Captain's Surrender (20 page)

"You see, sir, he would have been
proud
to have such a wife. Their people—the Anishinabe people—would have honored him for it, because they think men like me are
holy
. Different, yes. But not
abominable
."
His voice shook with disappointment and anger. Launching himself to his feet, he strode out into the dark. Peter's heart lurched with loss, and he was half way out of his seat in pursuit when Josh returned, braced himself belligerently against the grotto and said, "They think we're holy. A bridge between man and woman, man and God. Here's an outrageous thing: They think that God made us like this because God wants us like this! And I thought ... I thought perhaps they were right.
"Maybe I don't have to bring you eternal torment as a price for my love. Maybe I'm not a
poison
I have to protect you from. What if I, too, could be a blessing? What if I could make you happy? I'm sorry, sir..." His nostrils flared and he gave Peter a withering look of contempt that made Peter's breath catch in his throat. "I'm sorry that you find the idea so very
funny.
"

For a moment all Peter could feel was relief—that Josh had come back, that he was still there, not exactly shouting, but doing as good an impression of it as was possible without raising one's voice. Relief gave way to astonishment, to a warm burst of something bright in his heart and his belly as he began to understand that this tirade was a declaration of love. It was only when these two pleasures had ebbed a little that he had space to realize he hadn't yet tried to apologize. "Josh..."

But Josh was in no mood to listen. "No!" he said, cutting off the explanation with a sweep of his hand. "You're going to hear me out. I waited 'til we were here to tell you. I wanted dancing, fireworks, darkness, I thought it would be romantic. Don't
laugh
! And you royally fucked that up, sir, but I'm going to say it anyway. You want to marry? So do I. And you might be a total bastard at times, but
I love you. S
o marry me."

Oh!
Peter thought.
Oh God!
And there was a pause, like the pause—infinitesimal and yet so very long—between the order to fire and the first broadside of a full fleet action. "I'm sorry?"

"With all due respect, sir," said Josh, close examination revealing, behind the threat of his expression, a thrumming of nervous hope, "you heard me the first time. Peter Kenyon,
will you marry me
?"

Chapter 24
A pause.
Peter thought, aghast, that it was no wonder Josh had

defeated a French ship of the line. His head for unorthodox tactics was frightening. "If we went to church and asked the priest to marry us, we would end up being hanged in one noose," he said, feeling both affronted at being put in the woman's place in this, and yet dimly, shamefully relieved. "So you cannot be suggesting that. I am not assuming again that I know what you mean. Elaborate."

"Yes, sir." Josh snapped to attention, faintly ridiculous given the circumstances. "As I see it, there are three options. One, I persuade a captain I know, of my persuasion, to marry us under our own names at sea. Two, we travel to Giniw's country and marry by their rite." He flashed an aggressive smile—daring Peter to laugh. "I'd consider that pretty unfeeling towards my rescuers, frankly."

"And three," the smile softened and warmed, "and this is my favored option, you give me your word before God to forsake all others, to cleave to me until we die, and I swear the same by you, and that's enough for me."

Peter rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was not something to be treated lightly. He no longer had the excuse of simply not having thought about the issues. It would not be a youth's rash impulse—throwing his life away upon a whim. It would be a man's decision, fully thought out and acceded to by body, mind, and soul. A frightening thought. "What would you do if I said no?"

"With respect, sir, you do not need to take that into consideration. The issue is what
you
want. If you do not think the game is worth the candle, it is enough to say so. The consequences to me are not your concern."

"Humor me."
Josh turned away, bowing his head slightly; slumped shoulder and rounded cheek in shadow. "I would grieve. Of

Peter laughed, concealing how uneasy that remark had made him feel. It hadn't occurred to him before tonight that Josh might have other options than merely to wait for his pleasure. He supposed he had been relying on Josh to be there—a certainty held in reserve. The thought of having to turn his back on that, of ruling a line under this affair and meaning it this time, was as frightening as the thought of rejecting the laws of God and man to embrace it.

He remembered that it had been Josh's voice which startled him out of despair during the duel, gave him strength to fight for his honor and win. Where would he find that strength if Josh deserted him? "But we could still be friends?"

