Chrétien de Parthenay

New France

Chrétien awoke from being shaken. Gyantaka stood above his bed, rustling him lightly.

“You have a visitor,” the old man said.

“What?” Chrétien yawned, half-asleep. “Who?”

“I’m not sure. A young lady.”

Chrétien practically fell out of bed, throwing a jacket and pants on. His body was still sore from yesterday’s training, and his thighs burned with every step he took. He made his way out of the barracks with Gyantwaka. As soon as he opened the door, he stopped, his eyes widening. His sister, of all people, stood in the courtyard, accompanied by what looked like a Wendat man. Chrétien rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming, but she was still there.

“Anne-Marie?” He asked. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” Anne-Marie said. “And I wouldn’t have lasted another hour in that house. Is it alright if I stay for a few days?”

Chrétien mustered no response at first, still dumbfounded that she had found her way here in the first place.

“And who is this?” He asked, motioning at the man next to her.

“Oh, this is Ezekiel. He’s… well, he’s the one who brought me here.”

Chrétien walked up to the man, holding his hand out.

“Nyaweh,” he said to him. “I am in your debt for bringing my sister safely. How can I repay you?”

“Nd’yo,” he replied, smiling at being thanked in his own tongue. “I have been paid already, so there is no need. I must go now. I will stay in the village near here until she is ready to return. I will be easy enough to find.”

Chrétien nodded, and the man turned and left the fort.

“Gyantwaka,” Chrétien said. “Could we use your office for a while?”

“Of course,” he replied. “The door is unlocked.”

“Thank you. Tell Jikohnsasee I won’t be able to farm or drill today, and apologize on my behalf.”

“Come on,” Chrétien said to Anne-Marie. She took his hand, and he led her through the barracks of still-sleeping Deer soldiers to Gyantwaka’s doctor’s office. He shut the door behind him, sitting her down on one of the cots, while he took a seat in Gyantwaka’s chair.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this little stunt of yours was? The rivers are filled with ice this time of year, and—”

“Are you serious?” Anne-Marie interrupted. “I haven’t seen you in three months, and the first thing out of your mouth is a lecture? Not ‘gosh, Anne-Marie, it’s so nice to see you again’, or ‘how have you been, Anne-Marie?’. You still treat me like I’m a child.”

Chrétien sighed, and he embraced his little sister in a hug, sitting on the bed next to her.

“I am glad to see you,” he said. “It’s just completely unexpected. How on earth did you manage it?”

“I fed Le Vicomte a lie that he bought, and the doctor who took care of me is well-connected in the city, and he agreed to help me. He secured my passage here and back.”

“Still, it was foolish. You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death on your way, and you’ll have to leave in no more than a day or two. I’m being deployed soon, and there’ll be nowhere for you to stay here if you’re just trying to run away from home.”

“All the more reason I needed to come. What am I supposed to do if you die out there, God forbid? Am I supposed to just mourn and move on without having seen you one last time?”

A silence fell in the office, both of them trying to come to terms with that reality. Soon enough, Chrétien would be sent to war, and he might never come back. These might be the last few days they would spend together.

“You look well,” she said, trying to move past it. “Better than I’ve ever seen you, actually. They must be feeding you well here. You’re twice as big as you were on the ship.”

“I am, and they are. You know I’ve always been spindly. What kind of soldier would I be if I didn’t bulk up a bit? I’d get swept away by the winds with how strong they are in this place, and blown all the way back to France.”

Anne-Marie laughed. Chrétien realized how much he missed the sound of his sister’s laugh, and how he might never hear it again.

“I assume things are as bad as they’ve always been back in the city,” he said.

“No,” Anne-Marie replied. “They’re worse. La Madame has lost herself completely. She locks herself in her room most days. She’s convinced Le Vicomte is trying to kill her.”

“Is she wrong?”

“I… I don’t know. I suppose it would rid her of him, but do you think he would actually do such a thing?”

Chrétien thought for a moment.

