The Mark of the King

by Jocelyn Green

  Upon opening the door, Francoise took Julianne’s elbow and led her immediately back to the bed. “I came as soon as I could get away.” Her cheeks were rouged, her mole placed perfectly near her eye, as usual. “Lisette tells me you’re ill?”

  Standing beside the bed, Lisette twisted the end of her flaxen braid around one finger as she looked earnestly at Julianne. The sun had darkened her freckles into a fine sprinkling of cinnamon across her nose. “I know you said you didn’t want visitors, Julianne, but I couldn’t just leave you alone.”

  “I don’t want you to get sick too,” Julianne said. If she had caught the illness from the soldiers, certainly anyone near her was exposed as well.

  “You think it’s the fever?” Francoise placed the back of her hand on Julianne’s brow. Frowned. “You don’t feel overly warm to me.”

  “I don’t know what it is. I haven’t been able to keep food in its place. As for fever, who can say when I’m constantly sweating from this heat!”

  Francoise stood back, folding her hands in front of her waist. “Is your pulse weak? Do you have chills?”

  Julianne shook her head.

  “Headaches?”

  “No, just the vomiting. Ever since I returned from the garrison.”

  Francoise pulled a wooden chair near the bed and lowered herself onto it, embroidered skirts fanning out from her stomacher. “I see. Does your body ache? Your joints, bones, muscles?”

  “None of that, but—” Words disappeared. Julianne’s eyes grew wide. She pressed her hands to her heart’s strong, steady beat. Her breasts were tender. How could I have missed it? She looked from Francoise’s knowing smile to Lisette’s worried eyes.

  “What is it?” Lisette breathed. “What’s wrong?”

  Julianne shook her head. “Nothing.” Reverent wonder wrapped around her. Something cracked open inside her and joy gushed forth, filling her completely, from her fingertips to her toes, until she almost feared she might burst from its pressure. She could only imagine how Simon would react upon learning he would be a father. Visions of him cradling a wee babe in his muscled arm danced in her mind.

  Francoise clapped her hands twice before clasping them and looking heavenward. “Praise be.”

  “Lisette,” Julianne whispered through her tears, “I think—I am very like to be with child.”

  “A baby!” Her blue eyes sparkling, the young woman beamed, the tiny space between her two front teeth rendering her smile all the more endearing.

  Shadows darkened the doorway. Julianne struggled to her feet when she saw Denise and two-month-old Angelique.

  “May we come in?” Denise asked, the baby in her arms swatting at a loose strand of her hair.

  “Yes, yes, there is no danger to you. I’m not ill. Except for what is very natural among those expecting a gift in six or seven months’ time.” The news burst from her before she considered that Simon should not be the last to know.

  Denise blanched. “Oh! Do you mean—”

  Unable to contain herself, Julianne kissed Angelique’s cheek. “I mean a gift rather like this little sack of sugar here.”

  “How—how very wonderful for you. You must take care of yourself, you know.” A tear spilled down Denise’s cheek as she laughed. “Of course you know. You must be your own best, most cooperative patient. Won’t you?”

  Jean Villeroy appeared in the doorway then, his face ashen. His knuckles grew white on the barrel of his gun.

  “Jean!” Julianne gestured for him to come inside. “Welcome home! Is Simon on his way too?” She craned her neck to look past Jean’s frame.

  “Um, no. He isn’t. Not in the way you think.” His footsteps fell heavily as he crossed to the far wall and hung his gun upon the pegs. No, Simon’s gun.

  Denise shook her head, her mouth screwed to one side. “Sit down.” She handed Angelique to Lisette and sat beside Julianne on the edge of the bed, crushing the dried moss inside the mattress.

  The hair rose on the back of Julianne’s neck. Dreadful news, unspoken, dangled in the air. She could feel it.

  Denise looked to Jean, but his splayed hand obscured his face. She drew a deep breath, swallowed. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident, ma chère.”

