The Mark of the King

by Jocelyn Green

  “Your eyes,” he said. “So much like Benjamin’s.”

  She flinched. “What did you say?”

  “We called him Many Tongues.”

  Her hand flew to her throat, and she felt her heartbeat pulsing there. “Would you please sit? Do you—do you have the time? We could take tea together—and paluska holbi.” Did she sound desperate for him to stay? She was.

  “Paluska holbi?” Something near to a smile bent his lips as he repeated the words as they were meant to be pronounced.

  “Oh! Did he learn how to make it from you?”

  “From my mother. Fair Sky.”

  Tears stung her eyes. It took every ounce of control to keep from reaching out and grabbing his hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Please tell me more.”

  He glanced toward the fire glowing in the salon hearth. She led him there, and he sat cross-legged on the bearskin rug on the floor. With a word to him, she swept outside and found Etienne, who agreed to bring in a tray of tea and the Choctaw bread.

  Back in the salon, Julianne joined Red Bird on the rug, her skirts spreading about her in a silken puddle. Her hands clamped together in her lap, and the broad lace trim spilling from her sleeves at her elbows fell to the floor near her hips.

  Red Bird’s eyes softened. “Many Tongues—Benjamin—was very bright. He was eager to learn our ways and our language, and quick to capture everything to his memory. He also made a patient teacher as he taught me his mother tongue.”

  “He was so young when he was with you, wasn’t he? Did he seem lonely?”

  Ridges formed on Red Bird’s brow. “At first, yes, of course. But my mother all but made him her own son while he was with us. Even before he knew our language, he knew he was welcome. She gave him many signs.”

  Julianne’s throat tightened. “I’m so grateful. I didn’t even know he was coming to Louisiana before he left,” she confessed. “I certainly had no idea he was to live in isolation—that is, away from everything he was familiar with.”

  “Many Tongues was not in isolation.”

  “Forgive me, I misspoke. Won’t you tell me about your village?”

  Etienne returned with the tea and a small pile of husk-wrapped cornbread. After placing it on the rug between them, he called to Vesuvius and made his exit.

  “Please, eat first,” she urged, and did the same.

  When the bread was gone, Red Bird tossed the corn husks into the fire and watched them blacken and curl before the flames utterly consumed them. Then he told Julianne of the place Benjamin had called home for fourteen months of his life. Of a village much larger than New Orleans, neatly arranged with houses made of river cane and plaster, as warm and strong as any log cabins would be. He told her of the fields where he and Benjamin had turned the earth together before the women maintained the crops, harvested the corn, and cooked it in more than forty different ways. He talked of fishing with bone hooks, using cornbread dough for bait, and of hunting the white-tailed deer with Benjamin. He described the stickball games, which settled disputes between communities. And he explained how Benjamin helped negotiate trade between the Choctaw and the French.

  Every word was a brushstroke in Julianne’s mind, painting a picture of her brother she could not have imagined. This was why Marc-Paul had wanted her to meet Red Bird. Her understanding of Benjamin’s experience in Louisiana was pale and blurred, like chalk drawings on the sidewalks at Montmartre after being trampled by too many feet. Red Bird sketched it for her with vibrant hues.

  Her tea was cold in its cup when he stopped sharing. He rose, and she did the same. Gratitude squeezed her heart. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  As Red Bird nodded in acknowledgment, a shadow passed over his face. Though he didn’t say it, she reckoned she was not the only one who missed Benjamin.

  In the swamps crowding New Orleans, winter settled in a layer of fog and fallen cypress needles. Fire crackling beneath the kettle, Julianne set her morning rhythm to the thud of her knife on the herbs for Marc-Paul’s teas, and its beat became to her the music of restoration. Days of tending her husband melted one into another until the hot red swelling around his stitches faded and the fever stayed away. Five days after the raid, the danger was gone—if not the pain—and Marc-Paul returned to work.

  Julianne swallowed her dismay at the exhaustion lining his face after his first day back with the garrison.

