Le Vicomte de Châtellerault
New France
The world was a miserable place. It was the one truth that Jean-Pierre d’Harcourt knew more than anything, the fact of life he was most certain of. It was a lesson he learned as a young boy, one that had yet to be disproved by the events of his life.
Jean-Pierre was born a sickly child. The exact nature of the ailment the doctors could only guess at—some vague malaise that plagued his humors. It was a miracle of God that he survived—it was predicted, after all, that he would not live past the first two years. But he did. Spite was a powerful force, and he, in some subconscious and infantile fugue, resolved to live, all to spite the doctors, the world. Even God, bastard that he was.
Past the first initial, hardest years, things changed rather dramatically for little Jean-Pierre. He was the boy who lived, the accursed thing that defied its fate. The miracle child. And oh, did his parents never let him forget it. His room may as well have been a padded cell. To his parents, his life still teetered on a knife’s edge—any slight misalignment, and he would be lost for good. He was kept away from other children so they couldn’t infect him with anything. He was never sent off to school—rather, private tutors would come to him, though his lessons were never too long out of fear that it might exhaust the helpless child. His failure was a self-fulfilling prophecy—he was a poor, pathetic thing, a baby to be fawned over, to have his every need met, to never allow an ounce of independence, lest it expose him to the cruelty of the outside world.
It was not a surprise, then, that the coddled and over-pampered boy turned into a cold and awkward teenager. The only girl he had ever interacted with was his mother, an arrangement that she ended up becoming quite fond of as her son grew into manhood. And the adolescent Jean-Pierre, who had never been properly weaned off his mother’s teat, suspected nothing when he was returned to it. Nor did he understand exactly what was being done to him.
His father did, though. Oh, he was so furious when he discovered them. The sin of it, the shame, the taboo. Jean-Pierre had never seen Father so angry. And he was angriest at him—his own son, the sickly lamb. The memory of that night was a distant blur, bits of it floating around in the survivor’s subconscious, an unwelcome visitor when he dreamed. The saber at his father’s waist. The struggle. The fall. The blood. God, the blood. It was the hardest thing to forget. The smell of it. The warmth. The strange and exhilarating feeling that struck that boy, that changed him forever.
It was not all that changed. Something had to be done. His mother, ever the doting martyr, took the fall. She admitted (a lie) that she was the culprit, that her poor innocent baby slept through the night, unawares. She was hanged. And little Jean-Pierre, at the ripe age of fifteen, found himself alone for the first time ever, the sole custodian of his house and title.
Le Vicomte wondered why memories of his sordid past nagged at him as he sat in a canoe bound for Quebéc. Perhaps the trip reminded him of the misery of the world—the claustrophobia of the canoe, assaulted by splashes of bitter cold, the bland meals of hard tack, the frigid wind that kept him awake. The savages he was made to keep company with. They were, perhaps, his least favorite part of these barbaric lands improperly named “New World”. The men were stupid and brutish, but not strong or tame enough to at least be good slaves like the Africans. The women were too hairy and prudish to whore. The babies were scrawny and ugly. Not as ugly, perhaps, as the soul of the man who judged them, but souls were a hard thing to glean, as never had a mirror been made for them. Le Vicomte peered over the side of the canoe, his reflection stirring in the water. All he saw was a sad and bitter child.
His house seemed bigger now that it was empty. His heels clacked in echoes on the wooden floor in the foyer, rebounding off the walls of the dining room where he ate alone. Not that he could complain—it was his hand that cast the dice, after all. Catherine still served him his meals, though she did so in silence. She knew, he thought—perhaps not all of it, but enough to scowl at him behind his back. Not that he could complain.
Off to bed now. The doors to the other rooms upstairs stayed closed and locked. He had thrown away the keys, too, though he was sure Catherine kept copies somewhere. Every now and again, he would catch a whiff of his wife’s perfume, seeping in through the crack beneath the door. He had always hated the scents she chose. Sickeningly sweet, they battered the senses—his senses. Even now, when the air in the hall was dry and dusty and dead, when she had been gone for months, the smells still snuck through. It drove him mad. He had ordered Catherine to deep clean the place no less than two dozen times, to scrub the floors and the walls until they smelled of nothing. Still, she crept in. Perhaps this was what a haunting was.
Sometimes, in the late hours of the night, he would finally lose it. He would march to that door, ominous and foreboding. He would bang on it, as though her ghost would open it and invite him in. He would curse himself for destroying the key, try to force his way in. But his frame was too scrawny to break the thing down, and his hands were not nearly dexterous enough to pick the lock. Still, he would try. Over and over again while she laughed at him, until his body gave out and he collapsed in a pool of his own guilt and misery. Such was his fate.
Through it all, he never fully broke. This was, after all, a mere trifle compared to the trials of his upbringing. No, he could not lose himself, not to this. There was too much he needed to accomplish, and opportunity was a lamprey—slippery and conniving, waiting for any opportunity to sink its teeth into you. Besides, through all the shame and worry there was a strange peace, a sybaritic warmth that rested on his stomach like a thin sheet of oil. He realized that perhaps this was always meant to be, that there could be no other outcome, that he would inevitably destroy anything and anyone that got too close to him. After all, he had grown quite comfortable being alone.
In the earliest hours of the morning after his return, Le Vicomte awoke. He didn’t sleep through the night anymore, to the point he wondered if he ever had. The nightmares were new, though. Growing up, he would imagine his mother’s hanging, and awake in a cold sweat, crying out for her, begging God to grant her mercy, to return her to him. But he had confused the sermons at church for gospel, and misconstrued God as a kindly and benevolent force in the world, whose love and munificence could be felt in every corner of the universe. But no. God had created him, Jean-Pierre d’Harcourt, Vicomte of Châtellerault. Only a sick and twisted creature could have conceived such a joke. Once he realized this, the nightmares stopped—for a time, at least. Now, his dreaming mind was paralyzed by images of her. Of what he did to her.
