“Has it been a while?” I teased.
He rolled his eyes, a gesture even his mask could not hide. “Drink your water.”
I did as he bade while Samuel served.
I noticed Theodore watching me with curiosity.
“Water?” he asked.
“It is a remedy for the flux,” I gasped when halfway through the bottle. I set it down. “The rest will wait until I have food,” I told Gaston.
He blinked at me in a non-committal fashion and fastidiously cut his sausage into small bites. I took in his posture, which was excellent, his grip on the utensils, which was proper, and his overall demeanor, which would have done my old nurse proud, and I endeavored to also sit and eat at the table as I had been drilled to do endlessly in childhood.
Thus I waited until I swallowed before saying, “The first time I was away from home, or rather the first time I was not at a proper table amongst gentlemen and ladies, I was in a tavern and I took great delight in slouching, belching, and using my fingers. It was an act of utter rebellion. I was once forced to endure an entire day at the table because I could not sit still while breaking the fast.”
Gaston smiled. “I never had trouble at the table, but I lived in mortal terror of the upstairs maid and my governess.”
I laughed and asked sympathetically, “Were there issues with the bed linen?”
He glared at me, and for a moment I thought he might blush.
“When I was five,” he said coldly.
“I did not think it was when you were fifteen. Though that reminds me of the times I had the most difficulties with maids and the subject of bed linen.”
“I was in school by the time that became a problem, and the staff seemed to expect it with a dormitory full of boys. When I was older, the monks even viewed it as a matter of course.”
We had conducted this conversation in English, and Theodore was wide-eyed over it, as it had surely notified him somewhat as to the nature of Gaston’s birth.
“Theodore, were you forced to endure hostile and unsympathetic servants as a child?” I asked.
Theodore nodded. “Not so many as I feel you two were forced to endure, but I too had difficulties with the maids, as everything we did was reported to our mother by them.”
“I suppose my mother was informed, but she was so rarely involved in my instruction or punishment that I came to view her as this curious person who had no real interest in the matter.” I could count on two hands the number of times my mother had spoken more than a formality to me prior to the birth of my sisters.
Gaston had grown very quiet and withdrawn at this turn of the conversation, and I felt it best to steer it elsewhere.
“What will we need to do later? I wish to judge if we should have Sam wake us at a specified hour in order to have time before the markets close.”
“I need to stop by my old ship and retrieve my things, and we will need to finish equipping you. The visit to the Josephine can wait until after the markets close.” He thought for another moment. “I would suppose we should be up and about by midday.”
“I will instruct Ella and Samuel,” Theodore said. “There is one bit of paperwork I will need from you prior to your final leave-taking. It can wait until late afternoon or evening.”
I nodded and pushed my plate aside to finish the water. I thought of all I wished I had time to accomplish before sailing. Beyond the obvious visit to Ithaca, I dearly would have liked to bring this remedy to Harry and the boys. However, I felt that they would have given it no heed, even if I had. The same was likely true of my sheep. I gazed upon my history with them through the lens of Donoughy’s words and my own experience with men about their betters, and thought it likely they had wished to befriend me to curry favor. I remembered several strange looks I had received and the whispers that occasionally followed me about deck. I had been lonely and wished to believe they valued my acquaintance for more than their own ends.
So what then had I talked myself into regarding Gaston?
I marveled at my thoughts. I was such the fickle fool. I vowed to stop thinking on it for a time, lest I tie myself in knots.
With a belly full of eggs, sausage, and water, I retired upstairs with Gaston in my wake. He regarded the narrow little room and its small window with dismay. “We will have to be about by midday; it will be too hot to do otherwise,” he remarked.
I nodded my agreement. I had not attempted to remain in the room through the heat of the day since arriving. I did not relish the thought. We opened the window and propped the door wide; and then I slipped to Theodore’s room across the landing and opened his door and window. If we were lucky, there would be a breeze; and it would actually flow in the needed direction.
I doffed my shirt and was about to do the same with my breeches, when I saw that Gaston was not removing his clothing. I had known several men who, when confronted with no other means of privacy, used their clothes as their only shield. I kept my pants on out of respect for his choice.
We both arranged our weapons in the netting of our hammocks so that they would be in easy reach if the need arose. I was amused as I thought of our earlier conversation. This was not something we learned from governesses or nannies, or even monks. In fact, it could said to be proof against such.
At last able to relax somewhat, I crawled into my hammock and found myself quickly asleep. I was once again unconfused as to my course in life for the near future. I was not alone anymore. I was at peace with what the Gods had offered and I had accepted.
Nine
Wherein I Become A Buccaneer
When I woke, the room was hot but there was a somewhat chilling breeze on my sweat-soaked skin. I was hungry and needed to relieve myself, but thankfully in the usual manner that did not require a desperate run to the latrine. Despite the needs of my body, I was reluctant to open my eyes and truly leave slumber behind. It was bright. I wondered at the time.
