Anne-Marie de Parthenay
Five Nations Territory (Modern-Day New York)
Of all the miserable, rotten luck. Anne-Marie cursed her fortune, fated to fail, as she and Black Bird were shoved forward by the butt of a musket. Their hands bound behind their backs, their belongings taken, looted or tossed into the river (besides two bags of livre Anne-Marie had managed to tuck inside her bodice—brutish men that they were, they had not frisked her there yet). Led to some distant, unknown doom, all they could do was walk and worry. Thankfully, the men who captured them had not yet resorted to their usual tortures. Ezekiel had told her that when men of the Five Nations captured their prisoners, the walk back to the village became a trial in and of itself, meant to wear down the minds and bodies of their captors. She expected, then, to be beaten, shoved, burned, or anything else to that end, but so far, their captors had treated them rather well, all things considered. Rather, they seemed preoccupied by something, though Anne-Marie could not even muster a guess as to what it might be.
Despite this, Anne-Marie could not help but despair. What hope was left for them? They were clutched tight in the claws of these men, enemies to both her and Black Bird’s nations. Even if she hardly considered herself French anymore (certainly she carried no allegiance to the colony or the crown), she doubted it would change their dispositions towards her. There were a dozen men surrounding them, each armed to the teeth, and most of them older and stronger than Black Bird, despite his talent and cunning. Even if he were unbound, he could take two or three at most before he was gunned down. In the miraculous event that they somehow escaped, what would they do then? No canoe, no musket, no bullets. No chance.
As they walked, she studied Black Bird’s face, trying to glean anything from it. Some secret message only she could read, or perhaps the way he felt about their predicament. Yet she saw no hope or despair in him. She perceived him in only two states, both of them rather stoic, but she knew him well enough at this point to get a sense of it. The first was a deep thought, as if he spent every waking minute wracking his brain for some solution, some way to escape. The other was an intense study—of their captors, of their surroundings. When she was close enough to him, she could practically hear the gears of his mind turning as he scrambled to free them from their detainment. At the very least, this meant that he had not yet given up, and his resolve inspired her to try and feel the same, despite it all.
One night, she mustered the courage to speak to Black Bird. It was late at night, when most of their captors had fallen asleep. One had stayed awake to watch them, though he was a teenage boy younger than she, and did not seem to carry in him the malice of his adult peers. Rather, he seemed more curious than anything—Anne-Marie often caught him sneaking glances at her as they walked in the day, his wide, innocent eyes illuminated by the blue-violet face paint that lay in delicate streaks underneath them. He seemed so different from the rest, in fact, so doe-eyed and demure, that it broke Anne-Marie’s heart. When would he be corrupted by the wicked fire of this age? That desire to conquer, to dominate, to kill. That great evil that consumed Le Vicomte, that she had seen start to take hold in her own brother’s heart. It was only a matter of time, she thought, before this boy succumbed to it, too.
Still, for now, he was just like every other boy, and when she opened her mouth to speak, he did not raise the alarm. He just watched the two captives with his usual curiosity, and for that, if for nothing else, she was thankful.
“Do we have any hope?” Anne-Marie whispered to Black Bird.
Black Bird sighed. It was a resigned, despondent reply, one that formed a small but tight pit in Anne-Marie's stomach.
“Do you believe in prayer?” He asked.
She thought back to her own prayers. She could not be sure if God listened to them, if He cared about her plight, or even knew she existed. Some, she was sure, were not heeded—her ordeals so far were evidence enough of that. And yet, she could not shake a certain memory. When she first came to this place, when La Madame assaulted her, she prayed. She prayed for someone, but not just anyone—a man to come, a knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet, to carry her away from that horrid place. Someone who would protect her, who would care for her. And in the strangest of ways, here he was, sitting next to her. Of course, it was not the savior she had expected—back then, she had imagined some noble heartthrob, a prince of France or Spain to take her to his grand estate. But of course, she knew the Lord worked in mysterious ways, and now that she knew the true manner of her valiant knight, she wouldn't change a thing.
