Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (8 page)

This brought appreciative chuckles from most of my listeners, but I was distracted from gauging their sidelong looks at one another by the eerie sound of my words being repeated in French. Vittese had apparently joined us, courtier at his heel. I looked toward the sound, and froze with surprise such that I doubt I kept it from my features.

Vittese was indeed there, and the courtier, but he was whispering in another man’s ear. This man bore a great resemblance to my matelot, though not in coloring or build: as he had blue eyes and did not appear to be red-headed, though I could not be sure beneath his wig, but as he was not powdered, it was evident his eyebrows, and even his long lashes, were golden and not red. He was also slimmer than Gaston, and at first I thought it might be due to frailty of age or illness, as he leaned upon a cane and appeared many years older than my father. But then I saw that my perception of his age was misled by the great many lines upon his face. They were not the deep and trenchant etchings of a man in his dotage, but the fine feathery web about the mouth and eyes a middle-aged man receives for a life spent smiling and frowning, and simply expressing emotion with his face – a thing I think my father did everything in his power to avoid, and not because it would help him cling to the vestiges of youth. Even now this man was smiling, not seemingly maliciously at my surprise, but a fox’s grin of perpetual amusement at the world. His smile danced in his eyes, though they were narrowed a little in speculation. I had only rarely seen Gaston with a similar expression, but so many details of their faces, in the little angles formed by muscles and the bones beneath, were the same that I could well imagine my matelot gazing at me as this man did now.

“I must apologize,” he said strongly in French, with a fine voice that made me wonder what Gaston’s would sound like if it had not been broken.

“These men were in my employ,” he continued, the courtier repeating each phrase in proper English. “I gave them poor orders. I did not intend for an altercation to occur.”

“And you are?” Modyford asked suspiciously.

“I am the Marquis de Tervent,” the man said with a smile toward me.

Modyford glanced at me.

I smiled thinly. “As my matelot’s father is the Marquis de Tervent, and this man bears a striking resemblance to my matelot, I would judge him to be who he says.”

The Marquis smirked once he heard the translation.

Modyford frowned, but quickly rearranged his features into a genteel smile of diplomacy and bowed. “Greetings, my Lord, I am Governor Modyford, appointed by the King of England to govern this English colony.”

The Marquis gave a slight bow and smiled. “As I said, I regret to make your acquaintance under these circumstances.”

The governor nodded thoughtfully, and his gaze darted from the Marquis to me and back again to settle on the Marquis. “My Lord, I must ask, what this is about?”

“It should not have been a matter of your concern, Governor,”

Vittese stepped forward to say in French, earning him a short-lived glare of annoyance from the Marquis. “The matter involved a French citizen, and my Lord Tervent takes needless blame in the matter. I am the one responsible for the poorly given orders. We did not understand that the man we sought would be in the company of others.”

“But…” Modyford began, while eyeing Theodore and me.

“The man you sought,” Theodore said briskly, “is now an English citizen. Governor Modyford signed the petition himself.”

This surprised both Vittese and the Marquis.

“We received notification from the Marquis that he was here and wished to meet with his son,” I said smoothly. “Mister Theodore delivered it to us. We came, but before we could arrange any sort of meeting, or for that matter, even deposit our baggage in our house, we were accosted on the street.”

Vittese took umbrage at that, but the Marquis seemed to feel guilt – and his glare at Vittese showed who he blamed for it.

“I am sorry,” the Marquis said, to me, in French, and waved off the courtier’s translation. The fox’s grin was gone. “That was not my intent.

The last thing I wished to do was cause more harm.”

I bit back many words, not only because to my amazement I judged him sincere, but also because we were still surrounded by others who had no business in the matter.

“We must speak,” I said in French.

He nodded resolutely.

I turned to the governor. “I need to speak with the Marquis in private. Is there anything else you need from either of us?”

“My Lord,” Lynch said from beside the governor. “Do you wish for these men to be charged with a crime?”

“Nay,” I said quickly, and then paused to think. “I feel they have paid for their hubris and indiscretion far more than they deserve. I would see nothing more come to them.”

