Wherein We Learn to Ride the Winds

 

We spoke no more for a time, and busied ourselves repairing our roof in the aftermath of the storm. Other than his complimenting me sincerely on my extension to the hut, we worked silently side by side; and though our silence was not awkward, it was not companionable either. Our eyes were oft upon the other, only to dart away upon gaining the other’s notice. I mulled through last night’s events, and wondered about a good many things.

When Pete and Striker arrived, I was not sure whether I was happy to see them. They appeared relieved to see both of us. Gaston appeared ready to retreat to the woods at the slightest provocation.

“Came to see if you blew away,” Striker said, as they watched us come down from the roof.

“Nay, you are still blighted with our existence,” I sighed. “And all others? The ship?”

“No true harm done.” He addressed Gaston. “It is good to see you.”

My matelot nodded curtly, but remained silent and distant. I did not miss the look Pete and Striker exchanged.

As they had brought a bottle, and we had several dead fowl due to the storm, we proceeded to set the chicken to cooking and then joined them in drinking nearby in the shade, away from the heat and smoke. Striker made conversation about who had suffered what minor damage.

“Took us a time to find the Bard,” he chuckled. “Here we thought him washed away, but nay, he was carried out on the tide of love. When we found them, the man was reluctant to come and look over the vessel. First time I’ve seen him care for anything more than a ship.”

I was amused. “The heady rush of new love will do that.”

“ThatBeenATimeInComin’,” Pete added with a grin, and shook the bottle admonishingly at Striker, who rolled his eyes.

“Pete swears they’ve been enamored of one another for a time,” Striker sighed.

“Based upon what I learned last night, I would agree,” I said. “But only one of them understood the nature of it.”

“And the poor swain sought you out for advice?” Striker teased.

“I told him he was a fool for it,” I grinned.

I glanced at Gaston. He was sober and tense, and I noted he was not drinking. I thought that wise. I tried to remember if I had told him of Dickey’s revelation last night while we ate. He was not regarding me during the conversation with curious eyes, though, so surely I had.

Striker continued, “When we finally did get him to the ship, he pronounced we could start careening her at once. I would have preferred to wait until Cow Island. With so many hands it would go quicker. But this way, it’ll allow us to field more men to hunt whilst the French careen.”

This caught Gaston’s attention, and he eyed me quite curiously. I felt other eyes upon us.

“Striker wishes to sail soon. I will let him tell you of it,” I told Gaston.

I then gave the other two a jaunty grin and said, “We did not speak much last night.”

They took my meaning, and at least appeared a trifle embarrassed to have been exchanging another one of their now annoying glances, which I knew I interpreted correctly as concerned and pitying.

Striker quickly told Gaston of all he had told me concerning Morgan’s plans and his own. My matelot remained silent, but nodded thoughtfully when he finished.

“So are you two with us?” Striker asked.

I began to shrug, but Gaston beat me to answering. “Whatever Will wishes.” He stood and went to check on the chicken.

“If you two look at one another in that manner again, I will shoot one of you,” I muttered without regarding them, and followed Gaston. I heard matched chuckles in my wake.

I knelt next to the fire and watched him turn the spit. “We do not…”

His gaze was sharp and cut me off handily. “There is no reason to stay. What do you desire?”

“Do you feel… ready…?”

He shook his head. “But it matters not. Three months of steeping you in misery has solved nothing.”

“It has not all been misery, and… It is more important that you are well and happy. Being on a vessel surrounded by others will make things better?”

He studied the fire and finally sighed. “It will be much as being bound. On a ship amongst many I cannot run wild, and I am constantly minded of it. And you are still my touchstone of sanity.”

“Thank you. But… we could do that here and…”

“Will! Decide!” he hissed.

I winced at the rebuke, though it was earned. He was giving me the right to choose. I needed to trust that he would abide by my decision, and not blame me later.

“We will go. I grow weary of this place… without you,” I said softly.

His eyes softened and he nodded. “You are the best happiness I have known. I will be with you. And truly, Will, my way did not work. We will try yours.”

I was not sure what my way was. The heavy mantle of responsibility settled across my shoulders, and for a brief moment I thought I might be smothered by it. But then the weight subsided, and I felt comfort under it. I was indeed loved and trusted.

“Thank you, and we will manage,” I murmured, and kissed his temple.

He smiled sadly and shooed me off.

I walked taller back to Pete and Striker. “We will sail. When?”

They appeared dubious, but quickly changed their mien at my glare.

“As soon as we finish careening,” Striker said. “Will you be able to assist?”

I shrugged. “We will do what we can.”

The remainder of our repast and visit passed amicably enough, with Gaston even finding amusement in some of Striker’s tales of his boyhood on pirate vessels on the seas about England. Then it was night, and the wolves found a likely hollow in which to sleep in our yard. Gaston and I retired inside.

Gaston regarded our hammock with reluctance.

“We can be as chaste as kittens,” I assured him.

He snorted. “Are kittens chaste? I have seen them lick each other quite heartily. And puppies are worse; they are ever cleaning one another’s arse.”

“And mounting one another, oui,” I chuckled. “Nuns, perhaps.”

“I have never seen nuns sleeping together; I would not hazard to guess what goes on beneath their habits. The monks I knew were… odd at times.” He frowned. “I do not believe man is chaste by nature.”

I forced myself not to hold my breath, or release it in a sigh. He was in a curious spirit.

“May we speak of last night?” I asked.

He nodded without regarding me, and busied himself with cleaning grease off his fingers. “I feel we must.”

I sat in the interior doorway on the hammock, and dangled my feet, composing my words.

“I thought I dreamed…” I said at last.

“Will…”

“Let me finish,” I said quickly. “At first I could not separate memory from dream, or dream from reality. I feel… you have… found something you thought lost. I would say that if this is a result of your time wandering about, then it is good. And I will welcome your advances, if you would but wake me first the next time you feel the need.”

He turned to regard me solemnly. “It was not me.” At my frown, he held up a placating hand and smiled weakly. “Let me finish. Remember once when I described my madness as an unruly horse that I am unable to ride?”

“Oui. Do you feel it acts without your knowledge?” I found this alarming: I had often wondered how connected all the shadows of himself he showed when mad really were. “You have often said you do not remember…”

“Events, when it is running wild, non, not clearly, but I am there, clinging to it; I just do not have the reins. Will, the Horse has never suffered from impotence. I believe I have mentioned this: when I am mad I am quite functional. I believe I have been… hampering my function in that regard, because all thoughts of lust were part of the Gordian knot involving my sister and that night. I always felt my lust led me astray.”

“Do you feel that now?” I asked.

“Non, actually, and I feel some guilt over it,” he sighed. “Since you made me see those memories again, I have been able to examine them, and I have come to regard some things in a clearer perspective.”

I nodded. “So your time here has not been for naught.”

He shrugged. “Non, I suppose not. But my objective upon coming here was to regain my sanity, and I have failed.”

“Perhaps, yet… What do you regard from a clearer perspective?”

He sighed and looked away sadly. “I have come to see that my sister was as mad as I, or our mother. She seduced me. And I feel… betrayed in that regard. She planned the entirety of it, and cared not what would happen to me in the aftermath. She escaped her madness and pain and left me to our father’s wrath.”

I was relieved he had come to this conclusion, as it was one I had long held. Still I could see his pain.

“Oh, Gaston,” I sighed sympathetically. “And she was the only one you ever felt truly loved by. I am sorry.”

He met my eyes with a calm gaze. “And now I feel you are the only one who has every truly loved me.”

I heard something in the ether between us, the shadow of denial. “And you do not know if you can trust me?” I asked carefully.

“Non, non,” he shook his head quickly. “I feel my madness will harm you. It is I who cannot be trusted.” He held up his hand in a bid for my silence, and I tried to still my refutation and racing thoughts.

He spoke calmly. “You once remarked that I could not fall from the horse because I am a centaur. I feel you are right, but not from the induction of the metaphor we originally established to explain ourselves in the world of wolves and sheep… rather from the perspective that I am both man and beast. I have… Plato’s allegory of the cave has occupied my thoughts a great deal. I have come to think that the Horse, my madness, is the thing you would see if you were to turn in your seat and look out the cave mouth into the light. And that the man is merely the shadow I have learned to cast upon the wall. I feel I am mad, and this rational face I show, sometimes, is merely a façade. It is a mask.”

He looked away sadly at this admission, and my heart ached for him, but his words sparked new ideas that resonated with other suspicions I realized I had also long harbored.

“May I give my thoughts, as that concept has engendered a very strong image in my mind?” I asked softly.

He nodded.

“From my seat in the cave,” I said, “I have seen you cast a number of shadows upon the wall, encompassing both horse and man. I feel you are a centaur in the light, both man and horse. And you move about, depending on... whether or not the Horse has the bit in its teeth, and thus you cast different shadows. Let me ask a thing. When have you felt most sane?”

He thought on it, and his answer was slow in coming. “When we sailed last summer, and when I lived amongst the monks. But Will, even then I felt I was in constant battle….”

“Hold a moment. When have you felt truly mad, so that there was no battling with the Horse at all?”

This answer was quick. “When I first recovered from the… flogging.”

“So, for perhaps three years of your life, you have felt mostly sane or mostly mad. And you are twenty-eight years? What of the rest?”

He frowned, but a wry smile slowly replaced it. “I see your point. I have spent most of my life betwixt the two. But Will, you do not know how very hard I have to fight the Horse.”

I clung to his metaphor. “Is that because the Horse is truly unruly and hateful of you, or because it wishes to go places faster and with less care than you feel prudent – because you feel it may lead you both into harm again? What does your Horse wish to do when it gets away from you? I know you are not truly a horse, but whenever I have had a horse refuse to go someplace, or buck beneath me, or wish to run in one direction or another, it always had a reason that made sense to it. Perhaps a snake was emerging from the hedge that I did not see, or it heard a thing I only later discovered.”

He was thoughtful. “I see what you say, and… I must think on it. Sometimes, I think my Horse is my soul, and it is a thing of the truth and light and cares little for civilized shadows on the wall. But then, on occasion, it delivers to me urges or thoughts I cannot abide and call myself good, and I want no part of it. If it is the truth of me, then I am evil.”

I wondered what thoughts could be so very dark. “Does that relate to the events with your sister?”

“Oui and non,” he sighed. “I must think on it, truly.”

“I do not feel you are evil.”

“I try not to show you those shadows,” he said solemnly.

I thought of last night, and of waking weeks ago to find him standing over me with a knife. I had many more questions, but I kept silent as he turned out the lamp and joined me in the hammock, his back pressed to mine. I mulled over events of the last two days, truly allowing myself to remember. I winced with shame at my humiliating reaction to his assault. That was a thing I must think over and reconcile, if not remedy. It brought to mind one other facet of the situation though.

“Gaston,” I whispered. He had not yet seemed to relax into sleep.

“Oui.”

“Last night, you stopped – or rather the Horse stopped, I suppose – when I cried out. I cannot see that as evil.”

Now I felt the tension ease from his back.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Neither of us slept for a time. I do not know what dark thoughts he harbored, but my own swirled about chasing their tails. I laid many a curse upon his father and Doucette, as I had many times since Île de la Tortue. Gaston had been well before, to such an extent that I had not been able to comprehend his claims of madness except for rare instances. Yet, if I truly looked back over our life together, I could see hints here and there of his Horse’s antics. I knew his assertion that he has always been mad was true, though I still chose to believe his father responsible for much of the Horse’s wildness – even prior to the disastrous night eleven years ago. And I could surely blame that bastard Doucette for inciting it to run amuck these last months.

This did little to ease my troubled mind. I wished to have clear villains to revile, as I felt I had in my own life. I did not wish to blame Gaston for his Horse being an unruly creature. I could place blame for my tormented soul squarely upon two heads, my cousin Shane’s and my father’s. Then I realized even that was folly. I considered myself equally culpable, did I not? Was I not the one who taught my Horse to run instead of fight? Had I not allowed myself to be herded through life? Had I not been born with my own madness, which I too rode poorly, though with different result? That begged the question: could Gaston not learn to ride his Mount better? This, in due course, led to the allegation that I could learn to ride better as well; and that I could still blame his damned father and all the others for not teaching him how to ride in the first place.

And how apt was this allegory of a horse for our heart of hearts? I seemed to take to it well enough. Were we all not just beasts ridden by a rational soul attempting to control what God had wrought? And where was God in all of this? Was He not responsible for Gaston’s having an abundantly spirited and sensitive Horse, or my having one that was too inquisitive and favored men? And could one learn to ride from another? And if so, how did one teach it?

I had trained a number of horses, some so spirited I was the only one they would allow to ride them. And there was a dark thought. Did I not take pride in being the only one Gaston ever handed the reins to, just as I had taken pride in being the only one able to mount my great destrier of a hunter, Goliath, or the others? Was that the unworthy pleasure I took in accepting the mantle of responsibility? Is that why I felt I walked taller under its weight? And all allegory aside, was that why I took such pride and satisfaction in our love, because I was needed?

I had never been needed before; I had always been the one doing the needing in my relations with others. I had always been the boy, ever running from trouble and ever seeking some small praise, a pat on the head, or perhaps a treat. And damn it all, could I not blame my father for that as well, as I surely never received a kind word from him as all boys should? And did he not allow me to be driven from his home prior to my becoming a man? I had to teach myself to become a man, to ride my Horse, and perhaps I have done a piss-poor job of it.

How was I going to help Gaston in that light? My Horse was always running amuck, was it not? But unlike Gaston, I did not cling to it for dear life; nay, I enjoyed the ride and whooped with glee as we jumped this or that fence and chased the sheep about. Yet, was that a fair comparison? Was my Mount as feral as Gaston’s?

I saw us as horses, he a wicked black one unused to the traces or even paddocks: a wild creature of the woods, a mythic forest denizen peering into the world of ordered green fields. And I was a white creature born of those fields, but badly trained and misused, so that I trusted few and ran far. And we met somewhere in a meadow betwixt forest and pasture, and frolicked in the morning dew like colts, sometimes challenging and other times examining one another. And we would race, until we fell into step like a well-matched team, hooves striking in tandem, stride for stride.

I woke feeling I had little sleep, as if I had truly been running about all night. Gaston looked as weary as I, but we chose not to trouble one another on it, or discuss anything of merit with Pete and Striker around. We went about the day.

It took sadly little time to pack the belongings we would leave behind in the sea trunk. We closed my crude shutters, blocked the door, and caught all the chickens we could. Then, laden with Gaston’s medicine chest, our weapons, traveling gear, and the fowl, the four of us made our way down the hill to the beach.

I stopped to look back only once at my abode. It had been more a home than many places I had lived. I hoped Theodore had completed the land grants. I realized that was a thing I needed to tell Gaston.

All were happy to see Gaston. He, of course, was not as pleased to see all of them, especially their pressing about and speaking loudly, but he made the best of it and I sheltered him as I could. That is to say, I was pleased he did not stab or even snarl at the men who I had to stop from embracing him. We could do little about their speculative looks, though. All seemed to wish to gauge his relative sanity. I understood to some degree; it was with effort that my eyes were not always upon him, wondering if this or that would upset him.

They had already begun to scrape the ship free of seaweed, barnacles, and all other manner of things that adore adhering to wet wood in the tropics. Once an area was clear, another man would apply pitch to the seams and coat the surface with tar. Meanwhile, a few men painted what they could above the waterline to protect the wood there. Painting was not an option for the decks, but all of the vertical surfaces were thus treated. The Bard had chosen a lively blue for this coat of paint, and I thought our Virgin Queen would be quite handsome once we were done.

Gaston quickly chose to take a turn with the scraping. I was put to work stirring the tar. I was not enamored with sitting about the smoky fire, even in a fine sea breeze, but other than scraping or applying pitch, tasks we already had ample men pursuing, I have little to offer the careening process. As no one else wanted to sit about the fire with me, I was left alone, except for Davey and Julio coming to refill their tar pails. So I was both pleased and surprised when the Bard joined me, and then I remembered that he might have matters to discuss with me in private. I was correct.

“Apparently a ‘thank you’ is in order,” he grinned. “Dickey has not shared the particulars of what was said, but I understand I have you to thank for raising the sail on the matter.”

I chuckled. “He approached me to ask advice of how best to woo you, and over the course of the conversation realized he had misinterpreted a number of signals from your quarter.”

The Bard sighed. “He is such the lad; I did not know what to say to him without being blatant.”

“It is a new and somewhat thorny matter for him.” I shrugged. “Until this summer, I do not feel he ever considered a man at all.”

“Nay, he did not. And even now…” He studied the horizon with a frown and shook his head.

“Do you judge him insincere?”

“Nay,” the Bard said firmly. He eyed me in a speculative fashion. “You favor men, true? As your first choice?”

“Aye.”

“I don’t. Not as my first choice. Men are a thing I learned since I went to sea as a boy. And he doesn’t favor men. To me it begs the question of what we’re about. Things aren’t as they were in the West Indies a decade ago. There are women here now, though they be few. Granted, I spend all my time aboard a ship, and that’s no place for a woman. There’s no place in my life for a woman at all, as I wouldn’t want one sitting in port. But Dickey has other choices he could make.”

I was surprised and curious. “You are the one who knows so much of matelots, are you not? Does not the heart sometimes lead the loins?”

He sighed and awarded me a wry smile. “Sometimes.”

“What is your real concern?”

“Damn you,” he muttered with a grin.

“To the Devil with you as well,” I said good naturedly.

He checked the consistency of my tar and played with the sand a little before finally speaking. “It is a huge thing, the taking on of another.”

“Ahhh.” I smiled.

“I’m used to being my own master,” he said. “I rely on no man. I’m respected. I have my skills. I have my money. I have not had to share it all in a long time. I have yearned, but never reached, for another these last years. And, bless his heart, he’s young. I’m afraid he’s swept up in the tide of coming here, and he’ll change his tack once the bloom fades.”

“I see. Hearts can change, but in the time I have known Dickey, I have found him to be consistently a man, albeit young, of sober reflection and steadfast but principled loyalty.”

“I know.” The Bard smiled. “Else I wouldn’t have found myself so fond of him.”

“Are there other issues of compatibility, beyond the concerns of wisdom and the cynicism of maturity?” I teased.

“Nay,” he chuckled. “Not that can’t be won.”

“Are there issues with gentling him down?”

He snorted and scratched his head with embarrassment.

“I do not mean to pry, and I will leave well enough alone,” I said quickly.

“Nay, nay, ask away.” He shrugged.

“All right then, understand I usually do not engage in this topic to any detail with men I do not intend to bed.”

He chuckled. “Neither do I.”

“Am I correct in assuming you would rather be sailed than do the sailing?”

This time he laughed. “Aye. But it has been a very long time since that has occurred, Will.”

“Ahhh…” I sighed.

“And he is such a pup. He knows … nothing, yet he has a great deal of enthusiasm. And I had rather hoped he had sought your advice on that.”

I grinned. “Well, send him back and I will tell him what I can.”

“Truly, Will, I’m amazed he can pleasure himself without incident.”

Davey awarded us one of his usual disapproving looks when he found us laughing such that we could not fill his pail steadily, leaving him to tend to it himself. This only amused us more until he left.

When we sobered a bit, I said, “I am sure you are a fine teacher in that as well as sailing.”

“I’ve never had to teach another that,” the Bard sighed. “It’ll be an adventure. And my getting sailed in that manner will be a long time in coming.”

I thought on my own fate at the hands of love and sighed. “I am sure it will be worth the time and effort.”

“As am I. I shouldn’t whine so. ’Tis good to have someone.” He shrugged.

And as if he had read my mind with the same ability he read the winds, he asked, “And you?” He looked up at Gaston, who was still working on the side of the ship.

“We are together,” I sighed. “And I do not fear a change of heart. And I truly believe the things we hope to achieve are both achievable and worthy of the effort.”

“But it is not an easy road you walk?” he asked kindly.

I shrugged. “Nay, it is not.”

“Is he well?”

“It is made all the more difficult by the scrutiny of others,” I said.

He nodded soberly. “Sorry, but Will, he’s going to scrape those planks to paper.”

I looked up and saw what he spoke of. Gaston was working at his section of planks like a man possessed, and I realized he had been at it far longer than a normal shift.

“I see your point,” I said quickly. “Watch the tar, will you?”

Gaston did not stop when I joined him in kneeling on the angled hull. I had to place both hands upon his before he slowed. His eyes glittered with a dangerous rage I knew far too well. I did my best not to flinch.

“I think you should stop now,” I said lightly.

He pulled away and flung the scraper down. He began to clench and shake his hands, and I surmised the old damage had made them numb again. I snatched one hand and turned it over to see the blisters. His callused hands had not wielded a tool steadily or with such force these last months.

“When last I did that to myself you became quite distraught,” I chided gently.

He jerked his hand away and balled it into a fist. He hugged himself and studied his handiwork of the last hour. His eyes softened.

“They keep staring,” he hissed. “I hate it. I have always been stared at. Always.”

I knew and understood, but what could I say?

“I would hate to think that I have chosen a matelot so unremarkable that no one would notice him at all,” I said lightly.

This earned me an exasperated look, just short of eye-rolling by virtue of anger.

“I am sorry they are as they are,” I added quickly. “It bothers me, too. They generally become bored after a time, though, and move on to something new.”

“Not when I give them new reasons to stare,” he muttered. “I am sorry, Will. I thought I could do this simple thing, and they would indeed become distracted, but I kept feeling eyes upon me and it minded me of all the other times and…”

“I understand.”

He looked at his palm and cursed quietly.

“I should stay with you,” he finally muttered. “You should keep me on a leash.” This last was quite bitter.

“I am sure your Horse will calm once it becomes accustomed to them again.”

“Non, it does not wish to be calm for just such a reason. It feels it is an imposition, an offense, that it must be calm and not allowed to express itself. It is why I often hate being about others. It is not a polite shadow on the wall. I do not wish to play their games. To follow their rules. It is not fair,” he ranted with more pain than anger.

That was indeed interesting, and I studied him with wonder. “Non, it is not. You wish to confront them?”

“Oui,” he smiled ruefully. “I did as a child. I would yell and tell them to leave me alone. As you can imagine, that led to more trouble. And I was always punished for it. So the Horse learned to hate them.”

I could well envision it. His fellow students would have been a pack of hounds on a fox.

“I thank the Gods I was not subjected to large packs of wolf cubs in boarding schools in my childhood,” I said. “I did occasionally encounter the local herd of lambs on my father’s lands. As I was a wolf cub, they would not play with me, and it left me more lonely than abused. Later, when I met wolves of my own age, I learned to be a jester in order to disguise my…. dissimilarity, because that is never tolerated.”

“I am not amusing,” he said sadly, and I nearly chuckled. Thankfully he saw the humor of his words and did not anger at my smile. A grin twitched at his lips.

“Non, you are not,” I said. “I was blessed with the ability to play the fool.” The thought pulled the smile off my face. “I am not proud of it. It shames me at times. Because, I too, want to tear their hearts out, and yet I make some jest and they feel safe and I allow them to. I feel the coward in that regard. I am not brave… in that.”