I was rewarded when at last I did raise my lids. Gaston was sitting by the window, reading the German Plato book. I drank the sight in. He was beautiful and brought to mind a fine rapier or even my grandfather’s wheellock musket: a finely crafted thing of grace and tempered strength inlaid with jewels and designed for killing. He would require skill to wield to any success. I was amused at my hubris, as I was assuming as much as the others. My rational mind told me that though he was as lonely as I, he was not interested in being handled. My heart and loins whispered a great many other things.
I am not attracted to all men. I have a connoisseur’s appreciation of a fine body, and I worship talent and knowledge when I find it, but these things do not often bind together in any man in such a way as to elicit more than a passing interest from my soul. Gaston was a rare find and he had the full, and I was sure lasting, attention of every part of me, most especially my manhood.
Feeling my gaze, Gaston looked up to meet it. I yawned and stretched, pretending I had not been looking as long as I had.
“What is the time?”
“No human thing is of serious importance,” he read.
I chuckled, considering my most recent thoughts. “I disagree.”
“Why?” he asked with a small smile.
I considered this as I rose and donned my shirt and weapons. “Art.”
“I will concede that,” he said with a solemn nod. “It is just past midday. I was going to wake you soon. I believe that abominable woman has food for us.”
I thought of Ella and smiled. “Ah, she is not a work of art.”
“I am not sure if she is a work of man.”
“So would that lend her serious import?”
“Only in a fool’s mind.”
He followed me downstairs, but not out to the latrine. I returned to find him eating meat and cheese at the table, and I joined him. I drained another bottle of water.
“So what will I need?” I asked.
“What do you possess for weapons?”
I described what I had, and he nodded agreeably.<
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“I would leave the wheellock here. You should have a cutlass in addition to your rapier. I have never had to duel with a Spaniard, but I have had to hack through many things. You should carry several knives and more pistols. Each man is responsible for his own shot and powder, though it will be replenished from captured goods, if there are any. I suggest carrying a water skin of your own and some boucan if you can get it. You will need new clothes, and I would suggest earrings.”
“What is boucan?” I asked.
He frowned and then smiled. “Dried meat.”
I frowned. “What does dried meat…?”
“Boucaniers make boucan,” he grinned. “We learned how from the Indians. The Spanish abandoned much of the Haiti, the highlands of Hispaniola. They only chose to remain in the southern parts of the island. This was many years ago. They left their cattle and pigs behind. The cattle ran wild, and the land teemed with them. Men from many nations found they could disappear on the Haiti and live without kings or rules except of their own making. They killed cattle and dried the meat and sold it to passing ships for shot, powder, or whatever they might need that they could not make. They became the Brethren of the Coast. When the Spanish would try and drive them out, they would retreat across the channel to Île de la Tortue. The story goes that Pierre Le Grand was the one who discovered how to strike back at the Spanish by taking their ships in 1635. So the Brethren became flibustiers for part of the year and remained boucaniers for the rest.”
“Thus your insistence that we are not all buccaneers,” I grinned.
“Oui, yet that was more than thirty years ago. Now it does not mean quite the same, but I choose to be stubborn about it.” He shrugged. “Today you will become a buccaneer, even if you never make boucan.”
“Thank you.” I thought over what he had said. “You mentioned that they lived with no laws except of their own making.”
“The Way of the Coast.” He sighed. “But that is changing, too. The more civilized people cross the Line, the harder it is for men to remain free. Now there is no peace beyond the Line, but all other things of the Old World are here.” He snorted.
I thought of Morgan and Bradley. They did not fit the image of lawless wild men Gaston painted. Brethren of the Coast or not, I was sure they saw themselves as English citizens.
“You talk of the Haiti and the original buccaneers with nostalgia.” I noted to Gaston. “Do you feel that time is past and we are on the crest of something new?”
He nodded sadly. “The Brethren were in trouble the minute they were perceived as useful.”
I was amazed he had put it so succinctly. But of course he knew as much of noble wolves as I did.
He told me to bring my musket, and we headed out to the market. I was thankful we had robbed the King’s Hope, as I purchased whatever he told me to as we worked our way through the shops and stalls. He was disdainful of the prices charged, and I could understand why. The merchants saw a buccaneer coming and assumed he had a great deal of booty to spend. They priced their wares to maximize their profits. We haggled and argued with vendors at nearly every shop, and in a few instances took our business elsewhere.
When we reached the gunsmith’s, I expected more of the same; but Gaston appeared to relax, and he even smiled in greeting as we entered the well-ordered shop. The smith, a man named Massey, knew my friend by name and greeted him happily. After introductions were made, the man examined my flintlock carefully and pronounced it a fine weapon, though apparently not so fine as Gaston’s musket from Dieppe. I asked him of this, and he showed me both weapons from his craft’s perspective. Gaston’s had a thicker and more carefully-constructed barrel. This meant it could handle more powder. More powder meant more range and damage.
“Do you have another like his?” I asked, and both Gaston and Massey smiled. The sum was exhorbitant, and I considered what little coin I had left.
“It will have to wait,” I sighed.
“Non, I will buy it for you,” Gaston said, and nodded to Massey.
“I will repay you,” I said seriously.
