Voyage of Malice

by Paul C R Monk

  Jacques Rouchon, seeing his fate was sealed, burst into a parched but brazen chuckle. ‘Come on, Harry,’ he said, ‘make it quick, and drink to my soul!’

  He laid down his head on the gunwale, keeping his eyes wide open. Harry hungrily placed the musket near the planter’s temple and waited an instant to get the timing right between the bobs of the boat.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Jacob, quite agitated, which made the gig bob out of time. He was now pointing to the sky where a squawking gull came nearer. Fuelled by the sudden adrenaline, he got unsteadily to his feet and looked straight ahead. ‘By God, it is land!’ he declared. ‘Land ahoy, I say. Land ahoy!’

  ‘Sit yerself down, man!’ said Harry. ‘’Tis the trick of the sea!’

  The bosun held up a hand to pause Rouchon’s execution while the tiller mate seized the barrel of the musket. Careful not to disturb the balance of the boat, the bosun also rose to his feet.

  ‘That be bloody land all right, lads!’ he croaked, ‘or I’ll eat my own boot leather!’

  A feeling of fraternity instantly supplanted the feral instinct of survival, and the men now wept dry tears of joy and clasped each other heartily. Only Harry, who would have eaten his own mother, wore the sneer of disgust on his face.

  Whether it was a miracle or due to the bosun’s navigational skills, before long, not only could they see land, but the distant masts of tall ships that told them they had reached the port of Jamaica. They had made it to Port Royal! Commonly known as the wickedest town on earth . . .

  NINETEEN

  The teal-coloured waterways and the breathtaking views through the Swiss valley—with the lush plateau to her right and the foothills of the Jura to her left—brought Jeanne a measure of tranquillity.

  Monsieur Gaugin’s mention of her head injury on her travel document had allowed her to travel with Paul by lake, canal, and river, from Yverdon across Lake Neuchatel, over Lake Bienne, and then all the way up the river Aar to the pretty village of Brugg. They arrived late in the day. A gathering of villagers headed by the mayor, a benevolent man, greeted them as they disembarked.

  ‘You are welcome to stay in our homes, brethren,’ he said. ‘You will find food and a bed for the night.’ He gestured to the good people standing behind him, who offered bows and nods and utterances of welcome. Jeanne was feeling faint after the long journey, which surely could not explain what she saw next.

  It was a face in the crowd that stared back at her. It was the face of the pauper. She wanted to shout out, but first instinctively turned to her son and clasped his hand. When she looked again, the man was gone, and it was a different face that looked inquisitively back at her. The next moment, faces were spinning around her, and Paul was kneeling by her side.

  ‘Fetch some water,’ said one lady, who had been travelling with her since Yverdon. ‘You fainted, Madame,’ she said. Had Jeanne seen the man who was responsible for the mark on her face and the bump on her head? Or was it the bump that was responsible for her vision of that man? Jeanne no longer knew what to think as she was helped to a bench.

  ‘Now,’ said the mayor, clearing his throat, ‘I have a message for a certain Madame Delpech if she is among you.’

  Fortunately Jeanne, seated by now, this time retained an outer composure as he asked again. ‘Madame Delpech. Do we have a Madame Delpech among us?’ said the mayor, sweeping his gaze around the group at the quayside. His eyes seemed to linger over Jeanne and her boy. Jeanne also looked around as if she were searching for this Madame Delpech to step forward.

  ‘Oh well, if anyone comes across her, I would be most obliged if you would ask her to see me. I have been given a message for her to remain here in Brugg.’

  The audacity of the wretch made her want to step forward and shout out her story: How the man she had just seen had clubbed her and left her for dead for the sake of her jacket, believing it contained gemstones. How he had gone through the pockets of the drowned people, and then thrown their bodies back into the water without knowing if they had expelled their last breath or not. But what proof did she have to lock someone away, even if they did find him? So she bit her tongue and kept the peace. It was written on her paper that she had received a head injury; they could well retain her. Then what would become of Paul? Moreover, the aldermen of the village certainly had far more to worry about herding refugees northward than the imaginings of a French bourgeoise. No, she had kept it under her hat till now. She had already made her mind up that the less anyone knew of her story, the fewer chances she had of being tracked down.

