Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (73 page)

There was no one about on the main floor of the house, but there was a platter of cheese and boucan on the dining table. We shoved food in our mouths and drank a great deal of water. Then I was compelled to use the latrine for an extended period, as I am often wont to do after drinking. Gaston went upstairs without me.

Sometime later, I felt much relieved in a multitude of ways, including the possession of a clearer head; I slipped upstairs. The light seeping under the door was a beacon calling me home. I entered the room, and found Gaston naked and kneeling upon the hammock. I was initially delighted, until I saw that though he was physically there before me, his mind was somewhere very far away. His body was tense, and he looked down upon the netting with his head cocked and his hands held before him, fingers twitching ever so slightly, as if he were trying to feel a thing that could not be seen.

I guessed he was pursuing his elusive memory again, but fear clutched at me and I was unsure what to do. As he was not moving toward me and did not seem to be aware of my presence, I decided to slowly remove my weapons and set them upon the trunk. A scabbard thumped more than I intended, and I looked up to find him regarding me. His eyes once again reminded me of a child’s, wide and innocent, as they had that night on the North Wind and later on the galleon when he had arranged the bodies into La Pieta. His gaze was filled with recognition and joy at seeing me. He held out his hand, and with a stomach full of leaden fear I went to join him.

“I made love to an angel,” he whispered, once my hand was firmly in his. I could not stop myself from frowning, but I nodded.

“She was beautiful,” he continued. “There was white all around,” he gestured to the hammock, “and her skin glowed in the candlelight.”

I found great relief in his speaking of it in the past tense, and I crawled onto the hammock to sit beside him.

“I was as I am now,” he said, “but she was dressed in….” He rubbed his fingers together and concentration suffused his face. “Soft. Cotton. A gown, a nightgown. She smelled of lilacs.” His eyes met mine. “I cannot see her face. I knew that she was the closest to Heaven I would ever be, because in seeing her, I was…. It was wrong.”

I wanted to hold him. Pieces of the puzzle were becoming apparent, and I surmised he had not angered God the Father that night by lying with an angel, but his father in flesh and blood. I slid my arm across his back; and he allowed me to pull him close, and rested his head on my shoulder.

He was sounding more himself. “I think I told you, I dreamed of it last night, after…”

“You told me,” I murmured. “But you could not tell me what you had seen as yet.”

“I have discovered most of that image, just that one image. The lamplight and my nakedness must have reminded me, and the scents today added to it. Then sitting atop you and…” He pulled away enough to regard me. “I had been planning to reciprocate your attentions of last night, but the thought of it all... I found I felt as I did this afternoon. I find I am uncomfortable with… being aggressive, or at least… above, for now, as something occurred that night and I do not know what. And in not understanding it I feel… I want to do nothing to mimic it, lest it engender some deeper memory I do not want to discover whilst… loving you.”

I was of two minds on the matter, as I dearly wanted him to uncover the rest of his past. I understood his reticence, though, in that in doing so he might induce himself to madness and that would be unfortunate to say the least if it involved my lying naked beneath him.

“We need do nothing,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “I…” he flushed. “You have done that before, non?”

“Oui and non. I have been the recipient of similar ministrations, but I had not bestowed them until last night.”

“Would you think me selfish, if I asked you to do so again?”

“Non. It brings me great pleasure to touch you so.”

“Then please do.”

I kissed him and bade him lie down. Then I did as I had the night before, except I was a bit more playful, and took time exploring areas and means of touch that he enjoyed more than others. He in turn was more responsive and inquisitive, and thus the whole of it was more of a mutual act. This time his hand was upon my member when it deposited its offering on his chest, and he was the one who scooped it up and massaged it about his manhood.

I grinned and held him in the aftermath.

I felt loved by Gods both distant and present, and I vowed not to worry myself with demons, or angels, of the past.

Wherein I Discover Roads Not Taken

We woke late and languidly. As the entire upper floor of the house reverberated with snores, some might say we woke comparatively early.

I had slept well, with no night terrors or other memorable dreams.

