by Beth White
Mama used to always tell her that “pride goes before a fall,” which was apparently somewhere in the Bible. Ysabeau’s misadventures certainly proved it. The girl had been proud as a peacock.
Now here she was in the middle of town in broad daylight, barefoot as a yard dog and dressed in nothing but her shift and petticoat, with her head inside the well. It was entirely too much.
Aimée dropped the bucket in the dirt and marched over to join Noël and Jeanne. “What on earth is she doing?” She could hear Ysabeau’s high, sweet voice echoing from the well like the keening of the wind on a winter night in the Cévennes. “Is she singing?”
“I—I d-don’t know,” Noël stuttered. “It s-sounds like it.”
“How long has she been there?”
Even the stately Jeanne looked worried. “At least an hour . . . maybe more. Noël and I tried to get her to come out, but she just ignores us.”
“This is unacceptable! She must go home and put on her dress.”
Noël wrung her hands. “Do you suppose she’s ill? Maybe she has the fever too.”
Aimée snorted. “She was perfectly healthy at mass yesterday morning. Where is her husband? Monsieur Connard is responsible for her now.”
“I don’t know him,” said Jeanne. “I think he is a soldier. Perhaps he is on duty.”
Aimée looked at Noël, who shrugged. She stamped her foot. “You two are no help at all!” She would just have to take care of it herself.
She reached Ysabeau in three quick strides. It was worse than she’d feared. Not only was Ysabeau en déshabillé below the waist, her lacy shift was covered only by a loosely fastened corset, leaving her back and shoulders almost completely bare. Her beautiful mane of red-gold curls hung loose against the slimy brick walls of the well, her arms dangling like pale ropes. She was looking down into the darkness as if into an oracle.
Aimée planted her hands on the rim of the well. “Ysabeau! Stand up this minute! You are getting your hair wet and dirty. What will Commander Bienville think of this behavior?” She waited, but Ysabeau only continued to sing in that thin, unearthly soprano, words that Aimée finally recognized as the nursery song she herself had been singing on the way to the market.
Shivers prickled her arms and crept up the nape of her neck into her scalp as Ysabeau warbled into the well,
Fishing for mussels,
I no longer want to go, Mommy,
Fishing for mussels,
I no longer want to go.
The boys from Marennes,
They left me, Mommy,
The boys from Marennes,
They left me.
I shouldn’t have believed
All their fine vows, Mommy,
I shouldn’t have believed
All their fine vows.
Boys are fickle
Like rain and wind, Mommy,
Boys are fickle
Like rain and wind.
Girls are faithful
Like gold and silver, Mommy,
Girls are faithful
Like gold and silver.
Shaking off her momentary paralysis, Aimée seized Ysabeau by the waist and pulled. At first Ysabeau was limp as a sack of flour. But she stiffened, her voice escalating into a shriek, as Aimée pulled her backward, scraping her bosom and chin against the bricks. Ysabeau began to buck and flail her arms.
“Ysabeau! I’m trying to help you!” Aimée dodged Ysabeau’s elbows. “Let me take you home, there’s a good girl. Where’s your—where is René? He will miss you, and you can’t stay out here in public with nothing—Stop it!” Aimée looked around to find both Noël and Jeanne gawking at her like a couple of ninnies. “Jeanne, go get her husband! Or get one of the guards! Hurry!”
Jeanne recovered and hurried away in the direction of the fort, clearly relieved to have something useful to do.
“Noël! Come help me. She’s going to hurt herself. Ow!” Ysabeau had just elbowed her in the eye socket. Freshly indignant, Aimée gave one more tug and went reeling backward to land on her rump with an undignified “oof,” Ysabeau in her lap. Shoving the girl off into the dirt, Aimée scrambled to her feet, shaking with righteous indignation.
Noël crept closer. “I’m so sorry, Ysabeau—I don’t know how to help. Are you all right?”
