I chuckled. “Hedgehogs?”
“Oui, that,” he said with surety and little humor.
I stifled a true laugh as I turned back to Vivian’s perplexed and annoyed frown. “Oui, that.”
“What?” she asked with a defensive tone.
So I began to explain, to the other women as well, how we saw the world as being full of wolves and sheep and all other manner of animals, both mythical and mundane.
“I am not a hedgehog,” Vivian said with annoyance when I finished. “You two get to be something fine like a centaur, but I am a hedgehog? Though why anyone would wish to be half something and half again something else is beyond me.”
I knew I could never make her understand that was precisely the point, so I laughed.
Rachel and Hannah were trying not to laugh. Gaston heaved a heavy sigh with his face buried in his hand.
“What is my husband?” Rachel asked.
“A raven,” I said. “He is smart and ever bringing news.”
She smirked. “Then I wish to be a raven, too.”
I nodded agreeably, though I pictured her as a goat: like the great matriarch of our little flock at Negril.
I looked to Hannah in order not to leave her from the discussion, and an immediate image came to mind. “I see you as a crane: a great dignified bird wading through mud to find a fine morsel here or there.”
Hannah regarded me with surprise and nodded her head with sudden tears. “Thank you, master. You do me great honor by saying such a thing.” She stood and looked to her mistress. “I should see to the soup.”
Rachel nodded, but her eyes followed the woman’s departure with concern. She turned to us. “She says so little of herself.”
I wondered at her surprise over that, and then I realized that Rachel had not been raised with a great chasm between her and those who served – and her people were not accustomed to owning slaves. Yet she kept the woman in bondage.
“Would she remain in your employ if she were free?” I asked.
Rachel frowned tightly. “I do not know. But…” She nodded to herself. “It is a thing that should be discussed.” Then her eyes were hard on me again, this time with mischief. “Jonathon is correct: you are ever causing trouble.”
I snorted that she would think such a thing on the heels of the other. How easily were lives disrupted; and was I truly the Gods’ sole instrument in it?
“You have not yet begun to see me cause trouble,” I teased.
We stayed for a time in order for Gaston to cuddle Jamaica. Theodore at last joined us with sleepy eyes, and I smiled a great deal and continued to be pleasant, as I ever did when my Horse chomped at the bit, but I was quite pleased when at last we left.
“I need to run,” I told Gaston as we walked to Sarah’s.
He was thoughtful. “You do not find peace in the babe as I do,” he noted.
I sighed, as he was not apparently on the same trail of thought I was. “I am sure I would find peace with the child if I did not need to contend with her caretakers whilst you cuddled her.” At his hurt expression I quickly added. “Non, non, my love. I mean no admonishment. I am…”
His fingers darted to my lips and he nodded. “You are ever our bulwark.”
I attempted to rein in my exasperation, as he was surely the last person I should trample with it. “I… find it confusing that they can be so warm and caring for one person, or many people, but not for another. Though they do not treat Hannah poorly… I just… It wears on me like a burr beneath a saddle, yet not so much as I should throw them off. It minds me of all the other well-meaning wolves I have met, and… I cannot hate them, yet I find myself compelled to revile what they do on occasion and…”
He smiled. “I love you, because you perceive things in that manner.”
“I do not always,” I sighed. “And that… Well, sometimes I am too tangled in my own thoughts and… Now, this day, that… Our being with them… My… agitation at this moment… Is not because that woman is a slave and they see little wrong with it. It is… People. It is the cave, or our no longer dwelling within it. The light casts smaller shadows out here for motives to be hidden within. I can no longer gaze happily upon the cave wall and not see… And I never could, but… I am not suggesting we purchase Hannah and free her. What would she do? And where would Theodore find another housekeeper? And what of Vivian? Should she be turned into a thing she is not… a common woman – in order to cure her drinking? And how dare I be concerned that she is a nobleman’s daughter and what that might imply… Damn it all, it is the very essence of that which I wish to avoid. It is all some giant tangle of… wrongness, and I am overwhelmed by it. “
His hands were aside my face, and he was gazing at me with great concern.
“And I am not mad for all that,” I whispered.
He shook his head in a small emphatic gesture. “Non, you are not. You are my Will, just as I love you. You are so strong. If I dwell upon such things, or even allow myself to consider them this day, I will be mad. Let us go to the beach and run until we forget.”
A strange new thought occurred to me, and I was overwhelmed by melancholy. “We can tire our Horses, but we can never run far enough. We cannot leave this world, and it is wrong.”
I saw fear in his eyes, and panic wrapped icy fingers up my spine. I was flailing around. I was going to drag us down. “I am sorry. I am sorry.”
I closed my eyes and held his shoulders. He was solid beneath my hands. We would not fall. He was all I had in the world and he would not forsake me. We would survive. We would endure. I could not see how we would ever conquer, but it did not matter. Simply being with him was enough.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. He was still there: the fear had sunk beneath his concern in the emerald depths of his soul.
“I will stop looking about,” I said. “I will gaze only upon you: my light. Until we are through this… thicket; storm; what have you; until the road is level again.”
