The King's Commission

by Dewey Lambdin

  He kissed her cheek and felt the cool dampness of smudged tears. He kissed her neck, and it was a nice neck, long and graceful with so many interesting hollows to explore, as were her shoulders and collarbones. Firm, yet yielding, apulse with young life.

  “Say my name, Alan,” she whispered.

  “Dolly,” he obeyed. “Dearest Dolly. Poor, lovely little Dolly.”

  Her arms went about him, then, and she allowed herself to be rolled over on her back. Their lips met, and no longer merely acquiescent, she returned his kiss, warming to him and beginning to breathe heavier, to stir her arms, her hands, and her body against his.

  He explored her from brow to knees with his fingertips, with his lips and tongue, and she began to writhe and moan, to whimper and chuckle as he tickled or en-fired her by turns. All through it, he praised her, praised her beauty, talked to her gently as one would approach a wary puppy or colt, and she responded with stronger moans and delighted sighs of impending bliss.

  He kissed his way from her knees, up both smooth, firm young thighs and over her muff, teasing and nipping until she was panting and grasping for him, and she opened her thighs wider as he slid up to nuzzle her breasts. Such fine young breasts with large, oval aureoles and taut young nipples that cried out for suckling.

  A moment’s dispassionate reach for the sheepgut condom on the nightstand, and then he was pressing against her netherlips, and she arched her back and lifted her hips to press back, and he was sliding down that endless tunnel that led to the seat of heaven itself, and she cried out like a virgin on her wedding night, though she writhed and clung to him like a limpet, matching his every movement.

  “Alan, say my name, please, Alan, say my name!” she panted with her mouth against his neck. “Ah, yes, ah! I never knew …”

  “Dolly, yes, it’s good, so good, you’re such a good girl, such a YES!”

  He could feel nothing but belly and breasts, perhaps her fingers digging into his shoulders, and their groins; hear nothing but her cries of pleasure and the quick wash-deck pumping noise of lovemaking until she shouted and kept on shouting in an utter transport of joy, not long after his own forge-hot release.

  “Dolly, yes, lovely Dolly,” he muttered soft against her neck as he lay spent on elbows and weak knees over her.

  “Alan, my Alan dearest,” she giggled back, trembling still, and showering him with smile-widened kisses.

  “If lovemaking could always be this way,” she said much later after their third bout, after they had sent down for some wine to cool them.

  “My dear girl, it’s supposed to be,” Alan snickered, pleased as punch with himself. “Leastways, I’ve always found it so.”

  “If it could be, I could almost bear the shame of being … a whore. Until I hear from Roger’s relatives, of course, and get the money to go home.” She sighed.

  “Think they like you that much?” Alan asked, not meaning to tease her.

  “No,” she replied, sitting up to hug her knees with the soggy sheet falling to her waist. “Oh, Alan, I’ve written and written, and there’s never a word back from them. Nothing on the packet ships for me. I almost despair sometimes that I’ll be bound to this life for all time!” She lay her head on her knees, hiding her face in her hair.

  “Wait a minute,” Alan said, propping himself up in the bed on a pile of thick pillows. “He only died three months ago, you say? Hell, it’s three months by ship back home. Say, here to Bermuda to pick up a favorable slant from the highs. Then on to New York from there. And for reply, the packet would sail down to Portugal and then run west to Dominica first. They wouldn’t even have gotten a word about your poor Roger’s demise yet. And it’ll most like be another three or four months before you can even expect any kind of answer.”

  “And I must endure more of this cruelty?” she gasped. “Oh, I cannot bear it! I shall have to enter that woman’s dreadful house, after all. It’s the only place that will take me.”

  “There’s housekeeping, still,” Alan suggested. “Quite a few households here on Antigua would hire a young widow who’s experienced at caring for children, or such like. It’s not as if you had debts.”

  She fell back to lay her head on his stomach and hug him.

  “Do you think I have not tried, Alan? They have slaves here, not hired servants. And if hired, paid less than a dog’s dinner.”

