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Conception, mise en page et maquette : © Eric Chaplain

Pour la présente édition : © edr/EDITIONS des régionalismes ™ — 2013

Editions des Régionalismes : 48B, rue de Gâte–Grenier — 17160 cressé

ISBN 978.2.84618.566.2 (papier)

ISBN 978.2.8240.5015.7 (électronique : pdf/epub)

Malgré le soin apporté à la correction de nos ouvrages, il peut arriver que nous laissions passer coquilles ou fautes — l’informatique, outil merveilleux, a parfois des ruses diaboliques... N’hésitez pas à nous en faire part : cela nous permettra d’améliorer les textes publiés lors de prochaines rééditions.

ROBERT BÉNÉ
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
VIVIEN BOSLEY

BELLE VIRGINIE
The adventures
of Nicolas Martiau,
Washington’s ancestor

PART ONE

The Old Continent

On that glorious August morning of the year 1614, the Forêt de la Combe à l’Eau was set like an emerald in the silver ocean; along its golden beach the sea sparkled like diamonds beneath the azure sky and the wavelets danced right up to the forest.

In a hollow in the sand dunes, cosy as a turtle-doves’ nest, Clément Baroune and the delectable Plantine laughed delightedly at the games they invented, which, for all their apparent innocence, would hardly have the blessing of the village priest. The game for seventeen-year old Clément, with his wind-swept blond curls, consisted in trying to thrust a blue thistle under the Plantine’s skirts. A game with a purpose! Plantine naturally understood his intentions and threatened to bite him. But she didn’t try too hard and her threats were more like a provocation. When she fell back on to the sand pulling Clément with her, her lips, red as poppies, were open, ready to receive the kisses from the boy she had known since they were children. Why was it at that very moment that he glanced at the shore-line exposed by the receding tide?

“Damn it! It’s almost low tide. I must get a move on!” he cried.

Plantine’s looked at him incredulously with her dark, passionate eyes. She tried to hold him tight in her pretty plump arms, but Clément was already standing ready to go. His sea-blue gaze lingered only a moment on the half-clad body of the enticing girl two years his junior. He breathed the scent of freshly mown hay from her welcoming body and he was tempted to lie back down beside her. But he merely shook out the sand from his hair with a nervous twitch of his fingers. Fearing he might be unable to resist her charms, he took two steps away from her and blew her a kiss.

“See you tomorrow?” he asked.

And he ran off before she had time to reply.

Half an hour later, staff in hand, he was doing his best to walk as silently as possible through the mud of the marshes. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t avoid making a slight squelching noise as he lifted his bare leg out of the warm slime. But the young man gave this little thought, realizing that the outgoing tide on the nearby shore and the wind in his face would mask his approach. The only sign that he had walked this way were the black, evil-smelling hollows left behind him in the film of water that covered the mud. Stooping slightly to remain hidden behind the ditch bank, he made a careful circuit of the area of soft mud where lurked, as he well knew, the danger of being sucked in never to be seen again. Then, doubled over till his nose almost grazed the samphire, he made his way noiselessly towards the nearest ditch, from which ran a trickle of salt water left by the preceding tide on the marshes of the Ile d’Ars. Over the years this trickle had made a channel six feet deep. In silence, Clément Baroune jumped over the ditch, letting the current wash the mud from his legs, and, still clutching his staff, he followed its many meanders upstream. As he had expected, three herons were standing like statues in one of the turns on the lookout for a stray crab or fish floating out with the tide. The young man took a deep breath before hurling his staff and running as fast as he could towards them. The birds reacted immediately. Two of them took flight with an ugly croak. But the third flapped around in the mud, with a broken leg and wing and a threatening beak. A moment later, after wringing its long neck, Clément Beroune was stuffing it into the canvas bag that was hanging from the string of his belt.

Smiling, he made his way to the other channel where he had left his shrimping nets the day before. Then he went straight on to the mud flats where he kept permanently a trap he’d made of vine branches hidden in a hole. It would be surprising if a few eels had not taken refuge there. But he would have to make it snappy if he wanted to walk across the causeway that connected the Ile d’Ars from the Ile de Ré at low tide.

