Part Twenty-Six: Sullivan Expedition

It was a hot August, yet Connor continued to do work around the homestead. With many of the recruits now building bureaus throughout the colonies, there were fewer hands to do all the little repairs that always creeped up with old homes. And the manor was, indeed, old. Windows needed replacement, which was expensive as they did not have a glass smith, new shingles after a bad thunderstorm dropped a heavy branch on the roof, causing a leak, a fire starting to smoke that required a chimney to be cleaned.

All these little tasks were distractions, Connor knew, but someone needed to do them, so he did.

He did not wish to think too much on the confused, tangled knot within him. As Dobby had said, sorting through things took time.

After the Battle of Monmouth, which should have been a decisive win for the American forces, Lee had been court-marshaled starting in Brunswick, New Jersey and ending in North Castle, New York. Connor had stood firm and solid as a tree, watching the proceedings, watching as officer after officer, staff and soldier, stepped forward to talk about Lee and his incompetence in the battle, how his decisions had nearly had them lose after all the hard work from Valley Forge. Anger at Lee continued to grow, and the jury found that Lee was guilty. This had made Connor smile, seeing that laws and justice did work. But no one had said anything about how Lee had put this whole plan into motion to discredit Washington. And because that would have been treason, that would have meant a death sentence, Connor was left unsatisfied that the punishment of the court was simply to relieve Lee of command for one year.

Anger and hatred had burned, but Connor had simply turned and walked away. He had stated openly that he would kill Lee, and if he was truly an Assassin, it would not be in a fit of anger. It would be planned, it would be cautious, and it would be... after Connor had sorted through everything he felt about Haytham and Washington and betrayal. To go after Lee now would be hot-headed and reactionary, and Connor knew that that path would end in failure. So with a quiet farewell to Lafayette, he had returned to the homestead.

And kept busy.

Most evenings were spent in long, long conversations with Achilles, trying to sort through the mess inside of him, but Achilles would always tire, and Connor helped the Old Man to bed without seeming to.

The week prior, Duncan down in Boston had come up with a girl barely fifteen years old. He had seen her defending some of the younger urchins and how she would not bow in her defense. So a new recruit had joined them. She was a handful, and Connor often visited Prudence, Ellen, Catherine, and Diane to try and understand what she was going through. Idly, Connor wondered if Dobby should have stayed as she could help with any female recruits that arrived, but she was well connected in New York and best utilized there.

Connor had taken to visiting Big Dave, grateful for the tamahaac that he had provided. He often found Norris there as well, sharing ore samples, asking for them to be crafted into small things to help with the mine. Or Myriam's hunting.

Still seeking distractions, Connor decided to visit the hunter who did so much for the village and to see if she needed someone to join her on a hunting trip. Being out in the vast forests might help him sort through a few things.

What Connor wasn't expecting was an argument when he finally arrived on hot afternoon.

"But Myriam! C'est mangnifique!"

"No, Norris, this is horrible!"

Connor walked to camp, surprised to see Norris and Myriam in such a loud argument. They got along so well.

"Is all well?" he asked, glancing between the two.

"It is perfect!" Norris beamed.

"It's terrible!" Myriam growled.

Connor blinked. "I do not understand."

"We must share this news, Myriam!" Norris smiled brightly. "We are going to have a child!"

"Norris! Get out of here!" the hunter shrieked, tears flowing down her face.

"Myriam..."

"Just... go. Don't talk about this, don't tell anyone, just go!"

"But..."

"Now, Norris," Myriam growled. "Before I say or do something we'll regret."

It seemed Myriam's displeasure had finally gotten through Norris's abundant happiness and the miner looked regretfully to her. "I promise, this is good news," he said softly. Stepping closer, Norris hugged Myriam close, seeming to pour all of his love into the simple embrace. "I will come back tomorrow," he said softly. "We will talk then."

Myriam nodded, mumbled something about Norris maybe being able to listen, but she hugged back before gesturing for him to leave.

Once the miner was away, Myriam finally looked to Connor. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she sniffed, rubbing at her eyes.

Connor gave her a moment to compose herself. "You are both my friends," he said softly. "I am here for you."

Myriam glanced at Connor again, before she burst into tears again. "Oh, Connor," she sobbed. "What am I going to do?"

Shocked and completely uncertain what to do with such a strong woman crying, Connor guided her to a log and sat down by her. She continued to sob and, uncertain what else to do, he held her as his mother would have held him when he was a child. He rubbed lightly at her back and rocked her, a soothing motion that he remembered and only hoped it worked as well for Myriam.

After a while, Myriam settled, though tears were still falling, and she pulled back.

"...sorry..." she whispered.

"It is fine," he replied. He patted her back once more then set about getting dinner ready. He had often hunted with Myriam and knew the set up of her camp, and so he went through her supplies to get a light stew cooking over the fire. The silence settled around them as Connor cooked, and he let the stillness and quiet soak them, hoping that it would help Myriam as it helped Connor when he could reach it.

Stew cooked and dished out, Connor sat by the fire. "Do you wish to speak of it?"

Myriam sniffed. "I..." she sighed. "I'll admit," she glanced away, "Not sure if you'll understand. Women in your tribe are treated differently than 'round here, right?"

"That is true," he replied, watching her carefully. "Perhaps it is because I have an outside view that I might be able to see something you do not."

Myriam gave a wan smile. "Might be true. But I need Norris to see that outside view."

"I do not understand."

With a heavy sigh, Myriam took a spoonful of stew. "How much you know of what a woman's job is? For us, not your tribe?"

Connor frowned. "Women are far more restricted," he replied. "And are often treated like lower beings, but not always." He shrugged. "The ways of the white man have always been excessively complicated and confusing."

Myriam gave a harsh laugh. "Oh, that's a good way to put it. Connor, a woman has no value if she isn't a virgin. If she's seen to be someone who has sex without marriage, she's labeled quick-like as a whore and therefore ready for a brothel or just worthless for marriage material. If a man chooses to marry a 'whore', he's accepting a lower station."

Connor remembered the overheard conversation between Prudence and Ellen about how a woman must keep her honor intact. He nodded. "I have seen and heard of this," he replied.

"And, once a woman marries, there are other expectations," Myriam said, staring at the ground. "A woman isn't supposed to work, and once she marries her only job is the house and the children."

"But this is not true here," Connor replied. "Corrine helps manage the Miles End, Catherine and Diana do the laundry of many to earn money, and Prudence manages the farm just as much as Warren and Ellen runs her own business."

"Maybe, but all of that is still woman's work," she spat bitterly. "Not work I'm fit for, nor do I want to."

Connor frowned. "I do not understand. Why would you be required to do such work?"

"Connor, I'm pregnant!"

"So?"

Myriam laughed hollowly. "Connor, I wish there were more men like you in the world," she muttered. "'s worse if a woman has a baby and no husband. I have to marry him to hide that we were sleeping together, and become a damned housewife." She continued to stare at the ground. "How do I even know Norris wants to marry me? That he won't feel trapped?"

To this, at least, Connor could give a low chuckle. "Myriam, are we speaking of the same Norris?" he asked softly. "The same Norris who has fallen in love with you because of who you are, not what you are? The same Norris who was so flustered he has difficulty speaking with you, even now having known you for years? The same Norris who, upon hearing that you bear his child, was ecstatic and wishes to share it with everyone?"

Myriam gave a soft chuckle. "Suppose you're right on that score. Norris won't care at all. Lord knows, he spends enough time here anyway." She looked across the fire to him. "But even if Norris and I are fine, town'll know that this was out of wedlock. My 'honor' is stained." She looked down again. "I'll be judged."

Connor frowned, picking his words carefully. "Myriam, will the Freeman's judge you?"

The hunter chuckled. "No, been wondering when we'd get around to marriage."

"The Miles'?"

"No."

"Ellen?"

"Certainly not."

"Norris's foreman, Jacques? Big Dave? Godfrey and Catherine? Terry and Diana? Lance or his apprentices?"

"Well no, but..."

"Do any others matter if these people accept you as you are and do not judge?" Connor looked at her across the fire. "And those who do not know you, do you see them often enough to face their condemnation?"

"You make everything sound so simple," Myriam sighed. "'Excessively complex and confusing' indeed."

Connor looked down to his stew. "You are facing a difficult and terrifying moment in your life. Only you can make any decisions on what to do. And they are your decisions. Every choice made has consequences, be they good or ill, and you must decide what will be the best for you."

"Well, and for Norris, too."

