Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (85 page)

Pete’s eyes narrowed in a frown, and then he nodded with solemn understanding. “Ya Be Right. ’E Lives Yet. An’ Cause O’ This, ’E Live Longer.”

“Aye, perhaps it is better that it occurred as it did: with mostly untrained ambushers in a field. If it had been in the taking of a fortress, they would have aimed cannon at him, or at least aimed better.”

“True That. Still Wish ’EDidna’ Ave Ta Lose The Arm.”

“Aye, of course you do not, but you are not to blame.”

He nodded sincerely. “Aye.” He looked to me with solemn eyes.

“ThankYa.”

I nodded, and did as he often did with Gaston and me. I leaned down and brushed a kiss on his temple and then another on Striker’s forehead. “Rest now.”

He nodded and smiled, and I took up the wrapped arm and left him.

Cudro was waiting on the quarterdeck steps. “Not sure if I should go in or not.”

I nodded. “Best that you did not: Pete needs time alone.”

We carefully salted the arm and wrapped it in oilcloth. Then, cradling this macabre bundle, I went in search of my matelot. I found him on the quarterdeck, in serious discussion with Farley. Alonso was beside them, asleep and oblivious to all.

“How is he?” I asked.

In response, Gaston raised Alonso’s eyelids and peered at the sightless eyeballs.

“There does not appear to be any swelling within the skull,” Farley said helpfully. “His eyes do not bulge and his ears do not seep, but he is unable to remain conscious.”

Gaston shrugged sadly. “All we can do is let him sleep and give him laudanum if he suffers. We cannot see what has occurred within his skull.” This last was said with annoyance.

“He could lie about comatose for days, or weeks…” Farley sighed.

My first thought was that Alonso would not trouble me whilst he lay about: I felt quite the bastard. I sighed. “Will you need help caring for him?”

Gaston looked to me sharply, and then frowned with guilt.

“Nay,” Farley said. “I shall see to him.”

My matelot stood and thanked Farley, and we walked a short distance to the rail. I clutched my bundle tightly, strangely afraid it would fall over by accident and Pete would blame me forever.

“How is Pete?” Gaston asked.

I shrugged. “He will overcome his guilt in time.”

“Good,” Gaston said with a measured nod. “Can we return to the cabin?”

I studied him, and saw the strain about his eyes and mouth.

“Oui.” I led him there.

I handed the bundle to Pete, who tucked it protectively between himself and Striker, and then I gestured for Gaston to climb to the upper hammock. He stood where he had, rocking with the ship, and I knew he was already retreating from the world – feeling it safe to do so simply because I was leading him somewhere. By the time we were at last safely tucked into the nest beneath the ceiling, he had curled in on himself, and his eyes were full of the Child. After so many weeks of his sanity, I was actually surprised.

He began to examine my hands, feeling and testing every joint and crevice with first his fingers and then his tongue. I could imagine what he was thinking, and I did nothing to deter him, until at last he allowed himself to sleep with my right hand clutched tightly to his breast.

I lay there for a long time, alternately cursing and wondering at the Gods’ fine sense of irony.

Seventy-Nine

I woke to golden light from a nightmare involving Gaston’s bone saw, and surmised by how un-rested I felt that it was evening and not the following morning. My stomach roiled with hunger at the tantalizing smells of beef and pineapple, and I wondered if we had water about or if I must fetch some. Gaston slept like a babe in my arms, and I did not wish to disturb him by moving, but my cock was quite insistent that it be drained in a manner that did not require his love or person. I climbed carefully down from the upper hammock – so as not to wake him, and because I was unfamiliar with the hand and toe holds – and relieved myself through the open window; my stream arcing and glittering in salute to the setting sun.

Reluctant to emerge from the cave of pleasant and plebian thoughts of the body, I looked down at Striker and found myself dumped unceremoniously into the light. He was awake. Pete snored quietly beside him, but Striker lay still with his eyes open, gazing up at me. I dropped to kneel at his side, and quickly moved to lean over him, as he seemed desperate to follow me with his gaze, but he appeared to only wish to move his eyes. His apparent fear of movement minded me of floating upon the water: how, when unfamiliar with it, I ever felt the need to remain motionless lest I get dunked beneath the waves. Remembering the rolling, constant pain of my shoulder wound, I thought it likely he was afraid of being pulled beneath waves of a different sort.