“Very good, my Lord,” Lynch said. He turned to address the Marquis.

“Then, my Lord, if you would be so kind as to arrange to have men from your ship remove these men from my gaol. Your son has already been kind enough to tend to their wounds.”

This surprised the Marquis, but he gestured at Vittese. “My man will see to it.” Then he looked to me.

“Your son is a fine physician and surgeon,” I said. “Doucette trained him.”

The Marquis nodded thoughtfully. “Shall we speak then?” He looked to Modyford and the others. “If you gentlemen will excuse us.”

They nodded, and I nodded, and the Marquis and I began to stroll down the side of the building toward the wharf, with Vittese and the courtier.

I stopped. “As you already know, you will not need him.” I pointed at the courtier and nodded politely. “And I will not countenance his being present.” I looked at Vittese.

As expected, Vittese was not pleased, but he kept his eyes on the horizon and did not comment. I found it interesting he did not look at his lord for instruction, either.

The Marquis sighed. “Vittese, you have…” He licked his lips and considered his words and me with narrowed eyes before smiling again.

“Go and get those men back on the ship.”

“Non,” I said quickly, and all eyes were immediately on me. “I will not have him near Gaston.”

“You need not fear another attempted abduction,” the Marquis said amiably.

“I do not,” I said. “But I do fear another incident of violence. They hate one another.”

“Lord Marsdale,” Vittese said tightly. “Please do not presume to know how I feel. And I will not harm him.”

“You sent men to collect him from the street like a wayward dog,”

I snapped. “I do not call that respect or fondness. And you will not harm him because I sincerely doubt you are capable of it. Non, I am concerned that you will provoke him such that he will harm you. And I care not if he tears you to pieces, I simply do not wish to have to explain the matter to the governor.”

The Marquis was chuckling. He grabbed the front of Vittese’s coat and looked the man in the eye, and then all amusement vanished from him and his voice held the command of a wolf. “Go to the ship and tell Deloise to send his man around to collect them. You have done enough this day.”

Vittese winced at the rebuke, but he said nothing to defend himself.

He nodded and left us smartly.

With a final nod and a “Good day, my Lord,” to both of us, the courtier followed.

The Marquis cleared his throat and fidgeted with his cane, whilst a parade of emotions marched across his features. It was as if he displayed every thought he had, but none remained long enough for anyone witnessing them to know which would stay and govern what he did. The fox’s smile at last returned, though, and stayed. I realized it was a mask. I knew I must watch him carefully if I wished to truly see anything of merit revealed.

“Gaston…” he said at last with a bemused little smile. “However did he gain that name?”

I shrugged. “He was ever quiet among the men he hunted with on the Haiti. They awarded it to him as a jest. He is now known as Gaston Sable. Amongst the Brethren he is known as Gaston the Ghoul.”

“The Ghoul?” He seemed amused by this. “Because he is a surgeon?”

“Non, because in the aftermath of battles he would arrange bodies to honor them.” It was not a thing I expected him to understand, nor one I wished to explain. And I knew I should not have said it, but my Horse was battling me for my tongue. Gaston felt his father had sent him away as a child because Gaston and his sister had arranged their mother’s body to mimic a painting of the Madonna and Child after their mother died in childbirth.

The Marquis was frowning, but even that basic expression was tinged with a flow of regret, guilt, and anger.

He quickly collected himself, the grin returned, and he changed his tack. “In his letter, he mentioned you. He implied that you were…

lovers.” His eyes narrowed as he gauged my response.

I sighed. “We are not merely lovers. We are matelots, which among the Brethren is akin to marriage. We are partners in all things.”

“I had not known he favored men…” he said with a moue and a sideways nod of his head, rather like a shrug, as if it were no matter to him, merely a thing to be noted. It was disingenuous, though.

“He does not favor men in general,” I said coldly. “But he favors me in specific a great deal.”

He seemed relieved: I could see some of the tension leave his grip on the cane and the set of his shoulders. “And why is that?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

I decided not to lie. I did not wish to give this man anything, but I wished for him to know the truth.