If Gaston’s sleep had troubled him, he said nothing of it. As we were naked and I did not feel the need to dive away from him immediately to tend to my needs or avoid his discomfiture, I noticed that his manhood was fully functional in regards to waking full of piss. It gave me some indication of his size if he was truly aroused, and I was pleased with the overall shape and proportions of him. I said nothing of this, and cuddled with him as chastely as I could manage.

When at last we felt the need to go downstairs, I discovered a sheaf of paper, quill and ink, and dusting powder on the dining table. I used the latrine and asked Rachel of it. She said Samuel had brought it over.

It seemed Theodore was busy with a client this morning; however, he did wish for us to stop by later. I was amused. I sat at the table with a plate of eggs and wrote. As before, Gaston waited until I finished a page, and then read it and dusted it.

I happily composed an informative, if abridged, telling of our voyage for Sarah and Rucker. Then, with some perverse need to expurgate myself, I told my father of shooting Creek, and assured him no one else would consider escaping. I told him how hundreds of Spaniards had died when the Galleon sank after we took it. I thought he might find delight in that. As I was in quite the furor at that point, I went on to say how I had survived that shipwreck and obviously returned, only to plan on sailing again, now that I had seen to my duty involving the plantation, that being apprehending an escaped bondsmen. I finished by telling him how very much life here agreed with me.

Gaston was amused but silent as he read through this missive.

“Do you feel it is more than I should say?” I asked. “Or perhaps I should say it differently?”

“Non. I think you have done well here. From this, I feel, he will think you are a very good wolf indeed.”

I had not looked upon it in that light as I wrote it, and I chuckled.

“Likely I will endear myself to him.”

“Oui.” He shrugged. “As he will not know how much you lie, and he would never understand why.”

“It is not lying,” I sighed. “I am merely editing the truth.” I watched him fold the dry letters. “You truly have no one to write? I know… well, I know you will not write your father, and your sister and mother are dead. But is there no one else?”

He tensed as I spoke, but it fled him in a sigh as I finished. “There is one, perhaps, on Île de la Tortue, but we shall possibly see him soon.

And if not, I feel no need to write him.”

“You mentioned this person was your mentor.”

“Oui, Dominic Doucette. He is a great physician.” Gaston considered me for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, studied the table, and spoke. “That night occurred at Christmas eleven years ago. Within a week I was on a ship. I feel I am only alive because Doucette was traveling to the West Indies when my father’s men arrived with me at Marseilles. He was an experienced physician, and I was near death. I knew none of this at the time. I was not in a sufficiently coherent state to make his acquaintance for six months.

“My father’s man, Vittese, had booked passage to personally deliver me and the money my father had sent for me to Guadalupe, if I should survive. Upon finding a physician ready to sail, Vittese paid Doucette handsomely to care for me. I was mad with pain, and nearly drained of blood, and in constant danger of infection. Doucette later said he learned more from keeping me alive during that voyage than he had in all his prior years of practice. He kept me on laudanum for most of it, and all I remember of that period is much like a dream. I sometimes think that I would not have this gap in my memory if I had been able to think after the incident.

“We arrived on Guadalupe in March. Doucette heard there might be more use for him on Île de la Tortue, and so he moved us there that summer. Soon after, he began to wean me from the laudanum, and I truly went mad. It was very much like sobering in the harsh light of day, and I was angry… To this day, I regret that I exercised some of this anger on him; but I was very lost, to myself and in relation to the world around me. I did not remember coming to this New World. I could not remember why I had been forced to do so. I was hideously scarred, and my mind seemed to be in as much pain as my body had once been.

And there was this man telling me what I could and could not do, and denying me the thing that had kept the thinking at bay.

“He defended his position, which was that it was time for my mind to heal as my body had done. I wanted none of it. I bought the things I heard I would need, and took a boat across the channel to the Haiti.

I lived like an animal for a year, but in time I gained some measure of peace with myself. When I was somewhat sane again, I returned and apologized to Doucette. That is when he taught me medicine.”