“He’s certainly wicked enough,” he said. “But he’s not stupid—well, he’s not completely stupid. He wouldn’t kill his wife in cold blood if there was any chance of it being traced back to him. Everyone knows they hate each other, and he would be the only suspect if she turned up dead. I think it’d be more like him to just wait for her to kill herself, or to become mad enough that he could have her committed. And besides, La Madame is not exactly known for being of sound mind when it comes to… well, just about anything.”

“She tried to cut me.”

“What?”

“One night, she came into my chambers with a kitchen knife, and tried to cut me. She’s threatened me with a knife before, but this was the first time she actually tried to use it on me. I had to roll off my bed, and she tore through my pillow where my head was not two seconds before. I screamed, and ran from the room until I found Catherine.”

“And what are the staff doing about all this?”

“What little they can. They are still her employees, her servants, her subordinates. They’ve tried to help, but they have to follow her orders, unless Le Vicomte contradicts them. Catherine has promised she’ll protect me, but… I don’t know. I just don’t feel safe there anymore.”

Anne-Marie’s hands balled into worried little fists, and Chrétien pulled her closer with a half-hug, his left arm wrapped around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there,” he said.

“It’s alright. I know you have your own struggles. I’m trying to protect myself, you know, to not need you all the time.”

“That’s good.”

The silence returned. Neither of them really knew what to say. All their life, they had been rather inseparable, a symbiosis born from necessity. They were the only ones either of them could truly rely on growing up, and it was through protecting each other that they were able to survive all these years. But that also created a dependence between both of them, one that was exposed like a raw wound as soon as they were separated. The past few months had forced both of them to abandon those comforting blankets they were used to, hardening their soft exteriors like calluses on well-worked hands.

So too had it hardened their souls, turned them colder and more bitter. Even though they had suffered the pains of a mother who died young and a father who lost his mind, they were still born into a privilege others only dreamed of. Their house was a castle on a hill, their every need and want catered to by a staff of butlers and chamber-maids. But the winds of this New World were strong, and stripped bare all pretenses and illusions that drifted here from the Old World. The French nobles here lived in what was practically a large fort, surrounded not by gilded rafters or great stone parapets, but by a palisade of wooden stakes.

It was a wake-up call, a shattering of the grand illusions they were fed about the world by the gaudy splendor of Versailles. The court of France was a mocking facsimile of life, where those who could not even picture hardship or hunger played games of favors and deceit to amuse themselves. The real world was harsh, and cold, and deadly. The shrewdest players would all be devoured here, in this world where every day was life or death, where pox spread like wildfire, where great nations of powerful tribes collapsed and vanished in mere decades.

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Perhaps the worst realization of all was that the real world had no sympathy for any of the plights its inhabitants suffered, and certainly not for the suffering of two little nobles. In these three months, Chrétien and Anne-Marie had learned that not only could the two not rely on each other’s help and protection, but that the only ones they could truly rely on were themselves.

“Have you made any friends, at least?” Chrétien asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I… I’m not sure,” Anne-Marie replied.

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“Well, it’s just… I might have made a friend, only I might have instead made an enemy. And also I might be in love.”

Chrétien rubbed his temples, trying to make any sense out of what she just said.

“One at a time,” he said. “Explain, please.”

“Well, I met this girl. Her name’s Jeannine—she’s Le Marquis’ daughter. And she said she wanted to become friends, and in a way, we have. Only she has spent half the time we’ve known each other tormenting me. I think she likes it, having someone to pull along on a string like a puppet. And I hate her for it—I hate being used, being put on display to ridicule. But… I don’t know. I think she does care for me, really. I just think she has no idea what caring for someone else looks like, what she’s supposed to do. I don’t think her parents have ever spoken more than a few words to her in one sitting—she’s been practically raised by her chamber-maid, kind of like we were. But her parents are actually alive, they just couldn’t care less about her. Don’t you think that would make you an awful person?”

“I suppose.”

