Ninety
Wherein We Take The High Road
We emerged from the surgery to find the ward room empty except for the patients. We crept to the doorway to the atrium and peered into the light. The airy space was filled with people we knew and loved.
Theodore was sitting at a table with a bottle of wine. He saw us in the doorway, but other than a brief smile, he made no note of our presence before looking away.
My former tutor, Rucker, sat on a bench under the upper-floor balcony, reading. He always appeared small to me when I first beheld him after an absence. My memories of him seemed locked in a boy’s perspective.
Liam sat with Bones at a table near Theodore. They were cleaning muskets and discussing something with smiles and laughter. They appeared a little fatter than when I last saw them. They were also wearing linen shirts instead of canvas buccaneer tunics. This life appeared to suit them.
I wondered if Liam could be talked into cleaning our weapons.
A larger table in the center of the space was surrounded by women and babes. Madame Doucette was helping Hannah and another negress fold a pile of baby swaddling rags. Yvette Doucette looked much as she had before: a lithe body, with hair more auburn than mahogany in the bright afternoon light. She was lovely until one saw the scar marring the right side of her face from temple to twisted lip—and even then she had a smile that lit her green eyes and drew your gaze away from her misfortune.
Rachel stood by, looking like a peasant woman with Elizabeth on her hip. Her gaze darted furtively to our doorway and quickly moved on. Her daughter had a head of wavy mahogany hair now; and seemed to have doubled in size since last I saw her.
Henrietta was nursing a child—her generous bosom decorously covered by a cloth. Only a pair of pudgy, naked legs emerging from beneath the linen showed what she was about.
And then there was Agnes. Our mastiffs, Taro and Bella, lay in the shade at her feet. A baby basket sat on the table beside her, and she was busy playing with a small child who was trying to stand on the bench before her. This babe had black, wispy curls, and appeared smaller than the one Rachel held. I guessed her to be our little Jamaica. At Agnes’s urging, Jamaica would take the proffered fingers and try to stand, bouncing a little before squatting to the wood again. Agnes cheered this activity with great delight in her big brown eyes: her wide smile splitting her long face and rounding her thin cheeks.
My heart was quite swollen with wonder and pride at this picture of things to come. I glanced at my matelot and found him transfixed. I wrapped an arm about his shoulders and kissed his temple.
He grinned, and looked to me to ask, “We can have this, can we not?”
“It is ours for the taking,” I assured him.
I put fingers to my lips and whistled. Two huge, square dog heads rotated before the human ones did. Then I was delighted to see there were two pistols aimed at us by Liam and Bones – they had thankfully not become too complacent in this bucolic existence. And then we were overrun by excitedly barking dogs, squealing women, and howling men. It took a lovely and happy while before we had embraced everyone, Theodore and Rachel had been teasingly upbraided for not telling anyone of our arrival, and the startled babies had been quieted. I was handed Jamaica and learned they called her Jaime now. Agnes placed a loosely-wrapped bundle in Gaston’s arms, and my matelot immediately sat at the table to examine his son.
“He looks like his father!” Yvette’s negress exclaimed.
I peered over Gaston’s shoulder at the infant and laughed at the cap of brick-red hair and gold-flecked jade eyes. The woman was correct, even in the little face with its barely-formed features there was the unmistakable stamp of his heritage as a Sable. Just as I had known his grandfather at first sight, I would have known this infant without being told the name of his sire.
“He is beautiful,” Gaston breathed as the infant peered up at him with a familiar expression of troubled annoyance.
I laughed even harder, and found the little one in my arms regarding me with concern. I studied her tiny features for some semblance of her mother. It was there in the set of her eyes and in her pale skin. She actually might be quite the beauty if her hair stayed raven-dark and curly. “I am sure you will be as pretty as your mother,” I murmured reassuringly. The child blinked and touched the stubble on my jaw with curiosity.
“I know you! Sodomite!” someone behind me howled in French, and I was struck across the shoulders.
I wrapped my arms protectively around Jamaica and dove away, turning to see Bones and Liam wrestling a cane from a hunch-backed figure with wild, white hair.