  Bitterness filled Julianne’s mouth, and her mind scrambled to distance herself from whatever was banking up in the quiet hesitation. Her gaze focused determinedly on the lace frothing at Denise’s elbows. Was it Venetian? Or was it made by the lace makers in Normandy’s Alençon, who had grown famous for their imitation? In the imperfect light, she squinted to see the hexagonal mesh and the bouquets of sunflowers fluttering whenever Denise moved.

  “At Natchez.” Jean’s words yanked Julianne back into the frontier territory she now called home. His eyes were shot through with red. “Simon wandered too far from camp one night. I don’t know what he was looking for.”

  Benjamin. He was looking for Benjamin. Julianne had no doubt of it. “And?”

  “And he went too far.”

  “I—I don’t understand what that means. Too far for what? Please, please speak plainly to me.”

  Jean tugged his deerskin shirt away from his thick neck. “The Indian slave who was with our group found his body.”

  The cabin spun. Denise wrapped her arm around Julianne’s shoulders, but numbness trickled through her until she couldn’t feel a thing. Dead? No. She shook her head, found herself staring again at the lace trimming Denise’s robe volante.

  “He’d been tomahawked in the back and scalped. We don’t know why.”

  “Was it the war? With the Chickasaw?”

  “There was no Chickasaw-Choctaw fighting in the area. He was the only one killed.” Jean dropped to his knees before her. “Forgive me, Julianne! I would have stopped him from going alone if I had seen him leave!” His face wrenched.

  Gasps sucked the air from the room, hands reached out to touch her arm, her knee, her cheek. A searing pain sliced through Julianne’s chest, as sharp as the blade that had killed Simon. Was there a more horrifying way to die? She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Her eyes squeezed shut, but images of her husband’s murder splashed brightly across her mind. Was he alive when the Indian scalped him? Her lips refused to frame such words. Instead, “Did he suffer?”

  Jean’s grip tightened on his knees. “The wound in his back would have killed him pretty quickly. Maybe—maybe he didn’t have enough time to know what was happening.”

  Or maybe he did. Maybe his last moments were filled with terror and agony as he died alone in a strange place. Arms folded over her stomach, Julianne bent her head and rocked on the edge of the bed she would never share with her husband again.

  “He’s at peace now, Julianne. Rest in that.” Francoise dabbed her handkerchief to Julianne’s tears, though she was crying too. “Believe me, imagining his end will do you no good.”

  A baby’s cry resounded in Julianne’s ears. Lisette swayed with Angelique, her expression twisted in sympathy, but Julianne heard her own baby crying from her womb. Loss stacked upon loss and settled on her chest. Breath could scarcely squeeze past its weight. Her baby would be fatherless because Simon went looking for Benjamin, who was already dead.

  Because she had begged him to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Since time had refused to halt while the boat delivered Simon from Natchez, no more of it was wasted in laying his body to rest. Surrounded by Francoise, Lisette, and the Villeroys, Julianne stood outside the settlement on the natural levee of the Mississippi River, the only ground high enough above the water table to accept the dead. Running Deer was there too, as well as the captain, crew, and soldiers who’d been on Simon’s boat. Beneath the blistering sun, the priest finished his prayer and made the sign of the cross.

  Julianne stared at the lid nailed tight to the coffin as men lowered it into the earth. Jean had advised her not to view the body before he’d been shut away forever. And so she would never see Simon again, save for in her mind.

  Rocks
clunked on the lid, and Julianne sent a questioning look to Francoise beside her.

  “To weigh it down.”

  Cringing, Julianne struggled not to picture water rising around and inside the coffin. The merciful numbness of her shock was beginning to give way to raw grief. Dirt sprayed and thudded on the pine board top until Simon was completely swallowed up by soil, buried in land he had never wanted to tread, let alone call his home. Now he could never be free of it. She rested her hands on her middle as she felt the tug of ties binding her to this place as well. For in this levee were the brother she had come to find and the husband who died while searching.

  “I’m sorry, madame.”

  With a jolt, Julianne realized the mourners were dispersing and coming to pay their respects. She nodded and thanked each one as they came, until Running Deer stood before her.