  Here comes the sly little hand on my purse-strings, Alan said to himself. Yet she stayed silent, hugging him like a child in her parent’s lap. Alright, I’ll say it for her and get it over with. Damn fool.

  “I could loan you a little to tide you over, Dolly.”

  “I’ll not hear of it, Alan Lewrie,” she replied, looking up at his face in the gloom. “If I needs must, I can deal with the humiliation of this shameful trade for a short space, and there are still things to sell of my possessions. Thank you, but the answer is no. I must own that I am only a weak, stupid woman, but I can guess what you may think of me if you do loan me money. I’d like you to think better of me than that.”

  “You’re serious!” He gaped in astonishment.

  “That I am,” she agreed. “After this delightful experience with you, I would not do anything to cheapen our memories of each other. I’d rather starve first. Oh, how masterful you were, and how kind to me, to take me out of that place rather than shame me by making me behave as those others. I’ve been such a fool to think that taking money for men to pleasure themselves is possible, even for a little time. You have opened my eyes to how low and base I would have become had you not saved me. I shall treasure you forever for that. And for this.” She teased with a shy smile, and reached down under the sheet to touch his belly and lion’s mane.

  “Another man may wish you to be his and his alone. Have you heard of mistresses, Dolly?” Alan asked, sounding her out to see if she still rang true, that it was not a whore’s lie yet.

  “It would be gentler, and safer, would it not?” she asked. “But, I can think of only one gentleman that I’d care to keep house for.”

  Another light brush of her fingers over his groin.

  “What about your husband’s things, then. Have you sold any of that yet?”

  “I have his chest here. But Alan, I could not bear to part with all that I have left of that gentle, wonderful man,” she objected sadly. “To auction him off to the highest bidder, all that represents what’s left of him, it’s too horrid to contemplate.”

  “Let’s see what there is,” Alan said, sliding out of bed. “Which chest was his?”

  “The one with the mirror atop,” she told him, and wrapped the top sheet about her as he put on his long-tailed shirt. They knelt and she unlocked his chest with a key, lifted the lid with all the reverence of a parson opening the bread-box of a Sunday, and he helped her pull out the top tray, which was full of papers and correspondence.

  There wasn’t much, really. Hats and uniforms of the infantry unit he belonged to. Breeches and stockings, a high pair of boots more suited to a dragoon or horse artillery unit. A cheap watch, and the man’s sword, one of middling quality.

  “Twenty, twenty-five guineas for the sword,” Alan said with a heavy sigh. “The boots might go for five, and the watch for ten. The chain and fob are worth more. Maybe one hundred pounds all told.”

  “But, Alan, that’s one hundred pounds more than I have now,” she said with a childlike burst of hope. “Though I do hate to part with his sword and watch. I mean, a man’s honor, his …”

  “Twenty pounds at the least is twenty pounds. He won’t be needing a sword where he’s gone, and there’s no son to inherit,” Alan said with a harsh rasp. He sorted through the papers in the top tray while Dolly fetched their wine glasses and topped them up, bringing a second candle Alan had ordered to better light his perusings.

  “At least he didn’t leave you any bills from the mess or from his tailor’s,” Alan jested. “Did you contact his fellow officers? What did they say they’d do for you?”

  “Wha
t any man would pay for.” Dolly frowned. “They thought him a little silly, I think. And … he wasn’t exactly that popular with his fellow officers. I don’t know why, but I always got that feeling when we were around them. Some jealousy, some argument or something.”

  “Goddamn!” Alan exclaimed, after he had folded out a large sheet of paper all hung with ribands and wax seals. “You’ve not talked to them at all?”

  “I was afraid they’d sneer at me, Alan,” she whispered.

  “Not while you hold his commission document, they wouldn’t!”

  “What is that?” she said, with all innocence.

  “My dear Dolly,” he began, rocked back on his heels by her naivety. “You know that officers in the British Army buy their commissions. Umhumm, and do you know that they pay a lot of money for the privilege of never doing a decent day’s labor again? Keep the bloody sword, hang the watch in the window for pigeons to peck on, here’s your real money!”

  “I meant to have it framed, as a memento, but I couldn’t afford to yet,” she said, staring at him goggle-eyed with building wonder.