He shook his head and smiled. “This from a man who will confront priests… and me.”

“It is true,” I sighed. “We do not always see ourselves as others do.”

I looked about to see who might be watching us and found Davey glaring from farther down the hull. “Davey, for example. I doubt he understands what a belligerent goat he is. But is he brave in that regard? He surely does not feel the need to hide any thought he has.”

Gaston smirked. “That is because they are few and fleeting.”

I chuckled briefly. “What shall we do? I love some of these men as brothers, and the rest are our brethren as they are the Brethren. They mean no harm. And I know the knowing of a thing means little in comparison to the feeling of it.”

“That is the crux of it,” he sighed. “I know they are our friends, yet I do not feel that now. I feel this great gulf between us, caused by my madness. They have all looked askance at me since Île de la Tortue.”

“I know. Yet, you did not have a great deal of trouble with our favorite wolves last night and this morning, or were you keeping an iron grip on the reins?”

I knew this was due in part to the chiding I had given the wolves; and their seeing that Gaston was somewhat stable, thus they had not been staring.

“I was sitting well, and the Horse does not dislike them.” Gaston smiled.

“Then let us do what we can to narrow that gulf with the rest of our cabal,” I said. I saw two men talking with the Bard and eyeing us with annoyance. “And let us stop impeding progress on the careening and allow someone else to work up here. And we should see to your hands.”

He solemnly followed me down to the fire. The other men went to take our place, and the Bard awarded us a jaunty smile.

“Thank you, mate,” he told Gaston. “For settin’ such a fine example. Now the rest of them will think they should work that hard.”

I could have kissed him.

Gaston smiled weakly and bowed. “I am pleased to be of service.”

The Bard chuckled. “Can you two tend this now?”

We nodded, and he clasped Gaston’s shoulder and gave me a smile my matelot would not see and left us.

I knelt and stirred the tar.

Gaston sighed, “Why can I remember every slight, but find it difficult to trust that that man has always acted as my friend?”

“I think it is a matter of what we are accustomed to,” I said. “I have known men who could not see wrong being done to them because they had never experienced it before.”

“I wish to become accustomed to friendship and goodness,” he said wistfully before frowning. “And love,” he added, and kissed my forehead. “I will fetch unguents and bandages.”

As I watched him walk away, I decided I wished to never become so accustomed to love that I did not feel wonderment at the sight of him. I did not want the welling of emotion he caused to ever become commonplace.

Gaston returned, and we set about bandaging his hands so that the blisters would not rupture and fester. Once we finished, he sat and looked about while I stirred the tar again. He seemed at ease.

“So was the Bard seeking your advice too?” he asked.

“Oui,” I said with a smile. “He said he wished to thank me for whatever advice I gave Dickey; but in truth, I feel he wanted someone to assuage his concerns.”

“What concerns?”

“Well, for the first part, he is concerned because Dickey does not favor men, and he wonders if Dickey is perhaps caught up in the Ways of the Coast and not making a wise choice.”

Gaston frowned. “Dickey told us he wished to seek love wherever he found it.”

“Oui, I did not relate that to the Bard, though. I feel Dickey is sincere and does not make haphazard choices. I did tell the Bard that. Moreover, the Bard has not had a matelot in several years, he is not accustomed to sharing his life with another, and thus he views it with trepidation. He knows the degree of commitment involved in matelotage. He will overcome his own doubts because he is lonely, too, just as he will overcome their other concerns.” I chuckled.

Gaston raised a curious eyebrow, and I sighed as I realized he might not find much amusement in the Bard’s other worries, due to the nature of our relationship.

“Dickey possesses no experience with men, or women, and a great deal of enthusiasm,” I said carefully. “And the Bard has not been with a man who did not know as much or more than he about the matter of trysting before.”

“Did you have those concerns?” Gaston asked.

“Non, you did not possess an abundance of enthusiasm,” I teased.

He snorted.

“But truly,” I continued in a more serious vein, “you possess a great talent for the matter and you have been an apt pupil.”

He snorted again and rolled his eyes. “You have truly been an excellent teacher, then,” he said sincerely. “But then you have had many to learn from.” This last was only partially good-humored jesting, and I heard his jealousy.

It was my turn to snort disparagingly. “I have taught most of my lovers. But oui, thankfully, I was blessed with a few adept teachers amongst my countless conquests. You have been appreciative of their council on more than one occasion.”

Julio joined us to get more tar. When he was gone, I found Gaston studying the horizon with a rueful smile.

“I enjoyed the other night immensely,” he whispered. “That is a technique I would practice on you.”

My heart skipped a beat, and my cock stirred fitfully and began to listen. “I am pleased to hear it. I have never been touched in that manner before. I would enjoy you doing so.”

He frowned. “Never? Then how did you learn it?”

“Phillippe. I have not thought of him in a long time. He taught me to use that technique upon him. Gods, I remember how he thought me quite the bumbling and arrogant youth. He probably thought I had difficulty pleasuring myself without mishap. Yet, he was a mere two years my senior. Of course, he had been practicing his profession for a good six.”

“He was a whore?”

I shrugged. “Not precisely, more of a courtesan really. No one paid him; they did him favors and gave him gifts.”

“Phillippe? French?” His interest seemed genuine and not born of jealousy.

“Oui.” I said. “When first I left England, I vowed two things. One, that I would learn the blade such that I could return to England and kill Shane, and two, that I would never be with another man. Thus I went to Paris to seek a sword master. All of the bored English nobles sent to France during the Interregnum spent their days practicing the sword and trysting. I did not wish anyone to know who I truly was, so I assumed the identity of a distant cousin and joined them. To convince all, including myself, that I had no interest in men, I seduced every woman I could find. I thank the Gods I ran into Madam Dupree, a wealthy widow in the courts, who was willing to teach a fool English whelp how to please a woman. I had been quite the ham-handed rutting bull prior to that. And so, I spent my days sparring and my nights trysting, and not with the men I was sparring with. And I came to the attention of Phillippe.

“Phillippe was effete to the extreme, and pretty. His clothes were the height of fashion, his every move was practiced in front of a mirror. He was not the type of man I have ever been interested in. He was very honest about his preferences, and though he was discreet with his patrons, I feel he harbored great ill will over the matter that he should be labeled and reviled for being a sodomite and they should not. As he was not a woman, he often was about in the practice yards and saw me in what might have been considered my native element, which is associating with other men. Thus he saw through my guise of womanizing and knew me for a fellow sodomite. And as I was not one of his patrons, it irked him to see me doing so much to be something I was not. Thus he set about to seduce me.

“As I was not attracted to him, I did not sense his intent. In fact, I pitied him. When he finally made to strike, I nearly killed him. With a blade at his throat, I explained that I did indeed favor men, yet I had been abused by one such that I had sworn off them. At which point he took pity upon me, and his interest in me transmuted into one of sincere altruism. He decided I should be taught how to enjoy men, and give them pleasure if I wished. I finally allowed him to pleasure me and I realized I could not deny my nature. And so I learned. He was the first man I bestowed myself upon. I never divulged the nature of Shane’s abuse, but I think he was wise to it. And I never allowed Phillippe to bestow himself upon me, not that he was interested in doing so. I would not now call what we shared love, but it was filled with mutual respect and fondness, and I missed him sorely when my other trysting led to my having to depart Paris after a duel.”

Gaston was watching me thoughtfully. “You have led a fascinating life.”

“And you have not?”

“I have never been seduced by a courtesan,” he said.

I shook my head. “Well, as I have on occasion trysted in order to put food in my belly, or keep a roof over my head, you have. Not that I am proud of it.”

He reclined on the sand and studied the sky for a time. My concern over his lack of a response was interrupted by Julio arriving for another pail. To distract myself still further, I commented on the progress being made, and Julio spoke of it being an easy day’s work compared to some. When he at last left, I hazarded a glance at Gaston, and found him watching me.

“You should not be ashamed,” he said.

“You had to think on it, did you not?” I sighed.

“I can think of worse things.”

I shrugged, though I felt no nonchalance. “Name them, and I have probably done them for money.”

“Have you lain with your sister and then killed her?” he asked without any trace of emotion, as if he were asking me what I ate for dinner.

I laughed. “Non. And did you do that for money?”

He grinned. “Non. So performing the ugly thing for money is the issue?”

“I feel it is. Doing ugly things for love is not so very horrible.”

He regarded the sky again with a bemused smile. “I must think more on it.”

I thought on it while stirring the tar. I was far more ashamed of the men I had killed for money than the women I had bedded for it. But as killing men for gold was much of what we were involved in amongst the buccaneers, I felt it best not to dwell upon that, lest I find myself in such a moral quandary I must abandon the endeavor.

“How could you bed the women if you did not care for them, if you do not favor them?” he asked.

I frowned, and regarded him curiously. “I do not find woman onerous. Occasionally, I find them quite fetching. And my manhood cares not, once it is thrust into a warm hole.”

“So, you did not truly do it for the money alone, but for the pleasure as well?”

“Oui.” I grinned. “I have never bedded a person I found distasteful for money. In truth, I have never bedded a person I found distasteful.”

“Then you have nothing to be ashamed of,” he pronounced.

“Thank you for that exoneration of my sins.”

“It is the least I can do. You always exonerate mine,” he whispered.

I ignored the tar to regard him again. “Oui.”

He was studying me with thoughtful eyes. The change in his mien was such that I knew the Horse to be wandering about again. I held out my hand, and he took it.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I never wish for you to have to exonerate me again,” he said solemnly. He sat up without releasing my hand. He cradled it in his lap, and seemed to be searching for words.

“You have only been penetrated by the two, have you not?” he asked abruptly. “The Damn Cousin and the Spaniard?”

“Oui.” I breathed. I felt discomfort at this turn of the topic, but I was curious.

“How long ago? With the Spaniard?” he asked.

“The night I left Florence. That was September of last year.”

“Am I correct that you will need a great amount of preparation if I were to… be able to?”

“Is that imminent?” I asked cautiously.

I thought of the feel of him pressing behind me two nights ago. He had said the Horse was capable.

He did not flinch from my gaze. “You said you would have welcomed me if I had but woken you first?”

“Oui, I would,” I whispered. “And oui, I will require a great deal of coaxing, even as much as I want you. Even with the Spaniard I found it uncomfortable and I bled. I am sure it will be easier with you, for several reasons, but initially I am sure it will be difficult for me. I fear Shane ruined me there, and that it will never be as it should.” I had been dreading someday having to say those words, but now at least they were out.

His eyes had narrowed, and his grip on my hand was nearly painful. “How many times? With the Spaniard?”

I frowned. “Twelve, perhaps.”

He appeared surprised. “And the Damn Cousin?”

“Nine,” I whispered.

Shame flooded my cheeks. I had never admitted the number of times I had allowed it to continue before.

“You have been penetrated only twenty-one times?” he hissed. “Pete and Striker do that in a week.”

I was surprised enough at the trail his mind was following to be amused. “And well I know it,” I chuckled, “but only on their particularly amorous weeks. Generally they seem to keep it to only once per day.”

He ignored my aside. “Was the Spaniard larger than I?”

I had only seen Gaston the once, and I had to think about Alonso. “I feel he was longer. You are wider in circumference, surely, and better formed.”

Gaston snorted. “Will, I am not seeking flattery. My being wider does not bode well for the endeavor.” He sighed. “Am I as large as you?”

“Non,” I grimaced with discomfiture. “Not in length. In girth, oui, more so I feel.”

“Good,” he said distractedly, and then he was intent on his next quarry. “Why ever did you allow him if he made you bleed? The inconsiderate bastard. I shall kill him.”

“I feel if I answer that, you will merely wish to kill him more,” I sighed.

The intensity of my matelot’s gaze told me that would not suffice.

“It was a thing he insisted upon on occasion,” I said. “He would not allow for me to penetrate him. He wished to bestow. And I wished to be bestowed upon, and I cared for him, deeply, and I thought that perhaps it was time I chanced it again. So I allowed it. But I do not believe it was his fault. I am damaged goods. But all will be well. Why are…?”

He was on his feet and pulling me with him. He stooped, and pulled the pot of salve from his bag next to where we had sat, and then he was towing me across the sand. I yelled to Liam and Otter, who were the closest to us, to see to the tar, and they watched us leave with bemused looks.

“You realize you are giving them all the more reason to stare?” I teased.

“To the Devil with them,” he muttered.

I was curious and actually a trifle fearful of Gaston’s intentions. “What are we doing?” I asked, when at last we stopped next to a slanted palm far up the beach and he released me.

“Performing an examination,” he said briskly, and dropped his breeches.

For the first time in our history, I was pleased to see his member was quite flaccid. He greased his finger in the salve, and then with a quite comical expression of intense concentration, stuck it up his own arse and probed about. I sat on the palm trunk and smiled.

When he had determined whatever he was trying to ascertain, he removed his finger and turned to me. “Now drop your breeches and bend over.”

As I could guess what he intended, I complied. As expected, he inserted the same finger in me. Thankfully, he was gentle about it. Still, I gasped, and had to battle a battalion of emotions, the most discomfiting of which was my manhood’s interest in the proceedings.

“You are scarred all about, on both rings of muscle,” Gaston pronounced when he withdrew. “There are ridges where I am smooth. But the scarring does not circumnavigate your anus; they run into it. This means that you can accommodate me, but it will take time to get you to open properly, as the scars will not stretch, therefore the undamaged flesh around them must be coaxed to stretch twice as much. I suggest we embark on a regimen of exercising your opening and inuring it to entry.”

He refastened his breeches and strapped his weapon belt back on.

Bemused, and with my breeches still around my knees, I turned to face him. “I hesitate at the word regimen, but if you wish to stick your fingers up my arse on a daily basis, you are welcome to do so. However, you had best be kissing me first.”

He glared at me with annoyance until the humor of the situation won through. Then he grinned and was upon me before I had time to laugh. He set to tickling me, and I set to stopping him, and we wrestled about in the sand until his superior skills at pugilism won out and I found myself pinned on my face with my arm behind my back.

The familiar panic struck and I gasped, “Get off me!”

He did not, instead he released my arm only to throw himself fully atop me, and wrap his limbs about me as much as he could. I was not pinned, just weighed down.

“Will, I love you,” he whispered. “I will not hurt you.”

The panic began to abate, and I took deep breaths until it passed.

“Are you angry or afraid?” he asked.

I examined my feelings curiously. “Neither, now. What are you about?”

“Always before, when you have panicked thus, I have drawn away. I thought perhaps to try another tactic. If we are to… You need to become accustomed to my weight upon you, as you have become accustomed to my being behind you.”

I nodded as I was able. “Oui, I can see that. So you wish to add lying atop me to the daily regimen?”

He sighed, and moved to lie beside me and meet my gaze. “Will… I am unsure how to convey it. The Horse is capable, I am not. The Horse is not patient. When desire strikes, it will wish to chase it down and…”

“I had best be prepared,” I breathed.

He shook his head and pushed up to his knees. “I will not allow myself to hurt you.” He clutched at the sand and would not regard me.

I now saw the winding trail he had been following.

“So it would be best if I am pliant and prepared when the mood strikes you,” I said gently. “Your Horse is not one for prolonged seduction.”

“Do not… You are too kind.” He shook his head bitterly and stood. He walked into the surf and hugged himself while glaring at the water swirling about his knees.

I rolled on my back and pondered the sky and far darker things. The breeze whispered of something, but I could not apprehend it. I merely knew I did not like the smell or taste of it. There seemed to be an implication presented between this discussion and last night’s that his Horse did not care if I were willing or not. How was I to accept that? Did I wish to become inured in any manner to such a possibility?

I heard someone running up the beach. Gaston was still in the surf. I tensed, and got to my knees. Our weapons were strewn all about, and my breeches were lying somewhere near, but were not upon my person. Thankfully, the interloper was Striker. I expected to be teased for abandoning the careening to tryst, but instead he was quite agitated.

He ran to Gaston. “Please come. Pete is wounded and we’ve made a right mess of it.”

Then I saw the blood all over his hands.

“What…?” I began to ask, but Striker was already running back down the beach.

Gaston glanced at me. I waved him off, and he followed Striker at a run. I set about donning my breeches and gathering our things, and then jogged down the beach well in their wake. I found them next to Gaston’s medicine chest with a dozen others clustered about. Pete was apparently wounded in the right hand, as that was the appendage Gaston was examining intently in his lap.

“What occurred?” I asked Striker, as I dropped next to them.

“A damn splinter,” he said. “We thought it not that deep, and I attempted to dislodge it, and then it seemed deeper, and then I realized…” he stopped to swear vehemently.

As I could now see something of the wound, I saw the problem. They had cut quite the trench down the outside of Pete’s palm. Gaston was asking Pete a series of questions and having him move his fingers.

“NotMyFingers,” Pete said.

“Of course not,” Gaston snapped. “I am trying to determine if you fools have maimed this hand for life. Then I will remove the splinter, which is now shattered and spread all about in the blood.”

Despite the anger in his tone, his control was evident. There was no hint of the Horse or the day’s earlier wildness, and I marveled at it. A medical emergency always proved capable of either calming or dismissing his Horse. I had once had the hubris to believe that my being in dire need was proof against his madness, but as I thought on it, I realized any wound made him sane for a time, or at least to appear so.

Pete was stoic and already inebriated, so he was quite inured to the pain. Still, even the most stoic of men jumps about when pricked. Thus Striker held Pete still, and I held Pete’s arm immobile. After determining that no other injury had been done to impair the function of Pete’s hand, by the splinter or the attempted removal, Gaston set about removing all of the wood. I was surprised Gaston could see anything in all the blood, and in truth he did not use his eyes to locate the wood, so much as his fingers and a very thin and long pair of pointed tongs. The splinter had broken, and it was delicate work finding and extricating all the pieces. I got to see how very many pieces there were, as Gaston dropped them onto my knee. Finally Gaston could find no more, and Pete merely mentioned pain, and no longer jerked when the wound was probed. Pete received ten stitches to close the gashes, and a liberal dousing of rum on the entire area, which truly set him to cursing.

I was stiff and sore across my shoulders when at last we were all relieved of the task. I could only imagine how Gaston felt. He was now watching the pot boiling his tools with the same intensity with which he had worked for over an hour on Pete’s wound. He flinched when I began to rub his shoulders, and I paused.

“Non, please continue,” he whispered.

I resumed my ministrations and murmured in French for his ears alone. “You did well. I have noticed you seem to have little difficulty with your Horse when duty calls you to be a surgeon.”

“Oui,” he sighed, and some of the tension drained from him. “It is a thing I learned around Doucette. It is another mask I don. And truly, the Horse is well behaved at such times. All of my concerns become… petty when faced with another’s need of that nature.”

“I hope you wish to be surgeon for this voyage,” Striker called from nearby, where he had gotten Pete to sprawl in the long evening shadow of the ship.

The loud intrusion echoed my unspoken thoughts, and I flinched as the muscles stiffened beneath my fingers.

Gaston shook his head slowly. “Nay,” he said in English, as loudly as his broken voice could manage, so that he could be heard across the sand. “I am still… not myself. And when I am thus, I am far better at causing wounds than mending them.”

This brought chuckles all around, and Striker sighed. “’Tis a shame. Any idiot can be taught to kill, but not many have the skill to mend.”

“Aye,” the Bard added. “In all my years of roving, I have not seen another who could have saved Dickey from the wound he suffered this summer.”

Several men agreed. Gaston’s discomfort should have been evident to all, and I was growing annoyed with them.

Still Striker continued. “I have found this lad by the name of Farley who wishes to become a buccaneer. He claims he is a physician. He swears he has trained at a university, yet I don’t think he’s old enough to grow a beard. I am sure he has not seen combat.”

Gaston stood, and I glared at Striker until he winced apologetically.

“I will bring my chest and I will do as I can,” Gaston told him, “but I offer no guarantees, and I will not be named as ship’s surgeon.” He walked away, toward the surf.

“I cannot do it, Will,” Gaston said when I joined him.

“I do not question that. Non, I do question your saying that you cannot, as I do not feel your ability is in question, and I feel you can even when you are not well. But I do not question your lack of desire to do so. I understand. That is your decision. I only wish that you care for me if something is to occur, as you have always done since we met.”

“That is not in question,” he said fiercely. “I will let no other touch you.”

He rubbed his eyes and I could see the wildness gripping him again.

I took his hands in mine, and he met my gaze with a mix of suspicion and curiosity.

“What can I do to calm you?” I asked gently.

He closed his eyes and gripped my hands tightly. “Do not let go.”

I spoke in the same soothing tones I would use with a restless animal, and hoped he would not take offense or find me absurd. “I will not. We will weather this together. We will listen to your Horse, and do what we can to keep it calm. We will finish this careening. We will sail to Port Royal, and see Theodore, and tend to business. We will sail to Cow Island and… hunt bulls, I suppose. We will engage in this regimen you spoke of, and inure me to trysting.”

My heart, which I now supposed could be called my Horse, shied at the unanswered questions I had concerning that matter, but I hushed it just as I was doing with him.

He was nodding as I spoke. “We will inure me as well.”

“How so?”

His eyes opened and met mine calmly. “I must become inured to whips. Doucette was correct in that.”

“Gods,” I murmured, and tried to keep the grimace of worry from my face. “How…? I will not condone his methods in ….”

Gaston shook his head quickly. “His methods were crude in practice, but correct in concept. I must learn to see them without it triggering my madness. I must be forced to gaze upon them.”

“I will force you to do no such thing.”

He frowned. “But Will, you are the only one who can.”

“How… how do you envision this therapy taking place?”

Understanding dawned, and he nodded quickly. “The same way we will inure you to the other. We will retire to someplace quiet and private, and you will show me one while endeavoring to keep my Horse calm. I trust you. I have put great thought into the matter, and I feel you are the only one who could show me a whip and not drive my Horse to panic.”

I finally understood. “Ah, as you are the only one I could allow to… inure me to being mounted. But whereas, I wish to associate you with pleasure and all things carnal, I do not wish for you to ever associate me with whips.”

He smiled, and then the familiar look of wonder mixed with annoyance suffused his face. “You truly wish to share this with me? You will walk with me even in Hell?”

My heart or Horse, and all other aspects of my true being, spoke very clearly on the matter. “Oui, I have chosen to be your partner in all things, even this.”

My rational mind was concerned on many fronts. I reminded it that the Gods always seemed to favor bravery in the myths.

 

 

Twenty-Nine

Wherein We Return to Civilization

 

Gaston woke me at dawn and led me up the beach well beyond the others. At first we frolicked in the waves, chasing each other about; then he headed north along the expanse of white sand, and I fell in beside him. We were not racing, merely running, and we soon matched one another in rhythm and speed. It reminded me of my dream, in which we were horses, or perhaps centaurs. I experienced a satisfaction with life I had seldom felt before, and I ran beside him for the sheer joy of it, until at last I could go no further, and I collapsed to my knees with a fierce pain in my side and laughter on my lips. I flopped to the sand to lie there gasping and laughing as he ran back to join me. We had run a good two leagues, and he looked as if he could run several more.

“You are done already?” he chided with a grin.

“Unlike you, I do not spend my days running about the woods,” I gasped.

