Kaniehtì:io
Haytham… Kenway.
This is what he told me his name was. How long ago he told me this, I cannot remember. It must have been years now. There was something strange about this man, something curious in his eyes and the way he moved: he was not like the other men who had approached our village. He looked the same and talked the same, but he was very different; I could tell from when I first met him.
First of all, he desired to know my name. And I gave it to him.
Haytham Kenway was special to me. I had shown him the cave and told him a story, and he had kissed me in the strange way white men do, and he had held me till I felt the earth against my back. His whispered words were not needed, but I appreciated them all the same; the svelteness of his tongue and the smooth licks of his speech were more comforting than arousing, though they did both. I do not – have never – know why he made me feel that way. I was wary of him, but I let him in all the same. I drew close to him, and he drew close to me in return, in the dangerous act of love. I have never trusted love.
When he left and I found out I was with child the aching in my heart, the yearning for this man I barely knew, only grew. It was sated only by the thought of some piece of him living within me, some remnant of his memory that refused to be washed away by the growing tensions of this war the foreigners were fighting. I was alone, all that time, warmed only by the life in my belly.
Ratonhnhaké:ton was a good child, if not a little audacious and irresponsible at times, always doing as he was told and accepting his responsibilities just like his father did, no matter how small the task. Every time I looked upon his face I was reminded of Haytham, though I no longer lamented over his absence. I had accepted that he had loved me in his own strange way, as I had loved him in mine. I knew he was probably well, if he had been keeping out of trouble, and I had a token of him with me always. His son. My son. Our son.
The notion of this unity still fills me with a dull happiness, even to this day. Though, with the constant threats to our village, I fear it shall not remain for much longer.
Ziio looked up absently at the entrance to the longhouse in which she sat. The ground was hard beneath her, and seeing as she had lost track of time, sitting and tracing symbols and strange words into the dirt, her abdomen felt a little numb. She glanced up with fiery eyes to see her son, little Ratonhahaké:ton, sitting in the arms of an old woman, who smiled a withered smile at Ziio.
"A good boy," the elder told her as she stood to collect her child. "Much like his mother."
Ziio smiled, collecting the boy up into her arms and holding him against her chest. He had only just learned how to walk, much to the amusement of the villagers. She thanked the old woman, who nodded placidly and left to go about her own business before the sun fully set.
Ziio, instead of moving back into the depths of the warm longhouse, retreated into the crisp evening air. It was early winter, the days growing colder and harsher, though no snow had yet fallen. Her thoughts still lingered on Ratonhnhaké:ton's father as she paced about the village with her son in her arms. The little boy made cooing noises up at her, quite happy to be in the gentle company of his mother again, his dark hair shining in the remaining light. It was such a beautiful colour: like Ziio's, but lighter. She looked at his hand against her arm and noticed the slight difference between the tones of their skin. She kissed the top of his head, finally releasing her thoughts of Haytham Kenway.
She and Ratonhnhaké:ton must have been out for longer than she'd realised, as darkness had set in about them, punctured only by the fires lit here and there within the village walls. They were beacons, casting wide webs of light across the earth and spitting sparks into the cool void of the sky accompanied by sweet, belching smoke. Shivering, Ziio grudgingly remembered the warmth of the longhouse, and navigated her way quickly across the village to take refuge from the oncoming night. Perhaps there would be the first snowfall of the season that night: there were dark, greenish clouds hanging low over the trees, creeping slowly towards them.
Well, Ziio thought as she retreated into the golden light cast forth by the longhouse's central hearth, we will be sheltered here.
Ratonhnhaké:ton was only barely awake, his eyes fluttering open and closed. Ziio lay him down to bed, kissing his forehead once before returning to her position by the fire. Outside the wind had picked up its pace, racing through the myriad of buildings like wild horses, howling through the air like wolves. The wind always was an eerie thing. The flames jumped suddenly before her as an unexpected gust flew down the stretch of sheltered ground, and then straightened out once more. If only I was as resilient, she thought with a deep sigh. Spring back and remember nothing. Late in the night she dragged herself to her bedding and slept like the dead until morning.
She was woken by the sound of her son crying. She had the softest cry she had ever heard from an infant, never having shrieked like she had heard some children do. Still, it was enough to wake her. The first thing she noticed was how cold she was – the fire had gone out so long ago as to leave no embers burning. Ratonhnhaké:ton was cold. She reached out, taking him up and pulling him against her bosom, to which he nestled in close and slowly stopped crying. Ziio lay back down, staring up at the high, thatched roof of their dwelling, feeling her sleepy son against her.
What would it have been like if he had stayed? she wondered vaguely, not engaging herself with the thought, and certainly not letting herself imagine what it would have been like had Haytham remained to raise the child. She frowned. A bad influence. That is all he would ever be. And, in a way, she knew she was right. Though he had never mentioned anything to indicate any such thing to her, and though his acts of violence seemed somewhat justified (nothing she would not have done, at least), there was something about him that put her on edge. Not enough to deter her from him, but it was there all the same. A bad influence.
Ziio didn't drift off back to sleep – instead she watched as the sun spread its girth across the floor of the longhouse and over the slumbering bodies that lay within it. She had been right: it had snowed during the night. Already Ziio could hear the village children shrieking with delight at the first snowfall, leaping through the drifts and making shapes. The snowfall had evidently been very heavy, but the village had been prepared for it, and there was no love lost… everyone could only hope the thaw would hold out until spring. It was when the snow melted that the problems truly began.
Ratonhnhaké:ton had awoken from his sleep, and had begun to cry. Ziio sat up, still warm and creased from the bedding, and begun another day.
By the third day of snow a thin, hard crust had formed over the top of it from the constant thawing during the day and refreezing during the nights. It was treacherous, though the children delighted in breaking through it and trying to balance on top of it. For those who wished to navigate from one point to another, however, the snow was a different matter entirely. The men set about shovelling the snow and moving it to form wide paths, much to the relief of the residents, Ziio included.
A number of days later, the sky became obscured with storm clouds that had pregnant, green bellies. The light of the night was blocked out, and the clouds hung so low that the golden light of the fires could be seen absorbing into the sickly colour of them. The fires did not last long, as by a few hours after nightfall all the villagers retreated indoors to shelter themselves from the impending snowstorm.
For Ziio, and indeed many other members of the village, this wasn't unusual. It wasn't a foreign circumstance so much as to cause a panic, but there was a unanimous atmosphere of concern. The wind began to howl and tug at the buildings, the trees outside the village creaking under the strain. The sound of distant, splintering wood and the rushing of leaves, whispering promises of a violent storm, did not frighten Ziio. What frightened her was her son – her small son, not yet two years old, was susceptible to the cold and all the dreadful sicknesses brought with it. If there was a panic, and she lost him, he would be trampled. No matter how she looked at it, there was always some disastrous end. She held him close, unable to settle, and eventually fell into an uneasy slumber.