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She
was called Isabelle, and when she was a small girl her hair changed
colour in the time it takes a bird to call to its mate.

That summer the Duc de l'Aigle brought a statue of the Virgin and
Child and a pot of paint back from Paris for the niche over the
church door. A feast was held in the village the day the statue was
installed. Isabelle sat at the bottom of a ladder watching Jean
Tournier paint the niche a deep blue the colour of the clear
evening sky. As he finished, the sun appeared from behind a wall of
clouds and lit up the blue so brightly that Isabelle clasped her
hands behind her neck and squeezed her elbows against her chest.
When its rays reached her, they touched her hair with a halo of
copper that remained even when the sun had gone. From that day she
was called La Rousse after the Virgin Mary.

The nickname lost its affection when Monsieur Marcel arrived in the
village a few years later, hands stained with tannin and words
borrowed from Calvin. In his first sermon, in woods out of sight of
the village priest, he told them that the Virgin was barring their
way to the Truth. —La Rousse has been defiled by the statues,
the candles, the trinkets. She is contaminated! he proclaimed. She
stands between you and God!

The villagers turned to stare at Isabelle. She clutched her
mother's arm.

How can he know? she thought. Only Maman knows. Her mother would
not have told him that Isabelle had begun to bleed that day and now
had a rough cloth tied between her legs and a pillow of pain in her
stomach. Les fleurs, her mother had called it, special
flowers from God, a gift she was to keep quiet about because it set
her apart. She looked up at her mother, who was frowning at
Monsieur Marcel and had opened her mouth as if to speak. Isabelle
squeezed her arm and Maman shut her mouth into a tight line.

Afterwards she walked back between her mother and her sister Marie,
their twin brothers following more slowly. The other village
children lagged behind them at first, whispering. Eventually, bold
with curiosity, a boy ran up and grabbed a handful of Isabelle's
hair.

—Did you hear him, La Rousse? You're dirty! he shouted.

Isabelle shrieked. Petit Henri and Ge´rard jumped to defend
her, pleased to be useful at last.

The next day Isabelle began wearing a headcloth, every chestnut
strand wound out of sight, long before other girls her age.

By the time Isabelle was fourteen two cypress trees were growing in
a sunny patch near the house. Each time, Petit Henri and
Ge´rard made the trip all the way to Barre-les-
Ce´vennes, a two-day walk, to find one.

The first tree was Marie's. She grew so big all the village women
said she must be carrying twins; but Maman's probing fingers felt
only one head, though a large one. Maman worried about the size of
the head.

—Would that it were twins, she muttered to Isabelle.
Then it would be easier.

When the time came Maman sent all the men away: husband, father,
brothers. It was a bitterly cold night, strong wind blowing snow
into drifts against the house, the stone walls, the clumps of dead
rye. The men were slow leave the fire until they heard Marie's
first scream: strong men, accustomed to the sounds of slaughtered
pigs, the human tone drove them away quickly.

Isabelle had helped her mother at birthings before, but always in
the presence of other women visiting to sing and tell stories. Now
the cold kept them away and she and Maman were alone. She stared at
her sister, immobile beneath a huge belly, shivering and sweating
and screaming. Her mother's face was tight and anxious; she said
little. Throughout the night Isabelle held Marie's hand, squeezed
it during contractions, and wiped her forehead with a damp cloth.
She prayed for her, silently appealing to the Virgin and to Saint
Margaret to protect her sister, the while feeling guilty: Monsieur
Marcel had told them the Virgin and all the saints were powerless
and should not called upon. None of his words comforted her now.
Only the old prayers made sense.

—The head is too big, Maman pronounced finally. We have to
cut.

—Non, Maman, Marie and Isabelle whispered in unison.
Marie's eyes were wild and dilated. In desperation she began to
push again, weeping and gasping. Isabelle heard the sound of flesh
tearing; Marie shrieked before going limp and grey. The head
appeared in a river of blood, black and misshapen, and when Maman
pulled the baby out was already dead, the cord tight around its
neck. It was girl.

