Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (103 page)

“Now what?” Striker asked Gaston with concern.

Gaston looked to me and I pointed at the last words I had written to Striker. He smiled glumly and said, “Will is very tired of being called a fool.”“I’m sorry, Will, for feeling that way about the matter,” Striker said.

“I truly am. I wish that I didn’t. I wouldn’t lose your friendship.”

I shook my head. I would not lose him as a friend either, yet… I wrote, We are still friends, but I am still angry. I will forgive you.

Striker grinned and teased hopefully, “But not just yet?”

I sighed. There were some things I was quite foolish about, and I ever thought far too much for my own good. I embraced him and he held me tightly with great relief.

They left us, and went into town with most of the men. We remained behind to watch over the fort and harbor as I had hoped.

Liam, Bones, Nickel, and oddly, Alonso, were to stay with us. I was not pleased about Alonso’s presence, but I supposed there was little that could be done for it; and I should speak with him, anyway.

As I expected, he seemed quite keen to speak to me as we approached. As he stood to greet us, I noted he was unarmed, and had removed his coat, perhaps to be more in fashion with the company he planned to keep. He had not shorn his hair or taken to wearing earrings as of yet, though.

Alonso bowed to Gaston, and asked, “Might I speak with… Will?” in English.

I was pleased he had deigned to use the name I had taken here, but I was displeased by his asking for me as he had.

Gaston’s eyes had narrowed. “I do not own him,” he said coolly.

“I meant no offense,” Alonso said with a graceful shrug.

I considered refusing to walk away with him, and taking the stance that anything he need say to me could be said before my matelot; but I knew he would not speak openly in front of Gaston, and I wanted to know his mind.

I left Gaston to talk to Liam, and I walked away down the wall with Alonso, clutching my paper, ink, and quill.

“I have been told that you have not been well,” Alonso said quietly in Castilian once we were well clear of the others. His tone implied that he knew far more than that.

I have heard you will sail with us, I wrote.

Alonso shrugged. “I have given it great consideration. As I told you that night, I have little to return to, and this way of life you lead, though rough, seems to offer many possibilities. Your captain, Striker, was telling me of this merchant company you are party to.”

I nodded and motioned for him to continue, as I sensed that that was not the entirety of his reason.

He glanced casually back the way we had come. “I am concerned for you. I have heard several things that alarmed me greatly.”

I sighed and wrote, Si, he is mad.

“Uly…” he began to chide.

I glared at him.

“Will,” he sighed. “What is this fascination you have for madmen?”

Though it was a question of merit, perhaps, I was not going to explore it with him. I shrugged and wrote, He is my matelot.

“For all of the differences we might have had, I never drew a blade on you,” he said.

True, I wrote. I would not have forgiven you.

“But you will forgive this man, this madman? Why, because he is mad?” He asked with frustration.

He thought me a fool, too. My newfound anger over that smoldered again, and I sighed. I shook my head and regarded the small amount of paper before me. I did not think a mound of it would suffice to contain all of the words I would have to spill in order to explain the matter to Alonso, or Striker, or any of them. So as there was no giving Alonso the information he supposedly sought, we might as well address the matter I was concerned with.

Do you think I will ever return to you? I wrote.

He was quiet for a time. “The last madman you loved, hanged himself,” he said carefully.

And you think I will return if he is gone? I wrote.

“It is a thing I have thought on,” he said after another pause. “I feel that there was much between us,” he added earnestly, “and that… I can change. I can address the matters that drove you away.”

I shook my head, as much from wonder as in refutation. How could he love me so, or rather, think that he did? Was this truth, or the desperation of a bored and lonely man?

I am flattered, truly, but do not sail for me, I wrote. The last was in plain blocked letters that I hoped appeared emphatic.

Alonso sighed. “No, no, Uly, I will not do it for you alone, but…” He leaned closer to me than I liked, so close I thought he might kiss me. “I will continue to hope.”

I sighed and gathered up my ink and walked back to Gaston.

Once there, I composed a lengthy paragraph. My matelot leaned on my shoulder curiously and read as I wrote.

