Shadowbrook (65 page)

Philippe had promised himself he would not look at anything else in the drawer. He wanted only to know if his drawings were there, if Monsieur le Provincial had, as he suspected, hidden away the record of the sufferings of the Acadians. He could be wrong. Louis Roget was a thousand times more clever than Philippe Faucon. Perhaps he had sent the drawings to Versailles, or even to the pope in Rome. Perhaps Louis Roget, like Philippe, was waiting for the English to be publically accused of the terrible things they had done.

The sketches made in hiding in the little Eglise du St. Gabriel in those dark days of terror and turmoil were tied together with a black ribbon. They had been placed in the rear of the secret drawer. Philippe knew without doubt that they had been there since, in keeping with his vow of obedience, he had presented them to his superior.

He carried the drawings to the mahogany table and untied the ribbon, turning the sketches over one by one, flipping through them quickly, tears streaming down his cheeks as he saw again the anguish he had been trying to forget. There were Madame Trumante and Rafael, her four-year-old son, sent away on separate ships, unlikely to find each other ever again. There were the women cowering on one side of the hall and the men on the other, the redcoats between them with fixed bayonets. Not just exile, but separation, whole families destroyed, for no other reason than that their tormentors wished them ill.
Alors,
even Mademoiselle Marni Benoit, standing on the ramparts and looking out to sea smiling, the one
habitant
who seemed glad to leave her homeland. The record he had made was intact, but no one had seen it except himself, his superior, and of course Cormac Shea, that night when the métis had arrived looking for Marni.

There was a drawing in the pile that had not been made by him. It had been caught in the black ribbon and lifted out of the drawer when he removed his sketches. A map of some sort, with dotted lines to indicate the depths and the positions of shoals and reefs and little numbers scattered all about So perhaps a navigation chart. Both. A map and a chart. The artist had not wished to be bound
by convention. And though the thing was old and yellowed, it was meticulously drawn with ink and a quill.

Philippe held the sketch to the light, squinting so he could read the signature.
Mon Dieu!
Ignace Loualt?
Que magnifique!
He was holding a drawing made by one of the most famous names in the Society. Louait had been among the Jesuits who accompanied Champlain when Québec was established in 1608. This drawing must therefore be 150 years old.

At first Philippe could not orient himself to the artist’s point of view, but after a few seconds he realized he was looking at the St. Lawrence River and the earliest beginnings of Québec Lower Town.
Alors,
the big tree, the oak with the large wound in its trunk left from a bolt of lightning … it is still there. Louait drew this from the shore just below the falls.
Bien sur.
It is the river passage between Ile d’Orléans and Ile Madame, the place they call La Traverse.
No merchant ship larger than a hundred tons can maneuver through La Traverse, and even then only with the aid of one of the experienced local pilots. Everyone knows that’s why we are impregnable here in Québec.
He had heard the statement more times than he could count.
No British warship can sail upriver and threaten us, they cannot pass La Traverse.
It was an article of faith in Québec. He had no doubt it was true. But why would Monsieur le Provincial have such a map as this hidden away?

The Society was immensely proud of its history in New France. The breviaries of the first Jesuits to come here were on display in the public rooms of the Collège. Their battered birettas, two with holes said to be made by the arrows of hostile Indians, were in a glass case beside the entrance. There was even a reliquary containing a fragment of bone said to have come from a Jesuit who had been tortured and killed by the Huron. But this map, this document straight from the pen of Louait himself, why should it be hidden away?

Because whoever saw it was in possession of a secret. No other explanation was possible.

Philippe was no longer conscious of where he was, or the moral danger of his position. He was drawn into the heart of the drawing by his pure love of lines on paper. He turned it this way and that, examining it from every angle. Louait the artist, his brother Jesuit, seemed to speak to him. See, I am bearing witness with my gift for art. As you have borne witness, to the trees and flowers and grasses of this place, and to the Indians, and to the sufferings of the
habitants
of l’Acadie. In my own way, in my own time, I did the same. Because, my brother, a thing is not always as it seems, or as people say it is. But the truthful eye of the artist, that does not fail.

Mère de Dieu
… Loualt had made a chart of the channel through La Traverse.

Philippe’s hands shook.
Only with the knowledge of local pilots,
everyone said.
They have secrets that are passed from father to son. There is no other hope of finding
a way through.
It was not true. Ignace Louait had provided all the knowledge necessary. The cross-hatching identified the various shoals and—he was no expert in these things—perhaps even a reef. The numbers were fathom markings, indications of depth. But were they accurate? They had to be. Louait must have made the soundings himself or he would not have committed the results to a permanent record.

We Jesuits are always thorough and precise. Do all for the greater glory of God. We are taught that from the first day we enter the Society. No shoddy efforts, no half measures. So, since it must be accurate, with this thing one could navigate La Traverse—
Mon Dieu
…

Philippe made the sign of the cross. He closed his eyes and prayed that when he opened them he would not see what he thought he’d seen. But when he looked a second time the numbers on the chart had not changed.
Mon Dieu,
I am not a seaman. But I have heard it said over and over since I came to Québec seven years ago:
La Traverse is not only too fierce and too narrow for English warships, it is nowhere deep enough. The smallest frigate cannot get through.
But here I see with my own eyes that according to the soundings of Ignace Louait, priest of the Society of Jesus and companion to Champlain, the channel is plenty deep, only crooked and difficult to locate.