The men returned when they saw the fire, smoke from the bloody
straw billowing high into the morning air. They buried mother and
child in a sunny spot where Marie had liked to sit when it was
warm. The cypress tree was planted over her heart.

The blood left a faint trace on the floor that no amount of
sweeping or scrubbing could erase.

The second tree was planted the following summer. It was twilight,
the hour of wolves, not the time for women to be walking on their
own. Maman and Isabelle had been at a birthing at
Felge´rolles. Mother and baby had both lived, breaking a long
string of deaths that had begun with Marie and her baby. This
evening they had lingered, making the mother and child comfortable,
listening to the other women singing and chatting, so that the sun
had sunk behind Mont Loze're by the time Maman waved away cautions
and invitations to stay the night and they started home.

The wolf lay across the path as if waiting for them. They stopped,
set down their sacks, crossed themselves. The wolf did not move.
They watched it for a moment, then Maman picked up her sack and
took a step toward it. The wolf stood and Isabelle could see even
in the dark that it was thin, its grey pelt mangy. Its eyes glowed
yellow as if a candle were lit behind them, and it moved in an
awkward, off-balance lope. Only when it was so close that Maman
could almost reach out and touch the greasy fur did Isabelle see
the foam around its mouth and understand. Everyone had seen animals
struck with the madness: dogs running aimlessly, foam flecking
their mouths, a new meanness in their eyes, their barks muffled.
They avoided water; the surest protection from them, besides an
axe, was a brimming bucket. Maman and Isabelle had nothing with
them but herbs, linen and a knife.

As it leapt Maman raised her arm instinctively, saving twenty days
of her life but wishing afterwards that she had let it rip out her
throat quickly and mercifully. When it fell back, when the blood
was streaking down Maman's arm, the wolf looked at Isabelle briefly
and disappeared into the dark without a sound.

While Maman told her husband and sons about the wolf with candles
in its eyes, Isabelle cleaned the bite with water boiled with
shepherd's purse and laid cobwebs over it before binding the arm
with soft wool. Maman refused to sit still, insisted on picking her
plums, working in the kitchen garden, continuing as if she had not
seen the truth shining in the wolf 's eyes. After a day her forearm
had swelled to the same size as her upper arm, and the area around
the wound went black. Isabelle made an omelette, added rosemary and
sage, and mouthed a silent prayer over it. When she brought it to
her mother she began to cry. Maman took the bowl from her and ate
steadily, her eyes on Isabelle, tasting death in the sage, until
the omelette was gone. Fifteen days later she was drinking water
when her throat began to contract in spasms, pumping water down the
front of her dress. She looked at the black patch spreading on her
chest, then sat in the late summer sun on the bench next to the
door.

Fever came fast, and so furious that Isabelle prayed death would
come as swiftly to relieve her. But Maman fought, sweating and
shouting in her delirium, for four days. On the last day, when the
priest from Le Pont de Montvert arrived to perform the last rites,
Isabelle held a broom across the doorway and spat at him until he
left. Only when Monsieur Marcel arrived did she drop the broom and
stand by to let him pass. Four days later the twins returned with
the second cypress tree.

The crowd gathered in front of the church was not used to victory,
nor familiar with the conduct of celebration. The priest had
finally slipped away three days before. They were sure now that he
was gone – the woodcutter Pierre La Foreˆt had seen him
miles away, all the possessions he could carry piled on his
back.

The early winter snow covered the smooth parts of the ground with a
thin gauze, wrecked in places by leaves and rocks. There was more
to come, with the sky the colour of pewter to the north, up beyond
the summit of Mont Loze're. A layer of white lay on the thick
granite tiles of the church roof. The building was empty. No mass
had been said there since the harvest: attendance had dropped as
Monsieur Marcel and his followers grew more confident.

