Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (12 page)

The winds were fractious and not at all cooperative, and we did not achieve Port Royal until the evening of the second day. I would have said it appeared no different than it had when first I laid eyes on it less than a year ago; but the longer I stared, the more I realized there were quite a few additional buildings, which now formed an uninterrupted line all the way to the south shore. I thought it likely that another year would fill the entirety of the available space with dwellings and warehouses, from the Chocolata Hole on the west all the way to the wall at the Palisadoes on the east.

Gaston slipped an arm around my shoulder and held me close as the irregular blocks of buildings resolved themselves into a bustling hive of people. He had been doing well, and was once again at ease with our cabal. This is to say, he was pleasant and spoke on occasion or expressed quiet amusement at a jest, but he was far from jocular or expansive. As none expected ought else, all were relieved and reassured that he was mended. I knew better, but I shared that with no one, not even him. I was pleased that he had been willing to tend to the small injuries associated with the careening. And I saw less of the Horse in his eyes from day to day. Yet we had discussed little of his progress, or the madness at all, these last days. It seemed we had decided by mutual accord that dwelling upon it now would accomplish nothing.

The Josephine, Captain Pierrot’s sixteen-gun brig, on which Gaston had sailed before he met me, was anchored just beyond the passage to the harbor. My matelot told me Pierrot disliked entering the confines of the harbor north of Port Royal, despite its size, as he did not trust Governor Modyford. I did not blame him.

Another French vessel, an eight-gun sloop named the Belle Mer, rode the shallow swells nearby. She minded me much of our formerly beloved North Wind, as she was low and sleek.

There was much cheering between us and the skeleton crews aboard the two ships, as we passed them to enter the passage and the Hole.

These were the vessels in whose company we would sail to Cow Island, and our arrival and their presence meant that all could shortly leave and escape Port Royal’s fat merchants and greedy tavern keeps.

There were two sloops in the Chocolata Hole, but we knew neither of them. Both were all the way up to the shallow beach and offloading cargo by means of ramps. Many of their barrels seemed to have Spanish markings, and I surmised they had been engaged in smuggling with Spanish colonies, which were always ill-supplied by their own Crown.

We anchored in the middle of the small bay and, leaving a few men aboard, rowed ashore. Once there, the six men outside our cabal ran off to foolishly spend what money they had, despite Striker’s admonitions that it would be best if they bought a keg and returned to the ship. The eleven members of our cabal chose to buy a hogshead of wine and roll it to the house.

I reminded myself that it was my, or rather our, house, but I did not feel it to be so. I felt I would always view it as Theodore’s, especially since I had not laid eyes on it since it came into our possession.

“So how many of you are dwelling at the house?” I asked them.

Striker stopped and turned to address Gaston and me with a guilty mien. “About… your house,” he sighed.

Pete snorted and clapped him roughly on the shoulder before awarding us a jaunty grin and saying, “We Got Dahgs.”

The others were laughing, though some appeared as sheepish as Striker: especially Dickey, who appeared mortified.

Striker added, “We did not secure a housekeeper.”

I grimaced as I began to understand. The fairly tidy members of our cabal – Liam, Otter, Cudro, the Bard, Julio and Davey – had all spent the autumn either at Negril or on the ship, with only brief visits to Port Royal. And Dickey and Belfry had acquired a shop and lived there. This meant that the house had been occupied by Striker and Pete, and any other man they thought might need a place to sleep. I was sure there had been a great deal of revelry. I was equally sure no one had cleaned.

Dickey spoke earnestly. “We did try to locate a housekeeper, but there were none to be had. It is said that some of the ships sailing this year should bring bondswomen, though.”

My imagination ran rampant. Gaston was a pillar of controlled anger at my side.

“Does it still stand?” I asked stoically.

There were nods all around.

“The holes in the walls not be that big,” Davey scoffed.

At my look, Pete snapped, “We’Ad Ta Shoot The Rats. Now We Got Dahgs.

Now No Rats An’Less Roaches.”

“I am sure that has been a marked improvement,” I said.

“How many dogs?” Gaston asked quietly, with sincere interest and no rancor.

Pete brightened at this and held up four fingers. “An’The Bitch Just Birthed.”