  Jeanne joined the small group of people queuing to be led to the tavern; most of them would have felt out of place in a bourgeois home. On their way to the tavern, they passed a wondrous clock above the city gate that captured the admiration of all. Set in a recess above it, the painted figure of a Swiss countryman brought much-needed merriment to the group as it came out and counted the hours on its right hand, like a living person. But as Jeanne turned her head again, a sickness in her heart replaced the fleeting gaiety as she thought she saw the pauper skulking away. Could it truly be that her mind was playing tricks on her?

  *

  Early next morning, she waited in the fog, wrapped in her summer shawl with the other refugees who had been conducted to the wharf. Four flat-bottomed riverboats, attached two by two, were waiting for them to board. The leading boats that would carry the majority of the passengers were headed for Basle by way of the Rhine; from there, the passengers would head north. The second two boats were scheduled to let their load of twenty or thirty passengers disembark at a landing stage a league’s distance from Zurzach.

  ‘Paul, come and say goodbye,’ said Jeanne to her son, who was throwing sticks into the current just a couple of yards behind her. She smiled back at the lady with whom she had exchanged a few pleasantries during the previous day’s journey, and who had come to her aid when she had swooned. The lady and her adolescent daughter were waiting to board one of the first two boats headed for Basle, from where they intended to travel to Brandenburg.

  ‘It’s the best season for travelling north, if that is where you’re headed, Madame,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jeanne, ‘but really, I have to see a friend at Schaffhausen.’ Jeanne regretted the slip as soon as it was out and instinctively turned to see if anyone was listening. There was no one; most of the crowd were advancing towards the boats. With a half-smile, Jeanne continued, ‘I pray you find your sons and your husband.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure they are in Brandenburg. I must admit, though, I am not going to enjoy the river ride, specially not this one, from what I’ve heard. I’d much rather travel by cart, and I’d gladly put up with all the bone-shaking as long as I had the firm ground beneath me, for I am like a brick to water, Madame.’ So was Jeanne, but she did not say so.

  ‘I am sure everything will be fine, Madame. With God’s grace, you will get over it.’ Again Jeanne regretted her slip of the tongue. Had she not said the same to Ginette before leaving Geneva? ‘I bid you farewell,’ she said, as the lady followed the movement of the crowd into the first two embarkations.

  ‘Bon voyage to Schaff . . . Schaff . . . whatever you call it,’ called the lady. Jeanne did not try to correct her. Instead, she waved back, then set about gathering her effects to board one of the other boats.

  No more than twenty yards from the quayside, the leading pair of flat-bottomed boats vanished, engulfed as they were in the thick, morning fog. The clock eerily tolled six dampened chimes as the second pair of boats were pushed away from the wharf and floated into the swift current of the river Aar.

  For two hours solid, the mist rolled closely along the water’s surface. It was impossible to make out the opposite bank most of the time, let alone the boats ahead. And certain narrow passages gave cause for hearts to pound quicker and women to yelp as they clutched their broods. But the captain bore a reassuring appearance: his impressive moustache was as impeccably trimmed as the garb of his profession. He was
mindful to forewarn in a tenor voice of any bumpy rides ahead, and soon, most aboard became inured to the rapidly flowing waters. However, a small incident came about that for Jeanne would have dramatic consequences.

  By mid-morning, the mist had lifted, and the sun was warming rigid muscles. Paul, at the prow, was the first to sight the two vessels travelling just one hundred yards ahead. He yelled out none too soon, because shortly after the sighting, the leading craft slowed.

  ‘What be the matter?’ called out the captain in German across the water, as the trailing boats managed to overtake the leading craft at a wide part of the river.

  The answer was barked back in the same language, and judging from the hand-talk, it became clear to the French speakers that the two leading vessels had become untethered. In fact, they had become entangled in floating branches and other matter. The captain of both leading vessels preferred to pull over at the nearest quayside to re-tether properly.

