Chrétien de Parthenay

Former Wendake/Huronia (Modern-Day Ontario Peninsula)

“You’re awake.”

As soon as Chrétien heard those words, they became true. Though he was technically conscious, he would not consider himself ‘awake’ by any normal means. It had been this way since his defeat—consciousness became something fleeting for him, ever-shifting. He would sleep, and wake, and sleep, and wake, and yet the line between those two had never been more blurred. His mind had self-imprisoned to escape the pain of what happened. Now it lay trapped in an endless doldrum, gray and bleak. He had lost. He had failed his company, his soldiers, his closest friends. Seventeen of them had died, and it was all his fault.

Chrétien sat up in his cot, rubbing his eyes as he looked around. Gyantwaka stood in the entrance to the tent, his face obscured by his warped wooden mask.

“How are you feeling?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” Chrétien replied.

“Yes, you do. You have cut yourself off from your emotions, thinking it will save you from the pain. It will not.”

Chrétien lay back down, ignoring him.

“It has so far," he said.

“You know it’s a lie. The hurt will linger inside you, festering like an untreated wound.”

“Let it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Another lie. How many until you’re satisfied?”

Chrétien turned away from the old man, facing the wall of the tent.

“Is that what you’re here for?” He asked. “To riddle me with guilt? To interrogate me?”

Behind him, he heard Gyantwaka approach, sitting next to his cot.

“I am here to heal you,” the old man said. “Your body has recovered from its injuries. All that leaves us with is the mind.”

“My mind is fine.”

“And yet we still linger here. The French have continued on without us, and still we stay behind.”

“Jikohnsasee is not ready. Maybe you should spend your time admonishing her instead.”

“And so I do. But you are not ready yet, either. Your brothers-in-arms are eager to push forward, but they cannot without a leader.”

“The ones that didn’t die under my watch, you mean.”

Gyantwaka sighed.

“Are you going to fall apart like this after every mistake?” He asked. “I had no idea you were so fragile.”

“Fragile?!” Chrétien sat up, and pointed an accusatory finger in the old man’s face. “Seventeen men died. Seventeen! And I’m supposed to just forget about them and move on?”

“No,” Gyantwaka replied. “Nor are you supposed to let their deaths destroy you. Is that what you think they would want? That you sit here and wallow while their deaths go unavenged?”

“I don’t know what they want. Why don’t I go and ask them? Oh, that’s right. They’re fucking dead.”

“You’re angry. That’s good. Anger is a feeling, at least. Now we’ll wait for the more helpful emotions to return to you.”

Chrétien ignored him, lying back down on the cot.

“Did you dream last night?” Gyantwaka asked him.

Chrétien said nothing.

“Tell me about it.”

Chrétien sighed.

“I don’t know why you care,” he said.

“Yes, you do. Why do you lie to me like this, to yourself? What do you hope to achieve, exactly?”

“To be left alone.”

“Fine. I’ll leave you to your pathetic sorrow. But first, tell me about the dream.”

“Fine,” Chrétien sighed. It was all dark—mostly. There was a flame in the distance. I heard it before I saw it—it crackled, like a campfire. It was like it called to me. I approached it, and then I stopped. I couldn’t… I couldn’t get close to it.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. Everything in a dream matters, whether it seems like it or not.”

“It was the fire. It was… I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Tell me.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Does it need to?”

“It was crying.”

Chrétien searched for some reaction from behind the old man’s mask. He couldn’t find any. No questions to clarify, no incredulity at how a flame could possibly cry. Nothing.

“It is almost time, then,” was all the old man said. Chrétien grimaced.

“I don’t want it,” he said.

“What you think you want or don’t want is irrelevant. It has chosen you, in its infinite wisdom, and you would be wise to heed it.”

“What’s the point? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

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“I thought you were stronger than all this. Surrendering after your first defeat. Forgive me for misjudging you.”

Gyantwaka stood, and turned to leave the tent.

“I’ll go tend to Jikohnsasee now,” he said. “I only pray she isn't nearly as weak-willed as you.”

“Wait.”

The old man stopped in his tracks.

