The Confusion

“The Loire, as you know, flows on past Orleans to Nantes. So the route I have just described to you was the same as that of the timber. And so there was another advantage to the plan I have described, which was that as we went along, we would be able to keep an eye on the King’s logs. In the unlikely event that some problem arose en route, we would be on hand to fix it.”

“But, mademoiselle,” said Rossignol, “by your account, this was almost a month ago. What on earth has been happening in the meantime?”

“A full recitation would take another month yet. You know that each of the component pays of la France controls its own stretch of road or river and has the right to extract tolls and tariffs, et cetera. Likewise you know that the population is a quilt of guilds and corporations and parishes, each with its own peculiar privileges.”

“Which are granted by the King,” said Rossignol. For he seemed a little bit nervous that Eliza was about to say something impolitic.

Which she was; but she felt safe in doing so here, in the kingdom of secrets. “The King grants those privileges in order to make people want to join those guilds and corporations! And thus the King gets power by offering to broaden, or threatening to restrict, the same privileges.”

“What of it?” Rossignol sniffed.

“After a few days, Abraham joked that this voyage was impossible unless one went accompanied by a whole squadron of lawyers. But this makes it sound too easy. Since every pays has its own peculiar laws and traditions, there is no one lawyer who comprehends them all; and so what one really has to do is stop every few miles and hire a different lawyer. But I have only mentioned, so far, the entities with formal legal rights to impede the movement of logs on a river. This leaves out half of the difficulties we faced. There are on these rivers people who used to be pirates but have degenerated into extortionists. We paid them in hard money until we ran out, at which point we had to begin paying them in logs. Every night, others who were less formally organized would come around and help themselves. We suspected this was happening, but the night-watchmen we hired were barely distinguishable from the thieves. The only reliable sentry we had was Jean-Jacques. He would wake me every couple of hours through the night, and I would sit in my boat-cabin feeding him and watching through a window as the locals made off with our logs.”

“It cannot all be as disorderly as you make it out to be!” Rossignol protested.

“There does exist an apparatus of maintaining order on the roads and waterways: diverse ancient courts of law, and prevots and baillis who report to the local seigneurs and who are reputed to have bands of armed men at their disposal. But they were never there when we needed them. If I shipped logs down the river every week, I should have no choice but to come to understandings with all of those seigneurs. Whether this would prove more or less expensive than being robbed outright, I cannot guess. Our run down the Loire surprised many who would have stolen more from us if we had operated on a predictable schedule.

“The Loire, particularly on its upper reaches, is obstructed by sand-bars in many places, and different arrangements must be made to get past each: here one must find and hire a local pilot, there one must pay the owner of the mill to release a gush of water from his mill-pond that will heave the logs over the shallows.

“I could go on in this vein all day. Suffice it to say that when we at last reached Orleans, ten days behind schedule, Jacob Gold and I dashed north to Paris and cashed in our Bill of Exchange at a swingeing discount. Jacob returned to Orleans with the money, which he used to cover all of the unexpected expenses that had cropped up en route. I came here. Soon I’ll go on to Dunkerque and meet that bastard who sent me on this fool’s errand, Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir, and explain to him that half of the logs have evaporated, along with all of our profits, and six weeks of our lives.”

Dunkerque Residence of the d’Ozoirs 13 DECEMBER 1689

WHERE BONAVENTURE ROSSIGNOL HAD FIBRILLATED between boredom and disbelief, the Marquis d’Ozoir was richly amused when Eliza told him the same story. At the beginning of the interview, she had been merely furious. When he began to smirk and chuckle, she tended toward homicidal, and had to leave the room and tend to Jean-Jacques for a little while. The baby was in a gleeful mood for some reason, grabbing his feet and fountaining spit, and this cheered her up. For he had no thought of anything outside of the room, nor in the past, nor the future. When Eliza returned to the salon with its view over the harbor, she had quite regained her composure and had even begun to see a bit of humor in this folly of the logs.

“And why did you send me on such a fool’s errand, monsieur?” she demanded. “You must have known how it would all come out.”