“Dominic!” Yvette squealed and ran to the altercation.
“I told you not to hit anyone with this ever again!” Liam roared—in French—with excellent diction—and snapped the cane over his knee.
I peered at the wild-haired man, and my gaze was met by angry blue eyes in a misshapen face: one half sagged as if it did not move. Pierrot’s beating had disfigured the once-handsome man in addition to making him a purported imbecile. I saw more malice in those eyes than an imbecile could ever possess, though; and I felt no sympathy for him—nor would I ever even if he was as intellectually reduced as everyone said. All I had to do to hate him was recall the bruises upon my matelot’s eyelids in that room full of whips.
“I know him,” Doucette snarled. “He took my Gabriel.”
“Gabriel is here, Dominic,” Yvette said in an effort to distract him. She turned his head toward the table where Gaston sat.
The slack mouth fell open with surprise, and the bastard’s eyes lit with delight as he shuffled to the table.
Agnes scooped Apollo up and held him protectively. Her expression showed she did not think the white-haired man a harmless imbecile, either.
Doucette threw himself on the bench next to my matelot and touched Gaston’s shoulder again and again. “Gabriel, oh Gabriel. It is you! You must stay. You must stay.”
Gaston regarded him with a host of emotions playing over his face. He finally sighed with resignation and adopted a kindly mien. “Dominic, I will not stay if you hit people.” He watched Doucette’s face speculatively.
Doucette glanced toward me and began to rock back and forth with seeming remorse. “I am sorry. He took you. He took you and I hate him.”
Gaston patted Doucette’s cheek and pulled the man’s gaze back to meet his own before leaning forward and whispering something in Doucette’s ear. The old man stiffened and looked down and away before fidgeting with the ruffles at his cuff.
My matelot sat back and said quietly, yet loud enough for all to hear, “I think I will stay here and be a physician—as you wished.”
Doucette began to rock again and he nodded tightly. “Thank you. It is all I wanted. All I wanted.”
I looked away with turmoil in my heart that a thing I should want—my matelot finding peace as a physician—should also be a thing this hated wretch wanted. I found Yvette watching me.
“I am sorry,” she mouthed.
I went to her. “It is not your fault,” I said quietly. “And as long as he does not harm anyone, I will not kill him,” I added with a grin.
She flinched until she saw I jested. Then she smiled sadly before embracing me. “Thank you.”
“It must be difficult for you; I am sorry,” I said.
She sighed and looked toward the table: love and warmth suffusing her face—even coloring her cheeks—before turning back to me and saying, “It is better now.” She shrugged disingenuously. “This house was dead before. I am very glad you all came.”
“Thank you for taking them in,” I said, veiling my curiosity. Doucette was a very lucky bastard indeed to still engender so much warmth in this woman’s gaze.
Little Jaime was struggling in my arms, reaching for Yvette. I handed her over and Yvette set her astride her hip with practiced ease; the little girl bashfully buried her face in Yvette’s hair.
“Did you wish for children?” I asked abruptly, surpr
ising even myself. “I am sorry… That was… I have been too long in the company of men, and I am now devoid of the manners proper for addressing a lady.”
Yvette smiled demurely. “You forget, Monsieur; I know the ways of boucaniers. And oui: the children make me very happy. I have always wished for children, but…” She bit her lip and glanced toward her husband with regret. “It was not to be.”
I wished to ask a great many things, but I thought it best to keep my curious mouth firmly shut. “I am pleased we have brought you some small happiness,” I said and bowed.
“You are welcome to stay as long as you need.”
“Thank you.”
She returned to the table where Gaston was cradling his son. Doucette was watching them with a sickening approximation of fatherly pride in his watery eyes. I turned away in disgust and found Liam and Bones watching me curiously. I crossed the atrium to stand with the two buccaneers.
“You speak French very well,” I told Liam in French.
He snorted disparagingly and scratched his head. “Oui, Rucker says I speak French better than I do English. He wants to teach me proper English. I told him I will never use it.”
