Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (67 page)

I could scarcely imagine it; and worse, I would have been one of those standing there hoping I could dodge when the shot came, as I could not swim at all. I looked to Gaston and whispered in French, “Can you swim?”

He nodded grimly.

I sighed. “I cannot.” I could picture us in a similar situation, and the idea of it chilled me to the bone.

“Not that that scenario is likely,” I said more for my benefit than his. Still I could think of a dozen others wherein we would be separated under dire circumstances, and one would die and the other would not.

“You will learn to swim,” he said flatly. “If I had to learn to ride, you will learn to swim.”

I looked back to the others. “So how many of the men who could not swim survived?”

“All o’ us at this table, an’ five others,” Liam said.

I frowned with confusion.

He shrugged. “I said they could na’ aim worth a damn. And they have these cheap muskets. Pistols did damage as they always do. But they were afraid o’ us, as they weren’t fightin’ men, and so they were standin’ away; and then they got distracted by the others. I got grazed in the head. Otter ’ad a ball hit ’is leg. It missed the bone. Then he got cut by one of them with a sword. The Spanish captain stabbed Cleghorn and Michaels, and they went down and he didn’t look at ’em again. The Bard took a pistol ball in the shoulder. We lost more men to cutlasses in the fightin’ that came after.”

The Bard was regarding us with the drunken version of his usual sardonic smirk. “We heard you boys did not have quite as hard a time.”

“Have you heard the entire tale or merely the gist of it?” I asked.

“The whole tale,” Liam said.

“Than I shall not bore you,” I said. “Aye, it was easy compared to what you all faced, though half the men who left the galleon that morning are not here today. Of course, those of us who did not get captured or eaten by sharks are not even wounded.”

“Then what the devil happened to Cudro?” the Bard asked.

Cudro swore in Dutch, and I bit my lip.

“Fine, tell them,” Cudro rumbled.

I was undecided as to where to begin.

“We fought,” Gaston said and the others strained to hear him over the noise of the tavern.

“They fought,” I said, loudly enough for them to hear.

Everyone, including our companions at the other table, looked incredulously from the big Dutchman to Gaston and back again.

The Bard started laughing. “Did you hit him?”

Cudro glared and then it slowly crumbled into a smile. “Not even once.”

I glanced at Gaston; he was as surprised as I at this confession.

Cudro looked to him and raised his mug in silent toast. My matelot snorted with amusement, and nodded respectfully in return. I was dismayed at this apparent peacemaking, as I still did not like the Dutchman.

Cleghorn and Michaels were studying Gaston with concern; and I wondered at it, until I remembered the last they had seen of him had been while he was mad. I was sure the surgeon in particular thought my matelot quite dangerous, as he had been threatened by him over bleeding me, seen him in his madness, and now heard that he beat Cudro bloody without explanation. I did not know if I should attempt to mitigate his opinion or not, as I was not fond of Cleghorn either.

“What were you all planning?” the Bard asked. “We are destitute and need money. All of our men need new weapons. The taverns alone will be selling them off as bondsmen, once they run out of credit and have spent all the money we got from the smuggler’s cargo, which was not much. There’s talk of taking this new ship out after the Galleons; but they should sail in a month, and Bradley has no heart for it.”

“Well, we were not sure as to what had happened to all of you or the North Wind until today,” I said. “Striker wanted to give you all time to return if you did, which thankfully you have. Whether you did or did not return, there was talk of buying a ship, depending on the disposition of all and whether one would become available.”

The Bard sighed. “This new ship is English-made and not a Spanish tub, but she’s still a damn barge compared to the sloop. She can sail. I am not in the best shape to sail her, though, and most of my able men are dead, as they were sailors and not fighters.”

“Would Bradley let someone else take her out?”

“She’s a prize,” the Bard said. “We all bled for her, so she’s ours, not his.”We looked toward the wall of backs surrounding the table with Morgan, Bradley and Striker.

“Do you think Striker would be willing?” the Bard asked. “The men will sail with him.”

“It would actually be an election, then?” I asked.

Gaston nodded.

“If Striker is captain, I want to be quartermaster,” Cudro leaned over to say.

“Quartermaster?” Liam scoffed and gave him an incredulous look.

“Ya can’t bloody well walk.”

