Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  “You do not want just anybody to see how much more money joining your crop with ours, and selling it in England will make you,” he went on, and Etienne seemed to straighten at the final words. He was lifting his chin and giving James a careful grin. James could hardly see the smeared tracks of his face paint now, though most of the powder had come off.

  “I see you were right, James. There is no honour.” The French words were accompanied by a slight jerk of Etienne’s eyebrows, at what James did not know. But he felt an ache in his skull, and the itch from his wig returned with a fierceness that had him twitching to be rid of it. That Etienne implied Sir Marvell was a thief was bad enough, but to defame himself as well… But the shake in his voice was plain, and James could not stop a quick, disbelieving glance at Sir Marvell.

  “And has Monsieur had any problems with the Maroons I have heard of?” Etienne switched the topic to the roaming bands of escaped slaves up in the mountains of the mainland with a suddenness that would have been surprising from anyone else, but that was his way. James sighed before speaking, relieved to feel the tightness in the air slipping away.

  “Not on my land,” Sir Marvell assured him, nodding his head firmly as if that were all that needed to be said on the matter. “I can deal with those savages as well as with those marauders at sea. But I’m afraid I have no time to talk further with you,Monsieur. James…” He turned and James lifted his head, shaking away the memories that had seized hold of him at the familiar words.

  “May I also borrow your man for a few hours, my Lord?” Etienne pushed himself into the conversation smoothly, extending one hand in a loosely graceful supplication. Even knowing his purpose in asking that way, James felt his teeth grind together. Beingborrowed as if he were a tool or a toy. But his lordship was agreeing, and James reminded himself bitterly that his own choices did not matter in the least, that he was fortunate to have such a position in the world, and ought not ask for more. The man had every right to use him, he was nothing but another’s man doxy, Villon had made that more than clear to everyone had he not? Just a doxy on his knees and just as easily forgotten.

  A brief touch to his shoulder and James blinked to see Etienne Saint-Cyr staring at him expectantly. Then with a little smile that seemed not directed at James at all, he shrugged and turned away. James followed his gaze to see Sir Marvell ascending into his carriage, slamming his hat carelessly onto his head and waving for the driver to go on. He nodded as he passed, and James blinked, surprised to find his eyes dry.

  “He gave you instructions, but I do not think you heard them.” Etienne commented as they both watched the carriage roll down the crowded street. “La.” He made the sound as if it were a word in itself and reached into a coat pocket to extract a bit of cloth. James focused on him as the man wiped off the remainder of his powder and tucked the cloth back away. He suddenly seemed as young as James knew him to be, a few months younger than his own twenty years. At the same time he seemed odd, his features less pointed and narrow, less— and James blushed to think the word—effeminate. He was a creature of intense focus for one moment as the light hit his naked face, and then he smiled languidly and the fantasy was gone.

  It was a mask he maintained well, something James knew he studied far too closely, staring as the light grew dim and Etienne’s smiles slipped away. Only in the early hours of morning, in shadowed, protected corners after long conversations, when Etienne had enough wine in him to forget that he had chosen a peasant for a friend. But even then he never offered up why, or remained at ease for long. And when it returned, the tension in his slim body only seemed hauntingly familiar.

  “The cut of your coat is terrible as well. And you never stand straight.” Etienne sneered without any real effort, which James supposed the other man accounted as playful, and then he was pulling back in surprise as Etienne’s hands wormed inside of his coat and tugged on the fabric, bringing their bodies sharply together. “The English…” Etienne went on, straightening James’ clothing and shaking his head. He looked down, and James stared at him, the dark molasses color of his hair, breathing out when Etienne raised his head and stepped away, nothing but shadows in his eyes, a natural pink on his naked cheeks.

  “You do business with the English.” James pointed out shallowly, stepping away as well, as quickly as he could. His cheeks were still warm, and he cleared his throat, not that Saint-Cyr seemed to care. Etienne was frowning, his finger toying idly with the buttons of his coat, but when James spoke he snapped his head up.