“Puppies?” Gaston asked with a small smile.

“Aye, Six O’Em.” Pete beamed. “Come On. She Be Good With Me.”

He led a now-eager Gaston toward the house.

I addressed Striker as we followed with the rest in tow. “You will, of course, compensate us for any cleaning and repair.”

“Aye, aye,” he sighed. “I am truly sorry, Will. We live like beasts when left alone and not on a ship.”

Two dogs greeted us at the door; or rather, they assessed our worthiness to enter. I had seen a number of the dogs the Brethren used to hunt cattle before, but never at close range. They had once been Spanish mastiffs, and they still maintained the size, massive head, and short coat of their ancestors; but they had been running feral about Hispaniola for nearly a century. The ones greeting us were male. One was black, and I judged him to weigh as much as a man, if not more.

His brindle-brown companion was almost as imposing.

The house was indeed the disaster I had envisioned. The dining table had been moved into the front room and positioned in the center with stools and chairs all about, very much like a tavern. The dogs had been successful in disposing of the edible debris, but they could do little for bottles, steins, broken glass, candle tallow, and anything else drunken buccaneers discarded. There were a number of bullet holes all about the bottom of the walls. One enterprising rat had apparently climbed a bookcase, though, as there were holes here and there at the height of the shelves – until the matter had been ended at the top, where there was a good deal of dried blood. Everything smelled of urine: so much so that I was relieved not to see excrement.

“Most beasts know not to piss where they sleep,” I noted to Striker.

“The dogs do,” he said defensively.

“Only when the walls have been marked by men first, and they feel they must cover the stench.” I pointed at one stain near the ceiling that would have required a horse-sized dog to accomplish.

“We will see to it,” he sighed. “All of it.”

“We’ll be sleepin’ on the ship then,” Liam said.

“We’ll be sleeping at the shop tonight,” the Bard chuckled.

I supposed I should check the rooms upstairs, though I thought it likely that even if they did not smell as the downstairs did, we would be better served on the Queen. Yet I dearly wanted some more days of privacy before we sailed. I found I was to be thwarted: the sleeping chambers were somewhat better than the downstairs – less garbage and no piss – but both held a good deal of gear.

“Pete and I have the one, some of the other men the other,” Striker said from the bottom of the stairs. “I will have to locate the other men.

We’ll clean it out by tonight.”

“Nay,” I sighed. “Do not make haste about it. Gaston and I will sleep on the ship.”

With that, I decided to ignore further inspection of the house and looked about for my matelot. I found him in the back room. Theodore’s massive old desk was there. It had been shoved into the corner, such that the overhang of the top and the knee space beneath formed a den.

Pete and Gaston were lying on the floor near the opening, their weapons discarded atop the wooden expanse. All sign they might be dangerous men had fled them, as they lay there wearing happy smiles whilst playing with round waddling puppies. Gaston waved me over, and I shed my belt and baldric to join them.

He proffered a lazily wiggling black loaf with barely opened eyes and said, “Smell.”

I hugged the little bundle to me, and drank in the milky smell of innocence.

The bitch was a huge golden brindle animal, nearly as big as the black male at the door. At my inclusion in the cuddling of her young, she emerged fully from the den to examine me. Though I had no plan to ever harm her pups, I hoped the one I held would not experience any duress beyond my control whilst in my care, as his mother’s head was larger than mine, with jaws that could surely encompass my face. I did not recoil from her sniffing, though, and thus she judged me acceptable.

Gaston grinned at me past the puppy lying on his chest, and I smiled back. He seemed at peace with the world in a way I had not witnessed before. I wondered if we could take puppies on the ship.

The tableau was broken by Liam. “How many there be? Six? Ya should pick tha biggest two an’ drown tha rest.”

Pete sat and glared, puppy held protectively in his lap. Beside him, the bitch growled, at Liam and not the Golden One. Gaston’s look would have scared the Devil.

“No One Touches’Em,” Pete rumbled.

Liam took a step back. “Aye. But… Iffn’ ya do nothin’, they’ll just breed like rabbits an’ the house, Hell, the whole town’ll be overrun with ‘em.”

