Order of Good Cheer (20 page)

Samuel hears more murmurs. That they had chosen to die as one is taken as evidence of either Grand or Evil design, and so he takes it upon himself to protest and offer a less exciting alternative, that, for example, they might all three have been
blown down by a single tremendous gust of wind, or eaten a similar noxious food. (This second argument of his is a poor choice, in that the men instantly counter in one voice that it is well known that bats do not eat.)

Their priest, Fr. Vermoulu, has been pulled out into the yard as well. He appears woeful and silent on the matter and indeed he looks afraid himself. That the priest comes from the hidden low mountains east of Gap, where they are more superstitious than good Christians should be, Samuel has kindly never pointed out to the men, though perhaps he should have, and perhaps some day will have to. Fr. Vermoulu strides about in that heavy manner of his, as if fuelled by duty but weighted down by the Lord's own knowledge. He stands over the first beast, makes as if to nudge it with a foot, then seems to think better. He now makes a strange motion with his hand, strange in that it began as a blessing and then crumbles into something unknown to them, almost as if the man lost himself. And it is this mistake, this hesitation, that gets the men grumbling and crossing themselves in a mass, and for this Samuel is rightfully angered by Fr. Vermoulu, who is young, and foolish, and in any case very much just a man.

Risking trespass of the priest's authority in this matter, Champlain approaches the bats himself. For indeed the priest has failed to take authority in assigning neither Divine nor Evil machination to three bats being identically dead in their yard. Instead he has half inserted his hand, so to speak, and withdrawn it half burnt; and he has caused everyone, even Poutrincourt — the good gentleman almost as agitated as the common — to regard these fumblings with fear and to cross themselves like widows in a boneyard. (Samuel dares admit to himself how much he sometimes does dislike priests; this dislike happens whenever they fail to remind him how much he loves his God.) Superstition — of which he himself has been
accused, yes — must not be allowed to take root here and own them all.

He picks up the first bat by the wing. He himself is startled — but tries not to show it — by how shockingly little it weighs. Though far bigger they weigh less than an acorn, he'd guess. They weigh so little they are like not to exist at all. And yet they do, they marvellous do: half bird, half beast, they are almost pretty of face, yet so hideous in arm and wing and claw. It is their misfortune but not their fault to look like the Devil Himself. And they fly at night, getting into what sorts of mischief no one knows and, yes, perhaps they do not eat. If they do, they do not eat much.

“A bat,” Samuel states, then flicks the poor imp at a bush. It catches and stays like a sick leaf.

“There are three?” he asks cheerfully, and at this the men nod and mumble, amazed and afraid, though he can see a few men, Lucien in particular, smirking. Lescarbot smiles too, but with hatred for Samuel, who alone among the educated has thought to use the tack of reason. He has also made an enemy of the priest, but that does not bother him as much. There is a priest back home in Brouage who likes him, and that is where he intends to die.

“If Dédé was to venture outside the walls I'm sure he'd find a fourth, and a fifth,” Samuel offers. “Someone go ask Membertou if he has ever found more than two. Maybe out in our bay last night a fish died. Maybe all along the shore are some dozen crab lying on their backs.”

Some men shrug and some nod in allegiance to his sarcasm and he thinks he has changed the course of some minds, at least on this day. For he does own the authority of having lived longest in this New France. He has seen some of its strange creatures and he has been misled and been made afraid, and then ashamed of that fear. He has never made secrets of this.

He wishes he had more talent to say what he wants to say, something that would incur the priest's wrath all the more, for the words should be his: that watching them here is the same God who watched them in their cradles at home. This present wilderness might be without religion, yes, but there is no place a man can step that is without God.

THIS SAME MORNING
Membertou announces himself in the savages' traditional way, shouting “Ho-ho!” from a distance, and he pushes into Champlain's chambers so wild of face that at first he wonders if the old sagamore wishes to do him harm. Membertou looks the buffoon, yet wily, as Samuel sees in his countenance some sly intent. But so drawn is his face and so distended his eyes that Samuel now sees he is excited on top of being very tired. Even from the door Samuel can smell him, and underneath his usual odour the old man smells like the sourest of mud.