With an expansive grin, he fell to earth beside me, and we lay there in the morning light, listening to the surf and the changing of the guard between the omnipresent insects of the night and the ever-raucous birds of the day.

“I find peace in exertion,” he said, after our breathing had returned to normal.

“Well, you cannot do that upon the ship.” Then I felt the fool. “But, of course, that is why you are so intent upon our daily calisthenics there; is it not?”

He grinned. “Oui.”

“And here I thought you always in training for combat. I did not realize you were waging a battle in an ongoing war.”

“I did not think of it as such, per se, but oui, that is what I do while roving. Tiring my body makes the Horse more manageable.”

I was relieved to hear this. I thought of how relatively stable his behavior and mien had been whilst we roved. It was probably truly best we sailed.

“All will be well,” I said, more for my benefit than his. Or perhaps I was making a demand of the Gods.

“Oui.” He rolled to me and kissed me gently.

I returned it in kind, and he deepened it in increments, adding subtle caresses that left me more than willing to do whatever he bade. Thus, I did not think twice of his asking me to roll unto my belly. Then he was atop me, and nuzzling my neck in betwixt gentle murmurs of reassurance, and I realized what he was about. I grinned as his hands wandered to my buttocks and I found he had brought a pot of salve. At least he had kissed me first.

I found the physical exertion did much to calm my Horse as well. Though I felt all the old fears, I was not so prone to bolt from them. However, I learned I could not initially tolerate his being atop me while fingering me. It must be one of the other, and I did not feel the least bit amorous whilst he did either. Yet he was patient and kind, and for the first time I truly believed I might overcome all of the damage Shane had wrought.

And so we began a morning regimen: for the next four days, whilst the ship was cleaned and repaired and finally floated. The fourth night we all moved aboard.

I was dismayed when I became acquainted with the Virgin Queen’s cabin. Gaston and I had sailed here on the Mayflower, and not the Queen, so we had not had reason to examine this aspect of our vessel. Our brigantine was perhaps a quarter smaller than the English merchant ship on which we had last voyaged; and this difference applied to the size of the single cabin beneath her quarterdeck as well. It was bloody small after my own abode. Gaston was not the only one who would be forced to once again inure himself to the omnipresent smell and sound of men upon a ship.

The room was the width of the Virgin Queen’s stern beam, a mere eight feet at waist height, and only twelve deep from bulkhead to galley windows. The ceiling was so low Cudro and Pete had to stoop their heads when standing, and all of us ducked under the beams. Much of the available space in the center was taken by a relatively large table. With the addition of several stools and a sizable desk built into the larboard bulkhead wall, there was little enough room to walk. And yet all six owners – Striker, Pete, the Bard, Cudro, Gaston, and I – expected to sleep here. The total would actually be seven, including Dickey.

I reassured myself that six of us would be in three hammocks, with Cudro in a fourth. And, thankfully, due to our being all of the ship’s officers, several of us would be expected to be on deck and not in the room at any given time. With all the beds in place, the space would be as cramped as the one in which I had sailed to Jamaica, but not so crowded as the alcove between cannon and bulkhead that Gaston and I shared with Pete and Striker for several months last spring.

The cabin’s occupants could barely fit within its confines to contemplate the matter of hammock arrangement: a matter complicated by most of us eschewing slender bags of netting suspended from two hooks, preferring instead wider berths anchored at four points. Much discussion broke out and it was obvious the room could not accommodate all of us as we would like. Pete was particularly adamant in not relinquishing the wide nest they had already established high up between the beams. Their bloody hammock took up most of the ceiling.

Gaston finally tired of all the discussion and shouldered his way into the room. He slid the table to the larboard wall and dropped down to sit beneath it.

I joined him with a chuckle and announced, “We will be fine here. We will purchase some manner of mattress in Port Royal, perhaps.”

“You’re sure?” Striker asked.

“Quite,” Gaston said firmly. “Nothing will drip on us here.”

This elicited grimaces from all save Pete and me, who grinned. I had not considered that aspect of the matter. Dickey flushed, which amused the Bard.

The others quickly decided to compromise as was necessary. Cudro conceded he would be well with a narrow bed anchored at the windows and starboard wall. The Bard amended the arrangement of his existing hammock so that it would accommodate Dickey, and they also decided theirs would be put up during the day. The only ones not making a concession were Pete and Striker, and Pete seemed quite pleased with the matter.

We eschewed a watch schedule that night. Since the Bard and Dickey still required as much privacy as they could grasp in so small a world, they stayed on the quarterdeck alone. The rest of our crew had staked out prime space upon the deck, and thus only five of us shared the cabin. I lay upon the hard floor and ruminated on how very much I liked hammocks and good feather beds, and how very loud Pete and Cudro snore. I got little sleep. My matelot slept like a babe, and I wondered at his fondness for the undersides of tables. He obviously found great safety and comfort beneath them.

In the morning, we were not left alone to follow the private aspects of our regimen. Instead, we joined the others and assisted as we could in weighing anchor and sailing south around Negril Point. Once the Bard began to tack up the prevailing eastern winds toward Port Royal, Gaston and I found an open area of deck and engaged in calisthenics and a little sparring. We were teased in this, in that our fellows could not understand why we wished to work so hard on such a lovely day, when we only had a short distance to sail and need not be bored or restless. We ignored them, and went at it with abandon, until we were both calmed and sated after a fashion in spirit. As it was a fine day, and all were on deck, we were then able to sneak below and tend to the more personal aspects of our daily regimen. I was relieved, and felt that if we could continue in this manner throughout our future voyage, all would surely be well.

The winds were fractious and not at all cooperative, and we did not achieve Port Royal until the evening of the second day. I would have said it appeared no different than it had when first I laid eyes on it less than a year ago; but the longer I stared, the more I realized there were quite a few additional buildings, which now formed an uninterrupted line all the way to the south shore. I thought it likely that another year would fill the entirety of the available space with dwellings and warehouses, from the Chocolata Hole on the west all the way to the wall at the Palisadoes on the east.

Gaston slipped an arm around my shoulder and held me close as the irregular blocks of buildings resolved themselves into a bustling hive of people. He had been doing well, and was once again at ease with our cabal. This is to say, he was pleasant and spoke on occasion or expressed quiet amusement at a jest, but he was far from jocular or expansive. As none expected ought else, all were relieved and reassured that he was mended. I knew better, but I shared that with no one, not even him. I was pleased that he had been willing to tend to the small injuries associated with the careening. And I saw less of the Horse in his eyes from day to day. Yet we had discussed little of his progress, or the madness at all, these last days. It seemed we had decided by mutual accord that dwelling upon it now would accomplish nothing.

The Josephine, Captain Pierrot’s sixteen-gun brig, on which Gaston had sailed before he met me, was anchored just beyond the passage to the harbor. My matelot told me Pierrot disliked entering the confines of the harbor north of Port Royal, despite its size, as he did not trust Governor Modyford. I did not blame him.

Another French vessel, an eight-gun sloop named the Belle Mer, rode the shallow swells nearby. She minded me much of our formerly beloved North Wind, as she was low and sleek.

There was much cheering between us and the skeleton crews aboard the two ships, as we passed them to enter the passage and the Hole. These were the vessels in whose company we would sail to Cow Island, and our arrival and their presence meant that all could shortly leave and escape Port Royal’s fat merchants and greedy tavern keeps.

There were two sloops in the Chocolata Hole, but we knew neither of them. Both were all the way up to the shallow beach and offloading cargo by means of ramps. Many of their barrels seemed to have Spanish markings, and I surmised they had been engaged in smuggling with Spanish colonies, which were always ill-supplied by their own Crown.

We anchored in the middle of the small bay and, leaving a few men aboard, rowed ashore. Once there, the six men outside our cabal ran off to foolishly spend what money they had, despite Striker’s admonitions that it would be best if they bought a keg and returned to the ship. The eleven members of our cabal chose to buy a hogshead of wine and roll it to the house.

I reminded myself that it was my, or rather our, house, but I did not feel it to be so. I felt I would always view it as Theodore’s, especially since I had not laid eyes on it since it came into our possession.

“So how many of you are dwelling at the house?” I asked them.

Striker stopped and turned to address Gaston and me with a guilty mien. “About… your house,” he sighed.

Pete snorted and clapped him roughly on the shoulder before awarding us a jaunty grin and saying, “WeGotDahgs.”

The others were laughing, though some appeared as sheepish as Striker: especially Dickey, who appeared mortified.

Striker added, “We did not secure a housekeeper.”

I grimaced as I began to understand. The fairly tidy members of our cabal – Liam, Otter, Cudro, the Bard, Julio and Davey – had all spent the autumn either at Negril or on the ship, with only brief visits to Port Royal. And Dickey and Belfry had acquired a shop and lived there. This meant that the house had been occupied by Striker and Pete, and any other man they thought might need a place to sleep. I was sure there had been a great deal of revelry. I was equally sure no one had cleaned.

Dickey spoke earnestly. “We did try to locate a housekeeper, but there were none to be had. It is said that some of the ships sailing this year should bring bondswomen, though.”

My imagination ran rampant. Gaston was a pillar of controlled anger at my side.

“Does it still stand?” I asked stoically.

There were nods all around.

“The holes in the walls not be that big,” Davey scoffed.

At my look, Pete snapped, “We’AdTaShootTheRats. NowWeGotDahgs. NowNoRats An’LessRoaches.”

“I am sure that has been a marked improvement,” I said.

“How many dogs?” Gaston asked quietly, with sincere interest and no rancor.

Pete brightened at this and held up four fingers. “An’TheBitchJust Birthed.”

“Puppies?” Gaston asked with a small smile.

“Aye, SixO’Em.” Pete beamed. “ComeOn. SheBeGoodWithMe.”

He led a now-eager Gaston toward the house.

I addressed Striker as we followed with the rest in tow. “You will, of course, compensate us for any cleaning and repair.”

“Aye, aye,” he sighed. “I am truly sorry, Will. We live like beasts when left alone and not on a ship.”

Two dogs greeted us at the door; or rather, they assessed our worthiness to enter. I had seen a number of the dogs the Brethren used to hunt cattle before, but never at close range. They had once been Spanish mastiffs, and they still maintained the size, massive head, and short coat of their ancestors; but they had been running feral about Hispaniola for nearly a century. The ones greeting us were male. One was black, and I judged him to weigh as much as a man, if not more. His brindle-brown companion was almost as imposing.

The house was indeed the disaster I had envisioned. The dining table had been moved into the front room and positioned in the center with stools and chairs all about, very much like a tavern. The dogs had been successful in disposing of the edible debris, but they could do little for bottles, steins, broken glass, candle tallow, and anything else drunken buccaneers discarded. There were a number of bullet holes all about the bottom of the walls. One enterprising rat had apparently climbed a bookcase, though, as there were holes here and there at the height of the shelves – until the matter had been ended at the top, where there was a good deal of dried blood. Everything smelled of urine: so much so that I was relieved not to see excrement.

“Most beasts know not to piss where they sleep,” I noted to Striker.

“The dogs do,” he said defensively.

“Only when the walls have been marked by men first, and they feel they must cover the stench.” I pointed at one stain near the ceiling that would have required a horse-sized dog to accomplish.

“We will see to it,” he sighed. “All of it.”

“We’ll be sleepin’ on the ship then,” Liam said.

“We’ll be sleeping at the shop tonight,” the Bard chuckled.

I supposed I should check the rooms upstairs, though I thought it likely that even if they did not smell as the downstairs did, we would be better served on the Queen. Yet I dearly wanted some more days of privacy before we sailed. I found I was to be thwarted: the sleeping chambers were somewhat better than the downstairs – less garbage and no piss – but both held a good deal of gear.

“Pete and I have the one, some of the other men the other,” Striker said from the bottom of the stairs. “I will have to locate the other men. We’ll clean it out by tonight.”

“Nay,” I sighed. “Do not make haste about it. Gaston and I will sleep on the ship.”

With that, I decided to ignore further inspection of the house and looked about for my matelot. I found him in the back room. Theodore’s massive old desk was there. It had been shoved into the corner, such that the overhang of the top and the knee space beneath formed a den. Pete and Gaston were lying on the floor near the opening, their weapons discarded atop the wooden expanse. All sign they might be dangerous men had fled them, as they lay there wearing happy smiles whilst playing with round waddling puppies. Gaston waved me over, and I shed my belt and baldric to join them.

He proffered a lazily wiggling black loaf with barely opened eyes and said, “Smell.”

I hugged the little bundle to me, and drank in the milky smell of innocence.

The bitch was a huge golden brindle animal, nearly as big as the black male at the door. At my inclusion in the cuddling of her young, she emerged fully from the den to examine me. Though I had no plan to ever harm her pups, I hoped the one I held would not experience any duress beyond my control whilst in my care, as his mother’s head was larger than mine, with jaws that could surely encompass my face. I did not recoil from her sniffing, though, and thus she judged me acceptable.

Gaston grinned at me past the puppy lying on his chest, and I smiled back. He seemed at peace with the world in a way I had not witnessed before. I wondered if we could take puppies on the ship.

The tableau was broken by Liam. “How many there be? Six? Ya should pick tha biggest two an’ drown tha rest.”

Pete sat and glared, puppy held protectively in his lap. Beside him, the bitch growled, at Liam and not the Golden One. Gaston’s look would have scared the Devil.

“NoOneTouches’Em,” Pete rumbled.

Liam took a step back. “Aye. But… Iffn’ ya do nothin’, they’ll just breed like rabbits an’ the house, Hell, the whole town’ll be overrun with ‘em.”

I sighed. He was correct, and I was familiar with culling packs of hunting hounds; but I was never the one who needed to do it, and holding the bundle I now did I could not see how anyone could.

“Don’Care,” Pete spat.

“We will take them to Negril when we return,” Gaston said. “There are wild cattle there, though they are sparse. And it is easy enough to geld the males.”

“Aye,” Pete said with a pout.

“May as well take them with us now,” Cudro said calmly from the doorway. “To Cow Island. The four dogs are hunters.”

Gaston nodded. “The puppies can be moved, though their dam will like it little. I will not abandon them there, though.”

“It was not my suggestion,” Cudro added quickly. “We could establish a pack at Negril after.”

“I don’t want dogs on my ship,” the Bard said from the front room. “I know they’re cattle dogs, but they will shit like any other.”

Striker gave a rueful chuckle, “As if we have a podium to preach from.”

“Speak for yourself,” the Bard snorted. “Fine, I see I’ll not win this, but someone best be cleaning up after them.”

“We will,” I assured him.

The Bard’s head poked around the corner and he eyed me with speculation. Upon spying the puppy I held, he snorted and rolled his eyes.

The others at last retreated to discuss who would go out and acquire victuals. Pete, Gaston, and I stayed. The sun was setting and the room was filling with shadows. The bitch decided all had experienced enough excitement for one day, and rolled two puppies back behind the desk before retrieving the ones we held by the scruffs of their necks. I scooted over and deposited mine at the entrance to her den before she felt the need to relieve me of it. She shouldered me aside with Gaston’s puppy in her mouth. I retreated to my matelot’s side, and the three of us listened to the puppies mewl as they realized they were about to be fed.

“TharBeTimes IWishIBeADahg,” Pete said quietly. He appeared as melancholy as he sounded. “ButThenIThink ItBeGood Ta’AveGunsAn’ Knives.”

“Aye,” I breathed. “Sometimes one needs a great many teeth.”

“Don’KnowWhy IWeren’tDrowned. Weren’tWanted.”

I heard Gaston’s long slow breath. I remembered his onetime comment that due to the poorness of his breeding, in that both of his parents were in some way mad, he should have been drowned at birth.

“I would imagine you were the pick of the litter,” I said gently to Pete. “The strongest win out and survive. I, on the other hand, was merely the only male, and that was my sole value.”

“YeComeFromALong LineADahgsWith BigTeethTho.”

I chuckled. “Aye. Wolves really. Bred and raised as one.”

“But you are not a wolf,” Gaston said. “You are a centaur, and we have a great many weapons with which to kill wolves and protect sheep and puppies.” He stood. “I wish to walk.”

“Do you wish for company?” I asked.

“Oui,” he said softly.

“WhatBeASinTar?”

“A mythical creature, half man and half horse,” I told Pete while standing to follow my matelot.

“HorseOnThaBottom?”

“Aye,” I chuckled as I tried to envision the opposite.

“IBeAWolf.”

“Aye, you are. You are more a wolf than any with a pedigree a league long.”

Pete snorted with amusement, and we left him alone listening to the feeding puppies. We slipped out the back and up the side alley to the street. When I fell into step beside him, I found Gaston’s face composed into an emotionless mask and his eyes distant.

“How are we?” I asked.

“I am in control.”

“I see that.”

He sighed. “Liam distressed me. And the state of the house. And all of this.” He indicated the busy avenue we walked.

“I know.” I took his hand. “And you are doing well. I merely wish to know if we should withdraw and allow the Horse to recover.”

He did not reply and we continued to walk.

“I want a den,” he finally muttered as we reached New Street. “And a mother to watch over me.” His tone was one of curious contemplation, as if he found both interest and amusement in his observation.

I grinned. “I just had the most disturbing vision of that bitch carrying you about by your head.”

He smiled and sighed. “I do not have an urge to suckle.”

I threw my arm across his shoulders. “My love, I understand, truly. I would give you all you missed in your childhood if I could.”

“I know. I will be well pleased tonight with a private place and you to hold me.”

“Then let us find one.”

The house would not do, neither would the ship if privacy were our aim. I had seen little to welcome me on the outside of any of the inns, and I felt the insides would be worse. I only knew of one man in town with a house who might welcome us.

“Let us see if Theodore has a guest room for the night.”

Gaston was not overly pleased at this suggestion, but he acquiesced relatively quickly, and we turned up New Street. I soon spotted Theodore’s shingle, well lit by a lantern, as we approached the intersection with High Street. The house was truly twice the size of his last one, at least in the vertical dimension. This dwelling was no more than ten feet wider than the last, but it was a solid three stories with a gabled fourth. Warm and inviting light spilled from the lower windows into the twilight.

We knocked, and a dignified Negress answered. I was not sure if she spoke English, but I gave our names and she nodded cordially and let us into a small foyer before withdrawing to announce us.

Theodore was embracing us mere seconds later. He ushered us into his office, which was separated from the entrance hall by a set of double doors. Rachel, or rather Mistress Theodore, peered at us from a second doorway leading into a back room. Seeing who we were, she nodded politely and left.

“I am so very pleased to see both of you,” Theodore said, as we sat about his new desk, a massive teak piece that dwarfed his former dining table.

“We just arrived this evening,” I said.

“Alone?”

“Nay, with our shipmates. They are at the house.”

He grimaced. “I have seen the house.”

“Striker promises to compensate us for the damages,” I said.

“Where will you stay until repairs… and cleaning, can be accomplished?”

“I am glad you asked.” I grinned. “I hate to trouble you, but might you have a guest room we may avail ourselves of for the night?”

He laughed. “I wondered why you came to me so soon. Of course. You are very welcome, and I will not hear of your staying elsewhere until your house can be made suitable.”

“Thank you. It will not be for long. We plan to sail before the Twelveday.”

“So soon?” he asked with some small alarm. “I heard Morgan planned to sail late in January at the earliest, after the cane harvest.”

“We wish to provision first,” I said. “Do you have need of me?”

He sighed, but Mistress Theodore and the Negress entered before he could speak. They bore trays of wine, cheese, biscuits, and fruit. We stood. My stomach growled at the smell of food.

Theodore chuckled. “You can join us for dinner as well.”

“Thank you. Mistress Theodore, you look well,” I told her in all sincerity.

She looked truly healthy, though a touch heavy: as pregnant women are often wont to do even before their bellies truly show. Beyond her being with child, I thought perhaps some of her radiance was due to the lovely yellow of her dress. Before, I had only seen her in the plain and demure couture of the Jews, who rival the Protestants in drabness in the name of morality or some such rubbish.

“Thank you, Lord Marsdale.” Her eyes flicked over Gaston and me. “And you two look as you usually do, but it is good to know you are well.”

“I have asked them to be our guests until their house can be made suitable,” Theodore said.

She awarded him the look that ladies give their husbands to say there will be later discussion about his judgment. Then she turned to the Negress. “Hannah, we will need a bath set in the guest room.”

The woman frowned curiously.

“Lord Marsdale is fond of bathing,” Mistress Theodore explained with a shrug.

The Negress nodded and regarded us with compressed lips and disapproving eyes, before leaving the room with decorous steps. I thought it likely she and Mistress Theodore got on quite well.

“Do you still have Sam?” I asked them in her wake.

“Who do you think will haul the water upstairs?” Mistress Theodore asked. She quickly added, “And you can’t have him to clean your house.”

“That was not the intent of my inquiry,” I said pleasantly.

“I would suggest acquiring a housekeeper,” she said. “Those two cannot be left alone, not and live like men.”

I did not need to ask which two she meant. “We have noted that.”

She smiled. “And find one that cooks pies. Pete’s over here every other day.”

“You have befriended him,” I said.

“I suppose some would consider that a blessing.” She shook her head with a sigh. “And I do, truly, but he’s a big child and he’s not mine,” she said in a softer tone.

“I understand. We will be at sea soon. And either before or after, we will do all that we are able to procure a housekeeper who can cook.”

She nodded curtly, apparently pleased she need chide me no more on the matter, and turned to her husband. “So they will join us for dinner as well?”

“Please,” he smiled.

She smiled at her husband in a truly pleasant manner. She paused in the door as she left, and awarded me a serious look. “My bed linens are new. I would appreciate them not being soiled unduly.”

I nodded with ill-disguised horror. Memories of concealing my adolescent nighttime dissipation from the upstairs maids returned to me and I wondered if we should sleep on the floor. Gaston appeared as appalled as I, and I gathered he was remembering his own childhood fear of servants.

We sat, and Theodore poured wine and awarded us an apologetic shrug. “She is a forthright woman.”

Gaston wore a mask of incredulity.

I chuckled. “Aye, but she is honest, and you are pleased to be married to her.”

Theodore looked to the doorway where she had exited and smiled warmly. “Aye. She can be very… companionable.” He seemed a little embarrassed at this admission and sipped his wine quickly.

“I am pleased you are happy,” I said. “As you are the one married to her, which is all that matters.”

“Aye.” He gave another nervous glance to the back doorway and then whispered. “Do not let her know I told you about the child, please. She feels the need to be very private about the matter.”

Gaston appeared concerned. “Does she have a good midwife? Most physicians are useless in this matter.”

Theodore nodded. “There is a well-respected woman in town, and Mistress Theodore is well by all accounts.”

“That is good to hear,” Gaston sighed.

“So, you sail within the fortnight?” Theodore asked.

“So I am told. We plan to visit the plantation. I will write my father. Is there ought else I should do?”

“Well, there are the matters we discussed in October, and… the matter we did not.”

I frowned. He sighed and went to the shelves lining the wall to pull two leather satchels and place them on the desk. One was marked “Williams/Sable”, and the other, “Marsdale”.