The following day, after his morning run, Connor was walking back to the manor and he paused in front of the church. With a heavy sigh, he sat on a shelf of rock across from the steeple and just studied it. Myriam's worries about judgement had been bothering him, and it all stemmed from buildings like this. When Connor had read the Bible, part of the practice Achilles had made him do to learn how to read and write when old almanacs were almost memorized, there was one theme that Connor had seen, particularly in the passages about the figure of Jesus. That was a theme of forgiveness. "Turn the other cheek" and other such passages. It seemed that Christianity tallied up all the things a person did in their life and took the balance as either positive or negative. But if a person was negative, all that was needed to reach heaven was to simply regret and be sorry. It was almost as if Christianity allowed people to be as horrible and cruel as possible, but only show sorrow and all was forgiven.

It was not something Connor could understand. He could almost see it with children. When Warren or Prudence disciplined Hunter for doing something wrong and forgave him once he started crying and showing that he was sorry. Or how Ellen handled Maria. But Connor failed to see how that would work for adults, who were far too good at rationalizing and hiding behind words.

But as contradictory as those readings were, it was in direct contrast to how church was actually run. Instead of preaching forgiveness and sorrow, the churches he'd visited screamed of hellfire and damnation. If one's balance in life remained positive, but there was so much as one negative deed, one was doomed to hell. And that seemed to be in direct opposition of the teachings of Jesus, from what Connor had read.

Once more the white man confused with words.

Myriam had good reason to fear judgement, for even if Father Timothy wasn't one to shout negativity, it was so commonplace in what Connor had seen, people would be more likely to judge the huntress and perhaps scorn her as a result. And if this Christian god was for forgiveness, how could he forgive so easily?

Especially when Ratonhnhaké:ton had such difficulty forgiving himself for killing Kanen'tó:kon. Forgiveness was not easy.

"Connor?"

Blinking, he looked down from the steeple to Father Timothy. "Oh," Connor stood, "I am sorry to have disturbed you."

"No, no," Timothy smiled gently, waving it aside, "it's no bother. I've noticed that you tend to slow and stare at the church when you return from your morning runs. This morning you stopped."

"Your religion... is confusing," Connor replied, not wishing to get into the full depth of his thoughts on the matter.

"Yes, it is," Timothy replied, easing down to sit beside Connor. "I've been a pastor for near on forty years now, and I still come across things that confound me."

"Yet how can you teach a religion that you do not understand?" Connor asked, turning.

Timothy shrugged. "Doctor White doesn't understand everything about the human body, but he and that Jamie of yours still discusses it in letters. I doubt Miss Ellen Tanner knows every stitch or design in the world, but she's slowly passing it on to her stubborn daughter."

"So you teach what you understand?"

"And try to puzzle through what I don't with the congregation so we can work towards a larger understanding."

Connor smiled. "You truly are unlike other priests that I have seen."

"Too old for that fire and brimstone," Timothy replied, smiling softly. "But I think it's more than just religion that confuses you. You stick with your people's beliefs, do you not?"

Connor nodded. "It is... difficult to explain," he said, not wishing to get into how the Sky Goddess had given him his fate. "It is because of my beliefs that I have been set upon my path."

"And now you question it?"

"Not my path," Connor shook his head. "What I must do, what I work towards, that is and forever will be unshakable. Yet..."

"Yet?"

Ratonhnhaké:ton let out a long sigh. He had spoken to Achilles a great deal about the death of Kanen'tó:kon, but the Old Man understood perhaps too well, having had the Order die all around him. Connor wished to speak of his difficulties with more than just the Assassins, but the web of secrets... Ratonhnhaké:ton longed for the ways of his people where one simply spoke the truth plainly. But he understood the cost of the truth in the white man's world far too well.

"When I set myself upon my path," Connor said, looking up to the steeple again, "I had only one goal. To ensure the safety of my people. As war has brewed between the British and the Patriots, I decided that the Patriots were who I supported. I have helped where I can," and he would explain no further, "but I have been away from my people for a long time now. I returned recently to my village and..."

"And found that they supported the British instead?"

"My village is remaining neutral, but... Kanen'tó:kon," Connor looked down, the grief welling up inside of him yet again, his anxiety and regrets filling his chest and he locked his jaw to avoid it bursting forth. "He believed that the British would save our people. And he was correct in part, the Patriots will exterminate entire villages of my people if we side with the British."

Timothy nodded. "I'm reminded of great tragedies, both Greek and Shakespearean. As well as a few stories in the Bible, of two friends who chose sides that were diametrically opposed. None of these stories end well. It's why they are tragedies." The old pastor glanced at Connor. "In most of these tragedies, one ends up killing the other."

Connor's eyes misted, but he said nothing.

Timothy nodded again. "I know that Master Achilles gives you most of your guidance, as do your people, but I remain a willing ear to listen, in complete confidence."

"A healer of the soul?" Connor gave a wan smile, remember Lyle's words.

Shrugging, Timothy chuckled. "I'd never claim to be so powerful. Just a place of solace for when life gets turbulent."

Within the week another recruit, seventeen, arrived from Stephane in Albany. A tall, skinny black boy, who took one look at the old and withered Achilles, saw that he was in charge, and gave a large grateful smile. He and Duncan's recruit were soon getting competitive as they raced around the property.

And, to Connor's surprise, there was a fair bit of competition with him. The boy and girl both saw how far Connor ran each morning and were determined to match or surpass him. But since they didn't have the conditioning, the two of them rarely even kept pace with him, let alone make it as far as he did. The two seemed completely in agreement that Connor was the bar, and they had to surpass him. He was happy with the competitiveness to improve their physical feats, but he spoke for a long time to both of them about how theirs was an order that worked together. And only by working together could great things be accomplished.

Feeling faintly fed up with them, Connor checked in with Achilles to see if the Old Man wanted anything, and got a list of things to pick up in the village. Connor gratefully took the excuse to leave the manor and headed first to Big Dave to check on a list of various things, then Ellen and how a good set of clothes for the recruits were going, and finally on Godfrey and Terry for an order of lumber that would eventually be used to repair and possibly expand the stables.

He was heading up back up the hill when he heard someone running up behind him, and after how long the anxiety of everything had been building since meeting his father, he did not think of where he was, he simply reacted, grabbing the arm that was about to grab his shoulder, and swinging, flipping the man over his shoulder onto the ground.

In the middle of the swing, he heard a distinct yelp that was easily identified as Norris, who was the person who ended up on the ground, laughing and smiling.

"My friend!" Norris laughed, completely oblivious and unperturbed at having just been flipped.

"Norris?" Connor asked, surprised that the French miner had even thought that running up behind Connor was a good idea. "What are you doing?"

"She said yes!"

Connor's anxiety melted away, smiling as brightly as Norris. "Myriam?"

"We are getting married!"

Both laughed brightly, as Norris twisted to try and sit up and Connor offered his hand.

A more feminine laugh walked up more sedately. "I told you not to touch him, Norris!"

Looking up, Connor was delighted to see Myriam, rifle still slung over her shoulder, walking up and smiling with ease, instead of the tension and sorrow he had seen the last time he had seen her. "You have decided?" he asked, still grinning.

"Yes!"

"Congratulations!" he smiled, pulling them both into a tight hug. "And congratulations on your child," he said more softly.

"Come, Connor," Norris started to pull them both along. "Without you, I never would have had a chance with Myriam. You must join us as we share the news!"

With Norris practically dragging them along, Connor turned to Myriam. "You are certain?"

"Yes," she replied. "Norris and I have talked. A lot. A real lot. He doesn't want a housewife, he wants me."

The first stop was to Father Timothy, who was soon smiling as happily as Norris and Myriam and Connor. He pulled out a small book and started asking about dates. It would need to be soon, for Myriam wanted to get one more hunting trip in before she "took time off to enjoy being a newlywed," and then went back to work. September seemed to be the best time. As they were discussing, Godfrey and Catherine came in, seeking father Timothy to read a letter for them that they had received.

"We are getting married!" Norris shouted, still holding Myriam's hand.

"Oh, congratulations!" Godfrey shouted back. "Oh, a wedding!"

Once a date was chosen, Norris dragged Connor and Myriam all across the village, sharing the news and discussing with various people what was needed, and constantly asking Myriam what her opinions were. Soon everyone was in a hurry to get things done, and everyone in town was pitching in. Warren and Prudence were delighted to handle the food and catering, while Ollie and Corrine insisted they handle the banquet. Big Dave pulled out a pair of rings he'd smithed for the pair months ago, simply knowing that his best friend would eventually marry Myriam and Ellen seemed torn between being thrilled to design a wedding dress, and sullen, remembering how her own marriage went.

While the town was always lively, it seemed to almost explode in life as everyone started to pitch in for the marriage. Achilles soon trudged down the hill to start taking charge of things before everything got out of hand, making the sensible decisions and curbing some of the more enthusiastic additions that were too costly and outlandish.

Timothy pulled Connor aside at one point. "Might I have a word? There's something you'll need to do."

"Of course!" Connor replied, still smiling brightly. "What would you have me do?"