  “He’s gone.” His gaze stayed on her as he removed his tricorn hat and set it on the bureau. “Pascal left two days ago for the Yazoo post.”

  A weight lifted from her, and she filled her lungs with the pleasant woodsmoke scent wafting from the hearth. As she exhaled, tension vacated her body and mind. At last she was rid of Pascal Dupree.

  Marc-Paul enfolded her in an embrace, the cold brass buttons of his coat embossing her cheek. “It was Pascal and his wooden horse that first put you into my arms, you know.”

  Julianne’s mind whirred, scarcely able to digest all that had happened since that dreadful day. Stepping back, she slipped her thumbs beneath the lapels of his coat and lifted it off his shoulders. He winced as he shrugged his arms out of the sleeves, a signal that beneath his crisp uniform, the site of his wound was still tender.

  “Now that he’s gone, you feel safer, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Much.” She untied the cravat at his neck and pulled it off.

  “So safe, in fact, that you no longer need my protection?” he teased.

  Julianne smiled into his rich brown eyes. “I’d never dismiss your protection.” She slid her hand over his chest, the linen soft and warm beneath her fingers. “But I’m far more interested in having your heart.”

  “You have the whole of it already.”

  The truth of his declaration was proven in the tenderness of the kiss that followed. Nestled in the confidence of her husband’s love, Julianne looked forward to bidding adieu to the year that had wrought so much upheaval in her life.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  JANUARY 1721

  While the Choctaw and Chickasaw remained embattled north of Yazoo, the colonists of New Orleans ignored their gnawing hunger with the most determined merrymaking they could muster.

  With his wife in his arms and strains of violin and flute in his ears, Marc-Paul waltzed in Bienville’s grand hall for the Twelfth Night Ball and shoved those dark thoughts from his mind. Candlelight glittered from the chandeliers and shone on Julianne’s swept-up hair. Pearls dipped into the hollow of her creamy throat. Golden silk painted with white flowers traced her figure from her low square neckline to her waist before cascading to the floor. Yes, the people of New Orleans had fashions and music, jewels and lace, perfumes and rouge and wigs. What they did not have, however, was enough food. Pascal’s cache, once distributed between New Orleans, Mobile, and New Biloxi, had been quickly consumed. Famine cast its shadow even here at the ball, for those who had the stomach to notice.

  The ache in his chest from his hunting injury was but a twinge compared to the emptiness cramping his middle. Surely Julianne felt it too. The ring on her finger spun too easily. Beneath his hand, her corseted waist felt slimmer than ever, and he realized she’d taken in the seams of her gown to fit her narrowing figure when she longed to grow bigger with child. When the time is right, she’d told him, we’ll try. As they whirled among the other dancers, he hung a smile on his face, and her lips curved in response. But the crowd’s laughter, as hollow as their bellies, haunted him.

  The music ebbed away, the men bowed, and the women curtsied. Just as Julianne raised her head, Marc-Paul felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Pardon the interruption, madame, but if I may borrow your husband for a moment . . .” Bienville stood between them.

  “Of course.” Julianne quietly slipped away.

  “Let’s take a walk, Captain.” Bienville led Marc-Paul outside and into gardens that mimicked Versailles. The geometric pattern of the walkways between boxwood hedges offered an oasis of order as New Orleans awaited an
engineer to plan its streets. The crisp night air breathed a welcome chill over Marc-Paul.

  “I have need of you in Biloxi.” Bienville looked haggard in the moonlight, almost ghostlike as the brown velvet of his gala costume blended into the night. Louisiana had aged him well past his forty years.

  Marc-Paul nodded. “Go on.”

  “The people there are piling up. The latest report said twelve hundred forty-nine languish there.”

  Marc-Paul stopped walking. Surely the report was inaccurate. There were only seventy adult civilians, forty-four soldiers, eleven officers, and twenty-two ship captains in New Orleans. Slaves and servants added two hundred more to the population. He could not imagine the need—and the chaos—created by more than one thousand new settlers all in one place. “Sir? Could there be a mistake?”

