Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (22 page)

“I feel you will excel at it; but nay, I am not trying to drive you away.

Do as you wish, but I feel you will become bored with this endeavor and resent it. You need not go roving immediately. Perhaps you should stay in town and familiarize yourself with life here. Then if you feel the need to travel about a bit, do so; just attempt to return on a timely basis, as I will need certain things from you on occasion.”

“Such as?”

“I will need your signature on documents from time to time. And it would be prudent for you to write your father. Also, you should stay in good standing with the local gentry, Modyford included.”

“You truly make it sound easy and the choice of merit. If I were to do this, I would have some things done in my absence. I would have them well fed. I will not have their contracts extended for petty infractions. I wish them to have a tutor. I was teaching them on the voyage.”

He sighed. “I do not see where there will be time for that last.”

I considered telling him time would have to be made for it, but I could see where there was much to be done initially. I sighed and we regarded each other.

I nodded and shrugged. “After all is in order and Negroes have been purchased, then.”

He seemed relieved at my willingness to compromise, and I wondered how much he thought I might complicate matters. Did he truly wish for my contentment or his?

“What will you name her?” he asked while looking over the plantation. Fletcher and Donoughy could be seen returning to us.

What would I name a promised land I might not live on, that I was being prompted to be an absent but beneficent ruler of? It came to me and I chuckled. “Ithaca.”

“I am not familiar with that name.”

“It is a Greek island. It is the land Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, sailed from to fight the Trojan War and did not return to for twenty years.”

“Oh, Lord,” Theodore sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Though, thankfully, I will not need to leave a wife or child behind if I do this thing,” I added.

Donoughy and Fletcher rejoined us. Theodore mounted his horse, and seemed disinclined to continue our discussion. I was thankful. I packed up the muskets and we rode back to Spanish Town.

“We have been talking,” Donoughy said. “If all of your men are truly willing…”

“They are,” I said.

“As in, if we need not fear them trying to escape, I would suggest bringing them here directly. We can unload the ship the same day and bring over what we need, and perhaps warehouse the rest of it for a week or so.” He looked to Theodore for support.

“If we house the men elsewhere, we will have to pay for their food.”

Theodore shrugged. “If we keep the cargo in a warehouse, we will have to pay for that.”

“What will be better for the men?” I asked.

“We’ll pay the warehouse fees.” Theodore smiled.

“Can this be arranged on the morrow?” I asked.

“I do not see why not,” Theodore said.

“But we do not have the land yet.”

“Nay, but it is a given as long as you make a good impression upon the Governor.”

“I will do my best. So when should I meet him?”

Theodore grinned. “At the party in your honor at the King’s House tomorrow night.”

“Oh, bloody Hell!” I yelled. “I suppose I will have to dress.”

They found great amusement in this.

Donoughy accompanied us to Port Royal and strung a hammock in Theodore’s yard. As it seemed cooler outside than in, I envied him. I was feeling the heat even as the sun set. Still, I slept well. I had long ago learned to ignore things I could not resolve. Whenever I was faced with such choices, something always occurred to tip the scales one way or another and relieve me of the decision.

I watched the skies for portents from the Gods.

Wherein I Meet Many Important People

The next morning, I gingerly ate the bacon Ella prepared for us and washed it down with stale wine. My stomach roiled almost immediately.

I decided to fast for a time, to see if it would settle.

The four of us took a ferry out to the King’s Hope. The men were delighted to see us.

I still did not see Davey, and this concerned me once again. Belfry was not aboard for me to ask; neither was the captain. I considered asking about, but Theodore saw me looking around and slipped to my elbow to ask what was amiss.

“I do not see the sailor I wish to rescue.”

He sighed. “They likely have him locked below, due to fear of him jumping ship. Many captains do that so that all of their men do not run off and become buccaneers.”

“Oh, for the love of…”

His glare silenced me. “Follow your original plan, Marsdale. But do not, whatever you do, let anyone know you are involved. Not if you wish to befriend anyone.”

