Bride of New France (18 page)

The hold opens and the red-haired
quartier-marin
descends. He is Laure’s first suitor, although he has no intention of going to Canada and has instead urged Laure to run off with him to the Islands. “Come up, you don’t want to miss the baptism,” he says to Laure.

“What baptism?” she asks. The only baby on the ship was born three weeks ago and buried at sea the following day in a sack with its mother, weighed down by stones. Maybe they had discovered another Protestant onboard and were converting them to the Roman Catholic faith before they reached Québec, where that religion was not tolerated.

“This is a sailor’s baptism. Not many women have the opportunity to be baptized by a sailor.”

Even though the sea air covers the body in a cold salty mist that burns the skin, the deck is the happiest place on the ship. This is mainly because the passengers can shake the insects from their clothes in the light and fill their lungs with fresh air. If the hold is the hell of the ship, then the deck is certainly a sort of paradise. It is where, on calm, sunny days, men—sailors and passengers alike—throw their fishing lines into the ocean. They spend hours waiting for signs of life in the water below. When they tire of fishing, they play cards, read, and have contests of strength climbing the masts.

On the day that they catch their first glimpse of Canada, Madame Bourdon permits the girls to stay on deck so long as they are absolutely silent. But neither the religious women nor the Jesuit priests can control the riotous energy that has taken hold of the sailors on this day. Nets are being cast into the cold water and schools of cod fish in all sizes are being dumped on the deck, silvery glints of life being turned to red by the men’s pocket knives. The captain gives special permission for the smaller fish to be thrown alive onto the ship’s one cooking fire. Before long, the smell of the roasting cod overtakes the sea salt in the air. Two of the sailors, under the supervision of Madame Bourdon and Laure, have even carried Madeleine up for the occasion. In the light of day, Madeleine’s face is as grey as her blanket, but Laure hopes that the sun will revive her. Laure accepts the fillet one of the sailors brings to her, and she breaks off little pieces to eat. She tries to entice Madeleine with some of the soft meat, but receives only a slight shake of her head and a gentle smile in response.

The sailors set out to obtain the list of the passengers arriving for the first time in Canada. It is time to baptize them. The men cheer. Madame Bourdon tries to escort the
girls back down into the Sainte-Barbe, but two sailors guard the door.

“You wouldn’t keep good Christian girls from their baptism, would you?” they taunt her.

The monstrous creature the men have been awaiting finally appears from out of the captain’s quarters. He is made up of several men who are beneath a fur patchwork coat of various colours. His face is covered in a wooden mask of Savage origin, and around his neck hang feathers, arrows, knives, and other instruments of hunting and war. The girls scream as the creature makes his lumbering way across the deck. The men shout out his name as he passes: le Bonhomme Terre-Neuve! The creature finally pauses before a throne made of barrels tied together with rope. Beside him is another barrel, filled with water from the sea. He climbs up onto his throne and turns to the officiating crew member who stands behind a pulpit with a gavel in his hand. He has beside him the book of the ship’s maps.

The assistant to this ceremony raps the gavel several times against the wooden pulpit. The sound is a hollow thud, dampened by the sea journey, but silence ensues among the passengers nonetheless. “We will now baptize each man, woman, and child who is seeing the New World for the first time.” The passengers cheer even louder.

Madame Bourdon has rushed to the Jesuit priests standing near Laure to ask them to grant the girls immunity from the sea ritual. One of the priests shakes his head and agrees with Madame Bourdon that it is a disgusting practice and one that is blasphemous as well. But, he says, so long as they are aboard their stinking vessel, they are at the mercy of these pagan brutes. There really isn’t much to be done to stop them.

“Take comfort, Madame, in the souls we have saved throughout the journey. Do not worry about the ones who live without fear of God.”

The saved souls he refers to are the men and women, several of them lunatics to begin with, who began the journey in panicky fear and have since taken to filling their days with ecstatic prayers that keep the passengers awake all through the night. Some of the men threaten to throw these redeemed souls to their watery graves.

The bucket is refilled with freezing sea water each time a man is dunked into it, splashing the contents onto the deck. When the men are all finished, the officiating sailor turns to the women.

“We have had the good fortune, although mariners’ lore would tell us otherwise, to have with us on this ship more women than men, a rare honour for a sailor.” The men roar. “We think we have treated you well, dear ladies, have we not? We have protected you from pirates and corsairs, fed you a feast of the senses each day, kept you sheltered from storm and sun, and brought you here all the way to the New World.”

The men laugh. There is sympathy in some of their eyes. Many had said throughout the journey how incredible it was that women were weathering the brutal conditions of the ship alongside the men.

