonnable. Remember, but do not tell. Do not tell.

  The voices mingle with the monk’s blather about Huguenots. I put my hands to my ears and rock back and forth. “Non,” I say, “I will not. Stop. Stop.”

  I look up. Thevet has closed his mouth mid-sentence. I fear at first that he has heard them, but then see that he is merely annoyed, not alarmed. In the sixteen years since the voices first addressed me, I have learned that they speak only for me. No one else ever hears them.

  I lower my hands and fold them in my lap. “Please stop,” I say quietly. “Do not speak ill of the Huguenots.” I do not give a damn about Huguenots, but I assume now a contemplative countenance to make him believe I am considering his most recent aspersions upon Marguerite’s faith.

  “The demons…tell me more.”

  “She kept her faith. She prayed. They did not bother her greatly.”

  He drums his fingers. I wait, knowing that he wants to hear more about demons, but also knowing that he loves his own voice far better than mine. He twirls coarse strands of grey and black beard in pink fingertips, then can restrain himself no longer. He begins lecturing about his journeys through the Levant where, as a young man, he met Turks and Arabs.

  “Foolish and superstitious,” he proclaims. “I prefer the Tupinamba. Though these wild men of America have no civility at all.” He opens his hands wide, the better to share his wisdom. “Walking in darkness and ignorant of the truth, they are not reasonable creatures. They are subject to many fantastic illusions and persecutions of wicked spirits. Indeed, they worship the Devil.” The last he whispers, as if the word itself might seduce him to heresy. His wine-purpled lips pull to one side.

  There is much concern these days about heresy. The word assumes a twisted black shape above his head, swirling crepe laced with scarlet ribbons. The crepe settles like a scapular upon his shoulders, and I see men and women, throats slit, bellies run through with sabres, because the Church has called them heretics. I cannot help wondering what Marguerite, the believer, would think of a God who ordains such killing as good. Could she embroider such murder and torture into a mantle of beauty and grace?

  Give glory to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.

  The Franciscan drones on about the Tupinambas’ worship of idols. He has forgotten me. I am naught but an audience.

  Images appear, unbidden: Bones, fragile, like a robin’s. Shallow rocky crypt. Fingernails scraping, broken and ragged. Hands and feet blue with cold.

  La culpabilité. Grievous sin. Impardonnable.

  I hear the whimpering of a baby and clench my teeth to contain the wails building within.

  Thevet remembers me then. He dips his quill into the pot of ink. “Demons?” he asks. “What did you tell the Queen of Navarre about demons?”

  “Nothing. She did not ask about demons.”

  Shortly after I returned to France, she summoned me to Paris. The Queen of Navarre, sister of François I, held my calloused brown hand within her own soft palms and looked kindly upon me while others stared rudely, mouths gaping. Wildly curious about my adventure, as she called it, the queen listened intently.

  Then she offered advice. Roberval is wicked, she said, but not criminal. Foolishly my brother appointed him viceroy. Roberval is the law in New France.

  And my château? I asked. My properties?

  There is nothing you can do, she said. You must leave it to God to punish him. But I will attend to your support. Because God has saved you.

  God has saved you. Leave it to God.

  I believed the queen would understand Marguerite’s story because she too had lost the man she loved when she was a young woman. She too had lost an infant. But the queen took Marguerite’s story and retold it in her own collection of tales, changing everything in the telling. Convinced that Marguerite’s story was evidence of God’s mercy, the queen told a tale of romance and faith. She chose not to mention Roberval’s cruelty. She chose not to consider God’s neglect.

  The Queen of Navarre was the last one, the only one, I ever told about the Isle of Demons. And for sixteen years I have worked at forgetting – until the king’s cosmographer arrived yesterday in Nontron. Thevet, to his great irritation, learned only months ago that Marguerite de Roberval was the heroine of the late queen’s tale, and so he has come with his order from the king, his quill and his paper, like pick and shovel, to mine for scurrilous details.

