Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (81 page)

“Until then, you must do as you feel is right,” he said.

“And not care how or if I will be judged?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Men who ever worry about such things seem to live very poor lives. Our fellows respect you. I love you. Be content in the goodness that implies.”

I turned to face him. “The same goes for you, my love.”

He smiled slowly. “Oui.”

“You should watch what you say,” I teased.

“Oui, as you will make me eat it,” he said with rueful amusement.

We heard the anchor being weighed, and we smiled at one another.

Despite what I must do, and despite our being filthy, caked in blood, hungry, thirsty, and damn tired, it did not matter. We were safely aboard our ship. We had survived yet another debacle in the adventure that was our lives.

Our cabal spent the evening sitting on the quarterdeck relaying the rest of the adventure that was Puerto del Principe to the Bard and Dickey and their men. We had a few bottles, and we drained them and lay about in relative peace.

My sense of well-being was only disturbed by a quiet discussion among Striker, Gaston and myself as to who should go to the Mayflower. I decided, and Gaston reluctantly agreed, that he should stay behind. I won the argument by telling him that if all went poorly, he and Pete were the best suited to rescuing Striker and me. Pete, too, wished to go, but he also acceded to my reasoning.

When the lack of light made continuing to sail through the cays and bars too dangerous, our small fleet dropped anchor for the night. In the lamplight, Striker and I looked to one another. He nodded, and we stood. I was concerned when Ash stood as well.

“If you are to go over there to meet with him as friends,” Ash said quietly for our ears alone, “then I should go too, as all knew we were partners.”

“Can you do this?” I asked him.

He looked away and sighed. “If I find I cannot in the face of it, I can at least stand as lookout.”

Striker and I exchanged a glance and nodded as one. The three of us rowed a canoe over to the Mayflower. We did not have a plan beyond asking to see Burroughs. We had brought his gear, but not his weapons.

We also had a length of rope wrapped about my waist under my tunic.

It was strange boarding the Mayflower. She seemed a different vessel than the one we had sailed on only last summer. In the torchlight, I looked for the bloodstains that had been deep in the wood of the waist decking. Bradley’s former matelot had made one of them, and Liam, Otter and the Bard had made others, during the fight to take the vessel from the Spanish. Being the ones who could not swim, they had surrendered on the cay on which the wreck of the North Wind had marooned them, and been brought aboard the ship unarmed: as a distraction, so the rest of the buccaneers could swim around the Spanish ship and take its crew unawares. When the attack began, the Spanish captain had put a gun to Siegfried’s head and fired. The stains were gone now, washed away during the constant cleaning and wetting that a ship’s decks require.

Bradley had been so distraught over the entire affair that he had chosen not to rove, and thus the Mayflower had sailed on her first voyage as a buccaneer vessel under Striker’s command. All this was in my mind as Bradley emerged from the captain’s cabin and came to greet us. It was still hard for me to reconcile the man I met, with Siegfried beside him, the day I arrived in Port Royal, with the man who had argued with me over God’s dislike of matelotage and sodomy a few weeks ago. But then, the first night I drank with him I had been disappointed to realize he was not a wolf who led, but one who followed.

“We come to see Burroughs,” Striker told him. “We have his bag, but we left his weapons behind.”

Bradley grimaced and sighed. “He’s in the cabin.”

I thought that an odd place to keep a prisoner; but I was not surprised, as I thought it unlikely Burroughs was in irons. However, it made our work far more difficult.

Bradley led us to the master cabin. As we stooped to enter, I decided it was indeed a different ship. Gone were the large hammocks Striker, Pete, Gaston and I had used. They had been replaced by a large table behind which Morgan held court. There were hammocks; but they were the narrow type, anchored at two points, and they were folded up in the corner now. This was a good thing: with the three of us, and Bradley, Hastings, Morgan, and Burroughs, the little room was excessively crowded, especially with the table. Thankfully the room’s current occupants were sitting around said table. They moved even further about to make room for us, and we packed ourselves in until Ash was able to close the door and stand with his back to it. I felt we looked quite absurd, crammed against the walls about an inconvenient piece of wood that held two bottles and nothing else.