“Now we will let the Bonhomme himself choose one girl to be baptized, to represent all the others among you. Who will the lucky lady be?”

The girls grab hold of each other, cowering near the floor. Laure is a bit distracted from all of this because she is still trying to get Madeleine to eat some of the cod. The Bonhomme Terre-Neuve slowly lowers himself from his barrel throne
and begins his lumbering tour of the deck. He stops before each girl, cocking his head, to inspect them one by one. Some scream and grab hold of each other in terror as the masked face leans in toward them. Laure wonders which sailors are beneath the disguise.

When the Bonhomme reaches Laure, he takes a step back and crosses his arms over his chest. The men who are watching begin to roar. “Choose the dancing goddess!” Throughout the journey Laure has not been able to shake her reputation among the men who saw her dance on the night after the storm. The Bonhomme extends a curled finger to her, but although her heart starts to pound a little faster, she isn’t really afraid of these foolish men.

The red-headed
quartier-marin
holds out the book of maps for Laure to swear on. “Normally, we have the men swear that they will stay away from the other sailors’ wives once we reach land.” A raucous cheer rises from the men. “But I guess for you, our dancing Amphitrite, we need to keep you away from the sailors themselves.”

The men laugh, stomping their feet on the planks of the deck. “Let’s ask her to dance for us again.”

Bonhomme Terre-Neuve oversees the baptism from his barrel throne. He stretches out his hand for a coin offering, seeing that Laure has none, and when the crowd is worked up into a riotous fit, a sailor pulls the plank from beneath where she sits. She hears Madame Bourdon scream just before her body hits the cold water in the barrel. Almost immediately Laure feels herself being yanked out of the barrel by the sailors.

Madame Bourdon has rushed up with a cloth to wrap around her dripping dress. “The horror and indecency of it. To do this to a woman,” she says.

Laure’s teeth are chattering from the freezing water, but she grins at the
quartier-marin
. To Madame Bourdon she says, “Canada is obviously no place for women.”

    12    

A
s the ship enters more deeply into the New World, at last the snowy icebergs give way to land—rocks and thick forests—but still Laure sees no sign of a town or city. They have been at sea for over two months and it is now July. They sail for days up the river, which is so wide it makes the Seine look like a country stream. Still, it is reassuring to see land again, even if it is far in the distance on either side of the ship. The first port where the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
anchors at is called Tadoussac. At first Laure thinks this place, with no more than twenty or thirty distressed inhabitants, is Québec, and she is relieved to learn that it is not. Tadoussac is a rudimentary port where a river called Saguenay meets the Saint Lawrence. It is here that Laure learns of the Iroquois. It is all the men on shore can talk about. The Iroquois are a tribe feared by the French and by other Savages. They attack by surprise in the forest, scalp their victims, and torture even the women and children they capture. The Iroquois are terrifying to look at, with dark, glistening bodies, shaved heads, and painted faces.

There are only men living at Tadoussac, and they look even more crazed than the sailors and men of their ship. Their hair is
long and streaked by the sun, their skin dark, and their bodies thin. There is little comfort or much in the way of a welcome to be found in this place. The men come onboard, their wide eyes searching like wild animals for nourishment and comfort. A few stay on to travel with the passengers to Québec, but most of the men take a few victuals and return to their encampment. The ship doesn’t stop long at Tadoussac, as it is often the site of Iroquois attacks, and the women do not go ashore. A few men disembark to restock their food supplies and to tell the news from France, but they too are eager to get back on the ship, which is a more civilized and orderly place than Tadoussac.

It is only in recent years that ships have begun venturing farther down the Saint Lawrence toward Québec. The river narrows after Tadoussac, and the islands and rocks increase, which can lead to shipwrecks. They pass Cap-Tourmente and Île d’Orléans. Laure makes out a few wooden shacks and what seem to be storage sheds on the north shore.

As they near Québec, the passengers come on deck to get a better look. Québec is at least a town by the looks of things, if not the bustling city centre Laure and the others had been expecting. But there is something strange, almost unnatural, about the sudden appearance of Québec from the wilderness. The town is high above the river, and dense forest rises from the shore to meet it. One of the priests points out to them the landmarks of the settlement: the steeples of the parish church, the Jesuit College, the Ursuline chapel, and the Hôtel-Dieu. On the eastern tip of the cape is the Château Saint-Louis. Houses have been built around the religious and royal edifices, and there are two windmills on the rocky point of the settlement. There are some other buildings on a narrow strip of land beneath the Cap, in the Basse-Ville. There seem to be some small shops on
this strip of land. But even here, Laure can see, behind a cover of trees, the ominous outline of Savage huts. She wonders if this place is any safer than Tadoussac. Her heart feels sick to think of the dangers of this new life.