Wearing this agitated look he approaches while holding his birchbark quiver hidden behind his back — another reason Samuel wonders at his intent. Then he brings it in front of him and holds it out between them and shakes it. There is no evidence of arrows protruding, but something makes a dense rattling from within. Then he holds the quiver in front of his chest and now lifts it farther up, regarding it with his eyes, then thrusting it out in so noble a position that one might suspect it holds the waters of eternal life.

Membertou says, “Sir!” and spills the contents of his quiver onto Samuel's table.

Oh! Escargots! The snails fall out and fill the tabletop. Shiny-wet with dew and their own lovely excretions, the sound produced
as they issue forth is a thousand moist clicks at once, more rush than clatter, almost a hiss. He is instantly excited by these beings, this beautiful food. They are slimmer of shell here than at home, but they carry the same pattern of beige and black lines. Wet and made brilliant in the morning light, they are lovely.

“Eat!” the old man announces, and then laughs, as he often does at his last word when there is nothing more to be said, though no joke has been told.

And so Samuel learns that his savage friend has been up before sunrise three mornings running, gathering this surprise for him.

He hadn't been aware that Membertou was listening, some nights earlier, as some of them were going down to supper, when Samuel had moaned, dreamlike, that what he craved most was a feast of escargots. He does recall Membertou asking after them, and someone thenceforth describing their shell and nocturnal habits, their slow nighttime journey, their glistening trail, and their escape to hidden dens before the sun. But listening he had been, and Membertou has been out hunting the forest floor under the moon, plucking these treasures up.

Samuel thanks Membertou, who bows his head. Reaching into this private bin of stores he brings out not just a knife but also two iron nails, placing them on the table apart from the snails, some of which have made themselves upright and begun to move. Samuel hopes it is not a flash of disappointment he sees as Membertou hesitates before placing the barter in his wet quiver. The man had worked very hard for Samuel's pleasure and had seen his joy, and Samuel wonders if perhaps he shouldn't have given him more nails. Or perhaps even a hatchet. Or it seems perhaps Membertou would be happiest if Samuel had given him nothing at all; perhaps what the sagamore wants
most is what he asks for now: nodding his head and walking backwards while leaving, like savages do, Membertou mumbles quietly again that he wishes to become Christian. But most of all he looks ready for sleep. It is easy to forget the man is past one hundred years old.

In any case, though Membertou already knew of the escargot, it seems the savages use them only as forage in difficult times, eating them uncooked and without salt or anything else. No wonder escargots are not savoured by them, for salt truly opens the gift of their flesh. Even as Samuel counts the several dozen on his table he imagines their many brethren that still roam the woods, unaware that no longer are they safe! Still, if in three bouts of searching this agile old hunter found but sixty-three snails, it does discourage Samuel somewhat.

He likes them as a favourite aunt made them, with shallots and fennel, and of course salt. The fennel is perfect, for are escargots not like fish who carry an encaved pond on their backs? More like fish than flesh in any case, in the same way that the dolphin-fish they speared during the crossing was more flesh than fish — indeed, it was more rich even than beef, and consequently some men were startled off their enjoyment of it. That it blows foul mist and noise from the top of its head is unsavoury enough.

Sadly, they lack fennel here, though there are rumours of a fern-root that approximates its taste. In the meantime, they have in their gardens some garlic that, though still green in the bulb and the size of a pea, will grace the butter, which will grace the salt, all of which will grace the snail. Tonight Poutrincourt and he will eat escargots. Having for so many of these months been fed on ship's rations, food that is really not much more than common fuel for a body's basest fire, he finds that the anticipation of beautiful food is the rarest and best thing. He rolls a snail,
in its slime, between thumb and forefinger, and wonders if exalted food, that is, unnecessary food, isn't, in fact, necessary. He means no disrespect to God when he wonders further if humble men like him are not honouring their lives simply by being, when they can be, magnificent eaters.

TODAY IS THEIR
Sieur's birthday and on the cook's shout Lucien along with all the other men is invited to gather in the courtyard, around the flagpole, to enjoy two fingers of brandy and toast the noble birth.

