Hello! Here is a new chapter!
Thank you Black_Wolf_4935, Logan_Miller_6834, Divine_Cheese, Shingle_Top, AlexZero12, Mium, paffnytij, Galan_05, and Porthos10 for the support!
Before we begin, I'd like to ask for your thoughts.I've started reworking Volume 1 with the goal of publishing it (probably divided into four books), both in English and French, either through self-publishing or a traditional publisher.
However, I've been wondering whether some parts, especially in the very beginning, should be trimmed or restructured to avoid losing readers' attention.
What do you think?This first book will cover the story from the Prologue up to the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean aboard L'Océan.
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François advanced silently through the dark, sodden woods.
Around him, several men moved in the same direction, their nerves stretched to the breaking point.
He tightened his grip on his musket and swallowed hard.
Every sense was on edge. Every creak of a branch, every breath. Everything felt amplified. The furious beating of his heart echoed in his ears like a drumroll.
In the distance, the artillery thundered without pause. The blasts came one after another, irregular and deafening, and François didn't dare imagine how much powder was being burned every minute.
Over there was hell; here, it was the calm before the storm.
His company, along with many others, was trying to flank the enemy. No one had any illusions—it would be brutal. Many of them would die.
François bit his lower lip and forced himself to take another step. He was terrified.It wasn't his first battle, perhaps that was the problem. He knew exactly what awaited him.
Like a spectator to his own life, he saw his hands move, fixing the bayonet to the end of his weapon. His comrades did the same. The fight was coming.
Then they emerged from the treeline and reached a narrow path bordered by hedges. That's where the ordeal began.
Even before seeing them, François knew they were there. The Prussians.
The men of his regiment and those of Poitou opened heavy fire on a large Prussian reserve unit. Every second, a man fell, only to be replaced by another.
Finally, under the pressure, the enemy began to give way. The right wing, commanded by Lieutenant-General de Conflans, advanced—slowly at first, then faster and faster—until they ran into a wall of soldiers blocking the way, sheltering behind an embankment.
They had been waiting for them.
The first rank dropped to one knee and took aim. The lines behind followed suit, forming a solid blue wall.
François flinched and instinctively took a step back.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A long volley cracked through the air, and a thick serpent of smoke coiled between the two sides. Around François, countless comrades collapsed, screaming.
Somewhere, someone shouted the order to take firing position. François obeyed.
"Fire!" Captain Gilbert roared.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He pulled the trigger and the shot went off by itself. The barrel kicked upward, and a powerful stench of burned powder filled his nostrils.
He didn't know how, but he knew that a man on the other side had just died.
All it had taken was a squeeze of the trigger. It was that simple.
The exchange of fire went on relentlessly. Each man reloaded as fast as he could, trying to be just a little quicker, a little more accurate than his enemy.
Bullets hissed so close that François could sometimes feel the heat of their passing brush his face. And strangely, he no longer felt afraid.
That was a luxury he could no longer afford. All he could do was reload and fire.
And suddenly, he couldn't even say how, it was as if time had leapt forward. He found himself in the thick of hand-to-hand combat.
In front of him, the Prussians were falling back. The entire front was collapsing under the force of the regiments of Picardy, commanded by Monsieur de Bréhant, and of Poitou under Monsieur de Choiseul.
François felt drained, like everyone else. But when he saw the enemy abandon their position, strength surged back into him, his blood burning like molten lava.
"Forward!" a powerful voice bellowed above the chaos.
Together, like a great white wave, the French surged ahead and charged the enemy with fixed bayonets.
François let out a primal roar and vaulted over the embankment, determined to drive out anything that didn't wear his uniform. He charged straight at an enemy soldier who clearly hadn't realized it was time to run.
The butt of François's musket smashed into the man's face.
Crack!
The sound of the skull breaking was sickening.
He stepped over the fallen body, flipped his musket, and drove his bayonet mercilessly into the man's chest. The soldier gave a short, choked cry.
"H-hu!"
François pulled the blade free, and as the man still moved, plunged it again—deeper this time. The noise it made was like the snap of a dry branch underfoot.
The man stopped moving.
Mind empty, François stared at the red-stained blade, at the blood trickling down the cold steel.
He froze, barely aware of what was happening around him.