Isabelle stood among her neighbours listening to Monsieur Marcel,
who paced in front of the door, severe in his black clothes and
silver hair. Only his red-stained hands undermined his commanding
presence, a reminder to them that he was after all simply a
cobbler.

When he spoke he focused on a point over the crowd's head.

—This place of worship has been the scene of corruption. It
is in safe hands now. It is in your hands. He gestured before
him as if he were sowing seed. A hum rose from the crowd.

—It must be cleansed, he continued. Cleansed of its sin, of
these idols. He waved a hand at the building behind him. Isabelle
stared up at the Virgin, the blue behind the statue faded but with
a power still to move her. She had already touched her forehead and
her chest before she real- ized what she was doing and managed to
stop without completing the cross. She glanced around to see if the
gesture had been noticed. But her neighbours were looking at
Monsieur Marcel, calling to him as he strode through them and
continued up the hill toward the bank of dark cloud, tawny hands
tucked behind him. He did not look back. When he was gone the crowd
grew louder, more agitated. Someone shouted: —The window! The
cry was taken up. Above the door, a small circular window held the
only piece of glass they had ever seen. The Duc de l'Aigle had
installed it beneath the niche three summers ago, just before he
was touched with the Truth by Calvin. From the outside the window
was a dull brown, but from the inside it was green and yellow and
blue, with a tiny dot of red in Eve's hand. The Sin. Isabelle had
not been inside the church for a long time, but she remembered the
scene well, Eve's look of desire, the serpent's smile, Adam's
shame.

If they could have seen it once more, the sun lighting up the
colours like a field dense with summer flowers, its beauty might
have saved it. But there was no sun, and no entering the church:
the priest had slipped a large padlock through the bolt across the
door. They had not seen one before; several men had examined it,
pulled at it, uncertain of its mechanism. An axe would have to be
taken to it, carefully, to keep it intact.

Only the knowledge of the window's value held them back. It
belonged to the Duc, to whom they owed a quarter of their crops, in
turn receiving protection, the assurance of a whisper in the ear of
the King. The window and the statue were gifts from him. He might
still value them.

No one knew for certain who threw the stone, though afterwards
several people claimed they had. It struck the centre of the window
and shattered it immediately. It was a sound so strange that the
crowd hushed. They had not heard glass break before.

In the lull a boy ran over and picked up a shard of glass, then
howled and threw it down.

—It bit me! he cried, holding up a bloody finger. The
shouting began again. The boy's mother snatched him and pressed him
to her.

—The devil! she screamed. It was the devil! Etienne Tournier,
hair like burnt hay, stepped forward with a long rake. He glanced
back at his older brother, Jacques, who nodded. Etienne looked up
at the statue and called loudly: —La Rousse!

The crowd shifted, steps sideways that left Isabelle standing
alone. Etienne turned round with a smirk on his face, pale blue
eyes resting on her like hands pressing into her. He slid his hand
down the handle and hoisted the rake up, letting the metal teeth
descend and hover in front of her. They stared at each other. The
crowd had gone quiet. Finally Isabelle grabbed the teeth; as she
and Etienne held each end of the rake she felt a fire ignite below
her belly. He smiled and let go, his end tapping the ground.
Isabelle grasped the pole and began walking her hands down it,
lifting the teeth end of the rake into the air, until she reached
him. As she looked up at the Virgin, Etienne took a step back and
disappeared from her side. She could feel the press of the crowd,
bunched together again, restless, murmuring. —Do it, La
Rousse! someone shouted. Do it!

In the crowd Isabelle's brothers stood staring at the ground. She
could not see her father, but if he was there as well he could not
help her.

She took a deep breath and raised the rake. A shout rose with it,
making her arm shake. She let the rake teeth rest to the left of
the niche and looked around at the mass of bright red faces,
unfamiliar now, hard and cold. She raised the rake, propped it
against the base of the statue and pushed. It did not move.

