Anne-Marie de Parthenay
Five Nations Territory (Modern-Day New York)
All her life, Anne-Marie had lived in a world of loneliness. Her mother died before she was old enough to know her, and her father didn’t speak a word to her that was not a lecture or a reprimand. Her real parents were maids and butlers, who came and went, who had their own lives that did not involve her. Beyond the occasional visit to Paris or Versailles, she did not leave the confines of her castle. She had little idea what the town beyond the walls looked like, who lived in it, what their lives were. Even the servants who raised her were half-strangers, never speaking about their own families or relations, their lives outside their care for her forever unknown.
It was no surprise, then, that she came to believe the whole world worked this way. To her, this world was one of a million individuals, each of them competing with each other, desperately clawing to the top. Families, tribes, clans, kingdoms—these were things formed from necessity, with a singular purpose: to overpower the others. If not for this goal, people would keep to themselves, as community was something tedious and unnecessary otherwise.
Then, she met Black Bird, and through these weeks with him she began to see another side of the world, perhaps its truer face. Nothing existed in isolation that was not self-imposed—her life of loneliness was a stark exception in a vast network where everything was inter-connected. Everything had a purpose, a history, a lesson to learn. Here now, they walked through the forest, between trees of birch and cedar. These trees, as Black Bird taught her, were the two most important to his people, and their relationship was a sacred and symbiotic one.
The birch, for example, provided everything, so much so that even the names of the tribes of the Three Fires were based upon its gifts. The eldest brother in the Council, Ojibwe, was a term that came from their system of writing, the ancient histories and rites inscribed upon scrolls of the birch’s bark. The youngest brother, Bodéwadmi, were the fire-builders, using the kindling from the birch’s branches and bark shavings. Then came Black Bird’s tribe, the Odawa, traders who relied upon the canoes made from the trunks of the tree, like the one the two used to journey down the river. The outer bark could be stripped from the trees without harming it, used for kindling or made into boxes called makakoon. The inner bark was actually edible, a source of energy and nourishment that needed no hunting or trapping, which the two relied on in the days the game was scarce. Its leaves could be boiled in a tea to soothe irritated skin, and its sap was sweet and abated hunger. Every piece of it had a part to play, and the Anishinaabe used it all, squandering none of these gifts.
The birch even provided in its death, overtaken by a parasite, the black fungus shkitagen, which Black Bird called “the big crab”, for the way it looked. Black Bird collected it whenever they stumbled across it, telling Anne-Marie that it too could be made into medicine. All of this from one tree. Never before would she have thought a tree to be anything other than a statue of wood in the wild, providing nothing but shade from its leaves or a pretty scene to look at. Now, she was wiser—she knew not only what the birch could provide, but also why it provided them. To Black Bird’s people, the birch was not just some trove of goods to be plundered—it was a man named Grandfather Wiigwaas, who gave these things to the Anishinaabe because of an ancient promise. He had even failed to keep that promise before, and was punished for doing so—the marks across its birch were from a lashing given for that betrayal, scars of bird-feathers that he would never forget to honor his pledge again. Even still, the Anishinaabe never took these offerings for granted—Black Bird thanked the tree each time he took something from it, and always did so in a way to minimize harm.
And this, of course, was just one example, and one that Anne-Marie knew well now. To her surprise and excitement, Anne-Marie was doing more than just surviving—she was learning, improving, discovering the world and herself. Black Bird no longer needed to save her from wandering into thistles or ivy—she knew now how to recognize and avoid them herself. She observed his routine, every action he took within eyeshot, and he usually taught her about them when she asked. She wasn’t a fool—she knew that as things were, she was a liability and a burden. She watched Black Bird spend twice as much time looking for food, twice the effort to hide them both from bands of traveling Iroquois, and she felt guilty each time. Though she had been raised from birth to be this way—to be doted on hand and foot, to carry no ambition in herself than that of her eventual husband, she was not content with this excuse. She endeavored, at the very least, to be a help to Black Bird rather than a hindrance. Not because he was a man, or because she felt obligated to him, but because she wanted to, and she found a sense of purpose in this goal as she worked towards it.