Mechanically, he lifted his head and took in the scene of which he was now a part.
The enemies still standing were growing fewer by the minute. Not far away, a Prussian flag toppled to the ground.
At that moment, even though the cannons still belched fire, he knew the battle was won. The enemy, however, seemed slow to realize it—they were too busy fighting.
Boom!
A violent shock suddenly threw him to the ground. He fell heavily onto the still-warm body of the man he had just killed. Only now did he notice how young he was, almost a child.
In those empty eyes, he could still read the last flickers of emotion: fear and regret.
But he couldn't stay there, lying exposed. He looked up and saw a Prussian covered in blood, sporting a thick mustache. The man raised his weapon to bring it down on him.
Without thinking, François rolled to the side.
Tchack!
The Prussian's bayonet plunged into the lifeless body beside him. François yanked a knife from his pocket and slashed with all his strength at the attacker's leg.
"AAARGH!"
The man screamed and dropped to his knees. François tried to pull the blade free, but it stuck fast.
The Prussian seized the chance to grab the Frenchman's hand. His hate-filled eyes locked on François's, and, still clutching his left hand, he reached for his throat.
He was so strong…
François felt his windpipe being crushed. Breathing became impossible, and his vision quickly began to blur.
With his free hand, he fumbled desperately for anything—anything—that might help him escape. But there was nothing.
His face turned purple with panic, and he attacked the man's face with the only weapons he had left: his fingernails.
His thumb jammed into the enemy's clenched mouth, his index finger clawed at his nose, and his middle finger drove into his eye.
The Prussian squeezed his eyes shut, but that wasn't enough to protect him. He screamed in agony as François pressed harder.
Suddenly, the man's eye burst. There was a strange, wet sound, and something thick and viscous ran down François's hand.
What came next was no longer human.
The mustached man, his face half-covered in blood, fell backward, writhing in agony. François seized the chance to suck in a lungful of air.
But he didn't stop moving.
He threw himself onto the soldier, grabbed his head with both hands, and, driven by raw instinct, drove both thumbs into the man's eye sockets—bursting the second one—then began to smash his head against the ground.
Splotch!
Splotch!
Splotch!
Each impact made a sound that was both sharp and soft, wet and dull. The man was screaming, or maybe François was.
In his ears, everything sounded muffled, as though his head were underwater.
He only stopped when he felt, under his fingers, that the skull had turned to pulp.
He couldn't have said how long the man had been dead, or how many of those blows had been pointless.
Then he woke up.
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"Haaa!"
François bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. His wide, terrified eyes searched the darkness.
It was too dark to make out anything clearly. It took him a moment to remember where he was.
This was the manor of Montrouge, in New France. His room, not a battlefield in Europe.
He was safe.
Beside him, the sound of calm, steady breathing.
Onatah slept, naked beneath the heavy blankets, her back turned toward him. Her peaceful rhythm contrasted sharply with the frantic beating of his heart.
He raised a trembling hand to his face.
How long until dawn? He couldn't tell.
Damn it… It was just a nightmare.
As always, the inconsistencies appeared only after waking.
The Battle of Häuslingen was long past. The Kingdom of Prussia no longer existed. Captain Gilbert had been dead for years, as had the Marquis de Bréhant.
The good man had died of illness in his home in Paris in 1764, just days before his forty-ninth birthday.
But in the dream, everything had felt so real.
"Hmm… what's wrong?" murmured Onatah, still half-asleep, rolling over under the sheets.
François looked at her, guilt heavy in his chest.
"Ah, I woke you," he whispered. "Sorry. Just a nightmare, that's all."
Without opening her eyes, she moved closer and slipped an arm around him. Her skin was warm and soft.
François sank deeper beneath the thick blankets, resting his head against the goose-feather pillow. It was very comfortable, yet something kept him from falling back asleep.
His heart was still pounding too fast.
After a long while, realizing that sleep would not return, he rose quietly, dressed, and went downstairs as silently as he could.
The ground floor was pitch-dark and utterly still. He stepped outside.
The night air was clear and cool. François sat on a small wooden bench near the entrance, its surface damp with dew.
He took a deep breath of the night and listened to the sounds of nature. A few owls seemed to be conversing in a nearby tree, and, farther away, a wolf howled at the moon — now only a thin crescent.