He truly and sincerely still feels he loves me. I am baffled by it. I do not know if it is truth or desperation due to his recent circumstance. I have told him not to sail with us in hopes of gaining me, but I fear he is a fool about the matter, and though he might have other valid reasons, the hope that I will someday return to him is high upon his listing of them.

“Will I have to duel him someday?” Gaston asked uncomfortably.

Possibly, I wrote, or I will kill him due to annoyance.

I regarded him, gauging his mood, which seemed more sad and distant than jealous or angry.

If you feel at all jealous of him, I wrote, I will kill him now and be done with it.

Gaston’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “You would truly?”

I nodded solemnly. I was not exaggerating or lying, I would rather see Alonso dead, despite what I once felt for him, than have him come between Gaston and me again in any fashion.

“Do you feel he would strive to make mischief?” Gaston asked.

After careful thought, I shook my head. I had seen Alonso thwarted before in matters of romance, and he had taken it well enough unless there was other money in it; but then, he had not professed to harbor the depth of feelings he purportedly held for me for those others.

I chose a fresh sheet of paper and wrote in Castilian, If you do anything to come between Gaston and me, or cause us any harm or grief, I will kill you.

Gaston frowned at this, and I thought he could puzzle through most but not all of it. I wrote the same thing in French on the bottom of the other page I had been writing on. He nodded thoughtfully upon reading that. Then I delivered my note to Alonso, who had joined Bones and Nickel in perusing the harbor.

He frowned ever so slightly as he read it, and then looked up to regard me with grave eyes. “Do you truly feel this is necessary?” he asked softly in Castilian.

I shrugged and gave him a questioning cock of my head.

“I am not a fool,” he said. “I know you well enough. Once you feel you have great purpose about a matter, you will not be swayed. You are a very romantic soul, and you love this man, despite his madness, despite his scars, or perhaps because of them, and thus he rules your life. I see that.”

I did not like his choice of words, I knew him well, too, though: well enough to know he felt there was a caveat to that. I motioned for him to continue.

He frowned.

I smirked.

He sighed. “You will not be swayed until you grow bored,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

I snorted and left him.

I wrote for Gaston, He is content to wait us out. He feels it will not last.“Then he is a fool,” Gaston said coldly.

I kissed him.

“And you are not a fool,” he added sweetly when our lips parted.

There were equal parts sadness and resolve in his eyes.

My heart ached, and I held him and nuzzled his neck.

“Ah,” Liam said from nearby, “Thar ya go agin. Ya two will ever be at it.” Gaston grinned, and asked him, “Do you need us before dark?”

Liam shook his head. “Go on.”

We took our things and slipped down to the officer’s room. I bade Gaston lie flat upon the bed, and soon I was firmly impaled upon him with great joy in my heart. We stormed Heaven, and the gates opened for a time, so that we drifted in nothing but light and love. And when that passed, we drank a little laudanum and lay side by side as comfortably as we could to nap.

Gaston was quickly asleep; but as is my way, despite the laudanum, I could not let the matter of Alonso lie – or that of Striker. I chewed on it for a time. In the end, it was obvious we could do nothing but outlast our critics’ predictions in order to prove them wrong.

And I could see no possible way I could ever become bored with Gaston, unless of course we both became sane; but then, I truly did not believe the Gods would allow such a thing, as I was sure They derived great amusement from us as we were.

July, 1668

As expected, I was summoned to meet with Morgan the next day.

Morgan watched me translate with a keen eye, and I felt he was not the only one gauging my behavior. I was thankful I now knew the truth of what had occurred, and no longer faced the prospect of episodes of supposed dizziness or other demonstrations of my being addled.

The President of Panama said he would not raise the ransom for the town, and that it rested upon the good citizens of Porto Bello to call in debts and beg their friends and relations for the money. The President implied, though he did not state it, that he would give them and us the time necessary for this to occur, and allow the passage of letters and messengers to and from Porto Bello by land in order to facilitate the matter.

