Delphine Read online

  Delphine

  Sylvia Halliday

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1983 by Sylvia Halliday

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition January 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-540-7

  Also by Sylvia Halliday

  The French Maiden Series

  Marielle

  Lysette

  Delphine

  Dreams So Fleeting

  Gold as the Morning Sun

  The Ring

  Summer Darkness, Winter Light

  Chapter One

  The savage grinned as he bent over André, his teeth as white as the feathers in his raven hair, his dark eyes glinting in triumph. The red-skinned body was sleek and pungent with bear grease; André strove in vain to grip the shoulders, the powerful arms that pinned him to the ground. At last, with a loud grunt, André arched his chest upward, easing for a moment the weight of the body that pressed on his. He wrenched himself clear, scrambling to his feet at the same moment as did the savage. They circled the clearing warily, drawing great gasping breaths, each looking for the advantage over the other. André stopped, sweeping a sweat-stained arm across his mouth, then lunged, catching the savage by surprise and flipping him onto the ground. There was a dull thud as his opponent’s back smacked against the packed earth; in a second André was upon him, his elbow jammed up to the man’s chin, forearm pressed against his windpipe. The savage struggled, gasped, then lay still, but his black eyes gleamed with a crafty light. Without warning his hand snaked under André’s upraised arm and clutched the golden beard poised just above his own face, tugging at it so fiercely that André howled and rolled away, sitting up and rubbing his outraged chin.

  “For shame, Na-e-Ga!” he said, aggrieved. “A man’s beard is his pride! You have used me unfairly.”

  The savage sat up in his turn, his face split in a sly grin, and stroked his own smooth-shaven jaws. “Have I not told you for all these seasons, my brother, that a true man keeps his face bare?” His voice was soft with the Huron dialect. “If you give me the advantage by going about like some shaggy creature of the woods, it is mine to take!”

  André shook his head. “No, I would have bested you, but for your treachery!” He looked up at the laughing man above him. “What say you, Georges? Was the fall mine, by rights?”

  Georges de Mersenne frowned, his glance going from one man to the other. “You pose me a knotty problem, André, worthy of a Solomon. For, look you, you return to France today, whilst I stay here in Quebec! Shall I then insult Na-e-Ga by judging in your favor?” The savage smiled broadly. “On the other hand,” and here Mersenne pinched at his own neatly trimmed beard and moustache, “a little hair is not such a terrible thing, and not to be mocked, nor used for unfair advantage!”

  Now it was André’s turn to grin. “Ha!” he said, pointing a triumphant finger at Na-e-Ga.

  “On the other hand,” interrupted Mersenne, “when I wish to trade with Na-e-Ga next spring, neither André, Comte de Crillon,” a polite nod in André’s direction, “nor all the bearded gentlemen of Louis’s court, nor all of Richelieu’s henchmen will avail me if Na-e-Ga will not part with his furs! No, I must vote for Na-e-Ga and his Huron brethren!”

  “So be it,” said André good-naturedly, rising to his feet to clasp the savage’s hand in his own. His blue eyes twinkled, delivering one fined shot. “However, his treachery was like that of the Iroquois, the ‘snakes that strike without warning,’” he said, using the derisive name—Iroquois—the Hurons and Algonquins used to describe their enemies, the tribes of the Five Nations.

  Na-e-Ga laughed and shook his head. “You are a villain, my brother, to turn a man’s knife against his own breast!” Georges de Mersenne looked mystified. “I was not born Huron,” explained Na-e-Ga. “I was Seneca. Of the hated Iroquois. Born, they say, near that great water to the south. So my name: Na-e-Ga, Thundering Water. My mother and I were captured by a Huron raiding party. The old chief of the Hurons took me for his son, and I have been Huron since, for I have known no other life.”

  “You never told me!” said Mersenne.

  Na-e-Ga looked meaningfully at André. “Men tell many things around a campfire.”

  “Seneca or Huron, I shall miss you,” said André, his voice strained with sudden emotion.