  For all his mining, I’ll give him nothing but fool’s gold.

  “The queen had no interest in demons. She was far more concerned about the behaviour of Franciscans.”

  The monk’s face flushes, and I smile at his discomfort. Sympathetic to the new religion, the queen satirized Franciscan lechery and greed, depicting monks as pigs that can neither hear nor understand.

  “Were the Queen of Navarre not already dead,” he sputters, “she would be burned.” He pinches his fat lower lip, shutting off any further discussion of the late queen’s opinions.

  “What of the young man?” he asks. “The lover set ashore with you? Who was he?”

  “Marguerite’s husband.”

  “By what rites were you married?”

  “Their own.”

  He smoothes the white feather, trying to feign gentleness and concern. “What was his name?”

  “You have no need of a name.”

  “Of course I do if I am to record this history accurately.”

  “It is enough to know that he died.”

  Thevet sits back in his chair and pulls at his beard. “Do you not care that the full truth of this story be known?”

  “You will write what you will write. People will believe what they will believe. It does not matter.”

  “But what about the child?”

  “Her baby died.” Wails gone to whimpers gone to silence.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “It does not matter.”

  He sucks his teeth. “Baptised?” he finally asks.

  “Oui.”

  “What did you name the child?”

  The monk leans forward and makes a tent with his fingers.Le bouffon. Does he believe me simpleminded, that I would blurt the name of the child and give away the father?

  “You can tell me everything.” His voice is soft, wheedling. “You have nothing to fear from Roberval… now that he’s dead.”

  I look down to hide the shock I cannot disguise. A score of times I have seen his death in my dreams: the startled blue eyes, the gaping scarlet grin, the gurgling flow of blood. But believed that I had only wished it so.

  “You did not know?”

  “Non.”

  “Your guardian,” he says, watching me closely, “was murdered last winter, throat slit, at the Church of the Innocents in Paris.”

  Pale blue voices whisper his name:Roberval, Roberval. Then laugh out loud:His mercy endureth forever. Leave it to God.

  I struggle to contain my own mirth. My throat aches with the effort. I am glad that he is dead, and I hope that he suffered. But it is not for fear of Roberval that I choose not to reveal Marguerite’s husband’s name.Non. The voices demand my silence.

  “If you were married, as you allege, and if his family is wealthy…” Thevet strokes the quill against his beard, making an annoying rasp.

  “His family was as poor as Marguerite’s.”

  “But they lost a son, an heir. And apparently a grandchild. They would want to know.”

  “Her husband’s family believes that he died a soldier, defending the colony from Indians.”

  “How did he die?”<
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  “Perhaps they would rather believe in their son’s courage and bravery,” I say, ignoring the monk’s question, “and not know of Roberval’s foolishness and cruelty.”

  “Cruelty!” He points the quill at my heart. “You and your lover sinned. You caused a great scandal. Roberval was justified in punishing you.”

  I feel anger’s dark humour gathering within me, bile rising from deep within my belly.

  Abandonnée. La justice. Kek-kek-kek.

  Thevet lays down the quill to place a new candle in the holder, his plump fingers clumsy with excited self-righteousness. He lights the candle from another, dripping a greasy tallow circle on his list of questions. The Franciscan can be profligate with candles. And with paper. He is an emissary of King François II.

  “They have not yet found his assassin. Would you reveal that name?”

  I gag at the stink. And the accusation. “Roberval was a cruel leader. There are many who hate him, many who would wish him dead.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I not have cause?”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “And how would I have traveled to Paris?”

  He shuffles his papers and looks toward the window. “You could have flown,” he mumbles.

  L’imbécile. I cannot stop the howl that explodes from my throat. I try to quiet my laughter before I speak. “Père, if I possessed the powers of a witch, Roberval would have been dead long ago.”

  Thevet raises a finger as if he has just solved a difficult puzzle. “Ah, but it is safe to kill him now…now that his protectors – François I and Henri – are dead.”

