Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots

This book and its brothers have been labors of love and faith, made possible by the following people.

I dearly wish to thank:

My husband, John, for being my matelot through thick and thin, artistic despair and ecstasy, and for richer or poorer. Thank you for loving me. I could not do it without you.

Barb, my editor and bestest writing buddy ever, for her unflagging optimism and encouragement, loving critiques, and eagle eye. Thank you for helping me look good.

My mother, for teaching me how to dream and always reach for what I want. My brother, for being my biggest fan. My sister, for her love and support.

My father, for teaching me to think and judge for myself. I am very grateful I was not raised by, or with, wolves or sheep.

And all the people who have read my work, either this piece or others, and offered their support and encouragement. Thank you all.

The Spanish call the promontory we perched upon Punta Negril, though I know not why: there is little black about it. In that strange adaptation of names from one language to another that often occurs in the West Indies, the Brethren call it Negril Point, or simply Negril. It is a rocky escarpment, about two miles wide from north to south, which juts a good league into the sea on the southwestern tip of the island of Jamaica.

I sat upon a rock on its northwestern edge, overlooking the two-league strand of beach that runs due north along the western coast. More than a hundred feet beneath, the shore on the point is a honeycomb of deep blue coves. To the south and west, the azure sea seemed to stretch forever, until only the grey bank of a passing storm separated the water from the brilliant blue sky. To the east, the rocky hill that is the top of the point joins more of the same until it jumbles into ruddy hills. To the northeast, between the white strand of beach and the hills, lay a great bog.

The Virgin Queen lay at anchor below me, riding the gentle swells of the long bay before the beach. I could see the little figures of our crew strewn all along the sand, basking in the rays of the sinking sun: delighting in the freedom of land even though our voyage from Île de la Tortue had been quite short. None had ventured up the promontory to join us; and as the way was often quite rough, such that Gaston had oft been forced to carry my wounded body upon his back to make the climb, I did not blame them.

I turned from the vista of the sea to find my matelot. He was wandering in circles, with his gaze alternately on the hills to the east and the ground at his feet. My breath caught as the sight of him stirred my heart and loins. He was beautiful, made all the more so by the fact that he was mine. He had doffed his kerchief, and the slanting rays lit his red hair such that it appeared afire, and glinted off the brass and steel on his weapons and the gold hoops at his ears. His maroon breeches and tunic were wine in the golden light, and the browned skin of his bare legs and arms glowed like old bronze. He stood tall, the only perpendicular form against the horizontal curves of the ruddy hills. I wished for the millionth time in my twenty-seven years that I possessed some talent for painting, so I could capture visions such as this.

He felt my gaze and turned to meet it, only to still and stand staring at me for a time. His intensity was such I became both curious and self-conscious.

“Will you join me to watch the sunset? You labored so to bring us here,” I called to him.

He smiled slowly and came to me. His eyes, dark spots with a hint of green at a distance, became emerald orbs blazing from his painted mask as he approached. They held an awe that made my heart ache, as it seemed directed at me.

“You make the quite the picture,” he said huskily.

Though with his broken voice he spoke no other way, I felt as I often did when his face held the love it did now: that the throatiness of his intonation was the result of a deeper stirring, and for my benefit, without a merely physical cause.

“I was just thinking the same of you,” I said, my voice equally deep with emotion.

He dropped to sit beside me, and smiled as he rubbed the stubble atop my head.

“Your hair is gold in this light, and looked to be a halo,” he said.

“The distant clouds were wings. It appeared as if an angel had perched on this rock, having just landed from on high.”

I grinned. “You were quite the composition yourself, a gold and red lion stalking about the wilds.”

He frowned and his gaze went to the sea. When it returned to me, he grinned widely and pointed at a place in the waves.

“See there, that stretch of water.”

I looked where he indicated. “Oui.”

“That is the color of your eyes. At this moment.”

I laughed, recalling his despair at finding a gem that would match my eyes after I had found the emeralds that matched his.