  “You found his body, didn’t you?” Julianne searched his dark eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Was he already—did he say anything before he passed?” She kept her voice low but could tell others were leaning in to catch the answer as well.

  “Sorry. Too late, I found. Too late.” Running Deer dipped his head, then went silently away.

  Waiting until everyone else had filed by, Denise, Jean, Lisette, and Francoise murmured tearful condolences.

  “Let us walk you home,” Jean offered while Denise adjusted Angelique’s bonnet to better shield the baby from the sun.

  Julianne shook her head. “I think—I’m not ready to leave. Just yet.”

  “Do you want me to stay with you?” Lisette placed her hand on Julianne’s arm. She had never said that she knew how it felt to be alone, but the empathy in the orphan’s blue eyes and soft manner held earnestness beyond measure.

  “No, thank you.” She smiled, hoping Lisette would understand. “I’m quite prepared to be alone for now.”

  “I’ll go to your cabin and prepare you a meal, then. If that’s all right with you.”

  Julianne had not even thought of food. Had no appetite whatsoever, between the baby and her grief. But she should try to eat. For her baby—Simon’s baby—she would try. “Oui, merci.”

  As her friends quietly departed, she turned back to her husband’s grave. Though the sun beat down on her back, she knelt on the ground and laid her hand on the dirt that covered him. Absently, she rolled the warm, damp grains between her fingers, inhaling the tangy scent of fresh-turned earth. From below the levee, the river added its own distinctive smell. Julianne’s stomach complained, but she ignored it. The skin on the back of her neck was being scorched by the sun, but she would not yet seek shade. She had things she needed to say.

  She wanted to tell Simon she was sorry for urging him to search for Benjamin, but she hadn’t known her brother was already dead. She wanted to tell him he was going to be a father, and that he would be a good one. She wanted to say they would learn how to be parents together, and that this baby was the greatest gift anyone had ever given her. She wanted to say that he was enough for her.

  But it was too late for Simon to hear. So she held all these things in her heart, tamping them down ever deeper with every pat she gave the mound of soil beside her.

  Cursing the meeting that had gone overlong with Bienville, Marc-Paul took long strides as he climbed the levee, determined to pay his respects to Julianne, if she should still be there. Part of him hoped the report he’d heard in the square of Simon LeGrange’s death and burial was a simple case of misinformation. Maybe Julianne and LeGrange were home in their cabin even now, and he was puffing up the bank for nothing.

  Then he saw her. She seemed so small, sitting on her heels, her blue gown fanned about her, her hand on the fresh grave, and he reconsidered the prudence of his plan. This was a private moment, almost sacred. It would be boorish to disturb.

  He could not guess how much time passed before she rose, clapped the dirt from her hands, and turned. He strode toward her.

  “I’m so sorry. If there is anything I can do. . . .” But as they neared each other, he saw accusation in her eyes. They met on the slope of the riverbank.

  “He died because he was looking for Benjamin.” There was venom in her words.

  “Your husband was—what did you say? Looking for Benjamin?”

  “He rowed to Natchez, and while he was there, he searched for my brother. Because I told him to. Because I didn’t know Benjamin was already dead.”

  Because Marc-Paul hadn’t told her soon enough. Another man she loved, another protector, dead. Because of him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew he was dead right away?” She spat the words at his feet. “If I had known, I never would have told Simon to make inquiries! He would not have left camp; he would still be alive!” She beat her fists on his chest. “If you had just told me from the beginning!”

  Marc-Paul caught her wrists before she struck him again. “I’ve done wrong. I should not have kept the truth from you for any reason, including my intention to spare you pain.”

  “Spare me!” She laughed and tried jerking free of his hold. “If that was your plan, you failed miserably!”

  He set his jaw. “I agree.” That he was the source of so much of her pain was unbearable.

  She stilled, and her eyes filled with tears. He released her, and she rubbed her wrists. God in heaven, if I left a mark on this woman . . . “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I lost my composure.”

