When Gabrielle was a child and still living on the island, she was to the poor Governor an unfortunately located tick, a maddening bite impossible to scratch. When she boarded the pirate ship and gained the ear of a captain who was both a matchless sailor and ravenous for French gold, she became for the Governor an object of madness. He outlawed the propagation of redheaded children. He made the act of bringing fish back to life a crime punishable by death. He forbade the use of Gabrielle as a given name, and ordered any resident with the name of Gabrielle to change it instantly. He sent spies to infiltrate the wood surrounding the Pleasure House, but the spies were useless. They could have told him, of course, that Marguerite Belain went to the surf every morning to set upon the waves a small boat that sailed straight and true to the far horizon, though it had no sail. They could have told the Governor that every night a blue albatross came to Marguerite’s garden and whispered in her ear.
They told him no such thing. Marguerite instead led the spies into her home, where she fed them and gave them drink. Then, she led them to the Pleasure House. They would appear a few days later, sleeping on the road, or wandering through the market, examining fish.
The Governor, gesticulating wildly, dictated a letter to the king, asking for more ships with which to capture or kill the pirate Gabrielle Belain. He detailed the crimes of the pirate—twenty-five ships relieved of their tax gold, eighteen slave ships either freed or vanished altogether, rum houses raided, sugar fields burned—all these things I wrote to his satisfaction, confident that the king would, as usual, do nothing. In the midst of our audience, however, a young man threw open the doors without announcing himself and without apologizing. The Governor, sputtering with rage, threw his fist upon the desk. The young man did not stop.
“The black ship,” he said, “has been lamed.”
The Governor stood without breathing. “Lamed,” he said, “when?”
“Last night. They hailed the Medallion, who brought the message presently. They have taken refuge on the lee of St. Vincent. The injury to the black ship is grave and will take several days, I am told, to remedy.”
“And the ship who lamed it. Is it sound?”
“They lost a mast to cannon fire, but the ship, crew, and instruments are sound. Nothing lost, nothing.” The young man paused. “Strange.”
The Governor walked across the room, threw the doors open with such force that he cracked one down the middle. Whether he noticed or not, he did not acknowledge, nor did he take leave of me. The young man also left without a word. I laid my pages on the table and went to the window, the prayers for the intercession of the Blessed Mother tumbling from my lips. I stood at the window and watched as rumors of lightning whispered at the sky.
On the first of May, 1698, the ship with black sails was surrounded and beaten, its deck boarded and its crew put in irons. Messages were sent to the islands of France, England, and Spain that Gabrielle Belain (the pirate, the witch, the revolutionary) had been captured at last, and her execution had been duly scheduled. The citizens of Saint-Pierre brought flowers and breads and wine to the edge of the wood surrounding the Pleasure House. They lifted their children onto their shoulders that they might catch a glimpse of the woman who was once the girl who brought the fish to life, and who rode on the back of a porpoise, and who inherited the saintly, healing hands of her mother.
The day before Gabrielle Belain was to be executed, a large red bird visited the window, hovered on the sill, and kissed her mouth through the bars. This the people saw. This the people believed. In that moment, Gabrielle began to sing. She did not stop.
The Governor, as he welcomed representatives from neighboring protectorates and principalities, attempted the pomp and protocol befitting such a meeting. He heard the song of the girl pirate in the tower. His foreign guests did not, even as it grew louder and louder. The Governor rattled his sword, ran a shaking hand through his thinning, yellowed hair. He attempted to smile, as the song grew even louder.
The people in the market square heard the song as well. They heard a song of flowers that grew into boats that brought bread to hungry children. They heard a song of a tree that bore fruit for anyone who was hungry, of a cup that brought water to any who thirsted. She sang of a kiss that set the flesh to burning, and the burning to seed, and the seed to sprout and flower and heavily fruit. The people heard the song and sorrowed for the redheaded child, barely a woman now, who would die in the morning.
The song kept the Governor awake all night. He paced and cursed. He made singing illegal. He made music a crime worthy of death. Were it not for the celebrations planned around the scheduled execution of the pirate, he would have slit her throat then and there, but dignitaries had arrived for a death march, and a death march they would see.
In the moments before the dawn crept over the edge of the sky, the Governor consented that I would be allowed into Gabrielle’s cell to administer baptism, absolution, and last rites. Gabrielle stood at the window where she had stood all night and the previous day, the song still spilling from her lovely mouth, though quietly now, barely a breath upon her tongue. I offered her three sacraments, and three sacraments she refused, though she consented to hold my
