Treasure

by W. A. Hoffman

  Gaston pulled the medicine chest to the bed, gave us each a small dose of laudanum, and began to clean, sew, and bind our wounds.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said as he unwrapped my arm and examined it.

  I did not feel I could begin any tale when I felt pain was so very imminent. “Non, set it as you must, first. The thought of moving it makes me wish to retch.”

  He handed me a stick to bite upon while he manipulated my poor arm to determine exactly where it was injured.

  “It will need to be wrapped and put in a sling,” he said at last. “It is broken at the joints, not the long bones. But first I need to stitch this gash.”

  That, I felt I could talk through, but only because the drug was making my eyes heavy and the pain distant. So he began to work; and – after he had soaked the wound in rum, which stung such that I had to bite the stick a bit more – I told him of being alone with Alonso, and his cryptic words, and how I had gone to the storeroom.

  “It was truly like Shane would do. He would catch me unawares, and hit me to stun me and knock me to my knees, and then he would pin me. Alonso even said the hated words. But… I felt nothing: no fear, no…” I sighed. “I think I have been afraid that I would succumb to the fear, or my Horse’s lust, if I were put in that position again. I have worried that my Horse did not care who brought me to my knees. But it does care. My love of being taken is only for you. All I felt with Alonso was astonishment, and then the need to kill him – and even that was not a thing born of red-hot rage and madness. I knew I would die before I would let him, and therefore it was a duel to the death. And so we fought. Me with one arm, and my head aching, and no breeches, and my feet bleeding, and… Still, I knew I must win. And then Hastings was there, and he stabbed Alonso and made some comment about arranging things and ran off…”

  I sighed. “Hastings must have been following me. He realized he could get to you through me. He told Morgan that Alonso and I had been trysting; and I wondered why, and then I realized he wished to anger you, just as he had wished to anger us with the death of that family. He was goading us, but he did not want to duel me. There was no bounty on my head. He did not think he knew my weaknesses so that he could win. I doubt he even wanted the money. Perhaps he saw it as a challenge.”

  Gaston shook his head thoughtfully as he bandaged my now-stitched arm. “He surrendered to his fear when I got him down,” he said. “I have seen the eyes of many men fighting me for their lives. I was not a man to him in that moment before I began to strike him. I was the Devil.”

  He sighed. “I wish I could have beaten Alonso’s face in, too.”

  “Oui,” I said with sincere wistfulness. “That is my only regret over his death: that I did not strike the killing blow. I feel cheated.”

  “Let your arm rest at your side until we are done,” he said as he began to unwrap my feet. “You were cheated.” His face tightened with anger. “I want to kill anyone that thinks you will submit to them merely because you submit to me. It is an honor you give me. It is not a thing that any man can take.”

  “Non,” I soothed. “It must be earned, and you alone have earned it.” But that was not true. Shane had earned it once. But that was a shame I did not wish to contemplate at the moment. Someday, that too, would be resolved.

  “I do not want others to know that we play as we do,” Gaston said as he bathed my feet.

  I nodded solemnly. I realized I did not want them to know, either. “Non, it will remain a private thing. I would say I feel no shame in it, and I do not, but… non, others do not see it as we do.”

  He leaned forward and kissed my knee and looked up at me with loving eyes. “You should lie on your belly for me to stitch these wounds and examine your head.”

  I smiled, remembering the first time he had needed to stitch my feet, and my unease at lying on my belly and giving him my back. “I do not find alarm at that. I have traveled far.”

  He rose up on his knees until he could kiss my lips gently, and then he pressed his temple to mine. “We have traveled far. Do we still have far to go? Or is there a meadow that we will reach someday and the road need go no further? And we can frolic about the cart for the rest of our days.”

  I heard the hope and worry in his words. “I hope so,” I breathed. “But I feel we have a ways farther yet to go.”

  He nodded, and sat back on his heels to regard me with sad amusement. “First we must go home. You are wounded, so we should be able to do that now.”