They walked to the rectory and Timothy sat the down around a pot of tea. September was still very hot, but the weather was rapidly starting to cool. "Norris," Timothy explained, "is a stickler when it comes to tradition. I think he's compensating since he knows his marriage is anything but traditional."

Having seen Dr. Lyle often with Myriam, checking her health, Connor knew that was very true.

"One of the traditions," the pastor continued, "is that the father gives the bride away. A last chance to escort a member of his family before she becomes a part of another family."

Connor refrained from frowning at that logic, which seemed to view women as property. He knew that it was different cultures and he truly knew little of the ceremonies of the settlers. "What has this to do with me?"

Timothy sat back, sipping his tea. "Myriam knows not where her father is. Indeed, she doesn't care to. But she says that you helped her in a time of need like a father would. So she and Norris are hopeful that you might act his part at the ceremony."

Nerves fluttered in Connor's stomach. "I am not familiar with your wedding customs."

"No worries about that," Timothy chuckled. "We'll be having a rehearsal. A practice version, if you will, the day before. Norris knows French weddings, Myriam's never been to a wedding, and I only know the English ceremony. We're all working around it."

"Then... I would be honored."

"Also," Timothy looked a little guilty. "Everyone wants to come. It seems there was..." he scowled, "a bet on when the two would get married. Everyone wants to show up, but our church can't hold them all. Do you think Master Achilles would mind... if..."

Connor gave a warm smile. "I think the manor has plenty of room. And being wed under the sky seems more fitting for both of them."

"Indeed."

When the middle of September came, everyone was ready for the wedding, and almost the entire town showed up at the manor. Lance's folding chairs were brought out in force to give everyone a seat, the view of the small cove was picturesque, with leaves just starting to change color. Ellen had almost been worked to the ground, both in making Myriam's dress, but also several families wanted repairs to their Sunday best for such an occasion.

Myriam still had bouts of extreme nerves and anxiety, worried about how her life was about to change and how she didn't want things to change for her. Connor, very familiar with dealing with his own anxiety, helped her with long conversations about what was expected of women, versus what actually happened to those in town. Ellen also added her own thoughts, particularly after Myriam had nearly burst into tears again during a fitting and having sent for Connor to talk her through her latest case of cold feet.

Connor had to admit, the ceremony for a Christian wedding was pretty, with words of devotion and love, and commitment. While much of the underlying concepts, Connor may not have agreed with, particularly when it was explained where they came from, the ceremony itself was, in its own way, spiritual in joining of souls. Connor knew that there were marriages that weren't good, one need look no further than Ellen, who was constantly wiping her tears away, but watching Norris and Myriam vow to love and support each other for the rest of their lives...

Perhaps this Christian ceremony was good, despite its poor history.

While not her father, Connor was indeed honored to deliver Myriam to Norris. Despite years together, the two were finally letting their commitment be open and known, and for Connor to walk down the aisle made him feel like a part of their coming together. Particularly since he didn't see himself as having done much to bring the two together, despite how they both spoke of him. Walking by her side, he felt a sense of pride, though he could not explain why.

The reception at the inn was lively, and both Myriam and Norris could not be separated. When they finally sat down, Connor walked over to offer his gift to them.

"We can't thank you enough, mon ami," Norris grinned, holding Myriam's hand close.

"Yes, our thanks to you, Connor," Myriam smiled brightly, "for all you've done for us."

"I have done little," he replied. "I have a gift."

Both smiled brightly.

"Wampum are considered very valuable amongst my people, every bead and thread being part of what is being told," Connor explained, slowly unwrapping his bundle. "Wampum are used for treaties, or to mark a monumental occasion. I can think of no other time that needs a wampum than such a wedding as yours." The wampum was a pickaxe crossed with a rifle, beaded in blues and whites and greens, and smaller details of the story of how they came together told in the small beads and threads.

"Don't know what to say," Myriam said softly, carefully running her hand along the belt. "Connor, this is too much."

"It is your story."

"Merci, mon ami," Norris said. "Truly, there are no others like you in this entire world."

Myriam leaned over and kissed Norris thoroughly. "Let's dance again!" she breathed.

Norris happily complied.

Smiling, Connor made his way over to the Scotsmen, already deep into the spirits that Ollie and Corrine were offering.

"And my little brother Joseph," Godfrey was laughing, his cheeks bright red, "he tossed him in the river!"

Diana offered a bright smile to Connor as he approached. "Connor! We were just recalling our weddings, back in Scotland."

Knowing the fondness for drink, Connor smiled. "Spirited events, I take it."

"Spirited?" Catherine asked, leaning against her husband as she lost her balance. "More like brawls than unions, they were!"

Terry scowled, though with humor. "Callin' Joe 'little' is like calling me Big Terry," he gestured at his height, easily one of the smallest men at the gathering. "Boy's a bloody mountain!"

Godfrey laughed some more. "My younger brother had a blow-up with one of Terry's cousins," he explained. "A minor disagreement about some lass's dance card. I'll just say Terry's cousin sobered up right quick when it was over!"

Another round of loud laughter. "Poor boy!" Diana giggled. "Sittin' there soppin' wet on a stump while Joseph spun 'round with the object of his affection!"

Connor ignored how the woman in the tale was an "object."

"Was good for him," Terry laughed his humorish scowl gone with another sip of his drink. "Taught him good things don't come easy!"

There was more reminiscing, weddings of people Connor had never even heard of, let alone met, all with the same lively laughter. When the Scotsmen started to get too tipsy, Connor politely retreated, sliding around Myriam and Norris as they danced by again.

He found Ellen and Dave sitting at a table, Dave's cane leaning against it.

"Hello, Connor," Ellen greeted. "Enjoying yourself?"

"I am," Connor replied, sitting with them. "It is nice to see everyone together and happy."

"Yeah," Dave said with a faint grimace. "Last time we all came together was because of my stupidity."

"And you faced it," Connor replied quietly. "You faced your mistake and have become stronger for it."

Dave nodded, then gestured to Myriam and Norris's spirited dancing. "Look at those two kids, it's a lively sight." He smiled. "Norris is one of my best friends and he couldn't have found a better woman for him. You know he had me make up wedding bands months ago, he just didn't have the nerve to ask?"

"That does not surprise me," Connor replied. "When he first was trying to talk to Myriam, he had great difficulty."

"I can only imagine," Ellen chuckled.

"Still. Proud of him," Dave smiled. "Finding a bit of peace in the world. That's a rare thing."

Ellen nodded. "Very true. Sometimes people are just right for one another. Norris and Myriam are a match made in heaven."

Dave turned a sly grin over to Connor. "Or a match made by Connor, isn't that right?"

Having faced this a lot that day, Connor just let out an exasperated sigh. "I only helped Norris muster his courage. The rest came naturally."

"Always so humble," Ellen giggled.

The festivities continued.

But just before Myriam and Norris made their discreet disappearance, Ellen stood by the fire.

"Excuse me, everyone! May I have your attention!"

Slowly, everyone turned, glasses and cups ready in case another toast for the happy couple was about to be given.

"Thank you," Ellen said, glancing down. "I won't keep you long. I would like to present something to Connor. And all of you really." She gestured and Dave limped over with a bundle that she slowly unwrapped. "I once said I'd find a way to show my gratitude for your courageous actions in my defense," she said, her eyes dark with memory. "And this is what I give you today."

Unfurled was a flag, one third in green with many golden stars in a circle, the rest cut in half, with white above and blue below.

"This flag is a symbol of our strength and unity," she said. "White for peace that we all sought when we came here. Blue for freedom, the foundation of our peace here. Green for the fertility here, of land and people that always come together and keep growing peace. And gold for the justice we've all found. A star for each of our founding members of this village." She looked around, blushing, before looking at the flag again. "I would hope you'd all be proud to fly it high above your homes and shops. I'll happily make one for each and every one of you if you so desire, but this one," she stepped forward. "This one is for you, Connor."

Distinctly misty eyed after such wonderful day, Connor took the flag and held it high, knowing that this would fly above the manor, a symbol to all that people of any color could come and live in harmony. Everyone cheered.

He turned, eyes still watery, to Ellen. "Thank you," he said softly. "So much of this is possible because of you and everyone else, not me."

"You're too humble," Achilles said, leaning heavily on his cane. "Just accept it without argument."

Connor could only nod, wetness leaking from his eyes despite his best efforts.

During Ellen's words, Norris and Myriam had disappeared, so Connor turned to the Old Man. "Let's go home."

Word arrived of a battle in Rhode Island. It was the first French-American campaign, but the British had won. One of the British strategies since the start of the war had been to occupy the major ports of the colonies and work their way inward. It was why Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Charleston down in South Carolina had been scenes of battle. But Newport, Rhode Island was also a busy, busy harbor.

