Then the rag was upon my buttocks. Every muscle in my body tensed, and I held myself rigid as he began to rub toward my nether hole. He stopped, and put a hand aside my neck to push me back enough for our eyes to meet. I pressed my forehead to his, but held his gaze. The question I did not wish to answer was in his eyes. I nodded. He hissed with pain and his Horse eclipsed all else with a rage that made my Horse wish to flee. He crushed me to him before I could.
I could not speak. I did not know what I would say if I could. I was drawn and pinioned in purgatory. I wanted his forgiveness, but I knew there was nothing for him to forgive. Except… I had banished my cock. Except that my Horse had been traitorous—as had my cock—and thus made me do such a thing. I was an animal. I lacked the conviction of a man. Yet I had acted with the conviction of a man.
Shame held me under, and my Horse began to plunge about, trying to breathe. I did not realize I was moving, struggling with Gaston, fighting to escape, until he pinned my weak and battered body to the deck.
He held me still and covered my face with kisses. I could taste his tears and hear his sobs as well as my own.
“I love you,” he began to repeat over and over again, until at last it drowned out all else and the words took on meaning.
I stopped trying to struggle and surrendered, to lie boneless and gasping beneath him. His mouth covered mine, and I opened for him and accepted the truth of his tongue: he loved me, no matter what had been done to me, no matter what I had done.
With a hoarse cry, I wrapped my limbs around him, and kissed him with abandon. Nipping and licking his jaw and neck. He responded ardently at first, only to stop and push up and away. I sprang up after him, and we crouched facing one another. His eyes were full of his Horse, and I knew mine were much the same. Though his beast was hungry and regretful, and mine was hungry and pleading.
I needed him. I wanted him. I… Words finally came. “Make it all go away,” I croaked, and held out my hand.
He sucked in a great breath and wonder lit his eyes, and then understanding. He took my proffered hand.
My belly was least wounded, so I threw my weight upon it. He was a welcome presence on my back; the smell of oil the blessing of angels. I closed my eyes, knowing I would never mistake him for another. I would have known him at my birth; I would know him at my death.
He entered me, and my new festering wound of shame was lanced open to bleed into nothingness as he filled me with his love. With limbs entwined, we stormed heaven; and as I had done before when I had no pleasure of my own to reach, I saw the gates through his soul and felt his release as if it were mine.
In the aftermath, I lay absolved. He placed the knives in reach, covered us with our blanket, and curled about me protectively. I no longer felt the need to cry. I told the Gods things They already knew, and thanked Them for things They had already granted.
Eighty-Seven
Wherein We Escape
I woke, my body aching from head to toe, lying on hard boards, hearing the clump and clatter of wood on wood of barrels being moved and opened, and aware of the omnipresent but almost silent sound of water rushing beneath the hull. I panicked: it had all been a dream: I was still imprisoned. There was a body above me, and it pressed me down at my first incoherent squawk and hissed my name—the correct name—with a beloved voice.
I was safe.
I lay flat and collected my breathing, waiting for my heart to slow. There were men beyond our alcove in the hold, going about some daily business involving victuals. Gaston crouched above me; knife in hand, eyes intent upon the entrance to our den. As I stilled, he moved the hand on my back to my face, and caressed my cheek reassuringly. I closed my eyes and sighed.
When we no longer heard the men with us in the hold, Gaston leaned down to kiss my temple, and then he flowed over me and out the entrance to crouch in the passageway and peer about.
We were cats, or more likely rats: rats on our own ship. We should… do many things. But I did not feel like facing curious or pitying faces any more than I was sure my matelot did. I wished to hide, yet it did not sit well with me that we should have to.
“We are not well,” I told Gaston when he returned with a pineapple.
His smile was wry, and very much his own and not springing from his Horse or Child; but his hand shook as he tried to slice the half-rotten pineapple. He set the knife aside and regarded his trembling limb with a heavy sigh.
