Shadowbrook Part 22

The Franciscan did not reply quickly. No doubt he recognized the voice of the Jesuit superior. Still, the seal of the confessional was perhaps the most solemn burden a priest carried. The Jesuit would be unlikely to commit the mortal sin of betraying that seal. "I saved the life of a man who is a heretic, and worse, an enemy of truth and the Gospel."

"All life is precious in the eyes of Almighty G.o.d. Even the lives of heretics. It is not for you to judge. How can saving even such a life as that be counted as a sin?"

"Because this man opposes the mission of the Church." Roget permitted himself a glance at his penitent. The Franciscan's head was bowed, and his shoulders sagged with the weight of his sin. He would not make less than an honest confession "The man I saved will do everything in his power to oppose us. He is a Protestant heretic, and if he has his way the Church will not be permitted to preach the Gospel to the Indians of the Ohio Country."

"I see. And how were you responsible for aiding this man's evil mission?"

"A heathen savage was prepared to shoot him. It seemed to me that I could not be witness to a cold-blooded murder, that I could not watch the heretic die with the sins of his heresy still on his soul and no opportunity to repent and save himself eternity in h.e.l.lfire. I shoved the killer, just enough to spoil his aim."

The Jesuit took his time before speaking. He was administering a sacrament, acting in loco Jesu Christe. But for Your greater glory, Lord. I cannot betray the seal, but I can seek the knowledge necessary to advance Your most holy cause.

It was October and winter was upon them. Roget could see his own breath in the church air, but he could see as well the sweat beading on Pere Antoine's forehead. "Who were these men? What were you doing in their company?"

"The man I saved is known as Uko Nyakwai, the Red Bear."

"Quentin Hale? The American coureur de bois?"

"Yes."

"And the would-be murderer?"

"Lantak, the renegade."

A pause, then, with not even a hint of sarcasm, "I am sure you were present for the purpose of trying to convert both the heathen and the heretic to the True Faith."

"As G.o.d is my judge, that is my ultimate aim in all things."

"If that is the case you have nothing to regret. Only perhaps that you do not sufficiently trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In penance for that say fifty Paters and as many Aves. And in the name of our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, I grant you absolution. Ego te absolve in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti ..."

In his study, the memory of the confession emboldened Roget He stretched out his hand. Black bishop takes white p.a.w.n. White queen takes black bishop. Alors, echec et mat in two moves. There could be no escape. The Christians had won. He tipped over the Moorish king. Then he went to his desk and rang the bell that summoned one of the lay brothers.

"You called for me, Monsieur le Provincial?"

"Yes. Please tell Monsieur Walton I wish to see him."

A few minutes later the Englishman stood before his superior. "You sent for me?"

"I did. You are a surgeon, Xavier, is that not correct?"

"It is, Monsieur le Provincial. I studied with the English Company in London before I went to France and joined the Society."

"I see. And did you ever actually practice surgery? Before becoming a priest, I mean."

"For a short time, Monsieur le Provincial. A year, perhaps a little less."

"A year. And are you any good, Xavier?"

"As a surgeon?"

"Of course."

Walton had little idea what they were talking about. Everything the Provincial was asking was already known to him. "I am not the finest surgeon in the world, Monsieur le Provincial. But neither am I the worst. Perhaps we should say 'competent.'"

A typical English answer. "You never wanted to come to Quebec, did you?"

Xavier was startled by the sudden change of subject, but he recovered quickly. "I wanted to do whatever my superiors commanded me to do. They sent me here."

"But it wasn't what you really wanted, was it? You wanted to be sent back to England to say Ma.s.s in secret in the dark of night, and hide in priest holes, and eventually be captured by the heretic king's soldiers and sent to martyrdom at Tyburn Hill. Is that not so, Monsieur Walton?"

"There have been few martyrs made in England in recent years, Monsieur le Provincial. The English believe their Protestant heresy so well entrenched that they have far less fear of the True Faith. They mostly ignore Catholic priests these days, unless the prohibitions against the Faith are openly flouted."

"Hmm ... Yes, that's what I hear as well. Still, it's martyrdom you're after, isn't it, Monsieur Xavier Walton?"

"If G.o.d were to judge me worthy, I-There are many opportunities for martyrdom here. Before we convert them, the heathen savages have methods every bit as efficient as those of the soldiers of the English king. Monsieur le Provincial knows that better than I do."

"Indeed, Xavier. I know most things better than you do. And as far as you are concerned, I speak with the voice of Almighty G.o.d. Is that not so?"

"It is absolutely so. If I have done anything to make you believe I thought otherwise-"

"No, no. I know you are a loyal Jesuit, Xavier. It's why I'm sending you to the American colony of Virginia."

The Englishman could only sputter in disbelief: "Virginia! But ... I did not know ... It never occurred to me ... I never heard ..."

"Get to the point, Monsieur."

