Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (101 page)

I met Morgan’s speculative gaze with the best reassuring smile I could manage.

Morgan shrugged, but his eyes were narrow. “I once got kicked in the head and could not see well with one eye for a week. It passed, but while it was about, I sometimes could not think clearly.”

“Men oft become addled when hit hard,” someone said.

With a snort of annoyance, I wrote, I am not addled, in large block letters.

My umbrage over the matter seemed to reassure Morgan. He chuckled and left us, presumably to give the missive to the envoy; but for all I knew, he might seek Julio.

I cared not. I wished to be away. I stood slowly, and Gaston’s good arm was immediately about me. Striker was on my other side a moment later, and I felt quite foolish as they ushered me from the room as if I were an invalid.

“The envoy will return with a reply on the morrow, I would imagine,”

Striker said grimly as we walked outside into the square. “Will should rest until then.”

Recalling my earlier thought on the matter, I pointed in the direction of the fort.

Striker sighed, “Aye, at the fort, you will rest.” He looked around me to Gaston. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Oui,” Gaston said, “and we must stop and see Farley.” He did not appear pleased at doing this.

Liam, who had been waiting with Nickel outside, joined us. He was carrying the jar of laudanum.

We went to the house where the wounded were, and Striker and Gaston urged me to sit on a barrel near the entrance and remain there.

I was not sure if it was because they wished to continue the pretense of my being prone to dizziness, or if they were worried I was truly addled enough to wander off. I took Gaston’s hand and gave it a kiss.

“Are you well to stay alone?” he asked quietly in French.

I nodded: with an expression that I hoped conveyed my puzzlement over his concern.

He sighed and whispered, “Will, you closed your eyes and sat gripping the table for several moments. All saw it.”

I nodded, so it was a thing easily explained by dizziness. I was damn pleased I had not cried out or warded my eyes as I had wished.

“I wish you could tell me what happened,” he said.

So did I, but I knew he was not seeking explanation of the event I was avoiding. Before that thought could even begin to plant roots, I smiled, gestured at myself and the barrel I sat on, and pushed him toward the door.

With a final nod, he left me with Liam, Bones, and Nickel. Striker had slipped inside as well, and I wondered if any of the Queen’ s men were wounded.

I stood, and was immediately surrounded by my companions. I waved them off and went to the doorway to peer into the dim light at the wounded. The rooms I could see contained a score of men spread all about. Most were wrapped about the head, shoulders, or arms with bloody bandages.

“Poor buggers,” Bones muttered. “Makes me damn glad I’m a musket man. I do na’ fancy stormin’ the gates o’ forts where they can throw things down on ya. Most of these blokes are maimed for life if they don’t die o’ rot over the wounds. Me, I’ld rather be shot and dead than maimed.”

Liam stiffened beside us, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Nickel punched Bones in the arm, and the lanky man looked confused as to what he had said to deserve it.

“I suppose,” Liam said quietly, “that death might be a bit better than havin’ half your face gone from boilin’ oil, mayhaps. No pain once ya be dead. Lessin’ ya go ta Hell.”

The silence was awkward for a moment; then Nickel said a thing I wished to, and I was pleased with him.

“Otter was a kind and good man,” Nickel said, “I am sure he was welcome in Heaven.”

Liam sighed. “I don’t know… I wish there be another place a man could go instead o’ Heaven or Hell.”

“Well, there’s Purgatory,” Nickel said with a frown.

“Naw,” Liam said. “Just a place ya went when ya be dead. No reward or punishment like, but just a place, like here, where there be both good an’ bad, and a man can ’ave some pleasure o’ life an’ maybe some sorrow, but… It na’ be fair that it be one or the other. A man don’t always have a chance ta live the life the priests say will please God.”

I could not stand there silent in the face of his pain. I wondered if I could locate paper and ink in the house, or even charcoal and a wall.

I wanted to tell him of the Elysian Fields, and that man had not always believed as he did now about such matters.

“Me maw always said that ya know ya be good and go ta Heaven if ya do right by yur fellows and ya feel God loves ya in yur heart, even if ya be hated by the clergy and the righteous,” Bones said. “An’ she said Heaven was a place like Earth, an’ that a person could find whatever made ’em happy there, that’s why it be Heaven.”