  “It is time for you to return to your home and your people. You are no longer the man of madness and black spirits that you were when first we headed our canoe up the River of Hochelaga. I think the solitude has brought you peace, my brother.” Na-e-Ga swept his arm about the clearing, encompassing the soft April day. “The green has returned to the trees, and the pain has left your eyes. Is it not time to go home?”

  André nodded, unable to speak.

  “I wish you a safe voyage,” said Na-e-Ga. “My sister, White Deer, will mourn for you a little, I think.” He clasped André’s forearm, then drew away and scrambled down the bank of the river to the birchbark canoe that waited in the rushes.

  André stood in the clearing, waving his arm in farewell until the small craft reached a bend in the river and was lost from sight. Bending down to retrieve his buckskin shirt, he slung it across one bare shoulder and followed Mersenne along a path to a rough-hewn cabin set on a rise at some distance from the main street of the stockaded village of Quebec. A dark-eyed young Huron woman, her hair plaited into two long braids, hurried out of the cabin at their approach, and waited for instructions from Georges de Mersenne.

  “Will you shave, André?” he asked, lapsing into French.

  André smiled. How strange it sounded! A whole year! Na-e-Ga had been such a skillful teacher of the Huron dialect that André had almost forgotten his native speech. “Yes,” he said, feeling tongue-tied. “For all my brave talk to Na-e-Ga, I have in the past kept my face bare. Marielle—” He stopped and took a deep breath. It was the first time he had been able to say her name in more than a year. “Marielle—Madame la Comtesse—preferred me clean-shaven.”

  At Mersenne’s directions, the girl brought forth a large basin of water that she placed on a tripod near the door, then fetched scissors and razor and a small silver mirror. She propped the mirror, eye level, against the split-log siding of the cabin, and handed André a linen towel, smiling shyly as she did so. Georges frowned and patted her familiarly on her rump as she passed him to reenter the cabin, the gesture comfortable and possessive at the same time. “Eh, bien,” he said almost reluctantly, “I should go to Paris with you, André. Quebec is growing. I think we have near to two hundred souls now, and with the Ursuline Sisters opening their school, I should find me a wife and begin a family.”

  André had begun to clip away at the thick growth of his beard. The golden ringlets fell to the ground at his feet, glinting in the bright sunshine. “When were you last in France?” he asked.

  “I came here to New France with my father eleven years ago, in 1628. I was fifteen then. We meant to stay only the year, exploring, bartering for furs. But then the British attacked Quebec and we fought beside Champlain. My father was killed. When Champlain was taken by the British and Quebec fell, I took refuge with the Hurons and Algonquins. There seemed no reason to return to Fr
ance, even after Quebec was restored to us in 1632. I scarce remember my grandmother. Though her estates will someday be mine, I have no hunger for them. And save for Jean-Auguste, my cousin and your great and good friend, I do not know a soul in all of France.” He gestured to the town below, the wide St. Lawrence River beyond, called by the savages the River of Hochelaga. “This is my life now.”

  “It is a good life,” said André, reaching for the razor. “I shall not soon forget my days as a coureur de bois, hunting and trapping in the woods. The sight of the Lachine Rapids above Mont Real, the feel of a canoe under me as it glides through the water—”

  Mersenne laughed. “And a dark-skinned woman? Will the fine women of the salons seem pale after White Deer?”

  André smiled ruefully. “The women of the salons will have little patience with a man who has forgotten how to speak French with any grace or charm!”

  “You misprize yourself! Even as a lad I remember hearing of the amorous exploits of Monsieur le Comte de Crillon! What need you for words?”

  “And then I am too old.”

  “Fie! What nonsense!”

  “I shall be forty-one at the end of this month.”

  “And more hale than you were last April when you set out with Na-e-Ga! You should look more closely into that mirror.”

