Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (96 page)

“Julio says you came with less than five hundred; and that you traveled down the coast in canoes,” Alonso said incredulously.

“I did not think it mattered now if I told him,” Julio added quickly.

“No, it does not,” I told Julio with a smile. “Si, it is true,” I told Alonso. “It was a clever plan concocted by our Admiral Morgan.”

“Uly, how is it you came to be amongst pirates?” Alonso asked. “Did you not return home? I surmise that you did, as my letter must have passed through your father’s estate.”

I laughed. There was so much concern in his voice, as if I had truly fallen to some terrible end.

“I could well ask you the same,” I said. “Though I think a guess is easy enough to make. You did indeed go to Panama and you were here for the fair.”

“Si,” he said. “I have a cousin here, who asked that I remain a time and see to his business for him, as he has been unwell.”

“How is Panama?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said distantly. “My brother and I have a plantation and… I am married.” He watched my reaction closely.

“As you knew you would be.” I smiled. “Well, congratulations.

Progeny as of yet?”

“She is with child,” he said with a frown.

I doubted he had suffered any hesitation in that matter.

“So is… Striker’s wife.” I pointed vaguely toward our friend.

They had pushed the boat away with only Otter’s body on it.

“Now we should join our friends,” I said.

We wound our way through the loose clusters of men until we were amongst our cabal. Liam waded unsteadily into the water with a torch and tossed it. The boat caught fire with a menacing whoosh, and Pete looped an arm about Liam’s chest and fetched him back to shore. All was silent for a moment as we watched the boat burn. Then an amazing sound issued from among us, and we all turned to find Cudro singing.

It was in Dutch, a lament judging by the sound of it, though I could not quite follow the words. I had wondered if the man could sing with that voice of his. He surely could.

Liam stared at him in wonder, and then bent over sobbing and cursing, and turned back to the burning boat. Pete and I caught him up and got his arms about our shoulders. We had to support him as we stood there: he was past the ability to do so himself.

Thus we held him until the boat was burnt away and sank beneath the waves. It took longer than one would think, but not nearly long enough to truly say goodbye. In the wake of Cudro’s song, I stood listening to the crackling fire and Liam’s quiet sobs, and wandered through my memories of the last year. I wondered how I could convey any of it to Alonso, when he obviously held the Brethren in such disdain.

Then I thanked the Gods I had left him sleeping.

As the fire burned down, some men slipped away in twos and threes, and returned to town or into the fort. Soon, only our cabal and Alonso were left standing on the shore.

I looked to the others. “Shall we stay here, then? I feel Liam is ready to sleep now.”

Liam was nearly asleep between us, as it was.

“Aye,” Striker agreed with a doting smile.

He tousled Liam’s hair and earned a sad smile in return.

“I do na’ wan’ be alone,” Liam slurred.

“We will be with you,” Striker assured him.

He looked to the rest of us. “I’m not sure who will remain sober. We should set watches.”

“Aye, and that will see to this fortress,” I said. “But what of the rest?”

Sounds of revelry and the light of fires drifted across the harbor.

“Bradley has taken some men and gone out on the road to Panama,”

Striker said. “According to Cork, there is a defensible defile somewhere near here, and the road can easily be held by a small number of men.”

I grinned. “I will sleep better, then. I feel the rest of the town could be taken from us by but a small number of men, with so many of ours under the sway of Bacchus.”

Striker nodded and took another pull on the bottle he held. “So we will hold this fort, Morgan will hold the middle, and Bradley will hold the road. The rest may revel to their heart’s content.”

“Wonderful. Let us remember to bar and brace that storeroom door,”

I said.

“We did that,” Julio grinned. “Not that the Spanish could have mustered four madmen.”

Alonso was curious, and so I told him of how we took the fort as we walked back to it. He was sincerely impressed and expressed it. This seemed to amuse Pete, once I translated.

The fort was filled with rowdy buccaneers who did not wish to go into town. Julio led us to the officer’s quarters in one corner of the building. We eschewed them, though, as they did not have ready access to any portion of the place from which we could overlook the harbor.