“Is she all right?” Aimée rounded on Noël. “I’m the one with a black eye!” When Noël backed away, bleating another apology, Aimée made a disgusted noise and glared down at Ysabeau. She was sobbing like a child, fists knotted against her eyes. Her dirty hair streamed over her shoulders and bosom, curling past her waist. “What is the matter with you, Ysette? You cannot come out of doors dressed like a strumpet.”
Ysabeau peeked through her fingers. Her swollen eyes were red, and her nose was running. “No one wants me,” she said dully. “Papa says I must get on the boat in the morning.”
Ignoring her throbbing eye, Aimée knelt beside Ysabeau and took her by the shoulders. “Your papa is in France. Did you have a bad dream?”
Ysabeau picked at her fingernails. “There isn’t enough money for all of us. The baby is dead. Dresses and shoes cost too much. I must go to New France and find a husband.”
“What are you talking about? You married René Connard nearly a week ago!” Aimée shook Ysabeau hard. “Wake up, you stupid goose!”
“Fishing for mussels I no longer want to go, Mommy,” Ysabeau sang sweetly, “fishing for mussels I no longer want to go.” She folded her legs crisscross and began to play with her hair.
Aimée stared at the girl, listening to the heartbreaking rhyme that used to make her think of her own mama. Something had happened to send Ysabeau into an interior place that no one else could reach. In the docile acceptance of the same winds of fate which had blown her from home to an alien wilderness, from man to man to man, she had succumbed to some illusion of childhood, and there was no saying if or when she might emerge.
Terror shook her for a moment. She released Ysabeau’s shoulders and instinctively looked around for Geneviève to tell her what to do. But Ginette was married now and had moved in over the tavern so that she could bake bread for the Burelles. For the first time in her life, Aimée was responsible for her own decisions.
There was only mousy Noël, wringing her hands, staring wide-eyed at Ysabeau.
Then she saw a group of men and women coming toward the marketplace, led by Françoise Dubonnier, who carried a folded length of gray cloth over one arm, with Father Henri limping just behind her. Jeanne and her husband, Nicolas de La Salle, trooped along in the rear in company with a couple of uniformed soldiers. Conspicuously missing was René Connard. Could Connard himself be at the root of Ysabeau’s madness?
Aimée’s aggravation abruptly turned to pity. She put a protective arm around Ysabeau. “Françoise! Make these men go away. Where is Monsieur Connard?” She glared at the priest, whose florid face was purple with disapproval as he inspected Ysabeau’s state of undress. He might be a holy father, but he had no right to stare so. “Ysabeau, be quiet,” she pleaded in a whisper. “What if they arrest you?”
Ysabeau continued to sing, twisting a lock of red-gold hair round her finger.
To Aimée’s relief, Françoise knelt in front of Ysabeau, shielding her from the eyes of the men. “How long has she been like this?” she asked quietly, wrapping the length of fabric she carried around the girl’s shoulders.
“I found her leaning headfirst into the well, when I came to get water about thirty minutes ago.” Aimée didn’t particularly like the bossy Françoise, but she had her uses. “What happened to her husband? What did he do to her?”
“He seems to have disappeared.” Françoise bit her lip. “The commander sent me to escort her in for questioning, and Father Henri insisted on coming.” She glanced over her shoulder.
“Questioning her is pointless. She thinks she’s back in France, about to board the Pélican. And she mentioned a dead baby!”
“Oh dear.” Françoise took Ysabeau’s face
in her hands and attempted to catch her gaze.
But Ysabeau’s vacant gray eyes followed the flight of a bird that chased overhead.
“I could take her home with me. I’m sure Madame wouldn’t mind.” She didn’t know any such thing, but what else was she to do? Ysabeau and René had been living with Paul Loisel until René could afford to build a house of their own. Ysabeau could hardly live alone with the widower, and Françoise had moved in with the La Salles, who were otherwise overcrowded with children.
Françoise looked doubtful. “I wish Father Mathieu were here to advise us. I suppose we’d best take her to the commander first. He’ll know what to do.”
“I hardly think that wise.” Father Henri, who had limped close enough to overhear their quiet conversation, stood with his arms folded, looking disapproving. “Bienville is a notorious womanizer who cannot be trusted with young unmarried women.”