  Bienville grunted. “Indeed, and plenty of them! France sending shiploads of people with so little provisions that they are used up by the time they arrive at Ship Island. That’s a mistake. Using ships to ferry more people, but not beasts of burden, and not food enough for the colonists already here. Another mistake. They tell me that in some camps, half of the settlers have already died from hunger or disease. The Company of the Indies has taken the garrison’s provisions to feed the settlers who yet live, but barely. ‘Borrowing,’ they’re calling it. The liars.”

  Marc-Paul resumed walking, hands behind his back. “Just how reduced is the garrison’s commissary, then?”

  “Corn and beans. And not much of that. The soldiers will starve. Unless . . .”

  Marc-Paul sighed. “You want me to ask the Biloxi and Pascagoula to allow the soldiers to winter with them again.” And eat their food, and sleep in their homes, with their daughters.

  “You’re the only one I trust. Just remind the men that they should not expect to marry any dark-skinned maidens, whatever feelings should arise. We are here to settle for France, not to create a generation of half-breeds.”

  “With respect, regardless of any speech I give the men, if the garrison goes native this winter, half-French babies will be conceived.”

  “Then those children will stay with their Indian mothers rather than muddy the French population with their uncivilized natures.” Bienville’s tone was matter-of-fact, albeit slightly impatient, as though Marc-Paul should have realized the due course of these things himself.

  He turned his steps to follow the path’s curve. Another bend in the semicircle path, and they once again faced the glowing two-story residence. Music and laughter grew louder as they neared but did not eclipse one last concern chafing Marc-Paul’s conscience.

  “Sir, if our men introduce illness to the natives in their villages, you do realize the Indians will die in droves.” Some nations had already been virtually wiped out with European disease and forced to abandon their ghost villages in favor of healthy communities, which sometimes suffered because of it.

  Bienville nodded slowly. “I’ve considered this. But my duty is to my own countrymen. Frenchmen will die if they don’t avail themselves of native hospitality. I would to God the case were otherwise. I know I can count on you to follow orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, enjoy the rest of the evening. You leave at dawn.”

  Caesar swung the doors open wide, and Marc-Paul was once again enveloped in warmth and light. When he reached Julianne, he pulled her to his side.

  “The time is right,” he whispered in her ear and watched the color bloom in her cheeks. If this was to be his last night in New Orleans for some time, there was only one place he wanted to be. It wasn’t here.

  Firelight swayed on the walls of her bedchamber as Julianne counted the weeks since her miscarriage. More than two months had passed. It was time enough.

  “I don’t want to push you. . . .” Marc-Paul’s voice behind her was low, cautious even, as he unclasped the pearls from about her neck and laid them on her toilette table.

  She turned to face him, and her breath caught at the longing in his eyes. Her heart hammered against her breast as his gaze trailed from her eyes to her lips to the curves that swelled above her neckline. Julianne lifted her chin, and his warm hands came around her waist as his lips met hers.

  Eyes closed, he deepened the kiss, and she melted into him. He pulled the pins from her hair one by one until her locks fell freely about her shoulders. Desire for her husband surged in a way she hadn’t known before.

  When she slipped her hand around his neck and tugged the ribbon from his queue, he pressed her closer and whispered in her ear, “You’re sure?”

  Julianne smiled and laid her hand upon his cheek. “If you can see beyond my scars.”

  With the utmost tenderness, he placed his fingertips upon her back, where ridges still slashed her skin just beneath her silk. “We all have scars, my beautiful one. They make us who we are, and if we let them, they bring us together.” His lips curved gently. “Now, let me show you how much I love you.”

  Tears misted Julianne’s eyes as Marc-Paul scooped her up in his strong arms, as he had once before, and carried her to the bed.

  Part Three

  Fissures

  “Misery reigns always in Louisiana. . . . All is in disorder and misery.”