Bones was chuckling.
“You too?” I teased the lanky man.
“Oui, me too,” Bones said. “We even read. Rucker makes us read from some old book every evening.”
“That must be horrible,” I teased.
Liam shrugged. “I have learned much. And I liked some of it.” He poked Bones in the shoulder. “We liked Ovid: all those Gods seducing one another and maidens and youths.”
“Oui, but I liked the other ones more,” Bones said. “The war for Troy, and the king who could never go home.”
“Oui, those were good too,” Liam agreed thoughtfully. “Those were men we could relate to.”
I stifled my laughter at hearing them speak in such a manner, and said with sincerity, “Those were men much like us.”
Liam frowned and studied me before looking to my matelot. “Maybe not like me,” he said, “but surely like the two of you.”
I thought of the Odyssey and all the times I had thought of myself as Ulysses in my travels. I very much wished for this happy place to be our home; but, perhaps I was destined to return to whence I came and finish my story before being allowed to sit about and grow old amongst children and women. There was no Penelope awaiting me in England, though: Shane surely did not count. A rueful smile twisted my lips.
Nay, home was where one’s matelot was; and I would never be forced to leave Gaston behind whilst I went and did manly things.
“This will be home for now, I hope,” I told them.
“Good,” Liam said. He was eyeing me again with a frown. “You look well.”
“I feel well. We are well. Our time on the Haiti was good for us.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“And you,” I said. “I am very pleased you escaped with the children. And you seem content here. And congratulations on the birth of your son.” Henrietta had briefly shown me a tow-headed infant during the flurry of greeting. I believed she had said his name was Henry.
Liam was grinning with pride, and Bones was laughing at him.
“Oui, two years ago I would not have believed it,” Liam said. He sobered. “I loved Otter, but… sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he lived. I sure would not have a son.” Guilt suffused his face.
“The Gods act in mysterious ways,” I said. “But in the end, it often is for the best.”
They frowned at me.
“Do you mean the Fates?’ Bones asked.
“Oui,” I said with a grin.
Liam nodded, and then he frowned and pointed the end of Doucette’s broken cane at me. “Don’ be talkin’ like that aroun’ the priests,” he chided in English.
I switched languages as well and asked quietly, “Do they have spies here?”
“Doucette. Tho’ the good father na’ believe all ’e says, thank God.” He shook his head and sighed angrily. “That right bastard! ’E tried to steal all the money. ’E were all interested when the Lady Montren pulled out ’er bag ta give yur sister some money. ’E went in ’er room one mornin’ when the women were doin’ laundry, an’ tore everythin’ apart ’til ’e found the gold. We only caught ’im on account o’ the dogs. They hate ’im an’ likewise. ’E said ’e were takin’ it ta the church ta keep it safe. Then the bastard tol’ the head priest that Agnes be rich. Theodore an’ we divided up the money and hid most o’ it. We only showed the priests a little. An’ they o’ course wanted ’er ta tithe a goodly part o’ it. All the while Doucette be tellin’ there were more, but the priests na’ believe ’im.”
I swore vehemently. “Thank you,” I said.
“That na’ be all,” he said. “’E tore up a bunch o’ the Lady’s paintin’s o’ Madame Doucette. ’E’s done an’ tried ta poison the dogs. ’E’s always tryin’ ta kick ’em or hit ’em with this cane. The first week we be ’ere, we caught ’im bullyin’ the slave lads inta catchin’ the housekeeper’s cat an’ takin’ it inta the ’ospital so ’e could dissect it. The priests ’ad ta tell me what that were. The Lady were real upset and we put a stop ta that nonsense. It na’ be like ’e ’as anythin’ betwixt ’is ears ta learn no science from.”
Rage had, of course, gathered and surged through my heart and head. “Who will cry if he takes a nasty tumble down the stairs?” I asked very quietly.
Liam sighed. “No one would cry, but I be thinkin’ the priests would know it weren’t no accident.”
“And Madame Doucette has her black boys watchin’ ’im all the time now,” Bones drawled.
