Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (49 page)

“I have not behaved in that manner before,” he whispered. “Never.”

His eyes were imploring.

I guessed his meaning, but I asked anyway. “Flirtatiously?”

He nodded. He was studying me intently. His hand darted out and caressed my cheek. It was as quickly gone, and his gaze was tinged with guilt as it dropped from mine.

“Come now,” I whispered. “Let us go and talk. I do not want to be here when the others wake.”

He nodded again and we found the lee of the ship and relieved ourselves. Without us in their way, Pete and Striker had sprawled across the entirety of the alcove. I prodded both of them gently until they rolled on top of each other with sleepy curses. Then I pulled Gaston down to lie with me. We cuddled together, our noses touching.

“My memory is broken,” he sighed, “like that of a dream. Please tell me what you saw.”

I whispered the entire chain of events as best I could recall them. He closed his eyes and occasionally swore to himself. I rubbed his back and kissed his nose.

He was silent for a long time after I finished. We lay there and listened to the ship waking about us. Over Gaston’s shoulder, I saw Pete smile when he saw us together. I was sure that they had all thought, as the Bard had, that we had quarreled. None would know the truth, as I had almost been blind to it myself. None could know the truth. In the future, I would have to do so much better by him.

“It is like a horse,” Gaston whispered. He smiled weakly when I looked to him again. “I know you are an excellent horseman, yet…”

“You know no such thing,” I grinned. “You have never seen me ride.”

“I have heard you speak of the animals, and I see how you apply yourself to things you enjoy. You are an excellent horseman, whereas I am not.”

“Thank you, but…”

His fingers found my lips. “I am not fond of them and have little experience with them. I am making an allegory. Be quiet.”

I chuckled and nodded.

“My thoughts... emotions, my mind, is like a big unruly horse which I ride. Most of the time,” he stressed this and I nodded. “I have the reins well in hand and go where I wish. But there are times when it is a skittish creature; and it takes the bit in its teeth and runs where it will

– and all I can do is hold on. And there are times when I am so tired… of always having to tell it where to go... that I wish to simply drop the reins and let it wander about. But that can be dangerous, for without me there to guide it, the animal becomes more and more prone to starting at nothing and running wild. I am not sure, Will, but I believe I tried to hand the reins to you last night for a time. You were so very angry at me. I wanted to make you happy, and I could not do it as I was.”

I was stunned, and then deeply touched. I pulled him tighter.

“Gaston, I do not want you to be other than what you are, despite how selfishly I may behave. I will do better next time, I swear it. I am sorry I was such a fool in so many ways. You said a thing which…

was something I have heard before. The irony was that you meant the opposite of how it had been wielded against me in the past. But it mattered little to my heart. All my heart saw was that it was being wielded against me at all. And I do not wish to live in fear of that particular blade any longer. At every step of my life, I have been told that my desires are wrong. It cuts worse when it comes from those I desire and… who I have reason to believe desire me. Though throwing you in with the others is not truly fair, as I do not think you desire me, nor do I think you wish to censure me for desiring you.”

“Non,” he assured me. “I am flattered. And as for I not desiring you… Will, I do not know. As I have said, I am not motivated by desire, though apparently I did desire you last night in some fashion. Or rather my horse did.” He frowned. “I sometimes wonder if our beings are like Plato’s cave. Am I the true thing in the sun, and the face I show the world while mad merely the shadow on the wall?”

The idea was intriguing and I puzzled on it. “Perhaps we all are. If it is the case, I would very much like to slip my bonds and turn about in my chair, so that I could see you in the light.”

“I do not think I am a pretty thing in the light.”

“I do not feel that I am either. If I envision my soul, it is a misshapen thing.”

“I want to see it. I do not believe that an ugly thing could cast so fine a shadow.”

My eyes were moist and my heart somewhere in my throat. “You are making me ache again.”

“Do you wish to kill something?” he grinned.

“Non, the other one.”

Later, after a pleasant morning thinking on his words, I told him,

“You know, you cannot fall from that horse of yours.”

“And why is that?”

“You are a centaur. It is part of you.”