After a month, her effort had begun to show. She took on her own roles in their survival together—he caught the game, she skinned and cooked the meat. He scouted the route ahead, she packed the supplies into the canoe. They took turns rowing in the day, watching for Iroquois or predators at night. Black Bird took to this division of tasks so naturally that Anne-Marie thought he must have lived this way before, though he would never mention with whom. Was he married? Divorced? Widowed? She couldn’t be sure. Sometimes, when he caught himself becoming used to this new arrangement, he would fight against it, taking some of the work from her to do himself. It was as though their partnership brought him pain and guilt, and Anne-Marie could not help but wonder why.
Through it all, they settled into the strangest of rhythms, the routine comforting for both of them, despite their current circumstances. Of course, that rhythm was disrupted in this wild land, more than once. One day, they sat in the canoe, heading down the river. It was Black Bird’s turn to row, and they passed the time by playing their usual game. By now, though, it had developed into a few different forms, giving it some much-needed variety to avoid tedium. This one was a quiz, in which they took turns asking each other about the knowledge they’d shared previously.
“Debwewin,” Black Bird said.
“Truth,” Anne-Marie replied, translating the word. Black Bird was quizzing her on the Seven Teachings of the Grandfathers, some of the core beliefs that made up his people’s moral code. This was one of the easier ones—while she pulled the memory from her mind, Anne-Marie couldn’t help but dread about him choosing the longer, more complex words next, like Dabaadendiziwin or Ozhibwaadenindiwin.
“Debwewin is the lesson of the turtle,” Anne-Marie recited. “The turtle teaches this lesson because he walks slowly. Knowing and understanding the truth is a slow process, and so the turtle moves as such because he knows the importance of his steps.”
Black Bird nodded. Anne-Marie smiled at having gotten it right, and now it was her turn.
“Charlemagne,” she said. He taught her his history, and she taught him hers.
Black Bird thought for a moment.
“Charlemagne was the first ruler of the Holy Roman Empire,” he said. “Crowned by the Pope in the year… 800.”
“Right,” Anne-Marie nodded. “And who rules the Holy Roman Empire now?”
“The Habsburgs.”
“And where are they from?”
Black Bird hesitated. He scratched his head.
“Rome?” He guessed.
Anne-Marie shook her head.
“They’re Austrian,” she corrected him.
“But Charlemagne was born in Rome,” Black Bird said.
“Also wrong. He was Frankish.”
Black Bird threw his hands in the air, frustrated.
“It makes no sense,” he ranted. “It’s called the Holy Roman Empire! And you’re telling me they’re not Roman at all?”
Anne-Marie shrugged.
“The Roman part was for the title, mostly,” she said. “It started as an alliance—Charlemagne wanted legitimacy from the Pope, and the Pope wanted protection from his enemies.”
“But why did being Roman grant Charlemagne legitimacy?”
“Well, part of it was the Pope’s blessing, since practically everyone was Catholic—this was hundreds of years before Martin Luther. And part of it was the legacy of the original Roman Empire.”
“But the original Roman Empire has nothing to do with the Holy one, based on everything you’ve said. They weren’t even Catholic, were they? I thought you said they were pagan.”
“They were, for most of their history, but Constantine made the empire Christian during the Byzantine era.”
“But then they weren’t Roman, were they? They were Byzantine.”
“Well, Byzantine Romans.”
Black Bird rolled his eyes, turning back to the water in defeat.
“I give up,” he huffed. Anne-Marie giggled. It never got old, seeing him flustered.
“Fair enough,” she teased. “Do me again.”
Black Bird grunted, still annoyed by the indecipherable mess of Europe’s history, but he acquiesced.
“Gwekwaadiziwin,” he said.
Anne-Marie thought for a moment.
“Bravery?” She guessed.
Black Bird shook his head.
“Aakwade'ewin,” he corrected.
She thought some more, listing the seven in her mind, but this one was a blank hole in her memory, and try as she did, she could muster no other guess.
“I don’t remember,” she said.
“Gwekwaadiziwin is honesty*.”
“What’s the difference between honesty and truth?”
“A good question. It is the difference, at least to me, between knowing the truth and speaking it, which are two different things. Debwewin teaches to always seek the truth, but that is not enough. You can know the right thing and lie, convince others that it is the wrong thing. This is why these lessons are not taught in isolation, but as a group—they inform and rely upon each other. In the same way, you can think to speak the truth, but still tell a lie if what you believe is wrong. Thus, it is also not enough to just speak what you believe to be true. You must know it is true, which can only be done through observing the world, learning its truths, increasing your wisdom—Nibwaakaawin.”