“Ysabeau is married,” Aimée said, “and—and the commander gave a direct order. Besides, Françoise and I will be with her.” She glanced at Jeanne and her stodgy husband. “As will the La Salles, I’m sure.”
Father Henri looked affronted at her defiance but stepped aside when the soldiers responded to Aimée’s beckoning. The two young men hoisted Ysabeau to her feet, the younger one reddening when she smiled up at him and clung to his arm.
“My papa said I should watch out for sailors, especially the handsome ones. I’m to remain a maiden until I get to Louisiane.” She flirted her long eyelashes. “But perhaps we could dance under the stars after we get under way. Papa will never know.”
Father Henri looked scandalized, but Aimée took his arm and pulled him in the direction of the fort. “Come, gentlemen,” she said over her shoulder to the soldiers. “The commander will be waiting for us. Françoise, watch out for her, I beg you. She mustn’t be left alone again.” Without giving anyone else a chance to argue, she towed the priest out of earshot of Ysabeau’s babbling.
But inside her head, the nursery song filtered like an evil wraith. Girls are faithful like gold and silver, Mommy, boys are fickle like rain and wind.
13
As Geneviève examined Dufresne’s bleeding ear, two small Indian boys, as like as puppies from the same litter, stepped into the clearing. One of them held a miniature longbow and had a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. The other, carrying a dead pheasant, leaned over to jabber in his brother’s ear, pointing first to Dufresne, then in the direction from which they had come. The boy with the bow looked frightened and turned as if to run.
“Wait!” Geneviève called. “We need help!” She doubted they understood French, but they seemed to interpret her frantic gesture.
They turned back to regard her with big, scared brown eyes. The hair of both was chopped off at the eyebrows and hung in ragged brown clumps about their naked shoulders. Both boys wore breechclouts made of woven palm fronds but not a stitch more. Their skin was dark teak from exposure to the sun, but lacked the olive tint Geneviève had noted in the native peoples with whom she had previously come in contact. She put them at no more than six years of age, probably less.
“Let them go,” Dufresne growled, hand to his ear. “I’ll tell the chief who did this, and they’ll be sorely punished.”
The boy with the bird stepped forward, motioning to his cowering companion to stay put. His little cleft chin was elevated, his posture proud. “Madame and monsieur, my brother sorry. Shoot for turkey. He miss.”
“Accidents happen,” Geneviève said, trying not to laugh. Dufresne wouldn’t consider this a funny situation. “I am Geneviève. What is your name?”
“I am Tonaw.” Tonaw flung a hand backward and whacked the other boy on the chest. “My brother is Chazeh.”
Chazeh nodded without speaking, and Geneviève got the feeling Tonaw did most of the talking for the two of them. She thought of Émile and Serge and smiled. “You speak French very well.”
“My mother is good French lady. She teach.”
“Their mother is the woman we are going to see.” Dufresne walked around the little boys with barely a glance, gesturing for Geneviève to follow. Clearly he was tired of wasting time in conversation with children. “Nika is the best cook in the village. Her mother-in-law is a gifted medicine woman too, and I’m hoping she will do something about the notch in my ear.”
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” Geneviève followed Dufresne, but paused to look over her shoulder. “Boys, will you come with us?”
Chazeh shook his head, looking frightened, while Tonaw shot a resentful glare at the French officer’s back. “Yes, but mademoiselle, please do not tell that Chazeh shot the rooster-head. She mistake him for turkey and put him in the stew pot!”
She couldn’t help a shout of laughter. “I promise,” she said, laying a finger over her lips. The mischievous dimple in the boy’s brown cheek put her in mind of someone, but unable to put an exact face or name with the image, she shrugged it off and beckoned the children to walk with her in Dufresne’s wake.
In less than fifteen minutes, they reached the first hogans of the Mobile village. The two little boys ran ahead toward a one-room cottage thatched with palm fronds on a wooden pole frame. The slatted floor had been cleverly tied a foot or so off the ground, no doubt in deference to the nearby creek’s tendency to overflow its banks. Near the cottage was a small lattice-type enclosure made of river cane, in which a few chickens scratched and squawked, with a fat pig lolling in a muddy trough nearby.