Located on the actual island of Rhode Island that gave the colony its name, Newport was sheltered from the Atlantic and was easy to get to in the Narragansett Bay and then deeper inland to Providence and other towns along the bay. The British had started their occupation right at the end of '76, and to say that they were harsh was an understatement. Several redoubts had been built and occupied, using supplies from local inhabitants of the island, food was taken from the locals, animals and produce were taken, and years of town records just vanished, to be kept elsewhere since the inhabitants were not to be trusted. Houses were chopped up for firewood and the locals who lost their homes had been dealing with the harsh New England winters on their own if they didn't flee.

But with the French fleet arrival, it was decided that it was time to take Newport back. General Sullivan and General Greene, both natives of Rhode Island, were sent to gather militia and Lafayette arrived with two brigades of hardened veterans. Sullivan had difficulty recruiting militia, what with harvest season starting to come up, was no surprise, and Sullivan was less than discreet with his dislike of the French Comte d'Estaing. French pride made d'Estaing very offended.

D'Estaing managed to blockade Narragansett Bay, and the British were panicked and outgunned, thus the British started to sink their own ships. What was a good plan faced delays after delays and frustrations, fell completely apart when British ships were spotted of the southern coast of Rhode Island. The Comte quickly gathered his troops to fend off the British navy, promising he'd be back. But before his return came the hurricane. Gales blasted both the British and French Navy, breaking masts, rudders and bowsprits, while the American forces entrenched north of Newport were buffeted by the winds for two days. Lafayette, with General Green, John Hancock, and Paul Revere were hunkered down with their men, weathering it as best they could.

Disheartened and with morale dropping, many of Sullivan's men started to return home, so Sullivan had no choice but to march his men forward to start putting Newport under siege, hoping for d'Estaing's return to finish the job. But d'Estaing's fleet was so damaged, they had to retreat to a safe harbor. Boston. Sullivan sieging Newport with troops melting away and depending on the French, was understandably angry, and sent Lafayette to Boston to at least get the French troops. The seventy mile ride took Lafayette seven hours, while Sullivan started falling back with what troops remained to a better position. The British pursued, intending to push the Americans off the island. Battle started with eighteen hundred Hessians against a tiny three hundred Americans, forcing a retreat despite being able to slow the British. British ships along the western coast of the island poured cannon fire across the lines, the Hessians surged across the swampy valley, but the Americans kept repulsing each attack. Indeed, one of the most embattled regiments was a Rhode Island regiment that had over a hundred former slaves fighting side by side with white Rhode Islanders.

The shelling and fighting and repulsed charges lasted until evening. The battle had ended in yet another draw, with no clear victor other than the fact that the Americans had faced the British toe-to-toe and not backed down or been defeated. With no sign of d'Estaing coming any time soon and word from Washington that Clinton was sending reinforcements, Sullivan had no choice but to retreat. Lafayette had returned after another long day in the saddle, to help with evacuating the American troops from the island.

Blame was being spread across both sides by the French and the Americans, and Lafayette expressed great frustration in his letter about it all. It should have worked. But the delays, the hurricane, the damage of the French ships, the hot tempers of both Sullivan and d'Estaing, all conspired to yet another draw. Lafayette expressed that it was perhaps the most hard-fought battle he'd seen.

Another result, was that Lafayette was returning to France. The young Frenchman was unhappy with how things went, and wished to return to his home country to garner more support with cooler heads. Though he was currently ill, he hoped to be sailing back to France sometime that winter.

And winter was coming. Temperatures were dropping almost with every leaf, and two recruits arrived from Philadelphia from Jamie. One a man in his forties, another a woman in her thirties. Their age was a breath of fresh air after dealing with the two teenage recruits, and their experience in Philadelphia, where so much politics had played out, provided some sharp lessons for the younger recruits.

The new year brought news that the redcoats had taken Savannah Georgia, beginning the southern campaign that had been rumored for months. Connor worried at the news until he reminded himself that he no longer cared about the war. About Washington.

It wasn't true of course, but he tried to convince himself regardless. The two recruits, Nora and Joseph, fought tooth and nail with their competitive nature, and were both determined to be the best. They were soon joined by a young urchin from Dobby in New York, a boy of native blood who knew nothing of his heritage, save that he was a Red Feather. The child was wide eyed to see another who looked like him, and even at eleven he followed Connor incessantly like a young chick. Achilles looked on with a devilish smile, saying nothing but giving the impression that Connor should feel like this was some kind of divine comeuppance. Surely Connor was not so bad as a child? Connor translated the boy's name to his native tongue, and his best approximation of Algonquian, but neither sounded familiar to the child, and he was happy to stay Red Feather. Nora and Joseph were happy to teach the child everything they knew – precious little, all things considered, and with three children running around Connor's hands were full. William the forty year old printer took over when Connor was beside himself, but Anne was of little help with children, looking at them with a pain that reminded the young native of Prudence. He quietly set her over to help the farmers in hopes of helping her, while William was given the task of looking over and teaching the accounts to the three children.

His morning runs remained chilly, the teens and the child struggling to keep up and always perturbed when they passed on his way back. The village took the people coming in and out of the manor all in stride, Ellen delivering new clothes for little Red Feather and saying it was nice to see the lonely old house full of life.

"The two of you," she said one afternoon, "You and old Master Davenport, you're so focused on other people, it's nice to see some people focused on you. If you ever feel like new curtains, let me know. I just made a huge delivery to New York again, I can spare the money to make you a new set."

"That is hardly ne-"

"Of course it is," Ellen said. "I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for you. It's the least I can do."

By February it was Hunter's birthday, and the Freemans invited Connor and the rest of the manor to celebrate, along with Oliver and Corrine and Ellen and Myriam. Given how shy Prudence was around new people it was an event, and Connor watched the Old Man as he smiled gently at the four year old boy who ran about the house, giggling at his new dolls and clothes and toys. Red Feather and the child hit it off immediately, a match made, "either in heaven or hell," Warren said as he watched the two. The women all laughed, Corrine sharing several stories of her children and Ellen talking about Marie when she was young. Warren boasted to Achilles and Connor and Oliver, while the teens were clearly bored out of their minds.

Connor, for his part, marveled that Hunter had grown so large so quickly. He remembered the day of his birth so clearly, Prudence in the snow, the harried ride to find Dr. Lyle, and before: touching her belly, feeling the child kick before he even drew breath. Did life truly change so fast? Had he ever been that small? Had his ista? Haytham?

The thought of his father that small, being held by his rakshótha, hit him hard, and he sat perfectly still in his seat, trying to puzzle through it. Haytham had been ten when Edward was killed; and ten when he had first killed. To be scarred so badly... He looked at Red Feather, wondering what happened to make the child remember so little of his heritage – he did not even know what tribe he was, would that leave him scarred, too? Was Connor any less scarred, having seen the death of his mother and killed his first man at thirteen in berserk rage? Did he have any right to be at this celebration, with the blood of his best friend on his hands, with Lee still alive? So often he said that evil should be confronted whenever it was seen, or else what did that make the witness – but what was he doing now but leaving evil out there, uninhibited, while he did nothing.

Anxiety turned to sickness, and he made his goodbyes early, powering back to the manor and moving down to the hidden root cellar, working on the practice dummy and trying to ease the pain in his chest. He worked until well after dark, and when he at last exhausted himself he looked up to see Achilles watching from the stairs, face in silhouette, before moving back up the steps. Connor mutely followed, realizing he was smelling Anne cooking and listening to William teach the children to read upstairs. Achilles was in his room again, and they played through a long, complicated game of fanora.

Achilles still beat him.

"You're getting better," he said. "You are finally beginning to see the chains of consequences that result in your actions."

"It does not feel like it," Connor said softly.

"It is sometimes very hard to see progress when one has set one's goals so high above oneself," Achilles replied. "You reach for no less than perfection, and every failure you perceive presses you to push harder and harder. What you do not realize are the heights you have climbed in your struggle for that perfection. Your mother would be proud."

The words were soft, and so out of the blue Connor did not know how to react, staring at the Old Man for a long time.

"... How did you meet her?" he asked, uncertain if he would get an answer.

"By Kesegowaase," Achilles replied. "She was in Albany at the time, trying to get people to understand that there was a dangerous man named Edward Braddock who needed to be dealt with quickly before her people were massacred. Kesegowaase offered to send word to me, but she was not a patient woman, and left to deal with it herself. By the time I arrived to see what we could do the Braddock Expedition had already come and gone, and she appeared out of the woods wishing she had waited for us. She gave us information of Haytham Kenway, and a desperate need to go back to her people. We offered to escort her, but she refused to allow anyone in her valley. We supplied her for the trip, shared what information we could. She said she counted us allies, and that she would speak well of us to her people. Many Haudenosaunee allied with us in the war, but it ended badly for everyone."

