Morgan’s army remained in Panama for nearly a month. Gaston did not fall, and I got my feet under me. We stayed with the wounded and lived in the nave of the cathedral. Due to Spanish caution and buccaneer greed, it had been stripped of any item that might have religious significance. Thus, though there was still the thrill of fornicating in a church, I did not feel I was truly troubling any deity by possibly desecrating a place of worship.
We avoided everyone we could, and spent our days tending the wounded, exercising in an attempt to calm our Horses, and writing. We discovered a cache of parchment and ink, and initially I circulated among the dying transcribing final letters to their loved ones; until I finally decided what we might say to ours. At first I sought to impart to them the events that led to our being in Panama and how we knew not what would befall us. Then I began to write like a mad fiend about things less tangible but of more value. I filled page after page with the thoughts I might never be able to convey in person to each and every one of my loved ones. Gaston quickly joined me in this endeavor. We told them how we valued their friendship, what they had meant to us, and what we most admired about them. I told myself I did not write as if we might die; but truly, there it was.
Once the letters were written to the adults, we began to write to the children: attempting to impart the things we would have them know if we were not there to tell them. The two children of my loins who would be born this spring became very real to me as I lay on a pew and scratched away by candlelight. I could not know if I wrote to boys or girls, and I knew it did not matter. I would have the same of them no matter their sex. I would have them be free persons in their hearts and minds. I would have them know the Gods for what They were. I would have them embrace the courage to live and love as they chose. I would have them understand that true happiness was usually a costly but worthwhile endeavor. I would have them know their Horses. I would have them venture forth from the Cave. If I could, I would hold their hands and console them when the light of truth hurt: when the way was steep: when they felt alone.
I wanted very much to live, because words would never suffice. Yet, I would not leave them a craven legacy in the name of my survival no matter what I faced. It would be better they had my words to hold than a man who could not live by them.
Gaston and I had one week of hope in which Cudro told us of a rumor that there was a company of buccaneers planning on taking one of the Spanish ships and plundering their way up and down the western coast of the Spanish Main and Terra Firma until they had their fill, and then sailing west until they circumnavigated the globe as Drake had done. Of course, Morgan heard of this rumor and quickly had every ship in the harbor sabotaged before Cudro could learn who we needed to approach to join them.
We then considered ourselves resigned and committed to Pierrot’s plan; and by the end of our stay, we were merely anxious to return to the ships waiting at San Lorenzo as soon as possible.
Before scuttling them, Morgan had been sending ships out in search of the elusive treasure galleon. That roving had actually captured several other vessels bearing goods from the Orient and proved quite prosperous. He had also dispatched regular sorties of two hundred men each to comb the surrounding countryside and plantations for prisoners and loot. These missions had also proven lucrative in the end. Still, we did not seem to have the quantity of plate and ready coin everyone had expected. The Spanish had far too long to prepare for our arrival. We learned they had known we were coming since Providence Island.
We departed Panama on February Twenty-Fourth. I was relieved to see that at least one hundred and seventy-five horses and mules survived the buccaneer occupation, for that is how many animals were required to haul away the treasure. Our lengthy column also contained about six hundred prisoners to be ransomed—including women and children. At the beginning of the journey, Morgan informed the prisoners that they had three days to procure the ransom he set on each of them. If they did not, he promised to transport them to Jamaica as slaves. Members of families and sometimes slaves and servants were sent to neighboring towns and out into the plantations to find relatives to pay the ransoms—or, retrieve the final hidden coins and jewelry.
We marched through the mountains for several days until we reached the village of Cruz on the River Chagre. Morgan sent for our canoes, and we were quite relieved when they arrived two days later. By then, ransom money, and provisions in lieu of coin, were trickling in. Those prisoners that met their ransom were released, the rest were placed on canoes or marched downriver along with the treasure.
Going down the river proved much easier than coming up it: not only were our canoes now going with the current, but the river had risen a little in the intervening month; and, of most importance, we now had sufficient provisions. It only took two days to bring everything to the place where we had left the larger boats from the fleet.
Before we were allowed to board them, however, Morgan chose to make an accounting of all we had obtained. To that end, he chose to make great show of having every man—including himself—and their belongings searched in order to ascertain that none of us were withholding treasure from our brethren.
The English were surprised: the French were enraged. We were told that any man who did not submit to this indignity would be clapped in irons. There were soon over twelve hundred naked men standing about searching one another’s satchels and bags. Gaston and I complied, of course, and all the while we thanked the Gods we had left our gold—and more importantly, Chris—with Pete. Sadly, when it came our turn to be searched, we actually had to argue with Morgan’s men about our matching rings. They finally understood that we had not obtained them in Panama, as no Spaniard would have rings with two odd English words inscribed upon them.
Once this charade was complete, we were finally allowed to board the larger craft and return to the mouth of the river and our ships. The treasure had still not been shared out, though; as that needed to be done after an accounting had been made of the survivors. The ships would not sail until the booty was shared. Gaston and I obviously did not care about receiving our share, but we were concerned that if we tried to slip away to the Josephine too far in advance of the ships sailing, Morgan would have ample time and opportunity to harass and search the vessels to find us.
We were also deeply worried that Morgan had not approached us at any time during the return journey. We had fully expected him to ask us how we intended to leave the Isthmus of Panama, and then make supposedly friendly offers for us to sail with him to Jamaica. But nay, he had abandoned all pretenses since that day in the church. We were also under constant watch.
Being unsure of what would occur in the days ahead, we said our farewells to Cudro and Ash before we arrived at the river mouth. It was difficult and disheartening to pretend to be casual about the matter when we all knew we might not see one another again for months, if not forever. But pretend we did, so that Morgan’s spies would have nothing undue to report to him. We were very careful about giving them our great bundle of letters.
As our vessel neared the wharf, we gathered our things and made ready to disembark and thread our way through the crowd of men unloading the canoes into the storehouse, and then make our way up the path to the fortress to find our friends and attempt to hide for a time. Once in the castle, we were hoping to find either a gate in the palisade, or that Pierrot had not repaired the hole the buccaneers had used to enter. If we could slip out at night through the fort’s rear defenses, we thought we could easily lose our watchers in the dense forest beyond the fort’s apron, and thus make our way undetected down to the shore where we could swim to the Josephine or whatever other ship Pete and Pierrot might suggest.
We had no more stepped off the boat than we were hailed by Captain Norman, Morgan’s close friend and the master of the sloop, Lilly. There was a great deal of activity between us and him, but looking over and around the men carrying treasure across the wharf, I was able to see he was not alone: he had several strong and healthy men with eager eyes beside him. They were all looking at us.
“Run,” I said.
“Oui,” Gaston said as we dropped the medicine chest and forced our way around milling men to the winding path leading up to the fort.
We ran. Norman gave chase. Gaston and I were in far better physical condition than Norman’s men: we had not spent a month in Panama drinking and eating to excess. Still, we knew we could not lose them by simply achieving the castle first; and all they had to do was make some charge against us and the whole army would be upon our heads. Thankfully, as of yet, Norman had not been howling for anyone to stop us.
The buccaneers in San Lorenzo were busy eating—every gaunt and tired-looking one of them. We ran around throngs of them huddled around cook fires and made our way to the palisade of the southern wall. There was a gate, and thank the Gods, it was open. We almost ran down a man entering with fire wood as we darted out onto the apron and toward the woods. I still did not hear Norman sounding an alarm. I supposed we were very lucky Morgan wished to keep our abduction discreet. I did not think he would have any trouble turning the fleet against us on any mockery of a charge; but apparently, he did.
My every breath was a whispered prayer for our continued good fortune as we hit the woods. Like every tropical forest, the damn thing was thick with trees, bushes, and vines; to the extent that I often thought one could cut down a tree and not have it fall because it was so entwined with its neighbors. We ran down swaths of damage cut during the battle six weeks ago. Between the buccaneers and the cannonballs, the woods were honeycombed for a hundred yards. Unfortunately, it was a maze, and we were not sure where the buccaneers had cut a path into the area when they arrived. We could hear men behind us as we ran along the wall of wood seeking a path that we did not have to hack with cutlasses. Gaston finally darted right and towed me with him into a narrow natural pathway.
If it had been night as we had planned, it would have been very easy for us to disappear and let the men run right past us; but in the day, despite the dappled shadows we raced through, our pursuers could clearly see us and where we went.
I glanced back and saw a man entering the pathway. He was yelling he had found us and for his friends to follow. I pulled a pistol and only paused long enough to fire with a steady hand. Then I was running again. I did not hear him behind us. I did hear the shot that roared past my head, though.
And Norman yelling at the man who fired it. “Nay, you damn fools! They cannot be killed! No pieces!”
They cursed and complained and tore through the brush behind us.
The path we were on ended at the top of a cliff—a steep cliff: the fall would surely break bones. We cursed in surprise and clung to branches to keep from falling. Gaston dove back into the bush and sidled sideways between two trees. His musket caught on the branches and he tore it off his shoulders and dropped it along with his bag. I discarded all I carried save the weapons at my belt. We clambered through the brush until we found a hollow. There we hunkered down to catch our breath and listen.
We heard our pursuers find our muskets and bags. Then we heard them beginning to scuttle through the forest toward us.
Gaston pressed me down and threw leaves and mud over me. He crouched next to me and I covered him with greenery as much as I could. We pulled knives and waited.
Two men rushed through the hollow and out the other side. The third came out of the forest at a different place and tripped over us. Sadly, he cursed loudly before Gaston could get a hand over his mouth and I could put a blade in his ribs.
“Barret?” the fourth man called as he dove into the hollow. “Here!” he roared as he spied us. It was his last word, but it did not matter.
The first two men were returning, and we could hear several more approaching from behind.
“Cover me!” Gaston hissed. He began to squirm through the underbrush at the back of the hollow.
I had barely started reloading my first pistol when one of the first two men to pass us re-emerged into the hollow. I shot him with my second pistol. The forest to my right erupted with curses, some distant and some all too close. The second man emerged and I dove at him with a knife. He blocked me with a cudgel and we were locked together. He was far larger than I, and possessed of the inexorable brutish strength I can only counter with speed or guile. I kneed him in the groin, and flipped him over and got a blade in his back when he doubled.
“Will, come!” Gaston called from the brush.
Three men burst from the forest.
“Too late!” I cried. “Run!”
I fought, but the quarters were too tight. I stabbed one with the dirk in my left hand and managed to slice another with my knife. Then the one behind struck my leg with a club and I began to go down. The man I had slashed was swinging a cudgel at my head. Then he was gone, bowled over to my relief and dismay by Gaston. I turned on the third man. He went down with two blades in him. Then another man arrived. As we turned to him, Norman dove from the woods and hit me with a club in the shoulder. My right arm went numb and I dropped my blade. Then there was a blow to my knee from a man I did not see. I saw three men atop Gaston, beating him down. Then stars exploded in my eyes and all was dark.
I woke to Gaston growling. There was slowly wavering lantern light and the low rumble of men’s voices. I was in the hold of a ship. My matelot crouched above me. There were chains on my wrists. I scrambled to sit, my vision swam and my head threatened to explode. Gaston—deeply in the grips of his Horse—helped me rise. I entwined my fingers with his and squeezed, and he returned my grip with ferocious need.
“Oh looky there, the other one’s awake now,” a man said.
I looked toward the light and saw a group of buccaneers sitting around an improvised table playing cards.
“Wonder if he’ll be as much fun as the other,” another man said.
“Mayhap he can shut his man up,” the first one responded.
“Shut it,” another man said. “Ya heard the Captin. No talkin’ to ’em, no baitin’ ’em.”
“I’m not doin’ neither,” the first man said. “I’m complainin’ of them, not to them.”
“Aye, they killed Hen and Johnny, and Boca and Barret, and the surgeon says Parrot and Gratch won’t live,” another said.
“I am sorry,” I interjected. “Our capture is a death sentence; you would have done the same if it were you.”
They frowned and did not meet my gaze except for the man who had told the others not to talk to us. He stood and came around the hatch steps. Gaston tensed, and I gripped his hands tightly and hushed him. As the man approached, I recognized the man as the Lilly’s quartermaster, but I could not think of his name.
“The Captin say there be rules. Ya don’t be talkin’ to us, and we don’t talk ta you.”
I nodded.
“Ya break the rules—an’ that not be the only one—an’ ya get chained on opposite sides o’ the hold. Ya understand?”
“May I ask what the other rules are?” I asked.
“Captin’ll talk ta ya later. They just mainly be that ya not cause trouble or try ta escape.”