  I tilt my chin and allow myself a small provocation. “Don’t you mean François I and Diane de Poitiers – King Henri’s whore? The whore was Roberval’s cousin.”

  “How dare you!” His nostrils flare, and I see pale wiry hairs glistening against ruddy skin. He takes deep breaths to calm himself. “How dare you speak of Henri’s trusted advisor in such terms.” His face is pinched, as if he has a griping in his bowels. “But then again, you have always lacked propriety. Indulging yourself in carnal abominations.”

  The yellow clack, clack, clack of his words circles between us:La convenance. Carnal abominations.

  We sit quietly, watching the words spin, listening to his belly rumble, until Thevet can contain himself no longer. “Did you hire someone?”

  I stand, and without waiting for the Franciscan’s assent, turn and walk away. I can hear his agitated huff behind me.

  Hurrying through the sanctuary, I do not cross myself, nor do I bend a knee to the Christ who was deaf to her prayers. I turn my back to him, draw my cloak and hood around me, and push open the arched door. I step from the chapel into the rain, my foot crushing lily-of-the-valley. I bend low to touch the wounded white bells, to draw within their sweet fragrance and dispel the dank odour of granite, the putrid stink of tallow.

  I sit near the hearth, wrapped in a wool blanket. I am always cold. And no matter how much I eat, I am thin and hungry, bone knocking against bone. When the little girls bring biscuits from home, I want to snap them up and swallow them whole. They see my hunger, the copper glint of a wolf’s eyes, and hide their biscuits in the folds of their skirts.

  The glowing embers wink and yawn puffs of smoky breath:La meurtrière, murderer. La culpabilité. La justice.

  Did I kill him? Certainly it would have been easy. He was too arrogant to be wary. I’d do it without malice, simply slide a sharp blade across his throat as if he were a fox or a deer, then listen for the gush that quiets to a gurgle, the last hissing breath. I’d leave his body, and his skin. I have no need of either now.

  But I made no trip to Paris last winter. Did I? I rub my temples. I forget so much, and my eyes and ears play tricks. The thud of raindrops against the roof becomes the roaring crash of the sea. I hear wind shrieking when oak leaves barely tremble. White bears lurk behind doors, their huff-huff-huff punching holes in the dark. I smell the hot meaty breath of wolves and hear their claws clicking on stone. I see iron clouds fall to earth and pewter rain rise into molten sky to blot out the opal moon that floats there, unattached, like un esprit, a ghost. I pass whole nights within the embracing arms of maples, beeches, and oaks, listening for the rustle of feathers, the soft beat of ebony wings, and believe I have been there but an hour. The impertinent sun surprises me.

  Often I cannot remember teaching the little girls, but no one comes to tell me that I was not downstairs, so I must have been.

  I have forgotten much of what happened to Marguerite. But not nearly enough. Would that I could forget all of it. Everything. But the voices do not allow that:Grievous sin. Impardonnable. La culpabilité.

  And now the Franciscan would have me remember: Wanton and shameless. La putain, whore.

  I kept her New Testament, faded and yellowed by salt wind and salt tears – tears wasted on unanswered prayers – to remind me of God’s indifference.

  The voices mock:Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to thee all the day…Out of the depths I have cried to thee. How long, O Lord? How long?

  Her New Testament, Michel’s dagger, the iron pot, the black feather: that’s all I took from the island. Too little. But more than I want. I sometimes think I should have stayed there, that I should lie beside them, my bones a part of that place.

  I pull out the dagger and make a long slit across my wrist. Red beads well.

  Non. I forget much, but I would not forget three hundred miles of mud and biting winds nor that final satisfying image: ice-blue eyes filled with white-hot terror.

  I did not kill him. But I wish I had.

  The Franciscan suspects I may have hired someone. How foolish. I have little money, only the few coins I collect for teaching the girls and the small pension the Queen of Navarre arranged for me. Not nearly enough to hire an assassin. Unless? Unless he hated Roberval as much as I do. He’d do it then for the sheer pleasure of the doing.