“I need a ship with a bigger captain’s cabin,” Morgan said with amusement.

We chuckled appreciatively.

“You need a bigger ship, admiral,” Hastings said.

I kept myself from glaring at him, and more importantly, from glancing to see if he looked upon me with his single eye or awarded me with his usual sardonic smirk. He, of course, was familiar with bigger ships, having come from the navy. I thought him not a buccaneer, though he had sailed with the Brethren for several years and was liked by some enough to win the vote for quartermaster. I still think he murdered Michaels.

Instead, I looked to Burroughs, who seemed both deep in his rum and happy to see us. He would have stood to embrace us, I was sure, but the table prevented it.

“What brings you here?” Morgan asked as he slid a bottle toward us.

I did not wish to kneel before the table, and I did not wish to stand, so I pressed against the wall and brought one knee up to lean on the table. It was a bit more relaxing.

“We came to see how Burroughs fares,” I said. “Ash here was his partner.”

“I be fine, Will,” Burroughs said. “The admiral here says I got nothin’

ta worry me head about. Long as I stay hidden until the Frenchies leave.”

“Is that so?” I asked; but my eyes were on Morgan, and his narrowed in response.

He glanced about the table, and I took a moment to do likewise.

Hastings looked amused, Bradley was ill-at-ease, and Striker was annoyed. Ash was glaring at the floor.

“How should it be?” Morgan asked with sincere curiosity. “I don’t give a damn if one of my good men mistakenly takes a marrow bone, and apologizes for it, or misunderstands a signal to fire in a duel.”

Bradley and Hastings tensed, and Morgan saw it.

“Aye, aye, it were all a mistake,” Burroughs said effusively. “I don’t speak French.”

“Neither do I,” Ash said with venom. “Cudro explained the signal in English.”

“Well…” Burroughs sputtered, “There were a lot goin’ on. I… didn’

understand it an…”

“You shot a man before the duel had officially begun,” I said coolly,

“before he was fully prepared, and in front of at least five hundred men.”

The last I aimed at Morgan.

“I did not see it,” Morgan said, without a trace of defensiveness.

“We were busy with the Spanish,” Bradley said, “and did not arrive until after it happened.”

“Rizzo raised his hand to get everyone to settle down,” Striker said.

“Tooco, the man who was shot, wasn’t even looking at Burroughs yet.”

Burroughs was not so deep in the rum he did not sense the change in mood of all about him. “I were thinkin’… I were thinkin’… well, the Frenchie ain’t ready, his loss. His loss. Gotta fire quick in a duel.”

Morgan awarded Burroughs a disappointed grimace and looked to Striker and me. “What do you propose? A duel when we divide the booty?”

I realized there was nothing to be gained by subterfuge; we would not now accomplish this behind Morgan’s back.

“Crème does not wish to duel him,” I said. “He wishes for him to hang. He does not need to witness it, and this has been made known about the Brethren, the French Brethren at least. And, it has been suggested that things would be better with the French if the matter were resolved prior to their parting company with us.”

“So they would be happy if we handed him over?” Bradley asked.

I shrugged. I was still watching Morgan. He was frowning and tapping the table with the rum cork.

“Nay,” Morgan said. “I will not… We do not need the French…”

“Do you ever expect to need them again?” I asked as lightly as I could manage.

He snorted. “Aye, aye, damn them.” He glared up at me. “I will not just make a show of handing a man to them. Nor will I… I cannot have the man tried on English soil. That will bring too much attention to many a thing that our Governor would rather avoid.”

His gaze upon me became more speculative and he included Striker in it. “What was your intent in coming here this night?”

Though there was no need to dissemble, diplomacy is always wise.

“Not knowing your plans, but knowing the nature of the matter, as you had not yet had a chance to learn, we thought it likely that Burroughs might be overcome with grief, such that he might hang himself in his cell.”“What? What?” Burroughs tried to stand.

Hastings barked with amusement and rammed the table into Burroughs’ belly before pulling a piece on him. Burroughs settled down, gasping for breath, his eyes wide on the pistol barrel.

Morgan took this in stride. His grin was large and white-toothed under his mustache. “And this would satisfy the French?”