Gaston shrugged. “To relieve my studies and boredom, and truthfully, my bouts of anger, I would go fliebusting with whatever ship was sailing. After a bad bout of my madness, I would return to the Haiti and calm myself again, which is how I came to know other men who lived there and make boucan. This went on for many years. Doucette always wished for me to stop roving, and stay and become a physician at his side. I was restless, and four years ago I started leaving for longer raids, and now I have not been back in over two years.”

When he did not speak for a time, I rubbed his shoulder. “Thank you for telling me of it.”

He took a deep breath. “I do not know why I have not before. It is not as if I harbor ill will toward him, or that I cannot remember those years.”

“Was he ever interested in…?”

He shook his head quickly. “Non, he does not favor men and had no need, as he is the physician for all the whores and they render him services for free, or rather their masters charge him nothing. Not that the whores ever seemed to begrudge him. He is quite popular amongst them.

“Non,” he continued thoughtfully. “In many ways, Doucette is my second father. He raised me again. Yet in others, I am a grand experiment of his, the greatest example of his work. He would always want to trot me out to show me off to other surgeons. He was greatly disappointed I would not stay, on many fronts. One of which was loneliness, as we were fond of each other in our own way.”

I was curious, as there seemed to be an element I was missing. “How do your feelings for Doucette compare to your feelings for Pierrot?”

Gaston frowned, and his eyes met mine. “Will, I have never shared myself with anyone as I do with you.”

“I did not…”

He shook his head. “Not physically, I know you know that. But my heart and soul. I speak to you as I do no other. Pierrot… protected me. We talked on occasion, but our friendship, such as it was, was...

I feel he pitied me and wished to care for me because of my madness.

Doucette… has seen me at my worst, yet… he does not see me as mad. It is an odd thing. I know I am mad. He feels it is a thing I can easily control and overcome. This is due to my never showing him my madness except for those first months, and then he blamed the pain and laudanum. After that, whenever I felt… brittle, whenever the horse would take no more, I would escape to the Haiti. So he never saw it.

And as I said, I was a son to him, and he was much as my father was…

without the temper. Non, that is not correct either. I felt for him much as I did toward my father. Doucette was not like my father, though. My father believed in the madness. He understood it well.”

He had become increasingly distraught as he spoke, and now he stared at the table again.

“No more, Will,” he whispered.

I knelt beside his chair and held him. He seemed happy with this, and returned my embrace, so that my ear was pressed against his chest. I listened as his heart ceased racing and slowly returned to its normal rhythm. My thoughts slowed too: though I knew we needed to discuss many things, I did not feel compelled to discuss them now. The answers would come, as he would continue to open to me of his own volition as time passed. As it was, I felt truly and deeply honored that I was the only one he had ever spoken to concerning any of this.

I wondered what we should do now, as my letters were written and my knees were beginning to ache on the hard floor. Though he was calmer, he still seemed to be in deep thought.

“I know I think too much sometimes, and it leads to melancholy,”

I said quietly. “Would you like to spar? Or do you wish to continue to think?”

He rubbed my back. “Are you sober?”

I chuckled. “I believe so.”

“I have thought enough for a lifetime.”

I pushed to my feet and leaned down to softly kiss his lips. He smiled. We left the house and walked to the beach, and then far down it, onto the Palisadoes beyond the wall. We did not return for hours, and by then we were exhausted and thoughtless.

I wished to nap, but Rachel told us Samuel had been around again.

Theodore truly needed our presence. Striker’s and Pete’s as well; but they had already gone, a little before we arrived. Curious, we hurried to Theodore’s, and were confronted by an incensed Striker before we cleared the threshold. He smacked me with a sealed envelope and gesticulated with an open one. He appeared to be in quite the snit, yet Pete was oddly calm and amused.

Theodore sat at his desk with his face in his hands and a long-suffering demeanor about him. He raised his head long enough to sigh at my entrance and mutter, “Wonderful, now I shall have two of you cursing me.”