This seemed to cause Gaston consternation, and he did not look at me for a time.
We sorted through the cask of shot, finding balls that best suited the bores of our guns. Gaston explained that the musket was the key to the buccaneers’ prowess. Four well-placed one-ounce balls shot from fine muskets could easily equal the damage of one six-pound cannon ball at twice the range, against anything other than hardwood or metal. Fifty men firing muskets from the deck of a ship were devastating, if all the enemy had were light cannon. The musketeers did not have to be in range of the cannons in order to do damage. And even if shot would not do a cannon’s damage to a man, it could put him down and make him bleed enough to keep him from fighting.
As he described some of the fighting he had seen, and how effective the muskets could be, I realized I had not thought we would be engaging in pitched battles of that nature. He made it sound as if I had joined the military.
Then Gaston introduced me to the concept of a cartouche, which was a package of shot and powder wrapped in paper. The paper was used for wadding after the contents were dumped down the barrel. I began to understand how the buccaneers could reload quickly. If all of the necessary items, including a measured amount of powder, could be handled in one package, it made the process much faster.
The necessary paper for the wrapping and several more pistols were added to the pile of things on the counter Gaston said he would purchase. In the end, I hoped our hunting would be good this summer, as I owed him half as much as we had taken from the King’s Hope.
Soon after, we had everything on his list, and had deposited it all at Theodore’s. We went to the Hole. Since it was daylight and we could not simply abscond with one, we paid to borrow a canoe and paddled out to the ship Gaston had been sailing on, the Josephine. She was anchored beyond the passage, near the little sand bar of Gun Cay. I was more concerned than I wished to admit about paddling a craft as small as a canoe out of the bay into what was ostensibly open ocean. The canoe was nothing more than a hollow log and we were kneeling in her. A shark would not have to jump far to bite our arses.
The Josephine was a long and low two-masted craft. She appeared larger than the North Wind, or at least what I had noticed of the North Wind the night before. I counted eight cannon along the side we approached: which, unless she had additional fore or aft mounted guns, made her a sixteen-gun ship. This was a goodly size in these waters, from what I had been told.
We secured the canoe alongside and climbed aboard. The men who watched us arrive did not appear pleased at our presence, and Gaston offered them no greeting save a glare. Pierrot emerged from the main cabin to meet us. He looked me over quizzically as if trying to remember where he had seen me before; and then recognition lit his eyes. Then he looked at Gaston quizzically and back to me again. He mouthed a silent “ah” and smiled widely.
“I am astounded how quickly people leap to conclusions in the West Indies,” I said in French.
Gaston rolled his eyes. “They are bored and have little better to do.”
Pierrot shrugged. “You cannot blame a man for hoping, non?”
“I am going to sail on the North Wind,” Gaston said quietly.
The older man thought it over for a while and nodded slowly. “It’s probably best, but I will miss you horribly and worry a great deal.”
“I know,” Gaston said solemnly and went below.
Pierrot studied me for a moment before stepping closer to speak quietly. “You must take good care of him.”
I frowned. “I will endeavor to do so, though I feel I will need more care than he.”
He shook his head. “Not always.”
“There was mention of bouts of… madness…?”
Pierrot nodded and lowered his voice even further to speak very seriously. “When they strike, he knows not friend from foe, as he is busy fighting his own demons. At times he is quiet and docile and merely wishes to
do things that…” He sighed. “He poses the bodies of the men he has slain. Thus many have taken to calling him The Ghoul. Yet that is harmless and quite preferable to what he does when the rage grips him. He becomes very dangerous, though more to himself than others, as he will do everything he can conceive to anger those around him. It is as if he seeks death at their hands. If you are his friend, when these things occur, you must protect yourself from him and him from everyone else. I strongly advise knocking him senseless and trussing him someplace dark and quiet until he recovers.”
I was truly amazed. I could not envision Gaston behaving as he said. My friend appeared to be the epitome of control and discipline; but I supposed that was how he chose to hide the other, or perhaps the two states were in reaction to one another. I was curious as to this posing of the dead. But I was far more concerned with Pierrot’s remedy to the situation. I did not condone that at all. It did not seem a compassionate solution or one I would be willing to utilize, but I did not argue.
We turned to find Gaston watching us from the hatchway. He joined us without speaking. He did not give us any look of recrimination, yet I was sure he knew what Pierrot had been saying. It chilled me to the bone. As before, when Striker had made mention of this madness, Gaston made no attempt to deny or relieve the accusation of its seriousness in any way. I remembered his words from that morning, about his parents being mad and how he had worn his welcome thin on this vessel with all save one, who I now knew to be Pierrot.
Gaston handed me a heavy rucksack and looked up at Pierrot. “I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
Pierrot shook his head and hugged him, a thing Gaston reluctantly allowed. Pierrot released Gaston from his embrace only to grab his face and kiss his forehead.
“Repay me by finding happiness somewhere, my friend.”
“I do not know if that is possible, but I will endeavor to try.” Gaston led me over the side, and a minute later we were rowing back to Port Royal.
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