Thus we found ourselves atop the wide wall where it most protruded into the water. We lit a fire in a brazier, and Striker and Pete went to find food in the kitchen before our men ate it all. We brought up a mattress that did not smell profoundly, and laid it out for Liam. He was too drunk and exhausted to protest.

Relieved of one burden, I addressed another, and released Alonso from his bonds so he could see to his needs, under my watchful eye.

“You truly would shoot me if I attempted to escape?” he asked as he relieved himself.

I could not contain my amusement. “Assuredly and with alacrity.”

He seemed hurt by this; and I sobered, though bemusement now gripped me.

“What would you have of me, Alonso?” I asked sincerely.

He glanced over his shoulder to the place where Gaston sat with the others. Alonso and I were far enough from them to converse in private.

My matelot looked toward us, and I smiled at him. I was pleased he had found the wherewithal to keep his jealousy in check for the moment.

When I looked back at Alonso, I found him watching me. He quickly returned to looking over the harbor.

“You have grown thin,” he said.

I chuckled. “You have grown.”

He snorted, and sucked in his belly, though in truth there was not much of one. Yet I could see he was on the road to ruin in that regard.

“Such vanity,” I chided gently. “You are still as handsome as ever.” It was not a lie.

“I would say the same,” he said while studying me, “if I could perceive you through the layer of filth.”

“It is fat,” I said. “Well, most of it. It keeps the insects at bay.”

“Ah, well I can understand the need here. This place stinks, and it is home to all manner of pestilence, but the worst of it is the damn insects.

I could not bring myself to roll in lard, though.”

“Do you drink the water?” I asked.

“No, I drink the wine,” he said.

“That may be why you live.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Poor water holds little insects that might make one ill: very tiny insects that one can see with lenses,” I said.

“What?” he asked with a good deal of incredulity.

I sighed. “Gaston is a physician, and he has studied such things.”

He gave my matelot an even more incredulous look. “Truly?”

“Truly,” I sighed. “And the son of a Marquis.”

I felt the fool for adding that last. I did not need to prove Gaston in those terms. It galled me that the next glance Alonso threw his way held respect. He had always put great stock in breeding.

“So, do you have a wife as well as a lover?” he asked.

I felt the stirrings of annoyance. “As all good sons do, I took a wife to appease my father. He wishes an heir. It is complicated… I wish to keep him at bay and yet stay in his good graces for the time being. Gaston is my life, though. If he told me to put her on the street, I would. If he told me to wish my father to the Devil and damn the consequences, I would.”

He watched the bay in contemplative silence.

“And what of you?” I asked. “Have you some lover you keep tucked away?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Uly, I have not taken a lover since you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do tell? No men at all?”

“Men si, lovers no,” he shrugged dismissively.

“Ah,” I said with the taint of sarcasm. “I have only had the one.”

He snorted derisively. “You jest. You, an avowed sodomite among so many, and only the one? You truly have not seduced that golden god I fought?” he asked quietly.

I grinned. “No. He is with the dark-haired one.”

I pointed. Striker was reclining across Pete’s lap.

“They have been together ten… no, eleven years now,” I said. “The Brethren of the Coast do not go about seducing one another’s matelots, else there would be very few of us indeed, and we would travel nowhere for all the dueling.”

He laughed. I had forgotten what a rich, musical sound it was.

“So just the one?” he asked as he sobered. “How did he win you?”

His eyes had grown quite serious in the torchlight.

“We share a commonality of the spirit,” I said and shrugged.

I looked to Gaston and thought of how best to say it. He felt my gaze upon him and turned to me. I smiled, and so did he. His eyes were coals that warmed my heart, and I once again found myself filled with the ache of loving him. He stood and approached, and I heard Alonso sigh, most probably with frustration that our talk would be interrupted. But Gaston came and handed me a bottle, kissed me lightly on the cheek, and went back to the others. I wanted to jump atop him and smother him with kisses.

