Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (87 page)

“Where are we, Uly?” Alonso asked.

“In the hold of the Queen: Farley has been nursing you here.”

His frown deepened. “What Queen? Are we on a ship? Everything moves as if…”

I shifted my seat to a more comfortable position and tried to keep the alarm from my face. “What is the last thing you remember?” I asked calmly.

He shook his head slowly, his gaze on nothing as he looked inward. “I remember a great many things: people, places, events… But there is no order to them.” He smiled sadly and met my gaze. “I cannot tell you what came last. Have I been ill?”

“Wounded,” I said levelly. “A musket ball grazed your skull.

Sometimes injuries to the head take strange courses.”

Farley had returned with a plate of stew. He was regarding me curiously, as he did not speak Castilian.

“Do you know Farley, here?” I asked pleasantly as I motioned for Farley to sit with us.

Alonso studied him, and nodded with a smile of recognition and relief. “Si, I know him.”

I turned to Farley and quickly explained all Alonso had said. He appeared quite concerned and glanced to Gaston, who shrugged and motioned for me to continue.

So Alonso recognized Farley, who he had met but recently. “Do you remember Cudro?” I asked.

He thought on it. “A big Dutchman? Wonderful voice?”

“Si, si,” I said happily. “You seem to know people. Now, where…

Where do you live?”

“I suppose here on this ship,” he said speculatively, and then he sighed with relief. “Si, I remember: the Virgin Queen. I can envision her quite clearly.”

“Good, good,” I said. “Now, who are you? Not your name, but… how do you make your way in the world?”

He met my gaze with concern, and gave a glance to Farley. “I am a Lord’s son, and I have done a great many things for money…” He sighed and looked away to consider the floor with growing agitation. “I know this ship is not business of my family’s, or by her name, the King’s either, and that it is a thing of the New World… somehow. I do not know why I know that, though. I do not know how I came to be upon her.” His gaze returned to me. “I remember meeting you quite clearly, and all manner of things concerning you, and… Uly… No, you do not wish to be called that. We have moved on and changed names.” He glanced at Farley with trepidation again.

“You can speak of anything you remember here,” I said.

“U… Will, that is it, Will. I do not know if I can explain. I see things, I recall them, and those memories lead to a dozen others, but there is no order. I can make sense of them only by thinking of what they must mean. There was a woman…” He shrugged. “There have been many women. But one I married. I can recall the ceremony in the church.

But… Was that before or after I met you?”

“After, but before we met again,” I said carefully. I turned to Farley, and behind him in the shadows, Gaston, and told them in English this latest exchange.

Farley regarded Alonso with wonder. “This is quite the case for study.

I have heard of nothing like it.”

I glanced at Alonso and asked in Castilian, “Can you understand English?”

“With difficulty,” he said in his own tongue.

I looked to Gaston. “Should I tell him?”

Alonso tried to turn and see who I spoke to. Gaston moved into the light with a sigh as he considered my question.

“Oh, I know him,” Alonso said darkly in Castilian, and I was minded of Gaston’s and my discussion of Alonso’s Horse. I could see the animal very clearly in his eyes at this moment.

And Gaston’s Horse rose to meet it. He stood at the edge of the light with his eyes hard and full of warning.

“Who is he, then?” I asked Alonso briskly, startling him somewhat.

“He is your lover,” Alonso said sullenly.

“Well, you remember that,” I said sharply. “Do you remember that I left you?”

“Si,” he said, and looked away with guilt. “I do not know when or how. I just hoped…” He looked at me plaintively. “So, you have not returned to me.”

“No,” I said without rancor.

“Then… it was just the dream.” He frowned, and asked with a tinge of vehemence, “Then why did you call me back?”

“Out of respect for what we once had,” I sighed. “I did not wish to see you die in so ignoble a fashion. A man such as you should be shot.” I shook my head at my choice of words and softened my tone. “You should die tragically or heroically, not wasting away with someone wiping your arse.”

I left them. I did not want to see that pleading and hurt look upon his face a moment longer. Gaston followed me, and his arms closed around me from behind when I reached the relative privacy of the quarterdeck rail. I took deep breaths of the night air and tried to calm my suddenly furious Horse.