“They did not stop him from striking a man holding a babe,” I scoffed.
Liam threw up his hands. “They be real good at doin’ what they be tol’ an’ little else. An’ they be tol’ ta watch ’im, na’ stop ’im. An’ they don’ like gettin’ hit, and he beats on ’em whenever ’e gets the chance. So they watch ’im, but they keep their distance. I hit ’im once. The time ’e tried ta poison the dogs. It were after ’e tried ta steal the money. One o’ the priests yelled at me after—sayin’ the poor ol’ fool doesn’t know what ’e’s about an’ I’m na’ allowed ta do nothin’ ta ’im. The only ones that saw me hit the bastard were the boys. Doucette hadn’t even had a chance ta go and cry ta Father Pierre. The boys be supposed ta go an’ tell Madame Doucette, but most times one o’ ’em runs o’er to the church first.”
“The priests are probably offering them a reward,” I said with frustration. “What else do these boys watch?”
“Everything,” Bones said. “There be two watching us now.” He hooked his thumb toward the balcony above him.
I looked up casually, and let my gaze wander along the balcony until I spied two dark little faces in the shadows near the stairs. I sighed.
“Any other trouble makers?” I asked.
“There were Jean,” Liam said. “But we got rid o’ ’im. ’E be rovin’ now.”
Bones cackled. “He’ll be right angry when he comes back. We press-ganged him.”
“Jean?” I asked: the name sounded familiar.
“Aye, a boy who grew up ’ere in this ’ouse,” Liam said.
“He wasn’t much of a boy no more,” Bones scoffed. “He was almost as tall as you.”
I remembered the boy. He had been very protective of Madame Doucette when last we were here: in that awkward stage of adolescence when one falls very much in love with people one cannot have.
“How and why did you press-gang him?” I asked.
“’E were in love with Madame Doucette, and she wanted none o’ it no more. ’E were givin’ ’imself airs like he were the man o’ the house. She asked us ta convince ’im ta go rovin’. ’E didna’ want ta go. So we asked Pierrot if ’e could use another, an’ we got the poor boy drunk and dumped ’im in the Josephine’s hold the night afore she sailed,” Liam said with regret. “It were na’ a kind thing ta do, but ’e were askin’ fur it.�
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“We gave him a good musket and a brace of pistols,” Bones said as if that should make everything well.
I grinned. “So we will likely have to deal with him in the summer.”
“Aye,” Liam sighed.
I well understood why Yvette had to remove an enamored youth from her house. When last we were here, Yvette had been battling the younger priests about their memory of her former profession. She wished very much to be known as a properly-married lady. And now she was saddled with an imbecile of a husband in the town’s eyes—one no one would assume bedded her. I shuddered at the thought myself. Thankfully, Cayonne surely did not have a bevy of social biddies sitting about watching everything everyone did and gossiping behind their fans, but every man in town thinking she was a whore would not do either. Her house suddenly becoming full of strangers six months ago had probably not been helpful: even if two of the four men under her roof were married and their wives were present. In the matter of a lady’s reputation, even harmless men such as Rucker and Bones were threats.
And now Gaston and I had arrived. As soon as we lobbed the grenadoe of his marriage to Christine into the house; and unless the priests agreed to perform a ceremony for Agnes and me—and Agnes agreed to that course—there would assuredly be a great deal of assumptions being made about how Madame Doucette warmed her bed—even though Gaston and I were known sodomites.
It would be best for her reputation if we moved elsewhere: unless, of course, she no longer cared what others thought in this village of ill-repute. Truly, the only bastion of propriety was the Church. I wondered how much of a threat the Jesuits were going to prove to be here. This French colony was far less civilized than Jamaica, but there was still a governor who—despite being an appointment of commerce and not politics—still must uphold French obeisance to the Holy Roman Church. The French did not practice the Inquisition with any rigor as the Spanish did, but a Catholic priest still held the power to destroy a man or woman.
And here we were going to wave a red flag before them with the matter of the misconstrued marriages.
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