He did not mean for it to be so brutal, for it to take so long. His father’s death was a quick affair. Why did she have to make everything so difficult? The pleading, the sobbing, the threat to scream and wake the others. Why did he ever marry a woman so mewling and pathetic? Who could not even bear a child, the punchline in the prank of his existence! She should have known it would end like this! She should have resigned herself to it! At least for once in her life she could have done her duty to him! Why did everyone live to spite him? His wife, the facsimiles of children who hated him more than anyone? After all he did for them, after all he saved them from. Why was everyone so ungrateful?
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Anger was a stomach emotion for Jean-Pierre. When it was bad enough, his belly would boil, and he would have runny, burning stools for a day or two. Sometimes it would give him terrible cramps, so consuming he could not move or hardly think, that he would be bedridden for hours. This morning, though, it just gurgled low and prickly in his gut, something to occupy his guilt-addled mind as he made his way to the governor’s manor.
The inside was a mess. Servants packing up the cutlery, rolling up the fine rugs, anything that could fit in the cargo hold for the trip to France. Le Vicomte suspected only some of it had been Le Marquis’ originally, but well, there were perks to being Governor.
Le Marquis was in his office, which was practically just a desk in an empty room now. His eyes rose from the paperwork they were poring over.
“Ah, Monsieur d’Harcourt,” he purred. “I was worried I would not get to see you before my departure.”
“I’ve come to debrief you on the Fort Frontenac situation,” Le Vicomte replied. With the Governor leaving, he saw no point in maintaining the pretense of politeness. Besides, his stomach was starting to hurt again, and that irritated him.
“Excellent,” Le Marquis said. “Please, have a seat.”
He did.
“The final portions are being dismantled as we speak,” Le Vicomte said. "And I received word from the company in Niagara—your own namesake fort should be built within the month.”
“Oh? Did you not think it important to oversee the project to completion?”
“No, Monseigneur. I have faith in my soldiers to see it through. Besides, there was a more pressing matter—I needed to get this to you before you departed.”
“Well, color me intrigued. What have you got for me?”
“The warrior woman of the Neutrals, the one who led that half-company of savages under my purview. She’s alive. And she seems to have found company in The Rat of the Huron.”
“And you saw her at the fort? Was she there to do some reminiscing?”
“I’m not sure. They were there together—I only really spoke with the Rat. Couldn’t figure out what he wanted. He has a very circular way of speaking.”
“And you thought this important enough to leave your post?”
“Oui, Monseigneur. I don’t know why they came, but they seemed like they were planning something. The Rat’s eyes carried something in them. I don’t know what it was, but I don’t trust him.”
“Of course you don’t. Why would you?”
Le Marquis stood, dusting himself off, like Le Vicomte’s visit had sullied his clothes.
“Is that all?” He asked.
“Well, I just figured you should know. If she survived, there could be others who did, too.”
“So?”
“Well… perhaps they would resent us, Monseigneur, for assigning them to that death trap. They might seek vengeance.”
Le Marquis laughed. His was a haughty, condescending laugh. The acid in Le Vicomte’s gut started to boil, ever so slightly.
“And I shall be off to Marseilles,” he said. “Still, you should not worry either. They are savages, mon petit agneau. Even if enough of them lived and harbored resentment, what could they possibly do to you? Do you think with their feeble minds they could conjure a plan to sack this city, with what? The eight who survived? Come on, man.”
Vicomte nodded. He had a point.
“You fret too much,” Le Marquis cooed. “It can be a useful trait if controlled, but you tiptoe the line between skepticism and paranoia. You should learn to lighten up. You look like shit. Go grab a hot bath and have a romp in the brothel. That combination will remedy anything, I swear. Now, is there anything else?”
Le Vicomte shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, the gaze of his superior bearing down on him from above.
“One last thing, Monseigneur,” he managed. “With the King recalling you to the motherland, I was wanting to ask about your… replacement.”
“Ah, yes, of course. The King has seen fit to reappoint Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau to the post. All’s well with that, I think—Old Louis seems to be obsessed with this place.”
“The old Governor? From before Labarre?”
“The very same.”
“I… I see.”
Le Marquis laughed again. The boil grew.
“Did you think that your name, perhaps, would be put forward?” Le Marquis asked, like it was ridiculous to even hope. “Don’t worry, you silly little man. This is a waiting game, and you are still young. Well… relatively, at least. You haven’t even spent a year on this rock, and you want to lord over it? Tsk, tsk.”
“N…no, Monseigneur,” Le Vicomte lied. “I would not assume to take command, of course. I just wished to know who I would be getting my orders from.”
“I see. Well, then, I can only wish you the best of luck. Louis’s a rather zealous man. Good intentions, I’m sure, but that’s the problem with optimists—he’s all preoccupied with the grand project of colonization. He thinks—get this—that the savages can actually be saved, that among his God-given missions is the one to civilize them and bring them into the fold of French peerage. Well, the ones he won't put down trying to oppose him. Can you imagine it? Hah!”
Le Marquis practically walked Le Vicomte to the door, clearly tired of entertaining him. He took the hint. He bowed to his superior for the last time, donned his hat, and left the office.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he heard the Governor say. Le Vicomte turned to him. The man’s dark pupils glistened wickedly.
“A word of caution to my Jean-Pierre. Frontenac may be blinded by his obsession with this place, but he is no fool. Tread carefully in the presence of that man. If he sees your ambition as I do, as naked and shameless as you wear it now: he will eat you alive.”