The Mark of the King

by Jocelyn Green

  The green eyes Pascal turned on her were pleading. “Help me,” he rasped through cracked and blistered lips.

  After signaling to Etienne to fetch brandy from Running Deer, Julianne hurried to open her jar of ointment. She knew without asking that no one had tended these wounds, not even his slaves. She knew Dancing Brook’s reasons but wondered if Running Deer had his own for watching his master suffer, or if he merely had not known how to help. Julianne’s conscience pricked her. She’d been wrong to believe seeing Pascal like this wouldn’t bother her. She still hated what this man had done, but she eked no pleasure from his pain. Bitterness receded, and pity grew in its place.

  “Officer Dupree, I have an ointment of comfrey here that will help your skin heal. I’ll be as tender as I can as I apply it.”

  Etienne returned with a bottle and cup, and Julianne urged Pascal to drink it. Brandy dribbled down his stubbled chin, and she dabbed it with a napkin. How handsome he had once been, she mused. How fleeting his charm.

  With the utmost delicacy, she bent and dabbed the herbal concoction onto Pascal’s raw skin with her fingertip, beginning near his hairline. As she moved further down his face, he began to shake.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and paused to straighten her aching back.

  “Do it,” he muttered, and the alcohol on his breath pinched her nose. He groaned as she continued, and veins pulsed on his arched neck.

  Oh, the agony she could inflict on him now! Though Francoise’s gentle words still echoed in her mind, the stripes on her back tingled as if urging retribution. Despite the pity she felt for him, in the dark corners of her heart, the embers of her hatred still glowed.

  Outside, rain suddenly pounded the earth like a steed under spurs. It sprayed in between the window frame and the oiled linen shade, misting Julianne as she worked. Etienne sprang forward and held the shade in place.

  “Marc-Paul,” Pascal said with ragged voice. “How does he fare?”

  Julianne cocked her head, surprised that he should inquire. “He does well, considering.”

  He pursed his lips and grunted. “I have no ill will toward him, you know. I never did. Did he send you to me today?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then why come?”

  “I told you,” she sighed. “To offer relief.” She replaced the lid on her jar of ointment. “I’ll leave this here so you can apply it again yourself, as needed. Now I’ll visit Dancing Brook and then be on my way.”

  His eyes hardened into cool jade. “No you won’t.”

  “Pardon me?”

  Pascal turned his face toward the storm outside. “She’s run away.”

  Julianne’s breath hitched. Sadness and hope vied for the upper hand, for while she was sorry she would never see the young woman again, she could only rejoice that Dancing Brook was free and pray for her safe and happy reunion with her family.

  Quietly, Julianne bid Pascal adieu, and Etienne escorted her outside onto the gallery. Already she could see water collecting in footprints on the ground. Her mules would be ruined in the mud.

  “Just a moment, if you please.” Turning her back to Etienne, she sat in one of the chairs and removed her shoes, untied her ribbon garters, and peeled her stockings from her feet. She stuffed them all into her apron pockets, resolved to go barefoot instead.

  Just as they were about to step off the gallery, lightning flashed behind Pascal’s house.

  “Oh! Before we go, Etienne, give me a moment to fetch some more herbs from the woods along the bayou. Dancing Brook showed me right where to get them, and I know I’ll need extra for Marc-Paul. Stay here out of the rain, if you like.”

  “And let you have all the fun playing in the mud? Not at all!” Lightning stabbed the sky once more, illuminating Etienne’s grin. “Lead the way.”

  Julianne pulled the hood of her cape over her head, raised the hem of her skirts, and dashed out into the rain. Sand squished between her toes as she ran along a ridge through the swamp surrounding Pascal’s property. The sky was the color of wet stone, and the copper foliage on the bald cypress trees more vivid by contrast. Etienne was close at her heels when she came to a halt on the higher ground bordering the bayou.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” He sat in the crook of a live oak limb to catch his breath.

  “Clusters of tall, dark-green straws.” Her hair clung to her rain-dampened neck as she stooped to inspect the ground. Overhead, the naked trees shook in the wind. “When taken as a strong tea, it’s good for blood infections. I want to keep giving it to Marc-Paul just in case that arrowhead was dipped in poison.”