The shouting became harsher as she began to push harder, tears
pricking her eyes. The Child was staring into the distant sky, but
Isabelle could feel the Virgin's gaze on her. —Forgive me,
she whispered. Then she pulled the rake back and swung it as hard
as she could at the statue. Metal hit stone with a dull clang and
the face of the Virgin was sliced off, showering Isabelle and
making the crowd shriek with laughter. Desperately she swung the
rake again. The mortar loosened with the blow and the statue rocked
a little.

—Again, La Rousse! a woman shouted.

I can't do it again, Isabelle thought, but the sight of the red
faces made her swing once more. The statue began to rock, the
faceless woman rocking the child in her arms. Then it pitched
forward and fell, the Virgin's head hitting the ground first and
shattering, the body thumping after. In the impact of the fall the
Child was split from his mother and lay on the ground gazing
upward. Isabelle dropped the rake and covered her face with her
hands. There were loud cheers and whistles and the crowd surged
forward to surround the broken statue.

When Isabelle took her hands from her face Etienne was standing in
front of her. He smiled triumphantly, reached over and squeezed her
breasts. Then he joined the crowd and began throwing dung at the
blue niche.

I will never see such a colour again, she thought. Petit Henri and
Ge´rard needed little convincing. Though Isabelle blamed
Monsieur Marcel's persuasiveness, secretly she knew they would have
gone anyway, even without his honeyed words.

—God will smile upon you, he had said solemnly. He has chosen
you for this war. Fighting for your God, your religion, your
freedom. You will return men of courage and strength.

—If you return at all, Henri du Moulin muttered angrily,
words only Isabelle heard. He leased two fields of rye and two of
potatoes, as well as a fine chestnut grove. He kept pigs and a herd
of goats. He needed his sons; he couldn't farm the land with only
his daughter left to help him.

—I will plant fewer fields, he told Isabelle. Only one of
rye, and I'll give up some of the herd and a few pigs. Then I'll
only need one field of potatoes to feed them. I can get more
animals again when the twins return.

They won't come back, she thought. She had seen the light in their
eyes as they left with other boys from Mont Loze're. They will go
to Toulouse, to Paris, to Geneva to see Calvin. They will go to
Spain, where men's skin is black, or to the ocean on the edge of
the world. But here, no, they will not come back here.

She gathered her courage one evening as her father sat sharpening a
plough blade by the fire.

—Papa, she ventured. I could marry and we could live here and
work with you.

With one word he stopped her.

—Who? he asked, whetting stone paused over the blade. The
room was quiet without the rhythmic sound of metal against
stone.

She turned her face away.

—We are alone, you and I, ma petite. His tone was gentle.
But God is kinder than you think.

Isabelle clasped her neck nervously, still carrying the taste of
communion in her mouth – rough, dry bread that remained in
the back of her throat long after she had swallowed. Etienne
reached up and pulled at her headcloth. He found the end, wound it
around his hand and gave a sharp tug. She began to spin, turning
and turning out of the cloth, her hair unfurling, seeing flashes of
Etienne with a grim smile on his face, then her father's chestnut
trees, the fruit small and green and far out of reach.

When she was free of the cloth she stumbled, regained her balance,
hesitated. She faced him but stepped backwards. He reached her in
two strides, tripped her and tumbled on top of her. With one hand
he pulled up her dress while the other buried itself in her hair,
fingers splayed, pulling through like a comb to the ends, wrapping
the hair around it as it had wound the cloth a moment earlier,
until his fist was resting at the nape of her neck.

—La Rousse, he murmured. You've avoided me for a long time.
Are you ready?

Isabelle hesitated, then nodded. Etienne pulled her head back by
her hair to lift her chin up and bring her mouth to his.

—But the communion of the Pentecost is still in my mouth, she
thought, and this is the Sin.