“How are you?” I asked, once my head was directly over his so he only need look up.

“Hurts… everywhere,” he whispered, as if it were a curious thing and not a matter requiring immediate attention.

Despite corroborating my thoughts on his reason for stillness, he did not look as a man in pain often does. His eyes were wide open and not drooping, and his color was good. Still, I quickly prepared a small draught of laudanum for him, and gingerly raised his head to dribble it past his lips.

“I thought I was dead,” he whispered slowly when I returned to gazing down at him. “I saw them fire. There were so many. It seemed they were all coming for me. Like demons sent from Hell. I thought, this is it: this is how you will die, you damn fool. And then when I woke, I thought we were imprisoned.”

I smiled and caressed his cheek. “Nay, only upon our own ship. It is not your day to die.”

He awarded me a weak smile. “Thank God for that. And Gaston. How am I?”

I sighed, and tried to keep the grimace from my face. I lightly touched the bandage of each wound as I spoke of it. “You have a wound, here, like the one I had from Christine; and a broken rib and bruised organ here; and a grazed hip; and…” I sighed again, and gently raised his maimed arm so that he could see the stump.

He gazed for a time with curiosity and little comprehension at the lump of bandage around and beneath his right elbow, and then his eyes finally widened in understanding.

“Oh,” he said, and turned his gaze to the ceiling before, giving a choked huff of amusement. “I always knew I’d lose something in the end.

But the right. Damn.”

I lowered his arm and he did not try to move it.

He tried to look to Pete without turning his head. “How is he?”

“Nearly overwhelmed with grief and guilt,” I said.

“Poor bugger,” Striker breathed as tears filled his eyes. “It wasn’t his fault. He tried. I should’ve…”

I moved so that he could only meet my gaze, and admonished, “Do not you start.”

He risked a little nod, but his words were defiant. “My pride brought me to this.”

I snorted. “Damn it, Striker. What are we without pride? We are merely sheep to be shorn by any with shears. If you lose yourself to this, then your pride will have brought you to a pitiful end. It has happened by fate or providence, and now you must go on for yourself and for those you love and who love you.”

I knew my words to be strong; but I felt that, as of yet, he floated in a curious state of grace above the pain and true dismay and grief; and thus he might actually hear me now, and be able to recall all I said later, when it would do some good.

I could see the drug tugging at his eyes, beginning to pull him away but not yet under. He nodded without fear for the pain. I roused Pete, who blinked once in confusion and then rolled quickly to his knees to shoulder me aside and peer down at his matelot.

I retreated back to our new hammock, and found a pair of serene green eyes waiting for me. I pulled him to me, and he returned my embrace with equal fervor. We held one another for a time, and I tried not to listen to the quiet whispers from below.

“How are we?” I at last felt compelled to whisper: I could not see his face.“Better than before,” he breathed in my ear.

“We have not slept long.” I shrugged awkwardly. “Unless this is the next day.”

“I think not,” he sighed. “I kept envisioning it was you. I could not drive the image away.”

“I understand.”

“If that ever needs to be done… I do not think I will be able to.

Anything else, I feel I could do for you, but that…”

“Hush,” I said, as my mind’s eye attempted to show me the image his words invoked. I kept my gaze steadfastly on the small pot of salve wedged in between the beams beyond his shoulder. We would need to replace it with our own.

“I do not even wish to think of it.”

I felt him nod.

The cabin door opened, and I heard steps and then a surprised, “Ah, you’re awake,” from Cudro.

“Somewhat,” Striker said, almost too quietly for me to hear.

Gaston and I released one another, and I turned and found I could not see below without climbing to the edge. The previous occupants had covered our new hammock with a thin blanket for privacy: a thing I had noticed before, but now appreciated fully.

Cudro was kneeling beside the mattress. “I’ve been to see Morgan and the others. They wished to see you, but I told them to wait until tomorrow.”

“Good,” Pete said. His eyes were thick and swollen, but he appeared calm.

“The men would see you, too,” Cudro said. “They worry. But you don’t look ready to see them.”

