Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  He could feel Ben close behind them as they moved slowly in the direction of the sea, though no more words were spoken. A soft rattle occasionally came from Villon’s chest when his feet would stumble over the ground, and he would have to lean into James to steady himself, but not once beyond that single whisper of his name did he acknowledge the arm holding him upright, or the man at his side, and James felt the skin of his face growing tighter with each second of silence.

  The sunlight was so suddenly so bright that his eyes watered, and he could feel the eyes of man and God on them, and the cloudless blue sky that no longer seemed to offer hope. Instead it was ripe to view to all the residents of Port Royal, the odd picture they made, two men so close together, one only half-dressed and pressed to his side as though he had been made from it and had yet to tear himself away.

  Another time perhaps his face would have heated, but even the glaring light of sun did not spread a rush of warmth under his skin, not with René’s icy skin at his fingertips and the fury reaching him from those nearest to him.

  But under their fury was the same fear James knew was pooling in his belly, and also the same need, both figures looking to him for an answer. He cast his gaze upward once more, back into the brightness of the sky, and tried to think of the future, of what he would need once—if—they reached the shore unmolested. A boat obviously, to get to the woman’s ship, though the monies to hire one he did not have. They might find men from her ship, if what Ben reported was true, and that was all he truly needed. He had done more than his duty already, his shoulders would soon grow weary with the added weight, and reprisals for helping René to escape would cost him dearly no doubt, were they to become known.

  All too quickly, they reached the harbor and the crowds of men conducting unlawful and lawful commerce. James was surprised at how barely he paused before continuing on, wanting to roll his shoulders recklessly at their possible Destinies but just hugging his burden tighter to his body until he could feel some of his warmth in René’s skin.

  He could only wonder if Ben and René felt the eyes of so many others as he did, the way some gazes passed over them and others lingered on the odd picture, curious and detached. Mayhap Villon did, his small body tensing and attempting to jerk away from James as they neared the boxes and casks being unloaded from trading vessels and carried off by sailors and slaves milling about the street.

  “I am here,” Villon grunted into his chest, displeasure leaving him shaking and weak, even with James supporting him. He lifted one hand and crumpled a section of James’ shirt in his fist.

  “Yes.” James agreed readily enough and divested himself of the other man’s hand, pushing him away to arm’s length and turning away to look at the sea as though it were the River Jordan itself. “Here, and no further,” he added quietly, watching a few birds dive and circle over the low stone wall over one part of the shore some distance away. His eyes were dry, and burned. René’s slow, rasping breaths were all he heard until Ben spoke.

  “We’re leavin’?” Ben seemed surprised and James snapped his head back to him, finding he had no patience for Ben’s shifting moods this day.

  “He’s a man to fend for himself, Ben. And we have our own troubles.” Tightly, James uttered the words, not at all startled to find them unpalatable and sticking in his throat. Black eyes just stared at him narrowly; pain and rage making them charred embers waiting only for a spark to explode like a holocaust. His tarrying here might very well prove that spark, as Villon was so ready for James to be gone. “Fare thee well, René.” James shuddered at the chill in his own words, knowing he had never spoken so harshly to a lover, even if it was a man he spoke to now, and one unlike any other that he had ever known.

  René said nothing in reply, just stood and pulled with bony hands at the lines of James’ coat, his bared skin raised with a thousand tiny bumps as though the early afternoon sun were not warm and the air was not wet with it. But his face was far too fierce for James to think on him as weak, and he pulled Ben from the man’s side and clutched at his smaller hand when Villon nodded an already distant farewell.

  It seemed to be a busy day for most. Hordes of men surrounding them as they walked on, idle talk filling the air as James tried to think on what to do next. Throw himself before Sir Marvel’s mercy perhaps, if his employer had any. It would not be pleasant or easy, even if his Lordship were to overlook his treason, which James doubted. But word of his actions would come out soon enough, on a small gossip-filled island, in a city that Sir Marvell watched every inch of. James had no explanation to give the man, none but his care for any other of God’s creatures, and just imagining the shrewd, merciless gaze upon him at that was enough to make him swallow.

  He glanced to Ben, knew the boy was right. They would have to leave, the danger to them too great to stay. “…I heard his throat was cut…” James flinched at the words that floated to his ear. They could have come from anywhere, he knew. They were not directed at him or the man yards away behind him, but he felt as though they had been. Strange, when they were not spoken any louder than the words about the price of silk, or the exchange of French royals for Spanish pieces of eight.

  Grimacing, James moved them both faster, bumping into a rail-thin figure on one side of him. The man hardly glanced at him, but James blinked at the ugly scar twisting across the smooth, sunken skin where one of the man’s eyes had once been before he hurriedly begged his pardon.

  “She will not be pleased if I fail to find her favourite herb.” The one eyed man growled to another man, shaking his head so that the hair gathered at the top of his head flew back and forth. “And I don’t relish having my balls cut off. She’s as bloodthirsty as a lioness this morning.”

