The Mark of the King Page 5

  When Julianne LeGrange had asked Marc-Paul about her brother, he’d cut her off before she had a chance to give his surname, but it hadn’t taken long to figure it out. With minimal persuasion, the ship captain allowed him to review the marriage certificates for the passengers. She had signed her maiden name next to the notary’s recording of Simon LeGrange, just above Simon’s X. The ship records also included a list of Salpêtrière girls who had been remitted to Monsieur Nicolas Picard of the Company of the Indies, and Julianne Chevalier, age twenty-five, had been on it.

  Of course, her name, her occupation as midwife, and those striking grey eyes that were a dead match for Benjamin’s could have all been coincidental. But in his gut, he knew that Julianne’s brother was Benjamin Chevalier, once a soldier in the company Marc-Paul commanded. The last time he saw Benjamin, prison bars striped the young man’s face and figure. Though his betrayal had cut Marc-Paul to his core, still he had offered to send a letter to Benjamin’s sister, of whom he had spoken so often, informing her of his fate. “No,” the condemned man had said simply. The shame would bring her naught but heartache.

  Marc-Paul climbed up to the quarterdeck and leaned against the mast, his gaze following a sailor scaling the ratlines to the crow’s nest. Though fiddle and fife still played below, all he heard was Benjamin’s desperate plea for his own life. His grey eyes had glimmered in the torchlight as he begged for pardon. But Marc-Paul’s hands were tied just as securely as Benjamin’s own. Pardon was not his to grant, even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t. Not after what Benjamin had done.

  Marc-Paul Girard served God and country. He obeyed the laws. It was the only way to maintain civilization in the wilderness. If Benjamin had only done the same, he would still be alive to greet his beloved sister on the shores of the Mississippi.

  Forehead knotting, Marc-Paul paced starboard to the rail and leaned forward to watch a school of dolphins arcing in and out of the glassy ocean. But it was Julianne’s face that now surged in his mind. How would she fare in the rough settlement at New Orleans? Would a husband such as Simon care for her even half as well as a brother would have?

  A splash, and then another, jerked his attention to the waters starboard of the main deck. A goose, apparently having escaped from below, had waddled overboard, and a crewman with a knife clenched between his teeth had jumped in after it. The music stopped, and laughter soared as the dancers watched the honking bird and the sailor flailing about, trying to catch it. A smile tipped Marc-Paul’s lips as he indulged in a moment of distraction. Once he was back in New Orleans, he’d have no time for goose chases of any kind.

  And he certainly would have no time to add the welfare of a dead man’s sister—and a convict’s wife—to his ever-growing list of responsibilities.

  The damp smells of sea salt, tar, and livestock lined Julianne’s nostrils as she knelt on the floor near Simon. While she and the rest of the passengers had been unshackled on the deck above, he was chained by the fetters on his ankles to an iron post in the hold of the ship, surrounded by casks of wine and olive oil, barrels of flour, hens, geese, turkeys, and some cattle.

  His eyes blazed. “Have you come to gloat?”

  She plucked a piece of straw from the floor and twisted it about her finger. “I came to see how you fare. Which you might have the decency to ask me as well.” Her sleeve still flapped open, revealing both her scab and her brand, a double humiliation.

  “You got in the way,” he growled.

  “To spare you this.” She motioned to the shackles on his ankles.

  “Did you enjoy watching me fail, wife? Did the captain who made a fool of me in front of everyone offer to dress your wounds while I was unconscious on the ground? How very chivalrous of him!”

  Heat flashed over her face. “You’re impossible.” She shook the straw from her skirt, no longer in the mood to make amends.

  The ship pitched suddenly, throwing her against Simon and sending them both sliding down the slanted floor. When his chain jerked taut against his shackled ankle, he cried out, adding his protest to those of the squawking hens and groaning cows. She pushed herself away from him and waited for the rocking to calm.

  Footfalls thudded overhead. Simon stared at the deck above before returning his icy gaze to Julianne. “Just remember while you roam freely up there that your husband remains with the livestock, chained like an animal himself.”