“I should have smothered him,” I hissed at the night in French. “He does not own me because I once loved him. I do not owe him anything because I once loved him. I do not owe him anything because he is wounded or mad or… anything. I will not feel sorry for him!”

My matelot’s arms were tight around me, like iron bands holding the slats of a barrel together. I could not breathe for how close he held me, and then I felt his teeth at my neck and I could not breathe for another reason.

My Horse pricked His ears and lashed His tail and craned His neck back to regard His dark companion: yes, He was hard against Us; grinding against Our arse slowly while His hands slid down Our arms to pin Ours to the rail. We would run. I felt the wind in Our teeth.

I sighed and lolled my head away to give Gaston better access to my neck. He bit and nibbled while he moved one of his hands to reach into his belt pouch. I used my free hand to unknot the cord for my breeches enough to push them over my hips. My naked manhood was trapped between my belly and the wood of the rail – wood worn smooth by hundreds of hands, so that it now seemed invitingly warm. We were within the light of the lantern kept near the whipstaff. I did not care. It was obvious he did not either when his slick hand eased between my arse cheeks. And then he was within me, and I was full of him, and he held me against the rail and ground into me with agonizing slowness such that I moaned and struggled feebly as each stroke rode his member over that little lump that plucked at every fiber of my being as if I were a harp. The rise and fall of the ship in the waves, the twinkling of the stars, the murmur and snores of men all about us, wove into a symphony until at last I could hold the crescendo at bay no longer, and with a hoarse cry I emptied my member and it spewed up and out to cover our entwined hands atop the rail. Gaston followed a moment later: thrusting hard and squeezing the air from my lungs and the last drops from my trapped cock.

“You are mine,” he breathed throatily in my ear, and I chuckled because it tickled and it was so very true and I adored it.

Gaston rumbled amusement with me, and released my hands to make great show of wiping my jism upon my tunic – this action also tickled, and got me laughing with little breathless huffs. I struggled to pull my breeches up, and felt him doing the same, and then he stilled abruptly. Alarmed, I turned, and seeing nothing to our left except men playing cards, looked right, and found Alonso and Farley standing on the steps. Farley turned away abruptly with flame-cheeked embarrassment; but Alonso’s eyes were black in the dim light, and his face smooth and unreadable. Then he too turned away and retreated to the hold; walking unsteadily, but with a stiff back and proud shoulders.

My matelot’s head dropped onto my shoulder, and he sighed heavily.

“Good,” I said, feeling triumphant. “Now he has seen what I offer you.”

“But with his new impairment, will he remember you never offered it to him?” Gaston asked, sounding the reasonable physician once again.

“He had best,” I said coldly, surprised at how deep my anger ran.

Gaston sat, and pulled me down beside him. We spoke no more of Alonso, and as I knew I would not stop thinking of it, I asked the men next to us if we could join their card game; and thus we whiled away the remainder of the night.

In the morning, Farley came to find us. At first he seemed reluctant to look at either of us, and me in particular – and he flushed a great deal. As he seemed he might be more comfortable with Gaston, I excused myself and went to the cabin.

I found Striker sitting with his back to the wall, crying. He quickly wiped his tears on his shoulder, as his remaining hand was in a sling. I looked about; we were alone: Pete was out seeing to their weapons.

I closed the door behind me and asked quietly, “Should I leave? Or do you desire company?”

He sighed. “Stay, though it has been nice to have a moment alone, but… I don’t seem prone to put it to good use.” He frowned. “Where is Gaston? I think it’s time for another dose of the drug.”

I let my lip quirk at that, and sat beside him. “To ease the pain of the body, or of the heart?”

“Both, damn it,” he said irritably.

“It makes everything so very pleasant, does it not?”

“Aye,” he said with a slow nod. “Much better than rum.”

“You cannot float upon it for the rest of your life,” I said affably.

He glared at me.

“It is far more precious than rum, and harder to obtain,” I said. “And Gaston would not allow it even if it ran from springs on every island. He knows well its siren call, and he is quite stubborn about allowing only those in dire pain to hear it.”

“I don’t want to drown my sorrows in it,” Striker said. “I just want the pain to stop.”