The Tourniers were the only family between Mont Loze're and Florac
to own a Bible. Isabelle had seen it at services, when Jean
Tournier carried it wrapped in linen and handed it ostentatiously
to Monsieur Marcel. He watched it, fretful, throughout the service.
It had cost him.

Monsieur Marcel laced his fingers together and held the book in the
cradle of his arms, propped against the curve of his paunch. As he
read he swayed from side to side as if he were drunk, though
Isabelle knew he could not be, since he had forbidden wine. His
eyes moved back and forth, and words appeared in his mouth, but it
was not clear to her how they got there.

Once the Truth was established inside the old church, Monsieur
Marcel had a Bible brought from Lyons, and Isabelle's father built
a wooden stand to hold it. Then the Tourniers' Bible was no longer
seen, though Etienne still bragged about it.

—Where do words come from? Isabelle asked him one day after
service, ignoring the eyes on them, the glare from Etienne's
mother, Hannah. How does Monsieur Marcel get them from the
Bible?

Etienne was tossing a stone from hand to hand. He flicked it away;
it rustled to a stop in the leaves.

—They fly, he replied firmly. He opens his mouth and the
black marks from the page fly to his mouth so quickly you can't see
them. Then he spits them out.

—Can you read?

—No, but I can write.

—What do you write?

—I write my name. And I can write your name, he added
confidently.

—Show me. Teach me. Etienne smiled, teeth half-showing. He
took a fistful of her skirt and pulled.

—I will teach you, but you must pay, he said softly, his eyes
narrowed till the blue barely showed.

It was the Sin again: chestnut leaves crackling in her ears, fear
and pain, but also the fierce excitement of feeling the ground
under her, the weight of his body on her.

—Yes, she said finally, looking away. But show me
first.

He had to gather the materials secretly: the feather from a
kestrel, its point cut and sharpened; the fragment parchment stolen
from a corner of one of the pages of the Bible; a dried mushroom
that dissolved into black when mixed with water on a piece of
slate. Then he led her the mountain, away from their farms, to a
granite boulder with a flat surface that reached her waist. They
leaned against it.

Miraculously, he drew six marks to form ET. Isabelle stared at
it.

—I want to write my name, she said. Etienne handed her the
feather and stood behind her, his body pressed against the length
of her back. She could feel the hard growth at the base of his
stomach and a flicker of fearful desire raced through her. He
placed his hand over hers and guided it first to the ink, then to
the parchment, pushing to form the six marks. ET, she wrote. She
compared the two.

—But they are the same, she said, puzzled. How can that be
your name and my name both?

—You wrote it, so it is your name. You don't know that?
Whoever writes it, it is theirs.

—But—She stopped, and kept her mouth open, waiting for
the marks to fly to her mouth. But when she spoke, was his name
that came out, not hers.

—Now you must pay, Etienne said, smiling. He pushed her over
the boulder, stood behind her, and pulled her skirt up and his
breeches down. He parted her legs with his knees and with his hand
held her apart so that he could enter suddenly, with a quick
thrust. Isabelle clung to the boulder as Etienne moved against her.
Then with a shout he pushed her shoulders away, bending her forward
so that her face and chest pressed hard against the rock.

After he withdrew she stood up shakily. The parchment had been
pressed into her cheek and fluttered to the ground. Etienne looked
at her face and grinned.

—You've written your name on your face, he said. She had
never been inside the Tourniers' farm, though it was not far from
her father's, down along the river. It was the largest farm in the
area apart from that of the Duc, who lived further down the valley,
half a day's walk towards Florac. It was said to have been built
100 years before, with additions over time: a pigsty, a threshing
floor, a tiled roof to replace the thatch. Jean and his cousin
Hannah had married late, had only three children, were careful,
powerful, remote. Evening visits to their hearth were rare.

Despite their influence, Isabelle's father had never been quiet
about his scorn.

—They marry their cousins, Henri du Moulin scoffed. They give
money to the church but they wouldn't give a mouldy chestnut to a
beggar. And they kiss three times, as if two were not enough.

