Blood Brothers in Louisbourg (2 page)

Chapter Two

T
wo-feathers woke in freshly fallen snow. He raised the spruce boughs that had kept him warm and listened to the silence. He had been woken by the squeal of a rabbit caught in a snare he had set the night before. Moving quietly through the snow, he grabbed the animal, freed it from the snare and held it firmly against his stomach. Petting its soft ears and whispering words of apology and gratitude, he deftly slit its throat and held on as it released its life to him.

In the pit where he had slept he built a fire, skinned the rabbit and sat roasting it. The wind twisted softly through the trees carrying the earliest scent of spring. Two-feathers breathed deeply and smiled. He had survived the harshest winter. He was not so far from the sea now, where the bluecoats had constructed their great village. It was legendary among his people, a village that had consumed the forest for half a day's walk in every direction, with weapons that blew stones the weight of a man out to sea, and a harbour of giant canoes that carried warriors beyond the sea and sky
.
Two-feathers was keen to see it all for himself, though that was not why he had come.

He tied his deerskin clothes tightly at the wrists and ankles to trap his body's heat, picked up his bow and pack and followed the frozen river. Soon the rivers would break apart and flow freely to the sea, and they would run thick with salmon. In the shadows of morning he heard the snap of a branch and turned – there, at the river's edge, a young doe was drinking; one he had seen the day before. She dropped her head in solitude; she did not know he was there. Two-feathers quickly fitted an arrow to his bow. The shot was clear, but he hesitated. He could not take the life of a deer for just one meal. Pursing his lips he whistled, and the startled deer fled like the wind. In its escape it roused a partridge. Two-feathers quickly aimed, and the bird gave itself in the doe's place.

As he hung the partridge from his pack, he wondered if the doe had come as a sign from the spirit of his mother, Running-deer. Perhaps she had come to guide him, or warn him, or maybe even to apologize for having left him. Many years before, he was told by his chief, she had travelled with a trading party to the bluecoats' village, where she fell in love with a young bluecoat warrior. The bluecoats sometimes took wives from his people for companionship as well as for advantage in the fur trade. But the young warrior who had won Running-deer's affection did not want to keep her; after two seasons he returned to his own land, and she to her people, the Mi'kmaq, where she gave birth to Two-feathers, so named because the blood of two peoples flowed through his veins.

Three years later, Running-deer left once more to try to reunite with Two-feathers' father, who had returned but was now married in his own land. Despairingly, she threw herself at a man who had closed his heart and would not see her. Alone and distraught, she ran from the fortress in the dead of winter. That was the story as Two-feathers had received it. No one knew what had happened to her after that, whether she met with wild animals, succumbed to the cold or simply died of a broken heart. She was never seen again.

Two-feathers was raised by the Mi'kmaq. He became the brightest young warrior of his tribe. The role of warrior came to him as naturally as flight to a bird, and he loved it with every part of his being. And yet, even as a boy he sensed that, since his father could not be counted among the Mi'kmaq, it was even more important that he become stronger, faster, more skilled and more aware than his companions. And he did. He excelled in hunting, fishing, scouting and trapping. He could make fires when the rain would not end and keep warm in the deepest cold. Still, he was never able to forget that his father was not one of them. He liked to believe that his father was a noble warrior among his
own
people, but a nagging doubt haunted him. What noble warrior would put the mother of his child out in the cold? Now, almost a man himself, Two-feathers needed to find out.

—

The woods were full of spirits. Two-feathers felt them around him in the day and night. Sometimes they took the form of animals, their favourite, and sometimes trees or plants. Usually they were peaceful and helpful, but occasionally they were angry and he had to be careful when crossing a river, or climbing a rock face or hunting a bear. This he had learned the hard way, having once brought down a young bear with his bow and arrow. As he approached, the bear suddenly leapt to its feet and clawed at his leg, cutting a deep wound. Two-feathers retaliated by stabbing the bear with his knife until it was dead. Now he carried a scar that reminded him that the spirits kept their own council and could change their minds without warning.