  “I’ll speak to the captain about it.”

  An unkind smile tipped his lips. “I wager he’ll enjoy that.”

  “Don’t be boorish, Simon!” She swished her skirt at an approaching goose, sending it in another direction.

  “I don’t expect your love, but I do expect your allegiance. You’re supposed to be my partner. You chose me as your groom of your own free will, remember.” In the pause that followed, a cow noisily chewed its hay. When Simon spoke again, he kept his gaze on his chains. “I’m quite used to being unwanted. My parents had no use for me, and the nuns at the orphanage grew so weary of me that they likely rejoiced when I ran away. All my life, I never belonged to anyone, and no one ever belonged to me. I thought perhaps you and I . . .”

  Julianne held her breath, waiting.

  He looked up, eyes hardening. “You’re my wife, Julianne, till death. No one—not some foppish captain, not even that long-lost brother of yours—can lay greater claim to you than that. We belong to each other now. And I’ll be hanged before you forget it.”

  The edge in his voice scraped her sympathy away. Skirts in one hand, she made her way to the ladder and climbed the rungs, leaving him alone with the livestock below.

  Chapter Five

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  JUNE 1720

  Almost there, Julianne told herself yet again as she tried to pull oxygen from the sweltering, soggy atmosphere. We’re almost there. Though due to the bald cypress and tupelo gum trees obscuring the view, she had to trust her guide more than her gut. Sunlight struggled through the branches but managed to catch upon the banana spider webs strewn all over Captain Girard’s tri-point hat. Shuddering, she dropped her gaze to her steps. For the first time in five months, she relied on her legs to carry her forward, independent of the sea. Unfortunately, her shoes were long since gone.

  Yesterday, after disembarking the flute at Mobile, she and the other passengers boarded narrow dugout canoes for the rest of the journey to New Orleans. Those who had survived the voyage, anyway. Dozens of couples were parted by death during the crossing. Half the German and Swiss contingent had died as well.

  Julianne, Simon, Captain Girard, and nearly two dozen others had climbed into a pirogue powered by Canadians and rowed westward along the Gulf Coast into wide-open lakes. The remaining passengers were waiting for their own expertly guided pirogues when Julianne’s party had left, and they would be distributed between New Biloxi, New Orleans, Natchez, and places farther north in Illinois Country.

  After spending a wretched night on land, slathered with bear grease to keep the mosquitoes from feasting on their flesh, they’d traveled along the cypress-choked Bayou Saint-Jean, where alligators rippled through the water and curtains of moss dripped from the trees. When the pirogue could no longer clear the bottom of the waterway, the passengers cut through the trees on foot while their guide returned to Mobile with the pirogue.

  The ground in front of Julianne moved. Before she could place another cautious step, a snake slithered out from under her path, crackling over the fallen leaves.

  Captain Girard turned just in time to see her stumble to keep from stepping on it, her hand trapping a scream in her mouth. “See to your wife,” he said to Simon, and transferred his satchel from one shoulder to the other. The captain’s black hair, tied in a queue at the back of his neck, curled with the humidity.

  “What business of yours is my wife?” But Simon cupped her elbow anyway, and she was glad of his support. After what happened at Saint-Nicolas Tower, it had taken no small length of the voyage for them to reconcile to a
strained cordiality.

  Behind them, Denise Villeroy panted as she labored to carry her unborn child through the swamp. Her husband, Jean, prodded her along with words that matched his fiery red hair. Lisette, a long-haired Salpêtrière orphan of fifteen summers, made no sound at all, while her husband and a young widow hung back with the rest of the group.

  The trail emerged from the shade into a marsh thick with head-high river cane and cattails. The ground squelched and sucked at Julianne’s feet, as though she walked on a bed of sponges. Waterfowl stirred in the rushes before soaring into an azure sky.

  Finally, the air freshened. On the other side of the marsh, they found themselves in a muddy clearing with a smattering of temporary shelters near the river.

  Simon stopped short. “This is New Orleans?”

  Murmuring from the rest of the group drifted in the sticky air.

