Le Colonial (19 page)

“Do not fear,” said Thom. “Treat us the same way that you wish to be treated. There is no need for formality in our court. We are only servants of our people.”

A snicker came from the king. With no trace of kindness, he shook his head and talked with a mouth full of red saliva—the result of chewing betel nut and lime powder. The concoction made his cheeks flushed.

“My young brother is simple by nature. I have told him that a king must have order in his own court—that is my belief. But we have our different ways of governing. You may have noticed that as brothers, we all look alike. But we do not always think alike.”

François looked up. The warrior whose eyes had consumed him with hatred was now whispering in Thom’s ear. There was a vague familiarity about the man that made François uneasy. He searched his memory, trying to recall an incident that would explain the man’s animosity. Then, with a chill, he remembered. In that moment, he foresaw his doom.

The warrior had led the peasants who were transporting Pigneau de Béhaine and Prince Ánh when Henri had sacrificed the donkey to save them. Two splashes of donkey’s blood, flicked across his straw hat, refreshed François’s remembrance. Surely the man was reporting the bloody subterfuge to the prince. François sighed and awaited his fate.

Thom rose from his seat, adjusting his golden robe. He was much taller than the rest of his men. In his opulent garment, the prince seemed a different man from the one François had met outside the cave days earlier.

“Tell us, why did you return?” he asked François.

“I’ve come to ask for your protection,” said François. “It is my Lord’s wish that I remain in this country as a missionary. But my task is impossible without your help.”

“Can your god protect you, priest?”

“He must, as he led me to you.”

The king spat a glob of red fluid. It landed a few feet from François. NhCc interrupted. “This is idle talk. There is no doubt that you need our protection. But why should we help you? How do we know you are not a spy that was hired by either the north or the south king?”

François chose his words cautiously. “I am a foreign priest who was condemned by the government of the south king. I almost lost my life and was forced to wear an iron collar to denounce my God. This humiliation precludes me from ever working with the forces of the south. Until a few days ago, I had never heard of the Tonquinese or the North Army. So, Your Majesty, as you can see, your enemies are my enemies. Besides, I do not answer to any mortal. My master is the Lord in heaven. If you protect me, He will protect you.”

The doubt remained in the king’s eyes. “Will you fight our foes alongside us, or does your religion forbid you to kill?”

François felt cornered, yet at the same time confident in the face of the king’s challenge. They had not yet condemned him for helping the boy-prince escape. There was still hope. He recalled the Oath of Induction: “Among the reformers, be a reformer.”

“If that is what it takes to establish a kingdom of God in this land,” he answered, “then let me be your soldier. But I will fight with God by my side. I won’t be alone. With the Lord’s blessing, we shall never fear losing any battle. Our Father will always protect us, watch over us, and satisfy our every need. I will never question His plan or His everlasting wisdom.”

“For now, I have decided to trust you,” said Thom, pressing his hand on the priest’s shoulder. “Come, from this time on, you are one of us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
he sun bloomed like a red dahlia, petals ablaze.

For the last twelve hours, the bishop and his three young charges had been walking south along the shore of the South China Sea. They were eighty kilometers away from Quinion, a small fraction of the nine hundred kilometers they would have to travel to Saygun. There, the royal family had agreed to reunite after their flight from Hue City. Pierre had shed his mandarin’s uniform in favor of peasant garb. The wide-rimmed hats he acquired for himself, Henri, and the Annamite children were a necessity to deflect the scorching heat. They also provided an element of disguise.

His clothes were damp from sweat; salt accumulated in the rough fibers. Unlike the boy-prince, he, Henri, and Xuan went barefoot. Their feet, inured to abuse in this tropical climate, had become leathery and flat, with toes that spread apart. Their callused soles made it easier for them to walk on the hot sand. From time to time, when the surf washed over the beach, they would step into it. The waves massaged their tired flesh and made their journey bearable.

The sea and land surrounded them under a copper dome of brilliant sunshine. No one else was in sight. Perhaps all the inhabitants were dead or had fled from the recent war and flood. In the white emptiness, they were like strands of grass, clinging to one another on the shoreline.