  “Perhaps you should visit one of the women here instead of running from them? Or are you remaining faithful to a girl across the ocean?” Etienne curled his lips and James thought of their times in town together, when Etienne had gone off and James had sipped at his ale and waited for him to return. It was not the first time Etienne had remarked upon his maidenlike chastity, or pried none-too-gently about his past adventures, and James’ ill humour worsened to hear it. It was almost as though Etiennewished to see James finally bed someone. “AndI do not do business with the English,” Etienne added when James opened his mouth to argue. His gaze dipped again, as though the ground itself were of interest.

  “Do you not?” he managed, feeling almost as he had his first few days on board a ship, dizzy and unsteady. Saint-Cyr was fond of directing conversations in this way; James had not yet determined whether it was the habit of all French nobles, or of Etienne alone. He supposed he ought to be grateful that Etienne did not speak as boldly as Villon had done.

  “My…family…does business with them. Me…I am like you in this, no?” It was probably the abrupt switch to English that made Etienne pause, and his confusion with the language that would lead him to compare their situations. Etienne obviously was not a servant, or bound to another’s will. He was a noble, as free as he wished to be. James made a face, ready to argue despite the lure of a free afternoon. His lordship wished him to keep an eye on the sometimes-reckless Frenchman without doing it himself, that was why he allowed their days in town. But that did not mean that James had to bow to the young lord’s every whim.

  “What was that about?” James asked, stealing Etienne’s own method of subject change. He even lifted one eyebrow questioningly, and had to fight the urge to grin when Etienne’s eyes narrowed. There was no logic in his desire to provoke Etienne’s temper, no logic at all especially when he considered how his tenuous position was partly dependent on Saint-Cyr’s goodwill. It was another sign of his madness, and yet he did not bother to fight it, or even try to hide it.

  “English…” Etienne began with what the French obviously termed an insult, low in his throat, and James lifted his chin and stared boldly into his pale face, wondering if this time the Frenchmen would continue their debate or dismiss him yet again. His feet shifted impatiently on the ground as he straightened, nearly dancing in place like Ben when excited, and it was a struggle to control himself.

  “Etienne,” James thrust back, daring to use the man’s given name. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, but he kept still, waiting. Saint-Cyr paused to study him from lowered eyes, though something twitched along his jaw. James half-expected him to issue some drunkenly slurred challenge, and sucked his lip between his teeth. But Etienne’s face did not gain colour and his expression did not change. After a long moment, he only tossed his head and glanced away.

  A weight pressed down onto James’ shoulders and he dropped them with a small sigh, a slight twinge of shame making him flinch when Saint-Cyr only continued to stare over his shoulders as if he were not yet able to look back into James’ face.

  Others could read his face, James realized with horror and then lowered his hands to his sides, clenching them so hard against his thighs that the muscles in his arms trembled. “Your boy,” Etienne offered, pointing leisurely, and James swung around just as Ben strolled up behind him, smiling his triumphant smile. The one that meant he had no doubt been into more trouble than even he and dear Jack and Peter had been in as lads. Ben was still
wearing his ragged breeches from his ship’s service, but a shirt had been added, and Ben let it hang loosely about his small frame, though he had rolled up the sleeves to expose his wrists. The child still looked too slight for a boy his age, but James would swear he had grown taller in their months in Jamaica.

  Ben clearly saw them, and hurried his pace when James smiled at him before turning back around.

  “Perhaps the boy can be of help to me.” Blinking, James watched Etienne signal for his own carriage down the street, waving at the negro servant he had hired for his stay in Port Royal. His own servants he had left at his family’spetit-colon in the Antilles.

  “I don’t think…” His frown must have startled Ben, who stopped at his side to look furtively between the two of them. “Calm yourself, papa.” Etienne let out a small laugh at the shock with which James regarded him, winking down at Ben, though Ben did naught in return save glance again at James. The confusion in his green eyes was enough to make James snap his mouth closed, making an impatient noise in his throat at Saint-Cyr’s teasing. “I only want a guide to the harbour,” the Frenchman added, returning to speaking his own tongue. “I thought to have you accompany me, but I do not object to the child as well.”

