Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (98 page)

“Let us go and speak,” I murmured in French.

My matelot’s eyes narrowed; however, he gave no immediate protest, and followed me as I walked away.

I descended the stairs to the central courtyard and began walking the perimeter, checking doors. The barracks, kitchen, store room, and even the damn armory were now occupied by trysting or snoring men.

At last I reached the stable. To my surprise and enmity toward the Gods, it was empty save for the horses. I did not wish to argue with him in a damn stable, but I saw little choice, as I thought it likely the rooms across the fort were also occupied: I saw none of our reveling men in the yard now.

I turned to find Gaston still following me, slowly, with his arms tightly crossed.

“This is private,” he remarked coldly, when at last he joined me in the stable.

“Oui,” I sighed. “I wish for privacy.”

“I thought we planned another diversion this night,” he said.

It was dark, but I did not wish to see the light glitter in his eyes, I could very well hear the edge in his voice.

“I cannot,” I said quickly. “I cannot do as we planned before him.”

“Why?” he hissed.

“I… I… Damn it, Gaston! I do not know if I can explain when you are thus. You must listen to me. This is not a thing of my loving him.

Non, it is a thing of my loving you. I will not have him witness us. I will not have him witness…” I trailed off as I realized what I would say next: I would not have him witness me… being taken by another. Not when he would see it as a matter of … servicing, or accommodating, or even his damned appeasing.

“You no longer wish to wave it under his nose?” Gaston asked harshly.

He had been advancing on me, and I found myself backed to the wall.“I would gladly flaunt our love and lust if I thought he would understand,” I said. “I cannot explain now why I do not feel he would appreciate what we showed him, or perhaps he would, and that is why I will not show him. I do not know, damnit! Much was said tonight, and I need time to think on it.”

“You are mine,” he hissed, and his hands were upon my shoulders.

“Always!” I tried to throw my arms about him but he held me away.

“Gaston?”

“He still loves you, oui?” he growled.

“Oui,” I sighed. “He still loves me. And oui, he still wants me. But…”

“I will kill him,” he snarled, and released me.

My anger finally flared in full measure: not for Alonso, but for me.

I grabbed Gaston’s shoulder as he turned away. “Non, you shall not,” I hissed. “You will listen to me. You will control yourself. You know what state you are in. Trust me.”

In the darkness, I did not see the blow: I saw stars behind my eyes, and then he was upon me. We wrestled, but I have never been his match. My ringing head did not aid in the matter: I was greatly disoriented. Despite my struggles and attempts to escape, he soon managed to pin me on my belly. I knew well what he would do next, and I ceased fighting. I lay there in the straw in despair, offering neither aid nor resistance as he pulled my breeches down. I heard him grease himself, and thought that strange. It was not a thing he had done before. Perhaps this time would be different.

Then he was in me, and it did not hurt as it always had. I struggled anew, but this time to find purchase so that I could better meet his thrusts. My cock was hard and ill pleased with the straw: it poked and scratched and did not offer warmth. I wished to comfort it, but if I did not support my head and shoulders he would drive me face first into that same straw.

At last, his pounding slowed, and he leaned down to whisper, “You want this, from me.”

The words were odd. He had said them before, so many times before, but tonight they were in French. I did not know he spoke French.

And he was wrong. I did not want it from him. I wanted it from Gaston. He had taken what belonged to Gaston. It was not his. It was no one else’s. I did not wish to share it with anyone.

He finished with a growl of pleasure and quickly withdrew.

I did not wallow in my shame and rage. I had done enough of that. I fumbled with my breeches and felt about for my belt. I only rose when I had my rapier and dagger in hand.

He seemed quite surprised at my first lunge. He dove away and drew his weapons.

“Will!” he cried hoarsely.

I knew he wished to keep us within the stable, so I drove him out. I wanted the world to see that I would fight him.

I was better than he, as I had always known I would be. He fell away before every rush, and did not return them. I chased him about the yard.

Then there were others about. They yelled things I could not understand.