I could have kissed Bones’ mother. I settled for clapping Bones’

shoulder and smiling. I chuckled and shook Liam lightly.

Liam gave me a curious look. “Ya be the right philosopher, Will. Ya believe that?”

I nodded.

“I would na’ be tellin’ no priest that,” Bones drawled. “They done hung me maw fer witchcraft.”

I swore vehemently. Nickel was appalled, but Liam smiled slowly, and then he laughed. I looked to Bones, and found him frowning at Liam’s humor. I was surprised; I had thought Bones to be jesting. I was not sure whether Liam had also thought it a jest, or if our Scotsman were just so overwrought that laughter at Bones’ words seemed an easier path than tears.

“It weren’t funny,” Bones said sadly.

I could take no more. I tore the bandage from my head and grasped Bones firmly by the shoulders. “It was not. It was a horrible thing,” I rasped carefully, trying to move my jaw as little as possible. “I hope…

I pray that God meets priests at the gates of Heaven, and smites those who have done horror in his name down to the lowest pits of Hell.”

“Amen.” Liam said. “I weren’t laughin’ at yur mother. I just…” He turned away and wiped his now-teary eyes.

Bones nodded solemnly. “I pray me maw were right in her thinkin’.

She were a good woman, an’ I canna’ bear the thought o’ her bein’ in Hell, neither.”

“What are you doing?” Gaston hissed from the doorway.

I turned to face him and held up my hand in supplication at his concerned anger. “Bones’ mother was hanged for witchcraft, and Liam is worried that Otter is in Hell,” I said slowly and carefully.

“That be ’bout the gist of it,” Liam said.

Gaston smiled slowly. There was great regard for me in his gaze. It made my heart ache. He came to hold me with his good arm.

“My love,” he whispered, “You cannot minister to them until you heal.”“I am sorry,” I whispered back, “but you were not here to speak for me and…”

His fingers were on my lips. I quieted, and when he was sure I would not try to speak again, he led me to the barrel and sat me down.

With Farley’s help he re-bandaged my jaw.

Farley spoke nervously as he worked. “I know the mandible joint here to be broken, but I was not sure of other injury or…”

Gaston silenced him with a nod. “As I said, you did well, very well, and we thank you. I am sorry.”

Farley quickly shook his head. “Nay, nay, it was… You were distraught. I wish I had known of the laudanum you carried, then. It would have made it all much… easier.”

“If… such a thing occurs again,” Gaston sighed. “And Will is not there to calm me, please search our things for laudanum if you do not have any yourself, and drug me insensate.”

“I will do so, then,” Farley said; and with a final compressed smile and a bob of his head at me, he left us.

Our friends had retreated a little, and we were somewhat alone; but, of course, I could not speak to voice my anger that Gaston had suffered such a wound being sewn with nothing to dull the pain.

Striker’s words surfaced: Gaston had attempted to kill Farley and…

I could see Gaston lying there with Pete and Cudro holding him down, crying for me with his broken voice while Farley worked upon him. I clutched at Gaston and held him tightly; my ragged sob was restrained by my bandage and the curious realization that what I was envisioning was not a thing I had seen. There had been no cave, no light; it was merely a nightmare vision like the ones I had visited upon myself concerning his sister’s death and his flogging. It was not the thing I feared.

“Will?” Gaston whispered.

I released him. I wanted paper, or to tear the bandage from my head again, but I was sure he would not allow that, and the only paper of which I knew the ready location was in my bag, back at the fort. I stood and took his hand. He allowed me to lead him down the street. All the way there, I thought of what I must say. I composed great paragraphs in my head, and then discarded them.

We at last returned to the fortress, and I found my bag. As it was near the men still there, I took great care to meet no one’s eye. I took my things and retreated with Gaston in my wake. The sun was high overhead, and there was little shade to be found. I finally resolved that this was another light I must deal with, and sat atop the wide wall far across the fort from the others. I dug out the paper and quill.

Gaston joined me with a reluctant mien, and I knew he did not wish to face the light any more than I.

I wrote, I cannot frolic until I know how I fell. I cannot face the light of truth alone. I am afraid it will burst upon me beyond my control. Help me.

