“We discovered my name has been slandered with my former business associates,” Theodore said sadly.
“The rest of us are useless,” the Bard said. “If we had been sailing to England we might know people, but I haven’t set foot on that island in fifteen years. And we haven’t had time to make new friends in the colonies to the north.”
“Aye,” I said in sympathy. “With all that has occurred with the Marquis and that matter, we do not know if we can rely on his aid, either.”
Gaston’s head—already hanging—drooped lower still, and I regretted my words but as we were discussing tactics for all, it needed to be said for their benefit.
I continued sadly. “We are all exiles after a fashion—each in his own way—and my father sits in a great unassailable fortress.”
“Aye, but so do we. Well, not so unassailable, but we will do what we can as we have already,” Cudro said with seeming confidence. “After all, he doesn’t seem to want you dead.”
“So you should just hand me over the next time they arrive,” I said with good humor I found surprise in. “It would save your lives.”
Everyone regarded me with surprise and protest, especially my matelot.
“Never!” his Horse spat.
“Aye, and I’m not even bedding you,” Cudro said with a grimace at Gaston. He turned to me and tried to sound jovial. “Nay, Will, we won’t let them have you again.”
There were cheers of agreement all around.
“Then I am graced with a fine bevy of fools for friends,” I said with great regard for them, even though their devotion made my heart ache with worry and not love.
“Now, I have had a long and trying day, and I feel I must bid you good night,” I said.
“Where ya sleepin’?” Liam asked.
“I do not know,” I said and cast about.
“I suppose you could sleep in the hospital,” Theodore said. “Since there is no longer any need for pretense concerning marriage beds.” Oddly, he sounded amused over this.
I sighed. I had poor memories of the hospital. “How is the stable?”
“Full o’ beasts,” Liam said. “Na’ all o’ ’em be friendly.”
I sighed and turned, my gaze still passing over rooms until I reached the library and Striker leaning in the doorway. “Library,” I said and glanced at Gaston.
He appeared a little calmer, and he nodded resolutely and bounded to the stairs and up. I wondered at that a moment until I recalled our things were in Agnes’ room.
I went to the library.
Striker did not appear predisposed to move aside. “So nothing changes,” he said. I could not read his expression: the light in the library was behind him, and the lanterns at the table too far away. He was a shadow—of doom, I fancied.
“To the Devil with you,” I said tiredly. “Go see to your wife.”
“Pete’s better with her.”
“You assume much. What if he is not there?”
“I know my matelot,” he said with a languid shrug.
“You hypocritical fool,” I said.
“I was being—what do you call it—ironic?” he snapped.
I sighed. “I am too tired for this. Go away.”
His head dropped and he sighed. “You’re right, Will. You’re always right. And I do worry too much. I should trust people. I should trust… something, God maybe even. But I can’t. People that is. I act like I do, but I don’t.”
“I trust you,” I said sadly.
“You didn’t that day you left,” he said without even the hint of humor.
“But I did. I trusted you to do what you thought best for us. It was just not a thing I wanted, because I know that even though you care for us greatly, you do not understand us.”
He shook his hanging head. “I can’t trust you.”
“I will try not to take it as a personal affront,” I said sincerely.
“Best you don’t,” he said with a smile I could hear more than see.
He stepped forward and threw his arm about me. I embraced him in kind.
“Are we still friends?” I whispered.
“Aye,” he said gruffly.
“I am relieved.”
“So am I.”
We released one another and he walked away to the tables.
I sensed Gaston in the shadows by the wall. “Why are some friendships such tattered blankets ever in need of mending?” I asked in French as I entered the library.
“I would not know,” he said seriously as he followed. “I doubt I have any talent for sewing or mending. My friends had best be whole and un-tattered.”
“Except me,” I said wearily and sat.
He sighed and knelt before me. “We are the same blanket,” he said kindly.
I smiled. “And poor comfort I feel we are to others.”
He smiled. “Perhaps they like the pattern.”
I laughed. “They must.” I sobered. “What are we to do? Sarah and Striker said things that…”
“I will not let you lay down your life for any of them,” he said.
“I do not want to. That is why I feel guilt. I feel I have brought this down upon them, yet I will not do the thing that might relieve them of it. I feel I am attempting to justify my unwillingness to act on the matter every time I tell them why it cannot be as they suggest.”
“But it is not that simple, and it cannot be as they suggest,” he said with firm kindness.
I sighed. “We speak so blithely of his death, but I have been sincere today: it is not truly a thing I want now. I had not given it any thought these past months, until today when I hear it on lip after lip. But I did not think about much of anything. I have come to see—once again—that I never have. Yet I never correct the matter. I go on frolicking. I never think about things financial other than to insure I have the money I need on hand to live. I never put great thought into things religious because…”
“Will,” he said firmly and held my cheeks. “You have spent much of your life in harmony with your Horse—and He has not cared for those things. Our Horses do not need them. They simply know truth.”
I relaxed under his hold and thought. He was correct. It was a thing I had known, the events of the day had just jarred me such that I was looking at the matter askew.
