Chrétien de Parthenay
Seneca Territory (Modern-Day New York)
Chrétien sat cross-legged on a tree stump in the midst of the burning wreck that was once the grand city of Ganondagan. His ears pricked to the sounds of the aftermath—soldiers picked through baskets absent-mindedly, stealing or ripping up the belongings of their victims out of boredom. Some of them had gone on to burn the granary and slaughter the livestock, but that was an easy job that didn’t require more than a handful of them. Some had managed to capture a woman or two, and dragged them kicking and screaming into the forest beyond. The rest just wandered the wooden ruins aimlessly, looking for something to shoot or smash. Chrétien watched them all, a disgust growing in him with every passing second.
They had taken the city without much fight at all. A small force of a few hundred had briefly bared their fangs, but they were a meager force, easily routed. Most of them were just boys, younger even than Chrétien. The actual men made up a tiny fraction, and the full force retreated after losing about sixty warriors or so. This city was supposed to be the Seneca capital, the grand wooden castle on the hill. But their own people weren’t here to defend it. They left everything here—their women, their children, their food. Why abandon their capital? Why abandon their loved ones and families? None of it made sense.
The crackle of a nearby fire blurred in Chrétien’s half-absent vision, black smoke rising into the sky. As his eyes glazed over it, he could think of nothing else but the boys he found behind the curtain. The fear and terror in the little one’s face, even as he clutched the dagger in both of his hands. The older behind him, faint and weak, his eyes angry, yet pleading. Chrétien wasn’t quite sure why he saved them, why he sat outside the longhouse on this stump, barring entry from the other soldiers. But what else was he supposed to do? No boy that young was his enemy, Iroquois or not, and the older one was just like him—lost, afraid, desperate to survive the cruelty of this world. His tired eyes reminded Chrétien of his own, of the way he looked in the mirror of his old room.
His mind clouded and confused, his heart aching and twisting, Chrétien could do nothing but sit on that stump, drawing errant lines in the dirt with a stick. What was he doing here? What were any of them doing here? Was this his destiny, the path that God had set him on? To burn towns and villages as women and children fled for the hills? To cut down any who were too slow to escape? There had to be more to life than this. There had to be more to him than this. The glory from defeating the Great Wolf had all but evaporated now, despair and regret filling the hole it left. He wasn’t a proud warrior of the Deer, or an Ensign of the French marines. He was just a boy, lost and tired, bitter and resentful. Perhaps that’s what these men all were: lost souls of violence and spite, cursed to wander the wreckage they razed, unsated by these hollow victories and too-shallow pools of blood.
“You there,” a voice called to him, snapping him out of his contemplation. Le Marquis de Denonville was standing a few paces away from him, the conductor of this whole profane orchestra. But Chrétien was still a soldier, sworn to fealty. He stood at attention, saluting the governor.
“Oui, monseigneur?” He asked.
“Come,” the governor barked. “Your savages are causing trouble.”
Chrétien hesitated. He did not want to leave this spot—if one of the soldiers wandered into the longhouse, they would surely find the boys hiding inside. At the same time, he could not refuse Le Marquis’s orders—not only would it be insubordinate, it would no doubt draw attention to his adamant choice to stay here, and would make things even worse. All he could do, then, was act naturally, and pray to God that no one would come.
Chrétien followed Le Marquis across what was left of the village. They crossed the town square. This is where they must have had all their feasts, Chrétien thought. And their parties. Their weddings, even, I suppose. But that’s not all, is it? This also must have been where they brought those they captured, bound and tortured them. This is where they burned their criminals and enemies, cut off their fingers and ate them. So what am I supposed to do, then? Am I supposed to love them for the weddings, and the parties, and the feasts, all while condemning the kidnapping and the torture? Am I supposed to ignore one side in favor of the other? Am I supposed to slaughter their women and children because they’ve done the same to my Deer?