In response to the boys’ shouts of greeting, a pretty young Indian woman appeared at the cottage’s open doorway. She answered in their own language, shooing them away on some errand, then lifted her hand to shield her eyes as Geneviève and Dufresne approached. She seemed to recognize the aide-major, but her expression was cautious as she looked past him at Geneviève.
Geneviève raised a hand in greeting as Dufresne turned and waited, scowling, until she caught up to him. She supposed she could hardly blame him for his bad temper. His wounded ear, still dripping blood onto the shoulder of his uniform, probably stung like fire.
“Nika, I have brought a friend to visit,” he said in French, drawing Geneviève’s hand through his arm. “This is Mademoiselle Gaillain—I mean Madame Lanier—newly come here from France. She would like to learn about cooking with native plants and herbs. I told her you’re the best cook in the village.”
“You are—Lanier, you say?” The young woman had shot a startled glance at Geneviève, then quickly schooled her expression into a smile. “The elusive Captain Marc-Antoine Lanier married at last?”
Geneviève shook her head. “No, his brother, Tristan.”
“Ah.” Nika’s smile neither grew nor dimmed, and Geneviève couldn’t tell what she made of the distinction.
She did her best to present a friendly mien. “My husband has gone as part of a peace contingent sent to the Alabama territory. I decided to occupy my time in learning to feed him.” Of course there was every chance that Tristan wouldn’t come back, but speaking that aloud wouldn’t help anything.
“The Alabama will not be easy to persuade, madame. A warlike people they are.”
“Please, call me Geneviève—or better yet, Ginette, as my friends do.” She impulsively held out her hands, sensing that the Indian woman might become a truer friend than the women of her own race. “I know my husband is on a dangerous mission. But I trust his life to God.”
Dufresne rolled his eyes. “You ladies will get along much better without me. I have business with the chief. Nika, is Mitannu in the village today?”
“He is with his father.” The Indian woman looked as if she wanted to question him, but with a quick glance at Geneviève, she stepped back. “Come inside, madame. You are welcome.”
“Madame, I’ll come for you—” Dufresne pulled a pocket watch from inside his coat and consulted it—“in three hours. I want to be back inside the fort well before dark.”
Geneviève addressed Nika. “Have you that much time to spa
re?”
“Of course.” Nika smiled and waved a dismissive gesture at Dufresne. “You are correct, sir. You are not needed.”
Dufresne bowed an ironical farewell, turned smartly on his high-heeled boots, and strode off toward the largest hogan in the village.
As Nika welcomed her into her home, Geneviève wondered what Dufresne’s business could be, then found herself caught up in studying the native cottage. Simple, clean, and neat, she decided. The thatched roof seemed to be well-made, for the floors, walls, and bedding—which had been rolled up and tied in bundles in one corner—were all dry and fragrant. Simple braided mats lay scattered over the raised floor, and Nika gestured for Geneviève to seat herself on one as she herself collapsed upon another.
“Your home is lovely,” Geneviève said politely, not quite sure how to start a conversation with one whose life was so entirely foreign to her own. “This is the first Indian house I have been in.”
Nika looked pleased. “Thank you. But it makes me laugh to be called an Indian. I believe our territories were mistakenly assumed to be the near eastern continent by your first explorers. Our clans and nations are as diverse, with regard to language and cultural habits, as are your own in Europe. It would be as if I lumped you and your countrymen with the Chinese.”
Geneviève laughed. “I see how that would be insulting. I’m sorry.”
Nika waved away the apology. “I find it funny.” Her smile faltered. “My husband, however, is not so easily amused. If you meet Mitannu, please do not call him anything other than Mobilian—or his name.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Thank you.” Nika tilted her head so that her heavy black hair swung over her shoulder. “You are the first Frenchwoman to visit the village. Are you not afraid I will kill you and eat you for dinner?”