“Nay,” Striker said with a weak smile. “Tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” Gaston intoned, and climbed over me and down. “He will not leave this cabin. If he feels well enough, they can come in small numbers and give their regards.”

“Aye, that was what I was thinking,” Cudro agreed quickly.

“Election,” Striker said as Gaston nudged Pete away and began to examine the bandages.

“No hurry,” Cudro chided. “And they should hear it from you, after they see you’ll live.”

“Between you and me, then,” Striker said with a wry smile. “You’re captain.”

Cudro chuckled. “Aye, sir.”

“How many did we lose?” Striker asked.

“Just one,” Cudro said, and told him of all he had missed.

“It is a damn shame about the man lost,” Striker said with drug-borne amusement, “and all the wounded, but at least we brought home meat. With that, my command will surely be judged successful and worthy.”

Even though we had not the drug to buoy us, we laughed with him in genuine pleasure that he could jest.

“Morgan has decided that we all sail for Savona the day after tomorrow,” Cudro said when our humor abated. “Tomorrow, he will lead a party of men ashore to teach the Spaniards a lesson.”

This set us laughing again. But I thought of the numbers I had seen, and then the numbers of their wounded.

“They already learned their lesson,” I spat.

Cudro chuckled. “Aye, but you know Morgan.”

“Sadly,” I sighed.

Cudro stood. “I’ll send word that you’re speaking, and might be up to meeting with them tomorrow.” Then he eyed the rest of us. “There’s roast beef if you’re hungry. It’s not horse, I swear.”

He left us chuckling; and I climbed down, and after confirming that all save Striker were as famished as I, went to collect food and water.

Cudro was busy telling the men he had spoken with Striker, and that the man would probably feel ready to see them once we were at sea tomorrow. This seemed to cheer them.

A concerned Farley crossed my path as I returned to the cabin with a pineapple, a water bottle, and several hunks of beef. As I had already stuffed meat in my mouth, I motioned for him to follow, and he happily joined us in the cabin, where Gaston told him of Striker’s wounds.

“Have you heard anything about the others?” Gaston asked.

“Aye,” Striker added weakly.

Farley sighed. “One of the men died – the one with the abdominal wound. The others were apparently treatable within the knowledge of medicine their surgeons possessed.”

I chuckled quietly around a mouthful of beef. He was beginning to sound like my matelot.

“In all fairness, though,” Farley continued. “From what I heard of the abdominal wound, his bowels were perforated.”

Gaston sighed and nodded. “We could not have saved him, then.”

“No others on the Queen?” Striker asked with a frown of difficult thought.

“Only Alonso,” I said. “And how is he?”

“Still unconscious,” Farley sighed.

“Head wound,” Gaston told Striker.

“Damn,” Striker said. “I am thankful I still have my wits about me.”

He frowned again, and smiled brightly. “At least, I think I do.”

“You are drugged,” Gaston reminded him. “So that you might sleep.”

At that admonishment, we withdrew and left Striker with his matelot and the laudanum.

Striker did indeed sleep through the night, despite Cudro’s suggesting the musicians play, and thus the entire ship’s company making merry on deck even though there was not a drop of rum to be had. Gaston and I remained on watch throughout the night: sitting and talking quietly of stars with some of the sailors, after all had calmed and the deck reverberated with snores and not the pounding of dancing feet.

As the first light glowed along the horizon, we woke the Bard and Cudro, and I moved our things to our new nest while Gaston saw to his patient –

who was awake and in need of another dose. Then we snuggled together and slept. I did not dream of bone saws, and Gaston did not sleep like one dead.

We woke in the afternoon to a knock upon the door, and then Cudro ushered Morgan and Bradley into the little room.

I rolled and peered over the edge in time to come face to face with Morgan, who was stooping only slightly and eyeing the room with disdain.

“How many men sleep here?” he asked.

“All the ship’s owners,” I said coldly.

“Oh,” he sniffed. “You should get a bigger ship.”

I did not say the obvious, or anything else that came to my tongue, such as my wry concern that, if we did, we could not dare allow him to host parties upon it.

Pete had propped a bag behind Striker so he might view his guests.

Bradley had already knelt beside the mattress; and Morgan lowered himself to the edge of Cudro’s hammock to join in their conversation. I cursed that, as now I could only see the top of his hat.