  I chuckled. “Is that what is required for us to end these damn voyages? If I had known that, I would stabbed myself weeks ago.”

  But as I lay on my belly and he worked on my feet, I thought of all the things waiting for us on Jamaica, and how very steep the road seemed there; and I wondered why we wished to return.

  Later, after he finished examining the lump on my head, he bathed my naked body with a cloth. I drifted on the drug and luxuriated in the slow strokes.

  “I want you,” I whispered when he stopped.

  He gave a quiet snort of amusement, and I turned my head and found him administering unguents to the whip marks on his forearm. None were so deep as to require stitching, and I thought it likely he would only have thin white lines for scars for a year or so. When he finished bandaging the cuts, he lay beside me.

  “I took too much,” he whispered. “I cannot rise even for you.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow, then,” I said with amusement.

  “Definitely tomorrow,” he sighed happily and closed his eyes.

  I woke to sunlight streaming through the shutters, and pain. As the window faced east, I thought it likely dawn. Gaston still slept beside me. I nudged him, and he woke with sleepy blinks. He dosed me to ease the pain of my body – no other part of me suffered – and we relieved our bladders and he dressed slowly to face the day. I knew I could not walk without pain for several days, and crutches were not an option with my arm as it was. So I resigned myself to being forced to lie about and do nothing. He went to fetch us food and water.

  He returned with Striker, Pete, Cudro, Ash, and Farley, and I wondered if they had done anything but wait about at the foot of the stairs all damn night. So I ate bacon and drank coconut milk and told my tale, while they sat about the bed or in the room’s two chairs and listened.

  “Bloody Hell,” Striker said as I finished. “We should have shot him in Porto Bello.”

  I snorted. “Nay, I should have slit his throat as he lay sleeping in Florence. But it is either the curse or blessing of man that we cannot see the future.”

  “I am sorry,” Farley said, with guilt suffusing his face.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “I feel…” Farley sighed and considered his words while chewing his lip. “He became moody after he recovered from his head wound. I knew not whether it was because of the wound; or that… Well, he spoke of you a great deal. He spoke often of how you lived together in Florence. He seemed quite convinced you would return to him, or… could be made to return to him.” He sighed and grimaced. “I knew he was not entirely as he had been before, thus my feeling a need to keep an eye on him; but I said nothing of all that because… As I said, I was unsure of the cause. His memory returned, and in all other ways he seemed free of any permanent damage from the wound; and so… I thought he might have been merely in love with you, and your assisting him in recovering gave him false hope.

  “He never said he would do as he did, though,” Farley added quickly. “Though… there was some discussion regarding people having preferences for…”

  “It is not your fault,” I said quickly. “Perhaps he was mad as a result of the wound, but… I think it was because he thought he loved me. To him, I … was… the epitome of another time in his life, when he felt he was happier.”

  Gaston was regarding me with a knowing look.

  I sighed and awarded him a sad smile, even as I spoke to Farley. “He loved me still, despite my not wishing it; and he was quite intent upon winning m
e back: I knew that. The injury must have impaired his reason as to what method might be effective in obtaining that end.”

  Farley nodded thoughtfully. “It is a sad thing. I would hope he would not have done as he did if his reason had not been so impaired. I still wish I had realized the extent of it. As I said, I felt something was wrong, but…” He sighed and shrugged.

  “I do not blame you in the slightest,” I assured him.

  He nodded with relief.

  “So was Hastings the last of the pawns?” Cudro asked in the silence that followed.

  Pete shrugged. “NoWayTaKnow. ButOneSetFailed WithTryin’TaShootUs. An’AnotherFailedAtDuelin’. An’Morgan’sGoneAnMade ARuleAboutIt. AnyLeft, TheyWon’tShowNow LestTheyBeStupid. An’TheStupidOnes WouldNa’ O’WaitedThisLong.”

  “So we can return home and face them there,” I said.

  He nodded with a grimace. “Aye. BestWeCanDo.” Then he frowned. “ItBeBestThat BastardHastingsDied’Ere IfYaBeRight’Bout’ImBein’ TheOneWhoKilledThemWomen.”

