The Pelican Bride (24 page)

Geneviève raised a hand in greeting as Dufresne turned and waited, scowling, until she caught up to him. She supposed she could hardly blame him for his bad temper. His wounded ear, still dripping blood onto the shoulder of his uniform, probably stung like fire.

“Nika, I have brought a friend to visit,” he said in French, drawing Geneviève’s hand through his arm. “This is Mademoiselle Gaillain—I mean Madame Lanier—newly come here from France. She would like to learn about cooking with native plants and herbs. I told her you’re the best cook in the village.”

“You are—Lanier, you say?” The young woman had shot a startled glance at Geneviève, then quickly schooled her expression into a smile. “The elusive Captain Marc-Antoine Lanier married at last?”

Geneviève shook her head. “No, his brother, Tristan.”

“Ah.” Nika’s smile neither grew nor dimmed, and Geneviève couldn’t tell what she made of the distinction.

She did her best to present a friendly mien. “My husband has gone as part of a peace contingent sent to the Alabama territory. I decided to occupy my time in learning to feed him.” Of course there was every chance that Tristan wouldn’t come back, but speaking that aloud wouldn’t help anything.

“The Alabama will not be easy to persuade, madame. A warlike people they are.”

“Please, call me Geneviève—or better yet, Ginette, as my friends do.” She impulsively held out her hands, sensing that the Indian woman might become a truer friend than the women of her own race. “I know my husband is on a dangerous mission. But I trust his life to God.”

Dufresne rolled his eyes. “You ladies will get along much better without me. I have business with the chief. Nika, is Mitannu in the village today?”

“He is with his father.” The Indian woman looked as if she wanted to question him, but with a quick glance at Geneviève, she stepped back. “Come inside, madame. You are welcome.”

“Madame, I’ll come for you—” Dufresne pulled a pocket watch from inside his coat and consulted it—“in three hours. I want to be back inside the fort well before dark.”

Geneviève addressed Nika. “Have you that much time to spare?”

“Of course.” Nika smiled and waved a dismissive gesture at Dufresne. “You are correct, sir. You are not needed.”

Dufresne bowed an ironical farewell, turned smartly on his high-heeled boots, and strode off toward the largest hogan in the village.

As Nika welcomed her into her home, Geneviève wondered what Dufresne’s business could be, then found herself caught up in studying the native cottage. Simple, clean, and neat, she decided. The thatched roof seemed to be well-made, for the floors, walls, and bedding—which had been rolled up and tied in bundles in one corner—were all dry and fragrant. Simple braided mats lay scattered over the raised floor, and Nika gestured for Geneviève to seat herself on one as she herself collapsed upon another.

“Your home is lovely,” Geneviève said politely, not quite sure how to start a conversation with one whose life was so entirely foreign to her own. “This is the first Indian house I have been in.”

Nika looked pleased. “Thank you. But it makes me laugh to be called an Indian. I believe our territories were mistakenly assumed to be the near eastern continent by your first explorers. Our clans and nations are as diverse, with regard to language and cultural habits, as are your own in Europe. It would be as if I lumped you and your countrymen with the Chinese.”

Geneviève laughed. “I see how that would be insulting. I’m sorry.”

Nika waved away the apology. “I find it funny.” Her smile faltered. “My husband, however, is not so easily amused. If you meet Mitannu, please do not call him anything other than Mobilian—or his name.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Thank you.” Nika tilted her head so that her heavy black hair swung over her shoulder. “You are the first Frenchwoman to visit the village. Are you not afraid I will kill you and eat you for dinner?”

Geneviève laughed again. “That never occurred to me. I think the other ladies aren’t afraid of you, so much as stumped by the language barrier. I’m surprised at how good your French is. Your boys speak well too. Well, Tonaw does,” she added, remembering Chazeh’s taciturnity.

“I had a good teacher.” Nika looked away. “I am Kaskaskian, of the Alabama people that your husband visits. Many years ago there was a young Frenchman who lived among us. We exchanged languages.”

“But aren’t the Alabama at war with the Mobile and other southern tribes? I hear stories of attacks and slave trading . . .”