“Yes?” He asked.

“You never told me why she froze.”

“You weren’t ready to know. You were beside yourself with grief, anger, regret. You still are.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Chrétien heard a sigh escape from beneath the old man’s mask.

“And you’re sure you’re ready to hear it?” He asked.

“How am I supposed to know if I don’t know what it is?” Chrétien asked. He was growing more frustrated with Gyantwaka by the minute. He had always hated being condescended to, and the old man was treating him like a child.

“Fine,” Gyantwaka said. He sat back down, trying to find the words.

“He is Hononwiredonh,” Gyantwaka began. “The Great Wolf. He is a man to be feared—savage and ruthless as any warrior you will find on the battlefield.”

The old man hesitated.

“And?” Chrétien asked.

“And… he is Jikohnsasee’s older brother, by blood.”

“The Iroquois took him?”

“Worse,” Gyantwaka replied. “He left of his own free will. You have to understand—our society, our culture, was splitting in two. We were attacked and kidnapped by the Haudenosaunee on one side, and bombarded with French priests and their foreign faith on the other. In the beginning, we resisted both—we were proud to be ourselves, fierce and independent, beholden to no conqueror. But as we began to crumble and collapse, when the end of our people was near, we were forced to choose. Jikohnsasee was an idealist—she would not relinquish her culture, her history, her people. She was born Chonnonton, and she would die Chonnonton, no matter what happened.”

“And her brother disagreed?” Chrétien asked.

Gyantwaka nodded.

“He was a young teenager when he left. His father, Jikohnsasee’s father—he had died two years before, slain by the Haudenosaunee in a raid. Jikohnsasee resented them, and swore to avenge him, but Hononwiredonh saw it differently. In his mind, it was a sign—the Chonnonton would collapse, swallowed whole by the great snake of the Haudenosaunee. He believed it was our willingness to accept the white men into our midst, to entreat the Jesuits’ false religion, that made our society weak. The Five Nations refused entry to all outsiders, and rebuked the influence of Europeans, and so they remained strong and virtuous, at least to him. So he left to join them. He submitted himself to their trials and tortures of his own free will, all so he could count himself among their ranks.”

“And she just let him?”

“She was only eight,” Gyantwaka said, shrugging. “What is an eight-year-old girl to do? She wept like a baby when he told her, begged him to reconsider. He didn’t. He left.”

Gyantwaka paused. Chrétien stared at the hollow holes in the wooden mask. Though his face was obscured, Chrétien could feel the atmosphere in the room shift and grow thick, like he could see the old man’s face darken and twist.

“Then,” Gyantwaka said. “He returned. It was three years later—Jikohnsasee was eleven, almost twelve. Only now he was Haudenosaunee, and therefore, our enemy. He razed our village to the ground himself, hauling away his former neighbors, kicking and screaming in his grip. The few of us that survived the attack could do nothing but flee. I took Jikohnsasee and the other children with me. I will never forget the look in her eyes as she watched him cut down his own uncles and cousins. I imagine it was the same look you saw in her as she stood frozen out on that battlefield. For decades she has worked tirelessly to kill him—day in and day out she trained, until she had the body of a man and the heart of a lion. But I suppose deep inside, that little girl’s heart still shone through.”

Chrétien stood. His atrophied legs stumbled, and he gripped the cot to stabilize himself. He could feel nothing but an unshakable fury, running through his body like fire in his blood. He stepped forward, finding his strength, and began pacing out of the tent.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Gyantwaka warned him.

“Too late,” he replied. “I regret it all.”

He stormed across the camp. The marines had abandoned it the day after they set it up—Le Marquis would not stall their advance to look after a half-company of savages. Chrétien made his way to Jikohnsasee’s tent, ignoring the looks from his Deer soldiers as he passed them.

Chrétien burst into Jikohnsasee’s tent. She was still dressing, her torso and chest completely exposed, but Chrétien didn’t even notice. He pointed an angry finger at her, his heart ready to explode.

“It’s your fault,” he told her. “Isn’t it?”

“What?”