Then a new shadow loomed to my right. He looked toward the presence, as I continued to lunge forward. I too was forced to react to the looming bodies hurtling toward us. He blocked my blade at the last moment, diverting it up, and we slammed into one another, our right arms locked together. Someone grabbed my left before I could bring the dagger in. I slashed savagely with my sword as I attempted to pull free. I smelled blood.

Then the world exploded, and once again I saw stars, millions of them; and I thought them the Gods, and felt they welcomed me: I reached for them as the darkness closed in.

I dreamt of a Hell in which all the villains who had ever darkened my life chased me through every abode I had ever occupied. I screamed and fought and ran until there seemed nothing left of me. I was bound and gagged and helpless before them. And then their ranks were filled with faces of those I thought my friends: Striker, Pete, Liam, Cudro, Farley, and even, curiously, Alonso. They would not deliver me, and in that they became as monstrous as those I sought to escape. Until at last I saw a familiar pair of emerald eyes, and the dream fled before their power, and I woke from it, as if I had been drowning, with a great gasp of air as I broke the surface of consciousness.

He was there; he was real. I was still bound, though, and I could not talk. Panic gripped me, but he calmed me with small words I could not understand and hovered above me so that he was all I could see. I finally made sense of what he said.

“Be calm, my love. You must not fight. All is well. I love you,” he murmured in French.

I ceased pulling at the ropes about my wrists and tried to assess my surroundings. Wan light leaked through the shutters of a window high on the stone wall beyond my feet. It competed with lamplight somewhere to my right. There was a wall on my left. There was a curious crucifix upon the wall above my head: a snake seemed to be curling around Jesus’ legs. The bed stank as most do, but this one doubly so with urine and feces, and I felt that I had fouled myself. I was not gagged per se, as there was nothing across my mouth; but there was something about my head so that I could not open my jaw, which ached horribly. My left eye also troubled me: it would not open fully. My throat felt raw, and my wrists and ankles hurt from their bonds, but the rest of me did not seem to be in pain, though I hungered and thirsted greatly.

There were other people in the room beyond Gaston, I could hear them moving about and even breathing and sighing.

I could not understand where I was, or why. I sought the last things I could remember and found only the nightmare. But then part of it took on a clarity denied dreams: I had fought Shane.

“Shane,” I hissed through my closed jaw.

Gaston frowned.

“Shane,” I tried again.

I attempted to peer around him, but he held me down with his hand. Then I saw that his right arm was in a sling, and a great bloodstained bandage was wound about his naked chest. He must have fought Shane as well.

He was still puzzling my muddled words. “Shane?” he queried.

I nodded vigorously. “I fought Shane.”

He frowned sadly, and a great number of things raced through his eyes. “He is gone. You won. You are safe.”

His gaze was compelling me to… remember. I found myself in Plato’s cave. I faced the wall. The light was so damn bright from behind me that all the shadows on the wall danced. I was free; I could turn to face the light and see truth. But I was terrified to do so. I kept my eyes steadfastly on the wall.

“I love you,” I said as best I could.

He nodded. “And I love you. And I know it will pain you more than most,” he smiled, “but you must stop trying to speak. Your jaw is fractured. I am going to release you now. Be still and calm.”

He looked over his shoulder and spoke somewhat harshly in English. “Cut him free or give me a blade.”

There was great sigh beyond him. “All right, if you feel he’s calm.” It was Striker.

“Does he not appear calm?” Gaston asked, and accepted a knife.

My wrists were soon free, and I helped Gaston remove the bracelets of rope about them. My flesh was quite raw. Then I examined the bandage that was wound about my head. The right side of my jaw was excruciatingly tender at the back, beneath my ear. Gaston’s look was chiding, as if I were a child, and I withdrew my hand.

“I will examine Farley’s work later,” he whispered in French, and turned to free my ankles.

Striker came to loom over us and eye me with curiosity and concern. I met his gaze in like measure. He frowned.

“Are you well now?” he asked.

As I was not sure in what way I had ailed, other than a damaged jaw, I gave him a look of incomprehension and pointed at my jaw.

Peter appeared next to Striker, looking both concerned and guilty.

“’EBe Addled?”

Gaston was annoyed by the question. He returned Striker’s knife to him and looked to me with a reluctant mien. “Do you know your name?”