"... that we had a house in Virginia, Monsieur le Provincial. That comes as a complete surp-"

"We have no house in Virginia. It is an English colony, and as you and I have just been discussing, the Catholic faith is forbidden wherever England rules. No, no, my son. I am not sending you to Virginia as a priest. I am sending you as a healer. A surgeon. It is my belief, Xavier, that you will do a great amount of good in Virginia."

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1754.

PORT MOUTON, L'ACADIE

The French called this land l'Acadie. It was Nova Scotia to the English, and Chignecto in the tongue of the Mi'kmaq, whose land it had been before the Europeans arrived. By whatever name, it was the easternmost point he could reach. Cormac had come to the edge of the world.

The ocean, dark and forbidding, pounded the shallow beach, kicking up white spray that reached ever higher on the incoming tide. The tang of salt was in his mouth and the cold nipped at his nose and fingertips. Behind him was a carefully tended field, its boundaries marked by a high, rounded ridge of gra.s.s, interrupted at regular intervals by wooden structures that appeared to be sheds of some sort. Cormac had never seen any fields quite like them.

A pair of brown and white cows stood a little distance away, intent on the last of the late autumn gra.s.s, paying him no mind. Beyond them, just visible in the gray of the dwindling afternoon, was the steep pitched roof of a Cmokmanuk house. No smoke, but he didn't have the feeling the place was deserted. The ghosts of thousands of warriors roamed this ground. Anis.h.i.+nabeg since a time too long to remember, then the Europeans. Nowhere was the land hunger between the French and the English more apparent and more vicious than here on the outer rim of this, their New World.

The wind was rising. Bishkek had given him a cloak made of elk hide, cured with great skill so the sleek black fur remained supple and glistening. Corm s.h.i.+vered and drew the cloak doser. He fancied there was the stink of powder and burning pitch on the wind. The smell of war.

A chain of forts surrounded him. In his mind's eye he could see them all. The Citadel of Louisbourg to the north was the biggest. It had been built by the French forty years before, captured by New England colonials in 1745, then returned to the French by treaty in 1748. Louisbourg guarded the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and thus to all Canada. To somehow compensate for so great a loss, the English began building Fort Lawrence just east of the Missaquash River, in plain sight of Beausejour and Gaspareau, the two French forts that guarded the Chignecto Isthmus that joined l'Acadie to the mainland. Forty leagues up the coast from where he stood was the Halifax Citadel, a walled city populated by thousands of Protestant, English-speaking settlers. Halifax was heavily garrisoned.

Ayi! A river of blood might well flow from any direction in this place.

But what did it have to do with him? Or with Memetosia and his Suckauhock. This was a Cmokmanuk struggle. Yes, he reminded himself, and you are half Cmokman. Ahaw. And you are also wabnum, the white wolf. And inside of you is a red man who knows that the path laid out in a dream must be followed. Otherwise even death will bring no release.

Cormac knew he had to find shelter. He couldn't travel much farther tonight. This hunt seemed to be over: he'd seen no hawk, no white bear. He'd dreamed nothing of any significance. The whole trek was a waste. Except that the foreboding of the original dream would not leave him. It sat in his belly as it had from the first moment he dreamed it. Every morning he woke to the same sense of urgency and the same dread still twisted his bowels. Merde! A curse on all dreams.

Kekomoson had said a wabnum running toward the place where the sun rises. "This wabnum can go no further," Cormac said aloud. "No further! Do you hear me?" He shouted the words at the relentless sea. Memetosia's medicine bag felt heavy around his neck. He struggled with the urge to rip it off and hurl it into the waves.

"Est-ce que vous voulez que la mer vous repond, monsieur?"

Cormac turned and his eyes met those of a woman almost as tall as he was. Hers were gray with black flecks, like polished stones found on a beach. She peered at him intently, clutching her blue knitted shawl with both hands to keep it from blowing away. She seemed to bend with the wind, like a willow, Corm thought, its trunk slender and supple enough to sway with any storm that came. "J'ai pense que j'etais tout seul, madame." I thought I was alone. "Je m'excuse. I didn't imagine I would disturb your cows. Much less their mistress."

She smiled. Her teeth were white and even, and the corners of her wide mouth turned up to show two dimples. "Mademoiselle," she corrected. "And you did not disturb me or my cows. But it is late and getting cold. Soon it will be dark. Not pleasant, even, I think, for the fierce Cormac Shea. You must come home with me, monsieur. As you yourself just said-rather loudly I recall-you can go no further."

"You know who I am?"

"Of course. Who does not know of Cormac Shea?"

The scar made him easy to identify. "I'd be grateful for a night's shelter, mademoiselle. Perhaps I can offer some work in payment."

"I am Marni Benoit, and for a start you can help me bring these cows home."

The barn was attached to the house. It was full of the sweet smell of hay and warmed by the breath of the animals. A corner was occupied by a small flock of dark brown hens, and from a separate nearby shed he heard the snuffling of a pig. "You are well provided for, mademoiselle."