  Even James’ father had on occasion had fear in his voice at the thought of a woman’s temper, and yet James had never heard his step-mother threaten to unman him. No woman would, he thought with an oily sickness in his stomach. YetL’Aranha’s image came to his mind, and he tilted his head away from the scarred man, shivering.

  They were so far way now that René would seem like just another man on the shore, if he had not moved and was still standing on shaking legs in the middle of the bustling harbour. But that was behind him. His future, there, ahead of them was a gilded carriage, empty, but then Sir Marvell did not need to be in it for James to recognize his ornate vehicle. He shivered anew, or thought he had from the way his skin crawled with fever.

  “I don’t want to stay.” Ben pulled free his hand and stepped in front of James with arms crossed. James stopped and studied the small figure, noticing absently the many stains that dotted across Ben’s clothing. When Ben sighed impatiently, James blinked and then shook his head.

  “I know,” he responded simply, inhaling deeply to steady himself as a large man stopped next to the carriage, lifting his cane to strengthen his argument with what looked to be a servant. “Come,” James whispered to Ben urgently and spun on his heels, his heart nearly bursting when the thin man was less than a handbreadth away and glaring down at him through one eye that had the yellow and brown shine of gold.

  “I…” James again started to beg pardon, then stopped and licked his lips. “You…you work for theL’Aranha?” Though as slender as a starving man, the scarred man grinned so wickedly that James thought he might be better putting his faith in Sir Marvell’s mercy.

  “I work for myself,” the pirate assured him with ferocity. “But I mate with the woman for now.” The single eye looked him over with more care. “What do you want with her?”

  “I want…” Not at all sure, James glanced up and down the shore. Even without a red coat, James espied one body among the multitude. René had not moved, as James had known that he would not. Indeed, as he could not. René was the fool there, of all of them. It was a wonder James had seen it before.

  He firmed his lips and lifted his chin to stare boldly into one shining eye. “I want to see her. I have something for her.”

  So he was a fool a
s well. Once on the ship it was not likely he would be allowed to leave. But his feet would not move him away, and Ben was right at his side, eager and interested.

  “So do I, man,” the thin man chuckled loudly but nodded his head. “Fairly itching to give it to her, too.” “Will you take us to see her?” James pressed, fighting the urge to avert his eyes at the man’s warm words. The man shrugged, and the thin veste he wore parted to reveal the wiry muscles of his chest. “I know you have business first,” James added in a hurried whisper. “We will wait.”

  “The two of you?” The man grunted thoughtfully. James swallowed, but kept his head up.

  “Three.” He closed his eyes as he said it. The other man barely paused. “Three as well as two. She will kill you all if she wishes.” And with another laugh that revealed a straight line of teeth, he extended his hand, which was warm and dry when James took it. “I am Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel,” James repeated and Gabriel smiled. “I am James.” James exhaled slowly and gestured to his side. “This is Ben. We will wait for you.”

  “You may join me,” Gabriel offered easily, swinging the knot of hair atop his head back and forth. James watched the fall of brown hair for a moment, staring over the man’s shoulder. “We will wait,” James decided softly, and felt the terror shred his stomach like a knife.

  At Sea

  Chapter Eleven

  It was odd to feel Villon’s length sliding from his arms, though René had threatened to do just that since James had first had to lift him from the ground back on the island. The alarming groan as the other man had finally succumbed to his weakness was stuck

  firmly in James’ mind, and James reached out as he had done then, feeling the stiffness of the body before him. “I am taking you to her ship,” James had addressed the top of René’s head, his voice stiff and formal, but calm, for he was not willing to make a scene with Sir Marvell so near. He had expected arguments, a struggle, not the blank stare and still figure of a man who had not even seemed to notice that he was there.

  The growing heat of the day would weaken him quickly, James had thought with a rush of unexplained anger, and had gritted his teeth together and resolutely turned his eyes away. Without a word they had stood there, René perhaps disbelieving that James would do what he had claimed. But when Gabriel had returned with another wicked smile to see René, René had abruptly ended his doll-like stillness and had spit out a stream of furious French and tried to stalk off.

  Now James limited his touch to grasping softly at René’s hips and put his other hand back, hearing the sounds of Ben scrambling on to the deck behind him. “Be still,” he warned in a hiss, looking around at the hard, dirty faces that surrounded them, watching Gabriel melt away into the group. There would be no help there it seemed. “I will…”

  “You will do nothing!” René shoved the words out without turning his head, not wasting the effort to look at him as he looked instead to the pirate approaching them. James squinted upward into the sun to follow him as well, aware that only he seemed to have the freedom to move, the rest of the world, even René, as frozen as himself.

  “René Villon,” the pirate spoke in a voice that seemed both surprised and amused, and James blinked, realizing at last that he was staring at the person that they come here to find. L’Aranha, whom René had called Mirena, stopped some distance from them; her hair was held behind her head and the wisps that the wind had set free did not soften the lines of her face as she studied them.

