“It is a hard country,” said Monsieur Trépagny.
“In addition to bringing you that letter I came to ask if you would take the girl into your household — she is young but strong. You know girls are valuable in this womanless land.” He winked.
“Ah,” said Monsieur Trépagny. “Now I see why you made such a long trip. Why does not someone in Wobik take this girl? Why not Père Perreault? Why me? What is wrong with the child?”
Monsieur Bouchard lifted his eyes to the smoky ceiling and rolled his head a little.
“It’s true that she is not perfect in form.” There was a long silence.
“In what way is she not perfect in form?”
“Well, in form she is perfect enough, but she has a birthmark—tache de vin—on her neck.”
“And what does the tache de vin signify that it repels the citizens of Wobik and the holy priest?”
“It is, in fact, oh ah”—Monsieur Bouchard was sweating with the heat of the fire and the discomfort of his errand—“it is a perfect little image of a demon — with horns. I thought that as your religious beliefs…” And his voice trailed off. He looked yearningly at the door.
“My religious beliefs? You think I would welcome a girl with the mark of the Evil One on her neck?”
“It is said — it is said you have a — respect — not for God but for the devil.”
“I do not. Sir, I abhor the demon. You are misinformed. I believe that your Roman Catholic ‘God’ is the Devil, the Demiurge. You have only to read in the Old Testament to see his cruelty. To me that is the Demon. It is you who worship the devil.” His squinted eyes caught the light as splinters of ice.
“Perhaps I was misinformed, but my duty is to see the girl in someone’s care. The people in the village—” Calling on public opinion was the last card in his hand.
“No, don’t speak to me of people in villages.”
“Yes, as that may be, but people in the village have seen certain things. For example, they say they have seen you in the flying canoe with the devil and his impious boatmen, plying the clouds and laughing cruelly.” He got it out in a tumble.
“What rubbish!” said Monsieur Trépagny. “Who was this sharp-eyed person — witch, I should say — who sees such false wonders?” He had moved closer to the deputy.
“I am not at liberty to name persons,” came the smug response of one who protects the innocent.
“Have a care, Monsieur Bouchard.”
The old deputy put up his chin. “You have a care, Monsieur Claude Trépagny du Triomphe. I have little interest in flying canoes and devil pacts. Nor in you. I want only to find a place for the girl.” He added slyly, “She is skilled in brewing excellent beer. She learned well from her mother.”
Mari brought more hot water to the table and, eyes downcast, said quietly, “That girl take me. No like make beer me.”
“There you go!” cried Monsieur Bouchard. “I’ll send her right up. She’s just down by the river.” Two strides and he was out the door, his long cloak whisking after him.
“Captain Bouchard! Wait!” bellowed Trépagny at the closing door. He whirled around and struck Mari to her knees, then slammed out with his ax in hand.
The skinny, sad child slowly climbed the snowy hill from the river. She was thin with lank hair, dark circles under her small brown eyes and a half-cringing way of carrying herself as though ducking blows before they had been struck. Her fingers were slender and dexterous. Mari, moving slowly, patted her shoulder twice, put a wooden spoon in her hand and set her to stirring mush. When Monsieur Trépagny came in he pulled her to the doorway to examine the demonic birthmark. He saw a small red triangle the size of a thumbnail on the nape of her neck and at its top two tiny triangles the height of a mosquito.
“Hah!” said Monsieur Trépagny. “It’s no demon. The stupid town folk have seen only what they wanted to see. The fools. It’s a fox. We shall call you Renardette.”
• • •
Despite her cringing manner the girl was a competent brewer. She began by scouring the brew house and the stone brewing jars. She asked for hop seeds and planted them among the stumps. She picked the ripe hops herself and made very good beer. No one drank more of it than Renardette herself. Though René still preferred vin rouge, it had to be imported and was too costly. But if ever the settlers’ apple orchards began to bear they could have cidre. That would be pleasure.
4. guests from the north
During René’s third winter Monsieur Trépagny began to behave erratically. He went off for weeks at a time and when he returned he was rudely commanding, even to Chama.
In early May with snow still on the ground Monsieur Trépagny said he would be gone for a year or perhaps two, as he had pressing business in Kébec and France. He told René that Chama would be in charge of the daily work. He marked out an impossibly large area, more than five arpents (almost five English acres), for them to clear of trees. In France, thought René, the forests were controlled by laws and customs; here there were no forest laws beyond the desires of the seigneur. That Trépagny had the right to order the clearing confounded him and he sensed injustice.
Trépagny slapped his gloves on his thigh and mounted his horse. He gave a last order: “Mari, do not neglect the garden.” Mari said nothing but her fingers twitched. René knew she disliked gardening, considered it French foolishness. In the garden she felt snared. She neglected it at every chance, she and Renardette going to gather medicine plants. She knew the healing virtues of many tree barks. She kept moldy substances in a box to bind onto infected wounds. Some fungi she worked into salves.
“Of course,” Monsieur Trépagny had sneered, as though describing a vicious fault, “all the Indians are physicians and apothecaries. They alone know the secret virtues of many plants. Have you never heard how they cured de Champlain’s crew, dying of scorbut, with a broth of hemlock needles? Wait, you will hear it a thousand times.”
But now he was gone and Chama pranced around like a rooster. And, like that of a rooster, his wet eye fell on the only hens in sight. In the night René heard him slide stealthily out of his beaver robe and ease out the door, his footsteps squeaking in the stiff snow. In minutes rapid running and the slamming door brought him back.
• • •
More than two years passed before Monsieur Trépagny returned on a fine sorrel stallion. He sprang off with a flourish like the signature of a state minister. He was decked in a pea-green doublet with paned sleeves, silk breeches in darker green and trimmed with knotted ribbons. His massive belt sported three silver buckles and his boots showed crimson heels. The glory was a low-crowned hat with six red-dyed ostrich plumes wreathed around the brim. He smelled of a cloying perfume that made Elphège sneeze out a gob of snot onto the scalloped cuff of the doublet. Monsieur Trépagny knocked him to the ground and kicked him; Mari threw herself over the boy. Monsieur Trépagny gave her a powerful kick in the ribs as well, remounted his sorrel and rode west, no doubt to revel in his secret house, thought René.
At supper the next night Mari served up stewed eels and dried salmon made into a thick fish pudding. Monsieur Trépagny exploded. Eels were savages’ food, he said, and he expected something better as befitted a seigneur. They were witnessing Monsieur Trépagny’s transformation into a gentleman manifested by his new garments and his dislike for eels, which in the past he had always relished. He expressed his growing disdain for the Indians, calling them lazy and ignorant barbarians. He threw a coin on the table in front of Mari and told her that she must pack up and leave with her children the morrow — he was marrying a French lady in a fortnight. The coin would pay her passage east back to her people, where she might eat all the eels in the world. Mari sat quietly, saying nothing, and René supposed she was unfeeling and submissive.