He had to sit down. The closest chair was the one usually occupied by Monsieur le Provincial. Philippe sat in it, holding the map in both trembling hands. Québec Harbor was not inviolate. It could be entered by English warships. The redcoats would separate husbands and wives, mothers and children, and banish them to some terrible place where they could not receive the sacraments and save their souls.

He looked across the room to the record he had made of the sufferings of the Acadians, still spread out on Monsieur le Provincial’s beautiful mahogany table. Tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook, but he was careful not to allow his sobs to be heard.

“You left this in the corridor, Monsieur Philippe. I thought you might need it.”

Philippe took the breviary from Brother Luke’s wrinkled hands.
“Merci, mon Frère.”
The old man nodded and went to his place in the refectory. Philippe set the breviary on the table beside the boiled egg and rich, dark beef bouillon of the Sunday evening collation. He lifted the cup of broth and drank, carefully avoiding any glance at the head table where Monsieur le Provincial sat.

The Provincial was equally careful not to look directly at Faucon, though he did not miss what had passed between the priest and the brother. Did you by chance leave your breviary in my study, Philippe?
Non,
I do not think so. If you
had Luke would not have found it. It is not Brother Luke who disturbed the hair in the angel’s wings. And only you and he were in the house.
Au fond,
you left your breviary somewhere else. Near my study, perhaps. And the saintly old brother who thinks ill of no one has simply assumed that you forgot it.

The brother in charge of serving the evening meal approached with second helpings. Roget had a mind to refuse for the sake of self-discipline, and because the crisis in the matter of food grew worse every day. The fisheries were managed for the good of France, not Canada. Most of the catch was salted and sent to the mother country. The growing season in this place was short, and the
habitants
came of stock selected for fishing and trapping skills. They were not, God help them, natural farmers. Worse, Bigot offered them so little for what wheat they did grow that they preferred to hoard, and to sell on the black market. As a result the bread in the town bakeries was of terrible quality—the flour was augmented with ground peas—and rationed to a few thin slices per person per day. For meat, the
habitants
were reduced to slaughtering their horses.

Such deprivation was not apparent in the refectory of the Jesuits. They baked loaves of the finest white bread from excellent flour presented to them by Intendant Bigot, who also frequently supplied them with sides of beef. All, of course, for the sake of his soul. What would be gained by refusing such gifts? Bigot would not turn around and give the food to the poor.

The brother stood in front of his superior, head bowed, holding the tureen of bouillon, waiting to be told if Monsieur le Provincial wished a second helping. The rich aroma of the broth was irresistible. Roget nodded and two ladlefuls of the soup were added to his cup.

The Provincial did not always eat here in the refectory with his sons. Frequently his status required that he dine with those in Québec who, like himself, were in positions of great authority. Though they were not, of course, anything like himself. What did he have in common with the likes of a stunted little charlatan like Bigot, or that old Canadian who fancied himself an aristocrat, the marquis de Vaudreuil? The Provincial sighed. It was his duty to associate with such people for the greater glory of God, just as it was his duty to do all in his power to promote the welfare and spread of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, not simply here in this brutal Canadian wilderness, but in all of New France, most particularly the more hospitable lands to the south. He had known almost from the moment he arrived on this side of the ocean that the future lay in the Ohio Country and the territory known as Louisiana. They would be not just the heart, but the spine of New France. From there the Holy Church and the Society could spread west. Whatever happened, such treasures must not be given up to the English. Certainly not to save this harsh land. But now, with a Canadian as governor-general … Patience, he reminded himself. The time will come.

Eh bien,
he had been patient with his wounded falcon for a very long time. And did I trap you today,
mon pauvre Philippe,
you who wished to hide here in the Society because you could not face the rigors of the mews and then discovered that a Jesuit does not have even a falconer’s gauntlet with which to protect himself? Only the grace of God and his own wits.

Did I leave my apartments unlocked simply to tempt you into the sin you have now committed? I think I simply forgot. I am guilty of an oversight, nothing more. And if you had merely satisfied yourself that your drawings were still in my possession and gone away, I could perhaps leave you to the punishment of your own overscrupulous conscience. But as it is … And you took not just the damning pictures which will excite Vaudreuil and the rest of the Canadians to defend with still greater fervor their kingdom of snow, you took Loualt’s chart as well. So I must act. After evening prayers, I think. Leaving you a little more time to agonize over your sins will make it easier in the end.

The bell chimed, signaling the end of collation. Monsieur le Provincial rose and led his sons in a brief grace after meals. When it was finished they left the refectory in silence, but not in procession. Jesuits were not monks. They did not move through their house in liturgical conformity. Each man went where he wished for the few minutes until the bell would again summon him to the church for evening prayers.

Phillppe returned to his small room and reclaimed his deerskin envelope. It was a warm summer’s night; he would have no need of a cloak. The bell rang. Philippe walked not to the church where his community gathered, but to a side door that gave out on the street that ran beside the west facade of the grand Collège des Jésuites.