I nodded. “May we have some water?”
He nodded and walked down the hold to scoop water from a barrel. He returned with two buckets: one was empty and the other had the water and a ladle.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded curtly and returned to his card game.
I looked to Gaston and found him glaring at the men again. “Hush, my love,” I whispered in French. “You will only tire yourself. Please, let us have some water.”
His breathing was fast and shallow, and I understood, I truly did. I knew if I did not concentrate on controlling myself, I would succumb to the maelstrom and my Horse’s need to scream and tear at the chains.
“I will hold you,” I assured my man, “and the Gods will hold me. If They love us at all, which is a thing I do not feel considering our circumstances.”
I scooted the water bucket closer and sipped from the ladle. My body told me the liquid was sorely needed. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. It was dark above the hatch. The hold was empty save for men: they had not loaded any treasure yet. It could have been the night of the day we were captured. It could have been the next, but I did not feel that to be so.
I offered Gaston the ladle and he drank readily enough to prove he had not lost himself beyond good sense.
I examined our bonds. We were chained hand and foot, with a little less than two feet between our wrists, and a little over two between our ankles. There was another three feet of chain running between my left bracelet and his right, and the same at our ankles. Those chains were connected to a large chain that ran to a hefty bolt planted deep into a substantial beam. Left alone, we could probably worry it from the wood given enough time. I felt that would not fall within Norman’s rules, however. It was also likely we would not be allowed the privacy to conduct such an endeavor, either.
“Could you sit and hold me?” I asked Gaston. He was still crouching.
He planted his arse on the floor and his back to the hull and regarded the chains with dismay. I slipped under his arms and between his legs. He sighed and wrapped his arms about me. His face found my neck and he nuzzled there, his breathing slowing.
I breathed easier as well. I tried to tell myself it would be better now: we had lost, and need no longer worry about when the attack would come or how we would avoid it. Now we were trapped and need only worry about escaping. This thinking did not calm my Horse. I was not surprised.
I told myself the men holding us were not my father’s, and even if they did eventually turn us over to my father, they would not behave as Collins or Thorp had. We were prisoners to be ransomed, not men to be reformed or broken. Of course, I could not know that of a certainty just yet, but I felt it to be true. These men knew us, as angry as they might be at the loss of their fellows: we had raided together and they were buccaneers. They would not condemn our being matelots—or sodomy, for that matter. Whatever happened if and when we were delivered to my father was another matter. For now, we would probably not be abused.
This did reassure my Horse. I quietly shared my thoughts with Gaston, and was rewarded by the tension leaving his hands and shoulders.
“We will escape,” he breathed in my ear.
“Oui, my love,” I assured him. I did not think it would be until we reached England, though. I saw no reason to trouble him over that at the moment.
Then hope flared. We were still anchored off the River Chagre and not at sea: our friends might be able to rescue us. For that matter, they might be able to affect a rescue at sea as Gaston, Striker, and Pete had done. Perhaps they had seen us run through the castle, or our unconscious bodies being hauled to this ship. Then the ramifications of such a rescue quickly brought me to snuff that hope. These were buccaneers and not hired sailors. Someone would die in the attempt. If our friends were wise, they would not make it. If it failed, we would all be in chains. And the ironic truth was likely that they viewed our disappearance as a sign we had escaped.
I did not share any of those thoughts with Gaston, either.
Somewhat later, the men playing cards finished their game and retired to hammocks strung about the hold. The quartermaster turned the lamp low, and—after one last meaningful glare at us—ascended the hatch steps.
Gaston immediately began to fight with his manacles. He pressed his thumb very flat and tested them against his already-abraded flesh. It was obvious he could not slip them, even if he were willing to lose skin to do it. He began to press in an alarming way on his thumb, and I realized he would attempt to break it.
“Stop!” I hissed quietly, and pushed my fingers under and around his to prevent him harming himself. “Even if you succeed, what will you do about your ankles, break your heel away?”
He growled and jerked at the chains with a show of frustration. Then his face was pressed into my neck and shoulder and he was breathing heavily again.
I reached back and rubbed his head. “My love, say you did get free by maiming yourself, what then? You would not be able to walk or grip a weapon.”
“I could still kill them,” he growled.
“Oui, oui, but then what? Where do we swim that they will not find us?”
“It is not hopeless,” he snarled.
“Non, non, my love, non: it is not. It is just that we must think carefully.”
“If I think, I will be lost to despair,” he whispered with a voice far too tremulous for his Horse.
His words struck a resonating chord in my heart, and I could no longer hold the fear and despair at bay, either. I clapped my hands to my mouth to hold in the wracking sob that threatened to wake every man in the hold and show them how very much they had ruined us. Gaston’s hands closed over mine, and we held in the horrible sounds I wished to produce. I twisted in his grasp with the exertion, until finally the wailing died unborn and there were only the tears.
We held one another and cried in silence.
I woke to Gaston wrapping torn strips of our clothing about my wrists beneath the bracelets. He appeared calm and very much himself, and smiled at me. I caressed his face, and he kissed my palm, but he motioned with his eyes as well.
I looked over and saw one of Norman’s men sitting by the hatch watching us. He was worrying a piece of wood in his hands with a knife, but he was definitely there to watch and not whittle.
I sighed and gingerly knelt, becoming aware of how much I had been abused in the moments of our capture. My head still ached, and my left knee was quite sore along with my right shoulder and a number of my ribs. I raised my tunic and saw ugly bruises.
“You will live,” Gaston said pleasantly in French.
“That is a mixed blessing,” I sighed and crawled over to use our waste bucket.
Gaston had placed it as far away as he could reach while I slept. He had also used it, and our mingled urine was pungent in the humid enclosed space. I supposed we would quickly become accustomed to it.
He had placed the water as far away in the other direction as he could manage—which was to say, within my arm’s reach. My stomach grumbled and clenched when the water hit. Sunlight streamed through the hatch, and I guessed it to be midday. I wondered when last we had eaten, and stupidly glanced about for our bags.
“Have you asked for food?” I asked. Gaston shook his head and shrugged. I looked to our gaoler. “Food, please?”
The man snorted and shrugged and poked his head up through the hatch to say, “They be hungry.”
There was laughter on deck, and a man said, “Tell those bastards they’ll eat when we do.”
Our gaoler dropped back to the hold and regarded us.
“We heard,” I said.
He shrugged and returned to his seat and wood.
I returned to French. “Well, with any luck, they will load their share of the provisions and treasure soon.”
“Oui,” Gaston sighed and started carefully tearing a thin strip of canvas from the edge of his tunic. I assisted him until we had two strips of cloth with which to bandage his wrists beneath the iron.
“I do not think they will give us much chance at the wharf,” I whispered as we worked.
He shook his head with resignation. “They will be very careful, and no one will come.”
“I thought of that last night, and I feel it would be best for those we care for if they did not. And that is supposing they do not think we have escaped.”
He smiled. “Oui. It is…” His smile fled and he met my gaze. “Perhaps we are not meant to escape. It is like it was on Île de la Vache; only, the Gods have now done even more to insure we will meet whatever fate They have in store for us.”
“What are you saying? We should not try when we can?”
He grimaced at my expression. “Remember when we spoke on the beach, and vowed to seek to kill no more, and you spoke of the Gods steering you away from biscuits They did not wish you to eat?”
I did recall that conversation. I sighed at the implications. We had chosen not to kill except in defense; but by the Gods, he could not think killing men in our attempt to escape was wrong. “But… So… Do you feel this,” I raised my wrist and thus its chain and our captivity, “is an arse slap from the Gods for killing those men? I feel this would have happened whether we surrendered peacefully or not. I cannot believe the Gods would condemn our actions in trying to escape… where this leads. And my talk of biscuits was in seeking to harm my father and not…” I gave up with frustration.
He sighed patiently and nodded. “My Horse does not like it, either.”
I was perplexed, and a frightened anger kindled in my heart. “So we are to go like lambs to the slaughter, or martyrs to the lions? That is madness, my love, even for us. We are not deserving of punishment, or whatever you might think this is about.”
He was obdurate, and his small smile spoke much of letting me rant until I finished. My Horse wished to kick him: to make him run with us, to do something other than wait for the wolves to close in: the damn snarling wolves I had once pulled from the cave and we had trampled: the shadows of fear, torment, and pain.
“I cannot,” I breathed. “I would rather die than face my father’s cruelty again.”
He took my hand and pulled me to him. I buried my face in his shoulder.
“I do not see this as punishment,” he said softly. “I do not think the Gods are angry with us. I do think this is a hated test. The Greeks and Romans did not believe in Hell as the Christians do, oui? But they did believe in bad men being tormented for all eternity. Being chained away from you in this hold would break me. Being chained away from you for all eternity is not something I can face. I would rather suffer anything in this world for a short time—be it days or even months—than lose you in the hereafter. If this is what the Gods wish of us, then we must stand and be judged.”
“By my father?”
“Non,” he said patiently. “By the Gods.”
“Oui, oui, but by my father as Their instrument?”
“Will, I cannot speak for the Divine, I only know They have brought us here and where this leads. I feel we must accept it and resolve to… be true to ourselves and Them in the face of whatever we might face.”
I wished to rail that he had spent far too long in a monastery and that he still clung to Christianity, but I said nothing: I was overwhelmed by the light in my heart. I could not look away. We stood in the light. The wolves came from the cave. Did I truly believe in the light—and the Gods? That was Faith, was it not? Would I not do anything to be with Gaston? Did I believe there was a hereafter, or did I not? Was I a holy man with strength and conviction, or was I as much of a charlatan as any priest I had ever hated?
“Love and Faith,” Gaston whispered. “They are our weapons, against…”
“Darkness,” I said. “And the shadows on the wall.” The wolves.
He pushed me away enough to cradle my face between his hands and peer into my eyes. I saw green reflections of myself. I appeared quite large.
“I am Hercules, and you are Chiron,” I whispered.
He smiled. “If that is so, then perhaps something has angered the Gods, or a God.”
“Oui, as it seems my entire life has been a series of tasks.”
“And what have you always striven to do?” he asked. “What have you been tasked with?”
“Love.”
He was nodding thoughtfully and he released my face. “Hera was hateful of Hercules because He was born of one of Her husband’s affairs.”
“Oui, and though my father could be considered to have cast himself as Hera in my life, he is not a God: nor was my mother.”
“Oui, but perhaps he angered a God or a Goddess, and…” He sighed. “I feel he did. My father realized…” His brow furrowed anew and he met my gaze earnestly. “My father did not hate me, he hated that I came from my mother: that I reminded him of my mother, whom he loved.”
I nodded. “If my father were anything like yours—which I do not feel he is—then perhaps he hates me because I remind him of someone he loved—surely not my mother.” I sighed. “This is a thing we have considered before, perhaps he did love Shanes’s father, perhaps another; but we cannot know.”
“Oui, we can,” Gaston said, “because the Gods are arranging things so that we might ask him. So, once we are in his presence, we must ask him how he angered the Gods.”
I laughed. I could not envision that; or rather, I could not imagine he would tell the truth: even if we held red-hot tongs to his privates and it was not the other way around, which I was afraid it would be.
My matelot was still serious. “Perhaps he angered Venus, the Goddess of Love. Perhaps She gave him a great love to cherish, and he spurned it, and thus spurned Her.”
“And She has thrown trial after trial at me because I remind Her of him?” I laughed again.
He smiled. “Perhaps She wishes for you to show him the error of his ways. Perhaps She wishes to insure you appreciate Her.”
That I could believe. It rang very true in my heart.
My Horse still did not like it.
“How is your Horse on this course of action?” I asked.
“Angry and scared,” he said sadly. “I feel I am betraying all He has ever done for me. But in truth, He has only rarely managed to prevent my suffering. He may be the truth of my soul, but He is an animal, and He only sees what is before Him. He does not see beyond the next rise.”
“Oui,” I sighed. “If we let them decide everything, our Horses would lead us ever to the easier road. We achieve so much more when we climb. It just… It hurts. It can hurt. It will hurt.”
He toyed with the chain between his wrists and spoke with a furrowed brow. “I understand your worry that I am not… considering this matter correctly.”
“How so?”
“I do feel I must atone… For Gabriella. I allowed her to lead me astray. I knew what she asked was wrong. I know I meant well, but even with the best of intentions, some things are still wrong. And Chris as well.” He met my gaze. “But it is not punishment I seek. It is…not redemption… I have forgiven myself. I do not feel I need absolution granted from anyone…” He sighed and struggled with the words, finally choosing them with conviction. “It is a chance to prove myself—to myself, and to the Gods. It is a chance to prove I can be at my best in the face of adversity, instead of my worst. I feel that has always been the crux of the tasks I must perform or fail.