“I like frolicking,” I said. “But I think my Man must often prepare a safe place for my Horse to play, and… I suppose that has ever been the seasons of my life. I go someplace new, my Man learns enough of it to insure my survival, and then my Horse frolics until things go amiss and my Man is required to extricate me from whatever troubles have developed and move me on to the next pasture—usually with a great deal of melancholy. I am the hypocrite to chastise Striker for the drinking.”
Gaston was thoughtful, but he smiled. “And I have ever been the opposite.” He shook my face gently. “Stop chastising yourself.”
I sighed. “I keep thinking we have a great deal to think on. I feel I have been amiss in the thinking, but… What you say indicates that I am in the right in the not thinking, or… But I feel this is a situation demanding my Man, and not my Horse, and thus I should be thinking.”
“I have heard much of your Horse today,” he said. “He has been speaking whenever you spoke.” He frowned. “Mine has been quiet except when He worries that your Horse is being too accommodating.”
A thing occurred to me. “I have changed.”
He nodded.
“I suppose I have thought I only change when my Man is involved in thinking on things—or moving me on and solving my woes if possible—but I suppose my Horse changes without the philosophizing and just…” I frowned, struggling for the word: none seemed to taste quite right.
“Grows,” Gaston provided.
“Oui,” I said with a sigh of relief.
Then another thought bubbled up from my soul. “I feel no regret about the decisions I have made today—or the things I have promised or set in motion. Gods, I do not even fear the future as all
logic dictates I should.”
He smiled. “I am happy that…” He appeared embarrassed. “I am getting what I came here for. I know what you mean when you say you worry about feeling selfish.”
I was minded of Striker and Pete. “It is good you did a great deal of thinking on the Haiti, so that you knew what you came here for. I feel I would be much like Pete if it were left to my Horse alone. I only know I want you. And… I am sorry, but there are times when I wonder if that will be enough to fill my days. But truly, in thinking on it now, I feel that is my Man talking, and not my Horse. My Horse will just settle in to this new pasture and frolic if nothing disturbs us.”
My matelot was smiling but his eyes were unfocused on some thought. He met my gaze. “Your Horse, my Man. They can be happy. The other two, perhaps not. As we have said, they are the army we will employ when trouble comes.”
“Let us have them stand watch,” I said.
“Oui.” He pressed fingers to my lips. “Now sleep. Trust them and the Gods to watch over our little fortress, and we will see what happens.”
Ninety-Three
Wherein We Make Ourselves a Home
I woke from a disturbing dream involving a youth I had once trysted with in an alcove between two great moldering bookcases that towered up to reach the high, angel-frescoed ceiling in the Comte de Veloise’s summer house. In the dream, the boy, Martin, had approached with an unreadable mien and asked a question. I would turn away, and he would approach from another angle, cornering me again. It was a relief when I at last found myself lying on my back staring up at the bottom of Doucette’s desk, wondering why I could not recall the dream’s question.
I could remember Martin quite clearly: the cupid curve of his mouth, his fine skin, and the precise curls of his wig. He had been just shy of pretty; ugly to the core with greed and ambition; with an arse as nicely shaped as his lips. Upon entering his loose hole, I had felt I was plunging my cock into a chamber pot. Like so very many of my trysts in Christendom, it had been a thing of venal need, and the shame had been thankfully easy to drown in wine.
The dream’s smell continued to hover about me: the disturbing scent of decaying books. Even without night terrors, that smell had ever minded me of death; more than even the rot of a body. It spoke of the decay and passing of knowledge, and the entombment of wisdom.
The light was grey and dim, and the cool air filled with raucous bird cries. It sounded the same as the Haiti, but it was so very far away. I needed to piss. I doubted the library had a chamber pot. The latrine in the yard seemed very far away; though not as far as the peaceful, private stand of trees we had watered for six months.
Gaston was not beside me, and when I did see him—sitting with his legs crossed and a tense expression—he seemed very far away as well.
I sighed and rolled over to prop my head on my elbow. “We have not a pot to piss in. What troubles you this morn?”
He snorted. “We need a proper room.”
“Oui, I will not fuck you here—not in the stench of moldering parchment.”
He sighed and nodded. “True. It troubles me. I feel I should read every book here before they rot away in the humidity.”
“We are, as always, of a like mind,” I said with a grin. “So, shall we see if there is a house to let elsewhere?”
He shook his head and turned to look at me. “Non, it should not be necessary.” He pointed up. “The front of the second floor is occupied by Doucette’s rooms: a parlor and bed chamber. He had this house built with six guest rooms for the convalescing of wealthier patrons and for guests he expected to receive from France. There are few wealthy patrons, and no one ever came from France.”
“But now those rooms are full of our people?” I queried, and eased myself out from under the table.
He began to count rooms off on his fingers. “Agnes. The Theodores. Liam and his wife. They mentioned a nursery that Hannah sleeps in. Rucker. Bones.”
“Rucker and Bones are sharing a room,” I said.
Gaston snorted. “I thought as much; though if they were not, I would ask that they did. Non, it is as I thought: there is an empty room.” He stood and walked to the stairs.
I hurried to follow him, and we made our way up, padding silently on bare feet. Then I knew our destination: the room my matelot had been imprisoned in when Doucette sought to cure him.