  André finished his shave and splashed his face and torso with water, toweling himself briskly and leaning forward to his reflection in the shiny metal. It was true, what Mersenne said. His hair, though it needed trimming to its customary length just below his ears, was still the color of old gold—not a speck of silver, even at the temples. His skin was bronze from the sun, taut and unlined save for the creases at the corners of his wide mouth, long-ago creases from forgotten laughter. His eyes were deep blue and clear, as always. But how could it be so, that his face had not changed in all this time? That his face should stay the same—and his heart so barren—and Marielle lying in her tomb at Vilmorin for almost fifteen months?

  “Come,” said Mersenne, leading him into the cabin. “You shall see I kept your sea chest well while you were away.” He opened a large brass-bound trunk and began to pull out articles of clothing: knee-high stockings, and boots cuffed deep, wide-legged brown twill breeches to tuck into them, a soft linen shirt, and a rust-colored doublet. André exclaimed in delight at the sight of his own garments, and quickly stepped out of his buckskin breeches and moccasins to stand naked in the center of the room while the girl helped him into clothes that felt unfamiliar and wondrously soft against his skin. His doublet was snug across his wide shoulders, the muscles grown hard after a year spent paddling a canoe. He left half of the buttons of the jacket unfastened, to give himself a little ease. When the girl handed him his falling band, a large white linen and lace collar that tied on over his doublet, he allowed himself a moment to admire the crispness of the fabric before tying the band strings. He pulled the cuffs of his shirt down over his hands, then folded them back over the sleeves of his doublet.

  “Mon Dieu!” he said. “I had forgotten the look of pristine linen at wrists and neck! Do they still wash it in the Loire, I wonder, and hang it in the sun to dry?” He buckled on his leather wallet, then slipped the harness for his sword diagonally across one shoulder, making a pass or two in the air to test the blade before gliding it into its scabbard. Finally he tied on a short brown cape, tossing back one side so his sword arm was uncovered, and picked up a pair of gray gauntlets.

  “You are a gentleman of France again!” exclaimed Georges in admiration. “But hold! Your hat! I did not wish it to be crushed in the chest.” He reached up and fetched down a large box that was tucked into the rafters, carefully opening it and pulling out a dark brown beaver hat, dashingly plumed, and handing it to André with a flourish. “Monsieur le Comte de Crillon!”

  André set it firmly upon his head, tilted it at a rakish angle, and bowed in his turn. Then he smiled sheepishly and stroked the soft brim. “It is splendid, is it not? I think I have missed my hat more than my sword these past months!”

  “What of these things?” Mersenne indicated the pile of discarded clothing on the floor.

  “I shall keep my blade, of course,” said André, slipping his hunting knife in its scabbard into the top of one boot. “As for the rest—burn them, for aught I care! They are rank with the caulking from the canoes—the women of Paris would not take kindly to the stink of spruce gum and venison fat! Wait!” he said in sudden panic as the girl began to gather up his garments. Snatching the buckskin breeches from her, he rummaged in a small pocket and withdrew a golden locket looped on a blue ribbon, and clutched it tightly in his hand.

  “Madame de Crillon?” asked Georges softly.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you—show me her picture now? I have heard so much of her great beauty. My cousin Jean-Auguste would write of it sometimes—and when she danced in the court ballet—”

  “Yes. They spoke of it for some years—” André held out the locket to Mersenne, lifting the embossed cover to reveal the miniature portrait. Georges nodded and smiled his admiration, then André looked at Marielle’s sweet face for a long moment before closing the locket gently, slipping the ribbon around his neck, and tucking it beneath his shirt. He was surprised that he felt no sharp pain, just loneliness, a dull ache, a longing for his home and his children. For the taste of bread and wine, the sight of the Loire valley, and his château. He felt as empty as he had a year ago, but at least each day was no longer a living hell, where he almost prayed to die. Perhaps—someday—he would be whole again.