“I’ll heal up by the time we provision. If it’s not me, then who? Pete cannot, as no one will stand for the captain and quartermaster being matelots. No one will vote for him,” he pointed at Gaston, “even if he is the best. I mean no offense,” Cudro added quickly. Gaston shrugged.

Cudro pointed at me. “You are not a possibility as you do not know a damn thing.” I frowned at his assessment of my knowledge, but he was correct. We shrugged. “And so that leaves Hastings or maybe someone you don’t know. And I know more men looking to sail,” Cudro said.

I was amazed at the politicking, though I supposed it was to be expected. I did not favor Cudro being quartermaster or having a large voting block of the crew, but he made several good points. And if it came to a fight, I knew four men who could take him in a duel; five if I counted Julio, and seven if it started with muskets.

Thinking of Julio, I regarded him with raised eyebrow. He shook his head sadly and leaned closer to say, “You are too kind, my friend. I am a maroon; they will never accept me.”

I rolled my eyes with exasperation, and he smiled.

“Then it may be assumed we have a plan, that is if Striker is willing.”

I grinned. There were nods all around. I fixed my gaze on the Bard. “Can you sail?”

He shrugged and winced, as he had forgotten his shoulder due to the beer. “I can, but I can’t man the whip staff or the rigging. I’d have difficulty with a sextant at the moment. Damn it, and I always fancy I’m the one who is safest.”

“May we assume you can orchestrate and teach?” I asked. He nodded.

I was thinking of myself, but I did not wish to be tied to the ship in battle. I needed to be with Gaston. I looked over our number and spied Tom. I smiled.

“I think I may have an apprentice for you.”

“You?” he asked.

“Nay, I fight and stay with Gaston, though I have been learning what I can and am willing to learn more. Nay, I meant Tom over yonder.” I pointed, and Tom looked surprised.

“Do not know him,” the Bard sighed. “Is he quick?”

“He’s literate.”

The Bard snorted derisively. “You can teach a pig to read.”

I disagreed, and I forced myself not to look at Davey. “Tom is smart enough.”

“The blond one, not the others, correct?” the Bard asked quietly.

Dickey and Belfry were sitting next to Tom, and they were all looking expectantly our way. “Aye, aye, the other two are opening a haberdashery.”

The Bard fell upon the table in the throes of laughter.

Tom had left his seat and come to stand between the Bard and myself.

“Truly?” he asked, and eyed the laughing master of sail with concern.

“Aye,” the Bard recovered enough to say. They introduced themselves, and Tom squatted beside him to talk.

Cudro interrupted my listening to them. “Weapons.”

I sighed and looked to Liam.

The Scotsman shrugged. “Otter and I have ours, an’ there be three other good pieces, twenty pistols, an’ most o’ the men kept their steel.”

“If he knows we’re sailing for prey, and someone will offer surety for it, then the gunsmith will offer credit,” Cudro said.

Gaston sighed. “I will speak to him in the morning.”

“’E will na’ ’ave enough good pieces on hand,” Liam said.

“Then we will make do,” I said.

There were nods all around, and then everyone began to talk in clumps. Striker and Pete joined us. Pete was unable to stand, and knelt on the floor. Striker stood swaying unsteadily. He patted my head several times, and appeared on the verge of speech. I smiled at him kindly. I did not think this a good time to tell him of his future.

I looked to the Bard and Liam. “Where are you sleeping?”

“The ship,” all who had come with them answered in unison, with the exception of Cleghorn. He mentioned going home as he stood, and I distantly remembered Striker saying that the surgeon had a wife.

“Can you make it there?” I asked. They nodded. “Then we will meet you there on the morrow.”

We collected our little band and staggered, some of us from the weight of those who could not walk, through the streets to our rented abode. When we arrived, Rachel’s head appeared in the doorway to the servant’s quarters, and she politely inquired, “Do you require anything?”

“Nay, we’ve been drunk before,” I told her. Striker seemed to think this very funny, and he doubled over with laughter and damn near dropped both of us into the mud. With Julio and Davey’s help, we were able to drag Pete and Striker up the stairs to their room. Then Davey told me which room they had set aside for us, and Gaston and I retrieved our bags from below and retired to it.