In complete contrast to the quiet of the Ars marshes where Clément Beroune was wading, there had been a great tumult going on since dawn on the port of La Rochelle. Tavern-owners, inn-keepers, sail-makers, rope, hemp and tar merchants, tradesmen of all kinds, every shop on the quay side of this ocean city had banged open its shutters on to the whitewashed walls before sunrise. In every street - the main street leading to the port, the street of the fishmongers, of the mole-catchers, of the smiths - in every lane, in every arcade leading to the market place, second-hand clothes merchants, suit-makers, wig-makers, iron-mongers, tradesmen of every kind imaginable were bustling round in their shops, for in three days the Sainte Aldégonde was to set sail for New France. Such an important client must be given complete satisfaction.

The proud vessel of a hundred and twenty tons had sailed between the towers guarding the port some five weeks ago. Her hold was bursting with salt cod, moose hides and beaver pelts that had been loaded in the chilly waters of the Saint Lawrence estuary. Today was the day for the final preparation for a new departure for the high seas. Barrels of wine and salt from the Ile de Ré filled the hold. Every last space was packed to the rafters with a vast variety of items carefully wrapped in straw or wood chips and sewn into hemp or canvas sacks: cloth suits, shoes, crockery, but also muskets, rifles, gunpowder, pikes and halberds to help the French of New France defend themselves against the attacks of the Indians. At this moment, the captain was taking advantage of the ebbing tide, which had brought the ship’s deck down to the level of the quay, to stow on board the barrels of wine which had been hauled to the port by heavy drays drawn by powerful horses, all in a lather with the effort.

Four sailors, spurred on by the voice of the quarter-master, set about anchoring the barrels to the foot of the main mast, in the hay that was fodder for the ox and three sheep that would provide fresh meat during the long voyage.

Nicholas Martiau’s glance lingered one more time on the laden deck of the Sainte Aldégonde, then he raised his eyes to the vast rigging where the crew members straddling astride the spars were working their fingers to the bone to finish mending the sails that had been torn in the last storm. He raised his hand to his neck to readjust the silver clasp that fastened his short scarlet velvet cloak. He tugged gently at the wide hat that covered his long, soft, carefully combed black hair. He leapt nimbly on to the deck of the small ferry-boat that awaited him at the quay.

With the end of his oar, the boatman pushed out the old crate that was floating in the runnels left in the mud of the port by the keels of bigger vessels. At the rear, the master of the Codfish (for so the ferry boat was named) set the tiller to starboard and the heavy boat veered around and headed towards the entrance to the port, following the little channels, zigzagging through the oily brownish mud that clogged the harbor. Already the boatman had raised the ragged canvas that did duty as a sail. As he waited for a breeze to fill it, he thrust his oar into the mud and pushed hard to get the Codfish to move; the boat’s gunwale was on a level with the water and its keel stirred up black, smelly swirls.

As the vessel pulled slowly away from the quay, Nicholas Martiau looked with nostalgia at the port city he loved almost as much as his island home. But the sharp blows of the caulking mallets along the Sainte Aldégonde’s hull jolted him out of his incipient melancholy. He made a conscious effort to turn his attention to the Blue Bird which had arrived the previous day from Santo Domingo with its cargo of molasses and spices, and was now moored at the quay along with a veritable flotilla of barges, lighters, scows and Dutch hookers, with flat bottoms and wide bellies.

Slowly the Codfish glided alongside the galleon from which the crew members, perched on flats, were hastily scraping the shellfish and seaweeds that had become attached to the keel duringr those endless months at sea.

Finally the ferry boat passed between the towers of the port. The waves slapped against its sturdy sides before sending spray over the piles of logs that were its main cargo. Three goats tethered to a wooden stake below the poop deck rolled their eyes in panic and set up a chorus of bleating as the boat began to roll.

“Plenty of time for a nap,” thought Nicholas as he stretched out on the deck and pulled his hat over his eyes as a shield from the sun, which was already burning hot.