  “Aye,” I said, not wishing to think of the likes of Hastings being anywhere near our women. But that only made me worry about who might be near them while we were away. I could see my thought echoed in other eyes about the bed.

  I sighed. “How much longer will we remain here?”

  “Too long,” Cudro rumbled with a tired sigh.

  They left us, and Gaston began to gather his things to go and look in on the wounded.

  “I do not blame the head wound,” I said sadly.

  He awarded me a grim smile. “Perhaps you should. Perhaps it unseated him upon his Horse enough that he no longer controlled the animal.”

  I could see that, and I sighed, “I do not wish to feel sorry for him.”

  Gaston came to kneel before me on the bed. His mien was curious and teasing. “Why should you? It was his Horse. It was still him: unless he was truly mad. But even you will admit – once forced to – that he always loved you, and that it was ever a thing of his Horse and his Man in concert.”

  I agreed with him, but his taking that side of the argument amused me. I chided, “Are you not the one ever concerned with your Horse’s horrible thoughts?”

  He frowned and cocked his head before grinning. “True, but… Pete and you are correct: it is what a man does, not what he thinks. As you have often made mention, I never acted on those horrible thoughts. We allow our Horses to play together.”

  I smiled. “Oui.” And mine had proven with Alonso that it did not wish to run for the sake of running, or down paths alone without me. And I knew Gaston’s loved me. We rode in harmony with our beasts, and were better men for it.

  Gaston sighed and awarded me a bemused smile.

  “So, oui, I should not berate myself.”

  He kissed my nose. “And you need not feel sorry for him.”

  I shook my head. “Non, I should. He… never listened to his Horse, or truth: of his heart or any other. He was always enamored of the shadows on the wall – the world of men and lies – and he lost me because of it, and… His Horse regretted that; and perhaps made more of it than it would have, if he had simply let it have its head when we were together. He was a fool.”

  “Pity him, then,” Gaston said. “But do not grieve.”

  I shook my head. “Non, never that.” I gazed upon him and was filled with wonder at how very far we had come these last years.

  He cocked his head again, in apparent curiosity at my expression; and then quickly seized upon this new angle to kiss me deeply.

  “I love you,” I breathed when we parted.

  “I know,” he sighed happily.

  With that, I pushed him away. “Go tend your patients.”

  He sighed and nuzzled me for a moment, our breath mingling, and then he climbed from the bed and finished gathering his things. He paused at the door and turned back to me, his face suffused with great regard. “Thank you.”

  I did not ask him what for, I merely nodded and said, “You are always welcome.”

  We remained in Gibraltar for over a month. The time passed pleasantly enough for me. My feet healed such that the stitches could be removed and I could walk upon them. My arm began to ache less, but Gaston warned me it would be another month before he would allow me to do much of anything with it. I began to teach Striker left-handed swordplay. Gaston and I trysted often, with great pleasure.

  For others, the time passed in misery. We lost two-score men to the malaria; though, we did manage to save over a hundred lives before we ran out of quinine. I thanked the Gods daily that we were not afflicted, and Gaston wondered endlessly why we were not.

  Those not ailing were sent out in large sorties for a week at a time; always returning with more men ill, more slaves, mules laden with treasure, and hundreds of prisoners. At the hospital, the days and nights were filled with moaning from the feverish and wounded, and distant screams from tortured men and women. Morgan himself led a foray in hopes of capturing the governor; but heavy rains and swollen rivers caused havoc with that and many of the other attempts to gain booty. One group was somewhat successful in capturing barges loaded with goods from Maracaibo, though.

  Finally, in the last week of April, we loaded several Spanish barges with valuables, slaves and hostages – as Morgan planned to ransom them and the town – and sailed north to Maracaibo. We had left a small number of men there to hold the town; and we were happy to find them still alive and the place not overrun with vengeful Spaniards. However, we soon learned we would have preferred that to what actually awaited us.