  Do I know such a man?

  I wake, panting, his wrathful eyes boring into me. I feel burning in the centre of my chest. Think. Think. He is dead now. But in the darkness, I see his face, white as alabaster and just as cold and hard. The perfectly sculpted lips curve in a cruel smile.

  I light a candle from embers in the hearth. The candles are beeswax, costly, but I cannot abide the stink of tallow. I use them sparingly.

  I feel a sharp pain at my wrist. I pull back my bloody sleeve and see a cut, as if a white bear’s claw had sliced across my arm. I have no memory of injury.

  Debts must be paid. La culpabilité. La pénitence.

  “She paid,” I answer. “She paid.”

  I cannot keep my teeth from chattering. I wrap the wool blanket tightly around me. On the island cold crept into my bones and resolutely will not be dislodged.

  Twenty-seven months on the Isle of Demons. Roberval never returned. Only two months after he arrived in Canada, he sent two ships back to La Rochelle for more provisions. Little more than a year after he founded his wretched colony at Charlesbourg Royal, those who survived the winter returned to France. The ships must have passed by the island, but not one of them stopped. Not one.

  Twenty-seven months. Not a shipwreck, not an accident. Punished. Left to die.

  It was only by chance that a ship stopped at the island. The Breton fishermen wanted fresh water. Not Marguerite.

  How my arrival back in France must have startled Roberval. Startled, but never worried. He had his position as Viceroy of New France to protect him, as well as his friend, King François I, and his cousin, Diane de Poitiers, King Henri’s mistress.

  And now he is dead. Murdered at the Church of the Innocents. For sixteen years I have longed for this. But now I know: his death changes nothing.

  God’s little irony.

  I put my hands to my cheeks and allow myself a small memory: ivory skin, bold lips, eyes the colour of new grass. Marguerite had no memory of her mother’s face, not even a portrait, for her mother had died when
she was born. With grave sorrow pulling down his words, Marguerite’s father told her that she resembled her mother, that she was beautiful in the same way: wild and wilful, strong-minded and strong-bodied, beguiling but guileless.

  Her family owned a small château but could afford no servants. Marguerite laboured like a maid of all work: cooking and washing dishes and clothes, spinning and weaving, tending sheep and clipping their wool, growing vegetables, hauling wood and water, milking goats, butchering chickens and pigs, rendering fat and making cheese.

  L’orpheline misérable.

  “Non.” I shake my head. “Non, she was not a miserable orphan. She had her father, and he loved her. She was not unhappy.”

  A man of good intentions and sympathetic to the new religion, Marguerite’s father attended to her education himself. Though it was costly, he did not stint on books, paper and quills, or on lamp oil and candles, so that she could read and study during the long dark evenings. He discussed with her ideas about philosophy and religion, entrusting to her an expensive copy of the New Testament.

  I brush my fingers across the tooled leather cover, lift the pages with my thumb, and listen as they flutter closed again, whispering God’s secrets.

  Once I nearly boiled the cover for broth.

  Marguerite learned psalms and prayers, singing them in both Latin and French. Her father, fostering in her a piety well beyond her years, helped to create in Marguerite a fractious alliance of scepticism and devotion, obstinacy and obedience, pragmatism and romance: a young girl at war with herself, headstrong and heartstrong.

  La tête forte. Le cœur fort. But not strong enough for the island. Être indulgent, c’est mourir.

  “Oui,” I say. “To be soft is to die.”

  When she was just sixteen, her father died suddenly, of no cause a country doctor could discern, though neighbours whispered that he had died of a grief he could no longer bear. Roberval became Marguerite’s guardian. He dressed elegantly, and Marguerite was ashamed at first of her peasant roughness and poverty. But Roberval disdained neither her clothes nor her calloused hands and ragged nails. Instead he bought creamy silk gloves to cover her hands until they softened, until the nails grew smooth and oval from disuse.