  —Sieur Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, 1719

  Chapter Twenty-three

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  FEBRUARY 1722

  Darkness curtained Julianne’s home. In the salon, a fire toasted the air while Vesuvius warmed her feet. It was Lundi Gras, but still fatigued from attending a difficult birth the night before, she only wanted to stay in. Francoise sat across from her, reading aloud from the Gospel of Luke, banishing the silence—at least for now.

  Julianne’s concentration slipped, and she pricked her finger with her large embroidery needle. With a sigh, she set down the waistcoat and gazed blankly into the flames instead. The fire hissed and popped, and sparks darted after the smoke.

  “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” Francoise read, and Julianne’s thoughts turned inward. It had been sixteen months since her baby Benjamin had died. Fifteen months since she married Marc-Paul. Absently, she pressed her hand against the flatness of her belly.

  Francoise must have noticed, for she paused and closed the Bible. “You must not give your disappointment free rein.”

  “Of course you’re right,” Julianne conceded, but that did not ease her aching. Month following month, her courses came and went, and with each failure to conceive another child, she mourned afresh for the son she had lost and for the hope of having another chance at motherhood.

  “Your friends miss you, you know,” Francoise pressed, and Julianne felt as if a bruise had been touched.

  When Denise gave birth a second time, Julianne had attended the delivery and mustered what joy she could for her friend’s new baby girl. Then Lisette, who had married Francoise’s son, Laurent, grew round with child as well, and envy drove its stake into Julianne’s tender heart. Still, she performed the duties of a midwife once more, and Lisette delivered a healthy boy. Self-pity seized Julianne then, twisting her middle as much as the famine ever had. By degrees, a darkness seeped from her broken heart, blackening the edges of her friendships.

  “Their babies keep them busy.”

  “They would be glad of another set of hands, if you have the heart for it.”

  “Oh, Francoise.” Sorrow choked the words from her throat. “Being with them only magnifies the silence of my childless home.”

  The older woman circled the table between them to sit beside Julianne and pull her into her arms. “Pray for peace.”

  But Julianne couldn’t give up praying for a baby. She was eight and twenty and had delivered babies from girls half her age. Over and over, she begged God for a child, and time and again, He refused her.

  “Beware, Julianne. Sorrow breeds isolation, and isolation brings despair.”

  “I know, and yet I cannot will myself free of it. I feel exiled
to disappointment. Everywhere I look, I see mothers with children or pregnant women. New life is all around me, but not in my own womb.”

  “You’re too much alone with your thoughts.” Francoise’s voice was not unkind.

  And fears. But Julianne would not confess it. For during these long absences when duty called Marc-Paul away, her imagination magnified the night sounds to unreasonable proportions. Memory reeled back to the night Matthieu followed her home, and to the night she awoke in the dark to find an intruder had been with her. At least Etienne was close by, and Vesuvius would bark an alarm if warranted. Maybe. She wiggled her toes beneath the pug’s warm belly, but his snores continued.

  “When does the captain come home?”

  Julianne turned toward the east-facing windows and imagined Marc-Paul far beyond them, with Bienville at the annual gift-giving ceremony in Mobile, during which Bienville renewed alliances with the Choctaw. “He’ll come home in seven weeks.”

  “Then he’ll miss Lent and Holy Week. You must observe Easter with us. I’ll not hear otherwise.” Francoise’s jasmine scent lifted from her hair as she shook her head emphatically.

  “I’d be glad to do that, thank you.”

  Francoise bussed both her cheeks. “And now, I must be getting back. Come visit soon, won’t you?”

  Julianne agreed and escorted her friend to the door. She could faintly hear the music of celebrations in the settlement.

  Unable to think of a reason to stay awake any longer, she returned to the sofa and tucked her embroidery tools back in her nécessaire. “Come, pug. Time to take care of business.” Scooping up the snoring ball of fur, she took him to the front door, opened it, and tossed him gently to the ground. While she waited for him to do his duty, she leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her robe a la française, and tilted her head, listening. The music grew louder. The faint glow of torchlight bounced toward her.