“But perhaps it is madness, because I felt much like this when I knew my father would come that morning. And… I passed that test, Will. It is the little things since then that I tripped on every day as I always had. Always allowing my Horse to fight me because… I needed His protection, because I did not know how to stand and face my enemies as a man.”
I was profoundly moved. I felt the painful eruption of epiphany.
“It is not madness,” I said. “It is becoming a man. Not the relinquishing of adolescence and the acceptance of responsibility; but truly becoming a man in the greatest sense of the word. It is claiming our birthright from the Gods to not be a beast. We must love and trust the beast in our soul, but in the end, oui, the Gods expect us to become men, to behave like men: to prove we can walk a path and not shy at every breeze in the bushes or become distracted and drag our carts across fields trying to trample snakes. And the Horse part of our souls might stumble and fall, but it is the man that finds the will to stand and try again.”
“Just so,” he whispered with tears in his eyes.
I nodded tightly. “I still… My Horse is terrified. My Man is terrified. My Wolf is even afraid; yet, we must band together and stand to face this. So… We will let them take us to my father. I do not know if I can bring myself to thank them for it, though.”
He chuckled weakly. “When we become old wise men, we will be able to do that.”
I wished to say if, but I told myself that was just the whining of a child. We could become wise old men in an instant.
I took his hand and moved to sit beside him. “So shall we frolic to England?”
“As much as we are able,” he said with a warm smile.
I did not frolic immediately. I turned within and stirred through memories and traced the threads that knotted throughout my soul. They formed patterns: in my early life, the same patterns again and again with different strings; and then I came here and there was the brilliant eruption of new thread that was Gaston, and the patterns changed – and kept changing. Nothing remained the same except for the threads from my childhood and youth, and though they did not change, I now used their dour colors to bring relief and contrast to the new design; and in doing so, I made it easier for me to examine and appreciate them.
I had once styled myself Ulysses, but until now, there had truly been no home for which I must fight my way back. Nay, I had been more like Penelope: weaving a burial shroud for a love that she prayed was not dead; and then tearing it apart every night to reweave it again to buy herself time. Then my love—my king—returned with Gaston, and I could weave whatever I wished.
Even if my father killed us, I would leave a fine tapestry behind.
They did bring us food later in the day. They emptied our waste bucket with little complaint, and they did not spit in our water. We were always under watch, but the men were not intrusive—though we did not feel like amusing them with any sort of carnal antics. Several days later, the Lilly was moved to the wharf and they loaded their share of the treasure. They stacked crates high about us and left us a little cell beside the hatch steps, but the rest of the hold was filled.
The deck was canted as the Lilly ran north with a strong wind across her beam when Norman at last graced us with his presence. To our delight, he had our bags and he tossed them to us.
“You can keep those if you cause no trouble,” he said with little humor as he studied us.
We did not immediately rummage through them to see what was missing.
“Thank you,” I said. “Though we are pleased to have those, there is another thing I would ask of you. First, what is the date?”
“The Sixth of March, by my reckoning.”
I looked to Gaston and smiled. He frowned.
“Might we trouble you for a bottle of brandy or rum?” I asked Norman. “Yesterday was my matelot’s birthday.”
Norman snorted, but his grin was appreciative and he walked forward and poked around in a crate. He returned with two bottles of Spanish brandy. He handed me one and uncorked the other. He took a sip and then offered it to us. I accepted it gratefully, as did Gaston after I took a long drink.
“So where are we bound, Jamaica?” I asked.
“Nay, straight to England. We laid in the provisions for it, and I put all the men not willing to sail there on other ships.”
I frowned. “Why the hurry to deliver us, or am I placing far too much importance upon us?”
Norman snorted congenially. “Nay, you are the cargo.”
“Truly, Modyford and Morgan place that much faith in my father’s political sway?”
He shrugged. “That would be part of it, but nay, your father offered a fine reward.”
“So Morgan lied.” I was not surprised, yet I was amazed the damn bastard was so convincing. He truly was a worthy opponent in that regard.
“He was betting on a definite win,” I sighed.
Norman shrugged again. “I don’t care what the Governor and Morgan hope to gain. I am to deliver you and pick up the coin. I take my share and deliver the rest to them.”
“Will delivering me be more lucrative than Panama?” I asked with curiosity.
He laughed. “Oh aye.”
“What was each man’s share?” I asked.
“Came to about ten pounds per man.”
“Ten pounds? For all that?” I exclaimed. I supposed there were a great number of men it had to be divided between, but still, it seemed a paltry sum compared to the amount of treasure and ransoms—even if Morgan did not capture the galleon with the plate and coin.
Norman awarded us a sly and crooked smile. “Panama was better to some than to others.”
“Some?” Gaston asked. “Was it not shared equally?”
The sly smile remained. “There were things not considered part of the booty for all.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well, like you for instance.” He shrugged and chuckled. “The bounty for you, and then there would be your shares and the money he was due as surgeon. It was thought you would not need it.”
“All became part of another pot of loot to be shared between… Morgan’s favored captains, perhaps?” I asked.
“I will not say one way or the other,” he said. “Think what you will.”
“I will think you cheated the men: that you all conspired to cheat the men—and the French, I suppose.”
He shrugged as if to say that went without saying.
“Well, the Way of the Coast is dead,” I said.
That wiped the smirk from his face, yet he said, “You’re naïve to think it ever lived.”
“Non,” Gaston said quietly. “There was a time when it lived, but it has been dying for years.” He shrugged. “It is a sad thing, but it is no longer Will’s and my concern. Even if we live, we will no longer live this life, and neither will our children.”
Norman snorted. “From what I hear, you two won’t be having children.”
I frowned. “We have five—if all has gone well in our absence. Has someone told you otherwise?”
He frowned and looked away. “Nay, I just assumed.” He shrugged, but there was guilt about his mien.
I was tempted to wonder if it could be exploited. He had been oddly confrontational yet conciliatory throughout our meeting: perhaps he was wrestling with his conscience. But nay, such thoughts were unproductive and their pursuit fruitless. I had to stop attempting squirm my way out of this trap. We were going to England. No matter what occurred, it would be for the best—in this life or the next.
“What happened to that girl who was dressing as a boy?” Norman asked.
We shrugged in unison.
“We do not know,” I said. “We can only pray she is safe and well.”
Norman’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “No one asked of you afore we sailed.”
“I would think not.”
He gave another snort. “No one’ll be rescuing you, either. Morgan told us how you say you escaped from the English your father sent. That won’t happen on my ship.”
“My dear Captain,” I said, “I hope much of what occurred on that vessel will not happen here. And nay, we do not expect a rescue. We are quite resigned to our fate. We have much to ask my father. So, we will not trouble you, if you—or your men—do not trouble us.”
“Good,” he said and stood. He paused at the base of the steps. “I hope things go well for you with your father.” He seemed sincere.
“Thank you,” I said.
With that he left us—with both the opened and unopened bottles.
“To you having graced my life for another wonderful year,” I said and toasted Gaston.
He laughed and took the bottle from me to take a long pull. “Oui, happy birthday to me.” he sighed, and his humor fled, but his expression turned hopeful. “We will see what this year brings, oui? We should reach England before your birthday.”
That was sobering. I sighed and took the bottle back to drink more. “I will resolve not to view the matter as our being captured for your birthday and our being delivered to my father for mine. Though the Gods’ choice of timing is… questionable if we wish to perceive Them as benign.”
He chuckled, though his words were somber in implication. “I will view my birthday gift as the realization of what we must do, and yours will be the resolution.”
I could not but grin: the wine was tickling my heart; and, truly, he was correct if we were men of faith. “This year will bring much. I was nearly tempted to thank Norman for taking us on this journey, but… alas.” I sighed extravagantly. “I could not quite achieve that degree of magnanimity—perhaps by my birthday.”
My matelot laughed. “We have already achieved much. I was tempted to growl at him.”
“In truth, I was tempted to try and exploit his guilt to our advantage.”
He smiled at me with great regard. “I feel the Gods have granted me a fine gift: I have you and a life well lived, and the wisdom to know what I hold.”
Now that the hold was full and we were at sail, the Lilly’s crew did not come below except to retrieve victuals or tend to us. Norman came once a week or so and checked our bonds, but he stopped sending someone down to watch us. He had given us our things with nothing missing save our weapons—we had not had any coin in our bags anyway—and thus we had our blankets, our salves, and other personal items. We had privacy and peace. We frolicked. We exercised as our chains would allow. We grew our hair and beards since we could not cut them. I discovered Gaston’s hair was unruly even when short because it was curly. Given enough time, I was sure he would have a head of red ringlets for which the bewigged members of any royal court would die to obtain. We made love. We even engaged in Horseplay on occasion. Gaston found having me always bound amusing. He need only plant his weight on one section or another of our chains to pin me.
We did not discuss the future: we could not know it. We made vague and happy jests about surely needing a large cave to house so many baby centaurs—and their mothers.
The weeks passed, and eventually the air grew cooler. Crossing the ocean in the final leg of our journey proved to be a level of Hell from our perspective. Norman found a westerly wind to push us as fast as the Lilly could sail across the cold northern waters, but it came at the price of a following sea that bounced the sloop continuously. In the hold, with no horizon by which to steady ourselves, we suffered from sea sickness as we had not in many years. When Norman told us they had spotted land on May Twenty-Eighth, we were actually relieved and had little thought for what it meant other than a cessation of the ship getting her arse slapped again and again for nearly a fortnight.
Once we were sailing in calmer waters down the coast of Wales, the cold night air began to seep into our bones and hearts in equal measure, and dread became our companion. We were bound for Portsmouth, and even with fractious winds we would arrive in a matter of days.
The day we turned east along the southern English coast, Gaston woke me in the darkest hours of the night. At first my cock and Horse held hope he might wish to tryst—as we had not felt inclined to do in several weeks between the sea sickness and our arrival on this forlorn shore—but then I remembered where we were and the promise of passion was dashed on the rocks.
“What?” I asked. I could not see him in the darkness.
“We should talk.” His voice sounded small.
“Are you well?”
“Enough,” he sighed. “I have been thinking or what we might face.”
“Do not,” I whispered.
“Non, we should talk,” he insisted and kissed my cheek.
I sighed and moved to embrace him. “What would you have me hear?”
“You have ever been brave when confronted with pain; and I am too, though it is usually my Horse that bears the worst of it. I do not know how well I will be able to sit Him under that kind of duress.”
My breath caught as I realized how very close to the bone he wished to speak. I sighed. “My love, I do not know how I will behave this time. If I am tortured as Thorp did, my resolve will crumble. If I must watch you tortured, I will crumble. I do not know how I will bear that. I will likely cry, scream, beg, and act anything but brave.”
I felt him nod. “Oui, I do not know how I will survive seeing you hurt: it will break my heart, but… There is no shame, my love. There is only one thing you could do—or I could do—that would bring shame to us.”
“What?” I asked with alarm.
“We must not forsake one another. No matter what they do, we must not forsake one another. I do not care if it will save my life or end my suffering, please do not forsake me.”
I took a ragged breath. “I understand. I will not. I did not before…”
His fingers were on my lips. “I know, and I pray I can be as strong as you in the face of… your pain. I know I can suffer anything for my own ends – at least I have in the past.”
I kissed his cheek and held him tighter; and allowed myself to think of what my father had wished before and might wish now. “That is what he will wish from me: that I forsake you. And oui, the irony will be that they will most likely use the object of my love to try and break me.”
“Those are my thoughts,” he breathed. “I know I ask much. It is just that I would rather die—no matter how horrible the death—knowing they did not win.”
“They will not win,” I assured him with conviction. “And you do not ask anything other than what you deserve—and very likely what the Gods demand. I am forsworn and forsaken in all I hold holy if I renounce you. I will not, even if they tear you to pieces before me, or you are reduced to begging me to do so…” I could not continue for the constriction in my throat. I could not help but imagine that of which I spoke. I buried my face in his neck and sobbed quietly.
“And I vow the same to you, my love,” he whispered and kissed my hair.
We arrived at Portsmouth on June Second. Norman once again placed us under guard while the Lilly sat anchored in the harbor for three days. Gaston and I had spoken no more of what we would face, but a pall of doom hung over us all the same. On the night of the Fifth, Norman handed us a bottle of rum and told us we would be delivered tomorrow night. We drank ourselves drunk, tried to make love, failed, and laughed and cried ourselves to sleep. In the morning we nursed our aching heads with water and good food—Norman was indeed treating us like condemned men—and waited. When the Lilly finally moved toward the wharfs, we pissed and shit as we were able. Then we sat holding hands.