  The overtaking boats slipped through the widening waterway without further hindrance and continued through the epic Swiss riverscape.

  ‘Steady as she goes!’ the captain called out, and German accents all around seemed to fall upon Jeanne’s ear, now that they were moving deeper into German-speaking territory.

  There was no call to be miserable in such a beautiful environment. But though she sat bathed in sunlight, from time to time, her face clouded over as her thoughts spiralled back to the recent tragedy. What she would say to Ginette she knew not, so she did her best to empty her mind, to just let the gentle heat of the sun soak into her tumefied face.

  By high noon, they arrived at a landing stage, where they took their lunch of bread, cheese, pâté, and beer that had been packed for them by their generous hosts in Brugg. Led by guides paid by the confederacy, the group of refugees then trekked at an easy pace to the small town of Zurzach, which they reached by late afternoon. From Zurzach, Jeanne and Paul climbed on a charabanc that took them and a handful of other travellers to the village of Neunkirch. Here, they dined on broth and were given a place to sleep.

  ‘How far is it to Schaffhausen, Madame?’ said Jeanne to the good lady who was ladling the soup, and who spoke some French.

  ‘T’ain’t far, Ma’am,’ she said, ‘not more than a two-hour walk across the plain, but they’ve arranged a cart for you. Not tomorrow, of course, but the day after the Lord’s Day.’

  *

  Doubt filled Jeanne’s thoughts as she lay holding her son, in the large room where other travellers snored in their sleep.

  Should she have travelled north with the vast majority of Huguenots? At least they spoke her language, whereas the Germanic utterances she overheard now made her nervous. These people seemed good and kind, but when she overheard them laugh out loud that evening, it had almost seemed as if the jokes were on her. But she could not bear the thought of leaving the Fleurets with no manifestation of love, sorrow, loss, and condolence. If she had headed north, she would never have seen them again. She would forever regret not having reached out to them in their grief. But what if they were no longer in Schaffhausen? And why had they decided to stop there anyway, when everyone else was headed for Brandenburg, where the grand elector’s successor had extended his welcome to Huguenots to settle in his province? Could it be that Jeannot Fleuret had found work there? Just a few hours separated her from the township, and from knowing.

  ‘Why can’t we wait for the cart?’ whispered Paul an hour later as Jeanne, having found a quill, scribbled a thank-you note on the kitchen table.

  ‘Because it would mean waiting another day,’ she said, keeping her voice down. ‘That’s if we’re lucky, what with the season. And what if the cart is delayed?’

  She silently led the way out into the freshness of the breaking morning and strode onto the stony track, as though she had decided to embrace her fate. Paul knew there was no debate to be had when his mother got the bit between her teeth, so he trotted along beside her with his load on his back and a long stick that had served him well the day before, on the path to Zurzach.

  ‘I hope they won’t think us ungrateful, but we must press on.’

  ‘I hope there are no bandits!’ said Paul.

  ‘Well,’ said Jeanne, ‘your father always much prefers to travel by early morning when the day is new and fresh . . .’

  ‘And when the riffraff has not yet stirred,’ continued the boy, quoting his father by heart. ‘But what about Monsieur Cephas?’

  Jeanne checked her step as she said: ‘What about him?’

  ‘I thought you . . .’

  ‘Saw him? Seeing things, more like,’ she said, resuming her resolute gait.

  ‘Didn’t you see him then, in the crowd? I thought that’s why you fainted.’

  ‘No, my mind playing tricks.’

  ‘Then that would make two of us,’ said the boy, looking up at his mother with the frank gaze of his father.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Jeanne.

  She pulled her shawl over her shoulders, held her boy’s hand tight, and, with her stick in her other hand, dug into the earthen track that took them towards the gold and blue light of the nascent day.

  *

  Sometimes, Jeanne thought, you have to live in the present, for the here and now. It enables you to put distance between life’s tides; it saves you from getting muddled in future plans and from worries that have not yet even emerged. So, for the time being, she let past and future fall into oblivion as she walked hand in hand with her son, along the path that narrowed from the open plain into thick woodland. She felt young again, like she did in her country home when she used to run through the long grass with her other children, back in the days when the world seemed so simple, when men had not given up their sense of Christian virtue for the malice of a king.

