“We do it.” Quent stood, and they touched hands solemnly, palm to palm, to signify the pact was made.
“We can go south in the morning,” Corm said.
“Day after,” Quent said. “Tomorrow is Wednesday. You said she comes out of that place Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have to see her, Corm. Just once before I go.”
“I said she was coming out three times a week. I didn’t see her at all last week. Monday you came and I didn’t look for her.”
“But she could come out again tomorrow. What’s one more day going to matter?”
“Thing like this, every day matters.”
“Winter’s coming,” Quent said. “The campaign season is finished for this year.”
Pontiac had been in the Ohio Country at the time of the battle on the Monongahela. It was where Cormac was most likely to find him now. But it was true about winter not being the fighting season.
Corm crouched beside the fire. It had died down some while they were talking, and the chill was deepening as night approached. “Listen, there is another thing … something’s happening in l’Acadie.”
Quent began kicking at stray embers, encouraging the half-burned bits of wood to flare again. “What troubles you?”
“One of the Acadians helped me. Gave me a place to stay. This edict will be hard.”
The only one of Braddock’s four prongs that had succeeded was the taking of Beauséjour and l’Acadie back in June. For the last few weeks there had been stories that the English had posted notices saying the land and houses and livestock of the Acadians were forfeit to the king, and that the habitants were to be transported out of the province with their money and such household goods as they could carry. Like everyone else, Quent had heard the stories. “I can’t think they’re going to be able to enforce the order,” he said. “The English have been threatening to deport the Acadians for years. You can put up a lot of notices demanding that people leave, but actually getting them off their land, that’s not going to be too easy.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t try. Marni is all alone.”
Quent stopped kicking at the fire. “Marni. So it’s a woman you’re worried about.”
“Any reason it shouldn’t be?”
“None at all.” For Quent the most awkward part of their two days of talk had been telling Cormac how he felt about Nicole, but Corm had merely nodded as if he’d known all along. “No reason,” Quent said. “I just didn’t realize.”
“What worries me … Her farm is way out at the edge of the peninsula, between Halifax and Port Mouton.” Corm paused. “You ever been there?”
“No, not anywhere in l’Acadie.”
“Then you won’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I know what you’re talking about. What you’re worrying about, as well. Has anyone actually seen any of these ships? Or does anyone have any notion of where they’re to be taken?”
Corm shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s likely all talk. And if it isn’t, it won’t be easy this time of year. Not with the freeze coming.” He saw the look on Cormac’s face, knew he wasn’t convinced. “Look, there’s no reason you shouldn’t go back to l’Acadie and see she’s all right.”
“You reckon?”
“Yes. I told you, we have until the spring. A few days more or less this side of the divide, that’s not going to count for much.”
“You’re right.” Corm’s sense of relief was enormous. He knew it showed in his voice and he didn’t care. “I’ll go to l’Acadie before I look for Pontiac.” As soon as he said it he knew that he’d agreed as well to go back to Québec the next day and try and help Quent see Nicole.
The fire was nicely contained now, the embers glowing bright red. Quent put on another log. Sparks flared, then died away, and the dry bark crackled as it caught. Nice to be here like this with Corm, Quent thought, have a few hours when it wasn’t necessary to worry about anything except the ordinary dangers of the woods. After tomorrow everything would change. What if she said yes, she’d come with him. If she agreed, he would not leave without her. If it slowed everything down, then so be it. Spring, summer, those were the times to make war. Both were over.
Quent blacked his hair with the ash of the fire, and Corm found him a farmer’s traditional cloak. He didn’t steal it exactly, he explained; he’d left a few sous in payment. “Nyakwai maybe now,” he said. “But not so Uko.”
Nothing to be done about Quent’s size. He’d always be a bear, but he rubbed soot on his face to disguise the stubble of red beard. The cloak, though made for a shorter man, covered him from his neck to just above the knees. The disguise worked well. They rowed from Pointe-Lévis to the mainland, put the stolen boat back where they’d found it, and slipped into the shadows with no hint anyone had taken special note of their arrival.
“This is the place,” Corm said when they got to the copse that flanked the deserted section of the Côte de la Montagne below the bishop’s château. “I met Nicole here maybe six times. She always comes this way.”
They waited, watching the dirt road, until well past noon, but that Wednesday she did not appear.
“I have to see her,” Quent said. “I can’t go until I do. There’s time.” He sounded certain, but there was a cold place in his bowels even as he spoke. I’m right about the war not starting again until next spring, he thought, but what about John? What if he makes his trade before I have a chance to stop it? Doesn’t matter. I can’t go without seeing her. She’s no more than a hundred fathoms away, in that little hovel I could knock over with my bare hands.
Quent’s thoughts were written on his face, and Corm read them easily. “She’s shut herself away because she wants to,” he said. “If she didn’t want to stay, she wouldn’t.” He hadn’t mentioned how thin she was, or how she covered herself in the white veil and wouldn’t show her face. Or that he’d twice offered to get her away. No one makes me remain, Monsieur Shea. It is my choice to be a Poor Clare. It is what God wills for me. Corm paced to the edge of the trees, peering back toward the Lower Town, then paced back. “No sign of her. I warrant she’s not coming today.”