“I have not seen you so gripped by it for so long,” I whispered. “And even when I feel lucid, as I do at this moment, I feel… Non, I know, it will not last, and… it should not last. I am deeply wounded.”
He closed his eyes as if my words pained him, and I took his hand and clasped it tightly. The sight of tears leaking from beneath his lids brought my own.
I sniffed with amusement. “We are drowning in a surplus of emotion. We need to get our heads above it. We need…” I envisioned us standing side by side, two centaurs on a snowy road with a blizzard roaring all about us. I told him of it, ending with, “I feel the cart is fine, no matter what we might do.”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We need to lie down. Somewhere where the road is safe and level.”
“Somewhere where the road is downhill,” I said.
“Non, that will make it that much harder to climb back up again,” he said sadly.
It was a strange thought. “That is assuming our course lies ever upward.” I supposed we did make that assumption: that our destiny lay in traversing ever more difficult terrain: Cayonne, France, his inheritance, dealing with my father.
“Does it not?” he asked as if his thoughts mirrored my own.
“Oui, but not now,” I said quickly. “For now, we need someplace warm, with meadows to frolic in.”
“Oui.”
“Gods, I wish we could go to Negril,” I sighed; but Negril was lost to us, and I did not dare mourn it: contemplating sorrow would suck me under.
“Non, we are bound for Île de la Tortue,” he said bitterly. “To find the babies. To catch up with the others. To retreat to France.” He snarled this last, and slammed his hands upon the floor as his Horse raged in his eyes.
I thought of our last visit to Cayonne on Tortuga: of Doucette and the priests. Then I thought of what awaited us there now: the matter of Agnes and Christine: the worries about Gaston’s competence and French law: and the aftermath of all our friends had suffered… because of us. My Horse trembled and rolled His eyes.
And I was still angry with my beast, and…
How in the name of the Gods were we to climb those hills in our condition?
There was no answer for that. We would manage as best we could one step at a time. I moved until I could caress Gaston’s face. His beard still bothered me: it was not unattractive, but it represented his madness.
“Let us shave,” I offered.
He took a calming breath and chuckled ruefully. “Oui. I do not like your beard.”
I pushed up painfully to my knees and found him watching me with new tears and concern.
“You are in misery,” he said hoarsely.
“Everywhere but my heart,” I said to reassure him, and then knew I should not lie. “Non: oui and non. That is more poetry than truth.” I laid my hand alongside his face and held his gaze on mine. “I only know one thing. I love you. That is all I have. All else is in ruin or embattled.”
He kissed my palm and met my gaze earnestly. “It is mutual. I am so afraid, Will.”
“Of what, my love?”
“Of losing you.”
“That is also mutual,” I said, and fought more tears as I thought of what I had done to… remain with him, perhaps. I could not fathom my thinking during my imprisonment. It was a place I dared not go. Like the light at the cave mouth I had hidden from after Gaston and I fought in Porto Bello. Except this was a dark and cold place deep inside my heart. I gasped as the chill of it swirled about me. I ran back out into the light; and felt my world was insi
de out.
“They took you,” Gaston breathed. “Non, they took me, and… I could not save you. I could not save you. And they fought me: they argued: they called me mad: they made me mad: they…”
His fists were balled tightly and his eyes glittered, but I could see him fighting it.
“It is like a fountain,” he said. “A spring of hate and anger has opened in my soul. And I do not know if there is a rock large enough to block it. I do not know if I should.”
He met my gaze again. “Oui, the only truth I have is you. All else, all the pretty little places I built to hide things, and hold them, and… The houses I have built against the storm. They are all gone. I feel I have no friends, or family, or… nothing, except you.”
We could not climb this hill: we could not.
“Oui. I do not think we should go to Cayonne… or France,” I said. “Not now.”
“Not ever,” he breathed, his gaze on the wall.
“I do not know that,” I said, even as a glimmer of hope ignited in my heart at merely wondering if never having to climb those mountains was even a possibility.