“At the time of my marriage, there was an alliance, and I was given as a seal of peaceful intent.” Nika turned her hands palm up. “Alliances are broken all the time.”

Days had gone by since Geneviève thought of the war at home. As she looked into Nika’s troubled eyes, she saw the face of her childhood friend, Nicolette—Catholic Nicolette, who had loved
Papa’s pastries and who had stopped talking to her when the bishop came for a visit.

“Yes,” she sighed. “Alliances can be broken.” She began to understand why Jean Cavalier had told her to find and trust Nika. The woman’s loyalties must be with her own clan, and the Alabama were known to favor the British over the French. Still she must be very careful. As careful as Nika herself. She smiled and opened her hands. “But I came to learn anything you have time to teach me about cooking with native fruits, grains, vegetables, meat, seafood . . . I’m realizing more each day that the way things were done in France won’t necessarily translate here.”

“It is true.” Nika grimaced. “The Frenchmen come here and complain about the lack of flour for bread, the toughness of the meat, the bland vegetables. There are ways to compensate, but as I said, the women will not come here to learn.” She shook her head with a smile. “Until today. Come. We will start with what to do with
uche
—corn. Such a useful grain.”

Nika took her out the back of the cottage, where the boys were playing some noisy game that involved crouching and leaping at one another, growling and wrestling in the dirt like young bear cubs. Smiling at their play, Geneviève stood there a moment looking around, shielding her eyes with her hand. Behind the cottage, which stood on a slight rise, lay a small garden plot, where browning cornstalks and other, smaller plants withered in the harsh autumn sun. It was obviously well tended, clear of weeds and planted in neat rows. A few chickens scratched and pecked near a thatched henhouse; behind it a blanket was suspended by its four corners atop a frame made of hickory poles. A well-worn path led from the main house down to a creek. In the distance, the roofs of other hogans appeared among the trees. It all looked domestic and remarkably civilized.

Geneviève discovered Nika to be a wonderful teacher. With humor and patience, the Indian woman explained and demonstrated
the use of mortar and pestle, as well as a set of beautiful handmade baskets specialized for fanning and sifting the softened corn kernels.

“See? Easy as can be.” Nika’s dark eyes sparkled as she plunged her hand into a basket full of hominy, which she claimed could be used as cereal or bread, or even a thickener for meat and vegetable dishes. “Now we do it again . . . and again . . . and again.” With the gourd she scooped up more corn kernels and poured them into the mortar. “Would you like to take a turn with the pestle?”

“Of course.” Geneviève took the pole and set to work. She discovered the corn kernels had a tendency to slide away from the pounding of the pestle, and it took her a few moments to get the hang of keeping them centered in the bottom of the bowl. A primitive method of grinding grain, this, but there was a certain satisfaction in mashing the soft kernels and turning them into a substance that would feed a hungry family.

As a child, she used to love to accompany her father to the mill on the outskirts of the village, riding in the mule-drawn wagon for miles over craggy, sloping hills, following one of the streams that rushed from the top of the mountain to the valley below. In sight of the beautiful three-story stone mill, they would halt at the river’s edge for several moments to watch the water sluice over the paddle wheels, the roar drowning out every other sound for miles. After crossing the stone bridge and leaving the mule tethered outside the mill, they would clomp down the stairs to the ground floor, where Papa would inspect bag after bag of flour. “You must choose only the best ingredients, little cabbage,” he would tell her, touching her nose and leaving a dusting of flour that made her giggle and sneeze. “Good bread needs fine flour and strong yeast.”

They would return to the village and store the sacks of flour in the kitchen loft, then make loaf after fragrant loaf for customers who happily paid well for Monsieur Gaillain’s famous crusty bread.

Until the summer Jean Cavalier came to be Papa’s apprentice. Fiery, handsome young Jean, warrior for the cross, had changed them all. Geneviève, barely fourteen years old, had of course been in love with him and believed every word he preached. Papa saw truth in him and swayed Mama. But martyrdom? None of them had seen it coming.

No one guessed that neighbors who bought bread from Papa on a Friday would be cheering for the dragoons on Monday.

