Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (3 page)

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Liam roared. “I were sleepin’. The daft bastard coulda’ just came ’round an’ tol’ us the Queen be here.”

“Well, he does not often have a chance to discharge his weapon,” I said.I returned to the work of laying stones before my mortar dried. There would be a party tonight on the beach, and I had ample time to attend it. I need not rush off now.

Thus it was with surprise that I looked up a time later and spied a jacketless and panting Theodore cresting the promontory and staggering toward my house. Pete and Striker were with him, carrying a sea trunk I recognized, and my dear barrister’s coat and satchel.

Pete reached me first. He shed his baldric in one smooth movement, and dropped it in a hurried heap with Theodore’s satchel and coat on the bench before my home. Then he was upon me. His embrace hurt both my ribs in its rigor and my heart with its unfamiliarity. I had not seen the two of them in three weeks, and no one else living upon the Point found need to touch me. I truly needed to be embraced more often. Striker followed Pete, and I did not wish to release either of them.

“Gaston?” Striker asked quietly by way of greeting.

I shook my head. “He is still… hunting. He lets me know he is well, or rather, still living, from time to time, but I have not seen him still.”

“It has been a month now?” he asked.

“More than that,” I sighed. “But in speaking to Cudro, I have learned that he once heard Gaston would disappear into the Haiti for months at a time, which agrees with things my matelot said in passing. I try my best not to worry. As I said, at least he comes around and leaves some small message for me on occasion.”

“He’ll always return to you,” Striker assured me.

“I know,” I sighed. I had settled that matter in my heart a month ago. I did not now doubt his eventual return; I only wished to know when.

“And look what we have brought,” he said, and gestured to panting Theodore, who was finally joining us.

Striker was carrying a bottle of rum in the hand he pointed with, and I snatched it. “Good, rum, I have been dry. Oh, you meant my barrister,” I added, after taking a good pull from the bottle.

Theodore ignored me. He stood gasping, turning in a slow circle to take in the entire vista.

“My Lord, Marsdale…” he began.

“Will,” I corrected him as he drew his labored breath.

He gave a disparaging snort. “Will, then. My Lord, Will, I see why you have not returned to Port Royal.”

“Is it truly such a distance?” I teased as I embraced him.

“Nay, nay, this, all of this.” He waved his arms to encompass the view when we parted. “If I had this to look upon daily, I should not care what else might occur in the world, either. Ah, and we shall see the sunset from this vantage soon. I can only imagine its glory from here.”

I had not thought him to hold interest in such things. This added another mark of favor in his already full account.

“You are welcome to stay and visit as long or as often as you wish, though my accommodations are meager.” I indicated my hut.

Theodore gazed upon the dwelling for the first time and raised an eyebrow. “I suppose it keeps you dry.”

“Aye.”

I chuckled. The hut was as crude as it had been when first Gaston built it, but I had decided to enlarge it, and now it almost had two rooms. I had collected a great number of limestone blocks and begun to lengthen the walls, so that there was a much larger chamber in front of the original sleeping space. The eastern wall and the section of the northern wall running from it to the new door were complete; I had even made a window. The western wall would be identical except for orientation. It was the height of my chest, and the latest layer of stone had been the object of the afternoon’s labor. Within a few days, I would have to go with some of the others to cut and haul more wood for roof beams.

I proudly told Theodore, “I will eventually manage an entire manor house.”

“And here I never envisioned that you came here to build something… literally,” he said with a smile.

“Neither did I, but I have found great satisfaction in it.”

“You should apply for a grant of this land,” he said and looked about again. “All of it.”

“As it is not arable, and therefore useless, I assume the Governor would grant it without a second thought.”

“Aye,” Theodore sighed. “But… Will… be thankful it is useless in its beauty.”

“I am, as I know if it had less esoteric value it would soon be overrun by greedy wolves. I am well-versed in those ways of the world.”

“You should all apply for grants here,” Theodore added, indicating Pete and Striker.

Striker nodded seriously. “I would not mind owning that bay to the north, the one with the good anchorage.”

