Blood Brothers in Louisbourg

by Philip Roy

  The guards on the drawbridge knew I was coming and let me pass. I think they shared a joke on my account because I didn’t look anything like a soldier. I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone here, least of all the soldiers.

  The first door inside the Governor’s courtyard led into the fortress chapel, where I caught a glimpse of the priest, who did not appear to have cheered up at all. We continued on our way until I was led into the rooms of the Governor, where I stood and waited. But it wasn’t the Governor who wanted to see me at all. It was the rich merchant, Monsieur Anglaise. He got up from a chair next to the Governor and greeted me warmly. He seemed very happy to see me. I had no idea why.

  “Ahhhhh … Master Jacques! At last. Please come in. You have met the Governor.”

  He gestured towards the Governor. The Governor nodded and raised his hand frivolously but never said a word. I bowed deeply. “It has been my honour, sir.”

  M. Anglaise gestured for me to sit on a plush velvet chair in a corner of the room. Tea was brought in by a young maid and laid on an ornate serving table. I was impressed with the elegant décor of the room. It was as if a small piece of proper French society had been transported into the wilds of the New World.

  M. Anglaise was surprisingly talkative and appeared to have the answers to all of his questions before he even asked them. “Jacques. I understand you are an educated young man.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I have read a few books, sir.”

  “That is the answer of an educated man. Have you read Voltaire?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good! Then you know that there is at least one man in France who can tell the difference between a king and an opulent ass.”

  I started to smile then bit my lip. He changed his expression suddenly and stared at me intensely, not in an unfriendly way. “Words spoken in this room do not leave this room. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Have you read Michel de Montaigne?”

  “Yes, sir. Some.”

  “Good. Plato?”

  “Yes, sir. The dialogues.”

  “And The Republic?”

  “Not yet. I’m planning to.”

  “Ahhh, yes, you must! Then you will really understand where Voltaire is coming from.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A monarchy is an extravagant thing, Jacques. It’s too costly for any country. Plato understood that two thousand years ago.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I glanced at the Governor. I wondered what he thought of M. Anglaise calling the King an ass. It was probably treason, or blasphemy, punishable by death. But the Governor didn’t appear to be paying attention. He started coughing. M. Anglaise got up from his seat, crossed the room, put his hand on the Governor’s shoulder and squeezed it. Then he pulled it away and paced about the room thoughtfully. “Tell me, Jacques. Have you ever managed to read Boethius?”

  “The Consolation of Philosophy. Yes, sir.”

  “Ah, you are well educated indeed. How peculiar to have been raised in the home of a military engineer. I take it you don’t share your father’s views on war?”

  “No, sir. I believe the destiny of France lies in the spread of new ideas, not weapons.”

  “Indeed! A delightfully revolutionary view. Be careful you don’t find yourself in a dungeon, my passionate young scholar. You must know that Boethius bestowed his philosophy upon us from the confines of a dungeon, do you?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, indeed. He fell out of favour with the ruling elite. Do you understand the function of a dungeon, Jacques?”

  “To punish, sir?”

  “Not merely, Jacques. Not merely. The function of a dungeon is to destroy the spirit of a man. Our engineers are proud of their dungeons. They claim they are escape-proof.”

  M. Anglaise stopped pacing and stared out the window. He seemed far away. “But I don’t imagine we have a Boethius in our dungeon now.”

  “No, sir. Is there anyone in the dungeon, sir?”

  M. Anglaise raised his eyebrows and deferred the question to the Governor. The Governor wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and answered dryly. “What? Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. A few drunks, I think.”

  M. Anglaise looked out the window again. I still didn’t know why he had summoned me. “Tell me, Jacques. Do you subscribe to the notion of the ‘noble savage'?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I have read about it. Having never seen one, I don’t know what to think.”

  “It is a romantic notion, but there must be something to it. All our great writers have written of it. I am afraid we are a poor influence on the Natives here, Jacques. They still trust us though we steal their land and kill them with disease. Certainly, if there are noble people in the New World it is not the French.”

  He turned from the window and faced me again. “The reason I have asked you here, Jacques, is that I have a daughter. She is a delicate and intelligent creature, the treasure of my heart. Celestine is her name. She is almost sixteen, and, like you, comes from good society and is well educated. Her mother died three years ago. It was a loss from which she has not recovered. I was unwilling to leave her behind, and, against my better judgment, brought her here, where I believe she is unhappy. Well … I know she is unhappy. I understand that you are accomplished in the playing of the violoncello, is this true?”

  “It is my passion, sir.”

  “Excellent! Celestine enjoys the violoncello more than anything else. I do not know if she has any talent; she has not benefited from expert teaching and I am tone deaf. If you would be willing to commit some of your time and energy to her musical education, thereby bringing a few rays of sunshine into her dreary existence, I would be most grateful and will, in return, compensate you during your stay here in any way that I can.”

  “I would be honoured, sir.”