He has the shutter open just enough to let a beam in. Lying abed he savours the day's section of Homer. Each time he turns a page he regrets his fingers' calluses, the rough stain of his trade. It is Lucien's second time through, and he anticipates Odysseus encountering the cannibal Laestrygones, a thrilling and favourite part. He wonders if he could simply remain here and not be missed. Depending on the noble's mood it is an insolence he could be flogged for, but the risk of being caught is small, since no one would expect any man here not to gallop like a horse in the direction of a whiff of brandy. Lucien does not care much for it except as a digestif to ease heavy foods. In quantity, the joy it brings comes on too quickly and then all turns simply common, where the cause of a song or a fight could be one and the same. Though one cup of brandy will not lead to this. Lucien presses his book flat under the mattress and rises.

The courtyard is bathed by the richly oblique sunlight of four o'clock on a November afternoon, a falling but vivid light which Lucien suspects must exist wherever one journeys in the world, the sun being the sun. A heavy and liquid light, whatever it touches invites description in poetry. Even men's faces gain
depth and beauty, even the harmed ground at their feet. Lucien sees, there, a friend's cheek and thinks of the word edible, then understands he has been reminded of the gold of an egg yolk. In the forest behind he sees the deeper green a vegetable gains when blanched. Lucien takes some comfort in knowing that this is the very sun that falls even now on his backyard at home, illuminating the ground for the chickens as they peck, bathes his sister Babette's face as she pauses from unhanging the dry linens. Perhaps, as if hearing something, she turns and gazes long to the West. And it is good to know that, in the sun's own time, he is only one half-day distant.

Lucien pushes in between two others and extends his arm to receive his cup, which is followed hard upon by Poutrincourt's boy pouring brandy from a jug. Lucien is perhaps the only man who makes no noise at getting his. Some men supply a whispered joke, “Come, boy, don't be so mean now.” Some loudly sigh and smile. When Fougeray de Vitre shouts a simple toast to the triple hierarchy of God, King, and Sieur, Lucien tilts some brandy onto his tongue and tastes it up through his nose. He will wait till the sensation passes before taking another taste. Those on either side of him throw the entirety of their cup back against their throats and as it goes down hot they cough.

Lucien joins in weakly as all the men chant Sieur Poutrincourt's birthday praises. Looking already flush with drink, Monsieur Champlain calls waggishly for a speech. Sieur Poutrincourt is flush of face too but is too contained a man to concoct a speech, least of all about himself, so Monsieur Lescarbot performs one for him. Lescarbot loves to speak and relishes his own talent when he does so. He has the deep voice of a larger man but he is small, his tight body reminding Lucien of oars strapped hard together in the shape of a man, and though he always smiles he seems dangerous in the way some small men
can. Speaking so well that Lucien suspects he has come prepared, Lescarbot begins with a fantastic anecdote about the nobleman's very birth, and how the midwife grew uncontrollably amorous at the first sight of him. Lucien sees that the nobles have been making merry all day long, so raucous is their laughter. It isn't often that noble laughter outshouts the rough kind of the regular men.

Lescarbot's speech turns to serious praise, that New France could wish for no better soul to plant its first flag, et cetera, and while it might be true, Lucien looks for creatures in the clouds that tumble overhead, though down here in this valley there is not more than a whisper of air. Such it is when the wind comes from the north; come the hard winter, that wall of young mountains will prove a most kindly friend. No — small mountains are old mountains, he has learned this in his reading. Mountains don't grow as trees do. They grow smaller, wearing away like Roman steps, losing perhaps a pebble-height each noble birthday. Lucien sees a hare, with ears that drag far behind him, as though with his ears pinched in a cook's hand he still runs to escape. One ear separates and becomes its own dolphin-fish —

Lucien startles badly at the firing of the first cannon. He half heard the finale of Lescarbot's speech, something about “the declaration of all cannon” because Port-Royal, and New France, was celebrating the birthday of none other than its first king. If any a man thought about this near-heresy it was blasted dead by the final shot. Lucien thinks he has witnessed the worst case of currying favour ever in his life. A man can truly shrink himself through trying to bolster another. Sieur Poutrincourt neither smiles nor moves as his eyes vainly try to penetrate cannon smoke to take in the bay. Lucien braces himself and lets his mouth hang open for the next shot. For some reason the ears hurt less if you give your head another hole.