  Why, dear Lord, is every woman I meet and hop into bed with as feeble in the brains as cold, boiled mutton? he wondered to himself with a shake of his head and a reflective grin.

  “It costs an ensign in a good regiment three hundred pounds to buy a commission. A lieutenancy goes for about five hundred, and I have it on good authority that a captaincy is worth nigh on a thousand pounds, Dolly. As dear Roger’s nearest living relative, the one he’s most like willed everything to, you now own it, d’you see, girl? It’s like a small-holding, it’s yours to sell.” She stared at him as if he wasn’t quite getting through to her. “For money.”

  “Oh, Alan!” she shrieked and flung herself on him, bearing him over on his back on the cold bare boards to straddle him and chortle with glee while she rained kisses and squeezed until he thought he might see stars. “I’m saved! I’m saved! You saved me, you dear man, you wonderful, lovely man! How can I ever repay you, dearest Alan?”

  “Well, if you put it that way …” He laughed heartily with her.

  “I can go home to England! I don’t have to be anyone’s mistress, or anyone’s whore! Oh, out of my darkest night, God has shown me the way to security! How can I ever thank you?”

  “I’m just glad I could do something …”

  “I won’t have to drudge as someone’s domestic back home. I can live well, if I watch my pennies, and I’m not a spendthrift, I know how to economize and manage. I did well enough on Roger’s pay and the pin-money he allowed me. I made a good home for him, and I can make a good home for myself. Or”—she calmed—“I could make a good home for you. Yes, I could, Alan. I could stay here on Antigua, take a tidy set of rooms, nothing grand, no need for servants … well, maybe a maid to help me clean. I’m used to cleaning for myself, Alan. And she would not have to be a live-in, just a day-servant. What’s that, six pounds a year, and a dress and shoes? Oh, would it not be grand, Alan? You would come in from your ship, and we could be together again.”

  Hmm, he considered hard. She’s a wonderful gallop, no question about that, and it wouldn’t cost me tuppence. How many men can boast of free mistresses. Even if she does stray, or take in someone while I’m at sea, it’s nothing more than I’m used to already. Had I bought her, I’d worry about that anyway.

  “Dolly, my dearest, loveliest girl, I’ll be gone for months on end. I’d love to see you again, but it would be so cruelly lonely for you. Best you go home to England, much as I could wish …”

  “And if I just happened to be here, Alan dearest? Would we be able to share things? There’s no one else in your life?”

  “Of course we could, Dolly. And no, there’s no one else.”

  “Oh, you have made me the happiest woman tonight. In all ways, my wonderful Alan. I had not hoped to aspire to so much joy in my life ever again. I shall love and cherish you while I have you, and you shall know how much joy you’ve given me by how much I give myself to you. Like now. Say you’re not so tired, dear Alan. Can we do that again, could we please, my love?”

  II

  “Thou wilt soon die, and thou art not yet simple, nor free from perturbations, nor without suspicion of being hurt by external things, nor kindly disposed towards all; nor dost thou yet place wisdom only in acting justly.”

  Meditations IV-37

  —Marcus Aurelius

  Chapter 1

  His vouchers and records were under his arm, and in order in a sailcloth bundle. He had traded off his midshipman’s rigs, sold that now decidedly shoddy dirk that had once gleamed with “gold,” and had his new uniforms in his sea chest.

  There had been a need to dip into his hidden cache of guineas to pay for his new finery, to equip himself with the luxury of a personal telescope, cases of wine, fresh cabin stores such as cheese and jam. And he had spent money on his man Cony’s rig as well; new shoes and buckles (pinch-beck but serviceable), a new tarred hat, short blue jacket with brass buttons and slop trousers.

  He had not gotten much sleep, in the end. Between the party that had turned into a drunken brawl, his escape, his passionate night with Dolly, which had lasted until dawn, and then a hectic round of chores, he was just about done in. Up and out on a crust of bread and a single cup of tea to move her to his old lodgings, which were a bit more expensive but much nicer and more refined. A quick meeting with his shore agent to deal with her affairs with her husband’s regiment, a gift of twenty pounds to get her settled and tide her over until she could sell Roger Fenton’s commission. And, lastly, a quiet word with the agent to tell him to advance her no more than absolutely necessary if she could not sell it.