"I don't know," Josh said unexpectedly and came back to sit by Peter's side once more, putting his head in his hands. "What would it mean to be friends, if I was there and you were here? Opichi and Giniw ... they're good people. I wouldn't mess them about. So I think ... I think it's this or goodbye. I can't carry on being what I was, not now I know there's something better."

This, too, was an intolerable thought. Peter had grown used to Josh simply being there; as little to be remarked upon, as indispensable and, he had supposed, as inseparable as his own soul. Turning to reassure himself that Josh was in fact still there, he found the younger man with his fingers underneath his wig, clutching at his hair.

It should be. Peter knew it should be. How would he ever be able to look himself in the eye again, knowing now how the world would condemn his sordid secret, if they knew it? Better not to have a sordid secret. Perhaps among savages such things might happen, but that didn't make them possible for gentlemen. He must say no.

Opening his mouth, a white star of panic burst beneath his breastbone at the thought and rose to choke off the word unsaid. He could not—physically—force it out.

Peter did not like being dictated to by his feelings. Making a tactical retreat, so that he could consider, approach the problem from a different angle, he shook his head to dislodge the obstruction in his throat and said, "I'm ... taken aback, Josh, I need to..."

Josh took his hands out of his hair, without tearing too much of it out, and looked at him with a puppyish expression that made him feel accused and—in consequence—angry. "You need to get her back before the wind, before you set a course? Fair enough. I know it's an awful lot to ask, and I
want
you to think about it. I want you to be sure."

He stood up, paused, looked down at Peter's upturned face with a smile almost comically hopeful, sweeter than any expression Peter had yet seen on his face. "I'll leave you to contemplate, then. Goodnight, sir."

He launched himself out into the dark, his footsteps drawing away. Calmly drawing away, after having shaken Peter's world to splinters. Damn him!

Damn him!
Peter thought viciously, launching himself out onto paths lined with colored lanterns he didn't see, through boiling groves of hot, tropical flowers he did not smell. Damn Andrews! This was all his fault. All his fault that Peter's dream—of a son to follow him in the service, of a daughter whom he would cherish and live to see with a loving family— seemed now as beyond his grasp as the moon. A clean conscience. Was that too much to ask? Other people seemed to achieve it ... Other people who had not been exposed, early in their lives, to the temptation, to the
contagion
of a man of Josh's sort.

Maybe that was why the sodomites had to be executed— because if you let them live you ended up ... you ended up loving them. And then ... and then your life was ruined, and you became a living mockery of everything you stood for, everything you believed in. Maybe, instead of extending the hand of friendship, he
should
have turned Josh in. He should have...

Seen him hanged
.
He reached the wall of the gardens, threw open the door and burst through. Breathing hard, aware that—pursued by love—he had fled in panic, he tried to touch that thought again. He should have turned Josh in; seen him hanged? Just when he thought his own mind could not appall him more he thought,
And you still should. If it was your duty then, it is no less your duty now.
The thought had a black plausibility. He knew that he was being given a final opportunity to repent. No—no, not that. For he had already repented, had he not? He had repented, and his life had been returned to him, during the duel. Now he was being given the chance to
prove
his new
righteousness. If it was wrong to say "yes" to Josh, then it was also wrong to continue to allow him to live.
"No!" he said aloud to the night, as he throttled on his own conscience, on the merciless certainty of what he had to do to become the man he thought he had always been. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Josh!"
He stood transfixed, spitted by horror and heartbreak. But you
had to
do what was right, or what kind of man were you? Nothing was more important than that. Nothing. The greater the sacrifice, the more he could be sure of the purity of his motives—and this, this would be the ultimate in obedience. It was, surely, required of him. His restored life was proof of that. Restored to do good, to be a good Christian, to be zealous against the enemies of the faith and to...
But I can't.
It was like drowning—the more he thrashed, the more it closed over his head, the harder he found it to breathe or to think. Before he was aware he was moving, he had set off back up the street towards the mansion. He needed advice; impartial, compassionate, worldly-wise advice. Advice he could trust, and Summersgill...
How could he possibly go to Summersgill with this?

He stopped. The wall of the gardens was high and gray at his shoulder, on the other side stood featureless houses with fan windows making down-turned mouths against the darkness. Further down the street the looming stone shape that was All Souls Church broke the skyline with an AngloSaxon square tower and a weather vane in the shape of a two-masted ketch.

