Silence of Stone Read Free Page A

offered advice. Roberval is wicked, she said, but not criminal. Foolishly my brother appointed him viceroy. Roberval is the law in New France.
    And my
château
? I asked. My properties?
    There is nothing you can do, she said. You must leave it to God to punish him. But I will attend to your support. Because God has saved you.
    God has saved you. Leave it to God.
    I believed the queen would understand Marguerite’s story because she too had lost the man she loved when she was a young woman. She too had lost an infant. But the queen took Marguerite’s story and retold it in her own collection of tales, changing everything in the telling. Convinced that Marguerite’s story was evidence of God’s mercy, the queen told a tale of romance and faith. She chose not to mention Roberval’s cruelty. She chose not to consider God’s neglect.
    The Queen of Navarre was the last one, the only one, I ever told about the Isle of Demons. And for sixteen years I have worked at forgetting – until the king’s cosmographer arrived yesterday in Nontron. Thevet, to his great irritation, learned only months ago that Marguerite de Roberval was the heroine of the late queen’s tale, and so he has come with hisorder from the king, his quill and his paper, like pick and shovel, to mine for scurrilous details.
    For all his mining, I’ll give him nothing but fool’s gold.
    â€œThe queen had no interest in demons. She was far more concerned about the behaviour of Franciscans.”
    The monk’s face flushes, and I smile at his discomfort. Sympathetic to the new religion, the queen satirized Franciscan lechery and greed, depicting monks as pigs that can neither hear nor understand.
    â€œWere the Queen of Navarre not already dead,” he sputters, “she would be burned.” He pinches his fat lower lip, shutting off any further discussion of the late queen’s opinions.
    â€œWhat of the young man?” he asks. “The lover set ashore with you? Who was he?”
    â€œMarguerite’s husband.”
    â€œBy what rites were you married?”
    â€œTheir own.”
    He smoothes the white feather, trying to feign gentleness and concern. “What was his name?”
    â€œYou have no need of a name.”
    â€œOf course I do if I am to record this history accurately.”
    â€œIt is enough to know that he died.”
    Thevet sits back in his chair and pulls at his beard. “Do you not care that the full truth of this story be known?”
    â€œYou will write what you will write. People willbelieve what they will believe. It does not matter.”
    â€œBut what about the child?”
    â€œHer baby died.” Wails gone to whimpers gone to silence.
    â€œBoy or girl?”
    â€œIt does not matter.”
    He sucks his teeth. “Baptised?” he finally asks.
    â€œ
Oui.
”
    â€œWhat did you name the child?”
    The monk leans forward and makes a tent with his fingers.
Le bouffon.
Does he believe me simpleminded, that I would blurt the name of the child and give away the father?
    â€œYou can tell me everything.” His voice is soft, wheedling. “You have nothing to fear from Roberval… now that he’s dead.”
    I look down to hide the shock I cannot disguise. A score of times I have seen his death in my dreams: the startled blue eyes, the gaping scarlet grin, the gurgling flow of blood. But believed that I had only wished it so.
    â€œYou did not know?”
    â€œ
Non.
”
    â€œYour guardian,” he says, watching me closely, “was murdered last winter, throat slit, at the Church of the Innocents in Paris.”
    Pale blue voices whisper his name:
Roberval, Roberval.
Then laugh out loud:
His mercy endureth forever. Leave it to God.
    I struggle to contain my own mirth. My throataches with the effort. I am glad that he is dead, and I hope that he suffered. But it is not for fear of Roberval that I choose not to reveal