I thought for a time, and he glared at me and began to appear smug.

I nearly had the ranks of my argument formed when he spoke.

“You have no good reason other than it being evil or some such rubbish,” he said.

“Well, Gaston says it will steal your very soul, and letting it go once you are quite inured to it can hurt worse than the pain you took it to avoid. But nay, beyond that, some things should hurt. Some things should be mourned. Limbs should be mourned, just like the passing of a fine friend or loved one. Hiding from the pain in a bottle of anything is dishonoring the person – or thing – lost. We should weep. We should let the grief pour from us and then… Well, then it is like a wound: once it is bled out and the pus drained, we should let it heal.”

Striker dejectedly studied his lap. “You finished?”

“Aye.”

“Go to Hell,” he said flatly.

I chuckled. “I probably will, and I can only wish it will be for telling people things they do not wish to hear. There is probably a very pleasant room in Hell for those who commit that sin. I am sure the Devil loves us.”

“Nay,” Striker said with a thin but sincere smile. “He hates those like you. You tell truths, and the Devil hates the truth. He is a thing of lies.”

“I can see that argument,” I said. “But I was rather thinking He might adore us because we are ever causing trouble.” I climbed to my hammock.

“I want to drown, Will,” Striker said.

I peered over the edge at him. “Is it too hard to swim?”

He frowned and at last shook his head. “Not too hard, just hard.”

“Do you have someplace you wish to go – some distant shore?”

“Aye,” he said. “And I’m afraid I’ll never reach it.”

“Then float for a time until your strength returns.”

“The drug helps with the floating,” he said doggedly.

I snorted. “I will speak with Gaston.”

“And say what?”

“I was going to tell him you did not need it anymore for your body’s wounds.”

Striker swore.

“Now I will suggest he wean you off it slowly,” I said smugly.

“You bastard…” He sighed and smiled. “Thank you.”

“And I will not tell Pete,” I added.

He awarded me his middle finger in an age-old salute – though he could not extend the hand in the sling to give it great emphasis.

I chuckled, and rolled over to await Gaston. I was of a mind to tryst before sleeping. I realized he had been gone for some time, and I hoped Farley had not requested he come and speak to Alonso or some other damn fool thing.

I had just decided to go and fetch him when the door opened, and he entered with Pete and a strange look upon his face. Gaston quickly climbed to me.

“Hey,” Striker said, “What about...”

“Wait,” Gaston said. “I must speak to Will.” Then he was atop me, smothering laughter in my shoulder.

“What?” I prompted, and poked him in the ribs.

He only swore quietly, implored the Gods for strength, and laughed harder. “I should not laugh. I should not laugh,” he hissed at last.

I pushed his head away from my neck so that I could bring his mouth to mine. He responded readily to the kiss, returning it hungrily, and then he broke it off to laugh again.

“You must tell me,” I said with amusement.

“Oh Gods,” he sighed. He bit his lip and tried to speak, only to lose himself to mirth once again, and then he pressed his lips to my ear and blurted, “He enjoys spanking women.”

“What? Farley?”

Gaston nodded frantically. “It began with serving girls, and then at the university he hired whores, and now he is somewhat…” More laughter. “Frustrated, as his wife finds no pleasure in it.” More laughter.

“He was curious about how I got you to be agreeable to being pinned as I did last night.” This sobered him a little.

I frowned, trying to imagine what little the man could have seen.

“That was tame for our… Horse play…” And then I wondered what Alonso had truly seen, and I felt a chill.

“Oui,” Gaston said, and met my gaze seriously. “I did not speak of all we do, but Farley sensed your… submissiveness, and it fascinated and aroused him.” At this, he frowned and sighed. “I told him it was merely you, the way you are; and that my wanting to… control you when you are thus is simply the way I am; and his wishing to do the same with women is the way he is; and that he should seek a mistress who desires such treatment. He despairs of finding one.” This brought another smirk.

“So he is not aroused by punishing another, or…” I asked.

“Non, non, they must be willing.” He was quite sober now. “He wants that feeling of mastery that only comes when another submits.”

I sighed. “I have encountered a number of women who enjoyed that kind of play. I am sure he will find someone, though perhaps not easily on Jamaica.”