Theodore spoke as he opened the Williams/Sable packet and withdrew documents. “I saw to all of the legal matters. Gaston is now a citizen and you both…”

“What?” Gaston asked.

He looked from one to the other of us and I realized something quite important.

“I forgot… to tell you, these last few days,” I said. “Theodore came in October and we parsed the French documents and…

Gaston seemed to be struggling to remember what I was talking about.

“As you were not considered a competent Frenchman,” Theodore said smoothly. “I thought it best you become a new Englishman.” He handed Gaston a document. “Mister Gaston Sable. Blame your matelot for the name if you dislike it.”

Gaston studied the page and touched his new legal name in a curious fashion. Then the tension left his shoulders and at last he nodded.

“It is acceptable,” he told us. “I did not wish to be English and not French, but I suppose it is as it must be.”

Theodore smiled. “Gaston, no one has told the French you are no longer French. It is simply wiser if you do not go near them.”

“Ah.” Gaston nodded, and then his gaze was on me alone. “Thank you for remembering my surname,” he said quietly in French.

“I am relieved you are pleased.”

He thought on it and nodded. “Oui, I am.”

Theodore was pulling more pages from the satchel. A crude map was among them.

“What else have you wrought?” Gaston asked me quietly.

“I believe we own land,” I said.

“Aye, generous grants. Both of you and several of your associates will soon own that coast you dwelled upon. There is one grant that still needs a complete name. The governor has assured me he will grant all that we ask, but I still require signatures before the formal request is filed. I need a surname for Pete, but they have not delivered one.”

“We will see to it,” I assured him, and perused the map. We would indeed own all of the point, beach, morass, and even the semicircular bay to the north. The map had rough squares drawn in and names jotted within them: Striker, Pete, Cudro, Liam, Otter, the Bard, Davey, Julio, Gaston and myself all owned adjoining lots of land, which varied in apparent size from thirty or so acres to several hundred. Striker and I had the largest, with him owning the bay to the north and me owning the point itself.

“All of the dwellings are now on land I will supposedly own,” I noted.

“I could do little for that,” Theodore sighed. “I am hoping you can work out some arrangement amongst one another.”

“I am sure we can.”

Gaston touched the block with the name Sable. It was smaller than mine and lay east of the point proper.

“Damn you, Will,” he whispered in French. “You have made me a man of consequence.”

“I am sincerely sorry for that,” I replied, and gave him a hopeful smile.

I was relieved that his answering smile was warm and amused.

We signed our grant requests. Gaston paused for a time before signing Gaston Sable in his neat script. Once relieved of the pen, I slipped my hand under the desk to caress his thigh reassuringly; and once he set the pen down, his hand came to cover mine. A small smile graced his lips as he passed the papers back to Theodore.

“What else is there?” Gaston asked.

“I have taken the liberty of writing a last will and testament for each of you,” Theodore said, and produced two more documents for us to sign. “These name the other as the sole inheritor of all of your possessions. If you are to die together…” he spread his hands wide to indicate it would then be up to God.

“We will have to consider what is to become of the land and house if we should perish mutually,” I agreed.

Gaston shrugged. “Decide as you will,” he said to me in French. “I will not outlive you. If I should die, you know where the gold is buried.”

I made no attempt to gainsay him; and as he had been quite disimpassioned about the utterance, I was left to decide whether it was romantic or tragic. I could make no such determination. It made my heart ache either way.

“We will think on it, together,” I said.

He shrugged again.

“And now,” Theodore sighed, “we must discuss the things that you said you would leave to my discretion in October.”

I remembered that of which he spoke, or rather his mention of it. I looked to Gaston again. “Theodore said there were things that need be dealt with but not immediately, things of which I might not wish to hear regarding my father and the plantation. I told him that I trusted his judgment as to whether they could wait until we returned here or not.”

Gaston nodded amicably, and Theodore opened the other satchel.

“First, I was able to purchase a number of Negroes for the plantation,” Theodore said.

“I suppose we will see them when we visit,” I sighed. “And we had discussed the need for them before I left.”

“They are even more necessary now,” he said with a sad shrug. “A number of the bondsmen have died.”

“That is sad to hear,” I said.

I thought of all the men with whom I sailed to Jamaica and wondered what I would find when I visited Ithaca.

“Is the why of it known?” I asked.

Theodore shrugged. “They seasoned poorly. I know you knew them such that their names might have meaning. I will leave Fletcher to the telling of it.”

I nodded resolutely. At least good Fletcher was still alive.

“And then there are the letters from England,” Theodore said. “They arrived in September. I do not feel concern that you will fault me on withholding your father’s; but in hindsight, I feel some guilt that I did not deliver the others to you in October, because you might have wished for them. As for your father’s, I have not read his missive to you, but I know what he wrote me, and… well, I thought we would have more time to address the matter prior to your sailing again. As it is…” He sighed heavily and pushed the satchel to me across the desk.

I regarded the satchel with trepidation. I knew I truly did not want to know what Theodore thought it wise to withhold from me.

“As always,” I said, “I am sure you had my best interests at heart.”

He stood and rounded the desk to pat my shoulder. “I hope you will continue to feel so. I will leave you with it then, and inquire as to our meal.”

He withdrew through the back door, closing it after him. Gaston and I regarded one another. I pushed the satchel toward him. He opened it as if it might contain snakes he would have to kill. There were four letters. I recognized my father’s script on the first, and so did he, as he set it aside. The next had very fine and pretty writing that looked to be female in origin. The third was from Master Rucker. The fourth much-battered packet, to my utter amazement, was from Alonso, and addressed to me at my father’s estate. I was pleased it had been forwarded.

“What is wrong?” Gaston asked as I continued to stare at it.

“This is Alonso’s hand.”

Gaston glared at the packet.

“The Spaniard?” he spat.

I sighed and snatched it from him to break the seal. “It is dated the day after I left Florence.” I handed it to Gaston. “You read it and tell me what it says.”

He handed it back. “My Castilian is not proficient to that degree.”

I glanced at the last page, which contained many crossed-out words and blots of ink. “Even I will have a hard time reading it; he appears to be quite drunk by the end.”

“Read it,” he said.

“I do not know if I wish to.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, you throwing a jealous fit for one.”

He rolled his eyes and slumped in his chair. “I am sorry.”

“And for another,” I said, “I truly do not wish to read it yet. I can guess its contents, as it was written after he woke to find me gone. I do not imagine it to be pleasant.”

“He did not know you were leaving?” Gaston asked with sincere curiosity.

“Non. He wished for me to accompany him to Spain and then Panama. I did not wish to spend the rest of my life posing as his manservant.”

“Why would he even ask such a thing?” Gaston snapped.

“Non, non.” I smiled at him. “I am ill using his intent. In the end, he offered to go elsewhere with me. But for us to remain together, one or the other would have had to sacrifice a great deal. And as I have explained several times over, I did not love him as I love you.”

He took the letter and smoothed it flat and slid it back before me.

“Please,” he said solemnly. “Now I am curious.”

I could refuse him nothing. I read Alonso’s letter.

It started angry. He had woken to find me gone, without even a note. He had been incensed that I would leave him in such a way. Then he had either let time pass or indulged in a bottle. The sweep of his handwriting relaxed and yet became tidier. He admitted he had been corresponding with his family for some time, and that he had broken the trust between us first. Then he began to list all of the things he wished he had said to me. Some were simple, such as “I love you,” which I realized he had never truly said. Others invoked shared memories, such as complementing me on insulting a don who had given us a bit of trouble. This was interesting, in that I remembered Alonso being furious at the time. In this letter, he admitted that he had actually admired my courage, or stupidity, in the face of insurmountable odds. He wrote of his fondness for our lovemaking, and how he honored that I had trusted him after all that had happened to me. That was something he had never told me, either. Toward the end of the letter, it was obvious, as I had noted when glancing at it, that he was deep in the wine. His script became quite difficult to read. He went on in detail about how he did not know if the letter would ever reach me, or if it would be read by others, and how he did not care even though he had said things that one man should never commit to paper concerning another. He even said that he realized now, that if he had been willing to take those risks, if I had been more important than his family honor, then perhaps I would have stayed with him.

It was not what I expected. It led me to hidden veins of emotion I had long since thought banished or dissipated. I finished the letter in tears. Thankfully, Gaston did not question me as I buried my face in the side of his neck and cried. I was grateful for his comforting arms, as I thought again of all the things I would miss of Alonso.

I mourned him as if he were dead, because he was dead to me now. I would never see him again, and I doubted I could ever get a letter to him, even though I knew his family name and estate just as he had known mine. I was sure a letter from England would be questioned, and if his life had followed the course he had described to me, then he would already be in the New World. And knowing what I did now of political matters here, I would never be able to go to Panama. So he was dead, and I had received this last letter from a ghost.

When most of the emotion had passed, the cynical portion of my spirit roused itself, and I wondered how hard Alonso had tried to retrieve this letter after he posted it.

I wiped my eyes.

Gaston regarded me with concern and curiosity. “Was it hateful?”

“Non, on the contrary.”

He frowned.

“Let me read it to you,” I said.

“You do not have to,” he sighed

“I want to, because I want you to understand. You wanted me to read it, now you have to listen.”

“Is that how it is?” he asked. “So what am I to understand, how much he loved you?” His tone was light but his eyes were hard.

“Not… precisely. Your Horse truly fears all others, does it not?”

He snorted. “This is not a thing of my Horse.” He sighed. “Not entirely. And it is not fear,” he added with vehemence. Then he shook his head and rubbed his temples. “I do not want to argue. Not tonight.”

“I am sorry.”

“Will,” he sighed. “I think of this man touching you and it fills me with frustration. You shared things with this man. He was with you before me. I have been with no one except…” He shook his head. “Every time you touch me, it is new to me. When I touch you, I want you to feel the same. I realize that is selfish. I wish to possess you… even in the past.”

“You do. My love, you overshadow all that has ever occurred in my life. I can think of no other I have known without comparing them to you. They do not exist to me now except in your shadow.”

His smile was slow in coming, but it finally lit his eyes. He handed me Alonso’s letter again. “Read it to me.”

So I did, explaining my observations as I went, and ending with my thought that he probably tried very hard to retrieve the letter once he was sober. When I finished, Gaston took the pages from me and folded them neatly, compressing the creases until the poor battered papers were flatter than they had been.

“I wish to meet him,” he said as he set it aside.

“And what? Kill him?”

“Non,” he grinned. “Make him jealous. He lost you.” He handed me another letter. “He is a fool. And you are correct; he is no one to be jealous of.”

“Thank you.” I chuckled at his change of heart and mood. I regarded the feminine script and broke the nondescript seal with a shrug. I flipped to the last page to read the signature. “Sarah.”

“Your sister, oui?”

I nodded and read. She had been delighted by the letter I sent her. I calculated, based on the date, and realized this was in response to the first short note I had written her, and not the massive volume I wrote on our return voyage from Île de la Tortue. I would not receive a response to that until the ships began to arrive in January.

She apologized that hers was short, as it had to go on a ship soon. She wished to come here someday and see it all for herself. She asked several questions of matters and details she wished clarification on. She mentioned that she had made the acquaintance of Master Rucker, and he had taken to providing her with a steady supply of political and historical tracts on the subject of the West Indies, and she was quite fascinated by them and by his company. I was greatly pleased to hear it.

She joked that she was going to tell me to give greeting to Gaston, but realized I would let him read this, so she addressed a paragraph directly to him. She thanked him for making me happy, and wished us both well. Gaston was pleased and amused by this. I was pleased she had given such credence to my mention of him; despite the rapport I had established with her, it was not a thing I would have expected.

Then her letter took a more serious tone. Shane had been furious at his plans being thwarted. Our father had decided it was best to keep them apart, and she had only seen Shane briefly at our mother’s funeral and our sister’s wedding. At which point, she changed her tack, and spoke of our mother’s passing. Sarah had felt a great and unexpected sorrow over this: but not of the loss, rather guilt and sadness that she did not feel any great need to mourn. So she postulated that perhaps she was truly mourning not having a mother, rather than feeling the loss of the woman who had filled the post in name only. I decided that I truly adored my little sister, and that at least I could say I had one family member in the world.

“I wish to meet her as well,” Gaston said as he finished.

“And make her jealous?” I teased.

He smacked my arm painfully, and toyed with Rucker’s and my father’s letters.

“This first.” He handed me Rucker’s letter.

It was much as I expected from the man, and I reminded myself that when he wrote it he had not yet received the letter I wrote him that would answer many if not all of the questions he listed in this one. I put it aside after explaining this to Gaston.

He shrugged and handed me my father’s letter. “Then we must read this now.”

I grimaced and nodded. It did not match the dour tone I had expected. My father mentioned Elizabeth’s wedding and my mother’s passing in a few brief sentences, as if it were a perfunctory duty that must be gotten out of the way so that serious things could be discussed. He seemed pleased I was enjoying myself and had found something to do with my time, as he had not expected planting to suit me. In actuality, I supposed, he was relieved I was out making war on the Spaniards, and not gambling and whoring with his good name all over Port Royal. To my dismay, he appeared to have a very specific agenda for the rest of the missive.

He suggested that, since I was engaged in dangerous enterprises, perhaps it would behoove me to produce a legal heir. He said he would be very pleased with me when I married. He assured me that marriage need not be a thing of love. It was a thing of duty, and any sensible young woman would understand that and turn a blind eye to my philandering with whomever I chose, as long as I practiced a modicum of decorum. He went on to offer the proceeds of the plantation as a means of support for my starting a family.

It was extortion. Thankfully, I did not need his money.

Then he put the noose around my neck. He said that, as incentive for producing an heir, he would give me the plantation upon the birth of my first son. To that end, since he was sure there were few young ladies of sufficient breeding available, he was arranging a marriage for me and would send a bride as soon as one could be procured.

Gaston and I regarded one another in shared horror.

“I am going to kill your father,” Gaston said.

“May I hold him down?”

“Will it be necessary?” he asked.

“Non, but I feel I will garner great satisfaction in being a participant.”

We sat in silence for a time, each contemplating the coming wave of disaster. I was roiling in anger. I had truly expected this at some junction; why should I be surprised now?

“Will,” Gaston whispered into the growing darkness. “The Horse is very distraught.”

His fists were clenched and there was fury in his eyes. I was not sure where he could vent it. The object of it was not present.

For my part, the room appeared to be reeling. I decided retreat was in order, and perhaps a den. I slipped out of the chair and around the desk, pulling Gaston after me into the knee space. He curled against my chest and we held each other like scared children, or perhaps puppies. I did not feel that I had teeth or weapons, and I very much wanted someone to come and protect me. But it was not to be. We only had each other. I assured myself that was far more than most were blessed with.

I heard footsteps a while later. I supposed it was time for dinner. I also supposed the person who had entered the room was our host.

“Theodore?” I queried.

The steps approached, and so did a lamp. Theodore peered under the desk at us. I nodded a greeting. He perused the letters on the surface.

“May I read your father’s letter?” he asked.

“Please,” I said pleasantly.

He scooped it up, and to my amusement, pushed the chair aside and sat on the floor next to us. He gave me a curious look, and his gaze flicked to Gaston. I looked down; my matelot’s eyes were tightly closed.

“We are not having a good day,” I said. I was thankful I had been forthright with Theodore as to Gaston’s madness in October. It made additional explanation unnecessary now.

Theodore nodded. “Due to this?”

“It added to a prevailing situation,” I said. “Coming to Port Royal has been… difficult.”

He nodded and read. When he finished, he sat it on the desk above us. “It is much as he wrote me, only friendlier.”

“I will not do it,” I said.

Theodore took a large breath, preparatory to sighing, but he held it in and shrugged instead.

“Non.” Gaston stirred in my arms and extricated himself enough to turn and look at me. He appeared calm again, his face truly a mask.

“Non, what?” I asked in French.

“It is a thing you must do if you are to inherit. You are a nobleman; it is expected. Non, it is required. You can do much good with the title. You must do this to gain it. It will be meaningless to us, non?”

His words did not sit well with me, and I could not at the moment name the reasons why. I told him, “We will discuss it,” and switched to English and my attention to Theodore.

“I do not wish to wed or bed a woman, especially not one my father might select. I do not wish for any but my matelot to think they have some claim over me.”

“Of course,” Theodore sighed. “I did not think you would feel otherwise on either count. As for the latter, under English law a wife is not a thing to be concerned about when compared to a man’s legal partner in any enterprise. As you have already, you are free to establish whatever ownership of property and disbursement of your assets at death that you wish. She and your father will have no say in any of that, and your father will only be a consideration concerning matters of the title or property associated with it, such as your family estate in England. The plantation, however, once he gives it to you, can be owned jointly with Gaston. None can gainsay that. As for the former, if you do not wish a bride of your father’s choosing, then make your own choice.”

“And how am I to do that here?” I asked.

“I have taken the liberty of researching some of the better families here,” he said carefully. “I have determined that there are three possible candidates with sufficient breeding that your father might not demand an annulment if you were married to one of them upon the other bride’s arrival.”

“So you have been planning this for months.” I was oddly amused.

“Well,” he sighed, “this conversation surely.”

I snorted. “Well, I have said I feel you to have my best interests at heart. I suppose I should allow you to pick a bride for me. Better you than my father. I mean no sarcasm in that.”

He smiled sadly. “Oh, Will… You have met one of them,” he said brightly.

“Truly? I can not recall meeting any…” And then I could.

“Miss Christine Vines,” Theodore said. “Her father is the second son of the Baron of Hapsmarch, and by some twist of fate and romance, he married above his station into a noble Austrian house that was in dire straits.”

All that Miss Vines had said the night I made her acquaintance at the Governor’s house returned to me. She had been educated in Vienna, and said she could make several fine matches there or in England. She was only on Jamaica because her mother had died recently, and her father had needed her. I also recalled her frustration over being expected to marry, at being a girl and limited in her choices. And her vivid blue eyes, and lilting voice, and long limbs, and lovely features.

Gaston was frowning, and then his eyes shot wide. “The Brisket?”

I frowned until I remembered why he called her that, and then I could do little but chuckle.

“I cannot explain,” I said in response to Theodore’s confusion – and then tried to anyway. “Miss Vines was the road not taken and the meal not eaten. Gaston and I had quite the argument over my statement that if I had not met him first, I would have been quite smitten with her.”

Theodore decided he did not need to understand more. “The other two young ladies are of strictly English lineage, but ladies they are, and not commoners. A number of earls and viscounts own plantations here, and some have actually brought their families temporarily.”

I did not care who the others were. Damn me all to hell, I could see taking the Brisket for a wife. I did not feel Gaston would be the least bit reasonable about sharing me with her, though, because Miss Vines would matter.

“I have much to think on,” I said firmly. “And there is much Gaston and I must discuss.”

Theodore nodded sagely and appeared a trifle relieved. My matelot appeared distraught, but now I was sure his Horse was plunging about in a new direction, and I was not sure if I could provide it comfort over this matter.

I sighed. “May we eat now?”

I was sure I heard the Gods snickering.

 

 

Thirty

Wherein We Chart an Unexpected Course

 

The meal consisted of an interestingly spiced stew, for which I complemented both Mistress Theodore and Hannah. The table was well set with linen and pewter. It minded me much of the last time we dined in a fine room, at Doucette’s. Thankfully, we were free of priests this night; but when I thought of sleeping in this house, with its fine white-walled rooms, and how we had fared the last time we had done such a thing, I began to feel uneasy. This was, of course, ladled atop the unease I already felt over my father’s plans and the decisions I must make. I had little appetite, not even for the wine.

Gaston nudged me with his foot, and I looked up sharply to find his eyes motioning toward Theodore, and the room engulfed in awkward silence.

“I am sorry,” I mumbled.

“I was just asking when you would be visiting the plantation,” Theodore said.

I sighed. “As I am not entirely sure of Striker’s plans, I suppose I should do it sooner rather than later. Would it be possible to go tomorrow?”

I gave Gaston a questioning look. He nodded.

“That will be fine,” Theodore said. “I would like you to see the place before we discuss anything of merit concerning it. I will send Sam to fetch your horses in the morning.”

I shrugged. “It seems a pity to send someone all the way to Ithaca to fetch them when we just have to ride there. We can let another pair and have them returned to the livery.”

“Ah, aye, but they are not on the plantation,” Theodore said. At my sharp glance he shrugged a trifle sheepishly. “I found a fine pasturage for them outside Spanish Town. They have been well treated, and not ridden. They have had quite the life of leisure.”

“Was that not possible at Ithaca?” I asked.

“There was some… resentment over there being idle horses.” He shrugged. “That need be fed. And it was felt some of the men might use them to escape. Not that I can see the Negroes doing so, they are scared of them.”

“Donoughy?” I had not always seen eye to eye with our plantation manager, but I had not doubted his willingness to follow my instructions since last summer. I cursed myself for being a fool. I should have visited the plantation during the fall so that I was well remembered; but of course, I had chosen Gaston over the sheep on the plantation. It was a thing I knew I would always do.

“Aye,” Theodore sighed. “Please, do not be angry with him; though, I well know you will be, and not merely for the horses. He made comment that Ithaca was a working plantation that needed beasts of burden, and not a gentleman’s country estate. I thought it best to remove the objects of contention.”

“Thank you,” Gaston said.

My matelot appeared far more thoughtful than angry. I was mystified as to the current working of his mind. I was mystified as to a great many things and they all seemed to weigh upon me. My strength took flight to follow my appetite, and a great exhaustion settled over me.

“I do not wish to know what else I should even be angry with him for,” I said. “Aye, please have the horses fetched to the Passage landing in the morning. Now, if you will all excuse me. Thank you again, Mistress Theodore, for this meal. I am sorry I have not done it justice.”

I left them, and retrieved my bags and weapons from Theodore’s office. Gaston joined me before I had finished hefting them.

“I do not feel well,” I told him.

As we reached the second floor, I realized I had not thought to inquire as to where the guest room was, but there was a door open in the hall and I spied Sam coming out of it. He seemed pleased to see us.

“Master Marsdale, you be wantin’ the bath now? I bring a kettle.”

There was a small brass washtub with clear water in the middle of the room, and a sheet of canvas beneath it. There was a stack of cotton cloths for drying next to it.

“Aye, please Sam. This will be fine. And thank you. And, how are you, Sam? I see you have a woman of your own kind in the house now.”

He frowned, and then glanced about and stepped in close to whisper. “Master Marsdale, she not be from my people, and that not be no woman. Women be soft. That one don’t have a soft thing in her.”

“I am sorry.” I smiled in spite of my mood. “I am well pleased you are here and we will not be left solely to her tender mercies.” I gave him a coin, and he grinned. “We will also need boiled water in bottles on the morrow. If you could place them outside the door.”

“Anything for you, Master Marsdale. I get kettle now.”

I closed the door and found it did not lock. It was a nice room in the corner of the dwelling, with windows in both outer walls. Even from where I stood, I could feel a little breeze. Unfortunately, it was furnished with a bed rather than a hammock; but as it was placed somewhat between the windows, I supposed it would be tolerable. Of far more concern, all the surfaces seemed to be painted or lacquered white. This added to the overall appearance of cleanliness and left me uncomfortable. I did not know if my weapons were clean enough to deposit anywhere, and I was afraid my bare feet would leave horrid prints on the floor.