Chrétien could not think of an answer, nor was he granted one by the time they reached their destination. A small crowd had formed by some clearing at the bottom of the hill, with two opposing lines. Chrétien’s Deer had taken some wide stance in front of something, and a line of ornery French soldiers seemed to be yelling at them, trying to push past. Tensions were rising—Chrétien could see the looks in the French soldiers eyes. All of them were left unsatisfied after taking the city so easily, and many were just looking for a reason to fight. Chrétien wouldn’t give them one. He pushed through the crowd to the front to see Jikohnsasee, spear in hand, standing defiantly in front of a grassy clearing gated by a small wooden fence.
“What’s going on?” Chrétien asked her.
“Pigs are hungry,” Jikohnsasee said calmly. “I told them to scrounge for their slop elsewhere. They don’t like being told what to do.”
Chrétien snuck a look behind her to see what she was guarding. The small clearing was dotted with markers–some wooden, some stone. Chrétien’s stomach churned in disgust when he realized it. These are graves.
“The fuck is wrong with you?!” Chrétien turned angrily to the French marines. “You’re foaming at the mouth to desecrate a cemetery!”
“It’s a savage cemetery,” one of the marines shot back. “They bury them with jewelry and gold sometimes. We’ve earned the right to them.”
Chrétien ignored him completely, pushing through the crowd again to Le Marquis on the other side.
“It’s a cemetery,” he said. “They’re trying to loot a cemetery.”
“And?” Le Marquis replied, as if it were nothing.
“It’s abhorrent. It isn’t Christian.”
“They aren’t Christian graves.”
“And that’s supposed to make it okay? You allow your men to do whatever they want—pillage and rape and defile like wild hogs? How does that reflect on you?”
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“Listen, boy. You think this is my first campaign? Men are creatures of instinct and desire. They grow hungry, and horny, and violent. If I don’t let them eat, fuck, or kill, their morale will plummet. They'll turn on each other, flee, or fight with no fire in them. There are two thousand marines under my command, and all of them need to be satisfied. You really want me to risk their mutiny over a few graves?"
“Oh, of course,” Chrétien shot back. His entire body trembled from anger, and it took every ounce of self-control he had to keep from screaming at the most powerful man in New France. “No, that makes perfect sense. Two thousand is such a large number, after all, and you’re just one man—how could a single, simple, mortal man hope to police so many soldiers? And yet you conveniently ignore that your two thousand marines march alongside another thousand warriors. Warriors from these lands, born and bred from the soil you’re ready to spit on. They have united under your banner, despite their differences, and here they are, fighting your war for you. But I’m sure a mutiny from a third of your forces doesn’t concern you at all. After all, you’ve made a great point—the dozen or so men lining up here need to be satiated. Their desires are far more important.”
Chrétien’s rebuke was met with one of his own—a swift strike across his cheek, so hard and sudden that it knocked him off his feet. Chrétien fell backwards, clutching his face from sheer shock. The governor bent over him whispering in his ear.
“Talk to me like that again, boy,” Le Marquis hissed. “And I will have you hanged. I’ve let you come on this little trip as a courtesy to your adopter. Don’t make me regret it.”
As he stood back up, though, the governor’s eyes were caught by something else. Athasata of Kahnawake and his Mohawk were beginning to gather at the other end of the hill, watching the events unfold from afar. They stood there in silence, and yet their stances spoke well enough of their intentions. Le Marquis actually bristled at their growing number, and he took a step backwards.
“Marines,” He barked at the ghouls outside the cemetery fence. “We make camp outside the city walls. Set up next to the farmlands—take whatever food we need, and burn the rest. Now.”
The men groaned and grunted, but obeyed, backing away from the cemetery and making their way back to the hill. Le Marquis went with them, like their meager ranks formed a protective buffer around him. Chrétien spat a bit of blood onto the snow, massaging his sore cheek. Jikohnsasee walked over to him, and offered a hand to help him up. Chrétien took it.