The children were exhausted. None of them had ever walked for this long before. But the reminders of war were everywhere—the black smoke of burning forests, pieces of wrecked boats and ships, and the occasional neighing of a distant horse. Their pace dragged. The waves—foamy and good-natured—erased the imprints of their passage.

For a long time, Henri carried the prince on his back. A thin boy of sixteen, too tall, with long arms and legs, he sprinted along the water’s edge like a spider. But his strength was fleeting; in the end, he stood teetering on the tips of his toes, gasped for air and coughed, then collapsed. His face was gaunt, a bleak caricature of the hearty novice Pierre once knew. But his eyes were still as green as the ocean, and his sun-bleached hair was curly and bright like a patch of fabric sewn under his hat’s brim. The Annamite prince, half-asleep, reluctantly rejoined the caravan and walked on his own.

In front of them, a cluster of coconut trees dangled limp branches toward the water. Nearby stood a hut, twisted off its foundation and barely retaining its shape. Its wooden skeleton moaned with each gust of wind. Pierre thought of entering the cabin to hunt for food. It was dangerous—the structure might collapse, or it could harbor bandits. But what choice did he have? The prince needed nourishment. His little Annamite treasure. He had a vision of placing this child on the throne of Annam.

He said to Henri, “Go in the shade and collect some coconuts. Look for some sharp stone to open them. Do not come out until you hear me call you. If anything should happen to me —”

He fell silent, unable to finish his thought. He couldn’t possibly entrust the prince’s safety to this youngster. If anything happened to him, he could not imagine anyone, at least not in his flock, capable of carrying on his missionary work. It would take a rare combination of fervor, determination, and political expertise to bring the true religion to this heathen land.

François Gervaise, although ambitious and intelligent, was a coward. Ignorance and lack of faith, the priest’s greatest enemies, had nearly destroyed him. Now among the Mountaineers, would he be true to his mission? The priest might easily be frightened again; what little he had accomplished would be lost.

As for Henri, the novice had been brought to Annam merely through an accident. Pierre couldn’t see that Henri possessed an ounce of the piety that would make it worthwhile for him to educate the boy.

He walked closer to the hut. The opening that served as a window allowed him to look inside. Nothing moved. Still, Pierre could not banish the sense that he was trespassing, a feeling that was reinforced by the foul and familiar odor of rotting flesh. The flood had been here and left the footprint of its fury. The structure seemed ready to collapse.

He thrust his shoulders back and climbed through the opening, reminding himself that his presence had often prompted miracles. Nothing in the shed could harm him, for he was a servant of God!

Inside, the stench slithered down his throat. A decomposing corpse sagged between an upturned cot and a retaining wall. The naked body was silvery gray with soft blotches of blue, like a marble statue. He averted his eyes and saw a small earthen jar, sealed with a wooden cap. It lay on its side, on a bed of soot.

Pierre covered his nose and mouth with the inside of his shirt. When he uncapped the jar, its contents spilled—a mixture of seawater and uncooked rice, soggy from soaking too long. Still, it was edible.

All he needed now was a pot and some dry sticks to build a fire.

In the shade of a coconut tree, they ate the steamed rice balls that Pierre prepared and drank coconut juice to wash the salty taste away.

There was not enough food for everyone, so the bishop gave his ration to Ánh. The boy gulped down the crude meal without chewing, without looking up, and without taking time to taste it. Then he eyed Xuan, expecting her to give up her portion as well. The girl was terrified, but she did not stop eating. Ánh screamed and stamped his feet. Henri placed himself between the prince and Xuan.

The bishop grabbed the girl’s wrist.

“Give him half of your share,” he ordered. The word
half
caught in his throat.

She hid her face under her hair.

“Just half,” Pierre said. “You are the prince’s property. Your duty is to serve him.” His cheeks burned with shame. But he had to safeguard the prince.

Henri took a small bite of his food and thrust the rest to the prince. “Here! Take mine. I am not hungry.”

Ánh took the morsel from the novice’s palm. Henri licked the few grains that clung to his skin. He gave a forced smile to Xuan.