The Milky Way stretched across the heavens, magnificent and bright, dividing the starry sky in two.
Even after all these years, he never grew tired of that sight.
François breathed slowly, feeling his heartbeat begin to settle. Without the moon, he wouldn't even have been able to see his own hands.
My estate, he thought, feels so different at night.
He sat there for a long time, perfectly still, lost in thought, until the door beside him opened almost soundlessly.
Onatah stepped out, holding a brown blanket in her hands. She draped it over his shoulders, and he accepted it gratefully.
The chill had begun to bite.
Without a word, she sat beside him, and François spread the blanket so that it covered them both from the cool air of the night, or perhaps of the early morning.
She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
"You didn't have to get up," he said softly.
"What woman would stay in bed knowing her husband isn't well?" she replied, not expecting an answer. "You couldn't fall back asleep?"
"No," François answered simply, closing his eyes.
Silence settled again, broken only by the hooting of owls and the rustle of wind in the branches.
Onatah knew his habits. Whenever he had a nightmare, he came here to calm his mind. It hadn't been hard to guess where he'd gone this time.
"Where were you, this time?" she finally asked.
"Häuslingen."
His fingers tensed involuntarily.
"The last great battle I fought in Europe."
He paused briefly.
"Their general was said to be highly respected, and I was in the front line, on the right. We both had massive armies, but we held the advantage. We offered them a chance to withdraw — naturally, they refused. It was brutal. Very brutal."
And to think there are still people who believe we're civilized, superior… They've never seen a battlefield up close. There was nothing civilized about that day.
Onatah said nothing, letting François speak. She knew he needed to.
"We were under the command of Marshal-Duke de Richelieu. First, we made the cannons roar. We had more than they did, far more. But they held their ground. So we tried to break their army by attacking both flanks. East and west alike, they fought well, and many of our men died. More than once, I thought I was finished. But in the end, with immense effort, we managed to push them back."
Even beneath the blanket, he shuddered as he recalled that March day in 1758.
"We lost over four thousand men."
Onatah laid a comforting hand over his clenched fist.
"That was more than ten years ago," she murmured.
"And yet it feels like yesterday. Believe me, it was hell."
He turned his head and looked at her peaceful face, resting on his shoulder.
"Imagine an entire plain covered with corpses, broken flags, and smoking craters. I was terrified. We all were."
"But today, you're here. With me."
She nestled closer, rubbing against him like a cat. François looked at her tenderly and kissed her forehead.
"Yes. I'm here, with you," he whispered, before his tone grew heavier. "But if I'm ordered to go, I'll have to leave. When a war begins, you know when you depart, but never when you return. If you return."
He thought for a moment.
"When the British colonies rise up against the Crown, I don't know how the king will react. If he decides to intervene, to keep the redcoats from winning too quickly, I'll have to leave. Perhaps for years."
He felt Onatah tremble against him and hold him tighter.
"Then… maybe France shouldn't get involved?" she murmured hopefully.
She looked up at him, eyes glistening.
"Your reports... they'll be read to him, won't they? Maybe you could persuade him otherwise."
François gave a soft smile and drew the beautiful Mohawk woman into his arms.
"Maybe."
He kissed her gently, but the smile didn't stay. His gaze darkened. He was already thinking.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he did have that power.
"Let's go back inside," he said quietly.
They stood, and François draped the blanket over her shoulders. Taking her hand, he led her back to their room.
In the warmth of the bed, Onatah rested her head against him. Her breathing slowed, peaceful and steady.
François lay awake for a while longer, listening to the reassuring beat of her heart. Then, at last, he too fell asleep.
-----------------------------------------
When François awoke, the sun had already been up for nearly half an hour.
The manor of Montrouge was slowly coming to life, lulled by birdsong and the familiar sounds of the household.
Onatah was no longer by his side.
A little disappointed—though still soothed by the memory of their tender lovemaking the night before, just before the last candles had gone out—he rose and dressed.
This time, he chose his new suit, the one made for him in Paris. It was one of the few things he had brought back from Québec; everything else had been left in Madec's care.
Though he had worn it a few times already, he never tired of admiring it. The ensemble far exceeded anything he had imagined when the Parisian tailor first drew its sketches.