“The lesson of the beaver.”
Black Bird nodded.
“The beaver knows he must use his gifts wisely,” he said. “If he refuses to use his sharp teeth, they will grow large and unwieldy. If he does not swim, his webbed feet and tail muscles will atrophy. So too must your pursuit of wisdom and its application be constant and unyielding.”
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“I understand now. Thank you.”
Black Bird shrugged, and looked back out on the water. He was never good at accepting thanks or compliments, which only ever made Anne-Marie want to give him more.
“Alright, your turn,” Anne-Marie said. “How about… Louis XIV?”
“That’s your king, the king of France. Wait… What’s the difference between the France and the Franks?”
“The French,” Anne-Marie corrected. “Are the people who live in France, of French descent. Some of them are Franks, or rather, used to be Franks. As a people, the Franks were split during and after the treaty of Verdun in 843, settling the war between the three grandsons of Charlemagne. The Franks of the West eventually became French, and the Franks of the East eventually became Bavarian or Saxon or whatnot.”
“Why were they fighting a war against each other? They were brothers.”
“Yes, but they all wanted to succeed to the throne after Charlemagne’s son passed. Only one of them could be the true king, and each of them wanted the crown.”
“But Charlemagne was the Holy Roman Emperor. But his grandsons were Franks?”
“He was a Frank, too. King of the Franks, before the pope dubbed him Emperor.”
“But the Franks are French now. Or some of them are. And the others are the Holy Roman Empire. Except they aren’t Roman.”
“Well, some people in the Empire are. Not Roman, necessarily, but Italian. But all sorts of people live in the Empire. Germans, Italians, Flemings, Slavs. Even some French, at times—well, if you consider Savoy to be French, which is a rather hot topic, actually.”
“I’m getting a headache,” Black Bird complained, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.
“Fine, fine,” Anne-Marie laughed. “My turn.”
“Zaagidiwin,” Black Bird said, eager to return to something he was familiar with.
Anne-Marie hesitated. Not because she didn’t know the answer—this was one of the easy ones. Zaagidiwin was the word for Love. And yet, when she opened her mouth to say it, she faltered. The word started to form, her tongue reaching to the roof of her mouth to begin the sound for the letter ‘L’. Then it stopped. She tried again, and again the word caught in her throat, dying before it could escape her lips. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she say it? It was just a word. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t reflect anything—about her, about her feelings. Why was it so hard?
Frustrated and confused, Anne-Marie started to try again when she felt the canoe lurch underneath her. Black Bird had diverted their course, heading towards the right bank—fast.
“What’s wrong?” Anne-Marie asked.
“Listen,” was his only reply.
Anne-Marie stopped and turned her ear to the surroundings. She was so preoccupied that she failed to notice it—the tell-tale sounds of feet shuffling and talking. There was a band of Iroquois—a larger one of two dozen or more, from the sound of it, just beyond the bend.
“Help me with the canoe,” Black Bird said, having reached the bank, and Anne-Marie did so. She scrambled to pick up her end of the canoe, placing it onto her shoulder as Black Bird did the same. Together, they sprinted up the hill, trying to put as much distance between them and the band as possible. They made it up the top and just over, and that’s when Anne-Marie tripped on a rock hidden by a few scattered leaves on the ground. Right at the apex of the hill, she fell forward, careening down to a copse of cedars below. Rolling violently through leaves and mud, battered by rocks and logs as she smashed into them on her way before crashing into two trees at the base of the hill.
The fall was oddly quiet—in her shock and fear, she had almost forgotten to breathe, let alone to scream or cry out. And she was thankful for it, too—if the sound of her fall hadn’t alerted the Iroquois, her voice would have. She lay in a daze by the trees that stopped her fall, gasping for air. Her mind swam in a daze, her world blurry and spinning. Pain blared in a few distinct places—her head, her elbows and left knee. It all blended together, though, swirling and mixing into a strange cocktail of confusion and discomfort. Then she saw Black Bird and the canoe crash into another tree next to her. Her slip must have dislodged the canoe from both their grips, and from the bottom of the hill she barely saw the end of a scrambled attempt by him to keep the canoe from crushing her, falling himself in the process.