Connor gave the Old Man a moment to collect his pain, too respectful to pry at that injury ever again. "You only met her once?" he asked softly.

Achilles offered a wry smile. "Once was enough to know the measure of a woman like her. I daresay Kenway thought the same. She was a spitfire, honorable and severe, resolute and determined and unbending once a decision is made, principled. I am certain she was an excellent mother."

The fire did not fill his vision, instead Ratonhnhaké:ton remembered her alive, standing in the eastern door of the longhouse, in silhouette, asking what he was up to; of holding him on her back as she worked the fields, of the feel of her hands and the scent of her hair. A smile graced his face. Pleasant memories.

That night he asked the children to share what memories they had of their parents; Nora thinking of soap and rough cotton, Joseph of the sounds of songs in fields, and Red Feather a dim memory of cool hands when he had a fever. The children all bonded with the memories, and William smiled at the cleverness of the exercise before sharing terrifying stories of his own parents. Anne left early.

As February closed Red Feather and Hunter became inseparable, while Nora and Joseph continued to compete and Anne and William taught everyone even as Connor taught them about the Order and the Creed and the complexities of the world they lived in. It was agreed that the teens would learn a trade to supplement their skills, and it took little thought to send them both to the Freemans for work on the farm and to keep an eye on the irascible Red Feather. While they were out of the house Connor and Achilles instructed Anne and William. Connor had little trouble teaching the printer, but Anne seemed to want instruction exclusively from Achilles. The Old Man said little when the young native pressed, only saying, "We share the same pain," and leaving it at that.

The weather warmed, and as the few inches of snow melted Myriam came back from the woods, eight months pregnant and finally unable to hunt. She was as volatile as a bear, clawing at anyone who dared cross her as she moved painfully from one home errand to the next. She came back with enough furs to last for several months, to make up for the inevitable time lost while the child was first born – a fact she not like one bit and only added to her moodiness. Norris was terrified of the coming birth, and they practically lived at Mile's End with Oliver and Corinne, the aging couple reassuring to both of them. Norris and Big Dave were seen together every day at the smithy, Norris giving details on some kind of present that only they knew of. Prudence generously – and somewhat painfully – donated Hunter's cradle to Myriam and Norris, saying that it was too hard for her to have another child and she was more than happy with her beloved Hunter. She cried deeply, finding it difficult to part with something that held so many memories, and her willingness to do so moved Norris to tears, Myriam speechless and only able to mutely shake her head in acceptance. Ellen had a string of baby clothes, hand-me-downs from Marie, but one special gown that she said was for the christening. Catherine and Diana had their own donations, and soon Myriam was growling at the world, unable to come to face the fact that she had to do something as womanly as giving birth – scared to the core about her life changing.

April was cold and rainy, and word came from the Assassin Council in France that Lafayette had returned to Paris only to be imprisoned for disobeying his king to go off and fight a war. It was only for a week, Mirabeau reassured, and the Marquis was celebrated by everyone as a hero; Benjamin Franklin, the famous Colonist staying in France to persuade them to join the war, delivered a gold-encrusted sword commissioned by the Continental Congress itself, and the king finally demanded an audience with the audacious boy. Mirabeau said Lafayette impressed the king, lauding the strategies against the British and placed the Marquis back on the dragoons. The boy was now using his position to lobby more support for America, and that the French Assassins would offer assistance if the American Assassins wanted it. The offer plucked at Connor's heart, the betrayal of Washington still hurtful and uncertain how he should reply.

Even after eight months he still did not know what to do about his feelings. Washington was a man of integrity and principle, even after everything else Ratonhnhaké:ton still thought that was true. He had seen the condition of Valley Forge that terrible winter the previous year – and that had been a mild season! He understood the deep and even desperate care for his men that Washington held, and his cunning political manipulation in order to get the supplies and assistance he needed. Connor had watched Washington persuade and equivocate and nudge and bargain with the indecisive Continental Congress, garnering allies and refuting enemies with his actions as much as his words. He was...

He was a good politician.

Perhaps that was why it was so hard for Connor. Sam Adams was a good politician, too, and as much as Connor liked the man there was an inherent duplicitous nature to the old radical, forever focused on his political agenda and pushing his message out to anyone who would listen. Washington was not nearly so manipulative, nor as off-putting, but he was still cut from the same cloth, and perhaps that was the mistake that Connor had made: expecting Washington to remain that principled man he thought the commander was under the circumstances he was in. Paying, feeding, supplying, and commanding an army all at once; bowing to contradictory orders from the Congress; appeasing all the factions that existed in the army itself... Something had to give. Some principle or facet of honor had to break in order to just stay floating.

But...

Why did it have to be at the expense of Ratonhnhaké:ton's people? Why were the Kanien'kehá:ka, indeed all tribes, sacrificed to make the Congress happy? Why were landed white men the only people of value in this nation they were trying to build? What made them so special as to be above all others: Achilles, Surry, Ratonhnhaké:ton, Ellen, even Mrs. Martha Washington?

"It is the ignorance born of privilege," Achilles explained one night over a game of fanora.

"I do not understand."

"You would not," Achilles said, "Because your people do not believe in privilege. You earn your positions starting from childhood as chiefs and clan mothers, and you do not own things in an effort to measure your status. Europeans, however, are obsessed with rank and order and hierarchy. Everything must be grouped, like with like, perfectly segregated and easily identifiable. Whether they know it or not, the colonists rank everything and everyone by the privileges they are afforded. The people in power are, as you say, landed white men, and they are naturally inclined to grant those privileges to those who look, sound, and act like themselves. Originally the slaves here were indentured servants, or Irish who would not convert, but it was easier to identify a slave if his or her skin color was radically different. Women have been cursed since the Bible to be subservient to men and it will be hundreds of years still before anyone can even consider the contrary. Your people live in the woods in stick huts and dress in animal skins. There is no 'like and like' between your people and the colonists, and so you are collectively written off as savage barbarian heathens, to be wiped off the face of the earth to make way for people who really know how to 'use' the land."

"But why do they not see that?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked. "Why do they not realize that they are favoring but a small fraction of the world that they live in?"

Achilles gave a short, bitter snort. "Because they fear what they do not understand," he said simply. "Landed white men will not understand women, cannot understand natives, and choose not to understand slaves. It is too much work to understand that they are a minority of the world – and even if the blessed few did realize that, they fear the very idea of being without power, and so they cling to it and pass it to those who understand what that power means. It is the way of the world, and I was a fool to think I could change it here. We all were."

Connor turned twenty-three on April fourth, and twenty days later, Connor saw Dr. Lyle dashing out of his house during his morning run with his bag and jogging to the Mile's End.

Myriam was in labor, then.

Connor finished his exercises, knowing he had the time, and passed the three children (again, the teens were absolutely irate) in a light jog to the inn to see if there was anything to be done. Before he even opened the door Norris was shoved into his chest by a politely hassled Oliver. "Oh, Connor! Excellent, keep him busy, will you?" His plea was punctuated by a shrill shriek upstairs, Myriam, and Connor watched as Norris paled all the way to his lips and swaying on his feet.

The young native pulled Norris to the Freeman farm first, asking after Warren and Prudence what to do. Warren was of little help, he had enough wits to stay with his wife, and suggested the lumberers. Godfrey and Terry were more than happy to hear the birth was happening, and broke out the rum to keep Norris occupied. Not particularly comfortable to see the three men get so drunk, Connor left them to their early celebration and moved up instead to see Big Dave and ask after the crafting that he and Norris had been set over for the last two months.

Big Dave was not there, however, but rather across the way at the Tanner house, Ellen and he sitting just outside her door and talking quietly.

"Yes, Connor?" Big Dave asked, a sparkle in his eye.

"Myriam is in labor," Connor said softly. Ellen perked. "Norris is with Godfrey and Terry to... celebrate, but I know he wanted to present his gift the day of the birth. Is it ready?"

"Very nearly," Dave said, getting up and grabbing his cane. He gave a long, soft look to Ellen before the two shared a nod and he and Connor moved back to the smithy. "All we needed was some wires," he was saying. "I don't have the tools for that, we had to order in, but we were able to make everything else, and all that's left is to string it together. Right in here." Hobbling first into his house and then into his smithy, Big Dave pulled out a wood box and hoisted it to the table. "Finished it a few days ago."

"Thank you," Connor said softly, taking the box and backtracking to the lumberers. Norris was already much more... relaxed in his cups while the Scotsmen had barely even started. Norris took the box with a slurred "Merci..." and the young native left the miner to the tender care of Godfrey and Terry. With little else to do, he left the family to their birth and went back to the house, expecting to hear news in the next few hours.

