Twenty-One
Wherein I Discover Roads Not Taken
We woke late and languidly. As the entire upper floor of the house reverberated with snores, some might say we woke comparatively early. I had slept well, with no night terrors or other memorable dreams. If Gaston’s sleep had troubled him, he said nothing of it. As we were naked and I did not feel the need to dive away from him immediately to tend to my needs or avoid his discomfiture, I noticed that his manhood was fully functional in regards to waking full of piss. It gave me some indication of his size if he was truly aroused, and I was pleased with the overall shape and proportions of him. I said nothing of this, and cuddled with him as chastely as I could manage.
When at last we felt the need to go downstairs, I discovered a sheaf of paper, quill and ink, and dusting powder on the dining table. I used the latrine and asked Rachel of it. She said Samuel had brought it over. It seemed Theodore was busy with a client this morning; however, he did wish for us to stop by later. I was amused. I sat at the table with a plate of eggs and wrote. As before, Gaston waited until I finished a page, and then read it and dusted it.
I happily composed an informative, if abridged, telling of our voyage for Sarah and Rucker. Then, with some perverse need to expurgate myself, I told my father of shooting Creek, and assured him no one else would consider escaping. I told him how hundreds of Spaniards had died when the Galleon sank after we took it. I thought he might find delight in that. As I was in quite the furor at that point, I went on to say how I had survived that shipwreck and obviously returned, only to plan on sailing again, now that I had seen to my duty involving the plantation, that being apprehending an escaped bondsmen. I finished by telling him how very much life here agreed with me.
Gaston was amused but silent as he read through this missive.
“Do you feel it is more than I should say?” I asked. “Or perhaps I should say it differently?”
“Non. I think you have done well here. From this, I feel, he will think you are a very good wolf indeed.”
I had not looked upon it in that light as I wrote it, and I chuckled. “Likely I will endear myself to him.”
“Oui.” He shrugged. “As he will not know how much you lie, and he would never understand why.”
“It is not lying,” I sighed. “I am merely editing the truth.” I watched him fold the dry letters. “You truly have no one to write? I know… well, I know you will not write your father, and your sister and mother are dead. But is there no one else?”
He tensed as I spoke, but it fled him in a sigh as I finished. “There is one, perhaps, on Île de la Tortue, but we shall possibly see him soon. And if not, I feel no need to write him.”
“You mentioned this person was your mentor.”
“Oui, Dominic Doucette. He is a great physician.” Gaston considered me for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, studied the table, and spoke. “That night occurred at Christmas eleven years ago. Within a week I was on a ship. I feel I am only alive because Doucette was traveling to the West Indies when my father’s men arrived with me at Marseilles. He was an experienced physician, and I was near death. I knew none of this at the time. I was not in a sufficiently coherent state to make his acquaintance for six months.
“My father’s man, Vittese, had booked passage to personally deliver me and the money my father had sent for me to Guadalupe, if I should survive. Upon finding a physician ready to sail, Vittese paid Doucette handsomely to care for me. I was mad with pain, and nearly drained of blood, and in constant danger of infection. Doucette later said he learned more from keeping me alive during that voyage than he had in all his prior years of practice. He kept me on laudanum for most of it, and all I remember of that period is much like a dream. I sometimes think that I would not have this gap in my memory if I had been able to think after the incident.
“We arrived on Guadalupe in March. Doucette heard there might be more use for him on Île de la Tortue, and so he moved us there that summer. Soon after, he began to wean me from the laudanum, and I truly went mad. It was very much like sobering in the harsh light of day, and I was angry… To this day, I regret that I exercised some of this anger on him; but I was very lost, to myself and in relation to the world around me. I did not remember coming to this New World. I could not remember why I had been forced to do so. I was hideously scarred, and my mind seemed to be in as much pain as my body had once been. And there was this man telling me what I could and could not do, and denying me the thing that had kept the thinking at bay.
“He defended his position, which was that it was time for my mind to heal as my body had done. I wanted none of it. I bought the things I heard I would need, and took a boat across the channel to the Haiti. I lived like an animal for a year, but in time I gained some measure of peace with myself. When I was somewhat sane again, I returned and apologized to Doucette. That is when he taught me medicine.”
Gaston shrugged. “To relieve my studies and boredom, and truthfully, my bouts of anger, I would go fliebusting with whatever ship was sailing. After a bad bout of my madness, I would return to the Haiti and calm myself again, which is how I came to know other men who lived there and make boucan. This went on for many years. Doucette always wished for me to stop roving, and stay and become a physician at his side. I was restless, and four years ago I started leaving for longer raids, and now I have not been back in over two years.”
When he did not speak for a time, I rubbed his shoulder. “Thank you for telling me of it.”
He took a deep breath. “I do not know why I have not before. It is not as if I harbor ill will toward him, or that I cannot remember those years.”
“Was he ever interested in…?”
He shook his head quickly. “Non, he does not favor men and had no need, as he is the physician for all the whores and they render him services for free, or rather their masters charge him nothing. Not that the whores ever seemed to begrudge him. He is quite popular amongst them.
