Chrétien de Parthenay
New France
Sure enough, everything that they had seen and feared had come to pass. Chrétien and his comrades left Seneca Territory along with the marines, their heads hung low, their pride in tatters. There was a debate, at first, to ignore Le Marquis’ orders, to continue onward in pursuit of their vengeance. That passion was quickly quelled, however—it would be a suicide mission to do so. In the end, the Deer’s half-company relied on the numbers of the French marines to do much of anything. If they stayed here and fought on their own, even if they were joined by Athasata’s men, they would be destroyed as soon as the Iroquois showed any resistance. Despite their unwavering conviction to fight for their ancestors and their lost people, they were at the mercy of the French, and the French had decided to give up.
“I’ll never forgive him,” Athasata told Chrétien, speaking of Le Marquis. “If I had known these were his goals, I would have never agreed to fight with him.”
The Mohawk leader’s eyes were distant, regretful, bitter. He felt the same as Chrétien, the same as all the warriors here who had committed themselves to little more than a puff piece for the governor.
“I am not the only leader of my people,” he said. “Aronhiatekha, who is like a brother to me, warned me of this. He told me this war was folly, that it would lead to nothing but regret. I thought he saw only our former brothers, and felt pity for them. I realize now I was wrong. He saw what I could not. He saw the true intention of those who pretend to be our allies. I am a fool.”
“You can’t blame yourself for another man’s sins,” Chrétien told him. “Le Marquis lied to you. He lied to me. The fault is with him, not with us for taking him at his word.”
Athasata nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced. Chrétien wasn’t, either.
Now, Athasata and his men were gone, having returned to their home of Kahnawake. Chrétien, Jikohnsasee, and the last remnants of the Deer returned to the Fort Frontenac, and awaited their inevitable doom. It didn’t take long—within a month, their scouts had reported a war band approaching from the south. Le Marquis’ theories about the lake freezing over were true when they first left, but by now, it had thawed again, enough for their canoes to push through to the other side.
Upon the first reports of seeing them, Chrétien’s first instinct was to flee. They were outnumbered and outgunned, and there would be no victory if the Iroquois were to seriously lay siege to the fort. There was, however, a problem: they were not the only soldiers here. A single full company of marines had been assigned to the fort as well. Their commander, a pompous upstart by the name of Lefevre, had been given a single instruction by Le Marquis: hold the fort at any cost, and kill anyone who tried to abandon it.
In the beginning, Chrétien tried to reason with the man, who was only eight years older than him. He naively assumed that he would be able to find some common ground with him, that he could be reasoned with. What he soon learned, however, was that Lefevre would rather watch his entire company die than risk his promotion. Even if it put his own life at stake, even if he would die at the hands of these invaders, he would not disobey his orders. It was the same stupid arrogance Chrétien had seen in Le Marquis, and Le Vicomte, and all the other noblemen he had ever met. It was the hubris of those who believed that they were favored by God himself, who were born into their status and luxury by a mandate of heaven. It was a stubbornness no word of reason or compassion could hope to change, and after hours of angry shouting Chrétien gave up on trying. He thanked God for the miracle of being free of those delusions, however comforting they were.
Still, that confidence could not last forever. Not under siege. The Iroquois, lacking the grand designs of cannons and trebuchets, resorted to a simpler method, yet one just as effective: starvation. In the unforgiving cold of January, even the Three Sisters could not grow in the fields, and even if they could, the Iroquois controlled them now. They simply sat outside the fort’s tall palisades and waited, leaving the soldiers inside to wither and rot.
The first week went by as expected. The marines took some potshots at the Iroquois at first, at least until they realized their war camps were built too far to hit anything. The marines kept stores of preserved goods in their pantries, and the Deer had saved many of their own crops for this exact scenario. The second week was harder. The marines’ stores, shallow and ill-thought, ran dry. The French soldiers were forced to ration the little that was left, and it still wasn’t enough. They began to cast jealous glances at the Deer, who still enjoyed full meals. They circled the Indian barracks like vultures, though they lacked the courage to do anything but watch.