She divided her food, offering a portion to Henri. He took it and they swallowed simultaneously.

Pierre averted his eyes.

The afternoon breeze from the sea lulled the children to sleep. The tide was rising toward the palms. Pierre sat against a tree with his back to the ocean. He wanted to have a clear view of land in all directions in case they were being followed.

A few colorful sea snails burrowed in the wet sand near his feet. He watched the little bits of formless flesh, each hauling a tower of shell on its back. He wondered what vital force drove these tiny creatures to fight for their existence. Was God’s strength even within them?

He was afraid to rest. He dreaded the awful plunge of surrendering himself to sleep—the loss of control. He tried to sleep with his ears cocked toward any sound, but it wasn’t enough. Worry hung over his head, holding him awake.

The weight of the prince pressed on his lap. Ánh lay quietly, sipping the air with his mouth. At his waistband a silken pouch bulged with a square object. Looking inside, Pierre saw a heavy block of jade, topped by a carved dragon holding the Earth. Pierre uttered a soft sound of surprise. It was the jade seal—the national treasure that proclaimed the king’s power, the only possession that the Mountaineers had somehow not found.
How clever of the royals,
he thought. Giving the seal to the youngest member of the dynasty was the surest way to protect it. Pierre straightened the boy’s clothing, causing him to stir.

Prince Ánh waved his thin arms, fumbling for his toy. Pierre placed it in his fingers, and he turned quiet again.

Sifting his fingers through the sand, Pierre gathered a few stones that had been washed white in the saltwater. He stored them in an empty coconut. With the sap collected from the roots of a cactus, he would seal the opening and turn the shell into a noisemaker. The prince could shake it to let Xuan and Henri know when he needed them. When night fell, the sound would help others to locate the boy.

Pierre had to save this boy’s life. Ánh was young enough to be molded and conditioned into the type of ruler the bishop could control; and besides, the boy had a trace of ruthlessness that Pierre found promising. It would make him strong against his enemies.

True, there had been at least fifty princes in the palace, each with his own right to claim the throne. But during the attack by the Tonquinese, Pierre had witnessed several of King Due Tong’s brothers and nephews being slaughtered, along with their families. Truong Loan, the powerful vice-king, had been executed in front of a crowd, his possessions divided among the Tonquinese leaders. How many more had died since they abandoned Hue Citadel, he had no way of knowing. In order for the West Mountaineers to gain sovereignty over the kingdom, they would have to obliterate the entire Nguyen royal family. From what he had seen, the rebels seemed capable of doing just that.

And in the event the present king survived, Pierre was sure to find favor. Rescuing the ruler’s favorite nephew would certainly help build a bond of trust between the Annamite monarch and the Jesuits. Whichever way the events unfolded, the bishop stood to gain.

That is, if the South won the war.

So far, the king’s army had proved to be impotent. Soon Due Tong would realize how much he needed the help of France. As a bishop, Pierre would be the perfect mediator to plead for French military aid to Annam.

Then and only then would he be able to convert this kingdom to a Catholic, French colony.

They traveled by night to avoid the oppressive heat and risk of being discovered. The evening’s coolness soothed their wounds, but the dripping moisture soaked their clothing. The relentless sound of thrashing waves kept their nerves on edge. Far in the sky, the half-moon floated on soapy clouds. Its light penetrated the thick darkness, creating strange images that danced across the glassy ocean. The children bathed in its glow, their thin limbs swaying like tree branches.

Pierre had traveled this way before. The coastline would take them back to Quinion Province, where they could seek refuge in the Portuguese monastery with Brother João and Brother Tiago before continuing the long journey to Saygun City.

The moon seemed to hum with energy. They came to a small shrine at the fork of a crossroad, an indication that a village was near. He looked into the dark, hollow interior of the ghostly house. Incense wisps lingered inside.

He prayed that the monastery would still be standing.
What if it is no longer there?

Pierre wondered if he had enough strength to continue his journey unaided and with two children and an adolescent he still mistrusted.

For the first time, he received no guidance from the voice of God inside him.