“Truly? I cannot believe they are so blue.”

He nodded with a sage smile. Then his lips were on mine, a soft press that I savored while wishing for more. But instead, his mouth departed and he rubbed our stubbled cheeks together languorously, much as a cat would.

“How do you feel?” he murmured.

I snagged his hand and brought it to my crotch.

“Will,” he chided with amusement. “I will know you are dead and gone the day you do not have rise.”

I snorted. “You think a mere thing such as the exertion of attaining this locale would thwart me?”

“Non, never.” He touched my bandaged side and sobered.

“Seriously.”

“Worry not. I feel well enough. You said yourself that I am healing.

And you are the physician.”

“Oui, that was before I brought you here.” He looked away.

“And here we are, not watching the sunset. After so much effort…”

His gaze returned to me, and anxiety gripped his features. “I did not bring you here to watch the sunset.”

“Ah. Then?” I asked calmly.

“I wish for you to live here.” He looked back to the place he had been standing. “I believe I can build a small dwelling from stone. There is little wood here, though I can haul some from the forest for a roof, and fronds from below for thatching.”

Though I was intrigued by his idea of building a dwelling in such a locale, with such a view, it would be a lonely place to live without him.

“You wish for me to live here?” I asked. “What of you?”

He sighed. “I am sorry, Will. I must go. For a time.”

“I thought we discussed this when we left Île de la Tortue. I shall accompany you into the wilds whilst you regain control of your sanity.”

Actually, I had hoped his sojourn into the wilderness could be avoided. In the days we had spent sailing here, Gaston had appeared to recover from the damage Doucette wrought with his attempted cure; but now, my matelot’s forbidding and guilty mien told me I had been deluding myself. He had been hiding his madness, just as he had painted his Caribe mask over the bruises Doucette left upon his eyelids.

“You truly feel you must go alone?” I asked gently.

He nodded tightly, his eyes moist.

I caressed his cheek. “You have been fighting quite the battle, have you not? And here I have been quite the blissful fool, writing my letters.”

“I have kept you drugged,” he said.

I sighed. He must have been dosing the water he gave me with small amounts of laudanum. Thinking back on it with a clear head, the last week had been somewhat hazy. All the trouble and revelations of Île de la Tortue had seemed pleasantly distant in our wake. I had spent much of our sailing here attempting to compose letters to my sister and Rucker: trying to set down all that had occurred since I had last seen them, in a manner that was honest yet elusive of injurious details to the parties involved. I was such a damn fool.

“And yourself?” I asked.

He nodded. “I must… stop. It is a siren that will…” He shook his head bitterly.

“Will summon us onto rocks from which we might not recover,” I said. “I understand.”

I had failed to keep the bitterness from my voice. He winced. I swore and dove atop him before he could stand.

“I am not angry with you,” I hissed, more from anger than from the pain the sudden movement had induced. “But with myself for not seeing. I am ever so full of myself. I am a poor partner to you indeed.”

He thankfully did not struggle in my embrace. He did not seek to return it, either.

“You never have reason for shame on the matter,” he said sadly.

“The only poor thing you have done is to partner with a madman.”

“You have no reason for shame, either. It is not your fault. None of it. Not your madness, not your father sending you away, not your sister, not what your father did, not your exile, none of it. You are a victim of sad chance and poor judgment on the part of others.”

He shook his head in refutation, and I heard how hollow my words fell in my own ears.

“You can at least forgive yourself,” I said with less rancor and more truth.

He smiled sadly. “I do not know if I can. I only know I must…

think… alone. I must… go into the wilderness as I have always done, alone, and… Will, I love you.”

“I know. And I understand.”

And of a sudden, I did. Had I not always relished my time in the wilderness between cities, the times of quiet contemplation, vitriolic self-loathing, and eventual renewal that came from staring at camp fires or the stars in some lonely field, far from whatever city my stupidity and poor fortune had forced me to depart at dawn’s light?

“I will be here for you,” I added warmly.