“Aye, sir,” I sighed.

He snorted. “Now speak to your flock.”

I stood on the quarterdeck and looked down upon the forty upturned faces. I was not used to addressing so many and I felt my cheeks warm.

I smiled as best I could. “Well, men, we have land.”

They cheered.

“How soon can we stand on it?” Humboldt asked.

“Today.”

They cheered even louder.

“However, it is virgin land. Your first order of business will be building a shelter. We will get all of you ashore, and then the cargo. The well-dressed man there is Mister Theodore, my barrister and my father’s agent in this endeavor. He is a good man, and you may trust him with your concerns if there is need to speak of anything away from the plantation and… I am not available.”

Theodore nodded thoughtfully. I was relieved. I had not discussed that bit with him in advance and had merely hoped he was conducive to it. All of the men eyed him curiously.

“The man next to him is Kevin Donoughy. He will manage the plantation for us. I have also found him to be a good man. He has managed sugar plantations on Barbados.”

This last was greeted by many a nod and Donoughy actually smiled at them. In fact, I had seen him talking to several of the men, and despite his words about not befriending any, he did not seem to be holding them at bay.

“Fletcher, as he is a miller and we have need of his skills, has been promoted to overseer.” That I had discussed with Donoughy and Fletcher. Thankfully this was greeted by nods and several hearty congratulations and no complaints.

“Now, let us all go ashore. I will not be accompanying you up to the plantation as of yet. There is still business I must attend to in town.”

None seemed inclined to argument with this, or even to have concerns. Fletcher coordinated getting them into boats and across the bay to the Passage Fort. From there, they would walk up to the plantation. Donoughy would see to the cargo. I rode back to the wharf with Theodore. Thankfully, he did not pester me about leaving or staying.

He left me at the house and went to see to the business of other clients, after admonishing me to remember the party this eve. Once he was gone, I slipped out to wander about the town alone, with only a pistol and sword for company and nothing on my person other than a hat, a shirt, and breeches. No one noticed me. Only the quality of my attire separated me from the few buccaneers conducting their business about town: that, and my hat and lack of earrings. To become even more in keeping with the local fashion, I retired my heavy headgear, and replaced it with a kerchief to protect my broiling scalp.

I still felt a little ill and often found myself squatting in the bushes.

Even with the ocean breeze, the heat was oppressive in the extreme, and I was sweated dry. In the market I found a fruited drink of rum and pineapple juice, and purchased an onion bottle of it. I had discovered I liked pineapple, a strange sweet fruit native to Jamaica. I had not experienced rum before, and to my amusement, the concoction made me far lighter-headed than a similar amount of wine or beer. It was pleasant and made the heat disappear.

So I wandered about the market and surrounding store fronts, looking for nothing in particular and feeling beckoned by all, until I spied a little place selling a variety of interesting articles: including, to my delight, books. The offerings were small, and primarily consisted of recently printed romances, poetry, and religious and political treatises from London. However, they had a box of odd books in many languages, and I perused these with anticipation. I almost toppled with laughter when I found a copy of Plato’s Republic in German. I immediately purchased it and located a nearby shady place at the mouth of an alley, to collapse with my bottle and book. I proceeded to read in peace.

Some indeterminable amount of time later, I felt eyes upon me, and looked up with a small amount of annoyance to discover I was not merely being gazed at in a casual fashion. Nay, I was being stared at with an intensity I supposed, once it seeped through my rum-addled brain, a sober man might find alarming. I studied my watcher with blurry concentration that became sharper as I sensed danger about the fellow.

He was dressed as a buccaneer, but darkly. Whereas most wore ecru or linen-colored canvas and gaily-colored cotton on their heads, his loose breeches, tunic, and kerchief had been dyed a deep maroon that appeared black unless directly in the sun. Black lacquer and gold adorned the grips of his pistols, of which there were two, and the hilts of his swords and knives: of which there was one rapier, of fine quality, two cutlasses, as I had learned the buccaneers called their heavy long knives, and three dirks. All of them looked well-used. There was a musket slung across his back. The baldric and belt this wealth of armament suspended from was likewise black leather. He wore no footgear, but if he had, I was sure they would have been boots and ebony.

