Free Silence of Stone by Annamarie Beckel Page A

possibly survive on that?”
    I taste salty bitter herbs. And blood. Sharp edges of bark cut the tongue. “She didn’t.”
    The voices intertwine gracefully within the windand rain:
Grievous sin. La culpabilité. Impardonnable. Kek-kek-kek. Saved by our grace, not God’s.
    His eyes are slits, like the eyes of a serpent feigning sleep. “What do you mean?” he says.
    â€œMarguerite died. I lived.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œOf course not.”
    He clutches the gold cross that lies nestled against his breast. When he finally speaks, his voice is tight, as if my hands are squeezing his throat. “Roberval knew, and you have said yourself that the island is well populated with demons. Were you seduced by the Devil? Did he grant you life in exchange for your soul?”
    Thevet holds out the cross like a shield. His voice rises in accusation. “Is that how you survived? By witchcraft? Is that how you sought revenge against your uncle?”
    I touch the blade of the dagger and imagine slicing his face and watching blood drip from his trembling chin onto his papers.
    â€œChrist expelled seven demons from Mary Magdalene,” he says quickly. “How many do you harbour, Marguerite? How many?”
    If my lips were not stone, I would smile. “If I had those powers,
Père
, would I be sitting here with you?”
    He shrinks back into his chair. “The Devil works in mysterious ways.”
    â€œI thought that was God.”I sit among the trees’ welcoming embrace. Their trunks and branches are like silver threads sewn into the black satin of night. Water drips from new leaves. I clutch shards of broken pottery, bits of clay painted with pale blue forget-me-nots. I found the shards in a rubbish heap. I had to chase away the pig rooting for turnip scrapings and rotten cabbage.
    Marguerite would have used the shards as chess pieces. Bored and restless, she meticulously lined up small stones to form a chessboard on the broad flat rock beside the cave. She searched for coloured and distinctive stones and then made them into kings, queens, knights, bishops, rooks, and pawns. Michel teased and called her foolish, but he smiled, and in the long twilight between their meagre evening meal and nightfall, he allowed her to teach him how to play.
    A large clay bowl. Who would be so careless as to break it? Marguerite would have traded her pearl ring for such a bowl. She would have traded her ring for the shards.
    Rose silk. An ebony feather, a pearl ring. The scent of moss.
    I lift my nose and sniff. I am eighty miles from the sea, but I can still smell salt, can still hear waves pummelling rock, a relentless wearing away. And then I hear it, a citre, the simple elegant notes of a
pavane
straining to rise above the sea’s bleak howl. While Michel played, Marguerite danced around the fire, her movements slow and graceful, the wind billowing her skirts, her chestnut curls falling thick and loose. She’d stopped wearing the snood by nowand simply tied her hair back with a satin ribbon. When she danced, she let her hair fall loose, and Michel looked upon her with admiration and desire.
    As more and more weeks passed and no ship came, Michel stopped playing the citre. No longer smiling indulgently, he began to chastise Marguerite when she asked him to play. He kicked at her chessboard, grinding the pieces under his boots. And he no longer cared how hard she worked – or if the work was proper for a lady. He began to scoff when she prayed.
    I stretch out my legs and rub my arms for warmth. There was hardly room in the cramped cave for all of them to lie down. With Damienne so near, Michel and Marguerite were circumspect, confining their love-making to the woods and open meadows. Even then, Michel was far less free in his attentions, his once-buoyant spirits weighed down, melancholy and angry humours growing within. Marguerite tried to flirt and tease, stroking