Home From The Sea

by Keegan, Mel

  Did Toby know what he was doing? The balladsinger’s face was soft with some melange of affection, exhaustion, even relief. If he had been thrown down and hard ridden, he would have accepted it as his due, but to be caressed, kissed, cherished, touched his heart rather than his body; and Jim was sure it was love he felt rather than old fashioned lust, when at last he let Toby carry his weight and began to hump against the soft-hard pillow of his belly.

  He could have been buried in Toby to the hips, and they both knew it. Instead, he lay between the long blond legs, looking down into Toby’s face, sharing kisses that searched and nipped and teased. Time for the rest later, he thought, when the shadow of Nathaniel Burke had gone and taken the ghosts with it. Years lay ahead of them, and they would be good years, filled with every sensual indulgence.

  For tonight it was enough to rub and hump, moving together in a rhythm that was oddly like a dance. Close to the end, Toby’s hands burrowed between them, found them both and dealt them the same knowing caresses while Jim laid claim to his mouth, plundered him till Toby could have been in no doubt as to where he belonged now, and to whom.

  Jim had never known the luxury of having a lover, a partner who would be there in the morning, and every morning. He had never realized he had a possessive, jealous streak inside him. But he put his own mark on Toby now – a sweet, stinging bite brand on his shoulder – and he did not like to think back on how satisfying it would have been for him to show Burke and Pledge the business end of the blunderbuss.

  As always Toby was silent in his coming, but Jim permitted himself a cry. He smothered it in Toby’s hair while he hung onto every last instant of pleasure, savoring the release as a man will when pleasure has always been elusive. Beneath him Toby’s body calmed, his breathing stilled little by little until at last he was at rest.

  He was soon asleep, too exhausted to fight his eyes open a moment longer. Jim was no less weary. He fumbled for a kerchief to clean them, reached over and snuffed all but the smallest of the lanterns. Then he closed eyes that were hot, sore, gritty, and permitted himself the luxury of sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Roars of rage, distant yet obnoxious, roused Jim from a dream about white sands and green water, nodding palms and blue-eyed sirens who splashed in the warm shallows –

  “He’s awake,” Toby’s voice said from the companionable darkness at his shoulder. “Christ, did we sleep too long?”

  The fire had gone out hours before, but the dogs were still curled up by the hearth. Both were awake and staring at the bed. Full daylight streamed in through the cracks around the shutter, and Jim did not think it was much before dawn proper.

  He sat up with an oath, dragged both hands across his face and swung his legs out of bed. His body was stiff, throbbing, but he knew movement was the best thing to limber him up. He caught his britches up from the hearthside, shoved his legs into them, and padded to the casement.

  The sun was not yet up but the sky was clear. No clouds sullied it, as far as the horizon, and he said over his shoulder, “I was right. We’ve seen the last of the rain. The beck’ll fall back to normal by tonight.”

  Again, the enraged, bull-like roaring from downstairs, and now Toby slithered out of the bed. “We’ve a lot to do today.”

  “And it starts with him.” Jim felt his face set into grim lines as he picked up his shirt and waistcoat, and shrugged into both. “That’s Burke, not Pledge … and I’ve heard about all I care to.”

  “I’ll give Edith a knock, get that laudanum of yours,” Toby said quietly.

  She was already in the passage when Jim swung open the door. The dogs ran out, but only as far as the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Clitheroe held out the brown glass bottle without being asked for it. “I fell asleep,” she said, still slurring a little. “I should’ve been dosin’ ’em an hour ago.”

  “Well, now,” Jim said, lifting a brow at Toby, “why don’t we give Nathaniel a dose of what’s good for him? Because if he doesn’t shut up, I’m going to wrap the skillet around his nasty neck, and that can’t be good for a man.”

  Toby’s mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “Of the two, I’d prefer the skillet, but … perhaps not today.”

  They took the stairs carefully, heading down into near pitch darkness in which Burke and Pledge were pinpointed by the noise Burke was making. The single lantern left burning on the bar had died long before and the shutters were still locked in place. For some moments Jim waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, and when he could pick out vague outlines, he beckoned Toby.