By lunch the manor had heard nothing, Achilles reassuring Connor that long births were more than normal. Anne mumbled something similar before disappearing to the root cellar to beat at the practice dummy with all of her might. William and Connor worked the children through their reading over the course of the afternoon, Nora had a natural skill for reading and Joseph for understanding, making the pair very successful, while Red Feather dutifully learned his alphabet and their corresponding sounds. When dinner came and went with no word from the inn, Ratonhnhaké:ton could wait no longer and went down to Mile's End to hear what had happened. Oliver and Corinne were both in the tavern, behind the bar and talking quietly. Norris was there, stone sober with his box in his hands, and lumberjacks with tense expressions on their faces. On the far side of the room Father Timothy was leading a prayer circle with Prudence, Warren, Ellen, Catherine, Diana, and Lance. Dave was there, fiddling with his cane, next to his best friend. Myriam was still screaming upstairs.

"What has happened?" Connor asked softly, moving to the innkeepers.

"Dr. Lyle came down, 'round lunch," Oliver said, trying to keep his hands busy. "Said it was going to be a difficult birth, said we needed prayers."

Ice in his chest.

"What is wrong?"

"He wouldn't say," Corrine said. "His hands were covered in blood, only said we had to get as many prayers as we could."

Without another word Connor powered back to the manor and explained the situation, and Achilles and the others were filed back down to the inn to join the prayer group. Ratonhnhaké:ton, always uncomfortable with religion not his own, instead sat with Norris, his body perfectly still as his chest rattled with anxiety. And they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until, at last, at one in the morning, eighteen hours after the contractions had started, an exhausted Dr. Lyle stumbled into the tavern, blood up almost to his elbows and wiping himself down on an equally bloody apron, and stood in front of Norris.

"I'm sorry," he said simply.

Norris, half asleep, blinked up owlishly. "Quoi?"

Dr. Lyle took an audible breath through his hooked nose. "I'm sorry, Norris," he said again. "The umbilical was wrapped around the child's neck. She had no hope."

Norris was still uncomprehending, sitting up and staring at the sagged features of the doctor. Color was slowly draining from his face, Ellen and Prudence were already sobbing, but the miner could only ask, "When can I give the present?"

"Norris..." Godfrey started to say.

"Non, je ne comprends pas, what are you saying?" his voice was rising in pitch.

"Your daughter," Dr. Lyle said, failure etched in every intonation, "was a stillborn."

"Mort-né..." Norris whispered, face slackening as the horror of the words finally, finally, set in. His face crumpled in on itself, two fat tears rolling down his cheeks before he buried his face in his hands and collapsed into a long gut-wrenching wail. "Noooooooon!" he cried out. "Noooooon! Non, non, non, non, non! Comprends pas! Comprends pas! C'est impossible! C'est incroyable! Ce n'est pas vraaaai...!" His boxed gift slumped from his lap and tipped to the floor, opening to reveal a complex series of metal pipes, wind chimes, which had been hand-picked and smelted by Norris himself. Godfrey and Terry tried to offer comfort, Dave putting a massive hand on his best friend's shoulder. Dr. Lyle did not stay long, going back upstairs to treat an exhausted Myriam, Diana and Prudence quick to offer help and disappearing with him.

And Achilles, Achilles looked as he had the night he told Ratonhnhaké:ton the story of Shay, crippled with age as he silently worked himself to his feet and left the inn. Connor and the others soon followed, all of them grieving the loss of a child.

The next morning was cool and grey.

Connor pushed himself in his run, making it almost completely out of the valley before his lungs gave out and he finally stopped. He braced his hands against his knees, struggling for breath as his entire body shook with negative emotions, consumed with memories of his mother, conflicting thoughts of his father, the desperation of Prudence to have a child, the fear Myriam had expressed over her pregnancy, everything crashing together in a cacophonous noise that Ratonhnhaké:ton could not escape from in his mind. He must have spent half an hour under the canopy of a tall maple tree, consumed by his emotions and struggling to think of stillness.

It rained as he made his way back to the manor; he did not pass the kids, he had known the previous night that they would likely not train this morning.

Connor stopped at the inn again, but Corrine told him Myriam was taking no visitors. Nodding, he moved further down the path to Dr. Lyle to see him sitting in the rain under his tree, water running down his face and glasses as he stared at nothing, mind just as consumed as Connor's. The young native walked up to the medicine man, uncertain if there was something he should do.

Dr. Lyle sensed his presence eventually, and snapped old eyes up to Connor.

"Sorry," he said in a low voice, standing stiffly and rubbing a soaked hand over his equally soaked face. "Did you need something?"

"No," Connor replied. "Do you?"

The doctor's eyes widened, staring at Connor for several awkward seconds before a soft, self-deprecating smile graced the doctor's thin lips. "Nothing you can give me, lad," he said. "Times like this call for God's council, one night drunk beyond sense, and a thorough review of my medical journals. Chantal-Manon is not the first patient I've lost in my career, and she won't be the last, though I wish it were otherwise. It's times like this I realize just how little we know about the human body, and once the sting of the loss is gone I'll be all the more determined to know more. Until then..." Dr. Lyle couldn't finish the sentence, giving Connor the pained look of a man who lost a great battle, and sat back down on his stump to go back to thinking in the rain.

"Dr. White," Connor said softly. "You will make yourself sick, sitting out here."

"I may," Lyle said, "But the rain does me good. Today it gets to act as my tears."

And Connor could not deny the man his means of comfort.

It was a week before Myriam was even seen, locked up in her temporary room at the Mile's End as she was, and Norris alternated from locked up with her to passed out over his cups in the tavern, unconscious sobs sometimes slurring through his stupor. When Myriam finally showed herself, it was to go to church on Sunday, and she stayed there after service for almost two hours, finally escorted back by Father Timothy. Connor watched from the trees unobtrusively, trying to gauge the hunter's actions. Would she start a mourning war? Unlikely, taking a child to replace one lost was considered taboo in the Colonist world view, but there was a darkness in the woman's eyes that Connor was perhaps too familiar with, and he worried that Myriam had so isolated herself.

It was the end of May when she finally came out on a day that wasn't Sunday, she powered out in her hunting clothes, face red with anger and Norris trailing after her, pleading in French.

"No, Norris," she insisted, taking her musket and slinging it over her back. "I need to hunt. I need to get an order of furs in, your mine won't hold us out forever, and it's past time I did what I was supposed to do."

"But Myriam...!"

"It's better this way," she hissed. "I don't need you hovering!"

"Mon petit..."

"Don't French your way out of this," she growled. "I don't need to be held and fawned over, I need to be out in the woods, doing my work like I was supposed to in the first place. I was a fool to even think otherwise."

"But..."

"I'll see you in two months, Norris," Myriam said, slinging her pack over a shoulder. "Maybe by then..."

"By then what?" Norris begged, his voice echoing off the valley. "I don't understand what you want me to do! We lost a child, we are both in pain, should be not comfort each other together?"

"And be the good wife?" Myriam demanded in a low voice, eyes narrow. "You want me to cry into my petticoats and cling to you? Would that make you feel better? Do you want me to mope around the house like you do, lost and wondering what to do with myself? I'm not built like that Norris! I thought you of all people knew that!"

"That is not what I am saying!"

"Yes it is!"

Connor, unable to watch the two fight any longer, stepped up, gently touching their shoulders, drawing their attention and reminding them with his very presence where they were. Norris was shame-faced, looking down and wringing his hands, but Myriam's face was cold as stone. She wrenched herself away from Connor's gentle touch and stormed off, muttering curses under her breath.

"Connor," Norris pleaded. "Please, I don't know what to do..."

"I will follow her," he promised. Dave was seen limping down the path, and the young native left Norris to the miner's best friend as he moved around the inn, taking the narrow path over the river and to the mine, where Myriam was sitting on the shallow bank, sharpening her knife. She gave him a hateful glance.

"Did he send you?" she demanded, accusation in her voice.

"No," Connor said, walking up slowly, as if approaching a wild cat. He crouched down a few feet from her, watching her as she rhythmically ran her whetstone over the blade. It was the knife Norris had fashioned for her. "I came to ask if you were well."

Myriam made an ugly noise. "Everybody keeps asking that," she muttered in a bitter voice. "Diana, Prudence, Ellen, your new girl Anne. Don't know why they keep asking. I'm fine."

Connor shook his head. "No, you are not."

The silence stretched out after that, Myriam sharpening her knife and Connor simply waiting, perfectly still, eyes on her unblinkingly. Myriam was not a weak woman, she faced dangers head on, from bears to cougars; she knew who she was and was happy with what she was. For a long time she had no intention to follow the traditional path of Colonial woman, content to life in the woods and the quiet, trade with tribes and hunt, live life as she saw fit. Marriage – even marriage to Norris – had terrified her; she did not want the life she loved to change, but she faced it resolutely. Pregnancy... that had been a different matter entirely. Life with Norris, Connor knew, she had enjoyed long before they were married, but a child changed everything, and she had shared with him her worries, her ambivalent feelings.

