Silence of Stone (16 page)

Kek-kek-kek. La nourriture pour les corbeaux. Pruk-pruk-pruk.

“And why should the ravens not eat?” I look at my fingers, raven's claws. I am one of them now, dressed all in black.

My head hums with the sound of maggots gnawing. I rub my wrist and am surprised to touch scabbed flesh. Who has done this to me? Who has hurt me?

I collapse onto the bench and pull a blanket around me, the scratchy wool a comfort. The spider still labours among the logs, diligent, persistent, even though she has had her supper: Damienne's maggots.

Grievous sin. Impardonnable. La culpabilité.

“
Non
,” I answer. “Marguerite's sin, not mine.”

The spider stitches one strand to another, setting her snare. She is still hungry, but I will not give her Michella's butterflies. Michella should have had butterflies, with wings of sapphires and emeralds set in gold filigree. I hear an infant's whimpers fade to silence.

Late November. Wind. Freezing rain. Snow. The stored food gone.

Marguerite had nothing but a few scrawny rabbits, gulls, and partridge, berries she'd gathered and dried, mussels and whelks, and a few fish she
could hook or spear. Ignoring her own hunger and struggling not to swallow, Marguerite chewed bits of meat to make them soft, then tried to feed them to Michella, but the infant's summer plumpness waned as surely as the daylight. Marguerite's breasts flattened, and though Michella sucked and sucked, she howled her hunger until her own wailing wore her out and finally, she slept.

December. Only dried berries, a few fish and mussels, boiled seaweed and bark. Breasts flat, no longer containing even a drop of milk.

Marguerite held her New Testament over Michella and wept. She prayed: Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord. How long? How long? Have mercy upon us. Help us, help us, help us.

Or let us die.

She considered, and prayed, then considered again. Marguerite set her mind on the Virgin and Child, on how she would do anything to save her baby. Anything. Finally, feeling as if she were no longer in her own body, she watched herself use Michel's dagger to cut pieces from the frozen carcass that was no longer Damienne. Marguerite closed her eyes when she saw herself place the flesh into the black pot, boil it, and offer the broth and softened pieces to Michella.

La culpabilité. Grievous sin. Impardonnable.

“Marguerite's sin. Not mine.”

Michella swallowed, but she grew thinner and thinner until she was a tiny skeleton, her green eyes huge and staring, her bones as light and fragile as a
bird's. She no longer howled, only whimpered, then slept, silently.

Le silence. La pénitence. Debts must be paid. Kmmm-mm.

“Marguerite's debt, not mine.”

One morning Marguerite could not wake her. Michella: gift from God. God had reclaimed her.

God had found Marguerite unworthy.

Marguerite could hardly stand beneath the weight of her grief and her guilt. She washed Michella, kissed her face, then wrapped the small body in the white fur of a seal to keep her warm. As the sun set and the sky became a rose to match the colour of Michella's perfect lips, Marguerite rolled the rocks away from the crevice where she had placed Michel, now only bones, his fingers and toes gone. She touched his grinning mouth, his cheeks, the empty eyes, then laid Michella beside him.

She could not bear to think of weasels and mink gnawing on her baby's little bird bones. She crawled in beside Michella to protect her. Marguerite lay down beside her baby and her husband.

Forgive me, O Lord, she prayed. Forgive me. I meant only to save Michella.

A psalm came to her, and she murmured into the dark: Hear, O Lord, my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. Turn not thy face away from me…For my days are vanished like smoke, and my bones are grown dry like fuel for the fire…I am become like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like a night raven in the house.

It was I who awoke in the morning to the raucous calls of ravens interwoven with voices and laughter:
Quork-quork-quork. The grace and mercy of God. Kek-kek-kek. Saved by our grace, not God's. Kmmm-mm.

The voices mocked, but they also spoke sweetly, their breath scented with cinnamon and cloves:
Marguerite is dead, but you must live, Marguerite. Her sin, not yours. Saved by our grace.

I stood, looked upon Michel and Michella and Marguerite, then rolled the rocks into place to seal their crypt. I walked away from them all. I walked away from her grievous sin.

God had turned his back to Marguerite. I turned my back to God.

“O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth. For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens…” The girls stand in a row at the front of the room, reciting in Latin, their words mumbled and garbled. Isabelle's is the only voice that rings out, her words clear and confident. Though she is the youngest, the other girls follow her lead. Isabelle, even with her lisp, is the only one who can pronounce the Latin correctly.

“For I will behold thy heavens,” they drone, “the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast founded. What is man that thou art mindful of him?”

The voices taunt:
What is man that thou art mindful of him? Le silence. Km-mm-mm. How long, O Lord? How long?

I turn my back and try to ignore both the voices and the psalm.

“Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.”

Finished now, the girls shuffle to the shelf to pick up their embroidery hoops, needles, and thread. I hear small sighs and the rustle of skirts sliding onto benches.

Isabelle tugs at my hand. “Madame de Roberval,” she says, “have you ever seen an angel?”

“An angel?” I want to laugh out loud, but cannot. “
Non
,” I say. “Never.”