The night before, he had had a late night saying farewell to his friends in La Rochelle, and had had to get up early to supervise the loading of his final barrels.

He was already dozing off when he felt someone tugging at his foot. He raised his head and squinted from under his wide-brimmed hat with its ostrich feather that quivered at the slightest breath of wind. Through his long black eyelashes, he saw a man of about his own age with a thin, olive skinned face and curling hair who was saying something totally incomprehensible. The only thing that Nicholas understood was the extreme anxiety on the man’s face.

“Do you mind repeating that”, he said.

After the third attempt, Nicholas Martiau finally understood:

“Does it not disquiet you that the ocean should profit from your slumber to dash you into its gloomy depths where evil spirits lie in wait?” asked the passenger, whose head only was visible above the tiny forecastle.

Nicholas Martiau couldn’t help giving a loud, clear laugh.

“Where in God’s name do you come from, talking that gobbledygook in that accent?”

“You must excuse me. I’ve never seen the sea before. I’m from near Agen, and I’ve come here to see if there’s any work for a carpenter with lots of courage and lots of experience”.

“Have no fear. Forget all that nonsense. Evil spirits exist only in the minds of those who are willing to believe in them. And you’ll find plenty of work. In the meantime, do what I’m doing and have a quiet nap. It’s the best way to get the time to pass... and to keep seasickness at bay, just in case you should be seasick,” said Nicholas Martiau, pulling his hat back over his eyes.

The young carpenter seemed reassured, and curling up in the narrow space left on the deck, he laid his head on a log. The feel of the wood reminded him of his native village. He soon closed his eyes to try to sleep and forget his fears.

Nicholas Martiau thought about his father’s friends and relations whom he’d met on the preceding days during the loading of the Sainte Aldégonde and at dinner the night before. As usual the conversation had been very heated and had become louder and louder throughout the meal. Some of the guests had been unable to resist referring to the charms of certain ladies of their acquaintance, but the main topics of conversation had been business and politics. Nicholas Martiau had deplored the deeply entrenched fanaticism of some of those present, which was exacerbated by the recent memories of the cruel wars of religion that had ravaged the region. Some of them had been victims and some victors in these struggles. As he drifted off to sleep, the young man remembered what his father used to say to him: ‘Protestants or Catholics, they’re all still people’. Perhaps it was because of this tolerant outlook that Guillaume Martiau, his father, was so much respected by everyone who knew him. He was a rich landowner on the Ile de Ré, but primarily a trading merchant for the last twenty years, as had been his father, dealing mainly with the countries of Northern Europe. For the last few years, he had been doing business even with the West Indies and Newfoundland and New France. They all admired the proud Huguenot who repeated to anyone who would listen that God did not take sides, but that He dwelt in the hearts of all men and that above all, He should not be buried beneath hatred and fanaticism. Snippets of yesterday’s conversation with the excitable Barbier, the wealthy old salt-merchant, ran through Nicholas Martiau’s mind. Despite the years that had passed, no one had forgotten the infamous Saint Bartholemew’s Day massacre of the Huguenots, the assassinations of the Duc de Guise and Henri IV, nor the retributions exacted by over-zealous Protestants in some of the villages of the Ile de Ré and many others in Aunis and Saintonge. The bloody images of fights between Catholics and Protestants that people had recalled during the dinner brought a frown to his face. “At least there seems to be peace at the moment, despite the death of good King Henri”, thought Nicholas Martiau, with a young man’s optimism.

The gentle rocking of the boat and the warmth of the sun on his body soon swept away these sinister memories and a sweet languor soon enveloped him The brilliant smile of the beautiful Marie- Anne suddenly appeared beneath his closed eyelids and his own lips, outlined by a thin moustache, widened in an answering smile. He could see quite clearly her eyes the color of a summer sky, the curls that escaped from her little white bonnet and her round peasant cheeks. That evening, as the angelus pealed, he would hold her tenderly in his arms. Such were the last thoughts of the strapping twenty-three year old before he fell into a deep sleep.