By the third week, all hell had broken loose. In that short time, without a shot fired or a soldier downed, the fort had turned from a bastion to a tomb. Its tall wooden walls, meant to protect and shelter, instead formed a catafalque for the soldiers slowly starving inside. They cast long shadows on the grounds of the fort, a dark blanket of the fate that would soon come.
The order one would expect from a group of disciplined soldiers quickly fell to chaos. Hunger made demons of men more than any vice. It was something that unlocked a man’s most bestial instincts, compelled him to survive at any cost. And so it was no surprise that the already-tenuous truce between the marines and the Deer quickly boiled over into a mutiny. The marines had, of course, squandered their stores of food, expecting the Iroquois to give up, or for reinforcements to arrive from another post. Word was sent out of the siege—no help arrived. The Deer, who had expected this, had rationed their food more carefully, and now stood to lose it all.
The vultures had turned to rabid dogs. They barked and gnashed their teeth, demanding the Deer share the food they had worked in the field for countless hours in the autumn months to reap. The Deer found themselves backed into a corner, outnumbered by the marines who were frothing at the mouth. Chré”tien was nominated to negotiate with them. The rest of them had holed up in their barracks, ready to fight and kill any marines who tried to take their precious food from them. Chrétien stepped into the courtyard, watching a hundred Frenchmen scream and bellow at him, their weapons aimed at their own comrades. All of this for some beans.
“Ensign!” Lefevre called, stepping out from the crowd of hungry savages. “I trust you have come to parlay with us.” “I don’t have much of a choice,” Chrétien replied. “What are your demands?”
“I think it’s fairly obvious. We need your food. We have more hungry soldiers than you do.”
“That’s not really fair, is it? We didn’t waste ours.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Lefevre bristled. He knew it was true—he had never been under siege, and he acted rashly and impulsively with his own stores. Now, he was paying the price.
“I want to make this clear to you,” Lefevre said. “These men are starving. They’ll do anything to eat, and I mean anything. Because I am in command, and because I have a noble heart, I have them on strict orders not to tear you and your savages apart. I do this because I believe you are a man of reason, and that we can come to an agreement.”
“Where was reason three weeks ago?” Chrétien asked him. Anger stirred in his gut, but he retained his composure. “I warned you of this when the Iroquois were on the horizon. I told you exactly what would happen, and you ignored me. You wanted to stay here. So now you can starve.”
The air grew tense. The marines shifted, their eyes beading on Chrétien and the barracks beyond him. Chrétien swallowed. They really will kill me, he realized. They won’t even feel a pang of guilt. They’ll cut my men down and boil us for stew if this goes on any longer.
“Fine,” Chrétien said, raising his hands in a feigned defeat. “We are clearly outnumbered, and I don’t want this to get any more barbaric than it already has. We’ll give you all our remaining food on one condition.”
“I knew you were a man of reason,” Lefevre said, his thin lips curling in a smile. “What is your condition, Ensign?”
“Fall on your sword.”
“What?” The commander chortled the question out. Only, Chrétien wasn’t joking.
“Fall on your sword,” he repeated.
“Be serious.”
“I am serious.” He took a step forward, speaking loud enough to ensure that every marine there could hear him.
“I understand you cannot leave your post, nor allow any of your subordinates to do so, including myself and my company. You’ve made that perfectly clear. Your soldiers, then, cannot leave this place, either, or be branded a traitor to the crown. At the same time, we cannot stay here. Even we only have enough food for another week at most. What do you suppose you’ll do then, when there’s truly nothing left? Do you think their allegiance to you will hold?”
For a single moment, Chrétien saw the pride in Lefevre’s eyes fade, replaced by a strange look, the look of someone realizing their own mortality for the first time.
“I offer this deal to any of you,” Chrétien called, addressing Lefevre’s men now. “Lefevre is the reason we are all here, the reason we did not flee from the Iroquois while we had the chance. He alone is what keeps us here. I cannot in good conscience ask him to betray his sworn oath or his command, nor to ask you to betray yours. If he was to fall, however, in the heat of glorious battle defending this place, the chain of command would break, and we would all be free to do and go where we please. If he is truly a man of honor, a commander who cares for the wellbeing of his men, he will fall on his sword before starving you all. However, and I hate to admit this, I am skeptical of his devotion for you. One of you might have to help him.”