“She just acts so strangely. She’s completely unpredictable—I feel like I have no idea what she’s thinking, or what she’s going to do next. But that’s kind of what excites me about her, you know? I wish I was spontaneous like that. All I’ve ever been was plain and boring.”

“Be careful, Anne-Marie. The people you can never predict are the ones who are the most dangerous. If you have no idea of her next action, you can never be sure that that action won’t bring harm to you.”

“I know, I know. But she’s enchanting, like no man or woman I’ve ever met. I can’t explain it to you without you having seen her, but there’s just something about her that captures you, puts you into a trance that makes you want to relinquish every part of you to her. She kissed me, you know.”

“She what?”

“She kissed me. Right on the front steps to her manor, like it was nothing at all. And I know it was my first kiss, but I don’t think I’ll ever be kissed like that again, not by anyone but her. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I know I’m not supposed to like it, to like her—I know it’s not right. But I don’t know. I just don’t know about any of it. That’s why I needed to come—you’re the only one who I can speak about these things honestly with.”

Chrétien scratched his hair, trying to make sense of it all. He had only been away for a few short months, and already the straight-laced do-gooder of a sister he once knew had kissed the daughter of the most powerful man in New France and run away from home on a Wendat canoe.

“But do you think you love her?” He asked. “I mean, if she is cruel to you, do you think you can work past that? Do you think she will learn how to be kind to you?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been in love with anyone. But she makes me feel things I’ve never felt before, and I think I feel what love is supposed to feel like. I just hope she can change—the way she acts sometimes right now, she scares me. But there’s a good person inside her, I think.”

“And, hypothetically speaking, do you think you could ever feel the same way about a man? If this Jeannine was a man, for example, do you think you would love him the same?”

“I… I’m not sure. I think so. I mean, I don’t think I feel the way I do towards Jeannine because she’s a girl, per se… I just don’t know. I suppose, if I were to meet a man as unique and interesting as she, then I might grow to love him, too.”

“Good. Then that’s what you should plan for.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?”

“Look, Anne-Marie,” he sighed. “You know I want nothing for you but happiness in life, whatever manner that might take, even if it’s… unorthodox. But you have to be practical. What do you think will happen if you pursue this ‘love’ of yours? Do you seriously think Le Marquis will allow you to court his daughter, let alone marry her? Even if you were a man, we are too far below his station for him to even consider marrying his daughter to the likes of us. Maybe she would hire you as a lady-in-waiting, and you would become her mistress. You would provide her some sexual escape from her tiresome marriage whenever she felt inclined to it, and you would delude yourself, like all the other mistresses in Versailles, into thinking that one day she might leave her husband, and run away with you into the country. Is that the future you want for yourself?”

“Do you think of nothing but practicality? All I said was I thought I was in love. I never said anything about marriage, or mistresses, or anything of the sort. You’re always thinking of what society expects of us, what we’re meant to do because of these unspoken, arbitrary rules placed on us from birth. Why should we care about any of that?”

“Oh, stop it. We’re not children anymore, sitting and daydreaming about what we’d like life to be like. We have to face the brutal, ugly truths of the world, of the roles we have in it, of the inescapable duties and burdens we bear. You are a woman. Your worth is determined by your marriage to a man, and your ability to birth sons for him. I am a man. My worth is determined by my ability to kill other men.”

His last words caught them both by surprise, and that ugly near-future that loomed overhead returned to cast its shadow in that tiny doctor’s office.

“We shouldn’t be fighting like this,” Chrétien sighed. “We don’t have much time together. Le Marquis will return here as soon as the first snow falls, which could come any day now. I’ve been watching the sky every day, praying to God that the gray clouds overhead will give me a little more time.”

“You’re right,” Anne-Marie said. “But here I’ve spent this whole time talking about myself. How have you fared here? What have you been doing?”

“Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve never been happier. Not that it’s easy—I work myself ragged every day, and I go to bed exhausted each night. But I have a purpose here. I have comrades who train and fight alongside me. I am thriving here, Anne-Marie, and I only wish that one day soon, you will find a purpose as I have found mine.”