“Non,” he continued thoughtfully. “In many ways, Doucette is my second father. He raised me again. Yet in others, I am a grand experiment of his, the greatest example of his work. He would always want to trot me out to show me off to other surgeons. He was greatly disappointed I would not stay, on many fronts. One of which was loneliness, as we were fond of each other in our own way.”
I was curious, as there seemed to be an element I was missing. “How do your feelings for Doucette compare to your feelings for Pierrot?”
Gaston frowned, and his eyes met mine. “Will, I have never shared myself with anyone as I do with you.”
“I did not…”
He shook his head. “Not physically, I know you know that. But my heart and soul. I speak to you as I do no other. Pierrot… protected me. We talked on occasion, but our friendship, such as it was, was... I feel he pitied me and wished to care for me because of my madness. Doucette… has seen me at my worst, yet… he does not see me as mad. It is an odd thing. I know I am mad. He feels it is a thing I can easily control and overcome. This is due to my never showing him my madness except for those first months, and then he blamed the pain and laudanum. After that, whenever I felt… brittle, whenever the horse would take no more, I would escape to the Haiti. So he never saw it. And as I said, I was a son to him, and he was much as my father was… without the temper. Non, that is not correct either. I felt for him much as I did toward my father. Doucette was not like my father, though. My father believed in the madness. He understood it well.”
He had become increasingly distraught as he spoke, and now he stared at the table again.
“No more, Will,” he whispered.
I knelt beside his chair and held him. He seemed happy with this, and returned my embrace, so that my ear was pressed against his chest. I listened as his heart ceased racing and slowly returned to its normal rhythm. My thoughts slowed too: though I knew we needed to discuss many things, I did not feel compelled to discuss them now. The answers would come, as he would con
tinue to open to me of his own volition as time passed. As it was, I felt truly and deeply honored that I was the only one he had ever spoken to concerning any of this.
I wondered what we should do now, as my letters were written and my knees were beginning to ache on the hard floor. Though he was calmer, he still seemed to be in deep thought.
“I know I think too much sometimes, and it leads to melancholy,” I said quietly. “Would you like to spar? Or do you wish to continue to think?”
He rubbed my back. “Are you sober?”
I chuckled. “I believe so.”
“I have thought enough for a lifetime.”
I pushed to my feet and leaned down to softly kiss his lips. He smiled. We left the house and walked to the beach, and then far down it, onto the Palisadoes beyond the wall. We did not return for hours, and by then we were exhausted and thoughtless.
I wished to nap, but Rachel told us Samuel had been around again. Theodore truly needed our presence. Striker’s and Pete’s as well; but they had already gone, a little before we arrived. Curious, we hurried to Theodore’s, and were confronted by an incensed Striker before we cleared the threshold. He smacked me with a sealed envelope and gesticulated with an open one. He appeared to be in quite the snit, yet Pete was oddly calm and amused.
Theodore sat at his desk with his face in his hands and a long-suffering demeanor about him. He raised his head long enough to sigh at my entrance and mutter, “Wonderful, now I shall have two of you cursing me.”
I regarded the envelope with which Striker had unceremoniously presented me. It bore my full name. I opened it and, with Gaston looking over my shoulder, perused the contents. I had been invited for dinner that evening at the Governor’s house in Spanish Town.
“What is this about?” I looked to Striker; his envelope was very similar to mine.
“Modyford’s man brought them,” Striker spat. “I asked of it. You and I are invited. Pete and Gaston are not.”
“So to the Devil with them,” I said.
“It’s for the marque,” Striker growled. “I knew well I would have to receive the damn thing from someone, but I did not think it would be over dinner.”
“So you have to go,” I said. “Why was I invited?”
Theodore rolled his eyes, and Striker awarded me with a look that said if he was forced to dine at the Governor’s house, he was not going alone. I answered my own question by surmising that it was because I was my father’s son, and people of a certain ilk still thought they might curry favor with me.
“I would hope you have not cast all your decent clothing onto a midden heap,” Theodore said.
I shrugged. “Nay, and some might fit Striker with a little tailoring.”
“Oh bloody Hell!” Striker howled. “You expect me to dress for this?”
An hour later, we had found that my shirts and breeches fit him, though a little snugly, and that the tailor had left a generous amount at the seams in one of my jackets. Rachel was busy at letting it out to fit his wider shoulders. Thankfully, we both owned boots and were not forced to make my shoes fit him; nor would I find it necessary to wear hose. We wore kerchiefs over our heads under the hats. An hour beyond that, we stood shaved and somewhat clean in our finery, and bore the amusement of our matelots with little humor. Rachel professed surprise that we could be made to look like gentlemen. Theodore appeared relieved.
Theodore had also been invited, and Pete and Gaston accompanied the three of us to the ferry landing. I kissed Gaston, and he admonished me to behave myself.
“I do not intend to drink beyond reason and dance upon the tables,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Do not argue with anyone in such a manner as to endanger the granting of the marque.”
“Oh,” I said foolishly and grinned, and then teased. “Why would you think I would do such a thing?”
He blinked at me impassively and sighed.
I laughed. He knew me well.
