Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  His belly tight with a new anxiety, James pinched his glasses harder into place and observed the crew, noting not for the first time that each seemed to have forgotten the battle that had taken place here just over a month before, that some of their fellows had died at the ends of their blades.

  Looking about him gave him sight of Ben easily enough, as he had known it would. The boy was watching a game two other men were playing, throwing down little cards of paper over a stack of coins and jewelry. Gambling was something frowned upon, creating fights when there was little room for bad spirits, and it was only the absence of any one leader that gave them the freedom to continue their merriment.

  For a moment, James turned his eyes to the door of the small cabin, and then he was looking away, toward where the coast of France should appear before them soon. Any day, if he understood the murmured conversations correctly. His stomach tightened again with apprehension, but then he made himself return his attention to Ben, to the fact that Ben also added his cards to the pile on the ground.

  “Ben,” he said the name without shouting, he was sure, and watched how the thin shoulders hitched. For the smallest amount of time, the boy was still, and then he was smiling and picking up a piece of the pile on the ground, settling it in his lap as though it now belonged to him. It was not a smile meant to wound, but still so false that James wondered again at his blindness.

  James closed his eyes under a frown, suppressing the urge to speak again. What had made him speak then he did not know, but it was his own foolishness when he knew that the boy would not respond. It seems he had ended their friendship though it had not been his intention.

  One hand rose to touch his lips before he stopped it and returned it to his side, nearly blushing to recall the boy’s mouth on his. The eagerness of it, and then the shame when Ben had realized that he had not pleased. James’ head felt as though someone had taken a screw to it, and again he turned his eyes to René’s cabin door.

  René Villon, even half mad with fever and weakened by injuries, had seemed to see straight into the boy’s mind and heart, and had not hesitated in condemning him for it, hurling insults so vicious that James would have felt his insides sliced to pieces to have them directed at him.

  Yet Ben had shown only a white, cold face to him since then, and it was René who had needed the tears wiped from his cheeks.

  Sweet Jesu…the shock of that too. Upon seeing that, he could almost believe that it was the return of his cross of gold that caused those tears, though he should know that to be false. It was a pretty enough cross, perhaps too ornate as was the French fashion. Gold inlaid with a bit of tarnished silver, scrollwork that James had traced with his fingertips during the long hours of waiting for René to either fall into his fever dreams or waken from them. Small, coloured stones decorated each corner as well, too dark blood red to be rubies but still far grander than anything James had ever thought to own. Marechal had taken the cross but he had not stripped it of the jewels. No time, perhaps, or mayhap even he had recognized its true value.

  The weight of the gold had kept James from returning it to René immediately after Thierry had given it to him; so cautious with it that James had known that the other man knew it belonged to René. Surely a man so frail did not need the extra burden of an old cross, no matter how beautiful. But he had reached for it, in his sleep, one part of a thousand memories and longings that even Deniau had been silent to witness.

  He was wearing it now. It would be tucked underneath his clothing, but René would have it on. James had seen the traces of gold chain at his neck, easy to see now without long lengths of hair falling over it.

  René had not spoken of the cross either, at least not to James; the few words that had been directed at him had been short inquiries about the crew, as though James were one of the ship’s mates. James had in turn ignored the smaller man, or at least his words, and simply watched as Thierry had been pressed into service, left to wonder if Thierry would do where both he and Marechal had failed. As long as there was a body at his side, it seemed that René did not mind their changing faces.

  The seeds in his mind were bitter indeed, and James longed to be rid of them, for true or not, they would not grant him clear judgment, and that is something he needed, with St. Malo rapidly approaching and a thousand choices awaiting him at the port city.

  He was closer to England than he had thought to be for many more years, and it was that idea that had stayed in his dreams the longest. And still there was a life here, though not one of his choosing it had somehow fitted itself to him, and possibly there was a sign in that if he could only see it for what it was. France herself lay before him as well, a country he had never thought to see at all. But the Lord had guided him here, kept him alive as he had made the foolish decisions to end up here, and perhaps he owed a debt. There was of course no sign to guide him, and there would not be; this was not a test to be answered so easily, and he feared that it was not the last, nor the greatest.

  He stayed in the light of the sun, the wind teasing the ends of his hair as he thought of it, of Ben as well, and even Villon, and his future, up to his own choosing now that they had drawn from him.

  With the appearance of ease, James stepped from the doorway and raised his eyes to René, who stood with his hand on a railing on the deck above them all. Thierry was close at his side, and if a man were far enough away not to see the ghostly white of René’s skin, he would also be blind to the reason for Thierry’s nearness, for the hand on the rail.

  The very stillness of René’s body should have been clue enough that he was not well, too weak to even have walked that far to James’ mind. But from the moment he had first truly awoken he had insisted upon this, being out of the cabin for several hours each day.