He smiled. “I will attempt to remember that the next time it bolts.”

“And perhaps,” I added. “We can endeavor to convince your horse body to stay with mine, and instead of there being reins to be passed about or dropped, we could simply hold hands and thus relieve your skittishness.”

He took my hand, and his face softened as he watched the waves with a hopeful smile. In his demeanor, I recognized a little of the child that had crawled into my arms this morning. I decided the shadows he cast when he was mad were just different facets of him, shown in a very harsh light.

Two days later, we sighted prey. She was a flute, a three-masted Dutch cargo vessel. This one was flying a Spanish flag, sitting heavy in the water, and sailing for Cuba as fast as she could manage in a reaching wind, which is to say she was beating a course that crossed our own. When she spotted us, she turned and ran downwind. The Bard seemed to think this was amusing. As I saw how quickly we gained on her, I understood his reasoning.

After a month of boredom, the excitement was intoxicating. The buccaneers ringed the deck, whooping and shouting imprecations, knowing their howling was carried with the wind to the fleeing vessel.

They were a pack of wolves, or rather a single entity, a shark, closing in for the kill.

I stood well out of the way in our alcove, and watched it all with wonder. I had girded myself for battle in both spirit and the flesh dozens of times, but never with so many others. I found Gaston regarding me with amusement.

“We will be some of the first on board.” With his broken voice, he had to strain to be heard over the mob.

I nodded. After years of working with Alonso, I fully expected my matelot to proceed to reiterate everything he had ever told me about boarding. Gaston said nothing. He was an island of silent repose in the sea of battle-lust about us, readying weapons. I embraced him. He returned it without comment.

Striker and Pete joined us, and we made room for them to prepare themselves.

As boarders, we would not carry muskets, so we left them wrapped along the wall. We would, however, need every other weapon we had. I loaded all four of my pistols and festooned them about my baldric and belt, along with a cutlass, rapier and four dirks. I offered Pete my extra rapier, but he said he would have to think too much about it, and it was best to go with what he knew. In addition to pistols and cutlasses, he carried axes. I pitied the Spaniard who faced him.

Once I was prepared, I checked the position of our quarry. She was much closer than before, but there was still a little time. Some of the howling had died down as Bradley moved about organizing everyone.

Striker paused before going to join him, and addressed me.

“Do not kill anyone with earrings,” he said as if it were some profundity.

“Unless They Be A Spaniard,” Pete added. “Or A Man Ya Hate.”

“As always in battle, it is good to be loved, if not by the Gods, then by your fellow man,” I said. They laughed and left us alone for a moment.

Gaston was reapplying his mask. He studied my face, and then offered a gob of paint. I grinned and let him apply it. The substance felt odd around my eyes, but he seemed pleased with the result.

We joined the other boarders crouching amidship behind the mast.

Pete and Striker were cats ready to pounce. They exuded fire and danger, and the looks between them were full of challenge, as if this were some game that could be won. Then they kissed as if it were their last. I glanced at Gaston and saw that he had been watching them too.

He took my hand and squeezed. I kissed his cheek. To my amazement, he grabbed my head and kissed my lips. The moment was shattered by gunfire.

As we had closed in from behind, the flute had tried to turn and bring her few cannon to bear. Liam and the musketeers were now shooting the Spanish gunners, while the Bard masterfully got us behind her again. All the while we were dropping sail so we did not ram her.

In the final yards, the musketeers volleyed back while we boarders, twenty of us in all, worked our way up the middle of the sloop to the bow. Men well-used to the task grappled us to the flute’s stern, while the muskets kept the Spaniards at bay. Our carpenter and another man drove a wedge behind the flute’s rudder. She was now helpless in the water, with the North Wind a giant leech on her arse.

To my left, Cudro led his men up a rope to the stern castle. Gaston and I followed Striker and Pete up an axe ladder they had laid into the flute’s flank. I was initially concerned about this method of boarding, but the battle lust was upon me; and when it was time, I cared not that I was clambering up the back of axe heads with a knife in my teeth and a pistol in each hand.