Need drove him to it. Pushing the door open brought him into a thicker, more private darkness; a smell of frankincense and dust. The whitewashed walls were bare of ornament and the roof invisible in the gloom. His heels rapped sharply on the tiles, making him feel as if he was intruding. There was an inhabited aura about the soaring vault of a room, as though he was trespassing in someone's bed chamber and, if he was too loud, he would wake them.

Choosing a pew at random, he sat down. "I can't," he said. As if the darkness had been a sleeping dragon, he felt it wake and curl around him. Its gaze was heavy. "I can't," he said again—trying to make it understand; trying to make
God
understand that he was too weak, to plead that this cup be taken away from him...
Except that it hadn't turned out so well the last time someone prayed that.
All his life he had tried to do what was expected of him. He had been happy with that, certain of what was right and wrong. Love was unimportant—the law was the law. The sodomites must hang, and he must start with Josh, for personal grief and personal anguish must not be allowed to prevent one from doing what was right.
At the thought, he imagined it; he imagined the look on Josh's face when the troops came for him, Peter's statement in their hands, and the pain made Peter double over, shaking his head, his teeth gritted against the hot, shameful tears that threatened to spill. "I can't!"
He could, though. Nothing, physically, prevented him from doing it. Weighty, substantial men in the community would shake his hand and thank him for rooting out corruption in society's midst, for protecting their children. Josh would be hanged and go to hell—as though there could be anything worse for him than receiving such an answer. And Peter would be feted as a champion of morality, who did not scruple to spare even his friends in the cause of justice.
Was that really what God wanted of him? It was ... abominable.
If the darkness was a dragon, it now had a claw on Peter's back, pressing him down. "I can't," he whispered, "I can't."
He was struggling for air, fighting against something he was suddenly not sure he understood, for something that seemed incredibly precious and strong—but under this relentless onslaught he could feel it fracturing, and he was terrified of what would happen next. The very fabric of his life was buckling beneath the weight.
Then it broke. "I can't," he said again, forced beyond the point where he could prevaricate, forced into pure honesty, into decision. "I
won't.
"
It was as though his head had broken the surface, and he could breathe again, after an eternity of suffocation. "If that's what everyone wants of me, I won't do it. It's wrong."
Nothing had changed. He was still a small, hunched figure in the gloom, in a church stripped of anything remotely valuable by the local thieves. But everything had changed.
"I have to do what
I
think is right, not just what society expects of me," he told the darkness, realizing that this was what his heart had tried to tell him all along; that he might have given it lip service before, but now he
understood
. "And I cannot believe what I feel for Josh is wrong." He gravitated towards the huge book chained to the lectern as the world inclined towards its sun, searching for the words that would help him crystallize this understanding into something that could be thought.
The pages were heavy. He skimmed the black print until he found something he could match to his revelation, and when he had found it, it was so basic, so simple that he could not believe he had not thought of it himself: "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him."
He stroked the edges of the book, then closed it reverently, looked up at the still flame of the hanging lamp, still feeling enveloped in literal revelation, and said, "Thank you."
Not like Jesus' test after all, but like Abraham's—who thought God wanted him to sacrifice his son and found out at the last moment that God was not like that; that God would provide his own sacrifice, and Abraham could take his son home and watch him grow up, just as he so desperately desired.
But, Peter thought, sitting down on the steps of the pulpit with a smile on his face, Abraham had at least offered. He, on the other hand, had said no. He had found a duty he could not do—he was weak and no saint.
He was no saint; he was no more righteous than the next man—he had only thought so for a very long time, making him a hypocrite as well as a sinner. It felt undeniably freeing to admit it, like taking off all the gold braid at the end of a long evening and stretching the kinks out of his back. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the curving surround of the lectern, carven eagle-feathers digging into his spine.
He had been a hypocrite even in contemplating his "repentance", he realized. Standing in judgment on Josh? Who was he trying to fool?
He
had started the affair between them;
he