“DoNa’BeDoin’A ThingIWouldNa’,” Pete told Striker, then apparently thought about it and decided that was not correct. “DoNa’BeDoin’A ThingI WouldDo.”
Striker laughed and then sighed with mock consternation and chided our matelots, “A little faith should be in order here.”
“I have great faith in the consistency of Will’s behavior,” Gaston said, without any trace of humor. I was not sure how I should interpret that, so I decided to embark on the ferry and leave well enough alone.
“It’s a deliberate affront,” Striker said for our ears alone once we were under way. “They know we have matelots. It is rude and uncalled for.”
“That may be,” Theodore said gently, and then grinned. “But I believe your matelots are relieved they did not have to accompany you.”
“He may be right,” I told Striker. “But I believe you are correct, and I too take great offense. It is as if they seek to pass judgment on us or mete out their approbation if we behave as they do. What damn right do they have?”
Theodore regarded us with his arms crossed. “Has it occurred to either one of you that it is oftimes customary and perfectly acceptable to invite married men, without their wives, to dinners where business will be discussed?”
I could see his argument; yet, “Pete and Gaston are not wives.”
“Aye, there is not the least wifely thing about either of them,” Striker said thoughtfully, “If anything…” He trailed off abruptly and appeared a trifle embarrassed.
“There is no harm in it,” I said. “If anything, we are the wives.”
“I make no comment on that,” Theodore said. “I believe I meant that you two are the more business-minded of your pairings.”
“I would not say that,” I said. “Gaston is far wealthier than I.”
Theodore threw his hands wide in exasperation. “More socially acceptable perhaps? More likely to have the proper attire? Less likely to kill another guest?”
He continued to harangue us all across the bay until we disembarked at the Passage Fort. By then, I realized he might be correct. This was not necessarily a slight against us for having matelots, but for having the matelots we had.
I was happy to see Diablo and Francis, and I looked forward to at least a pleasant ride for the evening. Theodore rented an animal. Since Francis was ever the calmer of ours, I had him saddled for Striker.
He regarded the patient animal with dismay.
“I have never ridden a horse before,” he said.
“How is that possible?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Any place I have ever needed visit was either in walking distance of the sea or there were no horses. I rode in a cart once…”
Thankfully he was not afraid of the animals, and he was a quick study. I gave him a rudimentary lesson in horsemanship, and he managed to plod along quite well with Theodore. I was then free to give Diablo his head, and we raced ahead of them. Thus I arrived at Spanish Town and the Governor’s house first. With reluctance I handed my mount off to the boy in the yard and dusted myself to enter.
I cursed my luck as I discovered Morgan and Bradley smoking on the veranda. As there was no one else about, I was forced to either acknowledge them or appear rude. Neither looked pleased to see me. I gave them my most congenial smile and inquired as to whom else had arrived, hoping a name I recognized would be among them, so that I could excuse myself. Morgan rattled off the names of a number of Jamaica’s prominent citizens; and I recognized several, but found none I would wish to seek out.
“Where is Striker?” Bradley asked.
“He will be along shortly. He is riding with Theodore, and they are making a slower go of it than I chose to.”
“And why is that?” Morgan asked.
“I enjoy riding a great deal, and I chose to set a faster pace to exercise the animal and my spirits. Thus I arrived here before them. A ride can provide a great deal of satisfaction.”
“I would not know. I have never ridden an animal in leisure,” Bradley said.
I thought
of the possible ways to counter him and chose two that might work in tandem. “I have been truly blessed, and I am thankful fate allowed me to become well acquainted with the art of horsemanship. You may wish to indulge in it. You have land to ride on, and I would guess you could afford the time. You may find that you enjoy it.”
“Aye, I can well afford the time seeing as I have no ship to sail,” he said.
I held my tongue as I knew there was naught I could say to appease the man. I was grateful Morgan also seemed taken aback by his friend’s maudlin demeanor.
“So you will be sailing on this prize on the morrow?” Morgan asked briskly.
“Aye, the Mayflower.”
“How many men?”
“We do not know of yet, as they are not all aboard.”
Morgan shrugged. “That is always the way of it. Unless well commanded, the buccaneers tend to be a disorganized rabble. They revel in it.”
“Are you not a buccaneer yourself?” I asked.
He smiled obliquely. “But of course. But I am also a man of vision. Many of the Brethren live their lives in thrall to the necessities of day-to-day existence. They do not think of the future, as they possess a Devil-may-care attitude and think they will die tomorrow.”
I did not like the sound of that. “Aye, but most have lived hard lives and been condemned in one fashion or another, and they know not how to consider the future, as a strategic approach to life has been beyond their ken by both instruction and nature.” I did not say, because they are armed sheep as I did not wish to ever have that discussion with these men.
“I am curious,” Morgan said. “Why do you, of all people, champion criminals, escaped slaves, heretics, runaway sailors, and rebels?”
“Because I feel I am one of them on more counts than I care to relate to you.”
He laughed. “I now recall you mentioning a certain amount of traveling in your life.”
“Aye, and I have always been a heretic and a rebel in my thinking. It was oft noted in my childhood.”
Bradley was frowning at me thoughtfully.
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