Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (34 page)

He shook his head in wonder. “You are as stubborn as a tick.”

“Thank you, though, I would prefer a more pleasing comparison.

Would you prefer a less stubborn tick?” I teased.

He awarded me an incredulous shake of his head. “Non. You have burrowed deep.”

“So, we will reach Cow Island and run wild until your storm has passed,” I said. “Then we will get on with the other business of clearing your name, such as it is. Running wild might work to our advantage: we need to stay well clear of the others until all of our information has had time to be properly disseminated among the French.”

“I might harm you,” he said solemnly.

I shook my head. “Non, I feel I am as much a tick on your big black Horse haunch as I am on your human heart.”

His eyes narrowed in thought and he slowly smiled. “Oui. We will run together.”

I wondered what that might entail. I also wondered how I would keep the pace, both literally and figuratively, in my present condition.

Sometime in the night, I woke to find myself alone. That is to say, Gaston was not beside me, though the cabin was filled with snores, some of them familiar. I waved an arm and a leg about and did not encounter him. The mattress was still warm and hollow where he had been, and sweat was drying where he had been in contact with me. His departure must have woken me. Dim light flickered on the ceiling. I could not see Gaston. There was very little space he could occupy if he were still in the room.

I was up and moving before the concern clutching my heart had time to grip my head. I did not think he had left me to go to the poop rails.

He never felt that need at night. Fear-born intuition pointed my feet to the quarterdeck and not the bow. As soon as I ascended the steps I saw his back at the aft rail in the dim lantern light. He was standing oddly, but I could not name the how of it.

I made haste threading through the sleeping men between us, and kicked and trod upon several in the process. Thus he heard me coming by their sleepy curses. He sagged to his knees gripping the rail. Then I knew what I had seen before: his weight had been upon his hands, as if he meant to climb over.

I threw myself upon his back and my arms around him. He did not flinch or struggle.

“I do not wish to die flailing about in the water waiting for the sharks to have their due,” I said, when my breathing had slowed sufficiently for me to speak. “So, whatever you plan to do, I ask that you make it painless and without much terror, as I will follow you. In truth, perhaps I might prefer that you surprise me and send me on before you.

Provided there is no pain. I have had more than enough of that. For me, it signals life and not death.”

He did not move, but his breathing was ragged.

“Or,” I continued, “you could do as you have done this night as a form of suicide: because I surely wish to strangle you at the moment.”

“Please,” he whispered. “I cause nothing but trouble.”

“Damn you,” I sighed. “I know that. But by the Gods, it is my right to decide whether I wish to bring it upon myself or not. How dare you attempt to rid me of it?”

He struggled a bit in my arms and I let him move. I was relieved when he turned to face me and embrace me in return. I could not read his face in the moonlight. I could not fathom what had brought this on.

It was madness.

I barked with pained amusement. How many damn times must I be told?

“I feel we should return to binding you,” I whispered gently.

He nodded into my shoulder.

“Until this storm season passes,” I added.

He shook his head and whispered huskily. “I feel it will never pass. I will never be as I was. I will descend further and further into madness. I will drag you with me.”

“Then you shall spend the rest of your days bound to me,” I said firmly. “Your only escape will be found in killing me.”

He pulled back to regard me with wonder and tears. “You are a mad tick.”

I smiled. “Oui.”

In the morning, I woke to Striker dropping to the floor next to us.

I closed my eyes again and considered going back to sleep. Then the shadows changed across my face. I looked, and found Striker kneeling beside me, peering under the table with concern.

“I was wondering why your weapons were atop the table… but I see now,” he said, and pointed at the rope binding my wrist to Gaston’s.

“Aye, we are having some difficulty,” I said lightly.

Striker shook his head and sighed. “I thought this might happen...

again.”

I knew not what to say. Gaston and I had spent the first days of our return from Île de la Tortue last year bound together as we were now.

Striker had been disturbed by it.