“Oui,” she whispered, thanking God as she did, for delivering Black Bird to her. “I do.”
“Pray with me, then,” her savior said grimly. “The way I see it, there is but one miracle we can hope for.”
“What would that be?”
Black Bird snuck a look at the boy who watched them, even though Anne-Marie was sure he couldn’t understand a word they said.
“When you walk in large groups through the woods, you want to make noise,” he explained. “Scares the bears away. Bears are smart—they want to avoid us as much as we do them.”
Anne-Marie took his point—on their journey thus far, their captors had been strangely quiet, barely saying as much as a word to one another, which she had already thought was strange.
“Why do you think they haven’t been?” Anne-Marie asked.
Black Bird shrugged.
“They seem bothered. Worried, maybe. Don’t know what about, but it’s enough to occupy their minds. Enough to make them forget to travel loudly.”
“So what? We hope they run into a bear randomly, and it eats them all?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“There’s not a bear alive that can take down a dozen men. But it would create a distraction—enough that we could make a run for it.”
“Even then, our hands will still be bound, and we’ll have nothing. What then?”
“Working on that,” he said. He looked back to the teenager, and waved him over. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise at the invitation, and he hesitated. It only lasted a moment, though—his curiosity quickly got the better of him. He shuffled over to them, sitting next to Black Bird, though of course he would sneak glances past him at Anne-Marie.
Black Bird said a word or two to him, though Anne-Marie could not parse it. It didn’t sound like his native tongue of Nishnaabemowin, or at least, the bits and scraps of what he’d taught her. It was likely the boy’s language, which Anne-Marie was only half-surprised Black Bird could speak with such fluency—he never ceased to impress her with his depth of knowledge.
Anne-Marie shifted in her seat, an awkward non-participant in the hushed conversation developing between the two. Should she eavesdrop? Could she, if she tried? She doubted it. Even their body language was hushed and hidden. Whatever they talked about, though, it seemed important. And what’s more, the boy seemed to listen to Black Bird, nodding thoughtfully every now and then. Perhaps we can get him to free us, she thought, though she wouldn’t hold out hope for it. In the end, she did the only thing she could: she closed her eyes, clasped her hands, and, just as Black Bird had, she prayed for a bear.
And strange enough, by some miracle or grace of God, their prayers were answered. The next day, in the mid-afternoon, the bear came. To their added fortune, it was not alone—a mother, traveling with two cubs. Had the group traveled loudly and conspicuously, the encounter would have no doubt been avoided. But dark clouds hung over the thoughts of their captors, and though they did not know the reason for it, they were thankful nonetheless.
As soon as the two groups crossed paths, tension filled the early March air, cool and smothering. The bear mother snarled, and the leader of their captors dropped his arms, kneeling and holding his open palms in a humble deference. Anne-Marie wondered if he was from the Bear Clan among his people—Black Bird told her it was a terrible crime to harm your clan’s animal. Still, the mother was not soothed—rather, upon suddenly seeing this large group of armed men, she bared her teeth and growled.
The men froze—none of them wanted to harm this creature unless they had to. Next to him, Anne-Marie saw Black Bird stiffen, his muscles tensed. Only, they were not still and trembling, like the other men’s—they were primed and coiled like a spring. He’s going to make a move. She planted her feet firmly in the ground beneath her, ready to follow him, whatever he had planned.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move—slowly and surely, the boy with the wide eyes and the deep blue face paint made her way into her periphery. He was not moving towards her, however—he was moving towards the bear. No weapon in hand, palms open, he took several steps towards the she-bear. She stared him down, her fangs still brandished as would-be daggers to carve his flesh. Only, as he got closer, her demeanor started to change. Her ursine features twisted into a strange look—a mixture of confusion, fear, and what had to be her motherly instincts. Anne-Marie held her breath, the tension between the two palpable. She saw the adult man in the front tense, as if he intended to stop the boy. But he wouldn’t dare risk provoking the mother—he stayed his breath, his tongue, and his hand.