The farm was spread along a slope in an L shape, the entrance in
the crux, facing south. Etienne led her inside. His parents and two
hired workers were planting in the fields; his sister, Susanne, was
working at the bottom of the kitchen garden.

Inside it was quiet and still. All Isabelle could hear were the
muted grunts of pigs. She admired the sty, the barn twice the size
of her father's. She stood in the common room, touching the long
wooden table lightly with her fingertips as if to steady herself.
The room was tidy, newly swept, pots hung at even intervals from
hooks on the walls. The hearth took up a whole end of the room, so
big all of her family and the Tourniers could stand in it together
– all of her family before she began to lose them. Her
sister, dead. Her mother, dead. Her brothers, soldiers. Just she
and her father now.

—La Rousse.

She turned round, saw Etienne's eyes, the swagger in his stride,
and backed up until granite touched her back. He matched her step
and put his hands on her hips.

—Not here, she said. Not in your parents' house, on the
hearth. If your mother—

Etienne dropped his hands. The mention of his mother was enough to
tame him.

—Have you asked them? He was silent. His broad shoulders
sagged and he stared off into a corner.

—You have not asked them.

—I'll be twenty-five soon and I can do what I want then. I
won't need their permission then.

Of course they don't want us to marry, Isabelle thought. My family
is poor, we have nothing, but they are rich, they have a Bible, a
horse, they can write. They marry their cousins, they are friends
with Monsieur Marcel. Jean Tournier is the Duc de l'Aigle's
syndic, collecting tax from us. They would never accept as
their daughter a girl they call La Rousse.

—We could live with my father, she suggested. It has been
hard for him without my brothers. He needs—

—Never.

—So we must live here.

—Yes.

—Without their consent. Etienne shifted his weight from one
leg to the other, leaned against the edge of the table, crossed his
arms. He looked at her directly.

—If they don't like you, he said softly, it's your own fault,
La Rousse.

Isabelle's arms stiffened, her hands curled into fists. —I
have done nothing wrong! she cried. I believe in the Truth.

He smiled. —But you love the Virgin, yes?

She bowed her head, fists still clenched.

—And your mother was a witch.

—What did you say? she whispered.

—That wolf that bit your mother, he was sent by the devil to
bring her to him. And all those babies dying.

She glared at him. —You think my mother made her own daughter
die? Her own granddaughter die?

—When you are my wife, he said, you will not be a midwife. He
took her hand and pulled her towards the barn, away from his
parents' hearth.

—Why do you want me? she asked in a low voice he could not
hear. She answered herself: Because I am the one his mother hates
most.

The kestrel hovered directly overhead, fluttering against the wind.
Grey: male. Isabelle narrowed her eyes. No. Reddishbrown, the
colour of her hair: female.

Alone she had learned to remain on the surface of the water, lying
on her back, arms stroking out from her sides, breasts flattened,
hair floating in the river like leaves around her face. She looked
up again. The kestrel was diving to her right. The brief moment of
impact was hidden by a clump of broom. When the bird reappeared it
was carrying a tiny creature, a mouse or a sparrow. It flew up fast
then and out of sight.

She sat up abruptly, crouching on the long smooth rock of the river
bed, her breasts regaining their roundness. The sounds arose out of
nothing, a tinkle here and there, then suddenly joined together
into a chorus of hundreds of bells. The estiver –
Isabelle's father had predicted they would arrive in two days'
time. Their dogs must be good this summer. If she didn't hurry she
would be surrounded by hundreds of sheep. She stood up quickly and
picked her way to the bank, where she brushed the water from her
skin with the flat of her hand and wrung the river from her hair.
Her shameful hair. She pulled on her dress and smock and wound her
hair out of sight in a long piece of white linen. She was tucking
in the end of the linen when she froze, feeling eyes on her. She
searched as much of the surrounding land as she could without
moving her head but could see nothing. The bells were still far
away. With her fingers she felt for loose strands of hair and
pushed them under the cloth, then dropped her arms, pulled her
dress up away from her feet, and began to run down the path next to
the river. Soon she turned off it and crossed a field of scrubby
broom and heather.

