The ravens began shifting on their stony perches, claws scraping. One called out in loud quorks, another in softer pruk-pruk-pruks. I understood, and put out bits of smoked fish. Kyree flew down, circled the fish in a stately strut, like a gentleman or lady at court, then picked up a small piece. As if waiting for this signal, the other ravens descended and snatched the bits of fish from the snow, leaving only their tracks and the imprints of their wings.
I folded what was left of the food back into the hide, tied it loosely with the sinew, and followed the ravens back to my cave. That night I slept beneath the warm white fur, the silk bundle clutched in my hand. I dreamed of fluttering ebony feathers, and Damienne did not visit.
I look away from the candle and see iridescent green eyes. We stare at each other, the cat and I. She places her front feet on the windowsill and sniffs the air, all the while watching me. She sits back, licks a front paw and passes it over her face and whiskers.
I take one step forward, and she is gone.
Isabelle tugs on her father’s hand as she closes the door behind her. Head tilted proudly, she glances toward the other girls. “Madame de Roberval, Papa would speak with you about my Latin.”
Lafrenière appraises me and the classroom, but dark curls, much like Isabelle’s own, soften his stern face. “Madame de Roberval,” he says formally. He places a hand to his black doublet and dips his head. His white linen cuff is frayed. “Monsieur Lafrenière,” he says.
I have already met Isabelle’s father, and I know that his family, though noble, is as poor as Marguerite’s and Michel’s. From Isabelle, I know this as well: Lafrenière is a man who has read about Jean-François de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, as well as the king’s cosmographer, André Thevet.
“Isabelle’s study of Latin displeases you?” I say bluntly.
“Au contraire,” he says. “I approve of my daughter studying Latin. Isabelle is to learn whatever is within her capabilities. And I believe her capabilities to be quite large.”
Puffed with importance, Isabelle stands tall beside her father.
“I will not have her hobbled by…by a limited education.” He pauses to be certain I have understood.
I have. My harsh sentiments toward him soften, but only slightly. Lafrenière is like Marguerite’s father. He goes without so that he can buy his daughter books, paper, ink, and candles. He shares with her his words and ideas. Isabelle often chatters about geography, alchemy, and God: conversations she has had with her father. I am leery, though, that Lafrenière has come to ask me to teach her to pray in Latin.
“If Isabelle is to learn Latin,” he continues, “then she must learn more than a list of words. I insist that she study conjugations, declensions, and syntax. May I see the Latin grammar you are using?”
“Of course.” I wave a hand toward the book.
He picks up the small grammar and caresses the tooled images on the leather cover. His expression softens and he looks as if he might bestow kisses upon the book. His hands, the fingernails clean and square, turn the vellum pages slowly, careful not to tear or crease them. “Bien, bien,” he murmurs, then “bona” in Latin. At long last, he lays the book aside and turns to me, as if his thoughts are now on Marguerite.
I wonder then if his expressed concerns about Latin are merely a ruse so that he can come to the school and examine more closely the creature who has lived on the Isle of Demons. Would Lafrenière use Isabelle to satisfy his own prurient interests? Perhaps he has instructed her to ask me questions about the island.
I do not try to tame the savagery lurking in my eyes.
He smoothes his neatly trimmed beard, all self-assurance gone. He takes a step closer. Too close. He smells of russet oak leaves and earth. “Madame de Roberval,” he says softly, “my brother knew Monsieur de Roberval…” His voice trails off.
“Half-brother,” Isabelle corrects. “My half-uncle.”
I step away from him. Lafrenière’s whispered confidences are of no interest to me. Most of the nobles knew Roberval. He charmed, and used, many.
Lafrenière looks at Isabelle then back at me. My disinterest surprises him, and he does not know how to proceed. I will not help him. I will answer no more questions about Roberval, Marguerite, or me.
He clears his throat. “I must go now,” he says to Isabelle. He straightens his shoulders and tugs at the hem of his doublet. “Learn your lessons well.” He nods curtly, then leaves.