Gaston had preceded me into the room, and set his weapons on a trunk, which he now leaned upon, watching me.

“What would you have of me?” he asked gently.

I handed him my weapons and bag, and collapsed in the chair near the desk. I had left footprints across the clean floor.

“Make it all go away,” I sighed. “We do not need this battle now. We have enough to…”

His fingers were on my lips and he kissed my forehead. “Hush.” He smiled softly. “There is this small desk here, and this chair, and perhaps with the bed linens we could make a den.”

I could but smile in return. “I thought you were never allowed to play with the furniture as a child.”

“I have always felt safe beneath them,” he whispered solemnly, as if it were a great secret. “My sister and I would crawl beneath a table in the nursery when it stormed. Even though we were in a great stone house, we always felt the ceiling would collapse, or perhaps the windows would shatter.”

I understood. “I always sought comfort amongst others, and if that was not possible, I would press myself into some corner where I could see all that approached.”

He grinned. “If you are very small under a table, you can see their feet, and attack them there if you must, but they cannot see you unless they lean down; and then they are off balance and easy to topple.”

I smiled. I could well envision the feral little red-headed demon he must have been.

Sam knocked on the door, and we started. We bade him enter and he emptied a kettle of boiling water into the tub and withdrew with a polite bow.

Gaston blocked the door with the room’s other chair after Sam left.

“Remove your clothes,” he ordered softly, as he doffed his own. “I will bathe you.”

“Why are you so calm… now?” I asked.

“You need me.”

My battered heart swelled, and the pressure brought a tear to my eye. “Thank you.”

I removed my tunic and shed my breeches without standing. He moved the lamp closer to us, and I forced all other thoughts to recede except for how very beautiful he was in the flickering golden light. Soon my eyes roamed contentedly, watching the glide of muscle under skin.

“You bathe first.” I breathed.

He crossed the room to lean on the arms of my chair, with one knee between mine. I let my head fall back to gaze up at him with curiosity and amusement. I saw the mischievous twinkle in his eyes before his mouth closed over mine. His kiss was languid and sensual. It burned all memory of my duress away. There was only him. When he withdrew, I tried to follow like a pup after a teat.

“I wish I had attended school with you,” he breathed on my lips. “I wish I had been the first to touch you. To kiss you. To fuck you.”

My heart was pounding with nearly painful intensity, and I gasped for breath as my already-stirring manhood sprang to life. He was not the first to say such things, but for the first time, I felt he would be the last.

He came in for the kill. The first kiss had been a promise, the second was an answered prayer. I became limp, and slid down until my naked crotch encountered his knee. Fire erupted in my groin, leaving me flushed and breathless. His mouth left mine to trace over my jaw and down. I clawed feebly at his shoulders as he nipped the side of my neck, and then bit and sucked. I gave a strangled laugh as I realized he was marking me. The pain and pleasure were one, and it was divine.

When he finally stopped and stood, I was aroused to the edge of discomfort. He grinned triumphantly at me. I chuckled with amazement that he had endeavored to seduce me so readily and succeeded so handily. He ran a fingertip up the underside of my manhood, and I gasped and pushed his hand away.

“Not yet, you have me on the brink and I want it to last as long as possible. It is an exquisite agony, rather like my heart aching.”

“I will endeavor to make you truly miserable, then,” he whispered, and retrieved a pot of salve from his bag. He set it beneath the chair and smirked at my hungry eyes.

He bathed for me. He was not coy or practiced; he merely made sure I saw every gliding stroke of his hand over his flesh. Wet, he glistened in the lamplight. It was as if I watched a sculpture come to life and display itself for my pleasure. I had never desired anything as I did him.

When he finished, he slid my chair closer to the warm water, and began to clean me with a cloth. I held out as long as I could. When he bade me lift a little, and began to clean my buttocks, and the private place between, I gasped and reached for my manhood. He blocked my attempt, and took me in hand while continuing his other ministrations.

As his fingers sank deeper, I realized they were greased. I coiled with anticipation. He stilled as I tensed, as he did when we practiced our morning regimen.

“I am not afraid,” I breathed.

I willed myself to relax. He slipped a single finger inside me, as he had every day this week, and I savored the sensation. But this time he was not content to play about my opening. This time he went deeper and probed about, until he found the front wall of the passage, and the lump of the organ there. He pressed gently.

I exploded with fear and pain.

I found myself in the corner. I did not remember leaving the chair or fleeing across the room.

He still knelt beside the tub. His eyes were wide.

“Will?” he breathed. He was coiled to flee, and looked as scared as I.

“I…” I had to tell him something, but the words would not come. “Hurt,” I gasped.

This seemed to mitigate his fear, but it added to my internal agitation. Why had it hurt?

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked as he crept toward me.

I did not want to be touched. “Non. Stay back.”

Pain gripped his features.

“Non, non, please. I just cannot bear to be touched now, even by you.”

He stayed where he was. “I am sorry.”

“Non. It was not you. That much I am certain of. You touched… a memory.”

His eyes narrowed, and I shook my head in frustration at my inability to grasp what had occurred.

“I do not know if I can explain,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Has that happened before?”

“Non, that is the issue. It has not. I mean… Damn it.” I sighed, and forced myself to think slowly and recall other memories. “No one else has touched me there. Not even Alonso. I do not understand why I reacted so… except that it reminded me of… Shane, and what he did. Though he never did that. The only thing he entered me with was his cock.”

“The lump, it is an organ,” Gaston said calmly. “The thing I touched. It sits around the vessel that delivers urine from the bladder to the penis. I have seen it. It is just outside the rectum.”

I frowned. “How have you seen one?”

He shrugged. “Learning to be a surgeon, you dissect bodies.”

I grimaced, and he smiled weakly.

“Can it cause pain?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I do not know of that aspect of it. It did not cause me pain when you touched it. Has it hurt anyone else you have touched?”

“Non, though…,” I sifted through more memories. “There was one man who claimed it was uncomfortable because it was very intense in sensation. He did not like it.”

“Perhaps you are the same.”

“I need to remember.” I met his gaze. “I need to let myself remember. I may vomit as I have done in the past.”

“I will be here.” He smiled reassuringly. “And I will clean it up before anyone sees.”

I nodded, and tried to recall the feeling he had engendered by touching me there. I thankfully could not reclaim it in its entirety, but I could find enough of it to lead me to the memories it had brought to life. I ignored all the other emotions and thoughts that went with Shane’s assaults, and concentrated on the ephemeral recollection of the sensations. I found it.

“Shane hit it with his cock when he entered me,” I said. “Rammed it actually. Many times.”

“You did not throw up,” Gaston said.

I smiled and crawled to him. “Non, I did not. I did then, though, once. He hit me for that.”

Gaston embraced me, and I was relieved I found comfort in it and not more phantom memories.

“Do you think he ever realized how much you loved him?” he asked. “And that your love is the only thing that stood between him and death?”

“Non, I do not. I think he thinks I am weak and never posed a threat to him.” Then I truly heard his words and my shame transmuted to wonder. “Thank you, for reminding me how I should perceive it.”

“I am glad I can serve some purpose. I am sorry,” he whispered.

I shook my head.

“Even if my error was inadvertent, it caused you pain, and for that I am sorry. We will avoid that spot,” he added solemnly.

“I think that wise,” I chuckled. “I do not understand how Alonso avoided it.”

He frowned and nodded thoughtfully. “We need to discover that.”

I marveled again at how very calm he was, yet this was not the mask he wore when he tended the wounded. This was another face of his Horse.

“I wish you could see yourself as I see you now,” I whispered. “Then you would never call yourself evil.”

He held me tighter, and eventually we moved to the bed, where I was reasonably sure we did not muss the sheets, as we were clean and did nothing but embrace one another.

We woke to a knock on the door. Gaston sprang from where he was sleeping on my chest. The sudden lack of heat was chilling. I grabbed the weapon beside the pillow and opened my eyes to find my matelot on his knees above me with a pistol pointed at the door. I recalled where we were, slowly. It seemed quite bright out. Gaston seemed a trifle wild-eyed. I wondered if he had been wakened from a dream.

“It is assuredly the maid,” I whispered, then called to the door, “Aye?”

“It is Hannah, sirs. Will you want the morning meal?” She had a husky voice and a strong accent, but her English was proper and well enunciated.

“We will be down,” I said, as cheerfully as I could manage.

Gaston slumped to my chest.

“A little tense this morning, are we?” I whispered.

He glared at me and sighed. Then he touched my neck and grimaced.

My fingers went to the mark he had left last night, and I became acutely aware of how sore it was. Now that I thought on it, I realized I could feel the throbbing in my neck. I probed along the edges and found it was larger than I expected. I would not be hiding it. This pleased me. Here with him, it was not a thing to be ashamed of, but a badge of honor.

He slid up my chest to kiss me with gentle mirth. “I am truly sorry,” he chuckled. “I did not mean to do so much. I should prepare a poultice.” The more he spoke, the funnier he seemed to find the situation.

I grabbed his head quite firmly and pulled his neck to my mouth. He submitted, even though I knew he was not naïve as to my goal. I licked and then bit; and he made a contented sound, and shifted to provide me better access. I did not attempt to cover as much territory as he had, but I did leave him well marked. Once finished, I felt pride in the damage I had done.

“I have never exchanged those with a man before,” I said.

This pleased him, but he frowned. “So you have with a woman?”

He pushed himself off me and I pulled myself up the headboard to sit. He returned to sit astride my legs. He was semi-turgid with the need to relieve himself, just as I was. Still, the sight of him not being completely flaccid caused a true stir in my manhood. I suppressed a sigh.

“Oui,” I smiled. “I once connived to start mischief with one. I marked a lady upon her bosom whilst she was drunk. Her husband thought far more had occurred than had, though I had done little more than kiss her and leave the mark.”

“Were you forced to duel with him, or was that your intent?” he asked with amusement.

“Non, my intent was to cause her angst. She had trifled with the affections of a friend of mine. Her husband cared not what she did, as long as she was discreet. He was furious. Her season was ruined, as he sent her away to their winter home, right in the midst of the very best parties and balls.”

He smiled. “You are an angel of justice.”

“Perhaps, but I do not mete out the Gods’ justice, merely my own.”

“That alone should strike terror into the hearts of wise men.”

I grinned. “Non, if they are truly wise then they need not fear me.”

He fingered his neck. “That is an interesting sensation. It is quite pleasant to receive.”

“You did not realize that before you did it to me?” I teased.

“I assumed it was not wholly unpleasant, as I have seen many men wearing the results.” He grinned. “I have assumed a great many things I have not experienced to be pleasant, and with you I have found my assumptions well-founded.”

I slid my hands up his thighs and regarded him with a touch of wonder. “You are in a rare mood this morn, non?”

He gazed into my eyes thoughtfully. “I am greatly confused and troubled about all things, except you, yet you seem to be the catalyst for all of my woe.”

“I am sorry. You are the balm for all of mine.”

Guilt suffused him. “I did not mean...”

“Non, non. Neither did I.”

He kissed my forehead and crawled off me and then the bed. He was now very far away, despite the small size of the room. I cursed myself roundly for precipitating this change in his demeanor, as I was most surely the cause of it. In my consternation, the entire list of all the reasons I might feel angst recited itself. I forced myself to follow him from the bed and dress.

I discovered several onion bottles of water outside our door. We moved them inside, and drank most of one before slipping down the back stairs. We performed our morning necessaries in the yard, and ventured back into the house to find Theodore eating his meal. We joined him, and Hannah quickly brought us plates and food. Mistress Theodore was not about, and as women with child are often not about in the early hours, I did not ask.

Theodore inquired politely as to our plans for the day, and whether they still involved traveling to Ithaca.

I answered truthfully. “I do not know if I should have anything to do with Ithaca, as I feel I have abandoned it already,” I said slowly. “I would rather return to Negril and be done with the matter.”

“That will not do,” Theodore said sadly. “Will, though that land is to be granted to one John Williams, if he is not, in truth, the Viscount of Marsdale, and thus the Earl of Dorshire’s heir, and therefore someone the Governor would curry favor with…” He trailed off.

He needed to say no more.

“I understand,” I said. “I assume some question of identity and legality might put all of the land grants there into question.”

“Precisely.” He nodded to himself. “There is a thing I would have you read.”

He went to his office and returned with a letter which he handed to me. I recognized my father’s hand. It was dated the same as the one I had received announcing his marriage agenda for me. I regarded Theodore curiously.

“Read it,” he said.

“I would not have you break a confidence.”

He sighed heavily, and pushed his plate aside to lean on the table with both elbows and rub his temples. “I have come to admire you, Will. I would rather I was in your employ and not your father’s. Yet, if that were to be, then I would not be able to offer you the services I can, such as this. Read the damn letter.”

I was touched. “I am honored to be held in so high a regard.”

He snorted and pointed at the missive.

I read. Theodore had been correct; my father’s words to me had been far friendlier. Theodore was a man in his employ, and this was business, and thus the Earl of Dorshire wrote accordingly. It minded me quite firmly that the two men had never met, and that my father would never treat a man of less than noble birth as his equal. He was a wolf, after all.

In the letter, the Earl of Dorshire made it perfectly clear that Theodore was to do all in his power to secure his son’s capitulation to his aims, lest the whole endeavor be for naught. Though he would never state it so to Theodore, or expect him to even know there were difficulties between us, in this letter, my father told my cynical eyes that unless the plantation could be used as a means of keeping me on Jamaica, he intended to abandon the endeavor. He tasked Theodore with preparing a suitable dwelling for a lady to inhabit long enough to produce an heir, and then he implied that said lady might not stay on Jamaica, as he wished any heirs to return to England where it was safer and healthier.

I finished the letter with poison in my heart.

“He wishes for me to stand at stud so that he may have an heir, and he hopes fervently that I will not live to return to England,” I told them.

“I think that a bit harsh,” Theodore said.

“You do not know my father.”

“Would you give him a child?” Gaston asked in French as he finished the last page.

I answered in kind. “As you cannot give birth, nor I, I have little interest in…” And then I understood what he truly asked. I thought of my own hellish upbringing in my father’s house. “Non. I would not subject another to that, especially not my own flesh and blood.”

Gaston nodded with a small smile. “We do not need his money.”

Nay, we did not, and Gaston’s father’s guilt over his son’s hellish upbringing was to thank for that.

I returned to English and asked Theodore, “How much does my father pay you?”

He shook his head quickly. “That is not a concern.”

“We have the means to exceed it,” I said.

“I know, but if I take your coin, then I am in your employ, and as I noted, then I may not be as useful to you, as your father would need to hire another agent here, and we would have to deal with whoever that might be on matters of the plantation and anything else your father wishes. This person might not be as friendly with the governor.”

I studied him and found him resolved. He was suggesting a thing that I knew was not in keeping with the ethical parameters of the practice of English law.

“You work for my father, but you are my friend,” I said solemnly.

He appeared relieved that I understood. “Someday, someone may claim that my interests are conflicted,” he said carefully.

“If that is to occur, I will do whatever you advise in order to dispel the notion. What can I do to aid in that now?”

He sighed yet again, and smiled ruefully. “I am sorry, Will, I do not mean to be an added burden, but it would be best from my perspective, and the perspective of several others – though Striker stands well with many here on his own accord – but for the rest, it would be best if you did your father’s bidding, only insomuch as is required to get him to sign the plantation over to you. Then, for all intents, my business with him would be finished. I realize, of course, this could be perceived as a ploy on my part to elicit what your father seeks anyway, but truly it is not. It merely happens to run concurrent to your father’s aims. I would also be relieved of this burden if he disinherits you. Then I would be pleased to be in your employ whether you are a Viscount or not. But I truly feel you, and all concerned, would be better off in the long run if you were to produce an heir and gain the plantation and all that it implies. For now, at least, no matter what your eventual goals or plans might be.”

“As always, I trust you to have my best interests at heart,” I said.

I looked to my matelot. His eyes met mine, and I could see he was thinking a great deal.

“We have much to discuss,” I added. “Thank you for this.” I handed Theodore the letter.

“I am sorry, Will,” he said solemnly.

We returned upstairs to gather our things.

“I do not wish to discuss it now,” Gaston said once we were alone. “I feel we should follow our regimen, and speak of it all when we are more relaxed in spirit.”

I had to concur. My thoughts were not pleasant, and I could only imagine his. “The ride will improve my spirit considerably. What of you? Should we spar, or perform calisthenics?”

He thought on it. “I feel the ride might serve for me as well, but we will not have a chance for privacy afterwards.”

“Thus we should attend to my treatment now,” I sighed.

I soon found myself arse up across his lap on the bed. His preparatory kiss had done little to shake my mood, and as his fingers began their work, my mind twisted along bramble-filled trails while I submitted to his ministrations.

I pondered submission. It was easier, was it not, to submit? It brought peace, even if one lost; it still brought an end to war if one merely laid down one’s arms. But I did not want to lose. I did not want my father or any other to triumph over me.

But was I not teaching myself to submit gracefully with this daily regimen? Nay, I refused to name it such. I was doing battle. I was dueling with the ghost of Shane in this. And the exquisite discomfort Gaston wrought was akin to the ache in my legs during a deep lunge. I envisioned Shane at the tip of my blade, eyes wide with surprise that my reach exceeded his, and the knowledge that I would someday defeat him. This image filled me with peace.

“You are doing well today, Will,” Gaston whispered reassuringly. “I have two fingers within you.”

I grinned. I would drive the blade through Shane’s heart on the day Gaston entered me in truth. I anticipated that moment with renewed vigor, not driven by lust, but by pride.

We finally gathered our things and departed for the wherry landing, by way of Lime and the length of Thames, as we needed to pay a visit to the gunsmith. As always, Massey was pleased to see us, and we left our muskets and several pistols with him to be inspected and repaired before we sailed. Then we wandered through the markets and shops.

As we passed a leatherworker’s shop, which sold all manner of items from mule harnesses to baldrics, Gaston seemed distracted, and his eyes kept returning to it. I finally peered at the place in earnest, until I realized what was holding his attention: the rack of whips.

“Well, at least you are able to gaze upon them,” I said gently.

“We must begin that aspect of my regimen,” he said quietly. “Purchase one, please.”

“Of what variety?” The rack held everything from riding quirts to cat-of-nine-tails to horsewhips.

“One as would have scarred me,” he said and turned away.

He had never discussed the whip used to scar him, but I felt it was a horsewhip. I thought perhaps he should start with a simpler one. I did as he bade anyway, selecting a coil of braided leather nearly twice my height, with a handle as long as my forearm. I talked the proprietor into giving me a burlap sack to stow it in.

When I left the shop, Gaston was gone, and I experienced a moment of panic until I saw the apothecary across the street. I found him inside purchasing more of the salves and oils we enjoyed, and some additional supplies for his medicine chest. He shrugged in response to my curious look, and eyed the sack I carried askance.

“That was wise,” he said.

“I thought as much.”

We said no more of it. We stopped at our house for Gaston to intoxicate himself with the smell of puppies for a time. Our friends and many others appeared to still be intoxicated with a less pleasant substance, and the house was filled with snoring men sprawled here and there. We did not attempt to wake them. The bitch – who Gaston decided to call Bella, though I would not have described her as beautiful – was pleased to see us, especially when we offered her a good meaty bone from the butcher. So we played with pups until they hungered and their mother began to collect them from us.

Cudro staggered through the room, and we waved to him and let him know we would be at the plantation. He seemed cogent enough to remember this, and so we left him to tell the others.

We finally finished working our way up Thames to the wherry landing, and let one to row ourselves across to the Passage landing. We spied a boy waiting with our steeds before we reached the shore. As we had not seen the animals in many months, and had not known them for long before, I was curious if they would remember us. As we approached, Diablo, my sorrel gelding, tried to take a bite out of the lad holding his reins. He had not changed a great deal. Gaston’s bay gelding, Francis, was tractable as always.

“They be a bit wild, sirs,” the boy said when we claimed them. “They have been fat and sassy in the pasture for three months now. Do you have saddles?” He seemed concerned.

“Nay, we have ridden them before without,” I assured him.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I haven’t met a buccaneer yet that could ride.”

I laughed. “I have only recently become a buccaneer. I still retain my gentlemanly skills.”

This seemed to assuage him somewhat, and he took my coin, though he tested it with his teeth before nodding happily and pocketing it.

“I be named Cedric, sir. You can send someone to Byerly to ask for me, and I’ll come fetch ‘em from here when ya return, iffn’ ya wish, sir.”

I agreed to this and he hopped on his waiting mule and rode off.

Gaston was eyeing Francis’ back with trepidation. “It has been many months; perhaps we should have procured saddles.”

I scoffed. “Non, you mastered riding without when last we were here. It will return to you as naturally as walking, once you are up.”

He awarded me a disparaging look, and vaulted onto Francis’ back. The animal immediately sidestepped in response to the sudden and unfamiliar weight. To my pleasure, and Gaston’s mild chagrin, he moved with his mount and did not lose his barely-gained seat. I gave him a triumphant smile, and he rolled his eyes.

Our mounts were indeed fractious, and I quickly remedied this by allowing them to burn off their friskiness in a good run to Spanish Town. They were far more tractable when we slowed to thread our way through the traffic there. Yet we had experienced the wind in our teeth and wanted more, so we put our heels to them as soon as we had clear road ahead of us again. And thus, we made excellent time to Ithaca. We only slowed in the last league in order to cool the horses.

Ithaca did not look much like the rough land I remembered from nine months ago. It now appeared to be a proper plantation, though small. There were seemingly vast acres of thigh-high cane growing in somewhat orderly rows. It would be several feet taller than a man by this time next year, and nearly ready for harvest. At its current height, I could see the backs of the recently acquired Negro slave gang bobbing along in one area. Several white men stood about watching them.

I could not recognize the overseers at this distance, but I knew I had sailed here with them, and had once worried that they would be the ones stooped at weeding while someone threatened them with a whip. I was not amused by the irony, but saddened. I had wanted my flock of sheep to become wolves, had I not? But they had become lowly wolves, the type that could not pick on sheep of their own color, but rested their status upon men foreign to them and easily subjugated. The wolves that subjugated men of their own kind were the fearsome ones, the ones to be respected and reviled in full measure.

“All I need do is get some damn woman with a male child and all of this could be ours,” I sighed bitterly.

“Yours,” Gaston said quietly.

“Ours, since you are now English.”

I wondered if that too would be threatened if I were no longer the Viscount of Marsdale.

“I did not wish to be an Englishman,” Gaston said.

“I do not understand,” I said. “You are an exile. You are disinherited. And if you return to French soil, you are considered incompetent to even manage your own affairs. Why would you wish to be French?”

“If I am English, I feel I will be forced to become steadfast and wear wool in the tropics,” he teased.

We were nearing the compound proper, and I pulled Diablo up. Gaston stopped when he realized I had, and turned Francis about to face me.

“Are you so proud of being French?” I asked. It was not my real question, but it was one I wanted answered and a likely place to start. “Not that you should not be, I am just trying to understand.”