She reached the crest of a hill and looked down. Far below a field
rippled with sheep making their way up the mountain. Two men, one
in front, one at the back, and a dog on each side were keeping the
flock together. Occasionally a few strays darted to one side, to be
herded quickly back into the fold. They would have been walking for
five days now, all the way from Ale's, but at this final summit
they showed no signs of flagging. They would have the whole summer
to recover.

Over the bells she could hear the whistles and shouts of the men,
the sharp barks of the dogs. The man in front looked up, straight
at her it seemed, and whistled shrilly. Immediately a young man
appeared from behind a boulder a stone's throw to her right.
Isabelle clutched her neck. He was small and wiry, sweaty and very
dark from the sun. He carried a walking stick and the leather sack
of a shepherd and wore a close-fitting round cap, black curls
framing the brim. When she felt his dark eyes on her she knew he
had seen her in the river. He smiled at her, friendly, knowing, and
for a moment Isabelle felt the touch of the river on her body. She
looked down, pressed her elbows to her breasts, could not smile
back.

With a leap the man started down the hill. Isabelle watched his
progress until he reached the flock. Then she fled.

—There is a child here. Isabelle placed a hand on her belly
and stared defiantly at Etienne.

In an instant his pale eyes darkened like the shadow of a cloud
crossing a field. He looked at her hard, calculating.

—I will tell my father, then we must tell your parents.

She swallowed. What will they say?

—They'll let us marry now. It would look worse if they said
no when there is a child.

—They'll think I did it deliberately.

—Did you? His eyes met hers. They were cold now.

—It was you who wanted the Sin, Etienne.

—Ah, but you wanted it too, La Rousse.

—I wish Maman were here, she said softly. I wish Marie were
here.

Her father acted as if he had not heard her. He sat on the bench by
the door and scraped at a branch with his knife; he was making a
new pole for the hoe he had broken earlier that day. Isabelle stood
motionless in front of him. She had said it so quietly that she
began to think she would have to repeat herself. She opened her
mouth to speak when he said: —You have all left me.

—I'm sorry, Papa. He says he won't live here.

—I wouldn't have a Tournier in my house. This farm won't go
to you when I die. You'll get your dowry, but I will leave the farm
to my nephews over at l'Hoˆ pital. A Tournier will never get
my land.

—The twins will return from the wars, she suggested, fighting
tears.

—No. They will die. They're not soldiers, but farmers. You
know that. Two years and no word from them. Plenty have passed
through from the north and no news. Isabelle left her father
sitting on the bench and walked across their fields, along the
river, down to the Tournier farm. It was late, more dark than
light, long shadows cast along the hills and the terraced fields
full of half-grown rye. A flock of starlings sang in the trees. The
route between the two farms seemed long now, at the end of it
Etienne's mother. Isabelle began walking more slowly.

She had reached the Tourniers' empty cleda, the season's chestnuts
long since dried, when she saw the grey shadow emerge skittishly
from the trees to stand in the path.

—Sainte Vierge, aide-moi, she prayed automatically.
She watched the wolf watching her, its yellow eyes bright despite
the gloom. When it began to move towards her, Isabelle heard a
voice in her head: —Don't let this happen to you too.

She crouched and picked up a large branch. The wolf stopped. She
stood up and advanced, waving the stick and shouting. The wolf
began to move backwards, and when Isabelle pretended to throw the
branch, it turned and skittered sideways, disappearing into the
trees.

Isabelle ran from the woods and across a field, rye cutting into
her calves. She reached the rock shaped like a mushroom that marked
the bottom of the Tourniers' kitchen garden and stopped to catch
her breath. Her fear of Etienne's mother was gone.