In every detail one could sense the man's patience and passion, despite his quiet demeanor. Like a master painter of the Renaissance, he had skillfully played with colors, fabrics, and stitching to create a true work of art.
Far from being overloaded with decoration, the suit struck a perfect balance between restraint and elegance.
François still remembered some of the outfits he had seen in the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace, garish garments overflowing with ribbons, embroidery, complex patterns, and gilded buttons.
They had hurt his eyes. He had wondered whether that was truly how one dressed at Versailles to attract His Majesty's attention.
If so, then the French court must have looked like a grand circus filled with harlequins.
Satisfied with his appearance, François went downstairs and stopped on the threshold of the main room. Onatah, dressed as she often was in a blend of European and Iroquois clothing, froze when she saw him.
Her pink lips parted, but no sound came out. Her wide, dark eyes trembled slightly, unable to look away.
François could have sworn she was blushing.
She raised a hand to her chest, where necklaces of feathers, wooden beads, and shells intertwined.Pierre and Louis, as astonished as their mother, leapt forward and ran circles around their father, fascinated.
"Wow! You look so handsome, Father!"
"It's so soft! Hey, Pierre, look! Touch here, it's so soft!"
They spoke quickly, excitement bouncing between French and Iroquois.
Onatah stepped closer and, unable to resist, brushed her fingers lightly over her husband's chest, shoulders, and back.
She bit her lower lip before regaining her composure.
"I—I… you look very handsome in that suit. I-it must have cost a fortune," she stammered.
"Yes," he admitted, "but Martin paid for it. He insisted on offering it to me."
The young woman looked at him in surprise, then nodded when she saw he wasn't joking.
"In that case, we'll have to send him an equally fine gift."
"He thought of you as well," François added with a smile. "You'll need to be patient, though. The parcels are on their way. My parents and childhood friends also sent you some presents."
The children squealed with joy at the news, even though they would have to wait several days.
François then reached into the deep pockets of his coat and produced the gifts he had brought from Paris for his sons—a little wooden horse on wheels and a jointed puppet. Unsurprisingly, the puppet immediately captivated their attention.
He instantly regretted not having brought two.
Then, the officer—looking every inch the perfect gentleman—turned to his wife and asked her to close her eyes. She obeyed, and he placed a necklace of fine white beads into her hands.
She opened her eyes again.
"Oh! It's beautiful!" she exclaimed in Iroquois. "It's… it's really for me?"
"For who else?" François replied with a broad smile. "The moment I saw it, I knew you'd love it."
His wife threw her arms around him and kissed him tenderly before asking for help putting it on.
Pleased by her reaction, he gently brushed her long black hair aside and fastened the necklace around her neck, his fingers grazing her warm skin.
"It's cold," she giggled.
François smiled even wider. With great care, he closed the tiny silver clasp, and Onatah turned, adjusting her long braids.
"Well?"
"It suits you perfectly, my love," murmured François, drawing her close by the waist.
The rest of the day, François toured his seigneury, speaking with his tenants. He wanted to know how the people of Montrouge were living, if they lacked anything, if they were satisfied with the harvests.
The same concerns arose again and again: too few hands to work such vast lands, and not enough tools.
The lord of Montrouge was not all-powerful, but some problems could be solved with a little money and good will.
He drafted a list of tools to purchase in Montréal.
As for manpower, there was nothing he could do. The men of the Regiment of New Aquitaine could not spend their days in the fields. It was already fortunate that some could come to help during harvest time.
For storage, his wife had come up with a clever idea a few years earlier: encouraging each family to build a sturdy granary raised on stilts.
At first, she had proposed a collective granary, following the Iroquois model, but the settlers, deeply attached to their independence, had preferred individual ones.
Now, nearly every household had its own.
The granaries were wooden, lined with mats, and coated with clay to protect the grain from moisture and rodents.
In addition, several families also used storage pits, another Iroquois technique: they buried jars or bark baskets in pits lined with dry leaves, charcoal, and bark, before covering everything with packed earth.
Some colonists had hesitated to use such a method at first, but after seeing their neighbors preserve their harvests for months, even through the winter, they adopted it as well.
When evening came, François withdrew to his study. He took out the documents entrusted to him, spread them across the desk, and began to study them one by one, committing each to memory.