  “So it’s green straws against poisoned arrows, eh?”

  Julianne chuckled as Etienne pushed himself off his perch and slowly paced between dwarf palmettos. “Every precaution, Etienne. Every precaution.” Her feet sank deeper into the soft ground as she searched. “Found some!” Squeezing her skirts between her knees, she made a spade of her hand and dug deep under the plant. If she could lift it out with some roots intact, she’d replant it in Etienne’s garden. “Voilà!” Triumphant, she presented the plant cupped in her hands.

  “Allow me.” Etienne took it from her, and she wiped her hands on her apron.

  The mud was up to her ankles now. She turned on the ball of her foot to leave, and it pressed down onto something hard. It wasn’t a crayfish chimney.

  Frowning, she twisted her foot once more and felt it again. A ring of sorts, laid on top of a flat, hard surface. “Something’s here.”

  “Aside from the mud, you mean?”

  She dropped to her knees, abandoning her skirts to their fate, and dug through the mud with her hands until her fingers clasped an iron ring. Probing around it, she found unsanded wood. Laying her palm flat, she swept over its rough grain in search of its edges. Confusion rippled through her. “Etienne. It’s a door.”

  “What the devil?” He placed the plant aside and stiffly dropped to the ground beside her. Rain streamed from his tricorn hat as he bent over the space. Together they scooped away the mud until the entire door was uncovered.

  Thunder rattled the trees as Etienne pulled up on the ring. The board was four feet by four feet and came off like a lid. He set it on the pile of mud beside him and backed away. “Can you see anything?”

  Julianne lay on her stomach and peered into the hole. Lightning flashed. She gasped. “It’s a cache of food! Barrels of flour and wine, far more than one person should have. There must be a dozen barrels squirreled away down here, maybe more, while the rest of New Orleans goes hungry. I see sacks of corn too, and beans.” Chilled through to her skin, she sat back on her heels. “Is he selling it piecemeal for personal gain, or keeping it for himself?”

  “Either way, he’s a lying, thieving cheat!”

  She was already replacing the lid and covering it over with mud. “Help me. Quickly.” But Etienne did not need to be prodded. In no time they had re-hidden the hatch, though Pascal was not like to come outside in his condition, and certainly not in a storm.

  “Bienville must know at once.” She kept her voice low.

  “I’m coming with you.” Etienne’s tone left no room for argument as he scooped up the plant she had come for.

  They clambered back down the bayou’s levee, Julianne restraining her pace to match Etienne’s as they took the sand ridge through the swamp and threaded their way diagonally through the settlement to the southernmost corner. As they covered the distance between New Orleans and Bienville’s residence, the rain that drummed on the Mississippi filled her ears.

  Etienne knocked on the door. As Julianne waited for Caesar to answer, she realized with a start the state of her disarray. Sluicing the rain from her cheeks, she then smoothed her hair and pulled her cape more snugly about her shoulders. She hadn’t seen Bienville since being dismissed from her position. She prayed he would see her now.

  The door opened.

  “Hello, Caesar,” she began. “We need to see the governor. It’s a matt
er of grave import.”

  He held the door open, and she and Etienne stepped inside, dripping on the polished wood floor.

  “What’s all this?” Bienville came around the corner, looking as fierce as he ever had.

  “I beg your pardon, monsieur.” She curtsied as graciously as she could, while Etienne bowed beside her, and noticed with horror that she stood in a puddle of rainwater with mud-plastered feet. She dropped her skirts and cape back into place.

  His face like a gargoyle of Notre-Dame, the governor crossed his arms. “You’re the midwife I hired. And dismissed, let it not be forgotten. The criminal. If you’re here to beg for your old position, you’re wasting your time and mine.”

  Julianne shook her head, but her mouth was suddenly dry. Pascal had been the one to expose her. Would Bienville not suppose it was pursuit of revenge that brought her here now?

  “We’ve found a cache of hidden food. Thought you might have use for it, seeing as your soldiers are hungry—not to mention the rest of us.” Etienne spoke with an ease Julianne did not feel. “Etienne Labuche, manservant for Captain Marc-Paul Girard—and fellow Canadian. At your service.” He held her plant behind his back.