had insisted on it becoming physical. He was the one who could not go to an evening's dancing without admiring Josh from a distance, without seeking him out and finding excuses to touch him. All this time he had thought himself merely yielding to Josh's desire, generously giving Josh what he wanted because of course
he
could have no sodomitical tendencies of his own. He was too good a man for that—too normal, too perfect.
Appalling, appalling hypocrisy.
Getting up, he pushed open the door. The night had deepened while he sat thinking, the scent of fireworks and the blazing stars making him think of Bonfire Nights in Britain— parkin held in gloved hands, steaming spiced punch, and near painful bonfire heat on his upturned face. And the inevitable anti-Catholic riot that would follow. It had always been such fun—as long as you were not a Catholic. This was similar. In saying "yes" to Josh, Peter would remove himself from the mob. He would voluntarily place himself among the victims. The thought held more than a little terror.
If he said "no", he knew he could disappear back into the crowd. The rumors Walker had started would be forgotten, in time. If he said "yes", however, if he said "yes" to loyalty and love, yes to honesty, yes to fidelity, they would not hesitate to destroy him and congratulate themselves on doing it.
The street led down towards the harbor; a dark tumble of houses and cobbles, and then the sea, stretching out like a great sheet of mercury beneath an elegant curve of moon. He walked down to it, while his revelation seeped into more of his thoughts, making them grow and fit together—like seawater seeping into a dried out hulk, making her timbers swell and the holes close themselves up.
The fact was that whether society would forgive him or not, he didn't have to decide to break his country's law, to earn himself execution—he had
already
done that. If a future with Josh was a future that ended in the noose, it was no more than he had already deserved.
Going down onto the dirty sand of the beach, he walked along the forlorn shape of HMS
Dart
, her masts unstepped, lying on her side. Her bottom was being scraped and covered with tallow against the attacks of shipworm, but it was still sad to see her, looking so hollow and abandoned. He patted her on the keel and thought about the folly of expecting things—people—to work in ways for which they had not been made. As well expect to sail a ship on dry land as expect Josh to fall in love with a woman. As well make laws to tell a cannon ball to float.
At the thought, he glanced over to the pier where their too brief affair had come to its bitter end, and there moonlight struck glimmers on gold braid, the cockade of a hat tipped up to look at him. He could see, in the darkness, only the gold and white sketch of a man, but it was a man he would know at once from the merest glimpse.
Peter swallowed, feeling suddenly exposed—as though they were the only two standing on the round earth, the only ones in all that sky of stars. He began to walk towards the tall white figure, each footstep another jolt to a stomach that was jumping with nerves.
Beneath the wooden walk, leaning against one of the pillars, still barely more than shadows and faint lights, stood Captain Andrews, as neat as a new pin, perfectly turned out as for a surprise inspection, but with half circles of shadow beneath his eyes and a faint smell of rum on his breath.
"Drink, sir?" He offered a stoneware bottle of the stuff. It seemed clear that Josh was expecting a negative answer. Peter was struck by the quiet anguish of Josh's overcontrolled gestures and the sullen pride of his appearance; his armor of braid, his hundreds of carefully done up buttons. But Peter had not come to talk to Captain Andrews, and he did not appreciate the defensive distance.
"Take the damn wig off, Josh," he said. "I'm not here to be 'sir'ed—you know that."
Josh gave him a hangdog look, but he took off his hat and set it carefully on the nearest boulder, wig inside it. Then he passed both hands through his hair, leaving it standing up in distressed, hedgehog spines.
It hurt to watch. "If you were so sure I'd say 'no', why did you ask?" Peter asked, torn between anger, pain, and guilt.
"I wanted to know where I stood," Josh said quietly. "I was offered a future, better than I'd imagined possible, but God forgive me, I didn't want it with him; I wanted it with you."
Above, clouds drew away from the moon. Peter drank a mouthful of rum and watched as Josh's hair slowly relaxed into tousled curls; bronze in shadow, and in the light that extraordinary, beautiful shade of cinnamon that made Peter want to bury his face in it and feel its softness on his lips.
No one could say that hair was second best. Nor the downcast eyes now watching the ground—so startlingly dark against such fair skin. The curve of Josh's cheek was dear to him. It made Josh seem so young and vulnerable, when in truth, he could be such a bastard. But Peter could no more do without the bastard at his side, than he could bring himself to finally give up the whole-hearted, wanton, grateful lover.
"Suppose I had come to say yes?"
Josh looked up, fiercely. "And have you?"