He sighed with relief and held me tightly. “And I will do the same,” he whispered.
I sighed. “Of course, if we are only gazing upon one another, we will surely blunder into something.” I shook my head at my continued foolishness and gave him an apologetic smile.
He was quite somber as he shrugged. “Whatever it will be, it will not stop us. We will trample anything that stands between us and a level road.”
His words still echoed in my ears as we stepped inside the house and found nearly everyone in the atrium. I could envision them all with large hoof prints on their heads.
“Gaston,” Pete said quietly. “Sarah.” He jerked his chin toward her room surreptitiously.
My matelot hurried up the stairs without a backwards glance. As everywhere I looked, other eyes were on me in pleasant greeting, I wondered if I should follow him to escape; but they all seemed to be in fine humor, and I wondered what they had been about.
“So where have you been so early this morn?” the Marquis asked jovially.
“To visit my wife and child,” I said and took a seat near him. “What have you been about?”
“Samuel announced we would have turtle soup for dinner, and Pete was telling us of turtles,” he said.
I glanced at Dupree; the poor man did not look as happy and at ease as all the rest.
“I am understanding more of Monsieur Pete’s speaking,” Dupree said when I caught his eye.
I smiled, and not merely to paste a pleasant mask upon my features.
“And what will the rest of the day hold?” I asked the Marquis.
He shrugged expansively. “Do you have any suggestion? Pete has mentioned the turtle pens. Mademoiselle Agnes was thinking of drawing them.”
Dupree was translating his master’s words to the others as we spoke.
“That sounds like an amusing diversion,” I said. “Gaston and I need to retire to the beach to practice our fighting skills, as we have been somewhat remiss in doing so of late.”
“I t
hink that would be a more entertaining amusement,” Christine interjected in French.
The Marquis and Rucker nodded agreeably, as did Pete and Agnes once Dupree finished translating.
“Well…” I cast about. My matelot was still upstairs. “If Gaston is not needed here, of course.”
“Of course,” the Marquis said.
“We should change for the beach,” Christine announced in English, and gave Agnes a pointed look before heading up the stairs.
I caught Agnes’ frowning gaze and asked. “Is she not a bit premature? How is Sarah?”
The girl shrugged and looked to Pete.
He shrugged. “SarahDidNa’Want TaLeave’ErBed ThisMornin’. ButSheWon’t LetUsSummon TheMidwife.”
We would not escape them. I silently cursed my luck and considered finding some wine.
“This time at the beach will not take all day, will it?” Agnes asked quietly.
“Nay, you would all be quite burned if it did,” I said, wondering why she asked.
“I had a thing I would do in town,” she said with a look that told me I knew of what she spoke.
I nodded agreeably, only remembering her wish to visit Mistress Garret after the girl had run up the stairs. I sighed and went to see what was available on the dining room’s sideboard.
I had a bottle in hand, and the atrium was filled with our friends wearing clothing they did not mind soaking in the sea, when I met Gaston on the balcony outside Sarah’s room.
“They are coming with us,” I said quietly in French. “It is not my fault. I sought to tell them we would not accompany them elsewhere and… the Gods are fickle. And chide me not on this,” I indicated the bottle. “It is for the best.”
His face shifted from dismay to wry amusement and he took the bottle from me for a long swig of his own.
“How is she?” I asked.
“She has begun to labor, but the contractions of her belly are very far apart and she has not lost her water.”
“So, should you stay?” I asked hopefully.
He shook his head regretfully. “Striker can stay with her now, but I will likely be attending her for much of the night. She has dismissed the midwife.”
“She has? I did not like the woman, but…”
“Sarah feels the woman might be in league with your father’s agents, or reporting to them,” Gaston said with a shrug. “And I think the woman is a fool. If Sarah must be attended by someone other than me, it would be better if it were that Garret woman – though she could also be in their employ.” He shrugged again, as if the whole damn town potentially being in my father’s service did not trouble him.
It made me ill to think of it, and I took the bottle from him to take another pull.
“I should go and run hard now,” he said with a tired sigh, “and then perhaps I should sleep for a time this evening so that I can remain awake tonight.”
I nodded. “Well, that will change our other plans.”
He frowned, as if he could not recall what I spoke of; then he frowned as if he did. “I suppose,” he said regretfully. “You have not spoken to her yet, have you?”
“Not this day.” I recalled I had not told him of my meeting with her the day before. “I did speak to her briefly yesterday, and she expressed an interest in continuing our… explorations. She has also hatched a plan to engage in her own adventures with Mistress Garret.”
He paused in leading me to the stairs and awarded me a troubled frown. “How?”
“She wishes to meet with the lady and determine if she can be hired to… teach a woman of women.”
“Oh,” he said, and turned back toward the stairs. “I suppose that is a good idea.”
“I dare not suppose anything,” I said. “It will only cause me to dwell on disasters surely in the offing.”
And thus eight of us left the house for the beach. The girls were dressed in their boy attire, and I cursed that Agnes should still appear so very boyish in breeches, and Christine still be so very attractive. I drank my wine, and considered people likely to be trampled. My matelot’s supposed bride was definitely at the top of the list – especially as she seemed compelled to chat with Gaston throughout our journey to the Palisadoes, while the Marquis watched them with guarded and speculative approval, and Agnes glared at the former object of her affection.