  Monsieur Maurice Fresnel, master of the merchant vessel Olympie out of Dieppe—two hundred tons and a complement of fifty-five men—stood in the waist of his ship and watched the small pinnace, its single sail set to the breeze, ply its way from the landing on shore to the railing where he waited. His passenger, the nobleman whose voyage had been arranged by Georges de Mersenne, stood in the stern of the small boat, face turned toward the Olympie and the open sea, arms folded across his chest. A fine-looking gentleman, remarkably handsome, thought Fresnel, though perhaps a bit of a strutting popinjay, to judge by his flamboyant hat. Still, Mersenne had said he was a brave soldier who had served the crown in many a campaign, and was even now returning to France after a year in the deep woods with the Huron. Fresnel shrugged. Popinjay or brave soldier—so long as his gold was full weight! Le bon Dieu knew they could use a few extra crowns and livres! It was not easy, being an independent ship owner from Normandy, when King Louis XIII granted a virtual monopoly on fur trading to the Company of New France. The Olympie ranged up and down the coast of the New World from the Grand Banks to the islands of the Indies, picking up what trade she could, bartering knives and needles and scissors, watches and tools, in exchange for furs, fish, whale oil, tobacco. A passenger who paid in gold might make the difference between just getting by and a comfortable profit this season! He might even be able to fix up the cottage in Dieppe this fall. Delphine had her heart set on real glass for the window, instead of the oiled parchment and heavy wooden shutters that kept out the elements but so much of the light as well.

  The pinnace was now alongside the Olympie. The nobleman mounted the rope ladder to the gangway—that space between the railings—and stepped aboard to stand beside Fresnel. He was broad shouldered and tall, taller even than he had seemed in the pinnace. He inclined his head. “Master Fresnel?”

  “At your service. And you are Monsieur le Comte de Crillon?”

  André nodded, holding out his hand in greeting.

  Fresnel indicated his right arm, held unnaturally against his rib cage. “You will forgive me, monsieur. My starboard oar is useless. A Spanish merchantman crossed our bow last summer. We toppled her mizzenmast, but not before the scurvy devils splintered a piece of the quarterdeck railing—and my arm as well!”

  “You are prepared to do battle, then.”

  “If we must. God’s truth, we were near blasted out of the water by the Spanish dogs in ’35! Sai
ling off the coast of Darien, we were, and never knew good King Louis had sent a declaration of war to the lubbardly knaves! Well, we have six stout culverins on the gun deck, and my blacksmith can forge shot as well as tackle. As for my bosun here”—and he indicated a jolly-faced giant who ambled toward them, rolling-gaited as though the ship were already under way, and hitching at the wide leather belt that held up his breeches—“we call him Gunner for all the years that he served in the King’s navy!”

  The bosun scraped off his red mariner’s cap and bobbed politely to André. “Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “welcome aboard Olympie!”

  André shook his head. “Nay. If we are to be shipmates for this long voyage—how long should it take, Master Fresnel?”

  “Six weeks, by my reckoning, if we have the westerly winds in our favor.”

  “Well then, Gunner, for six weeks you must call me André! Monsieur le Comte is a burden I need not take up until we reach France.” Smiling, he clapped the bosun on the shoulder.

  “Well met—André!” The bosun grinned, revealing a wide gap between his two front teeth. “But you look like a Monsieur le Comte! Be hanged if I have seen such a wonderful hat since we left Dieppe!”

  André laughed aloud. “Be hanged if I have worn such a hat since I left France!” He indicated the brass-bound chest that a seaman had hauled up from the pinnace and laid at his feet. “Tell me, Master Fresnel, where am I to put my belongings?”

  “I have given you the cabin aft, the Great Cabin under the poop deck.”

  André frowned. “But is that not yours, by rights?”

  “I am above you, in the roundhouse.” Fresnel smiled. “Closer to the wind, mayhap. I like the sound!”

  “Only a madman likes the sound of the wind in a gale! I will take the stillness of a cabin ’tween decks!”

  André turned to the man who had spoken. A small man, delicately built, he had come upon them so quietly that André had not noticed him. A thin man, with close-cropped white hair and fine features, he was almost beautiful. He might have been fifty or so.