“I’llTake This’Ere Beach.” Pete pointed at the long strand running north.

“And that great bog behind it?” I asked.

He shrugged, but his eyes narrowed craftily. “Be’Ard Ta Roust AMan Out O’.”

As I was sure Gaston was quite familiar with the place, I did not gainsay him.

“Only you would think of owning land you could hide upon,” his matelot teased him.

“Iffn’They Know Ya Own It, Then They Know Where Ta Find Ya Already.”

“He has a point,” I said.

“Aye, that he does,” Striker said and shrugged. “Still, I would own land. Perhaps I will tire of the sea someday.”

Pete snorted.

“And even if you do not,” Theodore said, “it will be a thing you can leave to your descendants.” He frowned and looked from Striker to Pete and back again. “Should you ever have any.”

Striker frowned at that, and Pete sobered somewhat as he gazed upon his matelot’s now stiff shoulders. I thought of another conversation from their last visit, and sighed.

Theodore distracted me from watching them further with a light touch on my arm. I turned to him expectantly and found his mouth partly open, as if he had been about to speak. His face said he had apparently thought better of his planned words, though.

“I mailed your letters,” he said too quickly.

“Aye, Pete said you had. And I read the note you sent before.” It had said little.

I wished to ask him what he decided not to say, but thought better of it. He would tell me in good time, or perhaps it was best to let his unspoken words lie, as they might have been another ill-considered utterance among men with matelots, as his comment about descendents had been.

“They should arrive in England soon,” he added. “The ship I sent them with was sailing there directly and not to the northern colonies.”

“Lovely,” I replied. I thought of the joy I hoped their recipients, my sister Sarah, and my former tutor, Rucker, would find with the huge tomes I had started on the voyage from Île de la Tortue. I had finished both missives here, while recuperating from my wound and watching Gaston build the first part of the hut.

Liam, Otter, and some of the others had joined us, and were greeting Pete and Striker boisterously. I led Theodore to the western edge of the promontory so we could continue to converse.

“How do you find married life?” I asked.

“I find it suits me.” His smile said much more than a thousand words could hope to convey.

I laughed. “I am pleased to hear it. And how is Mistress Theodore?”

He took a deep breath and glanced about to see if anyone was near.

No one was, but he dropped his voice conspiratorially anyway. “She is with child.”

“Well done, my good man.”

He chuckled heartily. As it passed, he stared at the horizon with a satisfied smile. “When I first ventured here, I thought I would return to England as soon as I could. I did not intend to stay beyond the business I was sent to accomplish. And then that business led to a lucrative arrangement that required my remaining for a short time. And that short time became… Well, I have been here seven years now. I have always harbored the notion that I would return someday. Now I do not. Now I envision a large house, and many children, and perhaps a position in the local government.”

“Though I would wish that last on no man,” I said with a smile, “I suppose someone must be a public servant. And I feel in your case, you would actually serve those you administered and not merely your own ends. As for the rest, I am very happy for you, my good friend. I wish you every happiness.”

“Thank you.”

He sobered somewhat as he contemplated me.

“What of you?” he asked. “Why will you not return to Port Royal?

Striker has implied it has much to do with your matelot, but he has said little as to the particulars.”

I was not sure which of the particulars I should relay, though I knew I should tell Theodore if I told anyone at all.

“Gaston is mad,” I said at last.

“I have heard rumor of that. How so?”

With surprise, I realized I could not answer that in any meaningful fashion. I tried to recall the description Gaston had first offered me, and then I remembered his words to Doucette.

“He experiences acute emotional states in which he is unable to control his actions or faculties. During these times, he is greatly debilitated in reason, and he becomes a threat to those around him: both friend and foe. On occasion, he even forgets what occurs during a bout. His bouts can be triggered by items or memories of traumatic incidents in his life.”

Theodore nodded thoughtfully. “I have heard he poses corpses.”

I sighed. “Aye, that is why he is known as the Ghoul. I have seen that, once. He means to offer them respect after a fashion.”