“I have to see her.”
Corm shrugged. “We can try again on Monday if you want.”
“Not we, me. You go to l’Acadie. Now you’ve shown me where the meeting place is, and what Nicole’s route is, I can find her on my own.”
“Your French is miserable. It will give you away.”
“I’ll manage,” Quent insisted.
Corm believed him because he wanted to.
They started back toward the Lower Town and the harbor where, given Quent’s disguise and the fact that the Québécois were accustomed to Corm’s presence, they could chance hiring a boat to take them back to Pointe-Lévis. They were almost there when they heard the tolling bell. Corm recognized it at once. It wasn’t coming from one of the churches of the Upper Town but from the Monastery of the Poor Clares.
According to the Holy Rule, it was the abbess who decided when a novice was allowed to make her sacred vows. The novitiate was a test. The abbess decided when it was over and whether the novice had passed, but in the end only the novice herself could determine if she wished to make the most solemn commitment a woman could undertake.
The symbols of vowed nunship or the freedom of the outside world lay on a table set in the center aisle of the choir. “Either of these things is available to you. This”—Mère Marie Rose indicated a square of folded black cloth and the knotted rope of the discipline beside it—“or this.” She pointed to the key to the cloister door. “The choice is yours, child.”
Nicole and Mère Marie Rose stood beside the table. Nicole had been ten days in retreat—speaking to no one, exempt from all her usual duties, spending every moment in prayer—while she contemplated her decision. Now her voice was firm and unhesitating. “With faith in Almighty God, and with prayers that the Holy Virgin and our Holy Mother St. Clare and our Holy Father St. Francis a
nd all the saints will sustain my resolve, I choose to make my vows as a Poor Clare.”
The abbess put out her hands. Nicole knelt in front of her and put her hands in those of Mère Marie Rose. “Soeur Marie Stephane,” the abbess asked, “will you promise to live in obedience to our Holy Rule and to me as to Our Lord Himself?”
“I vow and promise God and you, ma Mère, that I will.”
“And will you follow in the footsteps of Francis and Clare and cherish Lady Poverty, and own nothing and covet nothing and use only what we in this community hold in common, and only in obedience to the Holy Rule and to me?”
“I vow and promise God and you, ma Mère, that I will.”
“And will you promise to keep yourself forever virgin for the love of Almighty God, to be a bride only of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?”
Nicole thought of Shoshanaya’s glen, and of Quent’s Ups on hers and his tongue in her mouth and his hand on her thigh. She held the thought for a moment, not flinching from it. Her hands were still in those of the abbess and the eyes of Mère Marie Rose looked into hers. Nicole did not look away.
Such incredible eyes the child had. They revealed her soul, but not her secrets. Mère Marie Rose was sure that Soeur Marie Stephane had secrets. What does it cost you, ma petite, to make this vow? What does it cost all of us? Do you think there is a woman here who does not sometimes ache for the man who might have lain over her and caused her belly to swell with child and her breasts to fill with milk? Do you imagine that any of us do not know what we have given up? Or what we have gained. “You must choose, child.”
“I vow and promise God and you, ma Mère, that I will remain forever virgin.” Nicole’s voice was low, her throat tight with emotion.
“And will you hide yourself with Mary and our Holy Mother St. Clare in the cloister, here to remain until you die, and will these walls be to you as the arms of Christ the Heavenly Bridegroom, keeping you secret only to Him?”
“I vow and promise God and you, ma Mère, that I will remain hidden in the cloister.”
Marie Rose felt the tension drain out of her. It was done. The sacrifice of praise had offered herself and been accepted. Now, as abbess, she could offer a return gift of infinitely greater worth. “And I …” Marie Rose’s voice shook Not me, child. Almighty God. I am only His voice this day. “I, if you keep this, promise you life everlasting.” For five hundred years an abbess of the Poor Clares had been permitted to make that incredible assurance to her daughters. Eternal life. Perfect happiness forever and ever. A remarkable assurance for one human being to make to another, and the greatest of the many privileges won for her nuns by St. Clare.
The abbess let go of the girl’s hands and drew a large sign of the cross in the air above her head, “In the name of Francis and Clare and our Holy Order, au nom du Père et du Fils et du Saint-Esprit, I, Marie Rose, Abbess of the Poor Clare Colettines of Québec, accept your vows of obedience, poverty, perfect chastity, and perpetual enclosure.”
There was a document on the table, and a quill beside it. Marie Rose signed her name. Nicole rose from her knees and took the quill from the abbess and added her own: Nicole Marie Francine Winifred Anne Crane, in religion known as Soeur Marie Stephane. Goodbye, my beloved Red Bear. Goodbye.
“Te Deum laudamus,” the nuns sang, “te Dominum confitemur …” To thee, Our God, be praise!
Mère Marie Rose removed Nicole’s white veil and lay it aside. She took the black veil of a vowed nun and placed it over the white wimple and pinned it in place.
“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth …” Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.
The discipline would not actually be handed over to Soeur Stephane until that evening. She would receive it a few minutes before midnight when the nuns would all kneel in single file here in the choir, wearing their thin gray night habits, and beat themselves in penance for the sins of the world and in petition for the needs of Holy Church.
