Order of Good Cheer (3 page)

According to Lescarbot, a crude and somewhat bitter tuber found inland up the great Canada River has been unearthed and occasionally shipped and offered in the best dining rooms of Paris. He told Lucien he tasted of it once and said it was not special, but that its hard-gotten nature, like anything from the ends of the earth, embellished its appeal. The chefs call it, simply, “Canada.” As if in the tuber they were eating the very earth of this place. Lucien pictures a fine lady, head and neck falling gooselike across the table, her cheeks aflush with culinary courage, asking, “Please, may I have more Canada?”

Monsieur Champlain, who has seen this tuber on his voyages and knows its Algonquin word, asked Membertou if it grows here at Port-Royal. While our savages have a different word for it — Champlain had to describe it with his hands — it does grow nearby, in scattered fashion, and Membertou, pursing his lips in distaste and shrugging one dismissive shoulder, said he bids his women search it out only when all are hungry.

Though the gardens are in and showing some green, Lucien hears much nervous talk of food. When the nobles speak of it
amongst themselves it is in the voice they use to discuss fortifications or ships that may or may not arrive in the spring with supplies. And Lucien has noted what looks like a constant difference of opinion between Messieurs Champlain and Lescarbot. (He understands that what he has witnessed is no more than what these gentlemen let escape in front of the regular men; so their arguments in privacy must be almost violent!) In short, Champlain values the savages' food, and Lescarbot doubts it strongly as profane. The pinnacle of this argument involves the “pale, giant pine,” which Champlain insists he saw cure men of the scurvy disease in Hochelaga, to the west. And so the map-maker looks for this tree in this region and so far he has not seen it. He says the Algonquin use the word
annedda
for it. But Membertou stares blankly both at this word and at the description of the tree as Champlain draws it eagerly in the air with his hands, jumping to his toes, like a boy, to show its great height. Likewise he describes the needles (which he says are the cure when they are dried and boiled), comparing them with other trees' foliage, claiming, “no, longer than that” and “yes, patterned, a weave, but less simple.” He hunts for this tree always, and asks the rest of them to as well. Those several others who survived St-Croix also hunt for it — one would have to say fretfully — and Lucien understands that this is because of what they saw last winter. Lescarbot questions the existence of such a miraculous tree, and although like any man here he fears the disease and would love to erase it from the world completely, he declares the scurve to be yet another example of God's mercy, one no man should question. He rises to anger when the mapmaker mentions the wondrous tree, thinking it wrong to be giving men hope while not supplying the means.

Lucien almost treads on a ring of mushrooms, which, as if knowing his thoughts, beckon in a coy way, glowing as if to
present themselves. They are the colour of oyster — one of Lucien's favourite foods, not found in their harbour or hereabouts — a colour that despite its pale hue suggests a food of great and pungent richness. Lucien is tempted to stoop and gather but does not. He does, though, make a promise to himself to begin a course of study. It would be gauche, if not possibly dangerous, to ask a woman, but one of Membertou's sons, he is sure, would gladly walk with him after the day's work is done. Lucien will barter something for this service if needs be, and he will take the role of student, and ask questions about this plant and that.

NOT MANY MORE
weeks along, Samuel hunches over a fire made in a stump, in the crotch of its roots. In his hand is a piece of stained paper, upon which is scrawled a rumour. He is about to drop the paper in to burn it, and so do Poutrincourt's bidding.

It seemed he knew of the paper's content even before he'd read it.

Indeed this new world is one of portent. Samuel has often felt it before, always in his belly, a message sudden yet pregnant as a bulb, before he brings thought to it. It could be given him by the season's first dead leaf, or by a judgemental bird call in the distance. So it was yesterday: a monster from the depths of the mouth of the River of St-Jean.

They'd taken the longboat to last year's hastily departed St-Croix Island to search the burned and razed site for any well-wrought hasps, knobs, and latches, and iron that could otherwise go for cannon shot — a two-day voyage that might save their smithy two weeks' work. The wind sped them there, and they scavenged well, despite the men's squeamishness at putting foot to beach, let alone stooping to paw through the old settlement's waste, let alone camping overnight, which Israel Bailleul, their pilot, likened to “picnicking in the scurve's very breath.”