I nodded and frowned. I was Will; who else could I have been?

My matelot’s eyes had narrowed. “Are you the Viscount of Marsdale?”

Nay, I was Will. I shook my head and tried to frown with even more perplexity to make my point.

He smiled. “Do you know where you are?”

That surprised me, or rather my having no ready answer did. I shook my head sadly.

“Do you remember… how you came to be injured?” he asked carefully.

I nodded. Someone had struck me while I fought Shane. “Shane,” I said. Gaston’s smile was reassuring, but his words filled me with concern.

“He is addled,” he told Pete, “but I do not know if it is because you broke his jaw.”

“IBe Sorry,Will,” Pete said. “But Ya Be…”

“Non,” Gaston said sharply. “I will tell him what he wishes to hear, but it is the way of these things that a man usually remembers in his own time,” he added calmly. “Now let me bathe him. Will one of you bring water and a tub?”

“I’ll find something and bring water,” Cudro said from somewhere in the room, and I heard a door open and more weak light flooded the ceiling.

“I tried ta keep ’im clean, but what with all…” Liam said sadly.

“It is not your fault, Liam. Thank you for caring for him,” Gaston said, and turned to look at Liam even though the movement obviously pained him. “And Pete, do not blame yourself for his condition. I am pleased you hit him when you did.”

Pete gave a snort of amusement and withdrew.

Striker had stepped back as Gaston had turned.

“I’m sorry,” he said: to my matelot, not me.

“You should be,” Gaston said with a touch of anger. “If you had let me come to him days ago, he might not be…”

“And he might have tried to kill you again,” Striker said quietly, with a guilty glance at me. “And what the Devil was I to do? You tried to kill Cudro and Farley, and he’s been raving for four days and trying to strike anyone he saw.”

I was stunned by his words. The light at the cave mouth flared such that I could no longer see the shadows on the wall. I almost did not hear what was said next. I endeavored to not think about the light, and to merely concentrate on what I heard. I could think later. They were merely saying words. They need not be about me.

“I would have been calm if you had let me get to Will,” Gaston was saying coldly. “And I might have calmed him as I did now.”

“Might,” Striker said.

“May we have our bags?” Gaston asked. “You can lock us in here if you fear for the fortress.”

Striker sighed with annoyance and hung his head. “Damn it, Gaston. I made the best decision I could. It’s hard enough knowing the two of you’ll kill each other someday. Maybe I’d like to keep that day as far away as possible.”

“You come between us again, and it is not our deaths you need worry about,” Gaston said.

Striker sucked wind in a long and warding breath, and then his gaze darted to me. I glared at him, because though I knew not what they spoke of, I trusted Gaston that Striker had kept him from me.

Striker winced at what he found in my eyes. “Oh, fuck me,” he muttered. “All right, never, I swear it. I swear it on my unborn child.

I will never attempt to separate the two of you again, even if you have blades at each other’s throats...again.”

“Thank you,” Gaston said.

“Your gear is under that cot Will’s on.” Striker began to leave us.

“And Striker,” Gaston said quietly to his back. “I know it is because you love us, but it is… our problem. And we must live or die with it.”

“Try not to die with it,” Striker said sadly, and then he turned to frown at Gaston. “And, someday, I would bloody well like to know what happened that night.”

Gaston sighed. “If Will wishes to tell you, he will.”

With a grim smile, Striker left us. The door closed in his wake with reassuring solidity. We were alone and safe.

Gaston turned slowly back to me with a grimace of pain. He should have laudanum. Striker had said our bags were under the bed. I moved to sit.

Then everything else they had said tumbled through my head, and I felt it was like a great press of people pushing me ever closer to the cave entrance with all their jostling. If I was not careful, they would turn me toward the light. I closed my eyes.

“Will, all is well. Do not think about it. You do not have to, now,”

Gaston murmured. His hand was soothing upon my shoulder.

I finished sitting, slowly, and opened my eyes. I was disgustingly aware of having soiled myself, and that served to push the other thoughts away quite handily. I looked about. We were in a small square room with stone walls. I could not recall seeing it before. This realization did not bring forth the fear of looking into the light.