“You could return to Port Royal with the others, once Striker sees to the legal matters with the ship.”

“Non, I will make myself available to you. I will not retreat to some place you might not wish to come and I will surely not wish to inhabit without you.”

He held me tightly. “I will return to you. I swear I will always return to you.”

September, 1667

Rays of bright noontime light stabbed down through the thatch of the roof, like shining spears of truth. I felt they burned where they touched me as I lay upon the hammock. I should stand and go above to patch the holes they revealed. They were my doing.

I alone had woven the fronds. Gaston had dug the hole in the side of the hill so that the earth comprised three of the hovel’s walls. And he alone had collected the rocks for the front wall and the sections of the others that rose from the hill. He had carried the wood from the forest.

He had brought the fronds, mixed the mortar, built the walls, and raised the roof. All I had done was the damn frond weaving, and I had failed.

Had I ever accomplished anything of substance in my life that did not have holes in it?

I thought not, but revisiting all of my prior sins by unearthing memories long buried was entirely too much effort. So my anger drifted away like the motes of dust swaying in the beams of sunlight. I had truly achieved – if such a thing could be said to be an achievement – a state of despondency of such magnitude as I felt I had not witnessed before. I was prostrate and dumb in awe of it. I no longer felt the need to pleasure myself. I was likewise beyond hunger. The only other times I had felt thus, I had kept myself buoyed upon strong drink so as not to truly experience the depths of despair. This time, I was painfully sober.

A shadow blocked the light from the doorway. My heart leapt, and I turned my head to the left to see. It was not Gaston. Instead, my reverie was eclipsed by a golden god.

He stood outside the door: there was no room for him to enter, as the entirety of the dwelling was little more than the width of the hammock.

“Liam Says They’veNa’ Seen Ya Fer Two Days. Ya Ailin’?” Pete asked.

I vaguely remembered that Liam had come around the day before. I had sent him away.

There was something important in Pete’s presence. It came to me: Striker and Pete had returned from Port Royal. They had left before Gaston did.

“Will?” Pete queried with more concern.

“I am gripped by acute melancholy. How are you?”

He frowned and looked about. “He Dead?”

“Perhaps. I cannot know. He went to the forest a fortnight ago, perhaps longer. I have lost track of the days.”

Pete sighed. “E’llCome Back.”

I felt the smile creep across my lips. “I tell myself that, or at least, I did. Now, I do not know. I have failed…again, somehow. I am destined to be alone. I am…”

He drowned my words with a loud disparaging sound, rather like the noise of a horse.

My smile widened. “The irony of this ailment is that I know I am thinking horrible thoughts. I am not mired in them so much that I cannot see the edge of the bog. Nay, I am far more familiar with the territory. It is just that, while I am here, I am stuck fast until the ailment passes. I can do nothing for myself on the matter.”

He scratched idly at his hip, his gaze on the horizon.

“Come Down Ta The Beach.”

“Nay, I do not wish for company.”

His rolling eyes were the only warning I received before he grabbed the side of the hammock and flipped me onto the floor. I scrambled to my feet and bashed my head on the low ceiling beam. I cursed and glared at him.

“Ya Don’tGet Down There, IBeat Yar Arse.”

I knew I would lose both the argument and the arse-kicking that would follow.

“I miss him, Pete,” I sighed. “My life, my very soul, has never been so entwined with another. I feel as if a giant hole has been torn in my being, and I am in despair of what has become of me: that I am not whole without another. And I despair of what will become of me if he does not return.”

He studied the ground, and scratched his short beard with a prolonged sigh. When his gaze at last met mine, he had donned the mien of elder – or perhaps eldritch – wisdom that always gave me cause to liken him to a god of old.

“That Be The Way O’It.”

“Of what, matelotage, or love?”

His lopsided smile was ancient. “Aye.”

I chuckled and stooped to crawl under the hammock. He moved aside to let me exit. I squinted at the light. The sky was blue in every direction, and the sea bluer still. I met his gaze.

“What shall I do if he does not return?”