  They made their way around behind Burke, ignoring the roared threats and promises of tortures Jim was sure were not even physically possible. With both hands Toby captured the man’s head, pinched his nose shut and forced open his jaws. Jim opened the bottle, held it in place – how many drops of the precious laudanum went into Burke’s throat, he was not quite sure, and nor did he care. The man was big enough to sleep them off. In moments he lapsed back into porcine snores and they turned their attention to Joseph Pledge, who was still far from consciousness. He knew nothing as the bitter drops fell onto the back of his tongue.

  Satisfied, Jim thrust the laudanum into his pocket and beckoned Toby to help with the bar locking the door. The hinges squealed with rust; they needed oil, a job for which Jim made yet another mental note, but the dawn sky was clear, cloudless. The first inch of sun was above the horizon now, and the world –

  The whole world seemed to be water, calm, gray-green, sullen. The illusion would soon pass, Jim knew. Twice in six years the beck had spilled up over its banks, but a day, two, without rain and they would see the flagstones in the stableyard again. The tavern would clean up, as it always did.

  The longboat sill lay a dozen yards from the door with its nose up on the pebbles, and Jim frowned at it. “It’s going to take two to row that thing.”

  “Good thing there’s two of us,” Toby observed. One long arm rested over Jim’s shoulders but his eyes were on the sea, gauging the run of the tide, and he smiled thinly. “We’ve got the current with us, on the way east. Mind you, it’ll be a hard slog on the way back.”

  “On the way back,” Jim argued, “there’ll be four or five of us. What, the likes of Hobbes and Bigelow don’t know how to row a boat?”

  The remark inspired a quiet laugh. “Give them a good enough reason, they’ll row.”

  “The treasure,” Jim said dryly, “of Diego Monteras.”

  “Treasure,” Toby breathed, “would be the best reason any of our venal company could imagine.” He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the side of Jim’s neck. “I meant what I said last night. What I have to give is yours for the taking.”

  “I could say the same,” Jim said easily. “Breakfast? I don’t know about you, but I want some food in the belly before I put one foot in any boat!”

  “And a pistol in each pocket.” All trace of humor fled from Toby’s face, leaving his eyes oddly pale in the morning light. “And plenty of spare powder and shot.”

  “Oh, yes.” Jim stepped back into the tavern, where the water was down to just below ankle deep and so filthy, he could barely see his shoes through it. “Call the dogs downstairs while I go back up and get the fire going.”

  Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was still inches underwater. The swirl there was filthy with the cinders and ash from the gutted hearth, and Jim noticed a definite reek of mildew this morning. He muttered the kind of language that would have earned him a boxing for his ears when he was a boy. Local laborers would be scrubbing with salt and vinegar for days, in every crevice, to get the mildew out – and much of the stink was coming up from the cellar. A bucket-line would be working there through an entire day to bail it out, before braziers would burn for days more, to get it dry enough to even start the salt and vinegar scrub –

  And there Jim stopped himself, wondering why he was fretting about the day to day business of a sailors’ alehouse.

  Even if he and Toby took on
ly a small handful of the prize – so little, the likes of Burke might never guess it was gone – they were rich men, and the largesse would last long if it was wisely spent. They could hand the job of cleaning up to a foreman and spend a month in France. They could sell the place and buy a whole new tavern, somewhere less prone to the constant risk of high water from a beck that never stayed inside its own banks after three days of rain. They could outfit a ship, chase the horizon to places Jim had always dreamed about but never actually thought to see with his own eyes.

  Such thoughts consumed him as he reset the fire. He was in the kitchen, hunting for kippers, eggs, bread that was not too green around the edges, when he heard a voice he recognized in the yard right outside the backdoor.

  “Ho there, Master Fairley, are you well? I knew you’d be flooded again, Jim – is there anything you need?”

  It was John Hardesty – and Jim kicked himself. He should have known the doctor would come over as soon as the rain stopped. Hardesty was much more than a good doctor; he was a decent man, with the welfare of patients in mind. Jim’s heart was in his mouth as he splashed to the door, but before he could drag it open he heard Edith Clitheroe calling down from a casement above.

  “G’mornin’, Doctor,” she shouted. “We’s all alive, if that’s what ’as thee wonderin’! We’s upstairs, well outta yon flood.”