“Is it true Le Marquis made you commander to a troupe of savages?”

“They’re not savages. They are proud warriors of the Deer Nation, and I respect each of them a great deal. There are only one group of savages in the New World, and that’s the Iroquois.”

Chrétien balled his hands into fists, and gritted his teeth.

“You have no idea what they do, Anne-Marie. They’re animals. They take you from your home, maim you enough that you can’t run, and make you walk for days on end through the forest. Then when you get to the village, they begin their tortures. They mutilate your fingers and toes, cut them off and eat them in front of you. They hang you up by your neck, and cut you down right before you pass out. The children throw hot coals at you, laughing as they do it. And if you survive those weeks of pain and suffering, they strip you of everything else, make you relinquish your name and memory to join their ranks. Most don’t make it that far.”

He stood, unable to sit still in his hanger. He paced back and forth to calm himself.

“Their empire is ever-expanding,” he continued. “They devour all the smaller nations around them into themselves, ravaging them until there’s nothing left. The Wendat, the Chonnonton, the Erie, the Tionontati, the Wenrohronon. All of them—gone.”

Chrétien turned to his sister. To his surprise, she was smiling.

“What?” He asked. “Why on earth are you smiling?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s horrible. It’s all horrible. But I’m still happy. It’s just—I’ve never seen you so passionate about something. All these years, you’ve never spoken like this about anything. You were always just so quiet, and so sad. Look at you now—your face is full of color, your hair is wild, your body is strong. You’re like a completely different person. I’m envious, if I’m honest.”

“I know you are. I’m thriving here, actually—I’m learning something new every day, and getting stronger. I have to owe it in part to my captain, Jikohnsasee. You will have to meet her, Anne-Marie. I promise she is like no woman you’ve ever met, or will ever meet. She’s incredible. If she was ten years younger, I might have asked her to marry me by now.”

Chrétien laughed, and he sat back down in the chair.

“I’m glad you came—I really am. And it’s nice to know that you think I’ve changed—well, that I’ve changed for the better, that I’m different now. You can’t really know for sure without someone else telling you, you know?”

“I do. And I’m trying to change, too. I want to become more independent, to not be so frightened all the time.”

“That’s good. I’m sorry—I blame myself for your timidity. I always sheltered you from everything when we were younger, thinking that if I could keep you from seeing all the ugly and frightening things in life, that you would be protected from them. In hindsight, all it did was leave you unprepared for the real world.”

Anne-Marie fidgeted with her hands uncomfortably.

“Can I ask you something?” She asked.

“Sure.”

“Can you tell me about them now? Like what happened with Father? What he did to you?”

Chrétien’s face flushed cold, and he froze in place.

“I know we shouldn’t speak of such awful things, not when we have so little time together. But I have to know. I’ve wanted to know the truth all these years, and you always kept it locked up inside you. You shouldn’t have to bear that alone anymore.”

“Does it matter anymore? He’s been dead a long time. Let it die with him.”

“I can’t say if it matters, can I? I have no idea about any of it. The maids wouldn’t tell me—everyone acted like I was this precious thing that couldn’t be spoiled. It’s like everyone else knew who my father was, who he really was, except for me. I’m tired of being kept in the dark.”

“If you knew, you wished you wouldn’t.”

“Can I determine that for myself for once? Please?”

Chrétien sighed. He was torn in two. As long as he could remember, all the ugly and sordid bits about their father had been a painfully-kept secret from Anne-Marie. After all, she was a little girl, and it was the opinion of the maids and butlers who raised them both in their father’s stead that she should be kept blissfully oblivious to the truth of things. But now she was grown. She had grappled with ugliness in the world, fighting off Le Vicomte’s shameless advances, placating La Madame’s insane suspicions. Perhaps she was ready now, then, to know who her father really was.

“Come on,” Chrétien said. “Let’s take a walk. He stood, holding his hand out to her.

“Are you hungry?” He asked her.

“I could certainly eat,” she replied.

“So could I. Let’s go, then. There’s something you should see.”