  James had not seen them walk up there this time, and wondered if he had been so lost in thought as to have missed that. No matter what René claimed, there was no hiding his slow pace, or the slight curve to his back, the length of silk shirt that René had calmly had torn apart to use to hold his bad arm. James was no longer certain René needed that; already he walked faster, impatient and terse with Thierry’s presence always at his side. But it was the navigator who had helped keep the ship in order during his illness, and fortunately the crew was satisfied with their single battle and hold full of treasures from the months before Jamaica and their share of Sir Marvell’s sugar. Only the discipline had slipped in the past month, and James glanced back to the card game.

  Fools. For the smallest moment James smiled, not surprised to see how the two men jumped at the sudden command from above, a single word spoken sharply. Perhaps it was the lack of a threat that had them frightened. René Villon was an unpredictable man, and now there was ice when there ought to have been fire.

  Thoughts of a weak and bent body and an arm in a sling did not stop them as they gathered up what remained of their monies and slipped away, leaving Ben on the ground behind them. Ben still held his cards, and his lapful of treasure, but his face held a frown now though he turned his eyes from above.

  Without pausing or even seeming to notice, a quiet murmur of conversation resumed from the high decks, too far away for James to make out words or meaning. He did not need to; that René had chosen to speak at all was meaning enough. He had not truly expected to be disobeyed, and Ben’s small moment of defiance had already been forgotten, as they had both been forgotten.

  Except that they were well remembered indeed. A glance upward gave him the sight of the side of René’s face, and James considered it for a moment, observing the uneven spikes of René’s hair, cut off in a moment of his delirium to ease his discomfort. Bloodied, matted locks littering the floor as Thierry had worked the scissors, James holding the smaller body still. Now the other man seemed to be frailer, his purple and gold earbob large against the pale skin of his neck, creating shadows that looked like bruises. It was a sight James found himself sick of.

  “If he grows more pale we will be able to find
him in the dark, Englishman,” a deep voice spoke from behind him and James nodded once to acknowledge Deniau’s words, glancing once at the black man when his silence seemed to go unnoticed. “We could still slit his throat.”

  The phrase he had repeated only moments before made James give Deniau another look, questioning whether the other man had listened to his recent words with Etienne. Deniau was grinning, leaving James to wonder. Though Deniau had no cause James knew of to torment René’s prisoner, had no reason to visit that far below deck at all.

  “I am surprised that someone has not,” James remarked softly, pushing away thoughts of Etienne for now and observing the hard faces of the crew. René was weak enough, and the temptation to kill him and return to the Caribbean as pirates had taken stronger men than these. The mutinous thought played darkly at the back of his mind even now, as he watched René talk calmly with his navigator, eyes always on the water. The vision of striking out at René Villon left a sickness in his stomach, but James did not attempt to dispel it.

  There were stains in the wood at their feet, the blood of those who had had the same thoughts for different reasons, and perhaps it was those that had stayed the hands of the men.

  It was where he stood now, that René had been struck across the shoulder and fallen down the stairs below the deck. A man who had not hesitated as James had, and James could feel the odd echo up his arm once again, the strange stillness as the sword had pierced flesh and held fast, his strength not enough to pull it free as the man had fallen screaming to the ground.

  He had killed and disregarded it as nothing in order to hurry down those stairs, held back by stronger arms when he would have continued on. Then he had stayed, the blood of the man he had murdered still on his clothing as he had sat vigil, only to discover another betrayal, tied up and hidden in the hold like the blackest of family secrets.

  “Fear.” Deniau spat as he said the word, his spittle smearing across one of the dark streaks on the wood at their feet. His smile was like the knife at his belt, and James glanced at it before hurriedly looking away. If it had been fear of Deniau that had kept the men in line during René’s illness than James could well understand their lack of action. What the other man and Thierry had done during that month was mostly unknown to him, and his guesses would have left him with shivers if he had had feeling left.

  They had not taken the ship for their own, and he did not know if it was from friendship or loyalty, strange enough among pirates, or if something else had passed between them in that small cabin, mingling in the air with René’s small cries.

  “If you wish to remain in the game, you must begin by taking one. One, and the rest will follow,” Deniau went on suddenly in his thick French, deciding to talk and distracting James momentarily from the heaviness that had not left him. His tone was almost reasonable, as though he only killed with a purpose after all. “Noble men like to call themselves master. You take one, and show them all what power truly means.”

  Deniau gave James the same grin he had shared with René when chess pieces had been the only bodies between them. “A king?” Despite himself, James turned to look Deniau in the eye. The black man’s smile fell away as he noticed the look, a threat in his eyes that James felt the man was almost unaware of. Yet James did not feel his feet moving him backwards, and the cold eyes remained steady in his line of vision. Sickness tightened his belly once again as he remembered the flash of Deniau’s blade in the night, but that was all, and then Deniau was shrugging as René might have done and looking away.

  “The one who sinned first.” As though there could be such a man, but strangely James heard no argument coming from his lips, and Deniau did not give him a moment to even try. “The one who sinned against me. Against what is mine.”

  “He will never hear your prayers.” Etienne’s words would not leave him, calling James a fool, telling him there was nothing he could do. Calm words that masked a great fear, echoed now in the mouth of another man.