The tide had been rising for at least two hours and the current was strong when Clément Baroune arrived at the narrow straight separating the Baronnerie of Ré from the Seigneurie of Ars. With water up to his belt, carrying the sack with the heron and the eels on his head and the shrimp net between his teeth, he waded unhesitatingly into the water, recognizing every pebble beneath his bare feet. Then he made for the little oak wood where, when he was still at his mother’s breast, King Henri IV had stopped with his guards and gentlewomen. Clément Baroune stopped only long enough to release two snares where two wild rabbits had met their end. Throwing them into the sack with the heron, he hastened towards Couarde Parish.

He was half way along the winding path towards Les Brades, and was already counting the money he’d get from the inn-keeper, when his instinct, which he was accustomed to follow, warned him of danger. He paused in his calculations: ‘the heron, plus the shrimp, plus the eels, plus the rabbits, that makes ......’ as his ear, which was able to discern the slightest rustle of a partridge in a hay-field, heard the sound of steps behind him. He made an exaggerated gesture to change shoulders with his sack and gave a rapid glance behind him. He easily made out, just from their silhouette, two thieves well-known in the northern part of the island as the Mangy Cats. One was as tall and bony as the other was short and pot-bellied, and one was never seen without the other, with the little one sticking to the big one like his shadow. As everyone knew, they lived by robbing, lying in wait for the solitary traveller to relieve him of his purse.

Clément Baroune walked faster. Immediately the footsteps behind him quickened. Then he began to run and the two cut-purses did likewise. Scarcely out of breath, he reached the white milestone that marked the narrow winding path through the waving green ferns which led to the nearby shore. He followed it after he’d glanced back again at his pursuers. As he had predicted, the short one had not been able to keep up and had fallen behind. As soon as he was on the path, he hid in the ferns, and threw his sack of shrimp in an obvious spot in the middle of the path right opposite his hiding place. In the following moment, the taller of the Mangy Cats stopped at the bag of shrimp and bent over to pick it up. But he had no time to do so. At the very same moment, Clément Baroune thwacked him with his own salt rake and smashed his hat down over his face, right down to his chin, half throttling him by pulling with his left hand at the brim of his hat and holding it firmly at the nape of his neck. The tall man tried to struggle free and shout into his hat, but when he felt at his throat the sharp blade of the knife the young man used to open clams, he became more docile.

“Take one step and I’ll cut your ugly buddy’s throat like a jack-rabbit,” he said as the short one appeared, sweating copiously, at the entrance to the path.

Taken completely by surprise, the second scoundrel gaped as he came to a halt and stood with his arms hanging at his sides.

“Looks like you just came from the tailor’s,” said the young man ironically as he took in their nearly new doublets and hose.

Muffled sounds came from the hat while the second rogue, trying his hardest to get his breath, remained silent.

“Off with those clothes”, ordered Clément Baroune, pressing the tip of his blade a little harder into the thief’s throat.

There were further protests from beneath the hat, but a few minutes later, they both had their trousers around their ankles.

With a rapid movement of his knife, Clément cut the lacing of his knickers and held his blade just above his penis.

“Now then, you can both very kindly hand over your clothes or I’ll cut off anything sticking out of them” he ordered in a tone that made them realize he meant it.

At the same time, with the tip of his foot, he sent the knickers flying up into the branches of a pine tree and the two Mangy Cats were as naked as the day they were born.

When he arrived at La Couarde half an hour later, Clément Beroune was wearing the clothes, now spattered with mud, of the taller of the two rascals. Under his arm he was carrying the clothes of the second one, and he began his calculations all over again.

“One heron, plus the shrimp, plus the eels, plus two rabbits, plus the fat man’s clothes... that should add up to a tidy little sum”.

The sun was still high in the sky and the intense summer heat toyed with the air so that the horizon was all a-tremble and the silhouettes deformed when he entered the northern gate of Saint Martin, happy as a king and whistling like a lark. He stopped for a moment to adjust the pleats at the bottom of his grey linen doublet with the wooden buttons covered with red thread. He leant against a tree to pull on the Mangy Cat’s apple green stockings, taking no notice of the holes in the toes. Then, in an act of supreme sacrifice to fashion, he, Clément Beroune, who always walked barefoot put on the thief’s shoes after shining the silver buckles with his sleeve. Humming a cheerful ditty, he made his way quite naturally to the port. Which is where he met François Parilleau, his friend since their school days, just back from two voyages as a crew member on board the Belle Virginie. They hadn’t seen each other for ages. After exchanging friendly thumps on the back and hearty greetings, François Parilleau dragged Clément off to the bar of the Laughing Seagull.

