L'Aigle des profondeurs
(The Eagle of the Depths)
Esther Rochon
(Excerpt: p. 12-16)
The Arrival of Jouskilliant Green
Jouskilliant Green did not go unnoticed among us, the Asven, the people of the Archipelago. Quite the contrary. His departure, which I witnessed, took place in a cool, if not to say hostile, climate. Without anyone finding any concrete reason to criticize him, he had become unsettling. He disturbed people. Now, thanks to what he had recently sent us, the bad impression is dissipating and he is becoming a legend: this stranger from the South, who loved us so well, in his way. Before dealing with these events, let's take a look back, recalling the arrival of Green, which, I've been told, caused quite a stir. It happened in Frulken, nine years before my birth.
The people of Frulken saw Jouskilliant Green arrive, disembarking from the autumn boat with the other passengers, with his stranger's clothes, his stranger's gestures, his stranger's gaze. He had pale eyes, pale hair and white hands. He looked straight ahead, stumbled over the stones on the wharf without even noticing, and people would have laughed, but he was so serious; people would have pitied him, but he was so dignified. People would have helped him, but he asked for nothing. He arrived empty-handed before the ruins of Frulken, as if he were coming home after a long journey.
At the end of the wharf stood Fékril Candanad, chief of Vrénalik and of Frulken, his capital. For twenty years, he had been in power. For twenty years, his people had continued to die, in spite of all he wanted for them, in spite of all his efforts. He was worn down with desperation. He would not be able to hold on much longer.
When he saw Green cross the Frulken wharf like an apparition from another world, he felt puny, sickly, and dreamed without believing in it, as he had been dreaming for twenty years about each and every one of them: "Will this one help me?"
Beside Fékril stood the wizard Skaad, calm, near the end of his life, satisfied with having celebrated the magnificence of the world as much as it deserved. He observed Green, watching for the tiniest reactions that the sight of him would cause, and welcomed him with a smile.
Beside Skaad, whose name means "unimportant," stood the midwife Oumral, strong, booming, in charge of the Citadel of Frulken leaning towards the west on the hill; she also saw Jouskilliant Green coming and said to herself: "He is not like the other strangers, he is not coming to rape the women or to try to steal our land, he is not coming to make fools of us. I don't know what he's coming here for."
And Jouskilliant Green himself barely knew. Was it simple curiosity that had made him leave behind his wife, his colleagues, his students, his house, and leave, divorced, jobless, without baggage, to flee his old life and come here? Come to this lost land linked to the rest of the world by two boats a year? Instead of the gloomy corridors of the University of Irquiz, he saw Frulken before him; the warm air had been replaced by the wind of the sea, the usual faces by the silent throng of the Asvens. Feeling the soil of Vrénalik beneath his feet was a moving experience for him and his eyes shone.
In the depths of his small department, he had long studied the manuscripts that dated from the zenith of Vrénalik and had published scholarly articles about them, but now the object of so many years of work and dreaming was becoming real to him: Frulken the Black stretched from horizon to horizon. There, to the left, towering over the sea, was that the Citadel? He shivered.
The time of Frulken's glory was past. Did even one building remain intact? Everywhere the ruins, the crumbling walls, the avenues, once so proud, cluttered with debris. And, massed at the entrance, the last Asvens, already being jostled by the sailors from the autumn boat. When Fékril Candanad asked him, as he asked all the passengers, the purpose of his visit, Jouskilliant Green, a lump in his throat, answered nothing.
He stood in silence among the Asvens. His grey flannel suit and his polished shoes contrasted with their loose clothing, his pale complexion clashed with their brown skin, but the silence of them all united them against the shouting of the sailors and laughter of the passengers. When he was able to speak again, in a hesitant voice Green declared: "I am glad to be here."
Then the crowd froze with astonishment, because, in spite of his accent, he had without any possible doubt expressed himself in Asven. He continued, his voice stronger: "My name is Jouskilliant Green; I am glad to be here, in Vrénalik." A shiver ran through the crowd: it had been centuries since anyone had heard a stranger speak Asven; it was believed that no foreigner could speak Asven, so how could such a marvel be explained? The voice of Fékril Candanad rang out over the rising muttering: "Welcome to Vrénalik, Jouskilliant Green."
That is how Jouskilliant Green arrived in Vrénalik, one autumn morning, how he came ashore in Frulken, nine years before my birth...
© 2002 Éditions Alire & Esther Rochon
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