  At least, he decided, gaining his first easy breath of the day in the hired boat, he did not have a debilitating hangover. Her send-off, while the coach waited in the street to take him to the docks, had damned near killed him, and had he partaken as heavily as Ashburn and the others the night before, she damned well might have then and there.

  “Da’s de Shrike, sah,” the black boatman told him as he sculled his small bum-boat across the still harbor at first light. Around them the watch-bells chimed from over thirty vessels as the morning watch ended and the forenoon began. Alan consulted his pocket watch and grunted in satisfaction that he would report aboard his new ship just a few minutes after the last stroke of eight in the morning.

  Shrike, he could see as they got close, was foreign in origin, probably a prize. She sported two masts crossed with square-sail yards, but on her after main-mast he could espy a brailed-up sail on the lowest yard, the cro’jack, which on the three-masters he had served was usually bare. On a brig, though, they would need that main course for more speed, for there would be only the fore-course forward which might be winded if the ship sailed in a stern or quarter wind. Her spanker boom and gaff were also much larger than anything he had seen before, and were fixed to an upright spar doubled to the main-mast, which officially made her a snow instead of a brig, possibly an alteration any captain could make in the rig of his ship without upsetting higher authorities, as long as it did not cost the local dockyard too much in government funds or supplies.

  Shrike’s jib-boom and bow-sprit were different also, steeved at a much less acute angle to the deck, which would give her larger heads’ls, and, with the big spanker, more windward ability.

  “Damme, but she’s a shabby old bitch,” he was forced to admit to Cony.

  The hull was dark, almost black, but, like an old coat, showing a rusty brown tinge from years of exposure to weather and gallons of paint and linseed oil. The gunwale stripe might at one time have been buff, but had faded to a scabbed and blistered dingy off-white. And where one expected to see gilt paint around the beakhead, entry port and transom carvings, white lead had been applied in lieu of a prosperous captain’s gold. Her masts, though, and her running and standing rigging, were in excellent shape, bespeaking a captain poor in pelf, not care.

  “Shrike, the butcher
bird,” Alan commented to Cony as he spotted the figurehead and pointed it out. The bird’s wings were fanned back as part of the upper beakhead rail supports, clawed feet extended in the moment of seizure of prey, and the hooked bill open to reveal a red tongue. It too needed a paint job to restore the white, grey and brown tones of the real bird.

  “Seen ’nough of ’em at ’ome, sir.” Cony grinned in remembrance of his forest-running days in Gloucestershire. “Spikes their kills ta thorn bushes. Mayhap we’ll be a’spikin’ some Frogs an’ Dagoes the same, sir.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Ahoy the boat!” came a call from Shrike’s entry port.

  “Aye aye!” Cony bawled back at them, showing the requisite number of fingers to alert their new ship’s side-party to the proper show of respect to be presented.

  The bum-boat chunked against the ship’s side, and the native bargee and Cony held her fast to the chains while Alan squared himself away and took hold of the man-ropes, which were hung old-style from the entry port, without being strung through the boarding ladder battens. It wasn’t much of a climb, though, nothing as tall as a frigate’s sides, and he made it easily without tangling his hanger between his legs or otherwise embarrassing himself.

  The bosun’s pipes began to squeal and the Marines slapped their muskets to “present arms” as his head came up over the deck edge, and he was about to congratulate himself on arriving with the proper amount of dignity. It was at that moment that an impressively large ginger ram-cat with pale gold eyes of a most evil cast accosted him at the lip of the entry port. The cat took one look at him, bottled up, arched his back, laid back his ears and uttered a loud trilling growl of challenge.

  “Fuck you, too,” Alan gasped, almost startled from his grip on the man-ropes. “Shoo. Scat!”

  The cat took a swipe at him, then ran off forward with a howl, there to take guard upon the bulwarks and wash himself furiously as he thought up a way to get even.