  There were three galleons in the passage to the sea, and the Spanish had rebuilt and manned the fortress they abandoned when we arrived. The smallest of their warships had more guns than our largest vessel, and the largest of them had more cannon than our entire fleet. They fired on the sloop we sent to investigate them; but they stayed stubbornly in the channel and were not so foolish as to come and chase us about so that we might have a slim chance of sailing past them. Of course, even if they had followed the ships we sent, the guns of the fort would have destroyed us as we tried to escape the lake.

  We had given them nearly two months to summon aid of this nature and repair the fort: I knew not what else we should have expected. Yet, to a man – myself included – we could not have been more discouraged and frightened than if we had woken from a nightmare to a pistol in our faces.

  When we learned of it, Gaston pulled me aside and said. “If we must, we will abandon the ship and go overland.”

  “All of us?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Just our friends. It will be hard enough with only a few mouths to feed.”

  “Oui,” I agreed. “I cannot see dying here.”

  Morgan sent for me as soon as the investigating sloop returned. I was not surprised.

  “What do you want to tell them?” I asked Morgan, as I joined him and the captains and quartermasters in the Maracaibo courthouse.

  He led me to the office chamber in the back of the building where we had first spoken privately, and offered me a chair at the desk. There was a sheaf of paper, quill, and ink awaiting me.

  “We are ransoming the town,” he said as I sat.

  I regarded him with something between curiosity and incredulity.

  “I wish to keep them engaged in discussion until we decide what we will do,” he sighed.

  “That is probably best,” I said sincerely, and then we discussed the amount of his demand. I wrote the missive, and he took it to someone to find a Spanish messenger for it. I doubted we would have a response for days.

  Morgan returned to the office after dispatching the note, and handed me a bottle before I could leave.

  I took a pull of rum. “Do you have a stratagem in mind, might I ask?”

  “Not yet,” he sighed. “Do you have any ideas?”

  I shrugged. “I will ask Pete.”

  “Pete? Striker’s Pete?” he asked.

  “Aye. He is a genius at all things martial, and the bes
t chess player I have ever seen.”

  “Truly? I thought him somewhat an imbecile.” He shrugged. “The way he speaks.”

  I snorted. “It is a good thing he is not your enemy.”

  He snorted with amusement and then sighed distractedly. “I have been well educated, but not in things classical. You have. What would the great generals of antiquity have done? Alexander the Great? Achilles?”

  “Achilles was a character in an epic poem. Alexander was a real man, though; but I do not think he fought naval battles. The Caesars, though… I will think on it, and see what Gaston and I can recall.”

  “Ah, aye, your matelot is a lord’s son, too.” He regarded the bottle he held speculatively, and I knew his expression had little to do with its contents. “And he is not at war with his father,” he said absently.

  “Nay, he is not,” I said with curiosity.

  He met my gaze and smiled slyly. “Let us see if we can survive this debacle, and then we should speak.”

  “I shall be very happy to keep that appointment,” I said as I stood.

  “You think I have something to say that you wish to hear?” he asked.

  “Nay, it will require we both survive.”

  He laughed and waved me out the door.

  Cudro and Ash joined me in returning to the Queen. More than half our men were ashore, enjoying Spanish wine as if it might be their last night alive – which it very well could be.

  Once our cabal was gathered on the quarterdeck, I told them of Morgan’s ransom demand and his request for any and all ideas or stratagems, including those gleaned from the antics of ancient generals.

  “How’s that going to help?” the Bard asked. “They didn’t have cannon. Or sails.”

  He was possibly the most melancholy of us all. He was always the one to stay with the ship; and despite whatever might happen ashore, the ships were always able to escape. Being trapped and truly in danger was new to him.

  “Nay,” I said. “They had sails; they just used them very little. The principal means of moving the vessels about was rowing. They carried huge numbers of slaves, who rowed their ships, called galleys, about. At least the Romans and Egyptians did, during the time of Julius Caesar and the like. Before that, your fighting men would actually row the ships about; much like the Vikings. That is what is described in the Iliad and the Odyssey.”