He nodded. “Oui, more than I expect at times. And more so, I am proud of being noble. It means much to me. Despite… everything. I cannot explain it.”

“Is that why you wish for me to maintain my title? Do you truly feel I should marry?” That was the great question I wanted an answer to. “When I once said I would walk away from it for you, you urged against it. Is this why?”

“In part,” he sighed. “I lost what was due me, and I would not have you do the same.”

“You realize that you, who suffer jealousy over my ever having touched another, would be forced to sit somewhere alone while I went and bedded another.”

He looked away, but his mien was resolved. “It would be a woman, and that will not matter so very much. She will not be my opponent in any way. You said you find pleasure in them. Why do you find this so very difficult? You can marry and bed one, and then he will give you the plantation, and we can conspire to keep the child from his clutches.”

I shook my head. “What if he demands next that I send my son to England to be properly educated, in order to remain in his good graces? I will not have him win. I cannot countenance his sitting in his damn office gloating that he has won, that he has made me behave as a proper son, and bed a woman and produce a child. This is the damned bastard who let Shane abuse me so that it might put me off men; though he swears he did not know the extent of it. That I will believe him on, only because he would have put a stop to it if he had realized his precious Shane had been committing sodomy with anyone. But Aye, he allowed me to be beaten and harassed in the name of correcting what he felt to be another defect of my character. He admitted it!”

Gaston’s eyes went hard. “You have not told me that.”

“Non, I have not. I have not wanted to remember it.”

The anger left him as quickly as it had arrived, and he slumped dejectedly. “I do not know. He cannot be allowed to have things as he wishes. Yet… I want puppies, Will. Or whatever centaurs have, colts perhaps. I wish for progeny and we cannot bear them.”

“What?” I was sure I had not heard him correctly.

“I cannot father any, as I am mad, and it is very likely a thing I could pass to another as my mother did to my sister and me; but you are not. You could have children. And they would be mine, somehow.”

I was momentarily stunned beyond the ability to speak. Never, in my wildest flights of fantasy, would I have considered such a thing. I had never wanted children. I still did not.

“I will father as many children as you wish,” I finally said. “But not for the title or…my father. Though I will do nothing to hinder that, if you truly wish for me to have it as well. But it will be on our terms, and they will be our children, and… I leave it to you to choose a mother to your liking.”

“What of the Brisket?” he asked carefully.

“We can meet her, and you can form your own opinion.” I thought that a very poor choice, as she would cause no end of complication and trouble. But perhaps it was for the best. Upon our meeting her, I was sure he would become jealous and this whole matter would pass. Resolving matters with my father would still remain; but then, perhaps, we would die while roving and be done with it. I truly did not wish to think on it any further.

There was still one thing that we needed to clarify, though. “If I die, you will live, because you will have to raise the children properly so that they do not fall into my father’s clutches.”

He thought on this before nodding soberly. “You must not die.”

“Neither must you,” I said solemnly. “Because I swear, if you die and leave me with a house full of children and a damned wife, I will follow you to Hell and drag you back.”

I set Diablo toward the compound at a canter.

Francis caught us a moment later and it became a race. Once we were at a full gallop, Gaston did an amazing and foolhardy thing. He sprang from his horse’s back and toppled me from mine, so that we rolled into the nearest cane. We came to rest with him atop me. My skin was scratched by sharp leaves, and my ribs battered by thick stalks. I thanked the Gods none of our pistols had discharged, and we had not been impaled on one of our scabbards. He grinned down at me like a fool, and I could not help but return it.

“I will never leave you,” he said.

“Nor I you. But my love, why the Devil have you not mentioned wanting children before?”

“It was a distant thing I felt I had no hope of ever achieving,” he said seriously. “And now I have you, whose pedigree does not include madness, and who needs to marry anyway in order to do good in the world.”

He kissed me deeply, and I cared not about fathers and wives. I wanted to make him happy.

“We will consider wives,” I said.

He nodded and let me up. The pall of angst wrapped about my heart released as well; and as we rode into the compound, I felt at peace, despite this disturbing new knowledge of my life’s future course.

Ithaca now had buildings in addition to the barracks shed. Unfortunately, one of them was a high-walled stockade to house the slaves. Apparently the bondsmen were all living in little huts. The foundations for the other structures had been staked out, and the first water mill was nearing completion.

Fletcher, who was so thin I barely recognized him, approached. “Lord Marsdale! Gaston! How good it is to see you,” he said with great enthusiasm.

He was truly gaunt. His wide shoulders were thankfully not stooped, but his tunic hung loosely upon them, and his handsome face was a mass of angles and little flesh.

“Fletcher… And you,” I said carefully, “though you truly look a shade of your former self. What has happened to you?”

“I had the fever,” he said with a touch of embarrassment.

“Have you recovered?” I asked. “Should you be about?”

“In part. I no longer fever, and I have an appetite, but my strength has been slow in returning.”

Gaston sighed, and fixed Fletcher with a stern eye. “Will you follow instructions I give?”

Fletcher frowned and nodded. “Do you know of a cure?”

“Nothing as simple as a draught,” Gaston said. “We must change your diet. Are you growing any food here?”

I looked toward the garden plot Gaston and I had started clearing in the summer. It was fallow. I sighed.

“Nay, sir,” Fletcher said, “we still get proper English food. I don’t touch anything that grows here. The slaves are growing a thing or two, and Donoughy says that’s fit for them.”

“Fletcher,” I chided gently, but with mounting frustration, “a man cannot live on five-month-old salted herring, mealy flour, and wormy apples. Not well, anyway.”

He shook his head. “Pork and beef are expensive, and we have not the men to clear land for pasturage.”

His frown said much. I saw why Theodore wished for me to come here. They were stubborn sheep.

Gaston and I exchanged a look.

He turned back to Fletcher. “You let the cattle and pigs run wild, and you hunt them.”

“We can’t give the men weapons,” Fletcher said with alarm. “Donoughy says if they learn to hunt, they’ll leave.”

“And then Gaston and I will hunt them down and shoot them in the eye,” I snapped.

He recoiled at that, and I regretted it somewhat, just as I still rued shooting poor Creek.

And I supposed Donoughy’s fear was valid, especially considering how often I came around. A threat had to be seen in order to be effective. If they learned to fend for themselves, they would not stay to finish their contracts; yet if they remained here, they would die of malnourishment and other ailments. They were still no better off than the Negroes they watched.

“And you, my Lord? Have you been wounded?” Fletcher asked.

I started to tell him I was quite recovered from the wound I had suffered in August, but then I noted he was eyeing my neck with a grimace, his fingers hovering above the place where Gaston’s mark would have been on his own flesh.

“Nay, he bit me,” I sighed.

My matelot’s eyes widened with embarrassment but he stayed silent.

“Oh,” Fletcher said, and flushed. Then disapproval shuttered his face and he took a step back. Apparently he had not warmed to the ideas of sodomy or matelotage these last months, any more than he had warmed to the local food.

He remained distant until he led us to the mill, and then his pride got the best of him. He had designed the water wheel and was understandably proud. I was impressed. After having done a little of my own building, I was in awe that trees could be felled and shaped so precisely as to fit with forged iron to make a building and the workings inside. It looked to be a thing that would stand for decades and harness the river to grind tons of cane.

There would be another mill next to it, and then a boiling house, curing shed, and rum distillery. Someday, there would be a proper plantation house; and Fletcher showed us the site they had chosen for it, on the hill overlooking the river.

I conceded it would be very nice, and wondered when we would build it. Part of Theodore’s instructions included its construction, though Theodore had also procured a site in town just down the street from his. If we were to have a wife, she must be housed somewhere. I decided it would probably be best to ask her where she wished to be, since it would be her house, whoever she was. We would not dwell in it for most of the year, if I had my way. Then it occurred to me that Gaston might wish to cuddle with these heretofore-unforeseen children, much as he did with the puppies. The thought of seeing him so was pleasant, but it would necessitate living with them, and I did not think that would be pleasant at all. I had never been about an infant that it was not wailing.

On our return to the cookhouse and barracks, we passed the graveyard. I was mortified to see how many crosses sprouted there, and that I knew every name and some well. Patterson and the Jenkins brothers had passed. I counted: of the forty-one men with whom I arrived on Jamaica, twenty-three were dead within a year. And this did not count Tom, Harry, and Dickey, of which Harry had died within a month of our arrival. Men die all the time, true, but not at this appalling rate in all of Christendom; not unless there is war or pestilence. I supposed it could be said that both were constants in the West Indies. The crew of the North Wind had been cut down by half as well, but none of them had died by disease. And if nothing else, that alone would have made me thankful I had taken to the seas, despite the shipwreck. At least I had not been trapped here, near swamp vapors, eating rancid food.

I decided we would build a house for the wife in town.

As we came into the compound again, my gaze was drawn to the stockade.

“Have any of the Negroes died?” I asked Fletcher.

“Oh aye, my Lord. Ten of the fifty Mister Theodore purchased in September.”

“Why are they not buried in the graveyard?”

Fletcher was appalled. “They are not Christian, my Lord. We gave them over to their fellows and the savages let the bodies rot. Now we burn them.”

“As they are not Christian, perhaps it is their custom.”

“Only the Devil knows, my Lord,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “According to the ship’s captain, they come from five different tribes. Which is as we wanted, since that way they can’t all speak to one another to plot an escape or mutiny.”

I sighed. “Perhaps the ones who died first came from a group with customs the others were unfamiliar with. Perhaps they were not sure of your intent in giving them the body.”

“My Lord, why would you be willing to excuse them?” he asked with sincere curiosity. “You are kind to the extreme. They are ignorant savages. They are not men.”

“Then perhaps you should endeavor to instruct them. Fletcher, in the Italian cities I met a number of black Moors, and even a Nubian, who had skin every bit as dark as these Negroes, and they dressed, spoke, did business, and worshipped money and Christ much like any other man I have ever met.”

He flinched at this. “My Lord, I pray for you,” Fletcher said solemnly. “You seem determined to commit heresy and blasphemy at every turn.”

“Fletcher, should it not be heresy, if not blasphemy, to assume one knows the will of God at every turn? If God has issue with me, then that is between the two of us and not you. And does not God wish all of his good men to spread the word of His teachings? The Jesuits make quite the industry of it.”

“So you would have us minister to them?” he asked with a faint mien of guilt.

Beside me, Gaston was suppressing a smile, and I realized the direction I had stumbled in my rancor. I did not want Fletcher foisting his brand of religion upon a bunch of hapless men. I also saw that he had been considering it.

Fletcher was frowning at the stockade. “Do you truly feel they can learn the teachings of our Lord?”

“I think all men are capable of it,” I said carefully.

“Donoughy will not like it. If they become proper men then…”

“They will have to be treated as such,” I finished for him as I saw where it led. I decided that Christianity would not be in the slaves’ worst interests; on the contrary. “Fletcher, you are a man of God in your fashion, do you feel that you can attempt to instruct them?”

“They would have to learn the King’s English first,” he said as if the task were daunting.

I struggled to suppress my amusement. I was truly Satan’s snake in the garden of ignorance.

“Aye, they will,” I said with assurance. “Do you feel you can instruct them? I will tell Donoughy it is required. If he gainsays me, I shall dismiss him. And you will all learn to eat decent food, even if it kills you. God chose to put edible food on this island. How dare the lot of you turn your noses up at His bounty?”

He gave a low groan and awarded me with the chiding eye of a man bested in sparring by devious footwork he should have seen coming.

I smiled kindly. “It is all a matter of interpretation, Fletcher.”

“So you say, my Lord,” he said with a thoughtful frown. “You surely choose to see it like no other.”

We returned to the main buildings. Their original cook had died of the flux, and they now had a man named Curly, who was bald. He plied us with rum, and I availed myself of it. Gaston did not drink. Instead, he borrowed a pot in which to boil water and picked through their store of victuals to see if there was any he would allow us to eat. I understood his quest had failed when he handed me a strip of boucan from his belt pouch. I ate it without complaint.

The men began to arrive, and they were delighted to see us. Grisholm, our carpenter, still lived, as did Humboldt, the widower who had become a bondsman rather than marry. They were nearly as thin as Fletcher. Donoughy was the only one who appeared to be none the worse for ten months at Ithaca. But then, he had seasoned to the West Indies years ago. He did not appear pleased to see us; and as I knew he would wish to hear what I had to say even less, I took delight in his discomfiture and gave him hearty greeting.

I went to peruse the Negroes before they were locked away for the night. They were a sorry lot. Though not yet as thin as the bondsmen, none appeared healthy. I was damn glad I was fortified with rum before I had to meet any of their eyes. Not that many would look me in the eye. The few that did were whip-scarred, and I found shameful irony in that.

As they were led away, I turned on Donoughy. I did not dance about the matter, choosing a clean thrust instead. “I wish for the Negroes to be instructed in English and the ways of Godliness, and I want that garden plot planted and men eating what it produces.”

I could see the “nay” hovering about his lips and eyes, but he was too clever to let it settle.

“My Lord,” he started carefully. “You can’t teach them…”

“Why,” I asked, “because they cannot learn, or because they will then be able to understand all that is said and speak amongst themselves?”

“Both,” he said.

“Did we not once have a discussion as to well-used men…?” I asked.

“These are not Christian men,” he said firmly. “You cannot expect them to ever behave like good men. They are savages.”

I smirked. “And I believe the Greeks thought the same of the Romans… But that is what truly scares you.”

He did not know enough of history to understand my reference. He regarded me with mute anger.

I sobered. “They are men, much like any other. They differ from us in the color of their skin and the way of their customs, just as the yellow men from across the sea, and they have huge cities. We know nothing of where these men come from, of what they know, or what they can learn, because we cannot talk to them to discover it. And there are Negroes all over Port Royal who can speak English.”

He chose a different tack and his brow smoothed a little as he tried it. “My Lord, we cannot spare them. Teaching takes time.”

“They are not doing anything right now, are they? They can learn English by torchlight.”

He sighed. “And who will teach them?”

“Fletcher,” I said.

He did not speak it, but his shoulders told me of his capitulation.

“Now about the other,” I said cheerily. “What are your arguments there? Surely you have eaten food grown on this island.”

“Aye,” he said tightly. “But we cannot…”

I fanned my ire a little. “Afford it or spend the time growing it, aye, aye, aye! Well, let me lend another perspective to that. Those bondsmen cost my father, what, thirty pounds apiece, at least? And how much for the Negroes, and how many are dead and gone and that money lost?”

“It wasn’t bad food that killed them!” he said vehemently. “Men die just coming here… my Lord.”

I kept pressing. “I know of the diseases here, Donoughy. However, I was told in England that many of my bondsmen would die in the crossing, but I insisted they be well rationed, and behold, only three died on the voyage, and they were already sickly. And I have seen men die of the flux here because they were treated poorly when there was a better remedy. I question English wisdom concerning how one must live in the tropics, or anywhere beyond England for that matter. I swear, if the lot of you were foxes innocent of the ways of men, you would starve if placed in a barnyard because the chickens would not look like quail, and you would freeze in the rain because the underside of a coop did not appear exactly like a fallen log.”

He had crossed his burly arms, but his face was thoughtful. “You will take responsibility for all of this?”

“Donoughy, my father will blame me no matter what happens. And so you know, he has little love for this endeavor. It was an interesting diversion, perhaps, but I truly feel he expects no return on his investment now. He merely wishes this place to be a… point of leverage as regards my behavior.”

“What, my Lord?” he asked.

“He has offered it to me if I do his bidding on another matter.”

He regarded me speculatively. “Will you do his bidding?”

I scratched my neck and sighed. “It appears I may yet. The ways of it are a mystery at the moment, but my feet seem to be set upon that path.”

This seemed to change his demeanor considerably. “All right then, my Lord, we will grow food and teach the Negroes English.”

I cursed my stupidity for not starting with that aspect of the argument.

Gaston had been standing nearby, listening. As we returned to the others, he slipped to my side. “It only provides leverage if you allow it,” he whispered in French.

“It only provides leverage here if I allow them to think it will,” I replied in kind, and then I stopped and met his gaze. “You are the only person who has a lever long enough to move me on anything.”

He nodded solemnly.

The evening meal was served, and we all sat about and talked. Since they had honored guests, several bottles of rum were opened. I found them often in my hands.

Gaston did well. He kept me between him and all others and spoke little. I spoke a great deal, all of it meaningless, as I have learned to do in such situations. In time, it was much as it had been when we sailed here together. They all asked what we had been about and were disappointed to learn we had done little these past months but hunt and read, and that we had not suffered another shipwreck or the like. I did tell them of coming upon the galleon in the fog, and they enjoyed the tale immensely.

At last we were able to retire. We walked into the night and away from the light and smoke of the fire. I was pleased Gaston had possessed the presence of mind to slather us with hogs’ fat to prevent our being eaten alive by the ever-present cloud of insects. I would not have thought of it. I was now quite pleasantly drunk.

Many of the men graciously offered the use of their huts, and we declined as gently as we could manage and retreated to the mule shed where our mounts were. At first, the smell of horses was reassuring, and then old memories intruded and I regarded the pile of hay on which Gaston dropped our bags with dismay.

“We should sling a hammock,” I slurred.

He shook his head slowly. “Non, this will be fine,” he assured me as one would a child, or properly in my case, a drunk.

“I cannot share hay with you,” I said sadly. “Not even you, who I surely love more than life itself.”

He sprawled on his back on the mound and regarded me curiously.

“The first time with Shane was in a barn in hay and… we trysted often in the stable, and I…before it was bad. Still it evokes the evil. The smell and sound of it. I…”

He stood and embraced me. “I wish I could obliterate all trace of him,” he whispered in my ear. “I wish I could reach into your heart and cut away every memory.”

The room swam, and I clung to him. “I wish you could, too.”

“Where do you wish to sleep?” he asked in a gentler tone.

“In your arms, but not in straw.”

He led me outside and leaned me on the wall. When he returned with our things, including the water he had boiled, he burdened me with the bags and my weapons, and took my hand and we walked away into the moonlit forest. Despite the celestial light, I could see nothing beneath my feet. I let him take me where he would. At last we stopped at the site of the proposed house, on the hill overlooking the river. I was intoxicated enough to feel unease that we must have passed so close to the graveyard, and just sober enough to know my fears were absurd, all of them. He pulled me down into his lap, and gave me a bottle of water. I drank as much of it as I could manage. Then I curled against him and slept.

I woke to yellow light from the horizon. I was pleased to discover my head did not ache overly much. I rolled over, and found Gaston playing with the onion bottle the water had been in. He grinned when he saw I was awake, and motioned for me to join him. I received a sweet kiss for the effort of sitting up.

“What are you about?” I asked: slowly, as the words took time to think, and my mouth was slower still in producing them.

He held up the bottle, mouth down. “This is your anal passage.”

I blinked. Perhaps I was still dreaming.

“What are we discussing?” I asked.

He took a wad of hog’s fat, and stuck it to one side of the neck of the bottle, so that it formed a lump. “That is the organ inside. Thus, this side will be the front of your passageway.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Go on.”

He picked up a stick as long as his hand. “This is a penis.”

I was beginning to grasp what he might attempt to illustrate. I nodded.

“How did you receive the Spaniard?” he asked.

“On my back, with my legs up: so that I could always see him.”

He positioned the bottle on its side, with the lump atop the neck. Then he poked the stick inside the mouth and wiggled it about. He nodded to himself.

“Did he stay upright? Or did he lean toward you?” Gaston asked.

“Both. When he leaned toward me, I would draw my legs up to my chest on either side.”

Gaston nodded and imitated these movements with the bottle, thrusting the stick in and out. “Here, see, it does not touch the lump from that angle.”

I did see. The stick scraped along the back side of the neck, across from the lump.

“And the Damn Cousin?” he asked gently.

“Always from behind, usually standing, or close to it. He would push me over things, but I would be bent at the waist, not below.”

Gaston held the bottle upside down, with the lump away from the hand holding the stick. He thrust the wood in the mouth again. If he did not push it straight up, it brushed the lump. I understood.

“He would thrust forward, not up,” I said.

Gaston adjusted the angle. The stick poked the lump every time. It rammed it, and then slid up the wall of glass above.

“We will never use that position,” he said, as if it were but a curiosity.

I regarded him, and mischief tugged at me.

“What position do you wish to use?” I asked huskily.

His eyes widened, and he actually flushed. I was greatly heartened by the sight.

He awarded me a look of remonstration.

“Non,” I shook my head. “Do not look at me so. You are the one rattling sticks about in bottles when I am piss hard.”

His lips quirked a little. “Will,” he chided, “that part of you is never at rest.”

“I beg to differ. You only feel that because it always stirs in your presence. When you are not about, it is not either.”

He smirked. “And what do you hope to gain with your flattery?”

“An answer to my question. How do you wish to take me?”

With another remonstrative glare, he tilted the bottle forward, so that the lump was down, and the neck was at an angle, such that the mouth was a little higher than much of the bulb. “On your hands and knees, or perhaps elbows and knees,” he said quietly. He put the stick in and it slid along the back of the neck, away from the lump.

He was going to be the death of me, always making my heart pound so. As I envisioned his words, my member stirred beyond its morning needs. I could see myself kneeling before him, presenting him with my arse. He would grasp my hips and thrust. I would cling to the headboard and whatever else I could reach. It was a thing I had seen and done unto others, but I had never experienced it.

“I would be delighted,” I assured him. “Whenever you wish, please.”

He chuckled, and leaned over to nip my lips. We kissed.

“What do you fantasize about?” he teased.

I gave it serious thought. “On my side. With my leg up. You either lie behind me, or atop me from the side. The position does not allow for great depth, but it does allow for… kissing, and other caresses.”

He kissed me again, and then he was pushing me onto my side to demonstrate. He slid his knee under my leg, and pushed it up, until his groin was where it should be. I let the pleasure flow through me as his free hand roved about my chest and dipped to my member. Supporting himself with one arm, he humped away at my hip and handled me with practiced ease.

I attempted to imagine how it would feel if he were inside me. I discarded all of the memories of pain from my times with Alonso, and concentrated on the brief moments when it had promised great pleasure.

When I came, Gaston lowered himself upon me, and milked me with rhythmic squeezes, until there was no pleasure left and I was only possessed of the lingering need to relieve myself in other ways. His hand was still on me. I looked up questioningly, and he awarded me a daring grin.

I had never pissed while held by another. I took his dare, and willed myself to do it. After a second’s confused hesitation, my member decided that, though the hand upon it may have been unfamiliar and possibly unacceptable, the action was necessary. I watched the stream arc away and puddle on the dirt with amusement. Thankfully, I was a little uphill of it, as I was surely too tired to move.

“I am now empty,” I said, as he shook the last drops away.

“Truly?” he asked with a grin.

“From that organ.”

He chuckled and stood, pulling me up with him. He regarded the separate puddles of jism and urine.

“The building site can now be considered either blessed or defiled,” he said.

I laughed. “Last night I decided that any home we place a wife in will not be near this foul place of pestilence.”

“I think that wise,” he said soberly.