Just like that, Lefevre’s own men descended upon him like a pack of wild animals. Clearly they did not know they had been given the option to flee weeks earlier—that crucial little detail must have been kept from them. Lefevre’s eyes widened in horror as he was surrounded, skewered with a dozen bayonets like a little French Caesar. Chrétien just turned around, ignoring his screams, and opened the door to the Indian barracks.
“Good news, everyone,” he told them. “We’re getting out of here.”
That evening, they lit an enormous bonfire. The rest of the food was cooked and doled out in a feast for everyone. The animosity between the marines and the Indians left as quickly as it came—all it took was the death of one stubborn man. Chrétien sat uneasily among the marines, unable to shake the memory that they were ready to kill him just a few hours ago. He shuddered at the thought, but tried to focus on other things instead, like their escape.
Despite their initial victory allowing them to leave in the first place, they were not out of the woods yet. Even with the other marines fighting with them, the Iroquois forces outside outnumbered them three to one. Their camps had completely surrounded the fort, and there was no other French camp or settlement for days. Even the traders in the town of Cataraqui nearby had all fled.
No, this was the best they could hope for. Chrétien had somehow managed to rally the marines to their side, but this was not a battle they prepared for. Everyone would be fighting not to defeat their enemy, but to run as far as possible. There would be no camaraderie, no brothers-in-arms. Everyone for themselves, fighting tooth and nail to survive.
After they ate, they burned the bodies of Lefevre and a few others who had died from hunger or disease. The hope was that the Iroquois would think this was a funeral pyre rather than a feast, a sign that they were on the verge of defeat. Whatever they could do to give them a fighting chance, even if it wouldn’t matter.
Hours later, in the latest dead of the night, they readied themselves. Silently as they could, they packed their remaining gear and gathered in front of the main palisade. A hundred and twenty souls’ worth of breath fogged in the cold night air, anxious and tense. This was their last stand. They would use the cover of night to cover their escapes, fleeing to wherever they could. Most of them probably wouldn’t survive. Even those that escaped the Iroquois could fall to hunger or cold. There was little hope, but that was better than none at all.
Chrétien stood at the front gate, his mind burdened by the worries of what waited out there for them, of the grisly deaths that would befall his sworn brothers. He was shaken out of his thoughts as he noticed the entire fort was looking at him expectantly. Deer and French soldiers alike waited for him to rouse them with some valiant speech. He found his heart faltering. How on earth did this happen? How did he, a hopeless boy of eighteen, come to bear the fates of so many? Still, he cleared his throat, preparing the best he could. He supposed, at the very least, he was better than nothing at all.
“I won’t mince words,” he said, trying his best to be heard by everyone. “This is not a noble battle. We were stationed here to defend a pile of sticks in the snow, because our lives were seen as expendable. We will prove otherwise. Run as fast and as far as you can, and if you should fall, take as many of them with you as you can. Run in any direction, so far that the domains of France and Iroquois alike can no longer claim you, that you will be free of this yoke of war. Run for your loved ones if they live, for your families, for your ancestors. I hope we all make it out. I hope I will see each one of you again, alive and well, somewhere, someday. And I hope that we’ll have drinks in our hand, for I have gone far too long without one.”
The marines cheered. Jikohnsasee stepped forward from the crowd, and placed her large hands on Chrétien’s shoulders.
“I hate to see it end like this,” Jikohnsasee told him. “But I pray that despite my better judgment, this will not be the end. If you do survive and make it out of here, seek out the island Michilimackinac. Myself and the others will head there if we can. You will always have a place around our hearth-fire.”
“I am glad to share its warmth with you,” Chrétien said, smiling. “All of you. And I pray we will look back on this day as a day of victory, as the day we broke free.”
He turned to look at the wooden gate before him. He remembered how it looked when he first arrived here all those months ago—large and imposing, yet fragile, in an unassuming way. How he hated when his instincts were right.
“Alright then,” he sighed. “Let’s give them hell.”