I sighed. He was correct, and I was familiar with culling packs of hunting hounds; but I was never the one who needed to do it, and holding the bundle I now did I could not see how anyone could.

“Don’Care,” Pete spat.

“We will take them to Negril when we return,” Gaston said. “There are wild cattle there, though they are sparse. And it is easy enough to geld the males.”

“Aye,” Pete said with a pout.

“May as well take them with us now,” Cudro said calmly from the doorway. “To Cow Island. The four dogs are hunters.”

Gaston nodded. “The puppies can be moved, though their dam will like it little. I will not abandon them there, though.”

“It was not my suggestion,” Cudro added quickly. “We could establish a pack at Negril after.”

“I don’t want dogs on my ship,” the Bard said from the front room. “I know they’re cattle dogs, but they will shit like any other.”

Striker gave a rueful chuckle, “As if we have a podium to preach from.”

“Speak for yourself,” the Bard snorted. “Fine, I see I’ll not win this, but someone best be cleaning up after them.”

“We will,” I assured him.

The Bard’s head poked around the corner and he eyed me with speculation. Upon spying the puppy I held, he snorted and rolled his eyes.

The others at last retreated to discuss who would go out and acquire victuals. Pete, Gaston, and I stayed. The sun was setting and the room was filling with shadows. The bitch decided all had experienced enough excitement for one day, and rolled two puppies back behind the desk before retrieving the ones we held by the scruffs of their necks. I scooted over and deposited mine at the entrance to her den before she felt the need to relieve me of it. She shouldered me aside with Gaston’s puppy in her mouth. I retreated to my matelot’s side, and the three of us listened to the puppies mewl as they realized they were about to be fed.

“Thar Be Times IWish IBe ADahg,” Pete said quietly. He appeared as melancholy as he sounded. “But Then IThink It Be Good Ta’ Ave Guns An’

Knives.”

“Aye,” I breathed. “Sometimes one needs a great many teeth.”

“Don’Know Why IWeren’tDrowned. Weren’tWanted.”

I heard Gaston’s long slow breath. I remembered his onetime comment that due to the poorness of his breeding, in that both of his parents were in some way mad, he should have been drowned at birth.

“I would imagine you were the pick of the litter,” I said gently to Pete.

“The strongest win out and survive. I, on the other hand, was merely the only male, and that was my sole value.”

“Ye Come From A Long Line A Dahgs With Big Teeth Tho.”

I chuckled. “Aye. Wolves really. Bred and raised as one.”

“But you are not a wolf,” Gaston said. “You are a centaur, and we have a great many weapons with which to kill wolves and protect sheep and puppies.” He stood. “I wish to walk.”

“Do you wish for company?” I asked.

“Oui,” he said softly.

“What Be ASin Tar?”

“A mythical creature, half man and half horse,” I told Pete while standing to follow my matelot.

“Horse On Tha Bottom?”

“Aye,” I chuckled as I tried to envision the opposite.

“IBe AWolf.”

“Aye, you are. You are more a wolf than any with a pedigree a league long.”

Pete snorted with amusement, and we left him alone listening to the feeding puppies. We slipped out the back and up the side alley to the street. When I fell into step beside him, I found Gaston’s face composed into an emotionless mask and his eyes distant.

“How are we?” I asked.

“I am in control.”

“I see that.”

He sighed. “Liam distressed me. And the state of the house. And all of this.” He indicated the busy avenue we walked.

“I know.” I took his hand. “And you are doing well. I merely wish to know if we should withdraw and allow the Horse to recover.”

He did not reply and we continued to walk.

“I want a den,” he finally muttered as we reached New Street. “And a mother to watch over me.” His tone was one of curious contemplation, as if he found both interest and amusement in his observation.

I grinned. “I just had the most disturbing vision of that bitch carrying you about by your head.”

He smiled and sighed. “I do not have an urge to suckle.”

I threw my arm across his shoulders. “My love, I understand, truly. I would give you all you missed in your childhood if I could.”

“I know. I will be well pleased tonight with a private place and you to hold me.”

“Then let us find one.”

The house would not do, neither would the ship if privacy were our aim. I had seen little to welcome me on the outside of any of the inns, and I felt the insides would be worse. I only knew of one man in town with a house who might welcome us.