The hunter finally cursed, licking blood from her thumb. "It doesn't matter," she muttered.

"What?"

"It doesn't matter," she said again, louder this time. "It doesn't matter how I feel. God never made me to be a housewife, what made anyone think He made me to be a mother? Damn fool idiotic thing to expect of me. Never understood why He gave me a woman's body, I'm terrible at playing at it, so of course I-" she cut her words off immediately, biting them down before her thought could be finished. Connor said nothing, simply waited, perfectly still. She looked at him, face reddening, anger filling her features and energy pushing her to her feet. "It's all his fault," she said. "He's the one that put that thing in me, he's the one who said I'd be a good mother, he's the one who was happy about it! It should have been him! He should have carried the stupid thing in his stomach for a year, go through all the changes and the loss of skill and the swollen feet and the strange tastes and the sickness. He should have been the one to give birth, he would have done it right!"

Connor blinked, listening between the words. "You feel the loss is your fault?"

"Of course it was!" Myriam roared. "I'm no good with these womanly things! I knew that all my life, but that damned Norris had me absolutely convinced I could be a mother! Fool! Damned idiotic French fool!"

And at last her voice broke, and she collapsed into a fit of tears. Connor reached over and slowly drew her into an embrace, uncertain what else to do as Myriam weathered the storm she had been building to. The sun was past its zenith when it finally ended, and Connor risked saying something.

"It does matter," he said softly. "What you feel. It does matter, because it happened to you just as much as it happened to Norris, and Prudence and Dr. Lyle and the others. You cannot assume responsibility for the guilt simply because you do not feel strong as a woman. Norris needs you, and I believe that you need him. You cannot be strong all the time."

"I was before," she moaned. "I didn't need anyone before I came here!"

"And were you happy then?"

She did not answer, but Connor was eventually able to coax her back to the valley, and slowly walked her to the church and Father Timothy. The preacher took one look at Myriam and stopped his discussion with Warren, darting down the aisle and touching the poor woman's shoulder. "My dear child," he said softly. Warren joined him outside, and they shared an uncertain look, neither man sure what to do in these circumstances. "Prudence keeps trying to talk to her," Warren said, rich voice low and shaky. "We have lost children, too, but she will not share her pain with us. Ellen, Miss Tanner, she is Myriam's close friend, but she will not speak to her. Not even Norris..."

"She cannot see past her own pain," Connor said softly. "For many years, I, too, could not see past mine." He looked down at his hands, thinking of Kanen'tó:kon. "I paid a heavy price for it. Perhaps Father Timothy will have better luck."

June brought sunny weather and much growth, it was the most fertile year yet for the Freemans, and Ellen's lucrative tailoring earned more than enough money to recover the loss of Myriam's fur trade. She worked not only on outfits but also upholstery, and spent hours at the spinner making her own thread. Marie was her little shadow, learning the trade and adding small, hand made dolls and pincushions to the list of things she sold in New York. Lance continued to boggle at the thought of folding chairs, and filled in two orders of them – one in Boston and one in Philadelphia, that also brought in a lot of money. Dr. Lyle worked past his defeat and continued to grow herbs in the back of his house, experimenting on them and learning as much as he could with renewed vigor.

Word spread from Albany that the raids were continuing to worsen. The Haudenosaunee had split over which side to back in the war – the first divide the nation had ever suffered: the Tuscarora and Oneida choosing the Patriots and the Kanien'kehá:ka, Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga all choosing the regulars. Last November had seen a brutal massacre in Cherry Valley – no, this had started much earlier. After the battles at Saratoga, the entire frontier had turned into a battleground. Loyalist allied natives with redcoat support and armament raided Patriot settlements and visa versa. The raids became bloody and ruthless, enemies scalping each other in retaliation for previous slights, not understanding they were perpetuating the cycle of raids. Ratonhnhaké:ton was too afraid to go back to his valley – in part because he feared seeing it in ruin, but mostly because he could not yet face that Kanen'tó:kon was dead by his hand, and he would have to admit this sin to Oiá:ner. This had led Thayendanegea, one of the war chiefs the Confederacy had named along with Sayenqueraghta and Kaiiontwá:kon, to lead a retaliatory raid on Cherry Valley. When all was said and done, Thayendanegea, known as Joseph Brant to the Colonists, and his war party had killed fourteen soldiers and a staggering thirty settlers, not including another thirty captured. It was hard to tell fact from propaganda, all Ratonhnhaké:ton knew for certain was that more blood was going to flow, and he prayed to all of the Spirits that his neutral valley would be spared.

The inevitable retaliation came again: something called the Sullivan Expedition.

Ratonhnhaké:ton was not surprised, he had learned the pattern of hate the settlers suffered under in the most intimate way possible, he reached for his neck in phantom memory, and he was not surprised that Washington had done something so villainous. What did surprise him, however, were his feelings. He was riddled with anxiety, such that he packed his horse in spite of Achilles' warning and rode his black mare west towards his home, that was nothing new, but his mind was consumed with trying to figure out the political gain from such an expedition, why Washington had decided to do this again when the commander knew Ratonhnhaké:ton's feelings on the matter. Often he caught himself wondering why he even cared, his people were in danger, what did the whys matter?

He left in the middle of the July heat when he heard the news, head swirling with politics that were unnecessarily complicated, and determined to do what he could to mitigate the damage.

It was three-hundred-eighty-three miles from the manor to the Pennsylvania-New York border, to the juncture of the Susquehanna and Chemung Rivers, where Sullivan, the leader of the expedition, had created a fort – arrogantly named Fort Sullivan. The ride took three weeks – closer to four, because of a series of thunderstorms that kept travel almost to a crawl. He hoped to do twenty miles a day, but some days he could only manage five. He arrived in the middle of August, and Ratonhnhaké:ton found the pickets first.

"Hey, it's you!" one of the Continentals said. "You're that fellow, Caleb, Christian, something or other that came with the supplies! Hail and well met, what brings you up this way into savage territory?"

Ratonhnhaké:ton blinked, surprised he was remembered from over a year ago as he reigned up. "I am here to speak to the commander of this expedition," he said simply.

"That's Major-General Sullivan," the picket said brightly. "He'll be glad to see you, guide says there's a village up ahead, don't know about us. You're from around here, right, you can help us slaughter the redskins."

Ratonhnhaké:ton was nearly sick to hear the casual tone, but he got his directions and passed into the hastily constructed fort. General Sullivan was meeting with his other commanders when Ratonhnhaké:ton was sent in, and greeted only with a meeting of the eyes before he was summarily ignored in favor of the guide. The meeting stretched for another twenty minutes before it was concluded, and Sullivan finally looked up to Ratonhnhaké:ton. "Yes?" he asked.

"My name is Connor," the young Kanien'kehá:ka said. "I have worked with Commander Washington before."

Sullivan's eyes narrowed, searching his memory, before recognition dawned. "Yes, I remember you," he said. "The Commander sent you after the missing supplies, they arrived the same day as the delegates from Congress. Didn't you also come with us when we crossed the Delaware to Trenton? But you're not a soldier. A guide? A spy? What do you want?"

"I am here to prevent unnecessary bloodshed," Ratonhnhaké:ton said.

Sullivan laughed. "God save you!" he said cheerily. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a war. Bloodshed is inevitable, unnecessary or otherwise. Only way to avoid it is to inflict it."

"No," Ratonhnhaké:ton said. "Inflicting is causes more of it. You fail to understand the cycle you are perpetuating. I am here to council you."

"On whose authority?" Sullivan asked, eyes narrowing.

"My own. Your people call me Connor, but my name is Ratonhnhaké:ton of the Kanien'kehá:ka, member of the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations. Your expedition will harm my people, and so I have come to ask you to stop."

Sullivan pursed his lips, working his jaw as he contemplated what Connor had told him. The man was not an idiot, none of the men Washington put in charge were, and Sullivan understood that this was a political talk as much as it was a humane one. Ratonhnhaké:ton balked that the man even needed to debate this, and he pressed his point. "What you are seeking to do will not achieve the goal you have set for yourself. The frontier is a battleground, yes, the Six Nations are divided, yes, and people are suffering, yes. All of this is true. Thayendanegea was wrong to kill so many settlers at Cherry Valley last year, I acknowledge that fact as a member of the Confederacy. But you, in turn, must acknowledge that destroying our homes and villages, salting our earth and burning our crops, will not end the conflict as you think it will. It will instead perpetuate the cycle. The frontier is not a war of Patriot and Loyalist, American and English, it is one retaliation after another, one atrocity in answer to another. You are retaliating after Cherry Valley, Thayendanegea and the other war chiefs will retaliate for this, and visa versa, until the entire land has been eaten by the need to see blood. I am in no position to speak for all of the Haudenosaunee, but surely you, an educated and enlightened man, sees that nothing good can come of this expedition."