“Tu Rex gloriae, Christe …,” Nicole’s sisters sang. You, Christ, are the King of glory.
Nicole looked a moment at the length of thick cord with the seven knots. Marie Rose placed the crown of white flowers on her head. Now only one part of the ceremony remained. Soeur Stephane must announce to the world that she had indeed made these vows and assumed these obligations. Nicole picked up the document she had signed. The abbess led her to the cloister door and unlocked it.
Free and complete assent, given, and seen to be given. That’s why today she faced the congregation with her veil thrown back so that everyone could see her, and know it was truly she. But we are in Québec, not France. I do not know a soul here, mon Dieu, except You, and my sisters, and the bishop’s footman, and perhaps Monsieur Shea, if he is still—Oh. Oh my God. It cannot be.
Quent stood in the rear of the church. A habitant’s black cloak hung from his broad shoulders and he had blacked his hair and his face, but Nicole never doubted it was him, only whether he was really there, or whether the devil had sent a vision to break her spirit and her resolve. Monsieur Shea was there as well, standing a little distance away. But no one could look at her as Quent did, and there was no other gaze in which she wanted so to drown.
Framed as it was by the black veil, the whiteness of her face was ethereal. Quent saw how her eyes had become dark embers in her pale face. She suffered in this place, but nothing could change her beauty, or alter her mind. He had heard every word she spoke behind the grille and the curtains, just as he had when he brought her here a year ago, when he saw her walk through that door rather than turn back to him. Quent knew he was powerless against whatever she found here, whatever she believed.
A great peace came over Nicole. What was happening was not of the devil, but of God. You sent him here today, mon Dieu, to test me one last time. She lifted the document she had signed and displayed it to the church. “I Nicole Marie Francine Winifred Anne Crane,” she said and her voice did not tremble or falter, “in religion known as Soeur Marie Stephane, have made these vows of my own free will.” Nicole turned in all directions, showing the document to any who cared to see. Finally she turned back to the cloister and stepped inside.
Goodbye, my beloved Red Bear. Tonight when I take the discipline for the first time it will be for you.
Chapter Nineteen
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1755
PORT MOUTON, L’ACADIE
MARNI WORE TWO cloaks, her own and an old one that had belonged to her mother. The double layer of closely woven wool provided some protection against the sharp north wind coming in off the Atlantic. Despite that, she was both cold and hot at the same time. Her shoulders burned with the effort of swinging the pioche the whole day and the entire week before that. The rest of her was chilled to the marrow. One last section only, then it was done. She raised the heavy pickaxe over her head and brought it down. Again, and then again. Until she thought she would die if she had to do it one more time—and despite that struck twice more. The last short length of earthworks crumbled under her attack. Finis. She had salted the earth.
A century and a half earlier her seven-times-great grandfather had started the building of these dykes. Every member of the family since had nurtured and cherished and expanded them. The earthen ramparts that held back the sea were les anges gardiens, the things that made life in l’Acadie possible. Now, thanks to Marni, those built on this farm by the habitants Benoit no longer existed.
The tides on this coast were not so remarkably high as those of the great bay on the other side; nonetheless, with the dykes gone, the sea would sweep in at least four or five times a year, probably more. With nothing to hold it back the ocean would cover the fields her ancestors had tilled. In not too much time the earth would again be a salt marsh where crops would not grow. Alors, vous avez votre forfaiture, Majesté. She had given the English king that which he demanded. Her land. May it be as bitter to him as it had always been to her.
They said some of the men had been shot for breaking down the dyke
s before the redcoats came to march the habitants to the various disembarking places. In a few cases, after the wives tried to complete the task, they were shot as well. Never mind. It was unlikely the deed would be quickly discovered on a farm as remote as hers. Besides, what did she have to live for? And why would she anyway wish to remain in l’Acadie? Cormac had said he would return, but he had not. Six months since he’d left her, four months since Beauséjour had fallen. Corm would have heard the fate of l’Acadie. He would know about the edict of deportation. If he were coming, he’d have come long since.
Marni left the pioche where it was and headed back to the house.
She entered through the barn. Cold now because Mumu and Tutu could no longer warm the air with their breath. The cows were dead. She had shot them both herself, with the musket that had belonged to her father and to his father before him. The pig as well. She’d strangled each of the hens. The rooster had gotten away, but she doubted he’d live long. Not in the kind of place l’Acadie had become.
Dark was falling, rolling in over the horizon. Thick clouds had prevented any sunset this day, but now the night sky showed a red glow. There were many fires in the place of desolation that was l’Acadie. Some had been started by the redcoats as they hounded the habitants from place to place, forcing them out of hiding and herding them to where they were to wait for the boats. Other fires were set by the Acadians themselves.
There was an iron rake leaning against the wall of the barn. Marni picked it up and went inside. No need to remove either of her cloaks. She wouldn’t be here long. She took the rake in one hand, the fireplace poker in the other. When she’d stirred up the fire, she dropped the poker and raked the glowing embers out of the hearth and spread them across the wide wooden planks of the floor.
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