When the ship bumped against the wharf, my stomach roiled and my heart clenched, and I gripped Gaston hard enough to make him wince.
He looked to me with his Horse rearing in his eyes. “I love you,” he said fiercely.
“I love you.”
“I want to fight,” he said.
I was scared, and months of telling my Horse that we were not to attempt to escape had left Him confused. I knew He would find his feet once rough hands were upon me, though.
“I do not think we should allow men to abuse us unanswered,” I said. “We are here to see my father, and our battle lies with him. I do not wish to turn the other cheek to common dogs my father has hired. Do you see the matter differently?”
“Non,” he said firmly. Then he sighed. “But we should not seek to abuse them. They are only doing what they have been told. If they choose to take glee in our discomfort, however, then oui, they must be taught a lesson.”
I found thin humor in our justifications. “We will give our Horses some rein then, oui?”
“Oui.” He chuckled weakly.
We heard Norman welcome someone aboard, and then there were high, black, ornate boots descending the stairs. I recognized him before he doffed his hat and turned into the light to regard us. My heart clutched painfully and I was rendered mute. I could only crush Gaston’s hand.
“Well, look at you two: such hair,” Thorp said with a mock grimace. “You look like Puritans—or Jews.” He grinned at our expressions. “What? Surprised to see me? Did you think I drowned?”
“Non,” Gaston said with insouciance that surprised me. “We are amazed Will’s father still employs the incompetent. I would think the frigate would have been an expensive lesson for him.”
I pulled my gaze from the hated bastard and fixed it on my matelot with gratitude. I found him calm and alert, with just a touch of his Horse. He would have to be my anchor in this. I was drifting into the maelstrom just seeing Thorp. I prayed to the Gods Gaston could be my anchor.
“Lovely,” Thorp said with a touch of annoyance. “When you are not growling and thrashing about, you think you share your lover’s wit. Have them both gagged and bound.”
I heard Norman snort. “Do it yourself. They already cost me six men.”
“Wonderful,” Thorp said.
“Unless your men engage in petty cruelty, we have no quarrel with them,” Gaston said. “We are here to meet with Will’s father.”
Thorp laughed. “Oh my…” He ascended the stairs.
Norman paused before following him: his eyes on us. “Godspeed,” he said quietly.
“And to you,” Gaston said.
Then my matelot’s mouth was on mine with great fervor before Norman had finished ascending the steps. His plunder threw me into confusion, but it pushed the fear away for a moment. I met his earnest gaze when he released me.
“He was stupid and arrogant when he abused you, oui?” Gaston asked. “I recall that from your accounts.”
I shook my head helplessly. I could not think.
“When he took you, he did it alone, oui?”
I nodded tightly.
“Good, then he will be easy to kill.”
I blinked.
“The Gods sent us here to meet your father, and we will not fight their will; but Thorp is another matter.”
I took a deep breath. “So we will seek to kill him—despite…” I asked hopefully.
“Oui, we have vowed to do so. I cannot see where the Gods cannot honor that considering the bastard’s unwarranted abuse of you.”
My Horse was happy with this news, but afraid. “I want to kill him; but my love, he scares me so.”
“I know. You must trust me.”
I nodded.
“You must let him pull your strings.”
The idea filled me with dread and revulsion. There were boots on the deck again.
“Will, trick him into giving us an opening,” Gaston said with a gleam in his eyes. “Do it for me.”
I could deny him nothing, but this was… I took a deep breath and nodded as Thorp returned with four men who regarded us and the cramped quarters with trepidation.
“’Ow do ya want us ta do this, sir?” the oldest man of the bunch asked.
Thorp shook his head with annoyance. “Bind their ankles, and then their wrists, and then bind their arms to their sides. Gag them. Then remove the chains.”
Gaston scooted forward and put his legs out with his ankles together. He crossed his wrists in his lap. Then he looked at me expectantly. I did the same. I had already had to extend one leg when he moved.
“Don’t trust them,” Thorp warned his men.
“We are far more trustworthy than he is,” Gaston assured them.
They seemed torn between pillar and post, but at last the older man crept forward and tied my ankles together quite carefully. Emboldened, one of the others did the same with Gaston. Soon we were trussed like two sacks of grain and they were carrying us out of our home of three months and into the chilly night air. I closed my eyes: I did not want to see the curious or pitying looks of Norman’s crew, nor did I wish to witness being dangled over the water as they got me onto the wharf. We were finally dumped side by side on our backs in the bed of a wagon. I opened my eyes and found Gaston’s calm green ones regarding me with love in the lantern light. I sighed around my gag and watched the stars drift by overhead as we clattered through cobblestone streets.
I expected us to leave the city; but instead, the wagon slowed and maneuvered, backed up, and then the stars were eclipsed by a high, beamed ceiling. We were pulled out and deposited in the straw of a large, box horse stall. I glimpsed crates and barrels stacked along the walls at the edge of the candlelight as we were moved. I guessed us to be in a warehouse. I wondered why the Gods felt the need to add straw and the smell of horses to my duress.
“’Ow will we go about bathin’, shavin’ and dressin’ ’em if they be so dangerous?” the older man asked.
Thorp had entered the stall and now stood looking down at us. “Very carefully,” he chortled. “We have an advantage: neither of them will wish to see the other harmed; or most likely attempt to escape alone. So we will do them one at a time, with a gun at the other’s head.”
“But…” the man said. “That be Lord Marsdale, correct, an’ ’Is Lordship said…”
Thorp glared at him. “Shut your hole.” He squatted beside me. “Lord Marsdale knows I am capable of harming him without marring him if I wish.” He ran a hand up my thigh to my crotch and cupped my member.
I fought the urge to scream in the gag.
“Mister Thorp!” the old man protested. “’Is Lordship said there were to be none o’…”
“Shut up, Carmichael!” Thorp growled and tightened his hold on my cock.
This was what Gaston wanted. I closed my eyes and willed my cock to rise. It regarded me with incredulity—as did my Horse. Even my Wolf stood slack-jawed.
Thorp caressed a little and then merely hovered. “But nay, this did not like me as much as I liked the rest of you. Perhaps your lover…”
I bucked my crotch against his hand. I did not open my eyes to see his expression as he returned to cajoling my reluctant member. He would see my revulsion and the game would be off if I did.
I could not imagine it was Gaston touching me, but I could imagine my man standing there with the cruel gleam of his Horse in his eyes, watching me squirm as the knots in my soul tightened. My Horse and cock understood that. And once my member was on the rise, any touch, even Thorp’s, felt good enough to continue.
“My, my,” he whispered. “I am flattered. Nay, amazed.”
I kept my eyes closed and forced myself to groan a little with pleasure; being careful not to overact lest he suspect something.
“Oh, and you do not like this one bit,” Thorp crowed.
I turned my head and looked to Gaston. He was glaring at Thorp with murder in his eyes.
Chortling, Thorp stood and walked to the stall doorway. He pushed the gaping and offended Carmichael out and closed the door, telling him, “Go have a drink at the tavern – all of you.”
I glanced back at Gaston. He winked at me. I wanted to kiss him as I never had before.
“This is a wrong thing,” Carmichael was saying.
“Aye, it is. It is horrible of me. I am the worst sort of man. Aye, aye,” Thorp said with an insolent shrug. “But if you tell anyone, you will be without employment, and I might tell His Lordship things about you that will lose your house as well. Who will he believe?”
I heard receding footsteps. Thorp waited to see them leave before turning back to us.
“Now how shall I do this?” he asked as he came to gloat over us. “I definitely want you naked, both of you. Hmmm… And I think, ah, aye, that will do. I can’t have either of you feeling lonely while I attend to the other.”
He slipped out of the stall.
I looked to Gaston and found him grinning around his gag. I was greatly amused. We were very bad men, and Thorp was indeed very stupid when aroused.
Our quarry returned with a satchel. From it he produced a fine, large, carved-ivory dildo and a crock of grease. I understood well why any man with our predilections carried grease, but I still wished to ask him why he carried a damn dildo. I recalled the assortment of them he had on the ship and I suppressed a shudder. My fear crept back: what if we could not get him before he got us?
He set the dildo on the straw between us, looking from one to the other of us to see our expressions when we saw it. Gaston feigned concern at the sight, which amused Thorp and he gave a gleeful grin and hurried off again. When he was gone, Gaston met my gaze and flicked his eyes at the dildo with a frown of befuddlement. Despite my growing fear, I had to suppress a chortle. I shrugged as best I could, and my matelot chuckled.
Thorp returned with a heavy, double horse yoke. He dropped it on the floor above our heads, and Gaston and I recoiled with surprise at the resonant thud in such close proximity to our skulls. Then Thorp was squatting over me. He rolled me toward Gaston and onto my belly.
“Now,” Thorp said eagerly. “We will not be stupid, will we? I am going to release the rope about your chest, and you are going to work your arms up over your head until you touch that yoke. If you struggle, I shall hit you until you are stunned, and then when you wake, I will cut on him as your punishment. Do you understand?”
I nodded and kept my eyes on Gaston. He was alert and not scared. I strived to be the same.
Thorp untied the rope that held my arms at my sides, and I pulled them up my body. Once I had my bound wrists even with my chin, he pressed his knee between my shoulder blades to pin me. I finished extending my arms and touched the yoke. Squatting on my head, he began to tie the length of rope he had removed from around my arms to the rope about my wrists.
With a great show of growling, Gaston began to squirm and roll away.
“Oh no you don’t,” Thorp said, and stood. He kicked down hard between my shoulders, driving the breath from me, and then he went to retrieve Gaston.
I sucked air into my lungs in a great gasp and pushed to my knees. Gaston spun and knocked Thorp off his feet and onto his back. Despite the straw, there was a solid thud as the bastard’s head struck the floor. He cursed and blinked and reached for a knife at his belt. Gaston dove atop him, but with his arms bound at his sides, he was no more than an impeding worm.
I needed a weapon. I supposed I could strangle him with the rope around my wrists. Then I spied the dildo. I grabbed it in both hands and bucked my way across the floor to throw myself on Thorp. I planned to hit him with it, but he opened his mouth to yell and I jammed the dildo there instead. He let out a muffled roar and I pushed the phallus deeper while struggling to get some of my weight across his body and still maintain leverage with my bound arms. Then my world was reduced to his bucking and struggling beneath our weight as I pushed the pole down his throat, seeking to either strangle him or break his spine. I prayed he had not pulled the knife; and I expected to feel it in my side or hear Gaston grunt in pain at any moment. Mere inches from mine, Thorp’s eyes were wild and terrified, and increasingly distended. He made muffled roaring sounds. His hands began to claw at me and I stopped worrying about the knife.
“What the bloody ’ell?” came from the doorway.
I looked over and found Carmichael and two of the other men standing there with weapons drawn. Thorp reached toward them with a shaking hand. They stood transfixed.
I kept pushing. If we could at least kill Thorp, I did not care what they might do to us.
Thorp stopped bucking and his hands dropped to clutch feebly at the straw. Then even that ceased and the light left his eyes. Finally, he became still and limp.
I released my desperate grip on the dildo and rolled off the body. Gaston regarded me with relief and satisfaction. I pulled the gag from my mouth and looked to the men. We could not defend ourselves from the three of them even if I pulled one of Thorp’s knives; and he had left his pistols and sword hanging by the stall door—behind the men. My Horse was panicked and wished to trample another enemy. I summoned my Wolf.
“Stand down, we mean you no harm,” I said with authority.
“We were comin’ ta stop him,” Carmichael said.
“And I thank you for that,” I said. “This man wronged me before and he owed me his life for it. I was not about to allow it to happen again. Understand that we are not attempting to escape, though. We wish to go where you are supposed to take us: to my father, Lord Dorshire.”
They took a step back, and the two behind looked to Carmichael.
“Well, my lord,” he said weakly. He cleared his throat. “That um… Ya wish ta go to yur father? Then um... I suppose that’s what we should do, then.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” I asked.
“Rolland Hall, my lord.” His mien said he was balancing on the fence of the truth and did not like it.
I took a guess as to why. “Is my father there?”
Carmichael grimaced. “Nay, my lord, ’e be in London.”
“Then I would have you take us there.”
He seemed concerned at this direction, but he did not say anything to counter it. He nodded. “Very good, my lord.” One of the other men whispered. He nodded enthusiastically. “We ’ave proper clothes fer ya.”