His finger was on my lips, his eyes intent upon mine. His face stilled with some new thought.
“The Haiti. We will go to the Haiti,” he whispered. “Those idiots will have to sail by it to reach Île de la Tortue. We will be safe there. We can hide away.” He frowned and turned to glare out into the hold. “We will need our weapons.”
Relief flooded my heart and nearly took my breath away. I grinned.
“Oui, oui.” I imagined us slipping away into the dense forests of that wilderness he had often described. We did not need to be chained to a cart on a road: we were the cart; and could not the world be our road? There would be no wives, no babies, no fathers, no titles, and no pitying friends. There would only be us, and our memories, and thoughts, and… That might be hill enough for us to climb, but was that not what we needed?
Now that we knew what we wished, we began to go about preparing for it. We attended our morning needs, dressed, shaved, and assessed our supplies with the happy industry of men recovered from a long illness. There was irony in that we were preparing for our convalescence.
We poked about the hold and discovered there was little left to take. The Queen had not unloaded her Spanish plunder or provisioned. Silks and candelabras would do us little good.
I was pleased when I discovered a writing desk replete with parchment, ink and quills, though. I pulled up a small barrel and sat for a time considering a blank sheet.
“Who will you write?” Gaston asked when he found me there.
“I wish to write my father… perhaps,” I sighed. “I would tell him I hope he is billed at great expense for that frigate; and that he should tell Thorp he does not possess enough money to hide from me; and that I would see them all in Hell. But I do not feel I am in the proper strategic state of mind to calculate the effect of such a letter—or to write it without sounding like a maudlin and angry boy.”
Gaston rubbed my head sympathetically before taking a deep breath and saying, “I should write mine.”
I nodded and made great show of moving aside to offer him my seat. I was surprised when he quickly sat and rubbed the dirt from his hands before taking up the quill. I had not expected him to show such enthusiasm.
“I wonder what the date is,” he said.
“I do not know. It was the end of May when we arrived in Port Royal, and you all say it has been three weeks since then, so mid-June, perhaps.”
Gaston frowned; as did I when I realized the import of my words.
“My birthday has likely come and gone,” I said. “I must be twenty-nine-years-old now.”
I was horrified that perhaps Thorp’s attentions occurred on my birthday, but I supposed it was as likely Gaston’s rescue had. The Gods seemed to find humor in delivering me from fate in celebration of my birth: or perhaps in giving me renewed life, as if I were reborn each time.
“I know you will count the rescue as your gift,” Gaston was saying, “but I am not pleased with that alone.” He was frowning and serious.
“Non,” I shook my head and smiled. “That was not from you. You still owe me a gift.”
He grinned. “What would you like?”
“You have already named it. We shall seek peace and a chance to be reborn. You shall care for me while I frolic like a colt.”
This seemed to please him, and I felt ease in my heart at the thought as well.
“I shall date the letter with your birthday,” he said. He scratched the date into the corner and wrote the greeting before regarding the rest of the blank page with a sigh. “Pretty words will not make him understand,” he said after a time.
“Then write ugly ones,” I said.
He gave a snort of mild amusement and frowned at the page anew. I left him to it and went to continue our impromptu inventory of the hold.
Sometime later I saw movement at the steps and turned to see Striker descending from the bright light into our shadows. He peered about in the dark. “Will? Gaston?”
“Here,” I said, and went to join him.
Gaston’s pen stopped scratching and he was soon beside me. The three of us sat in the passageway outside our den.
“Just you?” I asked.
“Aye, Pete feels you’re angry with him,” Striker said with a shrug. He peered about, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness. “You know, it’s damn hot down here, and it stinks; you would be welcome on deck.”
“We do not feel we are ready for such scrutiny,” I said.
He sighed. “Aye, I can understand that.”
If he truly did, it indicated pity, and I wanted none of that. I struggled to keep the frown from my face.