  “You intend to speak with this Spider then?” He should not have been surprised, not with the way Sir Marvell had taunted him. Etienne waved one hand about as this was nothing, stirring the layers of pointed lace at his cuff, and so James tried to ignore the sick flutterings forming in his stomach at the idea of talking with a pirate. He did not want Ben around pirates. He did not…he did not want to be around them himself. They stood for swords and blood and thievery and he had a surfeit of those. His belly churned.

  “Do you have some other plan for your afternoon?” The twinkling light in Saint-Cyr’s gaze implied he knew well enough that James had no plans, and James curled his fingers into his palms, letting out one slow breath.

  “He botherin’ you, Master James?” Ben’s thin voice cut through his tight thoughts, and James scowled to realize that he and Etienne had excluded him from their conversation, much as the two noblemen had done to him earlier.

  “I am fine, child.” Why Ben looked so fierce at the gentle words James would never know. Before he could ask, Etienne’s carriage pulled up alongside them.

  “You are not coming then?” Etienne took one step toward the vehicle and then half turned, lifting one thin eyebrow and curving up his lips the smallest amount. James dropped his eyes to the ground, study the swirls of dirt surrounding his tiny slippers, and then raised them again. The Frenchman was still waiting, extending one arm, all clean silk and lace.

  “Yes, I will come,” James agreed quietly, as if his breath had been stolen from him, and then looked down again, unsure despite his bold words. “…Ben…” But before he could say a thing more, Ben slipped past him to follow after Saint-Cyr.

  The boy patted the horses with an ease that bespoke of an early life in the countryside, then hopped up to sit beside the coachman. James spared a moment to remind Ben not to get into trouble and was rewarded with a laugh for his efforts. Then he followed Etienne into the narrow carriage and sat on bare bench across from him. James glanced up as the negro man shut the door behind him, looking down quickly before the other man could avert his eyes as was proper.

  “A real boucanier… I hope it will be diverting.” Etienne fussed with the line of his coat and then made a face at the hardness of the bench, shifting from one side of his arse to the other and then pursing his lips in a pout. It was almost an amusing sight but James just scowled at him, as pirates did not exist only to dispel what Etienne called hisennui.

  “I hope it will not be,” he insisted, mostly to himself for he knew that Etienne was not listening to him at the present, too concerned with his tender arse. James had slept on wood harder than this bench, and the wood did not hurt nearly as much as…

  Suddenly overheated, James turned his face to the window. The blind was lifted, and he studied the view of the street as there was the sound of a whip cracking and the carriage lurched into motion.

  “Do you know anything of this…Spider?” Lord Cavendish would have called such a name a silly game for fools, but James imagined that, as many of the sea robbers were poor men and peasants, giving themselves a title held a daring sort of appeal. He could not see himself with one however, and wondered, for the smallest of moments, why René Villon had not taken one.

  But then the man was not a boucanier, James reminded himself, even if he had the manner of one. He was acorsaire, and acorsaire who had preyed on an English ship, even if the story of their ship’s capture held no interest to anyone, having had no treasure onboard. Jamaica was an English sovereignty, if one run by pirates. He would not be at the harbor, and there was no reason for James to feel as if needles poked into his flesh at every turn.

  “The name is familiar.” Saint-Cyr’s tone was airy and distant, which, James suspected, meant that he knew nothing, but he managed to hold his tongue. “I know the man is not English, or of France.” Etienne paused there, finally sitting all the way down on the bench and staying as still as a man could with the bumps in the dirt shaking the whole carriage about. “And still you do business with…” James forced himself to stop, jerking his gaze from the other man and chastising himself for his runaway tongue. But Etienne as usual said nothing, not even seeming to care about James’ outburst, so James turned furiously back. “People who traffick with thieves are…”

  “Other thieves?” Etienne met his eyes pointedly and smiled a smile without teeth. “And am I not that? Stealing from my king?” The words were spoken with a small trace of a strange and yet familiar sadness that nearly reached into James and snatched the breath from his chest. A simple phrase that carried a large weight behind it. Etienne had never spoken of his business with Sir Marvell to James directly until this moment, and James was not quite sure what to say.