But they found a dozen good items, as well as many nails, and on their way back Samuel bade them steer for the River of St-Jean. His stated reason was that the Sieur sought vines from that river's upper banks for transplant in Port-Royal; in truth Samuel loved the oddity of that river mouth, its cliffs and black depths and wild rapids in certain tides. After a full summer's time ashore he simply wanted the thrill of it.

Yes, he had heard savage talk of “a devil that rises to eat canoes.” Last year, the young sagamore of those parts had told him of a giant yellow tree that came from the depths to leap out of the water with a roar, aiming for any man there, only to disappear for years — the savage had seen it but three times in the span of his whole life. He called it
manitou
, which Samuel knew meant Devil or, strangely, God, or something blasphemously between those two. And while Samuel didn't quite believe in so patient and conniving a sunken tree, on the several times he's pushed into the chaotic mouth of the St-Jean he's kept a wary eye. And so, this morning: he was gazing to port, at the cliff wall, marvelling at its blackness of rock, and despite the roar of tidal rapid he thought he heard something new, swung his gaze to starboard, and here it was at its peak of rising from the water: smooth, blond, naked of bark, showing twice the height of a man! Samuel's breath caught as the tree speared back down. It had missed them by twenty paces. Its end was a root-ball that had long been trimmed by rock and underwater storms and now resembled a fist; it would have stove them easy as a drunken boot does a grinning pumpkin.

Two other of the men saw it too, and screamed in their seats, and some had but half seen it, but the monster — or was it a ghost? — did not return, and then the men were all a-jabber, arguing as to whether it had truly come or not; and all the voyage
back they argued still. Samuel heard it double in girth and height, and Picard assayed it was white as bone, nay,
was
a bone, and then stood firm on this. Come winter, the tree would no doubt find its way into a song.

In any case, a portent. And thus on their voyage back it was no accident their being hailed, outside the very entrance of Port-Royal, by the rotting bark full of Basques. Samuel bade them join Sieur Poutrincourt for a meal, exclaiming that they would be the very first guests of New France, but the Basque captain declined. They were on “an expedition,” the captain said, but murmured it in the oddest way, gazing sideways in almost a caricature of lying, though he may just have been embarrassed about the quality of his French, or his boat. But then, pierced on the end of a pike pole, a stiff piece of paper was held out to Samuel.

A SECRET, INDEED
. Standing at the smouldering stump, Samuel turns it over in his hand, reads its scrawled paragraph once more, and hisses, “
The King is a fool.”
A dangerous thought to give voice; he looks back over his shoulder at the compound, making sure he is alone.

The paper is missing its seal but might be in the hand of de Monts. If so, it is true and means that the King has again been seduced by the whining merchant class (of which several in that Basque longboat on their “expedition” were a gloating example) and has revoked their monopoly on furs in New France, held by de Monts, their benefactor.

Can the King have forgotten what happened last time? Allowing merchants to come here all-in-a-riot, to make their own barter, led to nothing but the wealth of the savages themselves. Quick to learn they could play one merchant off another, a savage held up a single scabrous beaver skin and said no to one
knife, and no to two knives, and no even to a hatchet — where before, a single French knife, when proffered by de Monts alone, could win two, sometimes three beaver skins for France! Samuel himself had seen occasions where de Monts had gained furs simply for the pleasure of his Christian company.

Rich with furs, de Monts finances this settlement, this permanence, of New France. If he now becomes bankrupt, the King is sabotaging his own heart's desire, that of establishing his throne here, and growing French children here, and, most important of all, giving the word of God to a larger world. Samuel wonders how the King does not know that de Monts's original plan remains brilliant, allowing as it does the birth of New France without drawing a single coin from the royal exchequer. Simply, de Monts needs only the monopoly on fur.

If this piece of paper is true, that licence is revoked, this colony stops, New France dies, many souls go unsaved, and —
the King is a fool
. But as Samuel recalls the one time he himself stood in the court and witnessed the simpering mass of bowing dancers, all smelling of false flowers, all eager to encroach on the King's company and sweetly lie to him — Samuel wonders why he is surprised.