I was delighted to find a row of corked onion bottles filled with clean water. Apparently Rachel had followed our instructions as to preparing drinking water. Gaston lit a candle, closed the door, and opened the window. I passed him a bottle, and we looked about. The room was empty, save for the chests I had brought from England and a single wide and sturdy hammock tied to four hooks on the wall, so it was as we preferred: more a suspended bed than a bag of netting.

“I feel filthy and this room is very clean,” Gaston said.

I nodded. I thought of what I wished to do if given the opportunity tonight. I did not want to do any of it while we both were stinking and covered in hog fat.

“There’s a tub in the yard.”

We were down the stairs a moment later. Rachel’s head appeared in her window, beckoned no doubt by the lamp we had brought and the sound of water being bailed from the cistern into the tub in the middle of the night. Once she realized what we were about, she gave us a stern warning about not touching Pete’s pies, which were cooling in front of the cookhouse. With great difficulty I suppressed the urge to say, “Yes, ma’am,” before she disappeared from sight, leaving us standing like two scolded boys in the yard.

Gaston regarded the closed window with horror and then glared at me.“Are you sure she was such a good idea?”

“Not at the moment, non. I am amazed Pete has not killed her yet.”

I doffed my clothing. After checking to see if anyone was spying from the windows, Gaston joined me. We scraped off the muck and bathed, making part of the yard quite muddy in the process. I became interested, or rather I should say my manhood did, at the sight of Gaston’s nakedness. When he noticed this, he doused me with a bucket of water; and we proceeded to chase each other around the yard in the dark with more of the same. Rachel, of course, appeared in the window again to tell us to quiet down. Gaston immediately hid behind me, and I hid behind a bucket; or at least, the part of me that had started the commotion in the first place did. She heaved a truly exasperated sigh and left us again.

“If she is mean to me, she goes,” Gaston whispered in a well-enunciated imitation of Pete. I began to laugh, and he tickled me mercilessly; and we ended up rolling about in the mud and were forced to start the whole process over again.

Sometime later, we slipped into the house and back to our room. I could not interpret his expression as he turned up the lamp. I had been aroused by the sight of him in the shadows of the yard, but now I found myself fascinated in the flickering lamplight. I was possessed of a very great need to do more than look. I wished to explore with my eyes and fingers in tandem, as I had not been able to in our trysts in the dark.

Only one small thing would make the possibility better. I realized that with my chests here, I had even that.

“Lie down,” I whispered with a grin.

He had been surprisingly relaxed while cavorting about in the yard; but now he sobered and tensed. He flushed a little, and his eyes began to fill with refusal and guilt.

“Oh, come now,” I whispered. “Why not tonight?”

He pointed to the lamp and then my fully aroused member.

“I wish for the light, and as for this, he is attached to me, and though he may occasionally think for himself, he is incapable of going anywhere without my aid.”

Gaston sat on the hammock, and the new ropes creaked a bit.

He tested the bounce a little, like a nervous young swain. I turned to rummage in the trunks to hide my smile. I found the small, carefully-packed bottle I sought and turned back to him. He was watching me with open regard.

“You are not revolting,” he whispered, as if it was a curious thing to him, and I supposed it was.

“Thank you, I am grateful to hear it. And neither are you.”

He sighed and lay back on the hammock with a grin. “The Fates must despise me, to saddle me with a matelot with such poor eyesight and judgment.”

“And the angels must adore me, to bless me with a matelot who is so very humble.” I joined him on the hammock and waved the bottle over his eyes.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Oil. Scented oil.”

He gave me a guarded frown. “And what do you intend to do with that?” He glanced at my manhood again.

“I am going to anoint you with it. This is much better than hog’s fat.”

I pulled the stopper and waved it under his nose. The scent of almonds wafted between us.

He nodded agreeably at the smell, and then his eyes narrowed. “And then what?”

“Nothing. I just wish to explore you in the light. You will lie there and enjoy it. Now roll on your belly.”

After a little hesitation, he rolled onto his stomach. I started on his scalp, and massaged my way down his neck, shoulders and arms, even out to his fingers. Then I returned to his back and thus caressed my way over the entirety of his body, exploring and kneading until he glistened in the candlelight and lay limp and torpid. He tensed when I neared his buttocks, but relaxed after I smacked him for it. Some day I would slip between his cheeks and teach him to relax in other ways; but that would not happen if he did not learn to trust me now.