Gaston settled more comfortably beside me, but his expression did not relax from guilt. He fidgeted with the edge of my bag, and then he finally met my gaze with tear-filled eyes.

“You fell because I kicked your legs from beneath you,” he said.

I gathered from those words that he had suffered a bout of madness. It almost made me curious to peer into the light. Perhaps I was making much of nothing.

He was shaking his head as if he read my thoughts. “I could make excuse that I was ragged from the battle and that the Horse proved too much for me, but… it would be a lie. I dropped the reins, Will, or perhaps… I did not.”

Now he did not seem to wish to meet my gaze. I took his hand and he squeezed mine so that it hurt as he struggled with his words.

“I saw you speaking with the Spaniard,” he said at last. “I told myself there was no concern and that you loved me. And I believed it.

I knew you… love me more than you ever did him. I thought of all the ways you had proven it… and… I wished to show the Spaniard that.

And… I do not know if it was my madness or not, if I lost control or not, but I thought I should let myself go and that you would care for me…

and I wanted that, especially as you became more at ease with him…

and… So, I cannot say if it was jealousy that drove me, or… I do not know.

“I do know that I did not fight the Horse at all, when it wished to run you down and haul you away.”

He pawed tears from his eyes and regarded me with guilt and trepidation. As his words of yet had stirred nothing of the cave, I could but love him. I leaned close and kissed his cheek.

He shook his head with consternation. “Non, Will, you do not understand. I did an evil to you in that. I let myself…”

I put fingers to his lips until he stilled.

His eyes narrowed and he pulled my hand away. “Will, someday you must become angry with me. With me!”

I sighed with frustration and wrote, What did the Horse do?

“Do you remember speaking with the Spaniard?” he asked. “Do you remember leading me to the stable? Do you remember our arguing?”

This brought me to the cave. I stood facing the light. It did not seem blinding, but it was of such intensity I could make out little within it.

I took a steadying breath and prepared to take a step toward it. I felt Gaston’s hand on mine, and then I could see him standing in the cave next to me, holding my hand, facing the light.

I looked: I could see Alonso, and feel his need for me; I could see Gaston watching, and feel his jealousy. I remembered not wanting to do a thing in front of Alonso… not wanting to tryst before him, and not wishing to argue with Gaston over the matter. I scurried away, running, seeking a place to hide to have the argument. I cursed my luck as the stable seemed to be the only available location. Gaston followed me: the Horse followed me. I had been afraid.

I did not wish to see what came next. I stepped back and opened my eyes. Gaston was regarding me intently, his cheeks still wet with tears despite his frustration. I let myself truly think on what he had said. Whatever had happened next that night, he had allowed it. He had allowed the Horse to come for me. He had not fought it. He was correct, I should have been angry with him.

I had been angry with him.

I was angry with you because I knew we would argue, I wrote.

He seemed to find relief in this. “Good. I… goaded you. I said…”

He shook his head. “It was not about the damn Spaniard by the time we were in the stable,” he sighed. “It wanted… I wanted to own you. I wanted to prove that I owned you.

I stood in the cave again, with him beside me. I could see the events unfold in the light.

“And you… fought me,” he continued. “Like you did at Theodore’s.

You told me no. You faced me with anger and… The Horse panics so when you do that. It… I feel such the child when you do that. I feel as I ever did when I was outnumbered and I knew I would lose. And I feel compelled to strike out. And run… But I did not run. We wrestled, and it became trysting after a fashion, and you submitted to me, you seemed pleased to accept me.

“And then, when I finished, you… I did not seek to please you. I regret that, I … But… You pulled your breeches up and reached for your belt and then… You drew, and you were upon me. There was such anger and hatred in your eyes. And it was as if you did not see me. I could not believe you would look at me as you did. I was… It was all I could do to keep my wits about me and hold you off. And then Pete and Striker were there, and I sought to get them to pull you off; but they distracted me, and you were able to press your attack and I was wounded. Then Pete hit you.”

The light receded, and I saw what I had wished most to avoid. I almost killed my matelot. I had thought him Shane and almost killed him. I gave a great ragged sob as the horror of it gripped me with vicious claws. I had nearly let Shane rob me of this happiness.