As we were the first aboard, the field was still clear, and the enemy was obligingly over there as opposed to being over here. I heard a shot whiz by my head, as I fired both pistols and saw the shots strike true. I dropped the guns and pulled my second set.

Cudro’s men were attacking the quarterdeck from above, while we attacked below. Some of the Spaniards ran for the bow. Gaston gave chase, staying well wide of the oil and broken glass the flute’s crew had spread about. I began to follow; but then Pete crashed into me, sending us both sprawling over one of the cannon. I saw what he had been diving away from: an officer with a rapier. Pete now knew very well not to fence with a cutlass.

There were too many earrings around to get a clean shot. I tossed Pete my pistols, even as I glanced about for Gaston. My matelot was way up the ship. I yelled at Pete to help him, but Pete had rolled away and was gone. Julio and Davey heard me, and I was relieved to see them sprinting to follow Gaston as I drew my sword and stood.

The officer regarded me with a desperate arrogance that is unique to wolves. He would die: he knew it. His only goal was to take as many of us with him as he could. I did not expect the exchange to last long.

I was correct. He rushed me with a lack of caution. As I had much to lose, I retreated before him, only too late feeling the pain in my feet and understanding what it meant. He grinned as I slid on glass and oil.

Unfortunately for him, pain does not deter my ability to fight. It merely makes me angry.

I pressed the attack and dove past his defenses, which were competent but not gifted. I ran him through and pulled my blade free.

I was looking about for another target before he slumped. There were none; the damn ship had not been military, and had not carried much beyond her sailors.

I spied Bradley, and he crossed to me to snap, “Get your loose cannon!”

I regarded him with incomprehension, until he pointed toward the forecastle. I turned. Gaston was hacking away at something. Despite the pain in my feet, I ran.

When I reached him, his eyes were filled with the glittering danger they had held when he pulled the knife on me. He was breathing heavily. There were dead bodies at his feet. I did not know what to say.

“He’s mad!” Davey howled. He was hanging from the rigging, presumably in order to stay as far from Gaston as possible. Julio stood nearby, a look of horror on his handsome face.

“He just hacked them up,” Davey continued. “There were three of them. One of the heads went overboard.”

“You are not helping,” I told him. Gaston was not looking at us.

“Gaston!”

He regarded me with annoyance.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He had a whip,” he snarled.

I looked at the pile of bodies. There was indeed a severed arm with a cat in its hand. I thought of the force necessary to sever limbs even with a cutlass, not to mention heads.

“You are bleeding,” Gaston said.

I looked back to him. He was no longer angry. He appeared concerned. I looked down at my feet. The world spun. I truly have no stomach for the sight of my own blood. There was a good amount of it.

A minute later, I found myself sitting with Gaston’s back pressed to my chest, and my right leg curled up and around him so that my foot was in his lap.

“This will hurt,” he said. “Bite something.”

I decided he would not appreciate my teeth in his neck, so I bit his baldric where it passed over his shoulder. He pulled a sliver of glass free. It hurt so that my bowels clenched and I left teeth marks in the leather. It did not stop there. Shortly I was not sure which was worse: his probing about to find more glass, or the pain that occurred when he located a piece.

Pete arrived in the midst of this and returned all of my pistols to me, and the ones Gaston had dropped to him. He watched for a time.

“Told Ya Bout The Glass, Didn’tHe?”

“Aye,” I hissed.

Gaston glared at him. He had indeed lectured me about the trick of spreading glass on a deck, and a number of other things the Spanish did to try and keep us at bay.

Pete looked about and spied Gaston’s earlier handiwork. “Argh. I Will Not Dig In That Mess For Gold. A Man’sInnards. They Burn.”

“We will see to it,” I hissed.

“Nay. When Ya Can Move, Captin Needs Ya.” He jerked his thumb down the ship. Things were calm. There were several prisoners tied to the main mast. Cleghorn was treating other injured buccaneers.

“For what?” I asked.

“Interogatin. Ya Speak Spaniard.”

“So do I,” Julio said from nearby.

I sighed and nodded happily. I do not mind torturing men on occasion, when it is warranted; but, perversely, not while I am in pain.