He stood maybe a dozen feet away, with his arms crossed and his feet firmly braced. I doubted any could move him from the spot; and indeed, the people passing by parted around him like water round a rock. From the hang of his clothes, his stance, and the cords of muscle in his calves and forearms, I judged his build to be muscular yet lean.

His bone structure was fine, as his hands seemed almost delicate. He was clean-shaven and his face was attractive: not handsome, not pretty, but somewhere in between. He appeared to be of an age with me. I could not tell his hair color, but his skin was browned the nutmeg of a fair-skinned man. He wore gold hoops in his ears.

I noted all of this, but what really held my attention were his eyes.

They were wide-set and the whole of the socket around them was painted black as coal, like a mask that ran from one temple to the other, even across the bridge of his nose. From within those pits of shadow, two blazing emerald orbs regarded me. And I was at a loss as to their motivation or emotion.

“Who are you?” he asked in a husky voice that barely crossed the distance between us.

I blinked. The question had been in German, but his accent was French. Maybe I was more inebriated than I thought. Why was a strange man addressing me in German?

I chose not to bridle at his tone, as there seemed more curiosity to his query than rancor. And then I was at a loss as to how best to answer his query. I was loathe to use my title, for I did not wish to be known by it amongst the buccaneers. For a moment I toyed with using my old alias of Ulysses, but that was the moniker of someone I was no longer.

And then too much time had passed to be considered polite.

I quickly used my true surname. “Williams. And you are?” I replied in German.

“I am called Gaston the Ghoul.”

I pushed myself up the wall and stood.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said politely. I made sure of my legs and approached him, transferring the bottle to my left hand to reside with the book, leaving my right free. He was just shy of my height. He had not uncrossed his arms but I sensed the change of his balance as he brought his weight to the balls of his feet. I fervently hoped he meant me no mischief, as I was too drunk to fight him. His eyes were still unreadable.

“Why are you here?” he asked in the same tone as before.

At the moment it seemed as esoteric a question as my name, and my mind flailed about in the grasping of it. An abundance of answers presented themselves, leaving me at a loss as to what he truly wanted to know. I switched to French. “Begging your pardon, but you will have to be more specific. And I would prefer speaking French or English if it pleases you, as my German is somewhat underused and not suitable for a discussion of merit in my current state of intoxication.”

He nodded and frowned in thought for a moment before speaking French.

“You read it.” His eyes darted to the book in my hand. I remembered it was in German.

“Oh, oui, I am literate in German, but this work is taxing my skill with the language. Thankfully I am familiar enough with it in Latin.”

Green eyes studied me. “Why are you in Jamaica?”

I supposed the correct response involved saying something of the plantation, but it seemed hollow, somehow, and disingenuous in its specificity. Perhaps this was the result of reading Plato while intoxicated. “I came here to try and make amends with my father and shoulder the yoke of family duty, or something of that ilk I suppose. I think I shall fail.”

He was taken aback, and his face froze for a moment with incredulity. Then he apparently judged me sincere, and his features settled into a mild grimace of confusion. “Why?”

“I have never had the man’s respect and goodwill; and in truth, I am not sure what value I place on it in comparison to my own desires.”

“Which are?”

“Adventure and romance as opposed to duty and diligence. I enjoy traveling and learning new things. However, I find myself harnessed to duty here by my own choice.”

“Are you a philosopher?”

“On occasion. I take great delight in the perils of sophism. Plato here is not one of my favorites, though I took great delight in finding this book. I would not wish to live in his republic.”

“Why?”

“I was raised without a great deal of nurturing and found it not to my liking. And I feel the education of a youth should contain far more than music and athletics. And though I agree with his conceit that any man should be able to love as he sees fit, I find his overall presentation of utopia to be somewhat loveless and far too regimented for my taste.