Again he glances back at the compound. The sentry waves to him and Samuel waves back. Ten minutes ago Samuel saw Sieur Poutrincourt weep. For now there is the question of whether Poutrincourt still owns this smouldering stump, still owns this land of Port-Royal. It was given him by Monsieur de Monts, but is it de Monts's still to give?

The nobles who know this rumour will not tell the men, who even now put their shoulders into finishing their dwellings, feeding their gardens. Seed must go in now if there is any hope of vegetables, let alone grain. They cannot slump in their labours, unsure if all sprouting is for nought.

The King is a fool
. Samuel ventures these words for the third time, enough to relieve himself of a fire that almost overcrows his reason.

But now he needs must burn this crust of paper. Poor Poutrincourt, fiercely silent, then weeping, standing more unhinged by wine than Samuel has seen him. He'd read then thrust the paper back at Samuel, his look dark enough to suggest that Samuel had himself penned it, and said, “Burn this, now.”

Samuel lets the paper drop. Damp and thick from too many hands, it ignites slowly. He watches until it is ash, though this seems an elaborate precaution. No one here save he and a few others — Poutrincourt and Lescarbot, and also the carpenter Lucien, so the rumour goes — can read.

AS USUAL THESE DAYS
, Andy Winslow hadn't slept well but was up anyway. Deep in his morning routine and near the bottom of his first coffee, only now did he register what was happening down on the beach. Why so many people and what were they looking at? You could see in their posture an odd lean, could see care and wonder. Yes, there was that storm last night, a real pounder from the south, much howling and blow.

Andy was sitting at his window planning the drive to Terrace but so dense with thought it was like he'd been unconscious and only now did he come to the world outside himself. What woke him up truly was the sight of neighbour Sally Kitcher down there on the beach, flopping a four-foot ling cod onto a child's blue and yellow plastic wagon and trying to drag it away. At the wagon's first lurch over the gravel the fish slid off, and Andy — coming to and involuntarily standing up — could see that the wagon was already full of what appeared to be dead fish.

He also noticed that the light in his yard was different. There was more of it. He saw that this was because there were fewer trees. In fact he had a better view — more light, more harbour vista to see — and now it registered that part of his yard was gone. A corner of his lawn, where it used to meet the bank's trees and bushes, now ended at a precipice.

He threw on a stained grey hoodie and his workboots but didn't bother lacing them to stride his wet lawn to have a look at
his new little cliff. He didn't stand too close in case more wanted to come down. He turned back to look at the house. Then to the lip of land at his feet. He figured that he'd lost maybe a tenth of his property. He whispered, “Holy shit,” then started down the zigzag trail to the beach. Warding off wet alder branches with his forearms, getting showered, Andy wondered — absurdly — if he would ever prune this pathway.

Around the point from Prince Rupert proper, the shore beneath Andy's neighbourhood kept a wilderness feel, its bank thick with trees that half hid the houses. Along the few hundred yards of gravel beach Andy could see fifteen or twenty people, alone and in groups, all looking at dead fish and dead crabs. Some pointed a finger, some nudged a creature with a foot. Closest to him, Sally Kitcher hunched over her wagon, huffing, trying to bind her heap of ling cod with a length of cast-off yellow twine she'd found.

Andy pivoted to survey his lost yard from below. Except for one large upside-down fir, whose crown rested on the gravel, there was no evidence — no sod or topsoil or small uprooted trees. All had been carried away by the storm tide. It was simply gone!

Andy turned back to the mystery at his feet. Over the entire stretch of beach, dead fish and crab marked the high-tide line. The crabs were Dungeness of all sizes, from keepers as big as human faces to babies the width of bottle caps, and their shells did not rock in the slight waves, suggesting they were still heavy with meat. Some fish, like Sally Kitcher's ling cod, were spectacularly big, but most were arm-sized. Andy saw not just ling cod but also rockfish, and either flounder or young halibut, he couldn't tell. Gulls stood and poked, and walked rather than hopped, looking unsure where to go, as if leisurely choice was a thing unknown to their species.