He didn’t look as banged up as she felt, thankfully—but he was just as filthy from the mud. His leggings and shirt were completely ruined, and while some of the grime slid off of him as he stumbled to his feet, more of it caked on his clothes.
Black Bird rushed over to Anne-Marie, picking her up and laying her against the tree trunk. He started to assess her wounds. Her knee was badly skinned and bleeding, and he took off his shirt, ripping off the only clean portion to dress it.
“Can you breathe?” He asked her.
“I… I’m fine,” she said. She looked over to the canoe—the sack of Black Bird’s books had crashed with it, spilling its contents on the forest floor.
“Your books,” she muttered, her speech as muddled as her mind. “They’ll be ruined…”
“Don’t worry about that,” Black Bird said. “They’re scraps of paper and leather. Are you alright? What hurts?”
“My knee… my head… But… I… I’m fine…”
Anne-Marie pressed her hands to the earthy floor, trying to lift herself up.
“We have to hide…” She strained to say. “I… I can stand… I can move…”
“No, you can’t. Sit still—let me finish tending your wounds.”
“I can do it myself… I… I’m tired of being a burden…”
Black Bird’s brow furrowed, and he stopped wrapping his shirt around her leg for a moment, looking straight at her with his intense, piercing eyes.
“You aren’t a burden,” he said firmly. “Not to me. Don’t ever say that again.”
Anne-Marie could muster no further rebuttal, still reeling from the blow to her head. All she could do was lay there as Black Bird cared for her, and despite her protestations, she was rather happy he did.
After what felt like an hour or two, Anne-Marie regained her senses, and was strong enough to walk again. The band of Iroquois had long walked past them by then, and the fall was far enough from their footpath to not alert them. While she rested, Black Bird had re-gathered his books. Thankfully, only one of them had gotten a significant amount of mud on the pages: a copy of the bible, easily replaced once they got to New England. Black Bird left it behind, heading back to the river. In his right hand, he towed the canoe, dragging it across the ground. In his left, he shouldered Anne-Marie’s arm, helping her walk. It was a wonder, Anne-Marie thought, that he was able to do it all.
Thankfully, the damage Anne-Marie had suffered was not extreme or permanent. Her knee would heal with time, though she might have a nasty scab, and her head already felt better. What she could not bear, however, was the stench of mud and filth on her dress and in her hair. It stank—she stank, the mud clinging to her already-existing odor from the week she had spent without dipping in the river to wash herself.
“Black Bird,” she said softly as he began to load the books into the canoe.
“Yes?”
“Can we… take a minute, before we set off again?”
“Of course. Are you feeling alright? We can wait until you’re at your full strength, if we need to.”
“No, it’s not that… it’s just… well, look at me. I’m completely filthy.”
“Yeah, well… I am, too. You have a good point. We should get clean first.”
Black Bird took a few steps towards the river, then started taking off his leggings.
“Stop, stop!” Anne-Marie shouted, her eyes growing wide. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to bathe,” Black Bird said bluntly.
“Well, clearly! But you can’t take off your pants!”
“Why not?”
“I can’t… I’m not supposed to see you like that!”
“So why are you looking?”
The heat of shame rushed to her chest and cheeks, and Anne-Marie stuttered her next words.
“I… it’s not…” she struggled, flustered. “But what am I supposed to do, then? I can’t take off my dress!”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve got nothing on underneath it!”
“I’m not looking, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Not now you aren’t, but how do I know you won’t at all? Every man wants to spy on a woman as she bathes—that’s just a fact.”
Black Bird shrugged.
“There’s a tree right there, just by the river’s edge,” he pointed. “The river turns slightly right past it. Bathe there, if it helps you feel any better. I couldn’t look even if I wanted to.”
Anne-Marie looked at the tree. Its trunk was thick enough, and where it stood, half its roots went down into the water.
“Fine,” she huffed. “But don’t you dare get any ideas.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Black Bird shrugged.
His nonchalance made her feel even more ashamed, and it began to make her upset. Did it mean he didn’t care to see her that way? That he wasn’t tempted to, not even a bit? If he wasn’t, why not? Shouldn’t he, just a little?