The President ended the letter by inquiring of Morgan how he had done so much with so few men. Morgan was very amused by this, and explained in his return note that the matter was made easy by fine men and their fine weapons. He then sent a musket and cartouche to the President, telling him that it was merely a loan and he would someday soon go to Panama to retrieve it.

I was not pleased to commit that last to writing, as I did not wish to go to Panama, and I told the Gods that it best not be this year that Morgan planned such a thing. Later, when I complained of Morgan’s plan to Striker, he expressed interest in it, and said that Panama was where all the gold truly resided. Gaston noted that Drake had done well enough in his own attack on Panama: it was Porto Bello that had killed him.

The next day, the President responded with a large emerald ring in exchange for the gift of the musket, and said he had weapons every bit as fine as the piece Morgan sent him and saw nothing special in it; and, that Morgan would be best advised to reconsider coming to Panama, as he would not be so well-received there as he had been at Porto Bello.

With that, we settled in to wait on the citizens to produce their ransom. To our dismay, this took a fortnight. Some of our men were beginning to sicken before the wait began; during it, fully half our number became ill with one malady or another, and a quarter of our number contracted grave fevers that Gaston said would haunt them for life. Many of those so afflicted died. Thankfully, the men up the defile on the road – the ones holding Panama at bay – remained the healthiest of our lot.

Gaston insisted that he and I move to the ship, both to care for the ailing men being brought there and to get us as far from the pestilent city as we could manage. We boiled our water and ate only salted beef, boucan, or fruit from our vessels. We implored our companions to do the same: some listened, some did not. Thus, all of our cabal save Julio and Davey stayed well enough: as for them, our beloved maroon got the flux, and our damned stubborn sailor nearly died of the fever.

The citizens of Porto Bello did manage to produce a surprising amount of money, and at last we left the accursed place. The Virgin Queen’s deck held only three-fourths the men it had before: our men had fared relatively well, due to Gaston and Farley’s vigilance, and concoctions of teas, and liberal doses of laudanum. In comparison, the Mayflower carried home only half as many as she had arrived with. I felt the loss would have been far more keenly felt – by myself as much as any of us – if death had been visited amongst the seasoned Brethren as heavily as it was upon the new men: most that died would likely not have survived seasoning even on Jamaica, and they did not have matelots to mourn them.

Despite Davey and Julio’s sicknesses, I was please to see the rest of our cabal had survived little the worse for the wear of the entire adventure – except for Otter, of course, but his death now seemed to have occurred in some other time and place. He was still with us in spirit – though it be a sad one – in the empty space at Liam’s side. We all toasted him as Porto Bello slipped away behind us in the haze.

Liam was doing as well as one might expect, actually better than I expected. He had not drowned in a bottle as so many other grieving men I had known had done; instead, he chose to combat his grief by assisting us with the ailing and by taking on a surprising pupil in the art of almost all things buccaneer: Alonso. To my former lover’s credit, he had proven an apt pupil. As he was already well-versed in all manner of arms, this meant he had taken well to learning the Ways of the Coast – and to my never-ending amusement, Liam’s attempts to instruct him in “Learnin’ the King’s English good an’ proper”. I did not foresee their ever becoming matelots – and I looked for any telltale sign – but I did see them becoming friends, and this friendship, along with Striker’s commendations and Cudro’s support, was what led our other men to accept a hated Spaniard as a new member of the Brethren – provisionally: Alonso still needed to do much to earn their trust.

I knew it would be long before he earned Gaston’s or mine, especially given the way he continued to gaze upon me: one of the reasons I knew he would take no other as matelot until he had laid the matter of my unavailability to rest. Still, he kept his distance and did nothing to anger us.

As for the others, Dickey and the Bard were quite hale and very keen about discussing smuggling options with Alonso. In watching our shipbound pair, I witnessed great ease and confidence between them, such that I was sure the Bard had overcome all of his reservations as to the sincerity of Dickey’s youthful commitment.

Bones and Nickel were ever together, though there was still nothing more than friendship between them, and I thought it likely that would ever be the way of it.