The gravelly accent of the carpenter from Agen woke Nicholas Martiau. He raised the hat beneath which he was perspiring and was thoroughly awake right away. The shore was a few lengths in front of him and Chateliers Abbey rose high against the blue sky, its lofty walls blackened by the fire that had been set a few years earlier by a group of Protestant fanatics. The brilliant sunshine fell on what was left of the splendid stained-glass windows which the vandals had taken pleasure in smashing, in the name, as they had it, of their religion. At the foot of the great walls, in the surrounding vineyards, an elderly monk, who had escaped the last massacre, went to and fro as though the reign of peace had come on earth.

As soon as the keel scraped on the fine gravel of the little cove at La Prée, Nicholas jumped on to the beach. He waved his thanks to the two crew members for bringing him safe to shore:

“God be with you, carpenter!” he shouted.

He made his way swiftly to a wooden building less than a hundred yards from the shore. It was a seedy tavern where they served vinegary wine and above all stabled horses for travelers leaving for the mainland. Martin, who was the general factotum, had seen Nicholas Martiau come ashore, so his horse was already saddled when he got there.

Happy to be on horseback, he didn’t take the most direct route but made a detour through the Abbey Woods. When he thought his mount was sufficiently warmed up after the long stay in the stable, he spurred him on through the undergrowth. When he came out, he slowed to a slow trot along the narrow path that wound through the vineyards towards the cliffs. The port of La Flotte stood out less than a league away, so crowded with vessels that it must mean that the Sainte Aldégonde had left La Rochelle. The young man’s heart tightened at the sight: among that forest of masts was the ship that tomorrow would take him far from his native land.

It was not his nature to wallow in melancholy, so he took pleasure in contemplating the wide stretch of vineyards that continued right up to where the ocean sparkled in the warm summer sunshine.

He now ambled slowly along the chalky cliff. The horse, which was already nervous about the drop, balked with his ears forward, and sidestepped - luckily on the landward side, when a peasant’s head appeared suddenly from a rocky scree just ahead of them. Nicholas Martiau’s legs tightened instinctively around his mount, he pulled on the reins and spoke soothingly to the horse before turning to see who had scared him.

“Etienne”, he exclaimed. “You nearly sent me head over heels.”

“‘Scuse me, Messire Nicholas. I never heard you, nor saw you. But then I can’t see so well these days, and my ear isn’t as keen as it used to be.”

Etienne Bouet was an old farm laborer who lived in La Flotte parish. Although he wasn’t as poverty-stricken as many people were at that time, he made a very modest living, working hard, along with the rest of his family, in the vineyards.

Nicholas Martiau pulled up his horse to speak to him.

“Were you fishing or working in the vines?” he asked.

Etienne Bouet showed him the pruning hook tucked into the hemp belt that was tied tight around his coarse sackcloth tunic, faded by the sun and rain and hanging about his tattered stockings.

“I was just trimming them shoots, and I’m lifting them bunches at the same time. If I don’t that there sand will just burn up them grapes.

He wiped his wrinkled forehead with a mechanical gesture of his muddy hand:

“I just went down to the beach to pick up a few clams for my dinner”.

“You don’t go home to dinner?”

“No. It takes that long and it’s too hard to get there and back on my old legs. And my wife has taken the grandchildren off to the other side of the island, near Frégond, working like me in a vineyard the eldest is renting from Seigneur Gratteloup’s widow. It’ll be nightfall before they get home. So I just gathered my own dinner before going back to work.....

He held out his shapeless, colorless hat:

“See these clams. And I’ve got my jug of wine and a slice of bread stowed in the cool, under that there tamarisk ....”