The woods were also frequented by trappers and soldiers: bluecoats, who were friendly; and redcoats, who were not. Two-feathers
came upon parties of each but went out of his way to avoid them. They were strong, capable men, these white-skinned warriors, but they carried strange and dangerous sickness. They salted their food until it tasted like seawater, and drank a poisonous drink that made them laugh, sing and dance until they fell down, but clouded their senses so that they could not shoot straight, nor walk straight, nor even stand up if they drank too much of it. To the Mi'kmaq this poison was particularly dangerous. Two-feathers was told many times by his chief and the warriors who trained him that he must never drink it or, once he started, he would never be able to stop. And then, though he would laugh, sing and dance, his arrows would no longer hit their targets and he would wake in the morning with pain and thunder in his head. And so he promised himself, as he promised his elders, that he would never drink the poison of the pale-skinned warriors from a faraway land, even though his father was one of them.

He could always smell, hear and see the soldiers long before they would know he was there. They travelled noisily and heavily, wrapped in so many furs they could not run nor even walk quickly through the deep snow. They stopped often and ate for three men each. But he did like their music, which they played at night when they made camp. He would sometimes camp not far away just to listen, though they would not know he was there.

Two-feathers' greatest skill was moving through the woods with invisibility. This he had learned from his teachers, but also from the animal spirits. To carry invisibility you had to first believe that you were. Then, you could cross the snow-covered river leaving no tracks because you had no weight. You could pass through the woods in silence because you made no sound. You could slip between trees unseen because you had no shape and cast no shadow. Only then, when you felt this way, could you move amongst strangers without them seeing you.

In the afternoon he heard them – soldiers – passing through the woods with a noise like falling trees. Turning into the wind, he closed his eyes and raised his nose. Their scent was strong. There were at least half a dozen of them. He wondered why they had come so far inland where there were no trading parties and few furs. And then he saw them. Redcoats! But this was land held by the bluecoats, with the help of the Mi'kmaq. Why would a party of redcoats travel so far north? Was this a scouting party? Were the redcoats preparing an attack? Two-feathers didn't care for either group of warriors, but since his people were allied with the bluecoats he felt a responsibility to find out why the redcoats were here. And so he followed them. As it turned out, they were headed in the same direction – towards the bluecoats' great village.

Chapter Three

W
e sailed from St. Malo in the northwest, on the 27th of March. Ships from St. Malo sailed all over the world. It was a three-day journey by coach to get there. I travelled alone; my father followed later with his regiment. That was a good thing. Three days in a stuffy coach was bad enough, but if I had to listen to him rage against the English all the way I would have gone insane. He would have supported a war against the Austrians or the Persians or the Mongolians, if the King had declared one. War was war to a man who believed in war. However, opinions about the war actually varied quite a bit in France as I learned during the coach ride.

It was crowded. I ended up giving my window seat to a young lady travelling with her mother. Now I was boxed in and couldn't see much out the window. And so I buried my head in my book. It was a copy of Voltaire's
English Essays
, in which he praises the English parliamentary system and criticizes the French monarchy. This was the book that had been banned in France, and the reason Voltaire had been imprisoned in the Bastille. Even so, there were copies being quietly handed around and I had borrowed one from an English friend of mine who played violin. Voltaire really cared about France and its people. You could tell by the way he wrote. Yes, his ideas were revolutionary, but that's what was so exciting. Real change would take courage. And Voltaire was courageous. Even the King had been unable to shut him up. As I stared out through the little patch of window, I thought how much more noble it would be to die for a revolutionary idea than for a senseless war.

As I slowly read and re-read pages of the book, which wasn't easy with the coach swaying and bouncing along the road, a rather angry-looking man across from me was watching. He wasn't really paying attention. He was sleepy. He did not strike me as an educated man, but after an hour or so his gaze slowly slid across the cover of my book. I watched as his eyes suddenly opened wide, and a look of disgust appeared on his face.

“Hey!” he barked. “What rubbish is this?”

He jumped to his feet. All in one motion he grabbed the book out of my hands, leaned across the lap of the young lady without excusing himself, opened the window and threw the book out. He sat back down with such an angry expression I didn't dare say a word.

“Heretic!” he yelled at me.

The next thing that happened surprised me even more. The man to my right, a well-dressed, elderly man, raised his cane and bumped against the roof of the coach, ordering the riders to stop. The coach came to a halt with lots of noise and shaking of the horses. The older man stepped out and held the door. Very politely he said to me, “Go. Fetch your book.”