“Embroidery,” I say. “You will all work on embroidery this morning.”
“Madame de Roberval,” says Isabelle, “might I study Latin? Please?”
“Non.” I take some satisfaction in her disappointed face.
She picks up my hand. Her small finger pokes at the blister. “What happened?” she asks maliciously. Then, without waiting for an answer, she drops my hand and flounces off to get her needles, thread, and hoops.
I curl my fingers over the blistered palm. I feel no pain now. I felt no pain then. Only dreadful cold.
I could not waste fat on my hands. They cracked and bled, but I felt nothing but the cold. The whole of my life was finding food and scratching a line on the wall for each passing day. The whole of my life was the ravens and the voices. I did not long for Michel or Michella. I did not long for rescue. I no longer cared about Roberval and his ships.
I longed only for food and warmth – and to meet who, or what, had left the packet of food and the silk bundle.
Isabelle’s fingertips are already dimpled and red with needle pricks. Her stitches are long and uneven, and the linen square is soiled with sweat from her hands.
I relent, as bored as she is with the tedium of embroidery. “You may study Latin now,” I say.
She grins at me and rushes to the grammar. She stops short, rubs her sweaty palms on her skirt, and resists touching the book. Bouncing up and down on her toes, she waits until I open it for her.
“Vocabulary for a while yet,” I say, “then perhaps, conjugation.”
Isabelle peers at the page. “Juth, jurith,” she tries to pronounce through her half-teeth.
“Jus, juris,” I repeat.
“Lexth, legith,” she lisps.
“Lex, legis.”
“Caesar! Expedition! ” she exclaims, pleased to have recognized a word. “Just like l’expédition.”
“Expeditio,” I correct. “The Latin is expeditio.”
“Was it very, very awful?” she asks cautiously.
Face rigid, I point at the Latin grammar. I will not listen to the questions her imperious father has instructed her to ask, and most certainly I will not answer.
Obediently she studies the page. After a few moments she whispers, “What was it like…being all alone? I would have been afraid.”
“Latin, Isabelle. You are studying Latin.”
She looks at me, her eyes coy. “What is the Latin word for Indians?”
“I do not know.” My words are cold and clipped. “Perhaps it would be barbarus.”
“Barbaruth,” she says softly, then bows her head and studies the words.
The morning after the next full moon the ravens led me to the second packet of food, in the same rock crevice. Again a rose silk bundle filled with dark shavings lay on top. I looked for tracks, but again could find none but my own and the ravens’.
Who had left the packets? Was a spirit laying bait the way I laid bait for gulls?
No matter. I was far too hungry and cold to turn away from the food and the warm furs.
I began to feel as if I were being watched. Someone – or something – knew I was there. It did not surprise me that the feeling was more comfort than threat.
Near the time of the next full moon the ravens persuaded me to conceal myself near the rock crevice. Wrapped in the warm furs that had been left with the packets, I kept watch for several days and nights, the ravens with me. Still, we nearly missed him.
He came at dusk, emerging silently from the fog. A tall figure clothed in thick dark hides, he carried a
packet similar to the other two. I looked about, wondering if others like him would spring out of the fog and kill me or take me captive, but there seemed to be no one else. Only him.
Kneeling on one knee, he cleared snow from the crevice and laid down the packet. When he pulled back his hood, I saw that his face was smooth and bronzed, neither frightful nor handsome. A black feather fastened atop his dark hair fluttered in the light wind, a rasping accompaniment to his murmured words. He spoke softly, his face tilted upward. Then he sang, the quavering melody like nothing I’d ever heard. The ravens listened, heads cocked, but feathers sleek and relaxed, as if they recognized his voice and his song. As if they knew him.
Small fingers touch my palm. Isabelle gasps. “Madame de Roberval, what happened?” This time her face is concerned.
“Nihilum.”
“Nothing?” she says.
I turn the page. “Continue your lessons.”
She looks at the blister, then back at the grammar. “Nihilum,” she says uncertainly. “Silentium, solitudo.”