And he felt obliged to point to the exact spot.

“That one there between the two hundred and fifty vines I inherited from my father and the two hundred I rented from your late grandfather at the end of last century...”

Etienne Bouet run his gnarled hand over his smooth skull that glistened with beads of perspiration. His eyes, set among deep wrinkles gleamed with mischief:

“And as soon as I’ve finished eating, I’ll have myself a little nap under the tamarisk. Just a short one, mind you”.

“That would be a good idea. It’s really hot already”.

The old man pointed at the sky with a black and scaly index finger.

“Yes, but we’ll see a storm before the day is out, you’ll see,” he said with certainty.

“That’s quite likely.”

“Oh, it’s for sure. But I’m not complaining. The vines can do with it, and so can we. The bigger the storm, the more wine in the barrels at the next harvest.”

As he spoke, his strikingly blue little eyes, sunk beneath thick, bushy eyebrows, gazed at the clouds on the horizon to try to predict what they were bringing. As he went on his way, Nicholas Martiau looked at the old islander with his sun-baked face and thought how fond he was of old Etienne.

“But I’m fonder still of his granddaughter”, he thought as he remembered the whiteness of Marie-Anne’s skin where he had undone the top button of her bodice the other night.

In the town of La Flotte around the port, there was the same bustle as the young man had witnessed a few hours earlier in the port of La Rochelle. Before going home to his father’s house, Nicholas Martiau wanted, just one more time, to enjoy the spectacle he had known since he was a child. At the entrance to the town, he jumped down and tied up his horse at an iron ring so that he could walk among the noisy crowd, where foreign tongues, usually English or Flemish, mingled with the island dialect. In front of the shops opposite the ships, arose a cacophony of tipsy sailors, ragged prostitutes plying their trade, soldiers strutting in their bright uniforms, or corseted in their gleaming armor, sellers shouting their wares at the tops of their voices.

The tide was rising now and was already licking at the keels of the ships moored furthest out. Before it was full, a few lengths from the shops, people were hurrying to load the barges pulled up on the muddy sand. Between them and the shore, there was a constant traffic of great carts carrying salt or barrels and bales in transit, of men doubled over with the huge loads on their shoulders. Men and beasts floundered in the soft, black sand, with their hooves or their bare feet churning up the tiny green crabs that scurried out of their way, and stirring up the sand fleas. In a few hours time, at high tide, these barges, loaded to the gunwales, would draw up to the side of the ships at anchor off-shore and unload what they were frantically loading at this moment. Amongst this tumult, ragged, filthy children and a few thin women were desperately scratching at the sand as they crawled along trying to find shellfish that would provide the evening meal for the whole family.

On board the Belle Virginie which was tied up at the quay, there was a strange lack of activity. The holds were being neither filled nor emptied. They had been loaded for a long time. They were packed with dried cod, barrels of oil, moose skins and beaver pelts from Acadia. And they were not going to be unloaded. The Belle Virginie had limped back to her home port solely to repair the damage done by a storm off the coast of Newfoundland. The raging elements had cost her the mainmast and part of her sails. Her captain had made the wise decision to return to La Flotte to make the big repairs rather than to carry on in that sorry state to London, his final destination. The owner, Guillaume Martiau, Nicholas’ father, had warmly congratulated him on this decision.

For the time being, the sailors were tugging with all their might at the ropes to hoist the shrouds of the brand new mast. The sail makers were finishing wrapping in leather the quickwork before the final stitching which would protect it against friction. And the caulkers were taking advantage of low tide to inspect the hull of the ship to make sure there was no chink they might have overlooked.

The Belle Virginie was a solid store ship of a hundred and ten tons, with a crew of twenty men, all from the Ile de Ré.

They had considered it a stroke of great good luck to have to come back for repairs to their native island. But alas, the long stay would end tomorrow.

Nicholas Martiau looked more closely at the ship his father had christened with the name of his mother who had died when he was only five giving birth to a little sister, who had also not survived. He loved this ship and as he looked at it he was reminded of his mother. His green eyes were darkened with sadness beneath their black lashes. “They must have loved each other very much,” he sighed, thinking of the oil painting of the smiling young woman in his father’s austere office. His father had never thought of re-marrying, and had devoted his life to his son and his work.