“No!” screamed the other man. “I will not ride in a coach with a heretic!”

I saw him reach clumsily for the hilt of his sword, but the elderly man drew his own sword so quickly it appeared as if by magic. He bowed and apologized to the ladies, then politely said, “If Monsieur feels so strongly, perhaps he would like to take a moment to step outside the coach.”

The angry man took his hand away from the hilt of his sword and looked away, mumbling under his breath.

“My young scholar,” the older man said to me, “fetch your book.”

Excusing myself, I hopped out of the coach, ran down the road and found my book. I wiped the mud off it, straightened up its cover and put it into my pocket. Then I returned to the coach, thanked the elderly man and took my seat. As we resumed our journey, the man opposite me sat burning up with rage. If ever a man could have exploded out of anger it would have been him. At the next exchange of horses he left the coach and stayed behind to wait for another. He said he would not ride with heretics and traitors and swore that we were all damned to burn in Hell. I found it amazing that a single book could stir up so much anger, especially when the offended man had probably never even read it.

At St. Malo the ship sat in the harbour like a floating bee's nest. Sailors climbed all over it, loading it and preparing it for sea. At first glance I shook my head. Something about it didn't look seaworthy to me, even though I didn't know anything about sailing and had never even been on a boat before. There was nothing quick-looking about it; it just looked heavy, stumpy and slow. For two days they continued loading it until I thought it was going to sink. I smiled when they picked up my chest and carried it on board.

Finally, my father boarded the ship with his regiment and all were given sleeping quarters below deck. As I watched the soldiers march on board I thought the ship would sink for sure. Then I began to realize that there was a relationship between wood and water that was beyond all manner of reason. A ship was to a sailor what a donkey was to a farmer – a beast of burden.

I had to confess there was a moment, just a brief moment, when we first came under sail – when the ship cleared the harbour and caught its first gust of wind with full sails – when I felt a tinge of excitement. I felt the pull of the ship beneath my feet. I turned and looked at my father. He was as excited as a child.

“How now, Jacques?” he yelled.

I smiled a little. I couldn't help it. A few hours later we were barely out of sight of land when I fell into the worst case of seasickness anyone ever had. Thus began the worst month of my entire life. I felt so sick with the movement of the sea that I truly wanted to die. Night and day I lay on my bunk, except when my father forced me to my feet and onto the deck for fresh air. I wanted to die, just die and put an end to the terrible sickness in my head and stomach.

But I didn't die. Neither did I improve. At first my father was understanding. He laughed and said, “The sea will do you good. Give you the stomach of a man.” But after a week or so of my lying around whimpering like a dog, I think he began to feel embarrassed for me. “Come on, Jacques! Pull yourself together. Find the man inside of yourself!”

I didn't care. I didn't care about his stupid fortress or stupid war or stupid ideas of what a man was supposed to be, I just wanted to get off that cursed, floating nightmare. Halfway across the Atlantic, which I was beginning to believe stretched on forever and ever, and just when I thought things could never get worse … they did.

I had soiled my clothes with sickness and my father went looking through my chest to find more. I never knew he was looking. He found the chest. Then, he found the violoncello. Filled with frustration and shame on my account, he broke into a rage when he saw the instrument taking up so much space, space that might have been filled with the muskets, pistols and swords of a “real” man going to war. He never said a word to me, just passed by with the body of the violoncello in one hand, the neck and bow in the other. I clambered out of bed after him. By the time I reached the deck he was already at the stern of the ship. I had hardly eaten in weeks, and my legs were wobbly. I made a desperate attempt to catch him, to yell at him to stop, but I was too late. Raising the violoncello above his head, he threw it overboard into the sea. The wind howled like a demon as the violoncello disappeared beneath the waves without a sound.

We didn't talk anymore after that. He occasionally barked a few orders at me and I obeyed, but I never looked at him or answered. I was fully prepared to suffer a whipping if he insisted on giving me one, and I think he realized that. Perhaps he felt he had gone too far. I never knew. My seasickness cleared up shortly afterwards. Something changed inside of me too, though I didn't know what it was. My father, no doubt, must have thought it was a change towards manhood. But that was the last time we ever made direct eye contact.

Well … there would be one more time.