  Paul, sensing the bounce in her step soften, tugged her hand, and they ran together as if they were siblings. For a fleeting instant, the boy saw his mother as a little girl, and that the little girl needed protection and love like every child.

  A cart coming towards them on a bend in the narrow road made them resume a more orderly gait. It turned out to be a couple with their three children. Early birds, no doubt, on their way to church. It reassured her to know that other like-minded folk would soon be following in their tracks. Hats were doffed, smiles exchanged, and as soon as they were alone again on the forest thoroughfare, Paul resumed his playful pranks, running into the dense wood and leaping out at her.

  ‘Paul, stop it now,’ she said, but the lack of conviction in her voice only encouraged the boy. He played stalk the deer, running from tree to tree, trying to get as close as he could to startle her again. The boy needed this time for play, she sensed. After all, despite the young man already budding inside, he was still only a boy of ten. So she let him have his free rein and continued along the narrow path at a good pace, pretending not to see him.

  Walking on her own, her thoughts meandered back to her deceased children. Ginette was right; Louise and Anne would travel with her always, because she carried them in her heart. It was liberating to know she could travel the world, and they would still be with her. Just because they had been called to God did not mean she was not their mother. She still had five beautiful children.

  But first she must get to Schaffhausen to give her support to the Fleurets. Then she would head up the Rhine and travel across country to Amsterdam. From the Dutch port, she would cross over to London, where she hoped to reunite with her husband. Together they would somehow recover their children who remained in Montauban: Elisabeth, who must be a young lady by now, and sweet Isabelle, who was no longer a baby. That was what she must do now.

  But what if Jacob had not made it to London yet? What if the Fleurets had left Schaffhausen? Had her innate optimism got the better of her judgement again? A movement in the trees made her look left, to the edge of the forest.

  ‘Paul. Paul,’ she said, striding into the vegetation that skirted the wood. ‘Paul, come out now.’

 
There was a muffled call and a loud rustle, like that of a heavy animal.

  ‘Paul, don’t be silly. Come out now, please!’ she said in the uncompromising voice of a worried mother. But it was a large form that emerged from the dark undergrowth which quickened her pulse. And it was accompanied by a coarse voice.

  ‘You want the boy?’ said the pauper, stepping forward. ‘I want the stones, the precious ones this time!’

  Jeanne, rooted to the spot, for a long second just stared at the sight of the man, standing on the edge of the forest with one hand over her son’s mouth and a hunting knife gleaming against his soft, white throat.

  ‘Cephas Crespin, don’t you dare!’ growled Jeanne in the voice of a mother ready to die to defend her child. At the same time, she flashed her gaze at her son and read determination in his eyes. She knew that he had no sense of the danger he was in. ‘Paul, don’t move!’

  Too late. The boy sank his teeth into his captor’s hand.

  ‘Ouch! You little tyke!’ yelped the pauper. Then he grabbed the boy by the hair, lifted him onto his toes, and pressed the blade against his skin. ‘Give me the stones, or I’ll slit his throat now!’

  ‘All right,’ said Jeanne, holding out her hands, as much for the pauper not to draw his blade across as to prevent her son from trying to break free. ‘Paul, don’t move, please, for me, darling,’ she pleaded. She knew that it would take just a quick lateral slice, and her son would be dead.

  ‘The bloody jewels, woman!’ bellowed Cephas Crespin while the lad struggled and kicked.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said, hand on her shoulder strap to remove her sack. ‘Paul! Please, keep still.’ But as the man tried to tighten his grip and slowly pressed the blade into the boy’s throat, Paul jerked back his head, and stamped and kicked for all his life. ‘NO!’ screamed Jeanne. Wasting not a second, and remembering the man’s maimed thumbs that prevented him from clasping tightly, she took up her stick and in one movement brought it down with all her strength onto his hand, knocking the knife to the ground. The pauper tossed the boy to one side. Jeanne stood holding her stick, ready for another swing.