Order of Good Cheer by Bill Gaston Page A

entertain some. Old leather gets stuffed with feathers for the invented contest of kicking a ball at a distant stump. (Men have demanded that Lucien carve them a proper set of
boules
. He may yet do so if he finds the time, and enough root-burl, which might not split.) And there are impromptu games of the most puerile: spitting, pissing, leaping to touch a nest of bees and daring not run. Always a wager of coins, a fur, rations of brandy. Almost daily there is wrestling, naked save for breeches. (Lately poor Dédé is without challenge; the last man broke a thumb; the one before, a rib; and apparently, though no one saw it, the beast ripped the hair from a poor soul’s armpit.) Others have fashioned parlour games — chess in the dirt with ranked pinecones as the soldiers. Others drink and sing, and their songs have become as common as the wind in the trees. Lucien could see the boredom set instantly in Monsieur Champlain, who it seems sets foot on land only to turn forlornly and watch the iron sea. He has already taken the longboat on two excursions, one lasting two weeks and, say the men who went, almost ended their lives on the rocks of a bald and waterless island. Lucien suspects Champlain pretends tobe scouting for locales of value — oak, mines of iron or copper, vines — but he is really just escaping the smell and uniform press of land.
    God, what will winter be like?
    On his half-pillow, Lucien weighs crude hefts of mood and decides he is still partly glad to be here, over the ocean, smelling resin, more awake than during the daylight. Though he would dearly love to have his own room, if only to escape the snoring. It is a rough irony that a carpenter is not allowed his own room here, though of anyone he could most easily build it.
octobre
1606
    MEMBERTOU IS IN the mapmaker’s room waiting for him. When Samuel enters, the old sagamore looks up and smiles and offers his hand for shaking — not at all a savage gesture but one mimicking and taking seriously these politics that the French perform without thought. Disturbingly, Membertou’s smile brings to mind the lawyer Lescarbot’s.
    As they shake hands Samuel finds it funny to think that, despite so French a smile, one that Samuel duly answers with his own, they two can more markedly smell each other. He finds himself wishing that, rather than Membertou gaining these French habits, the sagamore should best remain as he would have been before, blank of face and staring proudly. Indeed, Samuel wishes he could answer that stare with a like one of his own. Two men reading each other’s eyes, searching for strengths and weaknesses perhaps, but it is also a faster way to find friendship.
    Of the savages, Membertou alone has free access through their gate and, once in, he takes it upon himself to go anywhere he pleases. He has been discovered sitting in Sieur Poutrincourt’s chair, for instance, and Poutrincourt was on that occasion gracious enough to seat himself on the bench set there for visitors.
    â€œIn two months, or in three months, there will be moose,” is the first thing Membertou says, though in a simpler way. Monthsare moons, and he uses no future tense that logic can ascertain. He holds his palms up and shoves them at Samuel, who wonders what the gesture might mean. The sagamore’s palms are white and look soft, though they likely aren’t. His hair, bound at the back, has come forward at the sides to frame his face like a hood.
    â€œGood. We all look forward to that.” Samuel decides it would be harmful to tell Membertou that many of the men, if not most of them, are dismissive of moose. All tried the dried version many weeks ago upon their arrival, and it was tainted.
    â€œThe Frenchmen continue to eat beef?”
    â€œYes. Beef is what we have. Barrels of beef.”
    â€œMoose is better than beef.”
    â€œWe French like beef. But indeed we look forward to the moose.”
    â€œA barrel