  “Splendid! That is what I hoped you would say. You will find her in the sitting room upstairs. Please don’t be put off by her dour disposition and reticence. She has a cheery heart, really, and a sharp wit too if you can coax it out of her. It has not been an easy thing for her to spend so much time amongst the likes of soldiers and fishermen.”

  “I will do my best, sir.”

  He smiled, nodded his head and turned his back to me. I took that as a sign to leave. I bowed respectfully and left the room.

  I climbed the stairs and stood at the doorway to the upper sitting room. It was just as fancy as downstairs. A maid stood in my way, told me to wait, then came back and led me into the room.

  As I entered, I saw a shy but pretty girl turn from her writing desk and look up. She said a word or two to the maid and, like a lady, held out her hand to me. I crossed the room, took it and lightly kissed it. She had the look of someone who had been ill, though her cheeks were rosy. Probably they were coloured with powder. Her dress, ribbons, jewellery and shoes were all the latest fashion in France and were quite elegant. The fragrance of her perfume made me think of flowers. We could have been in any drawing room in Paris, in any capital of Europe really, anywhere but in the New World.

  As a well-trained young lady she looked directly into my eyes and made an effort to smile. But it wasn’t very convincing. Her lips curled up but the corners of her mouth stayed down as if they were weighted with bags of salt. Her eyes looked tired and wounded. The wound was deep. I bowed my head. “I am honoured to meet you, Mademoiselle.”

  Chapter Six

  The bones lay curled up like an infant beneath her deerskin clothing. The skin was gone but hair still graced the skull like soft brown autumn grass. The bones of her feet disappeared inside rabbit-fur moccasins. She had crawled in on a winter’s day.

  Two-feathers stared for a very long time. The sacred tree was a very fitting resting p
lace for his mother; he was not upset to have found her so. And yet, the certainty that she had gone into the spirit world opened a fresh wound in his heart for which there was no medicine. The only weapon against such pain was acceptance. But it did not sit as well as it might have. Half of his quest still lay unsolved.

  He took his time and prepared a comfortable camp where he would stay for a few days. He wanted to say many prayers in honour of his mother. And so he cut the stems of young poplar trees, peeled wide sheets of bark from old birch trees and fashioned a small teepee. In front of it he dug a pit and rounded it with stones. There he lit a fire that he kept going for three days. He searched the melting woods for the roots of plants, which he burned for their ceremonial scent, all the while chanting words of remembrance and acceptance.

  On the third day, Two-feathers constructed a mortar out of clay and dead grass. He slowly kneaded the mixture next to the fire inside the teepee, while spring rain fell outside. It was his intention to seal the opening of the sacred tree and preserve his mother’s final resting place. When the mortar was ready he decided to take one final gaze at his mother’s bones. The rain fell against his back as he squeezed the front of his torso into the tree. After a few minutes his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He whispered his final goodbye. But just as he was about to leave, the sun appeared from behind a cloud, even as the rain continued to fall. A ray of the sun’s light pierced the darkness within the tree and reflected off something shiny among the bones of his mother’s ribs. Curious, Two-feathers reached inside and picked up the shiny piece. It was a smooth, turquoise stone pendant attached to a strip of leather. Powerful memories flooded his head. The little stone, with a woman’s face etched into it, was familiar to him. Images of it dangling above his outstretched arms came to him. Had not his mother bent over his bed with the shiny stone swinging above him? Hadn’t he reached for it while she spoke loving words to him, and sang to him?

  Two-feathers felt the wound tear fresh in his heart as he squeezed the stone in his palm. But the pain faded quickly, like waking from a hurtful dream, and he thanked his mother’s spirit for the precious gift, fitted the stone around his neck and began to seal the tree.

  —

  The evidence of trading parties showed as Two-feathers grew closer to the bluecoats’ great village. Old campsites littered the woods. Drinking jugs, discarded snowshoes, broken sleds and tools stuck out of the snow here and there. The woods became thin. For every tree now there were two or three stumps. Had the bluecoats come so far to feed the fires of their village? As cautious as a fox he examined everything he passed. He would not walk blindly into a place he did not know, amongst a people with whom he did not belong. But soon he came upon a small group that included some of his own people. There were two older warriors, a younger one and a couple of white-skinned warriors. All were acting strangely. At first he thought they were sick. They were swaying back and forth and falling down. But they were also singing and laughing and shouting. After he watched them for a while he realized they were also drinking, just like the redcoats he had passed, only this drink was making them lose their minds. Two-feathers remembered the warnings of his elders and felt that he should help these warriors, even though they were older than him. And so he strode right into their company, pulled the drink from their hands and started spilling it onto the ground.

  “No! No!” shouted the warriors. “What are you doing? Stop!” They swung at him in an effort to stop him. But he easily avoided their blows.

  “This drink is making you sick,” said Two-feathers.

  “No!” they screamed. “This is good drink! This is very good drink! Who do you think you are, taking our drink away? Give it back. This is ours. Who are you?”

  “I am Mi’kmaq,” said Two-feathers. “Like you.”

  “No!” said an older warrior. “You are not Mi’kmaq. You are Métis. Your father is a Frenchman. I see it in your face. Your blue eyes.”