“How are you feeling?” Striker asked, and chewed his lip as he studied me in the dim light.
“Like I look,” I said with a smile. “But as my matelot can attest, I have the constitution of a horse.”
Gaston gave a small huff of amusement. “A boar.”
Striker grinned, only to quickly sober. “I am sorry, Will. I’m sure Gaston told you about the fighting that delayed things. We didn’t know what to do. Everyone thought you and Sarah would be well enough.” He rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“Sarah was,” I said, and watched his reaction.
He frowned and studied a crate thoughtfully. “Aye, it appears that way. She says that her father ordered them not to harm her, and that she gave them no cause.” He frowned at me. “She says you gave them cause to do as they did to you.”
“Does she?” I growled, and heard it echo from my matelot.
Striker held up his hand in supplication. “I’m not saying I agree with her,” he said quickly. “I love the woman: God I love her. But women have a different way of seeing things. They tend to be practical.” He met my gaze levelly. “I’m sure they gave you cause to fight them.” He grinned. “She says you blinded some fat fool.”
I smiled with relief. “Aye. My father sent the little bastard to… How did he phrase it? To cure me of my sodomiacal tendencies.”
“What?” Gaston asked with alarm and incredulity.
Striker hooted with amusement and laughed. “I can picture how well you received that.”
“Not well, I assure you.” I smiled reassuringly at Gaston. “I told him when we were introduced that if he did anything to trouble me I would kill him. And that they were damn fools to anger me if I was truly to be the next Earl. The pompous little bastard thought I would thank him for saving my immortal soul, though; and Thorp…” And here my humor ended. “He… thought he could break me. He found pleasure in it,” I finished quietly.
“Will, you don’t sound like a broken man,” Striker said with great admiration and kindness.
I sighed and nodded my thanks at his praise; but I said quietly, “If you had arrived but a day later, I might not sound as I do.”
And as it was… My Horse snorted disparagingly at me.
Striker took a he
avy breath and nodded with resignation. He looked to Gaston. “I’m sorry. I could not be sorrier if I tried.”
Gaston studied him and at last sighed and nodded. “I forgive you, and Pete; you at least wanted to rescue them. I wish Pete had not let them be taken, though.”
I thought of that night, and remembered what I had known then. There had been over a hundred muskets and pistols pointed in every direction. It would have become a charnel house. The image of seeing Gaston bloom with Nickel’s bloody wounds overcame me, and I gasped with surprise and pain.
“Non, nay,” I said. “I would rather suffer all I have again than lose Gaston. People would have died that night. Any of us could have died that night.”
Gaston took a ragged breath, his eyes on me.
Striker sighed and nodded with resignation. “That’s what I keep telling Pete.”
“I will tell him,” I said.
“NoNeed,” came from the shadows beyond the hatch, and Pete walked into the light. “IHearYa.”
Striker started such that I knew he had not known his matelot was there. I was equally surprised that we had not seen the Golden One come below.
Pete and Striker glared at one another, but Pete paused where Striker sat, and leaned down to kiss his matelot’s forehead before coming to embrace me with gentle regard for my injuries.
“IBeSorry,Will,” he said sadly.
“I will not forgive you, because you did nothing wrong,” I said with fresh tears.
He turned to Gaston. My matelot looked up at him pensively, and then embraced him.
“I’m damn thankful no one died that night,” Striker said. “Except your wife,” he added quickly with a guilty grimace, “and that damn traitor, Nickel. And…” He sighed. “We don’t know about the children yet.” He met my gaze. “Truly, we were all upset about your wife.”
I had not thought of Vivian for some time; the lost expression upon her face; her fear. It could be said that if she had but waited; but they would have already had their hands on her; and she had no ground to courageously hold once Nickel’s betrayal was revealed. She had been routed years ago; and her happiness and faith were so fragile; and she knew what might lie ahead at the hands of men. She had known evil. I had understood why she did as she had that night. I still did.
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