Silence of Stone Read Online Free PDF

using all his considerable charm, succeeded in persuading a dozen impoverished noblemen to venture forth, promising they would make their fortunes in New France.
    On the sixteenth day of April in 1542, Marguerite and a trembling Damienne, together with noblemen and soldiers and the freed murderers and thieves,boarded the
Vallentyne
, the
Sainte-Anne
, and the
Lèchefraye
.
    The Franciscan is finished with heretics for now. “Did you know him before you left France?” he asks. “Or did you meet him aboard ship?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYour lover,” he says impatiently.
    â€œShe did not know him in France. He boarded the
Vallentyne
with her…before the murderers and thieves.” I see their sallow pockmarked faces, sneers filled with dark stubby teeth and bleeding gums. But I can also see Michel’s mischievous grin and the gold flecks in his eyes that promised love.
    â€œA nobleman?”
    â€œ
Oui
.”
    â€œWhat happened on the voyage to anger Roberval?”
    I shrug a shoulder against my neck. “They courted.” Dark beard tickling her skin, fingers dancing across the tops of her breasts. Her mouth on his, tongues exploring.
    â€œYour uncle would not have objected to mere courting. Obviously there was more,” he insists. “There was sin, Marguerite, grievous sin…for which you must beg God’s forgiveness.” Thevet’s lip curls as if he is disgusted by the thought of bodies and desire.
    Spit gathers in my mouth. I would send it flying onto his curled lip if I could. Marguerite sinned, but not with Michel. They merely loved. As if one can love, merely.
    â€œMarguerite paid dearly for her sins.”
    Thevet does not hear. He stands and points at me, as if to emphasize the importance of his suppositions. “Perhaps you believed yourself to be a savage. Among the savages, girls are not scorned for having
served
young men before they are married.” His tongue flicks out and lingers at the corner of his mouth, and I know that he only pretends at his disgust for desire.
    â€œI understand from Cartier that there are even certain lodges where they meet, the men
to know
the women.” He smoothes his cassock, his hand hovering over his crotch. He watches to see if I am looking.
    I turn away and try to forget what he has made me see. I hear worms in the graveyard outside, gnawing at the newly dead.
    â€œThey were married,” I say.
    He snorts. “A hand-fast marriage…a marriage for peasants, not nobles.”
    The Franciscan sits down and riffles through his notes. “Roberval’s records are incomplete. Pages are missing. But it appears there were only seven noblemen aboard the
Vallentyne
: Roberval himself, La Salle, de Velleneuve, La Brosse, de Longueval, de Mire, de Lespinay.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Which one did you choose for your sin?”
    â€œTheir love was not a sin.”
    â€œ
Putain!
Even now you would show no contrition?” His bulbous eyes bulge even more. “Roberval was right to punish you.”
    â€œHe could have married them,” I say quietly. “They would have been the first married couple in hiscolony.”
    â€œBut you and your lover had sinned. Roberval had to set an example to the other colonists.”
    â€œTo murderers and thieves?”
    â€œPrecisely. There was an obvious need for Roberval’s strict discipline.”
    I hear the leather biting into flesh, and the screams. I see flayed backs. A man dangles from the yardarm, legs kicking, then still. The stink of his bowels fills the room.
    I rub my wounded wrist. “Roberval had no need to set an example. He wanted Marguerite to die.”
    Thevet flinches. “Preposterous!
Non
, it was with terrible sadness that he punished you. He told me so himself.”
    I laugh out loud, unable to reconcile the ice-blue eyes with sorrow. “Why do you think,
Père
, that all records of Marguerite have