The Belle Virginie had been built in the shipyards of Amsterdam five years earlier. “She doesn’t seem to be showing her age, in spite of all those voyages and storms,” young Nicholas thought affectionately. He paused for a moment to look at the long bowsprit that jutted proudly over the quay, almost reaching the nearest houses. Astride its end, a sailor, naked to the waist, was working at threading a hemp guy-rope through a wooden pulley. Taking full advantage of his perch, he was exchanging witticisms with a fetching fish seller who was showing off her sardines and her ample bosom immediately below him.

Nicholas Martiau smiled and turned to look at the brand new bowsprit mast. The sails, recently arrived from the sailmaker’s, were hanging limply, looking like the seagulls that were gliding in the blue sky. “We’ll be a pretty sight if the wind doesn’t come up tomorrow,” he said to himself.

“Morning, m’sieur!”

Nicholas’s eyes dropped rapidly from the mast to the lanky lad standing before him holding a modest bag.

“The man from Agen!” he exclaimed, recognizing his fellow passenger on the Codfish.

He attempted a smile, which revealed the few teeth that had survived childhood malnutrition, but it was the unconvincing smile of a man without hope. Nicholas Martiau noticed it immediately.

“Come with me,” he said, after they had exchanged greetings.

Without asking where they were going, the man from Agen fell into step behind the only person he knew. Keeping his mentor in view, he stepped over ropes and chains scattered around the quay and over heaps of noisome refuse, skirting piles of wood with exotic scents, wound his way round rows of intoxicating barrels, skidded on a pool of fat that had oozed out of a cracked barrel, waded though a runnel of stinking water, avoided by a hair a horse-drawn cart, nearly knocked over a fishmonger’s stall, bumped into a Dutchman who shouted something incomprehnsible, was jostled by an Englishman who didn’t apologize, was nearly run down by company armed with muskets and pikes, but managed to keep his eyes on the ostrich feather on the hat of the man who was striding a few steps ahead of him with greater ease than he had walked a mere two weeks ago beneath the chestnuts of his native Agenais region.

In the tumult and strong smells that came in with the tide, the man from Agen suddenly recognized the familiar sound of the mallet and saw, and he breathed the smell of freshly cut wood deep into his lungs. And he finally felt reassured. Nicholas looked at all the men who were so industriously hammering, chopping, sawing, measuring.

“Are you looking for me, Messire Martiau?”

“Ah, Pegleg! Yes, I was indeed. You don’t need a carpenter, by any chance, do you?”

“I can always do with a carpenter, if he’s well trained and has plenty of stamina.”

Nicholas pointed to the young man beside him.

“I don’t really know him, but he tells me he has all the qualifications.”

“Is he a ship’s carpenter?”

“I doubt that, knowing where he comes from.”

The master carpenter’s face expressed disappointment.

“Too bad. That’s what I would have preferred. But as he comes with your recommendation, Messire Martiau, I’ll be glad to take him on.”

“That’s very good of you.”

“You spent enough time here when you were a lad, planing, hammering in pegs, fitting together planks and boards to make rowing boats. I well remember the castles you and your friends built on the beach. You were a good young lad, clever with your hands and always ready to do a good turn. If I can do something for you in return....”

“What a memory! That was years ago!”

Pegleg looked at the man from Agen, who was all eyes and ears as he took all this in.

“Let’s shake on it!” said Pegleg, holding out his hand. “You’re hired. We’ll talk about your wages tonight over a glass at Germaine’s”.

The man from Agen looked open mouthed from Nicholas Martiau to the master carpenter. He could hardly believe his good luck

“Thanks, Pegleg. I don’t know him and he’s new to the island, but I don’t think he’ll let you down.”

“God bless,“ Nicholas added to the man from Agen before he strode off.

Holding the reins slack in his hand, trusting his horse’s instinct, he made his way to his father’s house. All the way he was hailed by local people, who were all happy to...