“We should go back,” I sighed. “They are surely awake now and wondering where we are.”

He shrugged. His mien was devoid of humor. “Let them think what they will.”

I wondered at his change of mood and spoke lightly. “Oui, as I am sure they will think nothing even remotely close to the truth. I sincerely doubt they are harboring fantasies of us running amuck in the woods playing with bottles and sticks.”

This brought a reluctant smile to his lips, but then he shook it away with annoyance. “Non, because they think little, if at all.”

“How shall we proceed with our regimen this morn?” I asked, while eyeing the sun rising over the Blue Mountains to the East. “I feel I have accomplished my part.”

“Oui, I will excuse you of further diligence on the matter. I performed calisthenics before you woke. And…” He stooped and picked up the sack with the whip. “I contemplated this a great deal.”

“Did you sleep at all?” I teased.

He smiled wanly. “Some.”

He was regarding the sack he held at the length of his arm. He swung it a little.

“Do you feel you accomplished anything of merit with your contemplation of that?” I asked. “I feel your being able to heft it an advancement.”

He nodded. “Oui. I feel… I should perhaps learn to wield it. That it will not suffice to merely become inured to its presence, but that I should master it.”

“Yesterday, during your ministrations, I came upon a metaphor for my increased accommodation.” I explained my image of dueling with Shane, and how I was not submitting, but battling.

He was smiling and nodding when I finished. “I may envision flogging my father.”

I frowned. “But… I thought you forgave him.”

“I do.” He shrugged. “But I can think of few others I would want to strike with one; and he deserves to know how it feels.”

His smile was as bright as the newly risen sun, and I laughed with him.

We gathered our things, but paused before walking back toward the buildings below. I glanced at him curiously, though my feet were no more willing to move than his. The laughter was gone, and he had once again descended into somber annoyance in contemplation of Ithaca.

“I feel we are done here,” I said to reassure him. “We need not stay long.”

He nodded, his eyes still on distant thoughts. “Much will change once we own this place.”

His we filled me with unexpected happiness. We had settled on a new course, had we not? And perhaps it was much like battling the ghost of Shane. We would duel with my father. Our objective would not be to defeat him, but to feint and distract him from standing in the way of a goal we wished to achieve. It was a thing a wolf such as he could never understand. I was not even sure how to name our destination, but I could see the doorway to it lying somewhere beyond my father and the confines of English societal expectation.

I grinned. “Oui, we will not have slaves.”

“And we will not grow sugar,” he said. “It is vile. We will grow some useful crop.”

“I agree most heartily. So we had best be getting on with the wife and heir business, before these men waste a great deal of time building mills and the like that will never be used.”

He smiled at me with a regard that warmed my soul, and I took his hand and led him down the hill. I supposed we would learn soon enough if the Gods favored this new course.

 

 

Thirty-One

Wherein We Meet a Formidable Opponent

 

We said our goodbyes at Ithaca, and made regrettably fast work of riding to the Byerly farm to fetch Cedric. The boy accompanied us to the Passage wharf, and there we left him to return the horses to their lazy existence.

We reached our house by early afternoon. No one was there except for the dogs. Much of the debris had been cleared, from the interior of the building at least. There was now a large pile of garbage in the yard. I hoped it would soon find its way onto a cart and out to the Palisadoes. Bella seemed pleased to see us, and she happily chewed the new bone we had brought her while we rolled about in puppies for a time.

Then we were off to Theodore’s. He was with a client when we arrived. We stowed our things in our room and ate some pie not destined for Pete.

“I did not expect to see you so soon,” Theodore said as he joined us in the yard.

“Well, we have much to attend to if there is ever to be hope of setting things right,” I replied with a shrug.

He sighed. “Aye, what would you have me do? Donoughy is only doing what he is…”

I waved away his further words and asked, “Where do the Vines reside?”

This brightened his demeanor considerably.

“Truly?” he asked. “Well, Sir Christopher has two plantations in Clarendon, and a house and warehouse in town on High Street.”

“That’s lovely; where would we find Miss Vines? I have no interest in her father at this time, unless you feel he need be wooed also.”

“Nay, he will be delighted to have you pay his daughter a call.” He frowned in thought. “There is a soiree of sorts at the Bennets’ tomorrow evening. I suppose…”

“Nay. I wish for Gaston to meet her in private. Then we will decide if she is even a consideration. If she is, then any courting will be direct, and due to the lack of time we possess, hastily done. I see no need for social gatherings. Would she be in town, or should we go and fetch our horses again?”

Theodore was chuckling. “She may be in town. The ships will be arriving soon. Many of the wives and daughters come to town to greet them, in the hope of being the first to buy whatever finery they might carry. Their residence door is well marked on High Street. Will you go now, as you are thus attired?”

“I do not see why not,” I said. “They already know my title. And they know me to be a buccaneer.”

He shrugged. “If you reach the point in the matter where it is necessary to approach her father, I would suggest you dress properly, and go alone.”

“I understand,” I sighed. “But in dealing with the lady, we are a pair.”

He smiled and nodded his acquiescence.

The Vines’ town house was indeed marked nicely with a carved plaque. It was a dwelling every bit as large as the one Theodore now owned.

I knocked, and a diminutive maid answered. She curtsied properly at my title, and hurried off to announce us with a well-enunciated, “Aye, my Lord”. I doubted she was a bondswoman.

We waited in the small, dark entry hall. Gaston’s arms were crossed, and he appeared exceedingly ill-at-ease. I felt little better, though I was at least used to meeting young ladies.

“We could run now,” I offered. “The door is not locked.”

“Non, let us get this behind us,” he said.

“If you do not find favor with her, it is no matter. We can look at the other two Theodore mentioned.”

He snorted. “You found favor with her before.”

I bit my lip. “Oui, and… that is the cause of my concern.”

“How so?”

I shrugged. “I do not wish for you to view her as an opponent.”

He shook his head. Though my eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light, I still could not accurately gauge his expression.

The maid returned. “If you will follow me, sirs.”

“Trust me, and I will trust you,” Gaston hissed in French.

“I love you,” I murmured.

We followed the small woman down the hall to the back of the house and out to a lovely garden. Apparently Sir Christopher owned the lot all the way to Queen Street. The garden was nestled between the warehouse on Queen and the house on High. Heavily laden trellises obscured the view of the cookhouse and the surrounding yards. It smelled headily of all manner of blooms. Miss Vines and another girl awaited us on benches in a gazebo at the center of this pocket of Eden.

Miss Vines was everything I remembered: golden hair, blue eyes, pert features, long limbs, and a svelte figure. Her dress was a yellow as vivid as the blooms around her, with sprays of white lace. She was a vision of loveliness formed by Diana and polished by Venus, made all the more enticing in that I knew her to be blessed by Athena as well.

She was perched on the edge of her seat, watching our arrival. She sprang to her feet as I entered the gazebo. She appeared truly delighted to see us.

“Lord Marsdale, what a surprise,” she said in greeting and curtsied.

“Miss Vines, I hope it is a pleasant one,” I said as I bowed and kissed her offered hand.

Her gaze shifted to Gaston, and perplexity tightened her features. I turned to look. He was standing on the step to the gazebo, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, his gaze affixed to Miss Vines as if she were an angel suddenly appearing from on high.

Amusement won over embarrassment in my heart. It was no affront to me that he should react to her so. I should have expected it.

“Allow me to present my matelot, Gaston Sable,” I said with a smile. “Please excuse him. He has not met a lady the likes of you before. And that is more literal truth than figurative flattery.”

She smiled with bemusement behind long fingers. “I understand. Truly. As I believe we once discussed, I receive that often here on Jamaica. And sadly for the men about, the admitting of it is not hubris on my part.”

She indicated the bench beside her. “Allow me to introduce my dear friend, Agnes.”

I had forgotten the other girl was present. She stood awkwardly, which I suppose could not be helped: she appeared to be all bony limbs. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a waist-length braid that only served to accentuate her slim shoulders, long neck, and sharp nose and chin. A simple brown dress did little to reveal whatever figure she might have possessed. The girl’s only truly pleasing feature appeared to be her large grey eyes. I judged her to be more girl than woman, barely past her adolescence, as she apparently had no need of stays to support her bosom.

She sketched a less than graceful curtsy, and seemed poignantly aware of the image she presented. I bowed politely.

“My Lord,” she mumbled, and sat abruptly.

“Agnes is… shy,” Miss Vines said quickly.

Gaston had closed his mouth. His eyes found mine. I saw helpless desperation.

“It appears we will have to carry the conversation,” I told Miss Vines.

She smiled and turned to sit. Then she showed a deftness of social grace which demonstrated her training to attend a court. She gracefully retrieved her fan from the bench on which she had been seated, and crossed the space to sit next to Agnes, leaving her original seat free for Gaston and me.

I sat. My beauty-addled matelot made his way carefully into the gazebo, as if he were crawling into a lion’s cage. He sat heavily beside me, with evident relief.

“Would you like some tea?” Miss Vines asked.

She indicated a delicate lidded ewer and several diminutive cups on the table between us. I had to remember where I had seen their like before. The substance was a concoction of leaves from the orient, steeped in boiled water. It, and the delicate porcelain used to serve it – which hailed from some nation of the Far East called China – were all the fashion in certain cities. I had heard it called several names, including chy or chey. I supposed tea was an English version of the name. I had thought the drink quite bitter. I was pleased to see that Miss Vines had a bowl of sugar available to mitigate that.

She poured each of us a cup, and I indicated that she should add a good deal of sugar to ours. I did not think Gaston would take anything from her directly, so I passed him one of the cups and took the second. I smelled mine; it possessed a pleasant and exotic odor, much better than I remembered.

He sniffed the liquid suspiciously.

“It is just an infusion of leaves,” I assured him in French. “I do not believe it is medicinal.”

“I have heard of some variations that are,” Miss Vines said in flawless French. “I have heard of medicinal infusions, such as chamomile, being added to the tea leaves. This blend contains vanilla.”

At the discovery that she spoke French, Gaston’s eyes went wide again, and I worried for the delicate cup he held. Even if he did not break it, I thought it likely he might slosh the contents. I was pleased he was not drinking yet.

“Do you…?” Miss Vines began to ask Gaston.

He dropped his eyes to his cup.

She addressed me. “Does Gaston speak English?” she asked in English.

“Aye, as fluently as you speak French,” I replied. “And Miss Agnes, does she speak French?”

“Nay,” she said.

Agnes seemed no more prone to meet my gaze than my matelot was prone to meet our hostess’.

“Then we will, of course, confine ourselves to English,” I said.

This, of course, did not answer the unspoken question of what we would speak about. I could see our hostess was quite curious as to the reason for our sudden visit.

“So,” Miss Vines said brightly, “it has been nearly half a year since last we met. What have you been about?”

“Ah, well, we have not been shipwrecked again.”

I told them the edited version of our last adventures. This topic relaxed Gaston enough for him to drink his tea. Agnes listened raptly, but she fidgeted constantly: twining her long fingers together over and over again in a manner I found mesmerizing. I was oft forced to pull my eyes from the poor girl’s lap, for fear my gaze would be interpreted inappropriately.

“So you are a surgeon?” Miss Vines asked Gaston when I reached the part where Dickey was wounded.

He cleared his throat. “I am trained as a physician.”

They were the first words he had spoken since our arrival in the garden, and I was relieved to hear them.

“How wonderful for you,” Miss Vines said.

Silence fell upon us.

I dove into it. “Gaston has surely been the reason for my survival here. He has several theories concerning… water, and the prevention and curing of the flux.”

I looked to him, and found he had no intention of speaking.

I suppressed a sigh. “While residing in a monastery in his youth…”

“Excuse me,” Miss Vines said. “You were a monk?”

“Nay,” Gaston said quietly. “I planned to become one, but circumstances occurred that brought me here before I could join the order.”

“I see,” she said.

Her gaze met mine, and I could see that she now understood my earlier comment about his not having seen any women like her.

“So,” she said, “you learned a cure for the flux at a monastery?”

“Nay,” Gaston said with a touch more confidence. “I learned the cure from a Moorish-trained physician. At the monastery I observed water through a lens ground to provide magnification, thus I learned that most water has many small creatures swimming about in it. I do not know if they cause illness, but I do know that drinking water that has been boiled does not.”

“Truly?” Miss Vines asked. “It is a fine thing I am drinking a great deal of this tea then. The water here has always smelled foul to me.”

“Wh-wh-what… do they look like?” Agnes stammered.

“Aye,” Miss Vines intoned enthusiastically. “If we had one of those lenses, Agnes could draw them. She is quite the accomplished illustrator of flora and fauna.” She turned to Agnes and implored, “Show them, dear.”

Agnes appeared as if she would rather crawl under the bench and away. She grabbed a battered sketch book from behind her back and clutched it to her belly.

“Please, Agnes,” Miss Vines cajoled. “These are educated gentlemen. They have seen art. They will appreciate yours.”

At last the girl stood abruptly. She thrust the book at me with a defiant jut to her chin.

I accepted it gingerly, and vowed I would say something nice no matter what the volume contained. As soon as I saw the first page, I realized I would not be forced to lie. She was truly talented. Most of the pages were filled with delicate charcoal sketches of birds. She had mastered perspective and proportion. Her detail, shading, and texture all illustrated nuances of the feather pattern of her subject or the bark of the tree it perched upon. Many of the drawings implied movement.

Gaston reverently sat his cup down and pulled the book toward him, so that it rested between us. We went through it page by page. Some of the earlier work had been done on her voyage here. There were gulls, pelicans, porpoises, and even sharks. There were illustrations of the sails and rigging. Most of the rest involved the local flora and fauna of Jamaica. The recent pages all contained sketches of Miss Vines, though: beautiful pieces of portraiture.

When we reached those, Agnes was suddenly upon us. We allowed the flushed girl to close the book and take it.

“Agnes, you are truly remarkably talented and skilled,” I said.

Her eyes filled with tears and she bobbed her head in gratitude.

“You possess the skill to produce informative medical and nature illustrations,” Gaston added. “Where did you learn?”

“My father,” she said sadly. “He had a talent. He went to university.”

“What became of him?” I asked gently.

“He died of the plague,” she said. “Mother remarried and we came here with her new husband last year. Then she died… of the flux, last month.”

“Agnes’ stepfather has no use for a talented daughter,” Miss Vines said coldly. “She must hide her sketchbook and charcoals here.”

I winced sympathetically for both the deaths and the girl’s current circumstances.

“I would like to see those creatures in the water,” Agnes said with determination.

“Perhaps we can order lenses,” I offered.

Gaston nodded. “It could be done. I would like a telescope.”

“Oh, aye,” Miss Vines intoned.

“I suppose we can see what can be ordered before we sail,” I said.

“You are sailing soon?” Miss Vines asked.

“Aye, before the Twelveday.”

Miss Vines slumped dejectedly. “Well, you must spend more time with us before you go.”

“We would like that,” I said.

It was getting late, and I had seen the maid and another woman eyeing us from the house.

“May we call on you tomorrow?” I asked.

Miss Vines gave me a devilish grin. “If you do not, we will be forced to take to the streets to track you down.”

I returned her grin. “Then I suppose we have no other recourse.”

We made our farewells and slipped into the street by way of the passage between her house and the next. Gaston was silent and would not look at me.

“Well, is she suitable?” I asked, once we were several houses down the street.

He scowled at the rutted road before him. “Oui.”

“Should we call on her tomorrow?”

“Oui,” he breathed.

“Will she be an opponent? Because if so…”

He cut me off with a disparaging snort and a glare. “Will, she is a formidable opponent!” His gaze softened and he searched my face. “She is… intelligent. Educated. Beautiful…” He shook his head. “I know you favor me because I am a man, but I truly cannot understand it.”

My gut roiled and the beast there tore at my heart. She was indeed a formidable opponent, but she was mine, not his. I was such the damn fool.

“I do not favor you merely because you are a man. I favor you over all others, because… you are you,” I said sadly.

“If she were a man, you would still choose me?” he asked earnestly.

“Oui.”

“And you truly wish to touch me, more than her?”

“Oui.”

“You humble me,” he said, and studied the street in thought.

Doucette’s question, as to whether I would release Gaston if he ever found a proper woman, returned to me. I felt driven by some hideous urge toward self-castigation.

“Would you rather touch her than me?” I asked.

He recoiled as if slapped, and guilt sprang upon his face. He regarded me with beseeching eyes. I nodded with a sad smile. I had my answer. I had known it before I posed the question. There was a reason I had steadfastly avoided looking at his crotch while we sat in that gazebo.

“I love you,” he implored.

“I know,” I said. “I do. Truly. I do not blame you in the least. It is as it should be, is it not? You favor women, as the Gods most surely intended. She is beautiful. I am attracted to her, and I do not favor her sex so very much. That is to say, I would take her over many handsome men I have seen. Some of that is due to her intelligence and spirited demeanor, yet…”

I was rambling on foolishly. He looked to be as close to tears as I.

“I understand,” I said, and walked down the street.

He fell in beside me, and his arm went around my shoulder. I did not stop walking, but I did not shrug him off either.

“Will, we will find an ugly wife,” he said.

I shook my head. “Would you want our puppies to issue from a dull and ugly woman neither of us found interest in?”

“Non,” he breathed. “I will never be with her,” he said with more force. “Never.”

I thought on it. That was not the answer.

I stopped and turned to him. “Non. I would rather you bed her to your heart’s desire. That… we both did.”

Images of the three of us frolicking, as I once had with Teresina and Alonso, came to mind. I smiled. “I would rather we shared her, and perhaps even shared a bed – the three of us – on occasion.”

His eyes widened, so that I could well see him entertaining images similar to mine.

“Truly?” he asked.

“Truly.” I grinned as my cock stirred fitfully at my thoughts. “I would dearly love to be suspended in ecstasy between the two of you, with you in me while I am in her.”

He took a long slow breath. I wanted to cup his crotch, but we were still on the street. I cast about and spied an alleyway, and quickly steered us into its twilight shadows. I pressed him into the wall behind a stack of barrels. He took my kisses passionately. He was indeed hard beneath my fingers. He gasped and clawed at my shoulders. And then suddenly, those fingers were around my wrist.

“Non!” he hissed.

Surprised, I stepped back. His eyes glittered with fury, the Horse’s fury.

“Non, it will not have this,” he growled. “It is a traitorous organ. If it will have pleasure, it will be for you, and with you.”

I was slack-jawed as I struggled to refute him. “But, my love, I care not what gives it rise. Once it is in my hand, its pleasure does come from me, does it not? I will be more than pleased at that.”

It did not matter. He was beyond reason, and the object of our discussion had been dismissed to flaccidness once again. I knew his Horse still had the bit in its teeth. I could not make sense of it. He was the one who could not perform, not the Horse. I was not sure of the Horse’s feelings for me at times. And, damn, I was beginning to think of that aspect of him as a separate being.

“I do not understand,” I implored. “Do you want me?”

He closed his eyes and held very still. I cautiously closed the distance between us.

“Gaston?” I whispered as I touched his arm.

He flinched, but then his hand clutched mine.

“Will. Hold me. Do not let me run.”

I embraced him, and he clung to me. Our hearts slowed, but my mind continued to race through a maze. I could find no exit. I could only hope he would help me understand once he gained control. Thus we held each other in that fashion until the full grey of dusk settled about the alley.

“My love, may we return to Theodore’s?” I murmured.

He nodded, and we walked there, hand in hand. We slipped into the yard from the alley. I bade him sit on the cistern. I wet my kerchief and wiped our faces. He was distant to the world and submitted to my ministrations without reaction.

“How are we?” I asked.

He started, and then slowly shook his head.

“I am sorry, Will,” he whispered.

“No need. Can you speak of it?”

He shook his head.

“Do you wish to eat?”

He gave another shake.

“Then let us be off to bed.”

We encountered Theodore in the back hall.

“We were wondering when you two would return,” he said jovially.

Then his gaze fell upon Gaston and he frowned. My matelot was not looking at him, or at much of anything. I shook my head and mouthed to Theodore that I would speak with him later.

Once I got Gaston into our bed, I knew it would be much later, as my matelot would not release me. I retrieved a bottle of water and a piece of boucan, turned down the lamp, and settled in with him cuddled at my side. He slept.

I did not, for a long time. When I did, my dreams were troubled. A giant hand kept trying to pluck us up and stuff us in a sack to drown us. We ran about in a huge room, hiding beneath the furniture.

In the morning, I woke to find him sitting at the edge of the bed, holding my hand. He appeared calm, and his greeting smile was sad and self-deprecating. I rolled onto my elbow and gave his hand a squeeze.

“How are we?” I asked.

“We are deeply chained to love,” he murmured.

At my frown, he shook his head.

“I am well enough,” he said.

I nodded and waited.

He sighed with a rueful grimace. “All things carnal are very confusing to me.”

“Hmmm, I see that.” I smiled.

He returned it, only to sober quickly with narrowing eyes. “My madness is a thing I only wish to share with you. If you… we… marry, I do not wish for the wife to know. I do not know how this might be possible, though. I suppose she will have to know, but I would not trust another to… care for me when I am thus. This is not because I am ashamed – though I am – and would hold her regard of me in such esteem that I would not wish to sully it. Non, it is because it is a thing of great privacy between us, and I do not wish to allow another into this… aspect… of our partnership. I do not wish to have another as close as I hold you, ever.”

My heart ached. “Of course, my love. I do not wish for any wife we may take to ever interfere or be involved between us. It will be a thing we do for children, and to appease my father for a time, nothing more.”

He seemed relieved that I understood. “Thus, I will never bed her.”

I nodded. “I will never suggest it again, my love.”

I kept my brow smooth. His words troubled me, but I felt I understood them. They made me all the more proud to love him, as they placed me above all else in his life. But there was the nagging feeling that it was a thing he was possibly doing against his nature, and I did not know how we would resolve that.

“Shall we court Miss Vines?” I asked.

“I feel she will make a fine mother,” he said seriously. “She has qualities that, when combined with yours, should make for excellent children.”

I sighed. “I have not made mention of this before, but those same qualities may make her less than eager to wed.”

He frowned, but nodded his agreement. “I suppose that is so. You will need to discuss it with her. When we visit today, you should inquire as to her feelings on the matter. I am sure I can distract her friend and leave you two alone.”

With bemusement, I wondered what else he had planned for the day. Yet there were things on my agenda as well.

“Will we discuss last night?” I asked gently.

He met my gaze. “I want you, Will. My lust for her is a thing of the beast. It is a thing without thought. My love of you is a thing of my soul.”

“That is beautiful to hear,” I said with a sad smile, “But, is your lust for her a thing of your Horse?”

He frowned in thought. “Non, not that beast. It is… simply, as you put it, what the Gods intended, though I am not sure if I believe that. It is my member thinking for itself. My Horse… my Horse wants you. But…” He grimaced and looked away.

“I am sorry, my love, that I do not understand why, if that is the case, you have not plundered me mercilessly many times over.”

He winced, and sighed guiltily. “Because, Will, my Horse would plunder you mercilessly, and I will not allow it.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly, as a great many things leapt from the shadows so that they now made ordered sense and I could at last perceive the whole of the pattern. As I had feared, his Horse would plunder me whether I was willing or not, and prepared or not, and perhaps his Horse wished to do so if I was not, and thus he thought it evil.