  “The one and only.” Girard kept walking, and as he had promised to lead them to an inn, Julianne gently prodded Simon to follow him.

  Yet she couldn’t help but agree with Simon’s unstated sentiment; the town was so rugged it seemed to mock its namesake, the flamboyant Philippe II, Duke of Orleans and Regent of France. It seemed more a collection of crude huts strewn along muddy paths.

  Mosquitoes buzzed around Julianne where her bear grease wore thin. With her bare feet, chapped lips, hair as short as a boy’s, and smelling like a wild animal, she knew the rough impression she gave matched that of New Orleans very well. Perhaps she and the settlement were a perfect fit.

  “You were expecting Versailles?” Girard called over his shoulder at them, chuckling. “Courtyards, fountains—”

  “Buildings, streets,” Simon inserted.

  Girard nodded as he strode onward. “All of those things will come in time. In fact, we’re waiting for an engineer to come from France to design the city’s streets and public spaces. No real progress is allowed until he arrives and plans it. In the meantime, we survive. We farm. We befriend the native peoples already inhabiting Louisiana. Failing that—we fight. We live another day, to build something greater than ourselves.”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “Long live the king, eh?”

  Julianne fought the urge to elbow him in the ribs. For whatever reason, Captain Girard was paying attention to their needs. Maybe later he would pay closer attention to her inquiry about Benjamin. She had no intention of antagonizing the officer now.

  “Clearly you think yourself above serving anything other than yourself,” the captain muttered, and Simon laughed in brazen agreement before spitting on the ground.

  Groaning dramatically, Denise slapped at the insects on her arms and neck. “Pardon me, messieurs, but is it very far to the inn?”

  Weariness etched Captain Girard’s face. “Not far now, madame.”

  The walk through town took the party past crude cabins made of pilings and thatched roofs. Everyone they saw was on foot.

  “Where do you keep your horses?” Jean asked.

  “We don’t.” The captain sighed. “Not generally. There are only nine horses in this settlement, divided between two very wealthy men. When you want to get somewhere, you walk. Or paddle.”

  “Don’t you soldiers have horses?” Jean pressed. “What about the farmers?”

  “No. We pull our own cannon. Farmers pull their own plows. We do have thirty-six cows in New Orleans, however. But don’t get any ideas of eating beef—it’s against the law to kill them.”

  Jean frowned. “What about pigs? Sheep?”

  “Zero.” Captain Girard straightened his hat on his head and pointed. “That’s the Mississippi River up ahead.”

  Julianne could smell the fishermen’s catch as they neared it. In an open square bordering the river, Indians carried woven baskets and bundles of pelts, which she could only guess they meant to trade. Men in deerskin breeches with red sashes about their waists bellowed laughter and French patois.

  “Canadians,” explained Captain Girard, nodding in their direction. “Voyageurs and coureurs des bois.”

  “What’s the difference?” Julianne asked.

  “Voyageurs are legally employed to trap and trade according to colony regulations. Coureurs des bois are unlicensed and work independently. Both groups idle in New Orleans between their trapping and trading trips up and down the Mississippi.”

  “They’re not all Canadians,” Denise puffed, looking at ebony-skinned men and women being divided into lots and given to Frenchmen in silver-buckled shoes.

  “Africans?” Jean asked.

  Captain Girard nodded. “The ones who survived the trip from Senegal. Bienville—the governor here and commandant general—wasn’t satisfied with using Indian slaves we captured during conflicts because it’s so easy for natives to run away back home.”

  “So you’ve gone to Africa to make slaves of any you can catch?” Julianne tried not to stare at them. Their expressions varied between mournful and fierce.

  “Not me.” Girard’s tone was emphatic. “But yes. Bienville has taken a cue from the British, who rely on African labor for their tobacco plantations. He’s convinced we can and should do the same. Here we are.”

  He stopped in the shadow of a large structure made from pilings driven into the ground, with some sort of mud paste hardened between them. Close to the ground, the wood seemed to be rotting and splitting. Large chinks in the homemade plaster must have offered welcome ventilation in the summer, Julianne supposed, but surely in winter the wind was not as kind.