  Bienville cocked an eyebrow. “How much food?”

  Julianne gathered her courage. “Barrels of flour, wine, some bags of corn and beans, and the rest I couldn’t see. I regret that this news comes on the heels of the attack at Lake Pontchartrain.”

  “During which her husband, Captain Girard, was injured,” Etienne put in. “If you’ll just come with us, we’ll take you to the spot.”

  “And just where is this alleged store?”

  “Near the property of Pascal Dupree.” Etienne had the good sense not to gloat.

  Bienville’s face darkened. “Take me at once.”

  They did.

  By the time Julianne, Etienne, Bienville, and Caesar arrived back at the woods along the bayou behind Pascal’s home, the rain had stopped. With the shovel Caesar had brought, Etienne scraped the mud from the door and lifted the lid. In the moment Bienville peered down into the hole, fear cycled through Julianne. It’s all gone. He moved it already; we’re too late. But it was still there.

  When Bienville looked back at her, his eyes burned into hers. “How came you upon this?” A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  She told him.

  He turned to Caesar. “Take these stores to the Company of the Indies’ warehouse. I have an interrogation to conduct.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Stunned at the report Julianne and Etienne had just given him, Marc-Paul tried to push himself upright, but the sharp stab in his chest persuaded him to reconsider. Leaning back on his pillows once more, he glanced at the empty cup of tea Francoise had brought him before returning to her inn and wondered how long it would take to ease his pain.

  “You didn’t happen to see Simon’s gun in that hole, did you?” he asked Julianne.

  She shook her head. “Just food.”

  A sigh swelled in his chest before he released it. “Still a crime.”

  “We were right to report it.” Etienne stood with his hat in his hands. Wiry grey hair that had escaped his queue straggled limply at his neck. “You would have done the same.”

  “You were right. But, mon coeur”—he turned to Julianne—“Pascal must have reckoned it was you who found it and reported it to Bienville.”

  Julianne straightened her soiled skirts. “Yes. He was already suspicious of my presence at his home. He’ll never believe now that my intention truly was only to bring the salve and then to find more healing plants. If I was already his enemy before this, I have only given him more reason to hate me. What will he do? What can he do?”

  Marc-Paul cursed the injury that kept him abed. He would stand if he could and wrap her in his arms, heedless of the mud. As it was, he could only reach out and take her cold hand in his. “I’ll get an order from Bienville. If anyone lays a finger on you, he’ll learn the other end of the whip. Courage, ma chérie.”

  Etienne excused himself, and Julianne whisked to the dressing room for dry clothes, leaving Marc-Paul alone with his melancholy. He should have known Pascal had not given up gambling. Far from it—he’d only gotten better at hiding the contraband he planned to use to pay any future debts. Marc-Paul groaned. If he’d had the courage of his convictions last summer to report Pascal’s theft at the commissary, Julianne would have been left out of this entire mess.

  A knock sounded down the hall, followed by the thud of Vesuvius jumping from a chair to the floor and the click of his claws as he ran to the door. At the sound of his barking, Julianne emerged from the dressing room in a fresh gown but still pale.

  “Let Etienne see to it.” Marc-Paul offered her a smile, and she nodded.

  Moments later, Etienne returned to the bedchamber. “The governor to see you.”

  Julianne’s eyes rounded as she looked at Marc-Paul. “You can’t receive him in the salon. It’s still too soon for you to be up.”

  “Quite right. Send him in.”

  Julianne flew to her toilette table and pinned a fresh lace cap over her wet hair. She was standing at the bedside again, spine straight, chin up, when Bienville darkened the doorframe.

  “Girard. Don’t stay in that bed too long. I’ve lost enough men this week.”

  Marc-Paul sensed Julianne bristle beside him. “What news do you bring?”

  “I have no proof that cache belonged to Pascal Dupree.”

  Marc-Paul gritted his teeth. Felt the muscles tensing in his neck.

  “That is not to say I believe him to be innocent,” Bienville continued. “I have neither the time nor the interest in conducting an investigation. I can’t jail him. But I can transfer him. The Yazoo post just lost an officer and six soldiers in a Chickasaw attack. They’ll be glad of a replacement. His slave I’m keeping here, to serve the Company of the Indies. Retribution of sorts.”