“He will not harm me,” I said as I had said then. “And nay, the rope is no proof against his escaping me, but it serves to remind him that he is bound to me when he loses his way. He finds comfort in it. And it is enough to alert me if... some need overtakes him in his madness.”

“I know,” Striker said kindly. “But you cannot be armed lest he cut the rope in his madness, aye? And you can’t sleep. And...” His words trailed off with an annoyed sigh. “We all discussed this before we left.

We thought...” He sighed again and went to their sea chest. He returned with a kerchief-wrapped bundle.

I worked my way to sitting, waking Gaston in the process. He had been sleeping like the dead, as he was wont to do after having a bout.

Striker opened the bundle. It contained soft leather strips and a pair of iron manacles.

I sighed at the sight of them as cold congealed in my empty belly.

Rope was one thing, it had warmth and could easily be shed; chains were another thing altogether. But I could see Striker’s reasoning.

Gaston could not cut chain.

Gaston’s hand darted to the manacles to touch them tentatively.

I glanced down, and found the wide-eyed mien of a child. This was a thing that must be done. He was storm-tossed and I his only anchor.

“These were the lightest and smoothest we could find,” Striker said.

“Still, you will want to wrap your wrists first, so that they do not abrade them. I still have thick skin from the scars about my wrists from being chained.”

He gave me a guilty look. “Sorry, I don’t mean to…”

I shook my head. “Thank you for being so thoughtful.”

Striker and I untied the rope about my left wrist. Then he cleverly wrapped the strip of leather from the heel of my hand up to the middle of my forearm, leaving the ends free to tie it closed at the top. Then we did the same with Gaston’s right wrist. Then Striker closed the metal about us. The key was on a braided chain of leather that he put around his neck.

Gaston tested the weight on his wrist happily. There was a good foot of chain between the bracelets, but I still felt his every move. I was not sure why it troubled me so as compared to the rope. I supposed it was due to bad memories. Iron about my wrists spoke of helplessness and heralded death.

Striker saw something of my concern and his features coalesced into doubt. “We thought you might be able to get some sleep this way. And…

I would rather have you armed. Not that I don’t trust the men, but there are so many we don’t know these days and... Hell, we could run afoul of the Spanish and...”

I cut him off with quick words and a reassuring smile. “I have been in chains twice. Both times I had been arrested for some crime I had truly committed, and if not for the intervention of others I would have been hanged.”

My smile widened to genuine amusement at the irony that now the intervention of friends was what put me in chains.

“I truly feel it is a fine solution,” I assured him.

“Glad to hear it,” Striker said.

Gaston made a happy humming sound, and looped his chained arm about me and kissed my neck.

Striker seemed to find grim amusement in this. “How does he appear so cute when he’s thus? I swear I couldn’t see him so, unless I had seen him…”

I felt Gaston’s head shift and heard a low growl. Striker raised an eyebrow at whatever look Gaston cast upon him.

“He is quite volatile when he is thus,” I said.

“Aye,” Striker said, sober now. “I will not call him cute again.”

He left us. Gaston continued to lick my neck: quite pleasurably, actually. I turned my wrist to and fro, testing the feel of the band. Only the Gods knew whether these chains represented a death sentence, one which I had gladly given myself.

We sailed on to Cow Island. I quickly discovered that the manacles freed Gaston from everything but his madness. He surrendered to his Horse and abandoned all pretenses of holding the reins and wearing his mask. He became exceedingly mercurial: at times railing one second and giggling the next. When he was sad, he curled into a ball and cried.

When he was angry, he expressed his discontent without real threat or malice. Though I was initially alarmed, I soon learned he was not possessed by the Devil so much, but rather by some faerie sprite of whimsy. He spent an entire afternoon daubing his eye paint upon our chests, so that we appeared to have the spots he remembered from some great cat in a menagerie. He carved the word “endure” onto my cuff, and the word “conquer” onto his. Yet, even without the mask of reason, he still saw to our well-being, and was quite concerned with what I ate and how my bruises were healing. He finally decided that our wounds were healed such that the stitches could be removed, and instructed me quite earnestly on cutting his. All of this was done with the earnestness of a child.