Then, all hell broke loose. It happened all in an instant—Black Bird broke off with the speed of a thunderclap, rushing past the man closest to him before he could react. Their footpath lay next to a hill, and he leaped off of it, landing hard and far away from his captors. The momentum shoved him forward, and he tucked his arms and legs tight to his body as he rolled violently down the hill. The man guarding him uttered some curse in his tongue, and called for the others to help pursue him. Only, they were all occupied. The commotion startled the cubs, and thus, of course, their mother. She lunged forward, taking a swipe at the boy with her claw, who barely managed to jump back in time. Her paw still grazed him, enough to draw blood, but no more than that. Still, it was enough to rile the other men—whatever understanding could have been reached was gone now. They leaped into action, yelling and batting at the bear with their muskets to try and scare it off.
The doe-eyed boy stumbled backwards into the arms of the older man who caught him, and Anne-Marie realized this was her best chance. She turned towards the hill, then saw Black Bird’s guard had readied his musket in the tumult to fire on him. She felt her body move on its own, rushing forwards and shoving him from behind. With more strength than she thought she had within her, she sent him careening over the edge. His mind stunned and his arms busy with the rifle, the man could hardly shield himself as he crashed and tumbled down the hill.
The momentum carried Anne-Marie forward, too, but she knew it would, and she used it to her aid, sprinting down the hill towards Black Bird. He saw her coming, and opened his arms, catching her as she reached the bottom. Her mind clouded, half from the chaos, half from his embrace, she hardly thought anything when he began to set upon her bindings with a small knife, cutting her loose.
“Your hands,” she exclaimed, as she finally noticed. “They aren’t bound.”
“He saved us,” Black Bird told her, smiling up at the boy above. “There are good souls even here, in the land of the Longhouse. I knew it, deep in my heart: there is hope for all of us yet.”
He finished with the wraps, and her hands came free. He took one of hers in one of his, leading her away from it all, and she was strangely glad for this ordeal, if only that it led to this.
As they fled, he took a moment to look behind at her, as any Orpheus would. His eyes flashed wide in an instant, terror-filled. She had no time to think, to move, to breathe. All she could do was watch. He turned, leaping behind her, or, as she turned with him, in front of her. Using his own body to shield her, for the man who fell had readied his arm again, and taken aim. She saw the muzzle flash, heard that too-familiar clap of wicked thunder, masked only by the sound of her scream, shell-shocked and pleading.
She saw the bullet, that cruel orb of metal malice, that bringer of death and destruction. It sank into his chest, right into his heart. The heart that she wished to know so intimately, that fickle thing she hoped did beat in the terrifying and wonderful rhythm of love. Tears came pre-welled in her eyes, starting their mourning the moment they saw the rifle raised, all-too used to this familiar despair.
And then, for the second time that day, she witnessed a miracle. The bullet did not pierce his flesh. It did not claim his heart that was already hers. Rather, it flattened, rebuffed by some obstruction hidden within his shirt. Black Bird reeled from the blow, falling backwards, and now she was there to catch him, her body once again acting upon instinct. Her mind could not command it, too wracked with sorrow at the fate she assumed befell him, with jubilation at what could have possibly saved him. It must have been an act of God, she thought, whose ears had been deaf to her prayers all her life. Finally, after all these years, came all His love, His grace, His mighty power to do the impossible. That power moved her legs forward when her mind could not, and she began to run, carrying Black Bird with her, his arm slung over her shoulder.
Where had this strength been, hidden within that feeble waif from Parthenay? Who was this girl, who shouldered all this weight, sprinting at the pace of a whip-cracked horse? Had she always been there, waiting to unmask herself? Was she a new invention, inspired by the man she carried? Or was she just another act of God, a brief and fleeting bravery that would pass when His miracle did? She did not have the wherewithal or the luxury to answer, nor did it truly matter. Here she was, saving this young man who had rescued her without a second thought, who had given her a will to live she had never known. Here he was, clinging to her as they stumbled through the woods: the man she loved with every ounce of her trembling heart.