"I hear your words, Connor," Sullivan said slowly. "There is truth in what you say. You are articulate and educated yourself, I can see why Washington was so hurt when you left, but what you don't understand is that this is more than retaliation."

"In what way?"

"We have more enemies than the redcoats and the Loyalists," Sullivan said. "We're carving out a place for ourselves, a tiny would-be nation that needs to convince the world that invading us is a bad idea. We have to send a message to our enemies – and yes, boy, that means your people – that we are not to be trifled with. We must tell the world that we are strong, we are firm, and we do not tolerate savages scalping women and children lightly."

"And so you, too, would scalp women and children?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked.

Sullivan gave a small, dark smile. "Save the rhetoric. My orders," he said in a deliberate tone, "Are very clear. I respect you, boy, because Washington respects you. But my orders state overtly that I will not listen to any overture of peace before the total ruining of your settlements. We will have no more retaliations, as you put it, when your people can't eat this winter, and they learn the hard way it is because they were foolish enough to try and attack us, who have done nothing to garner their hatred."

"You are wrong," Ratonhnhaké:ton said, voice rising slightly. "You only condemn an entire Confederacy to starvation and death."

"And they deserve every moment of it," Sullivan said, eyes dark. "You've said your peace, boy, it's time for the men to work. When Clinton and his men get here, your people will know what it means to stand against these united states."

Ratonhnhaké:ton worked his jaw, chest tight, as he took his mare and rode out of the fort, not even acknowledging the picket who waved to him. Instead he moved into the woods, to the settlement that would be attacked the next morning. The village was not unaware of the newly made fort, and already most of the village had packed and started the twenty odd mile walk to Newtown, across the border in New York. Many, however stayed to fight the Continental Army.

"That is foolish," Ratonhnhaké:ton said. "They are too many, and there has been too much blood already. I cannot stop them, but I will not see you, my people, hurt."

"You are not our people, Ratonhnhaké:ton," said the roiá:ner bitterly. "We know of your training and your mission by Iottsitíson, Thayendanegea was there when you killed Warraghiyagey, he saw your roiá:ner banish you from your tribe. You do not understand the changes that have come these last few years, the hatred of the white men. We have had no peace. They do not want peace. Why did you not advocate for peace then, when Warraghiyagey sought to protect our lands, why did you not advocate peace then, when the Nations were divided? But now, when the enemy is in our home and ready to destroy us, now you advocate peace? It is clear who you side with in this conflict, as the Oneida and the Tuscarora, and we will not abide your forked tongue. You are allied with atenenyarhu, men who will devour us whole so that they might claim the land, and we will not stand by and let you do so. We must fight for what is right, for it not us then who?"

Ratonhnhaké:ton was shaken to his very core at those words, the world under his feet crumbling as he fell into free-fall. How could this have happened? How could anyone think that he was the very thing he had sworn to defeat? He had not realized that Thayendanegea was one of the chiefs at that meeting, that the great war sachem had witnessed him doing Iottsitíson's will. That one act had cost him, had cost Kanen'tó:kon, so much... And now he saw just how far the chains of consequences stretched. Ratonhnhaké:ton was not an unknown warrior on Spirit Quest, he was the boy who had killed William Johnson, the white sachem who spoke for their people to the settlers, to be reviled and hated by all. Had he truly been so blind? Was this why Kanen'tó:kon had come to hate him so completely? Was this why his dreams held such bad luck? Was this why he had been nearly hung?

He moved in a daze, lost in his thoughts, through the morning fog, letting the black mare take him where she would, unable to process what he had just heard. He only came back to himself when he smelled smoke, and he realized the attack Sullivan had planned had begun. He turned the mare and trotted over the hilly terrain back the way he had come, and saw the town he had just left was indeed destroyed.

The second army that Sullivan spoke of arrived on the twenty-second, and four days later they began their march. Ratonhnhaké:ton rode ahead of them, towards Newtown, New York where the village had retreated to, and tried to tell them what was happening, and would happen if they continued to fight. None of the roiá:ner would speak to him, however. Thayendanegea was at Newtown himself, along with Kaiiontwá:kon, the former organizing for battle while the latter was moving from one village and settlement to the next, fighting to get as many Haudenosaunee evacuated north to Canada as possible. Known to the white men as Joseph Brant and Cornplanter, respectively, they were two of the three war chiefs the Confederacy had chosen to lead the fight against the Patriots, and both were resolute in the determination to stop the slaughter before it even started.

Ratonhnhaké:ton was not allowed to speak to them, both knew him as the man who killed Warraghiyagey, and many in Newtown whispered that he was little more than an apple, red skin outside, but completely white underneath. The ugliness of the language hurt even more than from the settlers, because these were his people, and he was incapable of believing that the followers of the Great Peacemaker Skennenrahawi would be so bloodthirsty. It was Skennenrahawi who was the founder of the Confederacy, along with Hiawatha, that forbade cannibalism, human sacrifice, and black magic. What was this but cannibalism and human sacrifice? What was war other than black magic? Even a righteous war such as the Colonists...

It was too much for him to reconcile in his mind, too much was happening too fast, and he could not fathom that he was unable to stop this. What was his training – over half of his life dedicated to the art of the Hirokoa, if not to prevent such events as this? He just needed time, just a little more time, to heal and kill Charles Lee, to talk to his father one more time, to make all of this right, he only needed a little more time and why wasn't it enough?

The battle took place on Sunday, the twenty-ninth, in Newtown. The Haudenosaunee were not prepared for the complicated plan Sullivan had determined, and it was only the slow march across swampy marshes that gave them enough time to escape. Kaiiontwá:kon swore revenge, that the raids would not stop, but it was empty rhetoric as forty towns were burned, salted, and completely destroyed as Sullivan brutally marched from his fort all the way up into Seneca territory.

"The man Washington," Thayendanegea said, "He is known to us as Conotocarious, the Town Taker. This has shown us that he has not changed, he is a Hanodaganears, a Devourer of Towns. Everyone will know this."

But all Ratonhnhaké:ton could think about was the coming winter, and what his people were going to do.

Author's Notes: The short version: it all goes downhill from here, folks.

Though we start off in a happy place with Myriam and Norris' wedding, there isn't really room in the story for good things to happen (even to them. God poor kids! We're sorry!), because we are now at the stage where Connor's life slowly starts to fall apart. It started with the death of Kanen'to:kon of course, but now he realizes just how much that loss actually hurt, because it was not just his best friend but his entire people he lost. Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), Sayenqueraghta and Kaiiontwá:kon (Cornplanter) are rather famous in history, we highly recommend looking them up on wikipedia. It has weight when such storied members of the Haudenosaunee denounce Ratonhnhake:ton - and a spit in everything he's done up to this pointby callng him an atenenyarhu and accused of eating his people, to say nothing of racism at last touching his idyllic home. His very home has rejected him, as Achilles predicted several chapters ago, and he has to watch impotently as his people are slaughtered. His village is safe in its neutrality, but that like saying your home town is fine while the rest of the state is burning to the ground.

We've talked about this in PMs and review replies, but it's worth stating here: it is our collective duty as Americans to do more than just thump our chests and show " 'murica! Fsck yeah!". We have the duty to understand that our history is not this bright and shiny canvas of heroes and crusades and flags and patriotism. Ours is not the perfect country we laude; we have dark, dark roots in the very foundation of our country, and more than learning ABOUT it in school we should learn FROM it to be the perfect nation we try to hard to strive for. We have to understand that there were 42million native americans before we came here and now make up less than two percent of our country's population - and no matter how many people try to say that "they made war with us!" Or "some of those tribes were war like!" we fought for the sole reason that we wanted them extinct so we could take their land for our own use. We broke our word constantly and paid people for scalps - aka paid people to go out and indiscriminately kill native americans.

It's as Achilles said, like must be with like, and it's very hard sometimes to see the beauty of a diverse canvas, let alone hand power over to someone that is so hard to identify with. As a country we should openly fear and denounce those who want to separate us or only see value in people who share our religion or enjoy making people afraid of those who are different. Even belying how unhealthy that kind of language is, it shows how little understanding such a person has for the country they pound their fists over.

Achilles, of course, being the Old Man on the Hill has the benefit of foreshadowing, and it sort of hurt even more because he tried to warn Ratonhnhake:ton about this and he didn't listen.

Next chapter: The coldest winter in history, tuberculosis, and us geeking out over our home state. Did we mention it all goes downhill from here?