“Mademoiselle! Ginette! Come, you will have powder if you grind it anymore!”

Geneviève looked up blindly to find Nika’s face close, her strong hands on the pestle, halting Geneviève’s fierce jabs of the pole into the mortar. “I’m . . . sorry,” she said, loosening her grip and backing away in embarrassment. “I’m very sorry, Nika. But I have to talk to you about a message I must send to—to someone outside the French territory. I’m told you can do this.”

In all her short life, Aimée had rarely seen such a pigsty as Commander Bienville’s office. During the dinner she and Geneviève had attended a month ago, she had been able to inspect only the commander’s public rooms, and they had been neat and well cared for—due in large part, no doubt, to the work of his Indian servant women. Geneviève seemed to think those women were more than housekeepers and cooks, but then her sister tended to cynicism. Aimée preferred to think the best of people until proven otherwise.

But if the state of his office was anything to judge by, Bienville seemed to live rather a double life. There were papers and parchments everywhere. Maps, letters, bills of lading, receipts—those were the things she could see—and who knew what else was in the towering stack teetering on the edge of that gigantic teak desk. She saw a blowgun decorated with colorful feathers leaning against
the wall in a corner, next to a long saber-ended musket and an oddly shaped piece of stiff hide, which she assumed was a shield of some sort. A pair of large muddy boots had been tossed into another corner, along with a shapeless tricorn hat. On the floor next to the desk was a wooden tray containing a decanter of some thick brown liquid, an empty tankard, and the smelly half-eaten carcass of a roasted hare.

The mess seemed not to bother Bienville, for he shoved a pile of ledgers out of his chair onto the floor and sat down, propping his elbows upon the leather journal in front of him. He was in uniform as usual, but his neck cloth was rumpled and loosely tied, and he needed a shave. Dark circles ringed his fine black eyes, and pain pinched his eyebrows together over that magnificent nose. Still, he was a handsome rascal. Aimée couldn’t help thinking of the exotic tattoos she’d once seen etched upon his broad dark back and densely muscled arms. It was too bad he was such an uncivilized lout.

After fat Father Henri took the only other chair in the room, the remaining company—Aimée, Françoise, Ysabeau, Jeanne, and her husband, La Salle—arranged themselves awkwardly about the office, waiting to be told what to do. Aimée stayed close to Ysabeau, both to make sure the impromptu cloak stayed about her shoulders and to keep the girl out of Father Henri’s line of vision. The man frankly made her skin crawl.

Before Bienville could so much as open his mouth, Father Henri and La Salle spoke simultaneously.

“Commander, you should know—”

“Commander, it is my opinion—”

The two men looked at one another indignantly as Bienville held up a large, elegantly manicured hand. “Gentlemen, this is my meeting, and I will ask the questions.” He looked at Françoise, who stood, shoulders back and spine straight, close to the door. “Mademoiselle, I grow weary of your charges cutting up my peace.
What have you to say about this latest scandal?” He frowned at Ysabeau, who sat studying her fingers tented in front of her nose. She looked fairly cross-eyed.

Françoise, clearly uncowed by Bienville’s disapproval, clenched her hands at her waist. “I say that you have much to answer for, that you allow your men to
gamble
over this poor girl, and then treat her to the humiliation of marriage to a
defector
! How dare you blame a fragile, gently bred young lady for the sins of the roughnecks you call soldiers of the King? When I write to the Duchess to apprise her of the sad state of affairs here in the colony—that nearly every promise made to us before we boarded that wretched tub
Pélican
has been broken ten times over—”

“How dare you threaten me!” Bienville lurched to his feet, wincing at the sudden movement and grabbing his midsection. “I’m well aware that tattling letters have gone out from here already, spewing such lies that it’s a wonder the ships that carried them didn’t go up in flames.” He rounded on the priest, who sat gobbling in inarticulate outrage. “And that a supposedly holy father would contribute poison to the tales—I only regret the day I requested the bishop to send a shepherd for our flock, as he has seen fit rather to send a wolf in a sheep’s garment!”