  “You’ll be staying here in the barracks until you can find other accommodations,” the captain was saying. “An officer inside will see to you. You three will follow me.” He nodded to Julianne, Simon, and Denise.

  “Now just wait a minute.” The color rose in Jean’s ruddy cheeks.

  “Do you wish your wife to deliver your child here? I’m taking her to more comfortable lodgings where her midwife may attend her in privacy.”

  Leaving Jean sputtering in his wake, Captain Girard led Julianne, Simon, and Denise from the barracks. When they reached the two-story St. Jean Inn, he told them to wait outside while he went in search of the proprietor. The half-timber walls were filled in with a white plaster of sorts between the pine posts. Though it would not have graced a French village, it presented itself here as almost refined in comparison to the crude huts.

  Minutes later, the captain reappeared with a woman dressed in a cornflower-blue silk gown, the beribboned stomacher broad enough to accommodate her ample waist. Lace topped her heap of silvery blond curls, and a mole patch graced her cheekbone. Startled to see such French style here in this swampy outpost, Julianne felt afresh her own tattered appearance.

  “Monsieur and Madame LeGrange, Madame Villeroy, please meet Madame Francoise St. Jean, the owner of this inn.” He bent in a half bow to Madame St. Jean, and Julianne and Denise dipped in curtsy. “As Madame Villeroy is soon to deliver, Francoise has agreed to let you ladies lodge with her on credit until your dowry arrives from the ship,” Girard explained. “The barracks is no place to give birth. LeGrange, you’ll come with me.”

  “Why should I?”

  A muscle worked in Captain Girard’s jaw. “Because I might not feel so generous the moment I resume command of my company.” With that, the two men marched away.

  “Mes chères.” Francoise cupped Julianne’s and Denise’s shoulders in her warm hands. “Captain Girard told me all about you and gave me explicit orders to take care of you. He needn’t have worried on that account.” A smile warmed Francoise’s expertly rouged cheekbones, and her hazel eyes sparkled. “Your journey has been so long. You have come so far and now find yourself in an untamed land—and wed to untamed men. Believe it or not, I know exactly how you feel. You are not the first brides for France.” She smelled faintly of jasmine-scented hair pomade. She smelled like Julianne’s mother.

  “And how would you know how we feel?” Tilting her head, Denise clasped her hands atop her rounded belly. She raised her dark eyebrows above cho
colate-brown eyes in an expression that hinted at her aristocratic blood.

  “Three times I have been a bride for France. Sent over first in 1704, I married a soldier who died of fever. My second husband, a Canadian trapper and voyageur, never came home from a trip up to Illinois Country one season. Attacked by Indians, his friends said, and I took their word for it. My third husband helped build this inn, and I made it my business from before his death until now. This work”—she gestured to the inn—“allows me to provide for myself. For me and my son, both. Between the inn and the Lord, Laurent and I get along fine. You will too, you’ll see.”

  “Francoise, did you ever—did you love your husbands? Any of them?” Julianne’s mind drifted to Simon and struggled to imagine the life that awaited her with him.

  A sigh escaped Francoise’s rosy lips. “I grew to love one of them more than the others. And I found immense love in my children. Oh yes—I had a daughter too, but she was not strong enough for this rugged life.” She fingered the edge of a lace-trimmed handkerchief and shook her head before continuing. “But of course, you are wondering about your own husband. How things will be between the two of you. Only God knows that answer, ma chère. It would be better for you to take up the matter with Him.”

  Julianne doubted whether the Creator of the universe cared about her troubles. But certainly calling upon divine help could not make things any worse. “I haven’t heard a single church bell. Did I miss it?” After attending mass every day for months at Salpêtrière, she felt more like a heathen with every passing week without church. “This is a Catholic colony, isn’t it?”

  Francoise nodded. “In theory, yes. A Catholic colony for Catholic France, although you’d not suspect it from looking at the settlers here, would you? Even so, there is a Capuchin friar who holds meetings in a very small room every once in a while, but generally, when it comes to matters of faith, we’re on our own.”