I took a pull on the bottle and handed it to Alonso.

I shrugged. “We saw one another and were mutually smitten.”

“I thought you said he does not favor men.” There was the hint of challenge in his tone.

My grin widened. “He does not favor men, he favors me.”

“So you feel you have found the love you sought,” he said sadly.

“Si, I feel that very deeply.”

“You left me because I could not love you… without discretion, did you not?” he asked carefully.

I wondered if I need say more.

I shrugged again. “That was the main thrust of it, si. I have since learned that… after my cousin… I am resentful… was resentful, of all those who came into my life before who… could not place me above the imagined sin or disgrace.”

He nodded thoughtfully, but it was something of a feint. I could not see his thoughts, but I could see his movements as if we were sparring.

He had changed so very little. I wondered at myself and what he saw.

“And if you were in Christendom somewhere with this Frenchman,”

he asked, “do you feel he would behave there as he does here?”

“Alonso,” I chided, “I well know it is different here.”

“Is that why you came to the West Indies?” he asked quickly.

I shook my head slowly and considered what I would say on that matter. “No. I came because my father would not allow me to kill that cousin, and I realized there might be merit in inheriting from him, though it will never occur. So when he wished for me to oversee the venture of a plantation, I agreed.”

“And then the Frenchman enticed you into becoming a pirate,” he said.

I grinned. “I was enamored of the idea before I met him.”

“And then you were enamored enough of him to follow him anywhere,” he said with a trace of anger. He sighed and shook his head.

“I am sorry. I am somewhat bitter still over your leavetaking. I… Uly, I would have gone elsewhere with you. You were correct, you would have lived as a servant here; that is all that would have been tolerated, and you would have been miserable. I was wrong to ask it of you. But, it need not have…”

He shook his head irritably this time and met my eyes. “I miss you. I miss the life we had. I am… miserable.”

His confession cut deep, well past any armor about my heart that time and the new understandings of our relationship had built. I had given him more than two years of my life quite happily once.

“I am sorry, Alonso. I…” would not lie.

I smiled sadly and pushed myself up to sit on the crenelation of the wall. “Let us talk freely this night. You will not reclaim me, and it is likely we will not see each other again. I would not have us harbor confusion as to motive or… matters of the heart.”

He nodded thoughtfully, and the tension left him in a prolonged sigh. He came a little closer and joined me in sitting on the wall.

“Why did you leave?” he asked. “Were you so truly unhappy with what we had? Did I give you great misery?”

Everything I had said to Gaston about him tumbled through my head, and I suppressed a grim smile. I would not speak that freely. Yet there were things I realized Alonso had never really known.

“When I left my father’s house… I carried a wound, a deep festering wound, that even now is not fully healed,” I said carefully.

“Your cousin?”

“Si,” I sighed.

I struggled to remember what precisely I had told Alonso about that matter. I had not discussed it with any lover I took prior to him, but I had spoken to him of it; however, my telling him of it had been under the aegis of strong drink, and I did not remember it well and wondered if he did, either.

I shrugged. “I am not sure what I told you. So I will tell you this now. My second cousin, Shane, with whom I first learned of love, reviled being a man-lover and blamed me for his lust. He abused me often and took me by force on many occasions.”

“I do not recall you putting it so bluntly,” Alonso said.

I smiled. “I doubt I did. I have only learned to speak of it of late. I…

You were the first I told. And as I believe you know, you were the first I allowed to take me after him. Not that I allowed him… though.”

I shook my head at my folly in feeling the need to explain that.

“I did not believe you,” he said quietly.

“What?” I asked with more surprise than rancor.

“I did not believe you,” he shrugged apologetically. “I am sorry. I thought… Many claim a lack of experience and…” He met my eyes sadly.

“Things occur when one is intoxicated that we wish not to remember.

I thought you paid me honor by insisting upon it, that I was the first since the tragedy had befallen you. Though, damn it Uly, I did not truly understand that, either.”

“What did you think had occurred?” I asked.