  “I am looking for my father,” said Two-feathers. “That is why I have come.”

  The men started to laugh. “You are looking for your father? Amongst the French? You will have to look at many men, my son. Perhaps you will find that you have many fathers.”

  They laughed harder. Two-feathers felt insulted but did not want to show it. He had never seen Mi’kmaq behave this way. He felt embarrassed for them and wanted to leave.

  “Ah, come and have a drink with us, young warrior. Come and taste the French drink. You will like it. Come! Come and drink with us!”

  “No!” said Two-feathers. “I will not drink that poison. I will leave now. I wish you many safe days of travel and many blessings.”

  “But we are not going anywhere! Come! Come and drink with us!”

  Two-feathers waved respectfully and walked away. He was upset and confused. He had never seen Mi’kmaq warriors act this way before. They had called him “Métis,” which meant “mixed blood.” It was true; he was of mixed blood. But no Mi’kmaq had ever said that to his face before. No one had ever suggested he didn’t belong. It was a disturbing thought. If he didn’t belong with the Mi’kmaq, with whom did he belong? It surely wasn’t the bluecoats.

  He crossed a hill and picked up the taste of salt in the air. Climbing to the top of a tree, he saw the great water spread out at the base of the sky. In the distance were little huts here and there with fires burning. More distantly, jutting into the great water was the bluecoats’ village. From a distance it didn’t seem so impressive, but what was impressive was how much of the woods had been consumed. Fields of stumps spread out as far as he could see and beyond. New, fledgling trees had sprouted. From field to field he could judge the age of the cutting by the height of the new trees. The bluecoats had been cutting trees for twice his age.

  To the right, closest to the great water, was a swamp where no trees grew at all. This would be the least desirable approach to the village. No one would ever camp there. This was the way he would go.

  Chapter Seven

  She sat stiffly, held the bow too tightly and cradled the violoncello so awkwardly between her knees she looked like she was trying to climb a tree. Yet she put her heart and soul into playing a little song by an old French master that might have sounded pleasant if the bow had been tightened enough, rosined enough and she didn’t pull it crookedly across the strings so that the tone was dry and shallow, like the breathing of a dying invalid. She was trying so hard. How on earth she had managed to stay sane at Louisbourg was beyond me. She had courage.

  “It makes me feel happy when I play,” she said nervously, “but I’m not very good at it.”

  I smiled politely. “You’re not so bad. Would you mind if I tried it?”

  “Please! I would love to hear what it is supposed to sound like.”

  I picked up the violoncello. It was light, delicate and designed like a perfect pear. I saw from the inscription inside the belly that it had been made by one of the best craftsmen in Paris. I tuned it, tightened the bow, rosined it, took a seat opposite her and held the instrument between my knees. The memory of my father throwing my own violoncello into the sea flooded me as I shut my eyes and pulled the bow across the strings. It sang! Sound emerged from its belly and echoed around the room like a booming drum. It was beautiful. I took a breath and began the first of the Bach suites.

  The bow danced across the strings and the violoncello sang like a tenor angel. For a few moments I completely forgot where I was. Never before had I played with such bittersweet joy, which was ironic considering where we were. When I finished playing and opened my eyes I saw tears running down Celestine’s cheeks, though she was smiling and her face was lit like a candle.

  “That was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard,” she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “I cannot believe we were playing the same instrument. It is so beautiful. Please teach me to p
lay, Master Jacques? If you will, I promise you I will practice so very hard. I cannot promise I will have talent, but I will apply myself most earnestly.”

  That much I could believe. “Mademoiselle, it would be an honour to share my musical training with you.”

  We started right away. For the first lesson we covered the basics of correct posture and handling of the bow and instrument. We quickly discovered that it was impossible for Celestine to hold the violoncello properly because of her dress. The dress fell in thick folds of rich silk and was bordered at the hem with heavy lace. It showed just how determined she was to learn that she simply raised the dress above her knees, revealing skinny calves, folded the silk tightly beneath her thighs and pulled the instrument to a proper position. This was hardly a fitting thing for a young lady to do and it didn’t surprise me that the maid quickly left the room, no doubt to run down and tell M. Anglaise. But she came straight back with a heavy frown on her face and never said a word, so he must have approved.

  We continued the lesson for nearly two hours. Celestine had a lot of energy for a sickly looking girl. I think I was more tired than she was by the end of it. I bowed, she curtsied and I promised to return the next day. Stepping out into the promising sunshine I took a deep breath and smiled. Perhaps Louisbourg wasn’t going to be the horrible ordeal I had expected it to be. Then I ran directly into my father.

  “Jacques! I have been looking everywhere for you. Been up to see the Governor, have you? Well, I hope he has set you straight on a few things. Come now. Hurry! I have found a uniform for you. There are so many things to do. Today is the day, Jacques, the day to set aside all of your childish ideas.”

  “A uniform …?”

  “Of course a uniform! We are a country at war. You will take your part in defending the King from the enemy.”

  “The English?”

  “Of course the English!”

  “Some of my friends are English.”