  Jim threw his weight against the door to force it through the water, and pasted a smile onto his face. “John! It’s good to see you, and it was kind of you to come by. I’d offer you coffee if I had it, but the fires are out … will you take a jar of ale instead?”

  A small rowing boat was bobbing in just enough water to float it off, a few yards from the three-foot pad on which the tavern had been rebuilt when the old ruins were flattened. A brawny young man sat at the oars and Hardesty was in the front, the big brown leather medical bags around his knees. He was not in oilskins this morning, and his shirt was open in the heavy, humid air. His oarsman was slick with sweat, eyes narrowed against the first bright light they had seen in days.

  “Another time, Jim,” Hardesty called. “I’d love to be sociable, but there’s a dozen more houses to visit before I turn this cockleshell for home … damn these rains. Are you managing?”

  “More or less,” Jim told him cautiously. “The bloody cellar’s flooded again. It’ll be a shite of a job to get it dry, as usual, and it’s already stinking.” He paused, slapping his left leg. “I worked too hard, getting us battened down, and I’m afraid I used a lot of the laudanum, John. Too much, actually … I slept like the dead! Any chance you can let me have another bottle?”

  “Will tomorrow do?” Hardesty frowned at his bags. “Promise me you’ll be cautious with the stuff – it can be death of you, faster than the leg, if you’re foolish with it.”

  “As well I know,” Jim said grimly, at that moment thinking of Burke and Pledge. “You can trust me, John. These last days have been the worst I’ve known since I was a lad, and … here I am, to tell you about it.”

  “Well said,” Hardesty approved. “I’ll come back in the morning, then. Christ alone knows what I’m going to find in the cottages up yonder. I’ve seen broken bones and gashes that’ve already gone green as pond scum, just between here and home! Idiots have been wading in thigh-deep water, stepping on poisonous old lumber. I’ll be sawing legs off, if me best poultices don’t work.”

  “What, more ‘weeds’ from your garden?” In fact, Jim knew the good of herbs and was joking, not mocking.

  “Weeds, indeed,” Hardesty scoffed, but he was chuckling. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, Jim. If you find yourself in strife, send a lad to run and get me.”

  “Tomorrow or the next day will be fine,” Jim judged. “The water’ll be dropping today. I could come over to your place tomorrow night, if you’ll be there.”

  Hardesty waved. “I’ll be there. No one in the house needs a doctor, then?” He craned his neck back to look up at the casement. “And you, Edith – you’re well?”

  “Oh, aye,” she said dismissively. “The worst thing’s them damn’ stairs, wi’ these bloody knees o’ mine, but I’m up ’ere now.”

  “We got the food and firewood and lamp oil up, before the water got to it,” Jim added. “We’ll manage nicely, John – but I’m grateful for your concern. That’s a favor I owe you.”

  Hardesty waved off the gratitude. “I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow, if you can make it through.” Then, to the boatman, “Go on, Freddie, let’s see some muscles. We’ve a mile to go yet, before it’s cakes and ale!”

  The boat turned slightly and pulled out, right through the stableyard and past the coach house, which was as bizarre a sight as Jim could imagine. He waved, lingering on the backdoor step until Hardesty was out of sight, and only then permitted himself the luxury of breathing properly.

  “You don’t trust him?” Toby’s voice asked from the other end of the kitchen.

  “In fact, I do,” Jim said with wry humor, “which is the whole problem. John’s as law abiding a man as Nathaniel Burke isn’t. If he knew there’d been death and mayhem in this house, he’d make tracks for the garrison, report the whole business to Captain Dixon, and we’d have dragoons up to the rafters before luncheon. Burke and Pledge would be in the bailey before they woke up – which would suit me just fine. But I’ll give you short odds, the others, this Willie Tuttle and Eli Hobbs, would soon get wind of it. They’d go to ground before Dixon could get the irons on them, wouldn’t they?”

  “They’d be gone like rats,” Toby said quietly. “Like the vermin they are.”

  “And when the coast was clear, we’d have to go through this whole business again. Give it a week or a month and they’d be here, as nasty as Burke and Pledge, and likely just as hard to deal with.” Jim shook his head, a sharp negative. “I want it done now, Toby. I want it over and finished, so we can get on and do … whatever it is we’re going to do with one small handful of those baubles.”

