Hot Cannons & Warm Lovers Ch. 01

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This story takes place amid the gathering clouds of the period leading up to the War of 1812-14 and a little beyond that, ending about 1815, though this won't encompass all of that. I'll only focus on a few individuals and events.

I've tried hard to get it right, but I can't guarantee anything. Some of the characters lived at the time, and as far as the military engagements which appear in this at various points, I've endeavored to be accurate, though this won't even get close to the major battles so historians can heave a huge sigh of relief right now. I don't mean to torture anyone's memory with this. :)

The people who played a part in actual events are for the most part, bit players in the grand scheme, though it likely wouldn't have made their hardships any lighter to know of it at the time.

This is a work of fiction centered around what is likely a little-known event late in the conflict, though aside from the fictional characters and their doings, I'll try to portray things as they happened. The words and actions of the historical figures have been left unmolested for the most part, other than what might have happened here and there in the dark.

Within the context of this piece, most of the character interaction is fictional and the lesser players never existed at all, except by coincidence if it happens.

There's some French in this, which I've probably buggered, so I'll apologize right now if I have. I was much more interested in the tight sweaters during my time studying French. It was a language course, but I had my mind on biology and some pretty much gravity-defying physics at the time.

Oh, and if it's a problem, the name of the lady in this chapter is Lise, pronounced "Leez".

Good luck with the names of the indigenous characters. ;)

Sadly, I had no one to help me with the Ojibwemowin, or I would have been able to give this a lot more color and flavor. I had to rely on what I could cobble together from the net. Scary stuff, that - if you want to get something right, that is.

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Part One

Cap Rouge, outside of Quebec City, 1792

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Lise Robitaille was upset over the frail health of her old father and she wept a little at his knee before the fire late that night. He was growing slowly worse and there was nothing to be done.

"It is only natural, my girl," the old widower said a little weakly as they stared into the flames together, "I have lived long enough I suppose, and done the things that I wished to do. I had the love of the finest woman in your mother and raised my children.

Oh, I do have some regrets, of course, but then who could say that they do not, having gotten near to the end of their days? Everything is a mixture of joy as well as sadness. My children are grown and gone, save you. I have not seen most of them in years.

But at least I will not die unloved. I have you and my small grandson still."

He lifted his cup of rum for a small sip. Lise had taken to watering it down as much as she dared out of her concern that he not hasten his end with it, and also out of their near-poverty.

Lise was a mistake in a sense; a surprise last pregnancy to her parents after the others were gone. Her mother had never regained much of her strength after the labor and had passed to the ravages of a late-winter cold when Lise had been only ten.

Her father had been a busy man then with little enough time to watch her every move as he often worked a day through without ever once seeing the light of the sun.

Without much direction and advice on a few of the things pertaining to the hazards of young men to a girl such as she was, Lise had found herself to be a sweet-looking young thing -- all curly and long blonde hair and blue eyes - much sought after by the local boys.

The trouble with that was that she didn't live in the highest of circles and eventually one of those boys managed to pry her knees apart a few times with his soft talk and his kisses, and at only fourteen, while still a child herself, she'd given her father the only grandson that he knew of.

Since then, she'd had no reputation worth saving around most of the place, but she'd never made the same mistake again and no better man had appeared to sweep her off to a better place. There was no better place, she decided. This was all that there was -- and it was ending. Her poor wages as a seamstress in a shop didn't bring in enough to keep her and her young son fed and her father's small pension would disappear as soon as he'd drawn his last breath.

While he'd still been an able man, her father had been a smith, and in a better day long ago, he'd also been a bit of an armorer. He'd taught his young grandson as much as a little boy's mind and attention span could manage to hang onto until the illness had progressed to where things were tonight. The old man was seventy-nine, his youngest daughter was now twenty-one, and little Étienne was only seven.