“Very good,” I said. “I would like wine, a tub with warm water… Can that be done? And food.”
They nodded and scurried off. I pulled a blade from Thorp’s belt and cut our bonds.
Gaston threw his arms around me and we held one another in breathless wonder at our turn of good fortune.
“Thank you,” I finally breathed. “I could not have survived that without you.”
“You were magnificent.” He kissed me deeply.”’
“Non, you were. I would have been helpless.”
“Never: I only had the advantage because I did not fear him. I only led you past that fear. It was you who rose to the occasion.” He grinned.
I snorted and had to laugh. “I cannot believe I managed that.” I shuddered.
“We will consider it another task of Hercules.”
“We will not tell our grandchildren of it.”
He laughed and then his face shifted to a bemused frown. “My love, there are many things we should not tell our grandchildren.”
“Do tell,” I teased.
Carmichael returned with a box of clothes: replete with coats, wigs, and boots. We picked through that with matching grimaces until he returned again with our bags, boots, and to my amazement, weapons.
“Thank the Gods,” I muttered. “There is the glimmer of life in the Way of the Coast yet.”
Gaston was hugging the musket he had owned for over ten years like the beloved friend it was.
The men did manage to produce wine, a bowl of soup, and a wash basin and hot kettle. I was going to ask them to leave us alone so that we could bathe, but then I saw Thorp’s body.
“Can you dispose of that?” I asked Carmichael.
“Dump it in the alley?” he asked with trepidation.
“Why not?” I replied. “Be sure to remove any coin or valuables and distribute it amongst yourselves.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Carmichael said with awe.
His comrades bowed deeply in gratitude.
I smiled and waved them out the door as they dragged Thorp away by his heels. Once we were alone, I looked to Gaston. “It seems odd that my father would only send Thorp and four men.”
He frowned. “What are you questioning?”
“As you suggested when first you saw him: that my father would still trust him.”
Gaston nodded thoughtfully. “We must question Carmichael further. And where is that other man?”
We loaded our weapons, and with one eye on the door to the warehouse, took turns quickly bathing and dressing. We were shaving when Carmichael returned.
“Mister Carmichael, were there not four of you?” I asked.
He nodded and grimaced. “I sent Burt ta fetch Mister Jenkins. It were afore… um, Mister Thorp, um…”
“Who is Mister Jenkins?” I asked.
“Um, well, ’e manages things like this, er… Um, difficult things requirin’… discreetin? Discretion fer ’Is Lordship. ’E ’ad ta be away: so ’e left Mister Thorp ’ere ta wait on the ship. We were ta tell ’im as soon as ya arrived, but Mister Thorp…” He sighed. “’E were always the troublesome sort. ’E said ’e could manage this well enough on ’is own.” Carmichael shrugged eloquently.
Gaston and I exchanged a look of concern.
“Where did you send Burt to find Jenkins?” I asked.
“Rolland Hall,” Carmichael said, seemingly happy to have an easy question to answer.
“The estate is several days ride to the north,” I told Gaston. “London is one day’s hard ride to the northeast.”
He nodded. “Then let us find horses.”
I nodded and looked to Carmichael. “We will be riding to London at once. Do you have horses ready, or were we to ride in the wagon?”
“There be a carriage fer the two o’ ya , and then ’orses fer us; but we were na’ ta leave ’til Mister Jenkins arrived.”
We could not have that. “Give us the two best horses.”
He frowned.
I sighed. “Mister Carmichael, I understand you are a loyal and good servant of my father. I appreciate your service to the family. However, I am sure Mister Jenkins will wish for us to travel with him to Rolland Hall. We wish to go to London. I do not wish for anyone other than Thorp to die. Do you understand my meaning?”
He heaved a great resigned sigh. “I do, my lord. We’ll fetch the ’orses.”
We were on the road traveling as fast as we dared by torchlight within the hour. We had fine animals, and it felt good to ride; I only wished I could enjoy it without fear of robbers or other dangers.
As the sky grayed with the dawn, I saw that Gaston appeared as pensive as I felt.
“Our plan is to confront him and not kill him, oui?” he asked when he saw me watching him. “We are free now, and armed.”
I thought on it. “Nothing has changed, has it?” I finally asked. “We are better men for not seeking to kill him; the Gods have done much to bring us here; and even if They had not, things must be resolved with him if we are to live in peace; and so, what else is there except to go and speak with him—whatever the consequences?”
He sighed and smiled weakly.
“However, if you have had a change of heart, speak now. I would love to have another option.”
His smile became more sincere and he looked to me with love. “We must. I am just afraid you will be angry with me for a very long time if this goes badly.”
I laughed. “At least we will be together to argue the matter for eternity, non?”
He pulled his horse up and I quickly had to do the same and wheel to return to him.
“Let us pray,” he said. “And promise a temple or some service or whatever you feel appropriate.”
“Who should we implore? What do we seek?”
He frowned in thought. “Venus?” he offered.
“You truly believe She was the Goddess angered?”
He nodded. “And if not… Love is what we seek: the freedom to love: the freedom to embrace Her divine gift. And love is what we hold. It is our greatest treasure. Should we not ask Her to safeguard it?”
My heart ached in an old familiar way. “Oui.”
We rode off the road and found a grove at the edge of a field. We dismounted, and as the sun broke the horizon, I turned my face skyward and spoke from my heart.
“Oh Divine Goddess Venus, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty; please hear our prayer. We wish to thank You for the bounty of Your blessing. Your gift has enriched our lives as no other can. Please help us safeguard Your gift in our coming battle. We face a fearsome foe: a man who I feel knows You not. Please let us… love: live in love: live to celebrate You: live to spend the rest of our lives in devotion to Your gift. We will build You a temple… Not in a garden or on a hill, but in our home, with our home and the Love it shall hold. Please let us serve as Your disciples and emissaries. And if it is not Your will, or the will of the other Gods, that we should survive this battle, then please grant us peace in one another’s arms for all eternity.”
I stood there feeling the sun on my face, and then Gaston’s arms were about me and he was pulling and pushing my clothing off and away. I stripped him as well, and we fell to the grass and made love as if our lives depended upon it, and as if there was no other purpose in life than stepping into Heaven in one another’s arms. The blinding light of that perfection did not leave me in the aftermath, and I felt golden and powerful.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the sky—and my love.
“I thought it an appropriate offering to Her,” Gaston said with a happy smile.
“I feel invested with Her juju.”
He pushed up to look down at me. “My love, you are Her juju.”
“And you are mine.”
We dressed and rode on. We stopped several times throughout the day to eat and rest our mounts. We watched our fellow inn patrons carefully. Though Jenkins would not have a good description of us save for our hair color, the clothes we had been given were new and did not fit well: that alone would not have made us stand out in the crowded inns, but when we added the anomaly of our muskets—an uncommon weapon for a gentleman in England to casually carry—we did attract attention from other wary men. Still, we made London that evening without incident.
Gaston slowed as we entered the teeming city.
“Do you know where we are going?” he asked with some trepidation.
“I hope I do,” I said. “We shall have a bit of a problem if my father did not rebuild his townhouse where the old one stood before the fire.”
We swung wide to avoid the near-collision of the city-bound carriage and a country-bound dray. There was a great deal of cursing and whip cracking. I was silently recalling all I hated about being around so many faceless, yet loud and obnoxious, urban denizens when I saw that Gaston was quite tense. For me, it was an unexpected annoyance, for my matelot, who had ever suffered from over-sensitivity to loud sounds and sudden movement, it must appear a nightmare.
I went to his side, and only recalled at the last instant that here—in civilized England—I should not bridge the distance between us and take his hand.
“My love, look at me,” I said calmly and quietly in French.
His worried gaze shifted to me with gratefulness. “I did not think… to anticipate this. I knew we were riding into a city—a large city—and I have been in cities… But…” He sighed heavily. “It will be akin to battle.” He regarded the road ahead with dismay. “A battle where I cannot allow my Horse to pick His path.”
I considered how we would manage this obstacle. I could not lead him.
“Your Wolf?” I asked.
He took a steadying breath and considered that with a frown. “I will try.”
In London, as in every great city, a traveler runs the risk of being waylaid at every alley if he wanders from the well-traveled roads: however, I tried to steer us around the more clamorous streets anyway; without endangering us or becoming lost. I twice had us meander in a circle. It was dark—and late—when we at last reached the place where I thought my father’s house stood.
There was a fine, large, four-story stone house on the lot. Now I sat my horse—and Horse—with trepidation.
“This might be it,” I said.
“You do not recognize it?” Gaston asked.
“I have not seen it since it was rebuilt. When last I was here, most of the city had recently burned. The old house was completely made of wood.”
He nodded. “Well, we are somewhat committed. There is a man in the yard watching us.”
There was indeed an armed man standing in the yard with his eyes on the two horsemen staring at his building.
I sighed. “He should be able to answer the question. We rode across the street. “Hello, I am seeking the home of the Earl of Dorshire.”
He was a surly fellow, but he answered readily enough. “This is it… sir. What business might you have with His Lordship at this hour?”
I bit back the honest answer. “I am a guest from out of town. Would he still be about, or should we call in the morning?”
“Would he be expecting you?”
“Nay.”
The man frowned. “I’ll ask then, sir.”
As he went to the door and knocked, I reflected that he was a lucky man indeed we did not come here to kill anyone: not because he was surly, nay; but because if we had followed our original plan of burning the house around my father’s ears, he would have needed to die.
Another man appeared in the doorway and studied us in the lantern light. This one I recognized. He had been in my father’s employ before I went to Jamaica. He was a lean, hawk-nosed man, with a confident bearing: we had not been introduced: he had merely drifted in and out of my father’s study like an obedient wolf. My stomach knotted as I realized who he might be.
His eyes widened with surprise and dismay as he recognized me, but he quickly schooled his features and descended two steps—with his hand hooked in his belt close to his pistol—to ask, “Lord Marsdale?” in a deep and rich voice.
“Aye,” I said. “Mister Jenkins?”
Gaston tensed.
Jenkins bowed politely.
“We heard you were at Rolland Hall,” I said pleasantly. “Mister Carmichael sent a man named Burt to fetch you.”
“Did he? Might I inquire as to the whereabouts of Mister Thorp?” he asked with a small smile.
“Well, after my last encounter with Mister Thorp, I had vowed to kill him: and so I did.” I slowly raised my hands to show them empty. “Please do not be alarmed. Though I have vowed similar things about my cousin Shane, I have recently reconsidered; and as for my father, I only wish to speak with him. I wish to resolve things between us without further bloodshed. If he will agree to meet with us in good faith, we will surrender our weapons so that there will be no confusion as to our intent.”
Jenkins regarded me with respect and awarded me a thoughtful nod. “I will speak with him. Will you wait here?”
I pointed to the street in front of the house. “Thank you.”
He went inside and we rode back to the street and turned to face the house.
“It is good you did not mention that we killed Thorp with our hands tied and only a dildo as a weapon; else he would not trust at all,” Gaston said quietly and grinned.
I laughed briefly, but it did little to lessen the tension knotting through every fiber of my being.
We looked to one another. I fought the ache in my heart and throat. It would not do to meet my father with tears in my eyes.
“Thank you,” Gaston said.
I smiled. “Non, thank you.” I looked away. “Now do not make me cry.”
We sat in silence and I tried to think of anything other than the knowledge that my love had honored even that request.
Jenkins returned to the front steps and motioned us forward. “He will see you,” he said quietly when we approached.
We dismounted and handed him and another man our weapons. Then we were inside a wood-paneled foyer and mounting an ornately-ballustraded stair to the main floor. I looked to Gaston one last time before we entered the study. He felt my gaze and met it. We smiled.
My father looked much as I had seen him last. His face was lined but not wizened, and he did not appear older. His shoulder-length, white wig was, of course, as it ever was. He was not a man for changing with the fashions of the day. He wore his usual dour black attire; with a fine white linen shirt—as unadorned as could be managed without making him appear poor. He was a big man, with a great height and shoulder width I had not attained. He had Sarah’s gray-blue eyes—or rather, she had his. He was not fat, but he was no longer lean—if he ever had been: I could not recall. His features were handsome. I supposed I bore his resemblance; though I felt I appeared a bit more youthful, and not because of our actual ages. I wished to ask Gaston, but that would have to wait.
He was sitting in a high-backed, stuffed chair behind a huge desk: a twin of the mahogany slab he used at Rolland Hall. The entire room looked to be very similar to his study at the main house. There was a large fireplace and hearth to our right, and windows to our left.