  “That’s about the size and shape of it.” Toby rubbed his face hard. “Time’s wasting, Jim.”

  “We eat, then we’re on our way,” Jim said with bleak determination. “Kippers and eggs?”

  They sizzled on the skillet in the big bedchamber. The two dogs were hungry, intent on the pan, nostrils flaring, and after Jim served himself and Toby he scraped a pile of the hash onto a spare platter. The tomcat remained on top of the wardrobe but he was sitting up this morning, grooming himself with a skilled pink tongue. The shutters were open, and a fresh sea wind filled the room as the sun climbed swiftly

  Any other day Jim would have called it a lovely morning, but he saw none of its beauty today. The food tasted like straw and he forced it down, eyes on Toby, whose face was tight, clenched. Jim lifted a brow in question and he said,

  “Pistols, powder and shot.”

  “I’ve a pistol and a boat gun of my own,” Jim mused, “and Burke and Pledge came in armed with two pistols apiece. Scum like them take care of their weapons before they look to the comfort of their women, so I’d be glad to take theirs, unless these old friends of yours at The Cattlemarket would recognize them.”

  But Toby made negative noises. “A pistol’s a pistol. Nathaniel was always well armed, but there’s nothing special about the cannons he’s carrying now. Leave the boat gun, Jim. It’s too visible. If Eli and Willie got one glimpse of it, they’d be likely to shoot you down before they bothered to inquire about your business.”

  “Time.” Jim stood and dusted off his hands.

  “Time,” Toby agreed. He looked up, saw Mrs. Clitheroe in the doorway and forced a smile. “Edith, will you do me a favor? Catch Bess and hold onto her. She’s going to want to come with me, but I’d prefer to have her out of harm’s way.”

  “Aye, I will.” She faltered. “But, thee’s comin’ back ’ere after, isn’t thee?”

  “We are,” Jim said loudly, emphatically. “We’ll be back before dusk at the very latest, and probably a lot sooner … and w
e won’t be alone. I’ll leave the laudanum on the bar, and you keep dosing Burke and Pledge every three or four hours till mid-afternoon. Keep an eye open for the boat. When you see it, get back upstairs, quick as you can, and stay well out of the way. Don’t even let them see you.”

  “I can do that,” she said darkly. “Bess? Come on ’ere, Bessielove, come wi’ me and I’ll feed thee some cheese. Thee likes cheese. Come on, Boxer – cheese fer thee an’all.”

  Both dogs took the lure, and the door to the small room clicked shut behind them. With a grim glance, Jim and Toby headed downstairs, and Jim came to rest in the middle of the taproom. Burke and Pledge were still snoring, still trussed. Toby frowned over them as he collected his coat from the rack by the open door.

  “These bastards are going to have heads like merry hell itself when they wake,” Jim said, amused. “I did this once, myself – only once, mind you. Took the medicine, and again, and yet again, to stay away from the pain, the time I took a fall off a horse. Two whole days, I was away with the pixies. Didn’t know a thing about the world. When I woke, all I wanted was for somebody to find the common mercy to put a pistol ball in my skull, put me out of my misery!” He fetched the bottle from his pocket, pulled the stopper and pinched Burke’s nose. The man’s mouth fell open and several drops dribbled onto his tongue. Jim performed the same service for Pledge, and left the bottle on the bar as he had promised.

  Not quite on a whim, he reached under the bar for a bottle of rum. Toby was shrugging into his coat, and watched without comment as Jim liberally doused both Burke and Pledge, even filled their mouths with the spirit. Now, they would never convince even their oldest friend that they had not drunk themselves legless on purloined grog and passed out. The pain of overindulgence in laudanum would be scorned as a hard-earned hangover.

  “They’re well out of it,” Jim judged. “You have your knife there?”

  Toby drew the skinning knife from the inside pocket of his coat, stooped over the prisoners and cut the intricate knots out of the ropes. As they fell loose, Jim gathered up the oddments of line and stowed them under the bar. He fetched back three empty rum bottles and a fourth half-full, and set them on the table, right beside the sprawled bodies.