The Tale-Teller Read Online Free PDF

studied the lives of famous explorers. A couple of times she’d even sneaked over the bridge and down to the docks to see the big ships that sailed up the river with cargoes of exotic goods from faraway places. She watched sailors load and unload silk and cotton and spices, coffee beans and cocoa beans and aromatic wood, filling warehouses with the wealth of the world: wealth her father was allowed to store for others but not to share in himself. As little as he cared about Esther, he certainly would have intervened had he known how his daughter was spending her days. But she was not in danger, for the mariners recognized in her a kindred spirit: defiant, lonely, and reckless. Someone with nothing to lose.
    She stretched, feeling her tense muscles unknot. Her toes looked like a strange pink fringe waving from the end of her feet. She flexed them one by one: stunted country cousins to her aristocratic fingers, clumsy yokels unable to flourish a pen or wield a sword. Apes certainly had that advantage over humans; they could peel bananas with their feet. Esther tried to pick up a bar of soap with her own feet, but failed. It was too slippery and she was too tired to keep trying.
    It was frustrating that her disguise had been so quickly discovered, for it would have been so much easier to continue living as a boy in New France. She hoped she wouldn’t be sent home immediately; as arduous as the westward crossing had been, travelling against headwinds and through tempests, the return would be worse with winter coming on. And besides, having survived the journey, she wanted to explore her destination. She had to find some way of persuading the authorities to let her stay in this odd outpost with its silver candlesticks and baskets of woven grass, handmade lace and swamp-smelling mud.
    She doubted she could win over the Marquis. She winced, remembering the contempt in his eyes: that old familiar contempt that told her she was utterly worthless. It made her feel tired in a way that the hard physical labour she’d undertaken on the
Saint Michel
never had. She wondered what it was about her the Governor General hated so much, her swarthy complexion or her meagre figure. Or was it that she had dared to dress as a boy? Something about Esther obviously repelled him even though he didn’t know the whole truth yet. She must make sure he never learned it.
    But Monsieur Hocquart was a different type altogether, less tyrannical, much more sympathetic; he had been entranced by her first story and would surely want to hear others. He had a kind of softness about him, an inwardness that meant he too had been wounded by life. She might succeed with the Intendant if she continued to appeal to his imagination.
    ***
    DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS onion soup, a fat roast duck with savoury carrots and beans, and stewed fruit. It was accompanied by a loaf of real bread and a bottle of fine Bordeaux, which Esther greatly appreciated after the crude vin de table served on board ship, a beverage so acidic it would have done better service polishing silver than quenching people’s thirst. Even plain water tasted so good here: cold and clean and sweet, as though the distant ice-capped mountains she dreamed of visiting had been distilled into a glass. Esther had always loved food; her favourite place back home had been the kitchen, where she sought both sanctuary and comfort. She sighed, savouring both past and present pleasure.
    â€œYou have a healthy appetite, Mademoiselle,” said Hocquart, who had watched in astonishment as his slender guest — now wearing a simple dress of brown wool with a creamy white collar and matching cuffs, her cropped hair tucked under a white cap — demolished second helpings of whatever she was offered. She was also drinking considerably more wine than he would have anticipated. They had sat uncomfortably opposite each other for some time, exchanging occasional comments about the food, he answering her