“All this time, I’ve chided myself. I’ve run the memory of it over and over again in my head, and each time I’ve found myself at fault. The blood of my men, on my hands, from my stupid decision. But it wasn’t my weakness. It was yours.”

Jikohnsasee looked away.

“Please tell me it’s not true,” he said. “Please tell me that Jikohnsasee, Born by the War-Road, the strongest woman I’ve ever seen, was not rendered helpless by the mere sight of her fucking brother.”

“You weren’t there,” she said. “You—”

“I don’t care,” Chrétien hissed. “I don’t give a single shit about your tragic past, or your brother leaving. It doesn’t. Matter. You had a responsibility to your soldiers, your brothers-in-arms, and you failed them. You let seventeen good men die on your watch.”

Jikohnsasee could say nothing. He had never seen her face filled with such sorrow. And still he could not care. All he could feel was fury, fury of the injustice of death, fury towards Jikohnsasee’s weakness, and of course, towards his own.

“I am relieving you of your position and command,” he told her. “Effective immediately.”

“What?!”

“It’s clear to me now. You’re not fit to lead these men. Maybe you’re not even fit to fight alongside them. You know what the other companies say about our unit, how weakened we are being led by a woman. Maybe they’re right. You’re unreliable. How many more men have to die because you can’t control your girlish emotions?”

Jikohnsasee stared into Chrétien’s eyes, a fire blazing in them.

“You’re a hypocrite,” she spat. “They died under your watch, too, same as mine. You were the one who called to attack them when I cautioned you against it. You have no right to lead these men in my stead.”

“I know. I won’t be leading them either. Not until I’ve earned the right to.”

Chrétien grabbed the golden epaulettes on the shoulders of his uniform hard. He pulled until they tore from the fabric, ripping them off and throwing them to the ground in front of Jikohnsasee.

“Tomorrow, come dawn, I’m taking them back to the front”, he told her. “I will fight by their side, not as their commander, but as a fellow soldier. I will find your brother, and the company he keeps. And I will rend his flesh from bone, strip his head from his shoulders, and spill his entrails on the snowy ground. I will kill each and every warrior he commands, sparing none alive, no matter how they might beg or plead. And only then, when the last Iroquois head is cleft and defiled, when every body is gathered and burned, when my comrades can drink and dance in the merriment of their deaths, I will reclaim my title. And not until then. Not until each and every man I’ve lost can see their own killer slain, and themselves avenged.”

To his surprise, Jikohnsasee knelt. She prostrated herself before him, just like he had done upon their first meeting.

“Let me come with you,” she pleaded with him. “Please. Let me avenge my brothers, too.”

“I can’t risk bringing you,” Chrétien said. “You’ll just freeze up again, and we’ll lose more men."

“No,” Jikohnsasee said. “I won’t make the same mistake again. You have to let me. Please. All my life I’ve trained to kill him. It needs to be me.”

Chrétien knelt down at her eye level. He took her chin in his hand, and lifted her face up to meet his gaze.

“Promise me,” he said. “Promise you will kill him. Swear on your ancestors, and your gods, and all you consider sacred. Swear that you will never show such weakness again.”

He stared into her eyes, dark as lacquered wood. It was like he could see them darken, her soul hardening with a newfound resolve, ruthless and cruel. It killed him to do it. He wished with every bone in his body that they lived in a kinder world, where a sister would never be forced to kill her brother. All he could think of was Anne-Marie, sweet and innocent. Would she be able to kill him if he were wicked? Would he be able to kill her? He could hardly bear to think of it, and here he was, demanding it of someone else.

“I will,” she said. “I swear on my ancestors, and my gods, and all I consider sacred. I will be the end of him, and no one else. You have my word.”

Chrétien stood. His whole body was trembling. I am evil, he thought. I am evil to turn two siblings against each other like rabid wolves. Again, he thought of Anne-Marie—how gentle and delicate a creature she was, a fatal flaw in this land where beasts wore the skins of men. Jikohnsasee is right. I really am a hypocrite.

He turned to leave the tent, hiding the tears that had begun to well in his eyes.

“Tomorrow,” he told her. “We march at dawn.”