“How did you know?” I asked as we stood before the padlocked door at the end of the balcony.
He sighed. “My gaze was often drawn to it yesterday. I wished to see it and thus dispel that memory, and I wondered who slept here now. But every time I looked here, the shutters and door were closed and there was never any light.”
I hefted the lock. The hasp had been repaired from when I pried it lose. I vividly recalled standing here, in pain, watching Yvette fumble with the keys. Even though Gaston stood beside me, I was afraid of what we would find beyond the door.
He put a hand on my arm and moved me aside. I saw his foot rise; still, I was unprepared for the deafening crack of wood breaking as the hasp tore free, and the resounding boom of the door slamming open into the wall. It was as if he had fired a cannon in the morning silence. In its wake, all seemed quieter still: even the birds had ceased their cries.
Gaston was, of course, not strapped into the chair in the center of the small room, nor was the room in other ways as I had first seen it. The whips were strewn across the floor where they had been knocked from their hooks in the ceiling. Blood was spattered up the walls in the corner. I remembered Pierrot pinning Doucette there. Just beyond the door, there was another splatter of blood from where I had shot Doucette. The chaotic swirl of my recollection of the few minutes I had spent in this chamber roiled around me and I held the doorframe to steady myself.
I looked to Gaston and found him still and stolid. He met my curious gaze and sighed in a reassuring manner.
Beyond him, I could see heads poking out of doors and shutters. We had woken the house. I waved at those I saw. Theodore and Liam waved back—with pistols in their hands. Bones peered at me from the next doorway—his eyes wide with shock and concern. He appeared as awake and lively as I had ever seen him.
“I am sorry,” I said quietly, and then louder, as I would wake no one now. “We wished to look at the room where…”
“It’s a storage closet,” Bones said.
“Nay, it is where…” I began to say, but Gaston called to me.
I entered the room and found him lifting one side of the massive chair. It was not a thing with which a man furnished a home. It was a great beast of wood designed for the restraint of men and nothing else. I wondered why the Devil Doucette had had it. He had not acquired it for Gaston: he had not thought Gaston mad.
“Why did he have this damn thing?” I asked as I helped Gaston heft it and carry it to the door.
“He had it made for the treatment of madness,” Gaston snarled.
“Not yours.”
“Non, some other poor soul. He told me of it.”
It was too wide to be carried through the door the way we held it. We set it down and slid it out. Once it was on the balcony, Gaston and I attempted to raise it high enough to put it over the railing. I did not question my matelot on the matter, as I did not relish the idea of carrying it down the stairs, yet I felt concern at our being able to throw it over. Thankfully, Bones and Rucker wisely did not question our need to throw chairs about, and assisted us in lifting it. The chair crashed to the courtyard. Wood splintered on the side it landed, but the behemoth of torture did not break apart.
I turned from the sight of every servant in the house gaping up at us in wonder, and found Madame Doucette approaching with a cautious gait and a shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders and pinned to her chest with crossed arms. Doucette was limping along in her wake, mumbling something.
“Bloody Hell,” Bones said with surprise from the hated room’s doorway.
Yvette arrived, and I had no time to contemplate how iro
nically literal his utterance was.
“I am sorry,” I told the lady of the house. “Gaston wished…”
She nodded tightly. “I have not wished to…”
“Non! Non!” Doucette howled, his panicked gaze now on the doorway behind me.
I turned and saw Gaston entering the room.
“It is evil!” Doucette cried. “No one must go there!” He whirled to face his wife. “I told you to keep it locked. No one!”
“It was locked…” Yvette said kindly. “Perhaps it is time to clean it, Dominic.”
Gaston had returned with an armful of whips. He tossed them over the railing to land upon the chair.
“Non!” Doucette sobbed at the sight of him and collapsed to his knees, his face contorted with fear and grief. He began to rock to and fro.
Gaston came to squat before him, and their gaze held for a time. “It is done. I am well now. I forgive you,” my matelot said.
Doucette hissed like a cat, his misshapen face twisting with rage. “I do not forgive you!” he snarled, and began to scramble to his feet.
My matelot attempted to help him, only to be rewarded with a blow. Then the damned man was off and running toward his rooms, his wife in his wake pleading his name. Gaston watched him go with the mien of a forlorn boy before abruptly turning away to lean on the balcony.
I felt the eyes of the entire house upon us. I laid a light hand on Gaston’s shoulder.
He tensed. “I am well,” he said too quickly.
I let him be and entered the room to escape the stares. I knew he would follow me if he wished. I gazed about forlornly. I supposed this room would be better than the library, yet I knew not if I would feel comfortable in it, much less how my matelot would ever come to call it home.
My gaze happened across a chamber pot. I still needed to piss. I picked it up and saw the film of dried urine. I was gripped by the notion it was Gaston’s. This room had not been cleaned since. Doucette must have held the pot for Gaston to allow him to pee while he was strapped to the chair. My empty stomach roiled as anger clawed for release. I tore the shutter open and tossed the pot into the street, following it with a stream that did much to relieve my bladder and nothing to make me feel better.
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