“Because I love him despite… everything,” I said. “Because he has lived a life devoid of love.”

It was true, but I found it caused my stomach to roil, as if I had just overturned a stone and discovered a dead thing beneath it. I wondered at that, but I could spare it no more than a glance. The truth in it had hurt the Marquis, and I pushed the unsettled feeling away with my satisfaction that I had scored some point upon him. Then I thought that foolishness: if he was truly hurt by my words and what they implied, maybe he was not as worthy of my hate as I wished him to be.

He turned away and gazed with feigned interest at the ship being unloaded on the nearest wharf. “Is he angry over today’s incident?” he asked at last, turning back to me nonchalantly.

I gasped with incredulity as the anger bit deep. Damn my attempts to view this meeting without prejudice. Damn my attempts to award him the benefit of doubt. My father, his father, they were baffling figures I wished to smite again and again until I could break through their armor, their masks of social propriety, their wolfish miens that smiled only to bare their teeth. I wished to reveal some truth of their souls, to reveal that they even possessed souls.

“Well,” I said with force. “We have not had a chance to truly discuss the matter, as he has been busy tending the wounded, some of whom have lost limbs, which I suppose is better than the fate of those who lost their lives, all because of some poorly given orders and a fundamental lack of respect…” I let that part of it go, lest I charge off in the wrong direction. “I believe your son is hurt to be treated so. For you to send your damn man to collect him as you ever did when he had to be moved from one horrid school to another throughout his childhood. He feels you hate him.”

He recoiled as if I had struck him, and his mouth moved, forming the start of words he did not voice. Initially there was no anger, only regret and pain, and then the rage flashed deep in his eyes, as he reached for it in defense as most men do when cornered.

“He has ever been the cause of his being treated as he was,” he snarled, sounding so very much like Gaston that it was eerie. “Do not lay all blame on Vittese; there were times when I wished to leave the boy wherever he was, but Vittese always volunteered to fetch him. And it was Vittese who suggested the monastery, which was the only damned place my son did not harm someone. I paid thousands of pounds to repair property and met with dozens of lords with wounded sons to make amends. And you can thank Vittese for his life. I wanted to beat him to death that night, but Vittese suggested I flog him, and then that I send him far away instead of locking him in an asylum as everyone with any sense said I should!”

It was far more than I expected, but it did not dampen my anger.

“Non, I shall not blame Vittese if that is the case, and I will thank him heartily when next I see him. But you have explained a great deal. I thought you were merely some cold-hearted bastard capable of flogging your son near to death in the name of punishment. But non, I will give you credit for your mercy then, and Vittese too. But you are to blame for your loss of money and pride. You are the damn fool who sent a boy with no control over his emotions off to be harassed and provoked by others of his kind that are whelped and nursed on nothing but cruelty.

And do not blame him for that night. That was his mad sister’s doing.

She summoned him home. She drugged him. She seduced him. She asked him to deliver her from pain by ending her life so that she would not suffer the sin of suicide. And I pray God is not so stupid that he did not judge her for it anyway. Then she left him there for your wrath. And then, you bastard, you did not kill him when he wished for death, when he had lost the only person he believed had ever cared for him. You cast him into Hell. But the final jest is on you. He became a man anyway.

One who is loved. One who can love.”

I could read nothing on his face or in his stance as I wiped the rage-born froth from my lips. He stood still, every thought hidden. I knew I had struck home, and I felt great satisfaction in it.

He turned and hurried away, nearly tripping on coiled ropes and colliding with barrels and crates.

I stood there, panting, the rage coursing through me, my fists clenched such that my nails dug into my palms. I was tempted to chase him down and strike him. I wished to punch him as I had my father.

Then I was moved to spew the bile in my stomach into the dirty waters of the wharf.

“Will?” Theodore queried softly from nearby as I straightened and wiped my mouth.

“That went poorly,” I said quietly in English. “I am ever at the mercy of my temper.” That was not true, but it was a sentiment he would expect.