It was a dying art these days - other than as a distraction for the rich, but with his grandfather's eternal patience and with more than a few wooden versions, young Étienne was more than a match in any swordfight with the dragons that he often daydreamed about. These days though, Étienne fought the dragons all alone, his grandfather not having the breath or the strength anymore to join in the fun of the adventure.

"But Papa," Lise sobbed a little as she worried, "what is to become of us?"

The old man coughed for over a minute before he sank back into the chair to rest for a bit. When he felt himself able to, he nodded, "I understand your concern, Lise. Were it not for your error which brought us the joy of your young son, you would likely be married to a fine man by now and having his children instead of living as we do; an aged man with a beautiful young woman and her young son."

He swept his arm around the room, "This is not for you. This is only where you are, and it is no place for a young woman to carry on a life in. The roof leaks and the rats rule in the night."

He cleared his throat, "But I have given it some thought. I did that when this first began. Of my six sons, only one has remained in some small contact with me since your mother's passing."

He smirked a little, "The rest all think that I caused it somehow."

Lise was surprised. Sending mail was an expense to people like them. "Who is it, Papa?"

There was a knock at the door then and Lise felt a good deal of trepidation in going to answer it. Why the creditors chose this time of night to want to appear on one's doorstep was beyond her.

"Well go and answer it, Lise," her father rumbled.

As she got to her feet, she turned to go to the door, but there was a man already inside and standing at the door to the room.

"Papa," he said in a deep and cheery voice, "Thank God I have not come too late! Your last letter to me waited for three months before I was able to be in the right place to ask for it. Were it not for what I read, I would be content with having to wait until daylight to bang on the door."

Lise stared at her own brother, never having seen him before in her life. Jean-Luc was the second-eldest and had been gone from the age of sixteen, long before the world had heard the first of her wails as an infant.

He was a good size and very fit-looking with a full-beard and long dark blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore the clothing of a Coureur des bois and Lise discovered that he was indeed a Voyageur with a license to trade in furs, though he worked in the employ of a distant merchant somewhere in the wilds of the 'pays d'en haut', or the higher country near to the Great Lakes.

To Lise, he looked to be about half-wild in a very handsome way, but that was only appearances and the imaginings of her first impressions in a dark room lit by a single candle and the small fire in the hearth.

The meeting was a strained but happy one for father and son, both knowing that it would be their last before the old man's death. With Lise's direction, Jean-Luc was able to get his father to bed easily and after saying goodnight and expressing his joy that Jean-Luc had come after all, the elderly man fell asleep in moments, tired out from the day, the joy of seeing his son again -- and from just being near to his end.

To her that night, Jean-Luc Robitaille was a handsome savior. She said as much and her bother laughed quietly as he admired the beauty of the sister that he'd never known, "I have been meaning to come home for some time to meet you because of what Papa said about you in his letters," he said, "but I am always so busy and often far in the woods from a good place to begin the trip when I have the idea. From Papa's letter to me, you are to come with me westward once he passes. You must travel lightly, for that is the way that it is done, but I can help in all ways. That is what I prepared to do when I set out to come."

"But," Lise began, "where will we go and what of my son?"

"We go to Prairie du Chien eventually," Jean-Luc grinned, "but that will be for next year, since the winter will overtake us en route. First, we go to Michilimackinac to winter there among friends. You and your boy must learn to speak English as well as a few of the Indian languages.

But you will have help with these changes, Lise. My woman waits for us near Penetanguishene at the home of some of her relations and she will be glad to meet you -- as I am delighted to meet my young sister at last."

"Why will we need to learn English and the others?" Lise asked, "Is French not the most widely -- spoken language in New France?"

"Times change and there is no New France anymore. Not since the English came and France cast us adrift long ago," Jean-Luc said. "It does not surprise me that the provincial attitudes remain alive here."

"No matter what the people in Quebec City might want to tell you or to believe themselves, there are others here, Lise. And," he raised his finger as he drew a small flask out of his pocket, "the speech matters little. What matters is the trade of goods and supplies, and if I must speak English to do that, then that is what I will speak."