  “Understandable.” Words failed him so wretchedly. He could not think of a single comfort to offer her. “Did you love him?” He bit his tongue for letting such a personal question escape.

  Sighing, Julianne looked past him for a moment before returning his steadfast gaze. “I loved him the best I could.”

  He nodded. “What will you do now?”

  She turned her face, and he traced the delicate line of her profile with his gaze. “I’m still a midwife—thanks to you. And a nurse. I have my friends. I have—” Her hand went to her stomach. “I have reasons to go on.”

  Mustering all his self-control, Marc-Paul did not closely examine her middle to measure its roundness. It’s my imagination. She can’t mean she’s with child. But maybe she was. A widowed bride with a baby on the way. Because he had not told her the truth. His gut recoiled at the thought that her child would be fatherless.

  “You will marry again, of course.” Unintentionally, his voice had assumed the tone he used with his troops.

  Julianne’s eyebrows arched high in her forehead. “This is what you say to a widow at the grave of her late husband?” She began marching down the riverbank, back toward the settlement.

  Marc-Paul accompanied her, kicking up dirt that clouded his white canvas gaiters. “Forgive my insensitive timing.”

  “You have much to be forgiven,” she muttered without looking at him.

  Granted. “But this is a matter of practicality, a matter of your safety. This is not Paris, where you can live comfortably in the upper apartment with neighbors who will keep track of you, whether from goodwill or for gossip. Let’s suppose you come home one day to find a scoundrel lying in wait for you in your cabin. Who would hear you if you screamed?” He paused to measure whether his warning created any reaction in Julianne whatsoever. But her face was stone. Would he need to describe every sort of unsavory character that populated the village and its outskirts? “New Orleans is no place for a single woman of virtue without a protector.”

  “Lisette is a single woman again.”

  “Lisette Dumont?” He sidestepped a crayfish chimney and almost set his heel on a sunning lizard. “Francoise told me she is staying at her inn indefinitely and has been hired to work in the kitchen to pay for it. She is safe at night. She is not alone.”

  They reached the bottom of the riverbank, and Julianne stopped. She turned to him with weary eyes and one fist on her hip. “Have you really never learned how to do this?”

  Suddenly feeling exposed, he tugged hi
s hat down over his forehead. “How to do what, madame?”

  “Condolences. It is customary, in our culture, to offer sympathy at the graveside, not make the bereaved tally her losses or fear for her future. Or have you been in the wilderness so long you’ve forgotten?”

  Her reproof stung as if she’d slapped him.

  “I have been forced to marry before, recall. I’ll not be forced into it again. Good day to you.”

  This time Marc-Paul did not follow her as she hastened from his side.

  Part Two

  Currents

  “If the Choctaws who serve as a rampart for us should once happen to be destroyed, we should be in a very insecure position.”

  —Sieur Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, 1711

  Chapter Twelve

  SEPTEMBER 1720

  The last burning days of summer curled away like dried corn husks. That month, between sun-soaked days and rain-drenched nights, Julianne delivered two babies safely into the colony, and then there were no more unborn children in New Orleans that she knew of, save her own.

  Which was not to say there were no more pregnant women in the settlement. Julianne suspected there were several. She had knocked on each of the cabins scattered about New Orleans, introducing herself as the sworn midwife should anyone in the household ever need her services. Of the four to five dozen women she had met, not everyone was convinced midwifery was even necessary, and of the few dozen female slaves and servants registered with the Superior Council, Julianne had only seen a handful.

  What she had seen in abundance, however, were men, more than half of them unmarried. Canadians idling between trapping seasons. Deserters whose sentences to the galleys had been commuted to exile in Louisiana. Reckless young men sent by their fathers to New Orleans by lettres de cachet. Gamblers who had crossed the ocean to outrun their debts. Fishermen. A few warehouse clerks, coopers, carpenters. Convicts like her. In her quest to reach the female population of New Orleans, she had unwittingly introduced herself to every bachelor in want of a wife. Julianne had been as impressed with them as the matrons in New Orleans had been with her.