“Papa says Mama's an angel now, that she's in heaven. I would like to see her. Where do you think heaven is?”

“I don't know.”

“My baby brother killed her.” Isabelle speaks with the bluntness of children. “He was born dead. Never baptised. Do you think he's in heaven with her?”

“I know nothing of heaven, Isabelle. Go get your hoops and needles.”

“Papa says he is.” She stands on tiptoe and cups her hand to her mouth as if she would tell me a secret. She wants me to lean down. And I do – though I have no wish to know her secrets – or her father's. “I hope not,” she confesses, “because I hate him.” Her forehead creases in worry. “Does that make me
wicked?”

Grievous sin. La perversité. Impardonnable.

I take a deep breath. “
Non
, you are not wicked. No matter what you wish for.”

The Franciscan looks up from his papers. “Why did you not bury the old woman?”

Pourquoi? Why? La culpabilité.

I put my hands over my ears and stare into the flame of a candle. I see porcelain skin, rosebud lips, two tiny pearl teeth.

“Put your hands down and tell me why you did not bury her.”

I drop my hands into my lap. “Marguerite saved all her strength for the baby.”

“So you just left her for the animals?”

“The flesh was no longer Damienne's.”

La perversité. Grievous sin.

“So her bones lie there yet?” He looks at me as if I were a leper.

“
Non
, they do not.” Scattered by wolves and foxes. Ravens.

He shakes his head as if he will never understand. That is true. He will not.

“What happened after the old woman died?” he says finally.

“No food. Marguerite had no milk. The baby starved.” Whimpers gone to silence. Bones fragile as a robin's.

“When?”

“The sixth day of December. Five hundred and twelve days after Roberval left them.” Scrape of stone upon stone.

“Did you bury the child?”

“Marguerite buried the baby beside its father.”

“How did you survive the winter if you had no food?”

“She didn't.”

He stares at me, his mouth twitching. “What do you mean?”

“Marguerite died.”

“Died?”

“She died. I lived.”

“
Impossible
,” he whispers. His eyes, no longer cold hard marble, are bright and soft with fear. “Is it demons that make you say such strange things?” he asks. “Did you make promises to the Devil?”

I hear them then, the papery rustling that grows louder:
Eight hundred and thirty-two days and nights. Alone for three hundred and twenty. Why? Pourquoi? Kek-kek-kek. Quork-quork-quork.

“
Non, Père
, no promises to the Devil, no demons.”

Her sin, not yours. Saved by our grace, not God's.

“They are not uncommon in those heathen lands.” He speaks slowly, trying to calm himself. “The Indians are often tormented by evil spirits.” He pauses, then gestures deliberately as if trying to explain something difficult to a child. His own words comfort him. “When I used to travel in their country,
les sauvages
would come and throw themselves into my arms,
shouting, ‘the evil spirit is beating and tormenting me. Help me, I beg of you.'”

I sit, hands folded in my lap, and do not move.

“And immediately,” he continues, “I would seize them and recite the Gospel of Saint John, which invariably delivered them from the evil spirit.” He nods. “I performed this most holy and Catholic act more than one hundred times.”

Thevet picks up a quill and tries to still his fingers' trembling, but the feather quivers in his hand. “I could do the same for you, Marguerite. There is no shame. Christ himself removed seven demons from Mary Magdalene and she became holy.” He opens a Bible and begins reciting in Latin: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word–”

I spring forward and bare my teeth. “
Non, Père
,” I say. “I am not tormented by demons. I am tormented by you.”

He shrinks back, spittle gathering on his lips.

Alone for three hundred and twenty days and nights. Kek-kek-kek. Grievous sin. Debts must be paid.

He continues reciting, his voice shaking: “And the Word was God…In him was life–”

I slam his Bible closed. “There are no demons within me.” I stretch out my hand and hold my palm over a candle. “The debts are paid,” I say softly. “She paid them.”

The monk stares, his face terrified and confused. He slaps my hand away from the flame. “You are mad,” he croaks.

Quork-quork-quork, kek-kek-kek.

I sit back on my bench and rub a thumb over my reddened palm.

He slowly crosses himself, forehead to heart, left shoulder to right, then takes a deep hiccupping breath. “I have made inquiries,” he says cautiously, “and no one saw you for nearly a fortnight after the Feast of the Epiphany.” Suspicion curls his upper lip. “The same time Roberval was killed.”

I smile at the irony he does not see. “The Epiphany is a time for revelation,
Père
, not concealment.” I clasp my hands to cover my palm. “No one in Nontron ever sees me. Not really.”

“Do not speak to me in riddles.” He pulls at his beard. “I have learned that for nearly a fortnight you were not here to teach the girls.”

“I was ill. Confined to my garret.”

“Ill?” he says. “With what?”

“Pox.”

“Your face bears no scars.” The Franciscan takes another stuttering breath to tamp down his fear. “You survived for twenty-seven months on the Isle of Demons, nearly a year alone.” His mouth pulls to one side. “Traveling to Paris? Killing your uncle? That would have been as nothing to you.”

“
Au contraire, Père,
it would have been some-thing…a great pleasure. Had I done it.”