He regarded us from behind a frozen mask of dismay and disdain as we crossed the finely-wrought rug and stood behind the chairs before the desk.
We were not alone. Shane was thankfully not present, but Jenkins and two of his men stood inside the door.
“Dorshire,” I said in greeting, and bowed respectfully. “Allow me to introduce…”
“I know who he is,” my father said flatly. “What do you want?” He did not sound fearful, but he did not sound confident, either.
To my surprise and gratification, my Wolf saw a wolf in decline.
“What do I want?” I asked with incredulity. “It is my understanding you paid good coin to have me brought here.”
He snorted. “Not here.”
“England, then.”
He snorted again and shrugged. “I want a son.”
“Well, I have long wanted a father, but it appears we are at an impasse. I am tired of the death and violence. I am sure you feel you are weary of my defiance. What shall we do?”
“You could stop defying me,” he said with a trace of amusement I recalled from our last meeting. It seemed now as it did then: a grudging respect.
“If we are speaking solely of my love for this man, nay I cannot. I would cease to be the man I know as myself. I would cease to be. So therefore I cannot strive to please you in that regard. I am sorry.”
His features had hardened as I spoke, and the little spark of respect and kinship we might have shared was snuffed out. “You will,” he said.
I sighed and looked to Gaston. He nodded with a sad smile. I met my father’s glare. “Then you will have to kill me. You will have no son. You will have achieved nothing. Truly Father, why? I can understand your dislike of sodomy—many men feel as you do; but your unreasoning hatred: why?”
“Why?” he snarled. “You are the fruit of my loins: my sorry legacy in this world! And you are as stupid and stubborn as a peasant! You think only of your damn perverted pleasure. If you will not behave as befits a lord’s son, then aye, I will have no son!”
His anger did not scare me—even my Horse. It was the ravings of bitter old wolf.
“So tell me,” I said with a sigh. “Did you love Shane’s father, or did he love you?”
I thought he might explode with rage. He frothed for a time, the veins bulging in his neck, and his eyes protruded. Then he roared, “Jenkins, put them in the cellar! Chain them there! Chain them apart! I will have no acts of perversion under my roof!”
I heard Gaston’s sharp gasp. I knew he knew as I did, that we could fight, and if we were to fight, the time was now. I was not reeling in fear, surprise, or rage, though. I sat my Horse well. We stood in a quiet place with a battle before us and a shining light beyond it.
I turned to Gaston. Peripherally, I saw a stoney-faced Jenkins and his men approaching with pistols drawn. I held up a hand and he paused.
“My love,” I said quietly in French. “This is the test.”
I saw Gaston fighting to control his Horse. “I know.”
“Have Faith and Trust in Love.”
“Oui,” he said and the tension left his shoulders. And then in an amazing show of that very thing, he regarded my father with pity before turning to Jenkins with a bowed head and open hands. Thus we truly surrendered to the will of the Gods.
When they saw we would go quietly, Jenkins and his men did not lay a hand on us. They led us down through the kitchen to the cellar. It was stone walled, and as big as half the house, with a low ceiling and great posts to support the floor beams. The walls were filled with shelves full of foodstuffs and household items.
Jenkins ushered us inside and regarded us with a worried sigh. “Please have a seat. I assure you, no harm will befall you this night. I ask that you but trust me for a short time.” He searched our faces.
Gaston and I exchanged bemused looks and nodded as one.
He turned back to his men at the door. “Go tell them what our lord said,” he ordered one man. “Wait in the kitchen. Warn me if he comes down,” he told the other.
“What should I say?” the second man asked with a worried frown.
“Stammer a great deal and trip him,” Jenkins said.
The man swore. “He’ll hit me.”
“I’ll shoot you,” Jenkins assured him.
The man did not bridle at the threat; rather, he seemed annoyed and resigned. “I don’t like this.”
“You think I do?” Jenkins asked.
The man sighed and withdrew, and Jenkins closed the door and turned back to us. Seeing we were still standing, he said, “Please sit. This might take some time.” He looked about and plucked two bottles of wine from a shelf, handed us one, and sat on a barrel.
With another exchange of bemused looks, Gaston and I doffed our hats and wigs and sat on some crates facing him.
“What is occurring?” I asked.
Jenkins finished a long pull on his bottle and sighed before studying us with curiosity. “Do you know the Earl of Whyse?”
I had never heard the name, and I shook my head sincerely.
“Well, my lord, he appears to have taken quite a keen interest in you. And he knows a great deal about you.”
“I have truly never heard of him, Mister Jenkins. Who is he?” I asked.
Jenkins grimaced and considered his words. “It is said in certain circles that he performs the same services for the king that I perform for your father.”
“The king?” I asked. “The King of England?”
He regarded me as if I were daft.
I sighed. “So the king’s man has taken an interest in me?”
“Aye,” Jenkins said. “He approached me over a month ago. He knew you would be brought to England—as we did.”
“How?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We received a letter from that damn fool Modyford. I doubt that is how Whyse heard of it—well, at least not directly.”
Gaston and I exchanged a glance. It appeared Morgan had told Modyford even before we went to Panama.
“Whyse knew there was bad blood between your father and you,” Jenkins continued. “He told me he wished to avoid an unfortunate incident upon your arrival.”
“So he wished to protect my father from me?” I asked. I did not like the sound of that, despite Jenkins’ hospitality and our not being beaten or in chains.
“Nay,” Jenkins said with an annoyed frown. “He wished to protect you—both of you. He was concerned that your father might harm you—as your father does intend—or that you would be forced to harm your father and the result would be difficult to hide.”
That did indeed sound as if the Gods had sent us a protector, but it filled me with alarm at not knowing the reason. “Why?” I asked.
“Damned if I know,” Jenkins said. “I was hoping you would tell me.”
I took a deep breath and thought of the ramifications: for one thing, it appeared we were safe from my father’s plans and wrath.
“So my father does not know,” I said.
Jenkins shook his head sadly. “I have been his loyal man for over ten years. I have doubted him on only one matter—well, two—that being his handling of his affairs concerning you, and his handling of Shane. Your father is a reasonable and wise man in all things save that of you and your cousin and the issue of sodomy. The very subject seems to drive him mad. It surely induces him to take risks that endanger his name. So, aye, I have said nothing to him—as the Earl of Whyse directed—using the king’s name. But nay, that is not the only reason I have not spoken. I have said nothing because I wish for the matter to end—at least the part involving you. Shane…” He sighed and shrugged. “That will not likely end until he dies of drink.”
“I wish for it to end, too,” I said. “It has cost lives, and it is likely it will continue to do so. It has forced everyone who cares for me to be uprooted and threatened time and again. It endangers my children. It casts a pall over my entire life. But even you admit it is a madness of my father’s. Do you think he will bow to the king—if the king is indeed involved, for whatever reason—on this matter?”
He frowned at me and finally shook his head. “Nay, I do not believe even the king could sway him. And from what you told your father, you are as stubborn and as mad as he? If the king orders you to put the matter aside and appease your father, will you?”
“If by the matter I must put aside, you mean Gaston, nay, I will not,” I said.
“Then you are indeed as mad as he is,” Jenkins snapped. “He will not live forever, my lord. Why can you not appease him? Your love of this man here is not natural. It is not a right granted by God. Why die for it?”
I sat back and snorted. “My father is a stubborn man, Mister Jenkins. He will likely try to live until he is eighty or more to prevent me from having any enjoyment in my life that does not meet his moral standards. I will not live for him. I owe him nothing. His parentage of me was a reluctant duty I doubt he wished to perform. He has never liked me or wanted me as his son—even before he knew of my perverted desires. He has always wanted Shane as his offspring. I am sorry for both their sakes that there is no legal—or natural—way for them to both have what they wish.”
Jenkin’s jaw fell agape. “What are you saying? Why would you assume such a thing? He despises you both. He would never take Shane as his heir.”
I was surprised by his apparent sincerity: I supposed much had changed in my latest absence. Still, I snorted again. “Now, perhaps; and I am glad to hear it. I do not believe that was true when we were younger, though. He allowed Shane to drive me from his house. He apparently knew that Shane and I were lovers, and it was surely he who poisoned Shane’s heart; and then the bastard sat back and allowed Shane to abuse me in the hopes it might put me off men. That much my dear father actually admitted—when I had returned after ten years. Ten years in which he did not seek me. Ten years in which he kept Shane at his right hand.”
His mouth was hanging open again. “You and Shane were lovers? My God, that explains much…” He shook his head and looked away with a furrowed brow.
“I believe Shane’s father and mine were lovers as well,” I added.
“I heard your accusation, my lord,” he said stiffly. Then he gave a resigned sigh. “I have heard other rumors passed down through the servants to that end. And I suppose I heard of Shane and you, but I thought they referred to the other and dismissed it as more foolish prattle.”
I sighed and looked to Gaston.
He appeared as confused as I. “Your father must have lost him,” he said quietly. “Or perhaps he never had him.”
I realized I would never know.
Jenkins was studying us. “Do you know what he wished to do to the two of you? Nay, nay, how could you?”
“Break me to his will and kill my lover,” I said.
“Aye and nay,” he said, and guilt crept over his face. He considered the wine bottle in his lap. “He wished to force you to kill your lover.”
Gaston’s sharp gasp was echoed by mine.
“The damned monster,” I said. “And he thinks sodomy is perversion. I cannot understand how…”
Jenkins was shaking his head tightly. He met my gaze. “Your father does not despise sodomy in itself. He speaks openly of viewing it as an unfortunate vice, much like whoring.”
“But…” I began.
He shook his head and held up a hand. “Nay, the thing that drives him mad is your indiscretion; your apparent feeling that this love you feel is a thing you deserve or have a right to possess; and your defiance of the laws of man and God—and of his will. He did not care who Shane buggered, as long as Shane never saw the same boy twice. And he spoke of you with regard, and harbored hope that your time in Christendom had ended your foolish fancies; until you wrote him and indicated you had a lover. Then he became concerned. He sent you a wife to cure your confusion; and then... Well he began to hear things from Jamaica that indicated you had not put your lover out and that you were being very indiscreet. Then he began to conceive of ways to bring you to heel. He is appalled that you would abuse the family name and your title in this manner.”
“But is it because I have a thing he could not have?” I asked. His words explained so very much, but the knowledge fanned my anger instead of easing it.
Jenkins frowned. “We cannot know that, my lord. We can suppose it, but we cannot know it. And I will not disparage your father’s name by speaking of it anywhere other than here.”
“What are your feelings on sodomy?” I asked.
He sighed. “I feel a man can enjoy pleasures that God did not intend.” He shrugged—and would not meet my gaze.
“But in the end,” I supplied, “he must put aside his foolish fancies, and become a moral man who beds his wife—and only his wife—for the production of progeny—as God intended?”
Jenkins met my gaze with compressed lips. “Collins said you had some odd notions.”
I snorted. “How is Collins?”
Jenkins took another pull on his bottle and sighed. “Blind.”
“He had some strange notions,” I snapped. “He thought I would be thankful. I suppose my father thinks I would be thankful as well. Or perhaps he is not so very delusional, and he knows I would hate him forever if he accomplished his horrific scheme.
“Why is it, Mister Jenkins, that some men feel driven to expect everyone to applaud their poor and sad choices? They make a choice that results in their misery; and then… pride, I suppose, dictates they cannot reverse it; and then they feel compelled to decide that since this has occurred to them, everyone must share in the misery. And then they justify it in the name of God as if they could speak for the Divine. Why do men do that? Why do they engage in such an obvious child’s game? Why exercise such hubris and truly risk angering God? Are they just that damn stupid?”
Obviously discomfited, he stood and set his half-empty bottle on the barrel. “I will leave you to await the Earl.”
“Which one?” I asked.
He frowned and met my gaze. “Whyse, I hope. Though if your father should arrive first, I suggest you hold your tongue and not anger him. My lord.” He left us.
I sighed and tried to rein in my Horse. I understood his need to fight, though. And here we were, in a position to do so if we desired.
“Do you think this is a further test?” I asked.
Gaston sighed. “I do not know, Will,” he said quietly, and I could hear the strain in his voice.
I embraced him. “I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thrashing about in the traces.”
He chuckled. “You are merely tossing your head. My Horse is well; he sees a path of escape—though he does worry that it is a trap.”
“Do you believe in this Lord Whyse?” I asked as doubt nipped at my heels as well. “This does seem far too easy.”
“I must,” he said.
I pulled away to regard him and found his mien as troubled as he sounded.
He sighed. “I need hope, or I need to be bound; else I will attempt that path of escape.”
“You are doing very well,” I assured him.