I studied the kneeling figure, his head now bowed. An Indian? A spirit?
Who, or what, did he believe I was? A demon? One he could appease with gifts? Or did he believe me to be simply a woman in need?
My unfeeling numbness collapsed. I felt an unbearable ache. I wanted him to come to me – to love me or to kill me – but not to leave me alone. Not alone.
I stepped forward. Stay here! I begged. Please. Stay here.
His head jerked up. Startled, but neither afraid nor unafraid. Still kneeling, he watched me, as if waiting for me to speak again.
I took another step forward. Stay here, I asked again and reached out a hand. I wanted to touch him, to know that he was a man.
He placed before him the dried shavings he held in his hand. He stood, murmured a few words, and then slowly backed away from me, nodding and continuing to speak words I could not understand. I tried to follow, but he disappeared into the fog like an apparition.
It was dark, the moon covered by fog, and I could not see to follow his trail. By morning his trail, if there had ever been one, was covered with new snow, and I wondered if I had only conjured or dreamed his coming. Even so, I felt bereft.
“Desolatio,” Isabelle lisps.
“Desolatio,” I repeat, but I think of the packet of food, topped with the bundle of rose silk. And I remember the ebony feather.
“The Devil is quite active among the natives there.” The Franciscan leans toward me. “It would be understandable if demons troubled you while you were alone.” His smile is conspiratorial and expectant, as if his wheedling will prompt me to share secrets.
“Indeed, the Devil has so bewitched the natives they believe that those who die disappear like smoke,” he whispers, “and the soul is changed into wind or a raven or a bear.”
For my days are vanished like smoke…I am like a night raven in the house. Km-mm-mm.
“Did you see Indians while you were on the island?”
“Non, she did not.”
“No tracks, no signs? Nothing to indicate that anyone lived or traveled near the island?”
“Nihilum.”
“Nihilum?”
“Latin,Père. It means nothing.”
Thevet smoothes his cassock over his belly, then picks up a quill. I hear the rasp and remember another feather, a black feather with a purple sheen that turned in the wind.
I could think of nothing but him, not my hunger nor the cold. I ceased to care whether he was man or spirit. Every evening, holding the dark shavings in my hand just as he had held them, I waited near the crevice. I breathed in the heavy aromatic scent and hoped desperately he would come. Every morning I checked for packets, then went in search of tracks. The ravens came with me, but either could not, or would not, lead me to him.
Every night, awake or asleep, I dreamed of him.
The voices taunted:Le sauvage ou l’esprit. Le comportement scandaleux. And encouraged:L’amour et le désir. Le compagnon.
I dreamed of him coming to me and touching me as Michel had touched Marguerite. I could feel his lips on mine, his warm breath on my neck. I could see my face reflected in his mahogany eyes. My hands on my breasts and thighs became his hands, and my fingers explored his body beneath the deer hides. I woke to the scent of his skin, like the moss from which he had sprung.
When I found him again we would live on the island, just he and I. We would use only the language of touch and the calls of ravens. We would have no need for words, but I would learn his prayers and I would pray to the spirits of that place.
Thevet taps the nib of his quill against the paper, a steady tap-tap-tap. I look up and see a white weasel sitting on his shoulder, flicking its black-tipped tail, its pointed teeth bared at the monk’s impatience. “So strange that there were no Indians on the island,” he says. “Not even in spring, when the seals are there?”
“Non.”
“They are quite proficient in using seals.” He proceeds to explain once again how Indians use seals for food and clothes. “The Indians are quite clever, Marguerite…”
I pretend to listen.
I awoke one night to the sound of someone calling my name. Struggling up from sleep, I looked around in the dim light given off by the banked coals.
Michel, strong and robust, cheeks rosy, smile dazzling. He leaned forward to stroke my face. Marguerite, he said softly.Je t’aime. I love you.
I flinched away from his touch.Non, I said, I am not her.