“Thank you,” Jikohnsasee said.
“Don’t mention it,” Chrétien replied. “Seriously. I’m honestly shocked this happened in the first place.”
“All this time, and the nature of men still surprises you. You might be one of us now, but you’re still a fawn, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what I am.”
Chrétien turned, pacing towards the cemetery.
“I’d like to go in,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Jikohnsasee said.
Chrétien passed the fence, walking carefully between the different markers. This is what they were about to kill each other over. This is what I almost blew my future over for. A dozen sticks and stones. I hope it was worth it.
He knelt down on the cold grass. In front of him lay a wreath of laurels, placed lovingly and recently, maybe right before the attack.
“That’s a very special grave,” he heard from behind him. Gyantwaka came and sat next to him, his face still obscured by his mask.
“Whose is it?” Chrétien asked.
“Jikohnsasee’s. The very first one, a great-grandmother of twenty generations before our own. She lived not far from here by the road for years, and moved to the village we just destroyed after the Great Peace was made. Now, she rests here, and those from all over the Five Nations come to pay their respects to her.”
Chrétien gripped his thighs. This was not just any cemetery that the Deer were readying for blows over—this was the resting place of the Mother of Peace, of their own chief’s beloved ancestor. And the marines were ready to dig it up for a necklace.
“Why are we doing this, Gyantwaka?” Chrétien asked. “Any of this. This isn’t a noble crusade—we’ve killed more pigs and crops than we have men.”
“The pigs and crops feed the men.”
“They feed the women and children living here, the ones that run and hide in terror when we come to kill them.”
“They have driven our women and children from our homes for decades.”
“So that makes it right, then? That we lower ourselves to them? That we do the same that was done to us, never learning, never trying to make things any better? Just kill and die and kill again, until our revenge is sated? Until there’s nothing left to die?”
The old man sighed.
“How would you like to die?” He suddenly asked.
“What?”
“How would you die, if given the choice?”
Chrétien thought for a moment. His mind flashed with the memory of the deaths he’d seen—the slow, poisoned gurgles of Tadodaho, the crunch of his father’s bones on the stairs, the paw of the Great Wolf falling limp on the snow.
“I would die of old age,” he said. “Surrounded by my loved ones. There would be no pain, and I would be happy.”
“A good death,” Gyantwaka mused. “Now, imagine if you only had two choices. I could behead you, or I could drown you. Which one would you choose?”
“I don’t understand the point of this.”
“Just indulge me for a moment. Which would you choose?”
Chrétien sighed.
“I would choose to be beheaded, I guess.”
“No, you don’t guess. You know. You know that to be beheaded, while grisly and painful, is a far better fate than drowning. Neither outcome is your desired one—far from it. But sometimes, you don’t get to choose what you want exactly. Sometimes you’re forced to pick a side. Do you think it brings us joy, to slay those we once considered cousins? To take up arms with these French savages, who want nothing more than to rape and plunder? If we had our choice, none of this would be happening. We would still have our lands. Our people would still be alive, thriving and peaceful. But we aren’t. The Chonnonton are gone—we are all that remain. And so we were given a choice. We chose to survive.”
As he said those words, a scream echoed out from the distant woods. A Seneca woman’s, no doubt. The two of them just sat there, not moving a muscle.
“I’m tired, Gyantwaka,” Chrétien said. His body began to shake, and he forced down the tears beginning to well in his eyes. “And I’m angry, and lost, and afraid. But more than anything, I just feel empty.”
“You are a strange vessel, to be empty while carrying so much inside,” the old man chuckled. “But I disagree with you. You are not lost, my boy—you are merely finding yourself. You are learning about the eternal paradox of life, and trying to make some sense of it. You are close, too. Closer than you ever have been.”
The old man stood, and held his walking stick out to Chrétien.
“Come,” he said. “It is time for you to learn some more, I think.”