“I have faith, but now I do not feel I know what is expected of us.” He smiled weakly.
I took a deep breath and thought on it. “I suppose we wait to see what the Gods bring next—and behave accordingly. So far, things have gone much better than I expected. I learned a great deal from Jenkins; and though the substance of it angered me, I know I should be grateful. This is what I came for.”
“So your father behaved as you expected?”
“Somewhat—he is much as I remember.” I changed our tack to lighten the mood. “Do you feel I resemble him?”
Gaston shook his head with wonder and not refutation before frowning with thought. “Oui and non. He is a big man.”
“Oui, I recall thinking I would be as tall as him someday; but it never occurred: perhaps that is why I never felt I grew up.”
He chuckled and gave a small sigh and smile. “I am pleased you will never grow into him. Are you sure you are his?” He did not appear to be entirely in jest: there was a hopeful note in his voice.
I laughed. “You would not ask that if you had met my mother. I cannot imagine any man I would wish to own as my father wanting to bed her—especially not in the name of misbegotten passion.”
“Truly? Then where did you come from?”
I smiled. “That was the great question throughout my childhood—asked by everyone.” I regarded him seriously. “Did you think my father would be like yours? Did you harbor a secret hope of that?”
He nodded. “I have wished for us to come here and be pleasantly surprised—to find that our dread was unnecessary. And that wish has been answered, perhaps, but from another source. Your father is… mad. Not the passing madness of a man at odds with his Horse, but the chronic illness of a man who…” He frowned in thought. “Has lost his soul, perhaps?”
“For much of my life, if I had known of Horses and Men and Wolves, I would have said my father had killed his Horse, but… Truly, I never saw him angered as he was tonight. I would say that is an angry Horse. But perhaps it is another beast entirely. Then again, Chris likened your Horse to a demon. And I have found myself comparing what must have been Shane’s Horse to one as well. And we have even called our own demons at times.”
“Demons are angry Horses no one can ride?” Gaston asked.
“Perhaps they are angry Horses without a rider. As we discussed; alone, they are but beasts that do not make choices with an eye on the road ahead. They just run where they will.” I looked to him. “You rode yours very well tonight: if the Gods are testing your Horsemanship, I cannot see where you did not pass. I am proud of you.”
He indicated the cellar around us. “It is not finished, yet.” Then he smiled. “But oui, I think we should take pride in what we have accomplished so far. No one is dead—save Thorp.” He shrugged.
I sighed. “I feel we have done the correct thing, the honorable and wise thing, but I am disappointed. We will have solved nothing when this Earl rescues us—for whatever nefarious purpose he might have. My father will still be a threat to us. And though I feel I know far more now, I still do not know for certain what drives him. And, I do not think it can be known. He might not even be aware of the cause. I envision it as a black box he has placed in the cave. It casts a shadow he shies away from, but he does not know what it contains.”
Gaston smiled. “I cannot imagine a man knowing what drives him to madness and not attempting to cure it, either.”
I smiled as I thought on it. “It is a great tenet of Christianity that suicide angers God; because it is a show of hubris to discard the sacred gift of life that God has bestowed in His infinite wisdom. But any creature has life. Man is special and unique amongst the beasts because we have the ability to reason. I think that is our Divine gift. I feel the Gods are likely angered by any man who refuses to claim the Divine birthright of a rational mind.
“And so, if a man sees he is in pain or ails—whether in body, mind, or soul—and he knows the cause, he should act to heal himself and prevent further harm. And if he does not know the cause, he should seek it. Any other course of action is akin to suicide. Thus I believe my father killed himself years ago, and now he wanders in Purgatory.”
Gaston sighed and smiled. “Your mother must have taken a lover.”
I laughed. “I always wished to be the child of gypsies—or the faerie folk: some changeling left on the steps of a village cottage on the night of the full moon, and given to the childless lord and his barren wife—but then my parents gave me two sisters.” I shrugged. “And there is a resemblance.”
“Oui, I suppose,” my matelot said with a frown. “But only a little in the face. Nothing else of your body reminds me of Sarah.”
I laughed. “I seem to recall you once had quite an interest in her body because it was a woman’s and bore a resemblance to mine in the face.”
He frowned. “I suppose I did. I can barely remember that. I suppose I wondered how you would appear if you were a woman. But then my cock ceased to care.” He shrugged.
“I thank the Gods for your blind cock,” I said sincerely.
He snorted. “I thank the Gods daily that you are blind.”
We regarded one another and I felt as close to him as I ever had.
“You are loved,” I whispered.
“As are you.”
I sighed happily and considered the future until such thoughts made me frown.
“What?” he asked with concern.
“If we can put this behind us with the assistance of the king—a thing I truly doubt though it is insulting to the Gods to do so…” I sighed and shrugged. “Where will we live? I suppose I shall have to learn Dutch.”
“Until you anger them,” he teased.
“The Dutch have colonies in the West Indies.”
He frowned. “Do you wish to return to the tropics?”
“Is this stone floor cold? Do you wish to spend the rest of your days wearing wool? I would like to feast my blind eyes upon your body at all hours.”
He chuckled and shrugged. “Dutch Protestants are a dour lot. I suppose that might be mitigated in the tropics.”
“There is always the Orient.”
“With five children, two wives, and who knows how many others?”
“Pete might marry Chris, yet; and then we would have one wife—who has a wife.”
“And—Gods willing—is the mother of your child.” He shrugged. “I have been thinking that perhaps I should marry Yvette if Pete marries Chris.”
I thought that a fine idea, still… “How long have you been thinking that?”
“Weeks. Months, perhaps.”
“And you did not feel it fit to share?” I teased.
“I did not think we were going to live.” His words sobered him and he looked away.
I sighed. “I cannot believe the Gods would be so cruel… now.”
He gave a wistful smile. “I would not think the Gods cruel if I died this day. I have had you. I have gained far more than I ever dreamed. I would only regret that I left you alone.”
“Do not say that,” I said with dread. “Not while we still sit in the house of a madman who wants you dead merely to make me miserable.”
He nodded with an apologetic mien and looked to the ceiling. “Please, though I am happy, I do wish to live so that I can keep Will happy, and raise our children, and do good in the world.”
“I do hope They feel that a worthy request,” I said. “Else I shall lose faith.”
There was the sound of a hissed disagreement beyond the door, and we tensed. I could not make out the words or voices. Then the cellar door was flung open to crash into the wall. We jumped to our feet.
A hunched figure with a cane entered. I knew who it was; though I would not have been able to recognize him without the context of our location and circumstance. It was Shane.
I had hoped not to see him. There was nothing I wished to say to him anymore, and I knew I would never hear what I wanted. Now, a thousand emotions and memories roared in and crashed upon the rocks of my heart, only to leave me slick with a feeling I could not name.
This was not the dark-haired, pale-skinned, and often dour boy of my childhood who had granted me a grudging friendship. Nor was this the slender youth with the sad brown eyes and the soft full lips of my adolescence who had offered me my first taste of love and passion. And this was not the twisted visage of drunken, demonic fury who had tormented the last days of my youth with violence and hatred. He was now a stooped, scarred, and bloated caricature of a man, with bloodshot eyes, sallow skin, and a silver mask over half his face; and he was peering at me with wonder.
“Shane?” I whispered.
He took a long shuddering breath. “Marsdale? It’s you. My God, it’s you.” His words had the soft slur of heavy wine. He stepped closer. “I heard…” He looked about with sudden concern and spied Gaston. He froze with an unreadable expression.
I glanced over and found my matelot regarding my supposed nemesis with surprise and curiosity.
“Shane, this is Gaston Sable; Gaston, Jacob Shane,” I said.
Shane looked to me. “You have given up everything for that?” The visible half of his mouth twisted into a sneer. “I’ve had better.”
“Aye, you have had him,” my matelot said flatly.
That wiped the sneer from Shane’s lips, and he regarded Gaston with recrimination. “Aye, I’ve had him.”
“And lost him,” Gaston said with the same lack of expression.
Shane recoiled and studied the floor. “I didn’t lose him. He left.”
“Aye, because you drove me away,” I said with calm. I had nothing to lose and nothing to fear. “I loved you, and you repaid me in violence and shame. Why? Because you wanted my father’s love more than mine? And what has that gained you?”
He regarded me with the hurt and lonely eyes of the boy who had come to share my life all those years ago. It tore at my heart and finished shredding all the veils and curtains I had hung in order not to look where he truly stood in my past. I had glimpsed through them here and there since beginning to heal in Gaston’s arms; but now there was only truth and light, and my memories of Shane stood exposed—good and bad.
His old anger flashed, and my Horse recoiled in surprise.
“Your father,” Shane growled. “I stayed and earned him.”
I calmed my Horse and stood my ground. “Earned him? What a fine prize, Shane. Look what he has done to you,” I said softly. “What you have let him do to you. You have let him twist you into a miserable and bitter man like him. Is that—this—the best life has to offer?”
“This!” He indicated his mask and cane. “This was done by your damn sister. Nay, this is not the best of life. I’m ruined, aye! Even the blind know it. Nay, before this, I was a better son than you. I became a man in his eyes: not some damned mewling sodomite! He wanted me as his son. He lamented my being born to another and you to him.”
He was not saying anything I had not heard from him: he had thrown the same words and justifications in my face before I escaped; yet, I was surprised he still believed it. I was surprised I had.
“Nay, I think he lamented you not being another—namely your father,” I goaded. “I think he loved your father more than my mother.”
He froze, surprise and doubt in his eyes.
“I have a theory,” I said. “I think my father was once much like us. I think he loved men. And I think someone told him it was wrong. And I think he abandoned his love for the sake of propriety, just as he demanded you do. And I think he wishes for us to be as miserable as he became. What do you think of that?”
He did not respond. I saw fear in his eyes.
“Or perhaps I am wrong,” I said. “Perhaps you never loved me. Perhaps I am just a damned mewling sodomite who wants to believe everyone is like me in order to justify my beliefs.”
He took a ragged breath. “I loved you! It was wrong. It wasn’t what a man does, but I loved you.”
It hurt; and yet it was a great relief. “I loved you, too. That is why you are not dead after all you did to me. I have killed many men since for far less. But you, nay, I ran from you because I was heartbroken that you would treat me as you did when I loved you so.”
Shane sat heavily on a barrel. “He, he… He said men didn’t do that kind of thing. He said boys sometimes have foolish notions; but men grow beyond them. He said if he ever learned I did such things, I would have to leave—he would send me to an orphanage and I would have nothing because I would deserve nothing. He said you were weak, but he couldn’t be rid of you because you were his flesh and blood: but he had faith in me, that I could overcome such moral weakness.”
He met my gaze. “But Marsdale, I still wanted you. It was the beast in my soul. No matter how much I drink, it is always there. I cannot drown it, and then… And then when I drink it gets the best of me. It always has.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
I could scarcely believe I was actually hearing those words from him. I had dreamed…
“I forgive you,” I said. “I forgave you… I do not know when, but at some moment in these last few years, I forgave you. I blame him—my father—our father. He set out to tear us apart. Maybe because he truly believes it was in our best interests: I know not.”
Shane sobbed—once. It was a forlorn and choked sound, and then he threw his head back and swallowed it down. When he looked forward again, his gaze settled on Gaston for a moment and quickly darted to me.
“He’ll kill him,” he said. “Nay, worse, he’ll make you kill him. That’s what he wants.”
Once again, I could not suppress my surprise at the monstrosity of it. I shuddered.
“He’s expected me to…” Shane shook his head.
“He has expected you to kill your lovers?” I asked with further horror.
Shane snorted. “I’ve not had lovers,” he said irritably. “How could I? Nay, he’s expected me to be discreet—to clean up my mistakes and leave no evidence of my drunken stupidity and sinfulness.”
I recalled Sarah mentioning a young sodomite who had disappeared from the village on the estate. I wondered how many times Shane had raped and killed in the name of drunken and twisted logic. It sickened me; and filled me with pity—for everyone involved—even him.
“Our father has made you into a monster,” I said sadly.
He took a shuddering breath. “You were always the smart one.” He stood on shaky legs and thumped his way to the rack that held the wine. He selected a bottle with care, uncorked it with practiced ease, and drank deeply. “I hated you for being smarter than I was,” he said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He snorted. “I hated that bastard Rucker for… Nay, I was jealous.”
“I am curious,” I said with resignation. “Did you say something to have Father discharge him?”
Shane nodded and took another drink.
I thought of all the other things he had done or I had suspected he had done. Anger flared when I came to Goliath.
“Why did you torture my horse?” I asked.