I stopped fearing him in any capacity. Every time he came at me with carnal intent, I prayed with great fervor he would find his rise, but he did not. Instead, he pleasured me greatly on several occasions. He found great amusement in bringing me to cries of such volume that I woke our sleeping associates.

I worried that his overt demonstrations of madness would further harm our standing with the crew, and was pleased to discover this was not the case at all. Many of the men were relieved that my matelot now appeared as mad as they knew him to be. A rational-appearing man who could not be trusted in his sanity was cause for alarm; but an obvious madman could apparently be seen and accepted for what he was.

As for our friends, those who could not tolerate this new Gaston the Horse – as I coined him, not they – gave us wide berth. Thus we did not spend much time with Julio or Davey, or even the Bard. Pete, Liam, and Cudro, however, became fascinated by my matelot’s antics, as if he were the most interesting thing on the voyage, which I suppose he was.

Striker was amused and concerned. One afternoon he joined us in the cabin. We had been surprisingly alone. He watched Gaston carve little animals on the side of the table with a dirk and asked me, “How are you?”

To which Gaston replied, “We are fine, because Will has the reins.”

And then he threw the dirk into the center of a target he had made on the far wall, wriggled himself into my lap, and pulled my free hand to his head to scratch his scalp; which I did rigorously so that he arched his back and made a happy sound.

“I am fine,” I assured Striker. “I have always enjoyed riding spirited creatures.”

But not for days at a time; and Gaston gave me no time to rest.

Striker nodded to my words, and I did not know if he guessed at my thoughts.

“When we reach Cow Island,” I said, “We will need to be set free to run about in the woods.”

From my lap, Gaston was regarding me with narrowed eyes. He rolled to look at Striker.

“I fear for your safety,” Striker said thoughtfully.

“I will not harm Will,” Gaston growled.

Striker met his gaze without rancor. “That’s not the intent of my concern. I am worried for your safety, you rat. There are French men who wish you dead, not Will.”

Gaston sat, and the weight of reason settled over him, so that his shoulders slumped from the burden. I saw the mask slip into place.

“We should be away from the others until they know the tale,”

Gaston said. “We will go far from the beach and stay hidden for a week.”

“Until we send for you,” Striker amended.

Gaston nodded. “I will let nothing harm us.”

Striker snorted with amusement. “We will send someone to warn you if the French assemble an army to root you out.”

“There will be no need in that event,” Gaston replied with little humor. “Armies do not move quietly.”

“Nay.” Striker grinned. “I will free you to scare the cattle and any fool stupid enough to seek you out.”

He left us. I clutched Gaston’s shoulder before he could turn to me.

“Please,” I said in French. “I love your Horse, I truly do, but could you please remain as you are, as in possession of the reins, for a small time? Three days of not knowing how you will behave from moment to moment has worn me quite thin.”

When he turned to me he was still Gaston the Man. I sighed with relief.

He smiled. “I am surprised you have not beaten me senseless before now. You have been very patient.”

“You have not behaved so very badly as that. How are we?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I am at ease for the time being. I feel well, but I do not think it will last.”

I considered my heart on the matter. “It need not last. It just need return from time to time.”

He moved to sit beside me. “Do you wish to attach me to some object and be free of me for a time?”

“Non. We have been side by side for months before now. I am well enough with that. Though… even if this metal does not chafe the skin, it does chafe the spirit a bit. I am weary of finding my movements restricted, even by you.”

He fingered his cuff. “I know. I still find comfort in it, though. Much as I feel the invisible chains of love binding us sometimes chafe, and yet you find them reassuring.”

I grinned. “As always, my life is steeped in irony.”

“I find great comfort in your being willing to be chained to me,” he said solemnly. His gaze was earnest when it met mine.

I sobered, and thought on it. I could see where he would find it a proof of my love, just as I found his trust of me to be proof of his. It was as if we were the inverse of one another in the matter. It was not irony; it was that we complemented one another. Our differences fit together rather than holding us apart.