Lise shared a drink with her brother and found herself liking him a great deal. She realized that a lot of it had to do with his appearance on their doorstep as a bit of a savior, but she found that she really regretted not having met him long ago as they began to talk of a few of his travels. As she listened and asked a few questions, she realized a couple of things.

Their lives were about to change; hers and Étienne's, no matter what she might have wanted. She was certainly in no financial shape to do other than follow her brother's directions. As well, she smiled a little to herself, her son was going to be surprised in the morning to find that he had an uncle such as Jean-Luc. She only hoped that Jean-Luc didn't mind the barrage of questions which she knew would come. The only variable seemed to be their father's health.

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Jean-Luc was pleasantly surprised when he found his nephew Étienne to be a bright and lively, well-formed, tow-headed boy with blue eyes like his mother's. Étienne himself was amazed to learn that Jean-Luc was his uncle and after staring at the way that Jean-Luc was dressed in mostly fringed buckskin and learning what Jean-Luc did for a living, the boy stuck to his uncle like glue.

As it turned out, their father wasn't all that much of a limiting factor, for the old man passed so quietly in his sleep the next night that no one knew until she went to wake him in the morning for breakfast. Even though she'd known that it was imminent, Lise was upset, young Étienne most of all.

Lise was about to leave to go to ask for the priest to come, but Jean-Luc pointed to the meal and said that their father would have shaken his head at them, "Papa would only ask us why, when he certainly will be going nowhere, and there is a hot meal waiting right here.

And if there is one thing that I know as the God's own truth, it is that priests never miss a meal."

Lise had to agree, knowing the old man, so that was the order of things, as upset as she was.

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They were ready to set out four days later, but on the third day as they were packing -- during which period, Lise was certain that her brother's most used word was 'Non' in what could be allowed and what would be excess, Jean-Luc was surprised to find that his young nephew was prepared to leave everything behind, but was adamant about bringing just a few implements along.

"Grand-Père told me that these were mine now and that I could use them to feed myself by doing work," the boy said, "I am too small yet to shoe a horse, but I know how it is to be done."

Jean-Luc nodded, recognizing the tools and seeing the seriousness in his nephew's young face. "These things have weight, Étienne. You may find them to be as stones around your young neck at some point." He sighed with a smile then, "But I suppose that I should be glad that you have agreed to leave Papa's old anvil behind us." He reached over and picked up a long and scabbarded blade.

"And what of this?" he asked.

"No one uses these things very much anymore. We use muskets and pistols and even the Indians use their fighting hatchets, their tomahawks, as they are called if they must. No one uses swords and that thing is an old style even for what it is. The officers in any army carry much sleeker blades these days, though for the most part, they are only for ceremonies when they feel the need to dress in their finery. What can you do with that? You cannot even cut kindling with it."

To Jean-Luc's surprise, though young Étienne took two pulls on the long scabbard to unsheath the thing, he was able to hold it up with no sign of a tremor, and he was able to swing it a little carefully as he showed his uncle a few techniques a little slowly.

When Étienne handed it over, Jean-Luc saw that it was a full-weight blade at about three pounds -- quite remarkable for a boy of seven to be able to manage -- even if it was too long for him by half. "I practice what Grand-Père taught me every day," the boy said, "and I have not cut myself with it in over a year."

Lise rolled her eyes, deciding that she wouldn't ask Étienne to show her brother the pair of scars from the last times that he had cut himself.

"These things are all that he has left of his grandfather," she said to Jean-Luc. "He never knew his father for I have never pointed him out, knowing that it would be the wrong thing to do. I know my son and as surely as the sun rises in the morning, one day, Étienne would get himself into trouble demanding that the roué make good on the cost of keeping a son alive. It would most surely not end well."

Jean-Luc laughed and nodded, "Especially if my nephew were to press the point of his argument with that old blade.