He winced and grimaced. “Jealousy,” he whispered.
“Because he was mine and you could not ride him?”
“Because he was yours and you did ride him.”
He was an abomination—and he had loved me. Nay, he had been turned into an abomination for his love of me. What was I to think of that? He should have been stronger, perhaps.
“I cannot forgive you for Goliath,” I said. And then, because I would know: “Did you plan to do the same to Gaston?”
There was a quiet gasp from my matelot.
Shane grimaced with guilt and shook his head tightly. “I did, but… Nay, not now that… I’ve seen you, and…”
There was a commotion beyond the door. We tensed at hearing our father demand Jenkins step aside.
“Do you love him?” Shane asked.
I regarded him with surprise, and he pointed at Gaston.
“More than life,” I said.
With lambent eyes, he nodded and set the wine bottle aside.
The door burst open and my father appeared: coatless and wigless, pistol in hand.
“No damn king will tell me how to…” my father was snarling.
He glared at Shane with surprise, and then tore his gaze from him to pass over me with disdain and settle on Gaston with malice. His arm rose, bringing the pistol to bear on my man.
I could not say whether he would fire or merely threaten. It did not matter. The maw of death at the end of that piece could not be pointed at Gaston. We were dead if it was.
Time slowed and nearly stopped. Gaston’s eyes filled with alarm and he slowly began to hunch down and aside. I had started moving when I saw my father’s intent; but my love seemed a million leagues away across the cellar, and I knew I could not reach him fast enough to push him aside or stand before him. I could only pray my father took the time to say some angry or pithy thing before pulling the trigger.
A shot reverberated through the cellar, ringing in my ears and returning the flow of events to their normal speed. The sound had not come from the pistol I watched with horror. And then I was plowing into Gaston and knocking him flat.
“You will not!” Shane cried.
I tore my gaze from my father’s wavering pistol, and saw Shane’s steady and smoking one. Above it, my cousin’s eyes were full of determination and old pain.
My father stood with surprise pushing the rage from his face as red blossomed on his white shirt. Then the rage returned, and his arm straightened again. This time he was not aiming where we sprawled on the floor, but at Shane. This time I saw his weapon buck in harmony with the roar of its discharge. Then Shane grunted and leaned heavily on the wine shelf.
The cellar reverberated once again, not from another pistol, but with the very human sound of my father’s incoherent bellow of anger and pain. He sank to his knees, his left arm thrashing to push Jenkins away. He extended the pistol toward Gaston and me.
“It is spent,” Gaston breathed. I was not sure who he was trying to reassure.
“I say NO!” Shane roared, and lurched forward to dive atop my father, a knife flashing above his head in the yellow light. My father fell beneath him with another cry of anger and pain.
No longer attempting to intercede, Jenkins and the other man at the door pulled back with horror on their faces. They were mirrors of Gaston and me, who still lay in a heap on the floor, staring and unable to move as the combatants thrashed, twisted, and grunted, their arms punching and stabbing into one another.
My father finally began to extricate himself, squirming from beneath Shane, pushing his would-be son toward his lap. His eyes were full of more terror than anger as he changed his grip on the dirk in his hands and struck a final time, driving the blade straight down between Shane’s shoulder blades. Shane twitched and stilled.
His stillness, and the meaning behind it that is recognized—even if never understood—by the lowliest creatures and the youngest babes, released me from my horrified torpor. I swore and growled and scrambled to them. My father grasped at the slick hilt of his dirk, his scared eyes upon me. He could not pull it free. I punched him. As he fell back, I tried to dive atop him, only to have Jenkins and the other man pull me away.
“You Gods-damned, despicable bastard!” I howled at my father as I fought with them. “I hate you! I will never become you! Never! You worthless piece of shit!”
My father tugged at the blade in Shane’s shoulders again, his eyes wild with fear, but now not toward me: he was looking up at Gaston.
Jenkins released my arm and yelled, “No, don’t!”
Gaston stopped, startled, his Wolf’s gaze turned toward the man with a frown, his hand reaching for the bloody knife my father still fought to pull from Shane’s back.
“Don’t touch them!” Jenkins yelled.
“I am a physician!” Gaston growled.
I could not comprehend what Jenkins was concerned about, but I was gripped by a sudden dread that my father would somehow strike with his dying breath; laying a curse upon my love if nothing else.
“Get away from him!” I shouted. “Please! Now!”
Gaston dove back as if my father had erupted into flames. He appeared bewildered, but he did not argue as he skirted wide around the bodies and came to my side. As I was no longer struggling, the other man released me and retreated before my matelot’s glare.
There was yelling and cursing coming from the kitchen, and several men were pushed back into the room so that they stumbled over Shane and my father. Another group of men charged in behind them, led by a large man with an eye patch. They too almost fell over the bodies.
Quiet descended as everyone stilled and contemplated the scene. The only sound was labored breathing: everyone was panting; save my father, whose breathing was shallow.
“Where is…” Eye Patch began to ask.
Jenkins pointed at me. “They did not do it. Shane shot the Earl: the Earl shot Shane: and then they fell upon one another with blades.”
“Why did you not stop them?” Eye Patch demanded as he knelt and examined Shane and my father.
“I have no answer for that,” Jenkins sighed. “It was very sudden. We dove away to avoid being shot ourselves, and then… It was sudden. It seemed unreal.”
Eye Patch nodded as if he did indeed understand. “Shane is dead. We will need a surgeon for the Earl.”
“I am a physician,” Gaston said quietly.
“I did not want you to touch him before Captain Horn or his lord saw how they fell,” Jenkins explained and gestured toward Eye Patch.
“I do not want you to,” I said. The dread still gripped me.
All eyes turned to me. I shook my head vehemently as I met only my matelot’s curious gaze. “He will do some despicable thing even now if he can. Let him die. Let him suffer.”
Gaston regarded me with sympathy and patience: as he always did when he thought I was running wild. “That is beneath you.”
He was correct. I sighed. “Damn you, why must you make me a better man even in this?”
My man smiled and turned back to the bodies.
“You stay away from me,” my father snarled. “Keep him away from me,” he told a startled Captain Horn. “And that bastard there is not my son,” he wheezed. “You are not my son, you hear, boy?” he yelled with enough volume to cause him to cough wetly.
Hope blossomed in my heart for but a moment, and then I knew this was just some angry ploy. “I wish I were not, surely as much as you wish that was true,” I said tiredly.
Captain Horn held up a hand to stop Gaston from approaching any closer and looked down at my father. “No one will believe you, my lord. You might as well let it rest and let us tend you. I doubt you’ll live. Don’t take this hatred to your grave. Would you like us to fetch a clergyman?”
“Fuck you,” my father spat.
“You are an angry and stupid bastard, my lord, aren’t you?” Captain Horn said. He looked up at Gaston. “Here, we might as well tend to this poor soul.” He indicated Shane. “And once we move him, I can search the Earl here for weapons he might try and use against you when you tend him. Maybe he’ll die while we’re about it.”
Gaston went and knelt beside him. “Watch him a moment, and let me discover if he will die.”
Captain Horn nodded, and accompanied by my father’s steady wheezing tirade and pained cries and curses, Gaston gingerly examined the wounds.
My man finally nodded. “There is nothing I or any other physician can do for him. The ball appears to have gone deep into his liver. I can dig it out; but the organ will never heal, and he will just die a slow death. Before that, he will bleed to death internally from the stab wounds which have perforated his left lung and his bowels.”
Jenkins and the Captain nodded and regarded one another with serious miens.
Seemingly satisfied there was nothing he could do to save anyone, Gaston turned his attention to Shane, and pulled the blade free from his back before beginning to roll him off my father’s legs. I stood and went to help him, and we laid my poor cousin out and closed his staring, oddly peaceful eyes. I doffed my coat and spread it over his head and chest.
“Such a waste,” I said sadly in French. “I have hated him for so long; and here he was this pathetic creature and not the monster of my memories. I feel I did not do all I should have for him.”
Gaston snorted and spoke softly. “Do not be stupid, my love. He was hurting you; and you were too young to know how to wage that battle—even if it could have been won. I could not have mended things with my father until he lost his other sons. Sometimes only tragedy brings resolution.”
Captain Horn cleared his throat, but when I looked over I only beheld my father glaring at me with pained eyes.
“Well,” I said to my father in English. “He still loved me, you damned bastard—enough to save our lives. Take that to your grave. You accomplished nothing with your campaign of hatred except to ruin his life. And he thought he was your favored son. Tell me, did you favor him because he was weaker and you knew he could be bent to your will?”
My father slowly moved his head until he was staring at the ceiling again. “You will burn in Hell with me,” he wheezed.
“Nay, I think not,” I said. “I will atone for my sins in this life, and I shall spend eternity with my loved ones, not you.”
“You will not spend eternity with him,” he growled.
“God is a very pathetic deity indeed if he allows the likes of you to speak for Him. And I hope that Shane’s father—or whoever it was that drove you to this madness—will not be forced to spend eternity with you.”
“I never had a lover, you stupid twat,” he gasped. “You will learn. You are Earl now. You will learn.”
I went to lean over him. “Look at me, you stupid prick. I will not learn. I will not choose to accept anything that will make me miserable. Life is too precious to be squandered on base, petty, and meaningless things when compared to Truth, Love, and the Hereafter.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head weakly with a troubled frown.
I looked away and found Jenkins and Captain Horn near the door, watching me with furrowed brows. I glared at them until they looked away.
“You should forgive him,” Gaston whispered from my elbow.
“Non.”
“You forgave Shane.”
“He apologized.”
“You forgave him before tonight.”
“I understood why he was as he was, and I could feel sympathy for him. I do not understand why this bastard is the way he is, and I feel nothing but hatred for him.”
Gaston sighed and leaned over my father. “Dorshire?”
My father’s eyes opened and he regarded my man with hate.
“I forgive you,” Gaston said. “And I thank you. If you were not as you are, Will and I would not be together. And, as Will is the best thing in my life, I must thank the misfortune that brought him to me. So thank you. And, I forgive you because there must have been some good in you that was twisted into evil; else you could not be related to Will. So there must have been something worth loving in you once, before you were destroyed; and thus I pity you; and I forgive you your weakness in not being able to rise above it.”
I sighed as I felt my heart swell with love for my matelot. It pushed the hate away. “There are days when you still make my heart ache,” I told my man.
“With love?” he asked with the trace of mischief.
“Non, with the need to smack you.”
He smiled patiently and with great regard.
I sighed again and looked down at my father, who was regarding us with pain and dismay. “I forgive you,” I said tightly, the words barely clearing my throat. I cursed silently and begged the Gods for Their patience and understanding. “I forgive you,” I managed with a little more volume and sincerity. “I forgive you for being weak. That I can do. I cannot forgive you for… Shane, or Vivian, or everyone else I have known and loved who has been troubled and cast to the winds before your foolish hatred. But I can see that that hatred is born of deep misery, and can feel pity for that. Not as much as I feel for the people you have troubled, but some. And aye, I will forgive you the trouble you have caused me. I will because my man is correct: without you, I would not be who I am. You have set me a fine example of what not to become. So I thank you. Now make your peace with God, and may He have mercy on your soul.”
He shook his head, and I saw sadness in his eyes. “I am damned.”
“I am sorry,” I said, and truly meant it. Tears filled my eyes, and I knew it was because he was damned. He would never be at peace. He simply could not see his way clear to do it, and there but for the Grace of the Gods—and my matelot—went I.
I dropped down to squat beside him. “I did not come here to kill you,” I said. “I came here to resolve things between us so that we could both be at peace. I truly did. But everyone is correct; we are damn stubborn men. I am very much your son in that regard. Sometimes it serves me well, and other times it serves me as poorly as I feel it has served you.”
“Do not presume to know what I think,” he wheezed.
I shook my head with wonder and bemusement. “You are stubborn. Fine, take it to your grave. Perhaps you are a braver man than I.”
“You cannot win,” he hissed. “Nay, nay, it is not me. They will not let you. You are just too stupid to see that. You always have been.”
“Were you willing to walk away—to keep that which you wanted and give the rest away?”
“That is not winning,” he gasped.
“It is for me,” I said. “I would rather live the life I want.”
“But that is not fair,” he breathed.
“To whom?”
“To everyone who follows the rules. You cannot win by… changing the rules…”
“Why not?”
He shook his head; his gaze upon the ceiling became unfocused and wavered.
“Father?”
With one last wobble of negation, he breathed his last.
With trembling fingers, I closed his eyes. “May the Gods have mercy on your soul,” I whispered.