"Here in l'Acadie we provide for ourselves. And I told you, my name is Marni." She sat down on a little three-legged stool and began milking the smaller of the pair of cows while she spoke, leaning her head against its side as she rhythmically tugged on the teats, holding a bucket in place with her knees. "I prefer that to 'mademoiselle.'"

"Very well, Marni then." The position she'd a.s.sumed lifted her skirts, and he saw her ankles were slim and shapely above her heavy clogs. He wondered about the color of her hair. A white mobcap covered almost all of it, though the bit he could see above her forehead seemed quite fair. "Will you trust me to do the same service for Mumu?" he asked. As they walked back from the field she'd told him the smaller cow was Tutu, the larger Mumu.

"Oui, si vous voulez."

There was a second milking stool hanging on a peg on the wall. As if it weren't in regular use, Corm thought as he reached it down. So far he'd seen no indication that anyone else lived on this remote farm with Marni Benoit.

"Mumu is not accustomed to strange hands, Monsieur Shea. You must be gentle, and at the same time on your guard."

"I will try to be both. But if you are Marni I must be Cormac. Corm, if you like."

She had finished with Tutu and straightened, quickly moving the bucket out of reach of the cow's swis.h.i.+ng tale. "I like Corm. Yes, I shall call you that. And you are a very good milker. For a coureur de bois and a metis at that."

He was done, and he stood and handed her the full bucket of warm milk. "I didn't realize they knew so much about me in l'Acadie."

"They don't. I do. Come." Marni led the way into the house.

It was full dark now, and inside the only light came from the dull glow of the banked fire. "The logs are there," she said, nodding toward a supply of wood that had been moved into the house. "If you will stir up the fire, I'll get a lantern going. And then I'll fix some supper."

He turned to get a log from the stack she'd indicated and saw her remove her shawl and hang it quickly on a peg. When she lifted her arms he could see the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, despite the concealing blue dress and pinafore made of homespun flax. The gesture had s.h.i.+fted her mobcap and he could see her hair was a yellow so pale it was almost white.

"What did you mean when you said the others didn't know about me, but you did?"

"Only that around here very few care what happens beyond l'Acadie. They have heard stories, of course. Tales of the fearless metis who would turn us all out of our homes and let the Indians have everything."

"The Indians were here first. The Whites are destroying their way of life."

"So in return you would destroy ours." She shrugged. "It sounds to me like mostly everything men do. An excuse to fight."

The fire was blazing now and he felt truly warm for the first time in days. Watching her move about the kitchen was a delight She wakened something in him that had been dormant for some time. This Marni Benoit was leading him back into his whiteness. For the moment, she was his Shadowbrook. "But the others around here, your family and friends, they do not know about my ideas?"

"No, not in any detail. As for my family, they are dead. And I have no friends."

"You live here alone?"

"Yes." She swung the crane that held a large blade kettle into position above the leaping flames and ladled into it a portion of the milk they had just taken from the cows. "These days I prefer being alone."

"How come you know so much more than other Acadians?"

"Because unlike most of them I have not remained always in l'Acadie. I committed a great sin for an Acadian woman, Cormac Shea. I went to Quebec. With a man."

The supper was ready. A thick wedge of hard cheese and a loaf of bread, and to drink, frothy spruce beer cut with the milk she'd warmed over the fire. The first Cmokmanuk food he'd had in months. The bread, made in the French fas.h.i.+on, with a hard crust and a soft chewy interior, particularly delighted him. "Quebec was the first city I ever saw, I went there with my mother once. I was very little, maybe three or four. I don't remember much about it, except bread like this. It was very good, but yours is better."

"Thank you. Jean, my fiance, was a baker. He taught me how to make it."

"You are to be married, then?"

"Was. I was to be married. Jean is dead."

"I'm sorry. How did it happen?"

She shrugged and leaned forward to refill his tankard with more ale and more warm milk. "He was run over. It was a foggy morning. He was delivering a sack of batards to the fine house of a fine Quebecois. The carriage came quickly, the alley was too narrow to permit escape ..." She shrugged again. "It is a common story."

"Not when it is your story."

They finished eating. Marni stood up and began clearing the table. "You can sleep over there." She indicated a corner beside the fire where there was a rolled-up mat and a neat pile of blankets.

"I don't want to discomfort you. The barn is fine if-"

"You will not discomfort me. My bed is above."

"You will have to let me do something to repay you," he insisted.

"There is always wood to be cut," she said, walking to the ladder that led to her bed beneath the peak of the roof. "I'll be glad of whatever you can get done of that."

He could get plenty done if he stayed for a time. He thought about it while he lay beside the banked fire and outside the wind howled and the sea could be heard cras.h.i.+ng on the beach. No white wolf and no hawk and no white bear. But he had been sent east and traveled as far as he could in that direction. Now he might as well wait until the next step of the journey was revealed to him.

Chapter Fourteen.