—Thank you, Maman, she said softly. I won't forget. Jean,
Hannah and Etienne were sitting by the fire while Susanne cleared
the last of their bajanas, the same chestnut soup
Isabelle had served her father earlier, and dark, sweetsmelling
bread. All four froze when Isabelle entered.

—What is it, La Rousse? Jean Tournier asked as she stood in
the middle of the room, her hand once more resting the table as if
to secure her a place among them. Isabelle said nothing but looked
steadily at Etienne. last he stood up and moved to her side. She
nodded and he turned to face his parents.

The room was silent. Hannah's face looked like granite.
—Isabelle is going to have a child, Etienne said in a low
voice. With your permission we would like to marry. It was the
first time he had ever used Isabelle's name. Hannah's voice
pierced.

—You carry whose child, La Rousse? Not Etienne's.

—It is Etienne's child.

—No!

Jean Tournier put his hands on the table and stood up. His silver
hair was smooth like a cap against his skull, his face gaunt. He
said nothing, but his wife stopped speaking and sat back. He looked
at Etienne. There was a long pause before Etienne spoke.

—It is my child. We will marry anyway when I am twenty-five.
Soon.

Jean and Hannah exchanged glances.

—What does your father say? Jean asked Isabelle.

—He has given his permission and will provide the dowry. She
said nothing about his hatred.

—Go and wait outside, La Rousse, Jean said quietly. You go
with her, Susanne.

The girls sat side by side on the door bench. They had seen little
of each other since they were children. Many years ago, even before
Isabelle's hair turned red, Susanne had played with Marie, helping
with the haying, the goats, splashing in the river.

For a while they sat, looking out over the valley.

—I saw a wolf out by the cleda, Isabelle said
suddenly. Susanne stared, brown eyes wide. She had the thin face
and pointed chin of her father.

—What did you do?

—Chased it with a stick. She smiled, pleased with
herself.

—Isabelle—

—What is it?

—I know Maman is upset, but I am glad you will live with us.
I never believed what they said about you, about your hair
and— She stopped. Isabelle did not ask.

—And you will be safe here. This house is safe, protected
by— She stopped again, glanced at the door, bowed her head.
Isabelle let her eyes rest on the shadowy humps of the hills in the
distance.

It will always be like this, she thought. Silence in this
house.

The door opened and Jean and Etienne emerged with flickering torch
and an axe.

—We will take you back, La Rousse, Jean said. I must speak
with your father.

He handed a piece of bread to Etienne. —Take this bread
together and give her your hand. Etienne tore the bread in two and
gave the smaller piece to Isabelle. She put it in her mouth and
placed her hand in his. His fingers were cold. The bread stuck in
the back of her throat like a whisper.

Petit Jean was born in blood and was a fearless child. Jacob was
born blue. He was a quiet child: even when Hannah smacked his back
to start his breath he did not scream.

Isabelle lay in the river again, many summers later. There were
marks on her body from the two boys, and another child pushing her
belly above the water. The baby kicked. She cupped the mound with
her hands.

—Please let the Virgin make it a girl, she prayed. And when
she is born I will name her after you, after my sister. Marie. I
will fight everyone to name her that.

This time there were no warnings at all, no bells, no sense of eyes
on her. He was just there, sitting on his heels on the river bank.
She sat up and looked at him. She did not cover her breasts. He
looked the same, a little older, with a long scar down the right
side of his face, from his cheekbone to his chin, touching the
corner of his mouth. This time she would have smiled back at him if
he had smiled. The shepherd did not smile. He simply nodded at her,
cupped his hands, splashed water on his face, then turned and
walked in the direction of the river's source. Marie was born in a
flood of clear liquid, her eyes open. She was a hopeful
child.

Excerpted from THE VIRGIN BLUE © Copyright 2003 by Tracy
Chevalier. Reprinted with permission by Plume, a member of Penguin
Putnam Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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