His smile disappeared.La putain, he said. You have been unfaithful to me.
Marguerite loved you. I do not. Return from whence you came.
His lips parted to reveal a skull’s malevolent grin.
I come from nowhere, he said, and you will follow, faithless whore.
You were unfaithful to her, I countered. And unfaithful to Michella. You would not fight to live.
Michella? I know nothing of any Michella.
I slapped at his face. It was like slapping at fog. And then, like a flame snuffed, he was gone.
“The oil, reddish in colour, they drink with their meals…”
Just before the next full moon, I wrapped within a scrap of rose silk a pearl ring Marguerite had kept in the trunk. I tied the silk with sinew and placed it in the crevice where he had left the packets. I hoped the ring would show him, man or spirit, that I was only a woman.
I worried. Would he come? Or had I scared him away? When the seals arrived and then the ducks and seabirds, would he continue to bring food?
Did he believe that I hungered only for food?
I waited. Finally he came, emerging once again from the fog. I wanted to rush forward, but I held myself back. He laid down the packet and picked up the silk pouch. He was unhurried as he unwrapped the ring. He placed it in his palm, the pearl like a pale full moon. The feather in his hair danced in the soft wind.
I stepped forward then, my words soft but insistent, my hands clasped as if in prayer. Please, please, I begged, take me with you…or come, be with me. Do not leave me alone.
“Those natives who dwell inland towards Baccaleos are wicked and cruel.” The words slip into my ears as Thevet continues to lecture. “They mask their faces, not with masks or cloths, but by painting them with diverse colours, especially blue and red, so to render themselves hideous.”
The ravens mumbled and murmured:km-mmmm, km-mm-mm. I opened my hand to show him the bits of dried bark cradled in my palm. His dark eyes, as discerning as the ravens’, considered me, and I slowly extended two fingers to touch his black hair, as smooth as the rose silk. His cheek was solid and warm, and I saw a small white scar above his eyebrow. A man, not a spirit.
Ever so slowly, as if he were trying to capture a butterfly, he reached out and touched my lips, brushing a thumb across them, his warm fingers cupping my chin.
Lost in the pleasure and comfort of touch, I closed my eyes. Then I heard the ravens call out: quork-quork-quork, kek-kek-kek.
M
y eyes flew open. He was gone, vanished into the fog. The pearl ring and an ebony feather lay atop the square of rose silk.
“These men are big and strong and go around clothed in skins.” Thevet gives a small disdainful laugh. “They draw up their hair in a top-knot just like we bind up horses’ tails over here.”
“The feather.”
He nods. “Oui, they decorate themselves with feathers.”
I lift my palm to my nose and smell the heavy aroma of dried bark and leaves.
The Franciscan thrusts out his fat lower lip, his face perplexed. “How did you manage to survive that winter?”
“Ravens.”
“You ate ravens?”
“Non,Père, I followed them to food.”
“I!” he exclaims. “Finally you have said I.” He takes a deep satisfied breath as if he has just completed an arduous task. “At last…at long last, I have made you accept that you are Marguerite.”
He does not understand. He will never understand.
“Following the ravens? Clever, but was the food not already dead and rotting?” His face wears his revulsion. “Why did you not shoot something? A deer or a bear?”
“The powder lost its force.”
“How did you protect yourself?”
I shrug. “There was no need.”
“But you could not have lived on carrion.”
“I snared rabbits, ate tree bark and roots, seaweed.”
“You could not have survived an entire winter on that, Marguerite. You must have been helped…by something.”
I hear their voices:Saved by our grace, not God’s. Marguerite is dead, but you must live. Her sin, not yours.
“God,” I say flatly.
“God?”
I try to bolster my lies with enthusiasm. “When demons came to tempt me, screeching and howling, it was God who helped me, God who provided a shield against wolves and bears.” I wave my hands, palms out, my angry wound visible. I try to make my voice high and light, filled with awe. “It was as if his angels filled my belly. I did not hunger. When the angels appeared, the demons fled.”
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