Angry now, Anne-Marie stomped off to the tree.
“Don’t go too far,” Black Bird called to her. “I don’t want to lose track of you.”
At this point, Anne-Marie was half-convinced he wouldn’t mind losing her completely. He didn’t even seem to be curious as to how she looked under the dress. Did he not think she was pretty? Had she misread things?
Perplexed, she stepped into the river behind the tree. She looked around, but there were no signs of even animals nearby. She took a breath, then began to take off her dress. She was thankful it was a simple one, a commoner’s dress she had bought back in Quebec to blend in, back when she was living with Ezekiel. When she left, she had only packed one nice dress—not a full court gown (far too bulky and unwieldy), but a robe volante in a beautiful blue. She had not worn it since the first week of her meeting Black Bird, though—not only did she find it less comfortable than the deerskin ones Adah and Delilah had given her, but she found it hard to wear after Black Bird had gleaned she was wealthy from it. It was a relic of her past, one she wished to be free from at any cost.
The water was cold, and Anne-Marie shivered as she sank into it, stopping at her shoulders. She took her dress into the water with her, scrubbing the mud from it. It came off easily, and she dunked her head into the river briefly to do the same with her hair. The frigidity of it was hard to bear, and she resurfaced after a few moments. As she finished cleaning herself, her mind began to wander. If he was not curious, she certainly was. Was that wrong? All she knew was that the longer she sat in the water, the more she wanted to peek around that tree. But what if he caught her? She would be humiliated. She’d be more than a Peeping Tom—she’d be a hypocrite for bringing it up in the first place. Anne-Marie shook her head. Not worth it.
Then again, this could be her only chance. She had never seen a man in that way before, though she had never wanted to before. Things were different now, though she could not place why, or maybe she just refused to. Still, the curiosity burned in her, and like all her interests in that young man, she felt an overwhelming urge to sate it.
Slowly and quietly, Anne-Marie crept around the bend of the tree. The part by it was shallow, and she was forced to half-expose herself out of the water to use the tree and its roots as cover. As she rounded it, she kept her eyes peeled for him. But he wasn’t there. She blinked twice, thinking her eyes deceived her. She saw the canoe on the bank, and his leggings on the ground next to it, laid out to dry, but there was no sign of him.
Confused, Anne-Marie took a step forward. She began to grow concerned—had something happened to him? Was he alright? Another step, rounding the corner of the tree fully, and then she bumped into something—not looking where she was going. Something soft and fleshy. She whirled her head to look as Black bird did the same. He had curled up right at the land-bound root of the tree, waiting to peek over its edge at her! The two turned to each other at once, both of their eyes wide with shock. In the same instance, he saw her, and she him. The two realized their situation, and their eyes bulged—half in surprise, half in shame. Both of them were equal culprits, and both of them had caught the other in their crime.
They stood frozen there for a moment, staring at each other. After that brief delay, though, they realized how exposed they were—in unison, they reacted, scrambling frantically to cover themselves. Anne-Marie ducked into the water, and Black Bird leaped behind the tree trunk. Anne-Marie covered her eyes and face with her hands and turned away, overwhelmed by the shame of it. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl!
Then, she heard some strange noise. It came from beyond the tree trunk. She uncovered her face for a moment, focusing on the sound. It was laughter. Not some muffled snicker or polite chuckle, but full-belly, keel-over laughter. Behind the tree, Black Bird fell apart. His head peeked past the trunk at her, tears in his eyes. He was laughing. It cut through the humiliation, saving her from it. He wasn’t laughing at her, but at himself, at the two of them, at the sheer absurdity of the whole ordeal. She had never heard him laugh before. It was a beautiful sound—it rang in her ears like the tune of a songbird, high-pitched and giddy. In an instant, her shame evaporated, and all she could do was laugh with him, free and unabated.
Until this point, she had always been afraid of laughter. To her, laughter was either frivolous, cruel, or both. Her father had told her to never laugh unless she was expected to, and the only other laughter she had heard was from girls her age, and that was always at another’s expense. This was something different. It was just a laugh, a sonic celebration of something joyous and silly. It rose so naturally from her now, sparked by his, intertwining with it as their laughter rose together into the sky above. What a wonderful feeling, was all she could think. What a wonderful sound.