I shrugged. “If the body is delivered to Burroughs’ former shipmates for burial.”

Morgan looked to Bradley and Hastings. “Can you think of a place aboard ship, other than from the yardarms, where a man could be hanged quietly?”

“The hold,” Striker said, “or anywhere really, even here.”

“Aye, if he is on his knees, ceiling height is not a problem,” I added.

We had discussed that before coming over.

Burroughs was producing a continuous mewling of pleas and denials.

“Damn, this table is large,” Morgan said distractedly. “I suppose I can make show of saying that, now that I know he did evil, I will have him in chains below deck and he will go back to Port Royal for trial. And then, when he is discovered, we can say that he realized his error and chose to hang here rather than wait for it.”

“That should satisfy all,” I said. “Including the English Brethren who saw him disobey the rules of a duel.”

Morgan gave me an annoyed smile. “And I thank you for telling me the whole of the matter so that I would not make so grave a mistake as to let my men think I condoned such actions.”

I gave him an accommodating smile. “We thought it likely that once you knew the truth of the matter, you would do what is right – unless, of course, you were constrained by matters of policy or politics, in which case we thought to save you the trouble of worrying about it.”

His smile became a little truer. “Thank you even more, for holding my best interests and good name in your heart.”

But I could tell he would not trust us again, if indeed he ever had.

We wrestled Burroughs out of the cabin and down into the hold, while Morgan explained to the men on deck that, in light of his being accurately apprised of the events of the duel, he now saw no other course than to take Burroughs to Port Royal and have him tried and hanged for murder. Meanwhile, Striker, Hastings, Ash and I gagged Burroughs, bound him hand and foot, and hung him on his knees. He took a while to die.

I could not help but recall the last time I had hanged a man. It had been an act of vengeance against a beloved friend’s lover: a stupid boy who had not been able to comprehend madness, whose leaving had driven my poor friend to take his own life. I also recalled relaying all of that to Gaston, the day he admitted his madness to me. I had told him of it as we rowed a canoe to shore after visiting Pierrot on the Josephine.

I thought it fascinating how events were sometimes connected in our minds, and even in the world around us.

Ash did indeed have the conviction to face Burroughs’ death. He forced himself to watch his former friend die. I did not think it was due to any cruelness of spirit, but rather a desire to imprint the scene upon his memory. He turned away with relief when the man jerked his last.

Hastings, however, obviously reveled in watching Burroughs suffer.

He breathed faster, and the smile upon his lips would have well graced a cat. I thought he might actually find physical pleasure in the thing, but his crotch was shadowed such I could not tell without staring.

Striker alone did not watch. He held the rope that kept Burroughs’

legs from the floor and he stared at the wall with grim determination, holding himself firm in all ways against the hanging man’s struggling.

We unbound Burroughs’ hands and feet, leaving the rope about his neck, and then Ash, Striker, and I slipped away and off to our canoe, leaving the buccaneers about the deck to wonder and Hastings to find the body when the time seemed right. I thought it likely no one would buy the entirety of the tale Morgan tried to sell them, but they would know that justice had been done.

Our cabal was solemn as we returned, though they were relieved to see us. We told them all had gone well, with Morgan’s blessing even.

Then Ash and Striker withdrew. Ash sat alone in the corner of the quarterdeck and eschewed company. Striker started to do the same; but Pete was stubborn in keeping him company, and soon they were talking quietly.

As Gaston was on the night watch, I settled in beside him on the deck, and sighed with relief as his arms closed around me. I told him of my thoughts and my words with Morgan.

“You handle him well,” Gaston said.

“I am well-accustomed to dancing with wolves,” I sighed. “One must know when to lead and when to follow, and determine deftly whether your partner knows the steps he should take, and cover for him when he does not, lest he tear your throat out for making him appear the fool.”

“Do you feel he would have done as he should if he had understood what Burroughs did?” Gaston asked.

“Aye, but… he was not asking to understand. He was willing to take Burroughs’ word, and if the matter had continued beyond tonight, I believe he would have cornered himself such that he could not reverse his forgiveness of Burroughs and do what was right.”