  The same breeze toyed with the fabric of her shirt, giving them all a momentary glimpse of the rise of her breasts, well-browned from the sun, before she moved and James found himself staring directly into her watchful gaze. She frowned, and James stretched out the fingers at René’s waist, pulling the man closer as René reached for a sword that was not there, a sword to match the one hanging easily from the woman’s hip.

  “I did not think to see you here,” she went on, continuing her hard stare, and James pushed out an unsteady breath. She did not appear soft now, not as she had when whispering in Villon’s ear, costumed in flowing gold.

  “René,” James whispered urgently, glancing away from L’Aranha to the faces of the men. He caught of a glimpse of Gabriel’s tall, thin form, and recalled the man’s words. “I did not want to be here,” René answered her while ignoring James, and stepped from his hand, leaving James clutching at the air. Ben pressed himself against his open palm behind him and James tried not to let the fear take him, fighting the urge to push the child back down the ropes to the boat below.

  “You would rather be twice the dead man?” L’Aranha spoke calmly enough, but her words made James quake and gasp out a protest and dart his eyes to the many men observing silently. “They were careless to leave you alive.”

  “Foolish,” René spat, as though her words held no import of life or death, but his flesh seemed to burn through the air with sudden heat. “…To cross you.” “ Sim.” The first grin cracked the woman’s flinty face as she gestured around her though it disappeared before her arm had even fallen back to her side. “We have already decided they will die.”

  James could not even think to beg for compassion, opening his mouth to find breath when he thought of Pym, and others on René’s ship, who surely had not been part of such a thing. A select few had probably committed the heinous act, perhaps Marechal, or even the murderer, Deniau.

  “Lady,” James tried to begin but stopped when her gaze flicked to him and she put the tip of her tongue to her lips and stroked a taste across first her upper lip, and then her lower, her manner bringing to mind a street whore so much that James knew his eyes grew large.

  “And what will I do with you, and the pretty you have brought me?” She switched to her fractured French with an abruptness that left James struggling to translate, and she laughed as she said such strange things, confusing him more. But René’s answer he understood, and flung his head up at the blow of it.

  “I do not care,” the Frenchman answered simply, shrugging as though he truly did not care a whit, unconcerned with James and Ben behind him, trapped here.

  The woman’s brows rose, and she grinned once more, a quick little smile. “I will like to have René Villon as my prisoner,” she announced, not quite as a question though she leaned her head to one side and tapped her cutlass hilt thoughtfully. “The other two as well, unless you do not agree, René.” It was nearly another question, but she turned away as she said it, lacking even the respect to wait for an answer.

  “You w…will not mock,” James blurted it with a shameful stutter, furious enough to place one hand on René’s shoulder in his effort to push himself forward. The sun reflecting off a bared sword from one nearby pirate recalled him to his senses for one brief moment, but L’Aranha took advantage of the moment to look back over her shoulder.

  “You and your mouth will follow me to my cabin, English man.”

  James shot a wide-eyed glance to the dark hair covering the back of René’s head, saw him to be still, when James knew himself to be twitching like an aged drunkard in need of a drink. “Villon also, but he knows the way,” the woman declared as boldly as René had stated his desires on his own ship all those months ago, and James knew he gaped, his anger flaring into an embarrassed fury.

  No doubt he did, but James had no desire to visit the same path. His feet longed only to leave this place and find another, though he feared that there would be no place safe for him now, save Heaven should he be fortunate enough to see its beauty after his many sins. This day alone he had acted in violence and wrath, and lied, and lusted, and though he might blame the black-hearted devil before him, he knew it was his own weakness that had lead him so easily into temptation, and he feared he would do it again at the least invitation, and he wondered sickly if he would dare to call it sin if he knew that another felt as helpless as he.

  “Two at once?” shouted a man with the sound of strange shores on his tongue, with a bawdy laugh following that soon creat
ed more in the men around them. Another man answered the first, calling out that it would take two to feed her appetite, and though James saw René curve his shoulders into his body, the other man seemed untroubled as he began to follow the woman toward the small door leading to a cabin, though his gait was still stiff.

  With a glance to amused figures around them, James swallowed and stepped after the two pirates, ensuring that Ben kept pace with him. The men slowly dropped away once René disappeared through the cabin door, apparently not interested in James, or used to the sight of the woman who led them taking two men to her room.

  James stopped before the door for one moment, swallowing as he studied it and the dim figures further inside. The door was smaller than the one to René’s cabin, or at least seemed so to his tired eyes, and he wished he could close them as he ducked his head to walk through.

  Three people filled in the small room, and James took in the sight of a plump, well-tanned figure sitting on the mattress of a heavy-looking bed, gnawing at an equally plump orange and losing most of the juicy fruit to the blankets beneath him.

  “We would like to be alone, Agostinho.” Why the woman would be so polite to the man soiling her bedding with his gluttony, James did not know, but she did tolerate René, who ate with no concern at all for the stomachs of those around him.

  Her pleasant tone, so different from how she had greeted them moments ago, seemed to work on the man. He scowled but rose from the bed, winking at them before slipping out the door and closing it behind him.