“Did he stab you?” he asked.

“Aye, but by accident. He meant to kill Doucette and I got between them.”

“Who was this Doucette?”

“Doctor Dominic Doucette is a French physician. He became Gaston’s mentor after a fashion. He was assigned to care for Gaston…”

And there I stopped, unsure of what to say. Theodore studied me in patient silence. The truth of much of the tale was not a thing that should be related to anyone, even Theodore; but, I needed Theodore to understand certain aspects of the situation if he was to help us with the legal part of that entire morass of insanity that was Gaston’s past.

“Gaston was exiled here by his father, a French Marquis. They had a… misunderstanding, a disastrous… they had a falling out, over the death of Gaston’s sister. Not that they got on well before, but… I cannot divulge all of the particulars of any of that, even to you.”

Theodore nodded sagely but remained silent.

“I can say it is all related to Gaston’s madness,” I continued,

“which is a thing that haunted his mother, and has haunted him since childhood. It was made far worse by the… circumstances of his departure from France.”

There. I had managed to say what I felt Theodore needed to hear, without saying that Gaston’s father had nearly flogged him to death for killing his twin sister after committing incest with her. I did not believe my good friend would understand or forgive my matelot for those transgressions, which sounded so horrific in name. Only I, who had heard the tale from his lips under duress, could possibly comprehend how and why what occurred was more tragedy inflicted upon my love than an evil that he did. I felt sure any other would hear the words alone, and not the aspects of the tale relating to his sister – on her deathbed – manipulating Gaston into helping her live her last laudanum-induced flights of fancy.

“In your note,” Theodore said. “You mentioned that there was a legal document you might need me to review.”

“Aye, that is part of the matter. Gaston’s father had Gaston declared incompetent so he could never inherit, and then he named Doucette as Gaston’s guardian. As we see it, Gaston cannot set foot on French soil again. I feel he should become an English citizen, and thus possibly leave the entire matter behind him.”

“I could easily petition for that,” Theodore said. “But I would see this document.”

“It is in French.”

“I assume your French is sufficient to translate it.”

“Aye.”

“Where is Gaston now?” Theodore asked.

“Somewhere.” I gestured at the rest of Jamaica. I thought that would be accurate, as I doubted he had left the island. “He suffered a bout…

and he has gone off to be alone and try to recover his reason. He leaves me messages to show that he is well – in body, at least.”

“Can you tell me what occurred on Tortuga?” Theodore asked. “I have heard a number of things regarding that as well.”

“Doucette felt he could cure Gaston’s madness by what amounted to torture. I rescued him. In the ensuing battle, I shot Doucette, and the French captain Pierrot nearly beat him to death. But that… treatment he attempted… is largely responsible for Gaston’s current fall into madness.”

My bringing Gaston to remember the events that occurred with his sister had been the rest.

Theodore watched the sinking sun with a thoughtful mien. I nearly felt disposed to disrupt his thoughts so he could actually appreciate the coming blaze of color, as I doubted he was seeing what was before his eyes.

“You will not abandon him,” he said at last. It was not a question, nor did it contain resignation: it seemed to simply be a fact he felt the need to state.

As such, I did not answer it.

“Are there any other aspects of note that I might be apprised of?” he asked.

“Gaston is very wealthy. His father exiled him with money, sent money for him every year, and sent money to Doucette to pay for his care. Doucette’s wife gave it to us.”

“Gold?” Theodore asked with interest.

“A small chest of it, mostly florins.”

Theodore nodded appreciatively.

“And where is it now?” he asked.

“Gaston buried it in the morass there behind the beach, and then had me memorize the markers he set as to where it could be found.”

“Good,” Theodore said, “so it is safe and I need not worry about safeguarding it.”

“Aye.”

“All right, let us watch this sunset,” he said. “And then we will review the French document and I will tell you of Ithaca.”

I had nearly forgotten the damned plantation. “Is there anything I wish to hear?”

“I doubt it.” He smiled.

“Is there anything I need do?”