  “There is no God but me, Englishman.” The blasphemy brought James back to the present, and he started. As though that were humourous, Deniau laughed loudly and stepped from the doorway, looming for a moment before walking easily away. None joined him as he moved across the ship and up to where René stood.

  James’ eyes followed him and caught the swing of René’s earbob as the man moved, greeting Deniau solemnly and without surprise.

  James swallowed and narrowed his eyes, wondering if the whole world thought him a fool. If so then mankind was wrong, for Jamesknew himself to be a fool, and unschooled in the ways of the world, and a harlot for the way his blood still burned after these insults. If those were his only crimes then he could sleep untroubled.

  Deniau’s words would linger. That he had claimed to be God was no worse than René crying that none existed, when each held the stamp of their Divinity in their faces. But to be without sin and look upon another and find them guilty of it… None were free of the taint of it; it was only to reach beyond that to what good remained underneath.

  He had heard once that the papists had a belief in the separateness of the sins of the body and the mind, and that the one always came before the other, and that one still had a chance to fight the lesser sins of his thoughts before they corrupted the body. But what if a man’s thoughts were good, and his body tainted, or if the taint of the mind were a result of the wickedness of others? Which sin was the greater?

  He knew also that to the followers of the Pope all men could be redeemed if only they repented before God. To repent was to claim a hand in the sin itself, but to be innocent and sinned against, like a woman stripped of her honour… What then?

  In a moment black eyes would shoot swiftly in all directions, and René would turn to direct a glance over his shoulder, searching for a body that was not there. James was blind, and a fool indeed, and it was no wonder they all mocked him with their speech.

  He exhaled softly, his mind spinning. If a man were damned and left with nothing, what would he not do, to ease the pain of his soul? They had claimed some sins to be lesser than others, and surely it was understanding that the Lord had taught. That and charity above all else. So long as a man remained humble, were his mistakes not his own, as God’s curse and gift to man, in the midst of his sorrow.

  That was wrong. He had seen a man with no hope twice now in his lifetime. One crying out in the voice of a child, sick with fever. The other still tied up below him. They did not deserve to be made humble, and he would never ask it of them. He wondered at a God that would.

  James closed his eyes at the sudden thunder of footsteps about him, the murmurings that held no interest with the way his brain burned and his skin itched. Even a woman had more pride than he possessed, with the way his mind would convince him of anything in order taste René again. It was madness, and a shame to his family to have these desires, to find them unreturned only made it more so.

  “James.” How René had spoken while in his sleep, a voice hard and eager and a body trembling though it was he who had pushed, opened his mouth to demand kisses that had taken the stiffness of fear from his limbs and coaxed him back into dreams less vicious.

  Swallowing the bitterness was suddenly something of little effort, not to also recall the fragments of those dreams that had been thrust upon him, had made the others in the room gasp before James had shouted for them to leave, extending his arms as though he was a shield of any use or value.

  He did not think his anger would leave him however, and felt his muscles shiver as he fought to remain still, opening his eyes for the distraction. A new sound reached him as he observed even Ben lined up at the rail with many of the other men, staring at a speck of colour in the distance. James had to squint to see it at all, despite the bright midday light.

  The speck flattened itself, squashed down into something like a line drawn with an old man’s hand, and above in the sky was a dark spot that moved, floated above them all, and with a small cry he realized it was a bird. Hi
s lips parted, his eyes filling with what had to be a shoreline, and he felt his chest move, expanding with a breath so sweet that he could not release it.

  He closed his eyes quickly as they grew dry and opened them wide at the vision before him, staring as he had always done into eyes unlike any others he had ever seen, rarer and darker than ebony. René had not moved, it was his own eyes that had traveled, but he would not be shamed by it, not when he knew that René’s had not traveled at all. It was not France that had captured his gaze, and James lifted his chin and turned to look at what lay before him.

  “My father will not pay a ransom for me,” Etienne had told him with a challenge in his manner though he was in no position to offer one. “There are hundreds of bastards across Paris to prove that he will have no difficulty in getting another son.” The man had laughed as he had said it, an unfeeling laugh that had seemed to pain him even as his shoulders shook with it. A joke he had not meant for James to understand.

  “I do not matter to anyone, James, except possibly my sisters. I have always known that. This is…if this is meant to remind me…” There Etienne’s laugh had faded to nothing but heavy breathing.

  “If what were meant to remind you?” he had asked through stiff lips and Etienne had blinked, as though startled to find James standing next to him. He had had to speak. “I would mourn you,” he had then offered, a perfect idiot who had not lied.

  Etienne’s head had come up, and then he’d answered in the voice James had not forgotten, though he had heard it only once before. “Will you? Or will you mourn another?” This man would never be humble, would never have named James a friend. The stare was cold and uncaring. “There will always be another bastard to replace me, isn’t that right, my friend?” Only a flick of his gaze had indicated something, perhaps a presence behind James, listening. But when James turned he saw no one. “I will do only when the other, the better one, is gone.”