  “I thought you said you can’t prove he did it,” Julianne said.

  Bienville smiled grimly. “And he cannot prove he didn’t.”

  Marc-Paul glanced at his wife. The relief in her eyes reflected his own. “Thank you.”

  Etienne appeared again in the doorway. “Pardon me. Room for another visitor in there? Red Bird.”

  “Bring him in,” Bienville boomed. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

  Marc-Paul placed his palms on the mattress, ready to push himself up, when he felt Julianne’s hand on his shoulder. “Can I trust you to not get up?” she whispered. “If so, I’ll let you men hold counsel without me.” She slipped out of the room just before Red Bird entered.

  “I’m glad to see you well,” Marc-Paul began, but the Choctaw looked haggard. No scalps were tied around his chiseled waist. “I take it you did not overtake the raider, then.”

  “I did.”

  “And?” Bienville thundered. “Where is his scalp?”

  Red Bird turned cool eyes on the governor, his face nearly devoid of emotion. “On his skull, right where I left it.”

  Dread snaked through Marc-Paul’s middle. Surely Red Bird wouldn’t betray him. Would he?

  “Explain yourself.” His eyes dark and threatening, Bienville drew himself up to his full height. “Who is to blame for killing two of my men and injuring two others?”

  “Choctaw.”

  Heat flashed over Marc-Paul’s face. “The pro-British faction.”

  “What?” Bienville’s voice was filled with fury. “Did they not receive enough presents? Do they prefer the nation that enslaved their people for years?”

  Red Bird appeared unmoved. “They say if it weren’t for your policy of attacking Chickasaw and British on the Trader’s Path, the Chickasaw would have no reason to attack our villages.”

  “You refer to my policy of paying Choctaw handsomely to inflict justice on the Chickasaw slave traders. The policy that made your people—at least some of them—rich. That policy?” The edge in Bienville’s tone rivaled a saber’s. Like a true po
litician, he left out the real reason he paid mercenaries to attack the traders. He was punishing the Chickasaw for giving their deerskins to Britain instead of to France. “You’ve been loyal to us all these years, Red Bird. And we have always paid you in kind. Why, then, did you not kill the rebels who killed your French brothers? You must have known I’d have paid you for that as well.”

  Red Bird turned to Marc-Paul and answered Bienville’s question as though it had been his. His dark eyes flashed. “I do not wish you to suffer by the hand of any man. I regret your French brothers were killed.” His tone was earnest. Apologetic, almost. “But remember, two Choctaw were slain too. When I caught up to the third and saw who he was, I told him he must never try the same tricks here again, and if he did, that I would kill him myself. Our Choctaw chiefs made a war treaty with our French Father. It is not up to us to go against that. But unlike our French Father, we do not kill a young man for his first offense.”

  Except for his glinting eyes, the Choctaw’s expression remained blank. Marc-Paul understood perfectly well, however, that Red Bird referred to Benjamin.

  Exhaustion washed over him, weighting his eyelids and limbs. He had been over this with Red Bird before. Desertion was a plague among French colonial soldiers that Bienville did not tolerate. It was a sickness that could wipe out a garrison just as surely as European smallpox had wiped out some native villages, and it could not go unchecked.

  The ache in his wound receded somewhat, and suddenly Marc-Paul could barely stay awake. Soon a soft voice filtered through the room, and he registered that Julianne was gently guiding his guests to end their visit. With one last effort, he bid Bienville and Red Bird adieu, heard the door close behind them, and surrendered to the pull of sleep.

  Julianne curtsied to Bienville one last time as he strode out the front door. When she raised her head, she found Red Bird before her, staring intensely into her eyes. He was nothing like Running Deer. She’d heard Red Bird speaking perfect French moments ago, and yet there was a wildness to him that could not be disguised by the buckskin leggings and linen trade shirt he wore. Her gaze traveled from the copper hoops in his earlobes to the tattoo above his collar. Marc-Paul had mentioned he wanted her to meet this Choctaw, but surely not like this. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. Especially after all that had transpired in the last several days.