Well we are as packed as we can be, save for a few things to make the morning meal with. Give the boy a few tasks to keep him out of trouble and let us go to where I might see the man who young Étienne would have a want in himself to whip."

Lise demurred at first, but her brother was very charming and persuasive, telling her that he'd been joking, though he would have liked to have gotten a look at the fool. They went for a drink at the local inn and she pointed out the man to Jean-Luc.

Jean-Luc nodded, asking only once which idiot it had been in the group to be certain and then they left.

They were off the next day on a boat bound for York, an unimportant town on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Lise remarked on Jean-Luc's clean-shaven appearance, but he didn't make much of a reply. It wasn't until they were well-past Trois-Rivières on the third day after leaving and it was also well-past the time when young Étienne was in his bunk asleep that Jean-Luc handed Lise a small purse of coins.

"What is this?" she asked, and after opening it, she stared at him open-mouthed.

Her brother smirked, "It is the poor efforts to save a little that a worthless man could manage to produce on short notice.

I returned to the inn late during the evening. A coin or two in the palm of the sort of friend that Étienne's father might keep told me where I had to go, and, ... well, I suppose that I do look like a bit of a ruffian to one who might have always fancied himself as one and never had the stones in his sac to actually make that trip. This is the sad best that he could offer to help you raise your boy."

Lise was shocked, "What did you say to him?"

Jean-Luc laughed again for a long moment, "Well if you need to hear it exactly, I suppose that I might have said something like, 'Mon tabarnac jva te décalisser la yeule, calice!'"

He smirked, "I guess that it is a hell of a way to be shaken out of a sound and rum-fueled sleep. I shouted it at him as I lifted him up by the throat, calling him a bâtard. The next thing that I knew, the stupid teton couldn't give me his money quick enough.

He had no idea who I was and even less that it might be over his callous treatment of my lovely sister some years ago."

She gaped at him, "But you have robbed --"

Jean-Luc shrugged, "And he did less to you and your life?

This is a pittance for what any man should have done if he could not marry you. A good thing that he had this much I think, for I disliked him at the first sight of him at the inn. So, I helped him back to sleep with my fist against his jaw and I left quietly.

We are safe, Lise. I went in Papa's clothing and it was dark. I doubt that he got even a look in the moonlight as I towered over him in his bed."

"That is why you shaved the day that we left?" she asked with a little smile and he nodded.

"It ought to get at least a start at growing back before we get to Penetanguishene. I cannot allow my woman to see me like this or she will insist that I shave every day and that cannot be allowed."

"Well thank you for what you have done and I must say that I like you even more like this. It is not my place to say it, Jean-Luc, but I think that I would side with your woman over it."

Jean-Luc groaned and shook his head.

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York was a small and bustling place, though to people from a little place like Cap Rouge, it seemed large by comparison. As Lise and her son looked around, Jean-Luc procured a small wagon and a horse. It wasn't much, but it got them to Penetanguishene a few days later over the rough road and Lise was startled to find that Jean-Luc's 'woman' -- for he never once said that they were married -- was a very lovely Ojibwa girl who spoke more than a little French and a fair amount of English as well.

It was the accommodations which were the surprise.

They were welcomed by Kiwidinok, for that was her name, with a feast which Lise judged that she must have worked the whole day on, but the woman only smiled, "When you grow up like me, you learn ways to cook and prepare for men who come and go and often have little time from one day to the next."

Many of the foods were a little strange and new to them, but by then, neither Lise nor her boy were in a mood to be fussy and they discovered a great deal of good food that they now liked.

There were two tents there, neither of them large. Lise slept in one with her son and Kiwidinok slept with Jean-Luc in the other, though Lise had to wonder if they slept at all, by the sounds that they made over what must have been a very happy reunion indeed.

"We do not live here," Kiwidinok said as she brushed her long hair out before braiding it the next day, "This is only a place where I have people close by. I waited for Jean-Luc and you."

"But where is Uncle Jean-Luc?" Étienne asked, "I don't see him anywhere."