Since he physically could not say "no", and no more wanted to go on with this charade of half-hearted nothingness than Josh did, it must follow that he had indeed come to say yes. "I have," he said—and oh, God, the relief! The sense of a burden dropped, a long, fruitless, wearisome battle finished at last. Victory or defeat—it didn't matter. It was just over, and he was at peace. "Yes, I have."
Beneath the relief, joy stirred. He met the startled, hopeful gaze with a smile that began as a mere twitch of the lips but spread until his cheeks ached and his eyes watered with delight. This was going to be quite a challenge, and challenge had always excited him. Who needed a tame course—a course so charted, so well trodden, when one could strike out into the unknown, risking the danger? No boy ever ran away to join the navy because he wanted to be safe.
"With respect, sir," Josh leaned forward, his capable, strong hands splayed on the pillar behind Peter, trapping him in the circle of his arms, "I'm not sure I believe you."
Behind Josh, Peter could see the sea moving lazily and the moonlight sliding over its swelling curves. The moist air was hot and the pier's timbers gave out a faint scent of pitch and sunlight. The moment was too sweet for argument, so Peter took hold of Josh's cravat and dragged him forward by it. Josh's lips parted in surprise, and Peter covered the gasp with his mouth, and for a moment it was all metaphors; it was coming home, it was the first drink of water after days of pitiless heat and thirst, and it was also taste, heat, the mad, animal frenzy with which they both scrabbled to get closer; an elbow in a wet spider's web, Josh's shoe landing on Peter's toe; the desperate whining noises he made at the pressure of Peter's tongue; pleading, demanding. And Peter's answering certainty that he too was
allowed
to want this, to need this, as much as he did.
Allowed in a moral sense at least. Not allowed in any sense that made it wise to make love in a public place where every courting couple and their mothers might see. "Josh ... Oh ... Wait ... Stop!"
Josh separated himself briefly from the tight knot of limbs, the possessive triumph in his eyes making a shock of glorious, erotic surrender sing and seethe in Peter's blood. "Prove it to me?"
What the hell was he letting himself in for? He wanted to find out at once. "I will," Peter said eagerly, "but not here. At home. In my own bed."
Josh lifted a hand, gently brushed back the errant lock of hair that was always getting in Peter's eyes, his chest heaving with desire, but his touch tentative, tender. "I can't believe it." There was such naked adoration in his gaze that Peter felt almost embarrassed, as if he should say something selfdeprecatory to restore the balance, to stop the gods from getting jealous. "I've dreamed these things before. I've dared believe it before ... and then I wake up."
It was good there was no reproach in Josh's tone, because Peter felt the stab of shame all too deep without it. How many singular moments of Josh's misery was he responsible for? No. No he would not think about that now; he was too much of a sailor to waste time on the past. The present had to be seized. "He who hesitates is lost, Mr. Andrews. You
will
believe it, I assure you."
Josh stooped to retrieve his lost shoe. When he turned back, he seemed to have regained his composure with it. He insinuated himself just close enough for Peter to feel invaded, tilted his head to one side and watched Peter's face with a frankly admiring look, the worship clothed in playfulness. "I'm not an easy man to impress, Mr. Kenyon. What makes you think that a night of unbridled sexual perversion is going to change my mind?"
"Hm." It was hard to fight the desire—to laugh from sheer joy, to take the taunting young captain by his lapels, slam him into the pillar and firmly prove to him that he was underestimating the persuasive power of Peter's prowess— but this really was not the place. "Am I to understand you're suggesting more than a single night?"
"I was thinking along the lines of the rest of my life."
The laughter broke free. And yes, free was how Peter felt. Free from social obligations, free from his own ridiculous expectations, from a wearisome hunt for something he didn't really want. Free like a man of war leaving harbor with a stiff wind in her sails and every man aboard looking forward to the adventure. This was no tying down to the earth, no prison of domesticity. It was the life he loved given back to him, perfected by not having to be lived alone. And he had no idea how to express any of that in a way that would not be horribly embarrassing to hear.
"That will be acceptable," he said, and watched with an intense pride as Josh's white smile lit up his face, bright as a hunter's moon. It didn't after all need to be said. Andrews—as always—already understood. No romantic words were required, only the truth, and that, too, was an unutterable comfort. "On my oath before God, Josh, I swear it. If it is within my power—for I am not the master of the sea nor of the Service, but if it is within my human power to arrange, this time I will stay with you for the rest of our lives."