I sagged back onto the bed and contemplated the ceiling.

“I am sorry, Will,” he whispered. “I told you I am an abomination.”

“Non… Why? I mean why would you… it... wish to? If I understand your meaning. Is it because it... you… that there is anger in that it is a thing you would not do if left… if I was not…” I sighed. “Do you feel I have led you astray?”

That was how Shane had felt.

I felt very cold.

He leaned over me, so that he eclipsed all. His eyes were beseeching.

“It is because I wish to possess you as I feel you possess me,” he said earnestly. “I want to drive all memory of the others from you. I want you to submit to me, even if… it pains you. It is evil.”

He wanted to rape me.

He was filled with remorse. I smoothed a tear from his eyes with my thumb and tried to calm my own Horse, which was flailing and plunging about so that I was possessed of the urge to push him away and run.

He would not. He was doing everything he could to mitigate the matter. It was the reason behind our morning regimen. He was entrusting me with horrible thoughts that plagued him, the ones he feared.

I had thoughts I should not think. I let myself envision him upon me, the hard danger in his eyes, his manhood the sharpest of swords. My traitorous organ stirred quickly. I gasped. Not solely because of its enthusiasm, but because it was joined by another in wanting such a thing. My Horse wanted that very much. It quieted and tensed with anticipation at the idea.

I felt sick.

“I understand,” I whispered. “Non, that is not correct. I do not understand why either of us… My Horse would allow yours to do that very thing, and welcome it.”

He frowned. “Will?”

“Truly. It sickens me. I could not… I could not allow that and live with the aftermath. I could not forgive either of us. Yet, I understand it is a thing of our Horses and… We must control them, else we will ride off a cliff on this matter.”

He dropped to my chest and embraced me. I held him in return. The ceiling was very white. I kept thinking, placing one thought after the next.

“Are you aroused by those evil thoughts?” I asked.

“Oui.”

“But you are not aroused by the idea of bestowing yourself upon me unless it is violent?” I asked.

“It is the knot, Will. Every time I feel I have teased a strand free and begin to follow it, it becomes a jumbled mess again. I cannot make sense of it.”

He pushed up onto his elbows and regarded me.

“I am here,” I whispered.

“I know. And it is the miracle of my life. Yet… it is so unfamiliar, this… being loved. It is all-encompassing. I sometimes wake feeling I am in chains. I feel completely possessed by you. I cannot live without you. And it is wonderful. But it chafes. In time I am sure I will become inured to the weight of it. But for now, the Horse bucks about.”

The weight of which he spoke covered me again. My Horse did not buck about; it settled under the saddle, or perhaps into the traces. It resented his not wishing to do the same. I smiled sadly.

“I understand,” I said. “I feel, as you do, that it is an unfamiliar burden, yet I take pleasure and reassurance in it.”

He was suffused with guilt once again, and I held him close.

“Non, non, my love,” I murmured. “I do not say that to hurt you. We are different, that is all.”

There was a quiet knock on the door, and we started.

“We will be down for the meal soon,” I snapped.

“I am sorry, sirs,” Hannah said. “There are two boys to see you.”

“Boys?” I asked.

“Aye, sir, masters Chris and Art,” she said. “They say there is no hurry, as you would not be expecting them yet.”

Gaston and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“We will be down shortly,” I called with less rancor.

Her steps receded down the hall.

“There must be some confusion,” I muttered.

“Could it be the boy with the horses?” he asked.

“Non, perhaps, but I feel his name was Cedric. Damn, we will not know until we go down. And I do not wish to go down. We have much to discuss.”

He smiled and pressed a kiss to my forehead, then the bridge of my nose, and then the tip, until he reached my lips. That kiss was deep, and I let him take me under with it, into the safety of love, away from fears and Horses and madness.

When he let me up he said, “We have a lifetime to talk, do we not?” He looked hopeful.

“Forever.” I smiled. “Because as I have said, I will follow you into death not to lose you.”

He was solemn. “Will, you must not ever let me hurt you. I will do all in my power…”

I put my finger to his lips. “It need not be said.”

He kissed my finger and stood. I watched him don his weapons.

Cloying and rancid thoughts curled about my head. I loved him. Would I stop him? I had not stopped Shane because I had loved him. The memory of the paralyzing fear I experienced the night of the storm combined with my knowledge that my heart of hearts wanted him to ravage me, and the result did not bode well for my ever fending him off.

But I was correct. I would never forgive either of us if it were to happen. It simply must not come to that.

“What will we do for our regimen this morning?” I asked, as I finally eased out of bed.

“Let us see to eating and the matter of these visitors,” he said smoothly, as if our prior conversation had not occurred. “Then I thought we might retire to the Palisadoes to spar. We can find privacy there afterwards. We will bring the sack as well.”

I nodded and availed myself of the chamber pot. He packed a bag and hefted the sack in question gingerly. I was not sure if I wanted to address his issue with whips today. And then I realized I was not sure if I wished to undergo his fingering me with these new and ugly thoughts swirling about, but I supposed that was the entire point of the exercise.

Hannah informed us our guests were in the yard. Theodore was eating. I glanced outside, there were two lads sitting on the cistern, scuffing their feet in the sand. I did not recognize them. With a shrug, I joined Theodore at the table. Gaston sat in his usual chair and Hannah gave us plates.

“Do you know those boys?” I asked Theodore.

“You do not?” he asked curiously. “They are not ones I employ as couriers. Hannah says they were very specific in asking for Lord Marsdale.”

“I am going to eat,” I sighed, “and then I will discover what misapprehension led them here.”

“Perhaps Massey sent them,” Gaston said.

“There is a thought,” I replied.

“Will you be going by your house, or your ship, today?” Theodore asked.

“Should we?” I asked.

“I wish to submit the land grants today. I still need a few signatures,” he said.

“We will send the men around,” I assured him.

He nodded. “Thank you. And find a surname for Pete.”

With food in our bellies, we at last walked out to greet our guests, Chris and Art. They bounded to their feet at our approach. The taller of the two gave a clumsy bow, made even worse by his failure to remove his hat.

“Good day, my Lord, sir,” he said in the husky voice of a lad not yet a man who wishes to appear older.

There was something vaguely familiar in how retiring the other boy was.

“What is this about?” I asked.

I met the shorter boy’s blue eyes and nearly dropped my jaw. They were the same eyes I had watched over tea the day before.

“Chris, my Lord, we met yesterday, though ye may not remember as we weren’t dressed as we are now,” Miss Vines said with a devilish grin.

I pulled my gaze from her and glanced at Gaston. He recognized her as well.

“This be Art,” she said, and pointed to the very uncomfortable Agnes.

I glanced about, without being obvious, and found us alone.

“Does this ruse work often?” I asked.

“Even with them that know me, my Lord,” she said.

I chuckled. Gaston was not amused. He appeared more knotted with consternation than annoyed, though.

“What are we to do with you?” I asked the girls.

“We were hopin’ to tag along and learn a little of buccaneerin’,” Miss Vines, or rather, Chris, said.

I nodded and grinned. “Ah, all right then, we were going to the Palisadoes to spar.”

“That would be right wonderful ta watch, my Lord. Would ya be willin’ ta teach a soul?”

I actually thought that might offer great amusement. I glanced to Gaston again. He shrugged and returned to the house.

“I think we may find amusement in that,” I said. “On one condition, a buccaneer never calls another of the Brethren sir. And you can kindly skip the my Lords. I am Will, and he is Gaston.”

She nodded her agreement.

“First we need to stop by our house,” I said.

Gaston returned, without the bag he had packed or the sack. We exchanged a look of mutual understanding. Two aspects of our daily regimen would obviously wait. At least we would exercise.

With the “lads” following along, we made our way to the house. I gave fervent prayer to the Gods that none would be home when we arrived. I had been fooled by Miss Vines’ guise for a moment, and I could see where one who did not know her would be quite taken in; but I could not see how the disguise could resist much scrutiny.

Agnes’ disguise was nearly beyond reproach. She had looked and moved like a gangly boy when she was in a dress.

I concentrated on Miss Vines. I watched her as we walked, seeking any disparity that would give her away. After observation, I had to admit she was quite convincing. She had obviously bound her bosom quite flat, and the loose and simple linen shirt she wore hid all signs of it. Her hips were slim to begin with, and her baggy breeches showed nothing amiss. I imagined her hair to be tightly bound and pinned under the hat. This was fine under the circumstances. She would only be in trouble if she had to remove it. She had practiced walking and acting like a lad. There was nothing girlish about her gait or mannerisms. She did appear to exaggerate certain things a bit, but that was common for a lad wishing to appear to be older than he was, just as was the attempt at deepening her voice. She had mastered speaking like a commoner as well, and though it was not necessary as part of her ruse of pretending to be a boy, it did hide her true status and matched her attire.

However, her hands and feet were slim, delicate, un-calloused, and unmarred. She did not appear to have worked much at all, or walked about her entire life barefoot, as a boy her supposed age here on Jamaica would have done. Adolescent lads usually have large feet and hands they have yet to grow into. And she possessed the fine white complexion of a young lady who avoids the sun, not the golden tan of any youth in the tropics. The first matter would have been solved if she wore boots and gloves. The second would have been solved by her being in any other clime in Christendom, as most of her skin would have been covered. In fact, the matter of her passing as a lad would have been very easy if she were fully dressed in hose, shoes, periwig, coat, and the like.

By the time we reached our house, I was more concerned that someone would be committing buggery on the table than I was that any would realize they were girls.

The front room appeared cleaner than it had the day before, and smelled better too. Someone had put great effort into cleaning the walls and corners of piss. The back room still smelled of dog, and rightly so. We found Pete sleeping with the puppies. I was relieved he had breeches on.

I looked to the girls, and was amused to find wide eyes. Miss Vines met my knowing grin with a snort and quickly looked away. There was a slight flush on her cheeks.

Agnes was reverent and whispered, “I would dearly like to draw him.”

I thought of her fine portraits of Miss Vines that I had glimpsed and agreed. “I would dearly like to see you render him on paper. Perhaps that can be arranged someday.”

I realized I would like to see her rendition of Gaston even more. Perhaps I had found a way to show him what I saw.

Gaston dropped down beside Pete and took up a puppy. The Golden One woke and eyed the “lads” standing near me with momentary curiosity before talking to Gaston. I decided a good dose of puppy breath was necessary, and dropped down to join them.

The girls were uncertain. Agnes finally joined us, and I passed her a puppy, hoping she would not coo over it in a ridiculous manner. She did not; she merely held it and smoothed its wrinkled skin with gentle touches. Nor did she squeal or in any way panic when Bella came to inspect her.

Miss Vines held her distance and watched us from behind a mask of detachment. She looked every bit the part she played. Lads trying to be men do not often have time for puppies: that is a boyish thing.

Striker joined us, with a bucket and brush in hand. His glare at Pete told me who had been doing much of the cleaning. His lack of interest in the “lads” told me he did not recognize Miss Vines in the least. I introduced them as Art and Chris, and he barely nodded.

“The house is looking much better,” I told him.

He awarded me a grim smile. “I am glad you think so. Liam and Otter have been asking about; they have had no luck locating a housekeeper. Would you ask Theodore of it?”

“Aye,” I said. “Speaking of Theodore, he needs any who wish for the land grants to meet with him and sign the papers. Please tell all our cabal. And Pete will need a surname.”

Striker sighed. “Damn, I suppose in this instance he cannot use mine.”

“You have never adopted a surname?” I asked Pete.

“Nay. TheyGiveMe OneAtNewgate. NotMine.”

“Then we will have to name you,” I said, and looked to Gaston.

He frowned in thought. Pete regarded us with suspicion.

I thought of my titles for him. I called him the Golden One, so perhaps Golden was an option, but perhaps it was a bit odd. And I thought of Striker and him as the wolves.

“Wolf,” I said. “Peter Wolf.”

Gaston nodded.

Pete thought on it, and looked to Striker, who grinned.

“I like it,” Striker said.

Pete slowly grinned. “MeToo. I’llTakeIt. ’CauseIGotTeeth SoseICanKill SpaniardsAn’ProtectPuppies.”

He hoisted the puppy he held up high, and it squawked in surprise, earning him glares from Bella and Gaston. He quickly brought it to his face and cooed reassuringly.

Striker and I laughed.

“Aye, aye, such a mean damn wolf,” Striker teased.

Pete stuck out his tongue at Striker.

“What are your plans?” Striker asked me.

“Palisadoes, sparring, teaching these lads a thing or two about swords.”

He shrugged. “Have a fine time, then. We’ll see Theodore.”

We handed Pete our puppies and departed.

“Are all buccaneers like them?” Agnes asked once we were out the door. “They seemed very nice.”

I chuckled. “They are unique amongst men. Nay, I feel most of the Brethren are not so very nice, and if you were a Spaniard or any other man those two despised, you would not find them nice at all. But Aye, most we choose to sail with are goodly men.”

“You need a housekeeper?” Miss Vines asked. She spoke quietly and without the attempt to disguise her voice or breeding.

“Aye,” I said. “We need someone to watch the place while we rove, and we need someone to maintain some degree of order when we are in port. Do you know of anyone available?”

She looked at Agnes, who was regarding a cart we passed. “Aye. Agnes’ father wishes to sell her as a bondservant.”

Agnes whirled on her friend with betrayal all over her pinched face. “Christine!”

“Hush,” Miss Vines admonished, and looked about.

No one seemed to be looking at us, but we hurried on anyway.

“Agnes’s stepfather has wished to sell her since her mother died recently,” Miss Vines continued a block later. “He has not, yet, because I have hired her as a servant, and thus he receives some income from her existence. Yet he still wants the pounds her contract could bring. I do not have the money, and as much as my father is a kind man, he will not see that we need another bondswoman.”

“You need worry about it no longer,” Gaston said firmly.

I grinned and addressed Agnes. “Aye, we will see to it. I have no interest in owning you, girl, but if it will give you a safe place to live and freedom of a different sort, we will arrange it. If you wish, of course.”

She shot Miss Vines another hurt glare before nodding thoughtfully to me. “I know nothing of housekeeping, sir. In England we had servants, and here, my stepfather has slaves.”

I shook my head. “Agnes, the only things we will require of you are that you live in the house while we are roving so that it does not burn down and no one takes up residence there. You would keep the cistern, woodbin, and lamps filled. And make sure the dogs are fed so that they do not roam the streets. You can practice art to your heart’s content. When we are in port, I do not know... I do not believe that house will be affected by any of our other plans. I do not know who will reside there. Currently, it is home to a whole host of our associates. I think merely having someone female about will mitigate most of the damage the house suffered these last months. However, it would be nice if you learned how to cook. Pete is very fond of pies and we boil all of our water.”

“I could do all of that,” she said.

“She should learn to shoot,” Gaston added.

“Who would I have to shoot?” she asked with alarm.

I snorted. “Any of our guests attempting to shoot rats inside the house. Or pissing on the walls.”

She was horrified, and I relented.

“Nay, nay,” I assured her, “it will not be so bad. Merely threatening to shoot them should suffice.”

She was still wide-eyed as we walked through the gate at Fort Rupert.

As always, this chance to do philanthropy pleased me; yet, I wondered if I would rue it in the end. My attempt to help the sheep of Ithaca had surely gone awry. And I honestly could not blame myself alone in that. Aye, I had left them, but it was possible that even if I had stayed things would be no different, other than my tearing my hair out with frustration. On the other hand, our rescue of Davey had provided him a better life. Agnes’ situation would remain to be seen, and I resolved to allow myself to feel pleasure at the initial promise of it.

We began to travel up the beach, seeking a place where we would not have an audience. Many of the buccaneers waiting to sail lived on the Palisadoes in little camps scattered here and there. To be clear of them, we knew we would have to go a good distance, and we settled into a jog to cover it. The girls brought that to an end after a hundred yards. They were already winded. I supposed it was to be expected, as they rarely had occasion to run anyplace. It would probably be a great effort for them to walk as far as we must. After all, they were women, and gentle ones at that, and thus not used to any form of labor or exercise.

And so we walked. Agnes bemoaned not bringing her sketchbook. Gaston engaged her in conversation about the plants we saw, and soon the pair of them were meandering to and fro between the water and trees. Meanwhile, Miss Vines and I walked a fairly straight path along the top of the surf. I knew this to be by Gaston’s design. Yet I was loathe to have the conversation he was giving me opportunity to engage in. Thankfully, Miss Vines was a forthright young woman.

“I was concerned we would not see you today,” she said. “I thought it likely I would not see you for another six months, but then you did seek me out this time.”

She awarded me a sly smile.

I smiled in return. There was no reason to dissemble; it would merely waste time.

“As I am engaged in dangerous enterprises, my father wishes for me to marry and produce an heir,” I said quickly.

This took the smile from her lips; she nodded to herself with her eyes on the horizon.

I continued. “According to the last letter I received, he is choosing, or has chosen, a bride, and is sending her forthwith.”

This brought a questioning frown, but she still did not turn to meet my gaze.

“I do not feel I shall like any bride he may choose,” I said. “I wish to choose my own.”

She nodded with full understanding. “I see. So you choose to woo me?”

“In this less than romantic manner, aye.”

“And I am deemed to have sufficient lineage?” she asked wryly.

“According to Mister Theodore’s research, aye.”

Her smile was fleeting. “I do not wish to marry nor have children.”

“I thought that your likely sentiment,” I sighed.

“Yet you feel I may be swayed, else you would not be here now?” she asked with a frown.

“My dear lad, I am walking up the beach to go and spar with my matelot. You sought me out this morn.”

“Touché. Is that not the term?” she asked.

I grinned. “I believe you are using it correctly.”

She sighed. “I daresay all of the men who have courted me would be appalled, if not terrified, by my wearing breeches. I can make strong men blanch by expressing my opinion. I do not wish to ever become what they wish for in a wife. I see the others of my sex living purportedly happy lives and I cannot conceive of it for myself. I never wish to live as they do.”

“What aspect of their existence do you find so unacceptable? I am merely curious. I can guess, but I would have you clarify it.”

“They do not think,” she said after a pause. “Or have a care, beyond the confines of their households and the welfare of their offspring. They live confined little lives, devoid of adventure and even discourse. They may as well be cattle lowing in the field.”

“Do you feel this is a natural state of affairs, or one forced upon them?” I asked.

“Both,” she snapped. “For many, they never wish to rise above it, and the ones that do are told they are unacceptable. They are reduced to games of intrigue and seduction in order to achieve anything of worth in the world. They may not battle with sword or coin to sway the future, or even defend their beliefs and honor. They must find a way to get a man to do these things for them.”

I had planned to disabuse her notions by saying I had met many a powerful woman, but I realized she was correct. Teresina was a fine example. All of her power issued from her ability to control men, which she excelled at. In the end she was trapped by it.

“I want to be able to do so many things!” Miss Vines yelled with a fervor that attracted the attention of Gaston and Agnes. “I read of great kings and generals and I want to lead a nation and win battles, not bed the men who do and bear their offspring. I want to learn to fence. I want to learn to sail. I would like to study medicine. I would attend Oxford. I would learn mathematics. All of that is denied me because of my sex. I hate it. I pray daily that some blessed event will occur and I will not be as I am.

“I must marry,” she spat. “I must because I have no other recourse. I do not wish to become a nun, though I have heard there are nunneries that harbor intelligent women. But then I would be trapped in ways I am not now. I suppose there are alternatives within the courts, but then my entire life will revolve about pleasing men, and I absolutely refuse. If I do not marry, I have nothing of my own. I have nothing of my own now. I can inherit from my father, but some man would need to manage it for me, because other men would not deal with me directly. I am not a person unless I bear some man’s name, and then I am his property.”

She was distraught to the point of tears, and I knew not how to comfort her. I had not considered the whole of it from her perspective. I had met women who were unhappy with their lot in life, and complained of a disparity in the way things were managed, but I had not understood. I thought it much like the occasional bleating I heard from sheep, protests made quietly against the rule of wolves by those that would never raise arms and thus become a wolf. Miss Vines was right, she could never even become a true wolf; she could only be the mate of one.

It was made worse in that she was of noble blood. She was not even known by her own name. She was not Christine Vines, but Miss Vines, her father’s daughter, and once she married, she would be Mistress Whoever. I vowed to call her Christine.

Gaston and Agnes had joined us and heard it all. Christine walked into the surf and tried to compose herself, with Agnes hovering helplessly nearby. I looked to my matelot and found him as surprised by her words as I.

He joined me. “I would not add to her misery.”

“Oui,” I sighed, “but she is correct. Perhaps… there could be freedom in bondage in this instance, much as what we offer Agnes.”

I joined the girls in the surf. “Christine?”

She looked at me sharply and then slowly smiled.

“I apologize for my outburst,” she said and pawed the tears from her eyes. “It is another weakness of my sex; I cannot seem to become engaged in any discourse that holds meaning for me without bursting into tears.”

I remembered her complaining of that when first I met her: I felt I had greater understanding of it now. “There is no need to apologize. And if I were in your situation, I would probably take my life.”

She snorted with amusement. “Thank you for that, I guess.”

“I would never bar a wife from pursuing anything she wished, such as she was able within the damned confines of society.” I said.

“I thought that might be a possibility,” she said with a small smile. “And that is why I sought you out.”

She studied the surf, her arms tightly crossed. “Since I must marry, I, like you, would rather it be someone of my choosing.”

“I will need an heir, and then I care not what else you do. I would have you be happy. And even if we are not to marry, I would have you be happy.”

She nodded. “Would you allow me to travel? Can you afford to have the proper nanny and governess? Would we live in that house, or would you build one elsewhere? Will you teach me to fence and shoot?”

I grinned. “Aye, you may travel, by which I assume you mean returning to Christendom. Hell, you can go anywhere you can book passage and be reasonably assured of surviving unharmed. With or without my father, we can afford to have a full complement of servants; you need not care for the child. I will receive a plantation upon the deliverance of an heir, and that is not my only source of funds. I have been granted a plot in town to build a fine house. I will gladly teach you to fence and shoot, and even sail. And Gaston can even instruct you in medicine, if you are so inclined.”

She smiled, and then her gaze flicked between Gaston and myself and she sobered. “I would suppose you would share my bed only as necessary to produce a child.”

“Aye,” I said solemnly. “In my heart, Gaston will always be first, and I will share his bed in my house.”

“I take no issue with that,” she said tightly, but she kept her eyes on the sea.

“Likewise,” I said gently, “if you find someone you love, it need be unrequited only in the manner of marriage.”

She nodded. “I cannot think of what else to ask for.”

“If there is a thing forgotten in this negotiation,” I said, “let us agree to consider it without prejudice in the future, and augment our agreement as necessary.”

She chuckled. “Then I will accept your offer of marriage.”

“I am honored.”

Despite our fine words, she appeared as uneasy as I felt. I supposed it was to be expected. We were not simple people, and therefore we did not lead simple lives. The Gods knew nothing we did would ever be easy.

 

 

Thirty-Two