“Are you well?” Rucker asked me as we walked through the gate in the Palisadoes wall.
I decided I had enough wine in my belly to calm me; and I handed him the bottle, and he took a thoughtful pull.
“I am troubled,” I said.
“By her?” he asked.
I started. “Am I so obvious?”
He smiled. “She is a beautiful young woman who will marry your man. I would be concerned if you were not.”
I sighed. I longed to confide to him that there was so much more to it than that. “It is complicated, and there are aspects to the matter I should not speak of, but… Aye, she does trouble me, and it is not for fear of losing his love. She is a child, and views this as a competition, and she does not understand… him. And, truly, this behavior on her part is not in keeping with what we knew of her from before, and thus it is… confusing and troublesome, particularly in light of all else that has occurred regarding my father’s machinations.”
I found myself frowning at this new curve in the trail that might or might not be a figment of my fancy.
“Do you feel she has her own agenda, or another’s?” he asked astutely.
“I do not know,” I said. “But… it is a thing I must determine.”
There was a line to be drawn between looking only to my matelot in order not to spook my Horse and knowingly letting us stumble into a pit.
As I was full of wine – though not drunk – I cajoled Pete to spar with Gaston while we watched. I sat next to Christine so that I might spar with her. She seemed displeased with my intrusion.
“Do you seek to give me instruction on the match?” she asked, settling into her stance as a jilted lover with ease.
“Do you still seek to be a swordswoman?” I replied, gauging how much wine I had truly imbibed and measuring her as an opponent.
“Aye, and I engage in my calisthenics every day,” she said, giving me a chance to escape.
I decided I was up to the challenge and I would have satisfaction. “Good, as you should. So why do you possess this sudden fascination with marriage?”
She took her eyes off the combatants and turned to glare at me: sidestepping my opening thrust, though she appeared surprised by it. “I do not possess a fascination with the prospect of marriage; I am dismayed by it, but I have no choice in the matter.”
I shook my head and countered. “According to whom? From where I stand, you could simply leave. We would be pleased to furnish you what money we can, and you could go and do as you wish. Aye, you risk being returned to your father if you are discovered…” I shrugged; and switched hands, as my goal was to drive her onto different terrain and not necessarily run her through. “I can tell you how to find men who can forge documents such that you need not worry over that, either. Pick yourself a name and become someone else. Many people do it.”
She looked away. “I am a woman.”
I frowned: it was a sturdy block, and one that I had expected somewhat, but now found disconcerting in its simplicity. “Who once purported to have far more interest in the world than could be contained in child-bearing and house-keeping. I believe you told us you wished to lead armies and explore new lands.”
“Childish fancies,” she said bitterly.
It was a solid move, but one I did not find in keeping with her style: which was why we were sparring here, to begin with. I could recall quite clearly how she had spoken with such passion of her desire to escape the lot to which she had been born: a year ago. And mere days ago in the stable, before my father’s machinations had been known, she had been quite fixed on escaping to a more interesting life. Had her infatuation with me prompted all that al
one?
“Has your womanhood suddenly blossomed in your heart such that you can no longer deny its essence, or has your spirit been broken?” I riposted.
“Neither,” she said firmly, as if the idea could be easily beaten aside. “I have merely matured and realized my place in the world.”
I switched hands and footing again, and struck with earnestness. “Then I am disappointed that you should grow to be so ordinary,” I chided. “Perhaps you are not what we wish for in a dam.”
I had scratched her. She stiffened, her attempt at world-weary resignation cast aside to reveal smoldering anger. “You can never understand.”
“You best make me,” I said.
“Nay, I need do no such thing,” she snapped.
“Ah, but in that you are mistaken,” I said coldly, relishing driving her across the yard. “We have wolves sniffing about our doors: I will not let my matelot walk into one’s jaws. Either you lied when you first told us of yourself or you have found reason to become someone we do not know – and that is a thing I must understand. Or you are at the mercy of another agenda: perhaps another’s agenda.”
She took a quick breath of surprise and turned to regard me with a furrowed brow. She began to flail about in a desperate attempt to hold me off. “I would never. I am not my father and I know nothing of… How dare you?” she hissed. “I did not lie. I cannot ever have those things I wished for. They were a dream: a lie; a fancy. That is not how the world is. Damn you! That does not make me weak.”
Beyond the wine and my ire, I sensed something in her last words: an opening. “What does make you weak?”
She clamped her jaw closed and shook her head tightly before looking away. “I am not weak. I am just a woman, and I have the desires of a woman. That does not make me weak or fickle.”
“What desires have you discovered of late?” I asked, and then realized how very far I had stepped: it was as if I had charged into her feint and lost my balance.
She regarded me smugly. “I desire a man: one who values my lack of convention; one who will desire me. I thought that man to be you, but that was merely girlish infatuation. It need not be you. Your matelot will do nicely. Are you afraid he will find more favor in my arms than in yours?”
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