  Merchants back in London had complained about tariffs many times, and many had schemed to get around the high taxes on imported goods. Mayhap in France they were higher, and the laws restricting the ports were stricter, but it did not change the knowledge that when the Saint-Cyr family shipped their sugar and tobacco to England in English ships, they broke the law. James did not know the punishment, but knew enough to know that the crime was serious indeed, like stealing from the King himself.

  “Do not frown at me, James. You look like a priest.” “I am not a…” James froze with the rest of his words unspoken, settling back onto the bench, surprised to see how he had leaned forward. Etienne clucked his tongue as if he wanted to say something mocking, but then sighed. His dark eyes moved restlessly around the small space but when James would not look away, they found him again. For the smallest moment, they seemed bright, wet, then Etienne licked his lips and smiled.

  “Priests cannot be expected to understand.” His gaze too warm, Etienne looked away at last. He took a breath, though James did not see why Etienne would need to steady himself, not to explain himself to someone so unimportant. “With the money, perhaps we will rise in position at court. My sisters will find themselves better suited to find the right husbands, and I will not have to marry Marie du Ville who has the face of a horse and the spirit of a block of wood.” He seemed to sense James was not amused at his gay tone, for he sighed again, heavily. “What would you have me do, James?” he spoke flatly, and without powder his skin was still milk-white. He turned to face the window and his eyebrows drew together. “Perhaps even with this name I am just a low creature by birth with no honour in me.”

  “I…” James’ stammer barely caused him embarrassment, not with his shock at being told such a thing, at hearing the soft whisper that had followed it. Etienne reached up to knock twice on the ceiling of the little carriage before turning to shoot James an annoyed look.

  “I was not serious, you English monk,” he mocked him with another smile, this one too tight, then sat up at the carriage rolled to a stop. He swung t
he door open and waited impatiently for the man to appear with the stool. When the man did, Etienne stepped lightly into the street and pulled out his handkerchief, gesturing with it as James stumbled out after him.

  It had not been a long ride, merely slow for the people and animals using the street. Pigs and birds roamed freely through the dirt lanes, and the people trying to avoid the livestock ended up in the carriage’s path.

  Wrinkling his nose, Etienne held the cloth to his face and peered out over the collection of wooden docks and storied buildings of the harbor. He stared too long at such a view, but when he did not seem about to speak anymore of his troubles at home, James turned away from the man to look out over the water, inhaling the salted tang of the air. A beautiful blue, stretching as far as he could see, and then farther beyond, to places he had never been, to France and to England both. Etienne would leave soon after the deal was arranged, away to his home probably never to return. James would remain here many years into the future, perhaps until he died.

  “Father will not like it if I fail.” At the abrupt words, James looked again at Etienne, at a man he might call friend. Etienne’s voice told of a longing to stay in the Indies, though he did not look at the water but at the rows of taverns and inns, already filling up with men. It was a quiet afternoon, no fights or shouting, just tired men looking for drink and company. James thought that later Etienne would probably want to join them in those taverns, and considered Etienne’s earlier title for him.

  After Jean, he could not bring himself to visit with another whore, even if he had been willing to spend the coin. He doubted very much that he could persuade a woman to come to him for free; he had only had such a sweet-heart once, as a youthful folly, and he was but a lowly clerk now, no woman would look at him.

  But his skin still burned to recall the scorching looks of the strange man three nights ago, in a tavern much like these. Just lounging across one chair with one foot propped on another, just as Villon had done many times onle Diable Noir. He had to have been a pirate, for he had worn a cutlass and had the dark skin of a sailor, but his light hair had been twisted up into a scarf in a manner like how the Turks were said to wear, or like a peasant woman doing the washing, and his form had been hidden by many layers of shirts andvestes and one long coat, as if the weather warranted such warm dress. Nothing had hidden the man’s eyes however, perusing James’ body and face as boldly as René had done and then smiling an invitation to him from across the room.