Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (68 page)

Otter chuckled and shook his matelot’s shoulders until Liam sighed with exasperation.

We turned to see Pete talking and drinking with apparent good humor with Davey and Julio, while Striker stood on the other side of the quarterdeck speaking quietly with the Bard and Bradley. I was surprised to see the other captain on board and wondered at that.

“It is trouble, the two o’ them bein’ separate an’ all,” Liam was saying.

“Aye, but it is the way of things that they change,” I said.

“Aye,” he said. “But I like it none.”

“Duly noted,” I said with a grin and a pat on Liam’s shoulder. Then I leaned to Gaston. “I wish to know what they speak of.”

He nodded, and I stood and approached the captains.

Striker seemed pleased to see me. “We need to even out the men between vessels. All know we sail, but they have not known what other ships do.”

“So all have arrived here,” I said.

“Aye,” Bradley said with a chuckle. “We are trying to decide if we should even attempt to sort them out this night, or if we should pull all the ships that will sail out beyond the passage in the morning, and then apportion men to whatever vessel can hold them.”

I nodded. “Before articles; that sounds reasonable. I doubt anyone will succeed with anything tonight.”

Bradley shook his head. “Articles are no matter. There’ll be articles for the raid once we rendezvous on the cays of Cuba.”

“It is not for a ship and a ship only when we plan to raid on land with so many,” Striker added.

“Ah,” I said. It did not sit well with me, and I could think of no immediate reason for it other than my dislike and distrust of Morgan; so I decided to say nothing.

“Let me know if I can be of assistance in the morning,” I said.

“Gaston and I will not be drinking this night.”

Striker sighed. “Neither will I.”

“Well that will make for three of ya,” the Bard said with amusement, and lifted a bottle in toast.

Bradley snorted. “There’s no reason to deny yourself, it’s not as if we haven’t faced the mornin’ light with the Devil yet in our veins before. Come drink with us on the Lilly,” he told Striker. “Morgan will be pleased to see you.”

“He wishes for a meeting of the captains?” Striker asked, and looked around at the revelry surrounding us; and then his gaze settled on Pete, and he appeared as one lost.

There was little time to think on it, and so I thought quickly. If Striker stayed aboard as I felt he ought, it would be evident he was not with Pete, both painfully to the two of them and disconcertingly to those who did not know what was amiss as of yet. It would be best if Striker had an excuse to leave the ship this night.

“Aye, go, see if the other captains can give numbers as to how many they will take off our hands,” I said lightly and gave Striker a little push.

He quickly hooked his arm about my shoulders to bring me close and whisper in my ear. “I don’t wish to go alone.”

“Then let us go with you,” I said.

He nodded.

I went to Gaston and quickly explained the situation, and then I let Cudro know where we were bound. We followed Striker to the boat.

Bradley seemed surprised as I climbed down to join them, and dismayed at Gaston’s presence.

“Well, there seems to be enough of us. You boys want to join the party here?” he asked the two men who had helped him row the boat to our ship.

They readily agreed and clambered aboard the Queen. The boat only needed two men to row, so Gaston and I took up the oars they left.

As we pushed off, Bradley addressed Striker. “If you brought anyone, I would have expected Pete…”

“Pete isn’t pleased at my marriage,” Striker said.

“So… You’ve gotten married?” Bradley asked. “Will spoke of the possibility, but…”

“Aye,” Striker said firmly. “I’ve gotten married.”

“Other than him being unhappy about it, are you still with Pete?”

Bradley asked.

“Nay.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bradley said sincerely.

“So am I,” Striker said.

“Are you pleased to be married?” Bradley asked diffidently.

Striker sighed. “Aye, that I am.”

“It will be hard at first, not havin’ a man at your side, but it passes,”

Bradley said sadly. “Things are changin’, a captain doesn’t need a matelot anymore, probably best if he doesn’t have one.”

Striker was silent for a time as we maneuvered our way around another ship in the Hole and then to the sloop Lilly. When at last he spoke, it was with calm resolve. “I don’t want to be the captain of a merchantman, or a naval vessel. I’m a buccaneer, and the Brethren fight in pairs. That’s what makes us strong. If we begin to behave like the others, then we become the others. If we’re not the Brethren of the Coast, then there’s no loyalty except to gold, and men start believing they belong to a crown.”

“Oui,” Gaston said.

“Oui, aye, amen,” I added.

“That’s not the way the other captains see it,” Bradley said.

I thought of all the discourse I had engaged in with my uncle.

“There are those of us who like the traditions established here,”

I said, “and want little of the ones of old. If I wanted to behave like a proper Englishman, I would return to England.”

Bradley looked away, and made himself busy coiling the bow rope to throw up to the Lilly well before we were ready for him to do so. He finally thought of a rebuttal as we did indeed near her.

“There are those of us who had nothing in England and yet wanted it,” he said, still without regarding me, “and now we’re here and have something, and we still want what we did as young men.”

“I hate to be the bearer of poor tidings,” I said without rancor, “but I feel the lot of you are betting on the wrong horse in that regard. Or perhaps it is that we all ever want what is beyond the pasture fence.

You have freedom here that no man knows in England, regardless of his rank, and yet you would heave it overboard in the name of attaining a thing you viewed with envy as young men before you truly knew the way of it.”

“You’ve never been poor,” he hissed as he stood to board.

“That is bullshit,” I snarled. “I have had to barter my soul for sustenance more times than I care to admit. And though I was born into a house with money, it was so poor in all other things men might place value on I found myself driven from it. Do not speak to me of hardship.”

“If you accept the rules of men such as my father,” I continued,

“then you accept their rule, and you lose your freedom – and you will never elevate yourself in their eyes, no matter what you do. Even if you gain more gold than they, they will never grant you respect, and all the while they will connive to take your gold or kill you.

“If you want their respect, do not bow before them, endeavor to cut their throats,” I added.

“I bow before no man,” he spat.

I snorted. “You bow every time you accept their laws, their rules, and their traditions.”

“Men were not made to love other men.” he snarled triumphantly. “If I bow, it is to a higher law.”

“God made me, as he made you,” I snapped. “If you truly believe God did wrong in the making of me as I am, then I will grant you balls I did not think you had.”

“You blaspheme,” he said. “God did not make you to be a sodomite.

That is an evil men engage in when weak. We do it, and then we are done with it, and we ask God’s forgiveness as we would with any other sin!”

“I have little use for any God who does not hold the love I have for my matelot holy!”

I shouted this last, as he had shouted his last words to me, and in the silence that followed, I was acutely aware that everyone on board the Lilly had likely heard us. They were surely staring as if they had. I looked up along the rail and received both frowns and nods of approval.

When they determined we would say no more, our audience began to buzz as they repeated what they heard or argued it themselves.

Bradley climbed aboard the ship. I sat in the boat, as I had risen to standing at some point during the argument.

“I do not think I should stay,” I said.

“I cannot allow you to go anywhere,” Gaston said.

Gaston and Striker were laughing.

“I do not wish to stay, either,” Striker gasped.

Striker stood and told whoever would listen that we would return the boat to the Mayflower.

“I want Pete back,” Striker said as we cast off.

“Do you think it possible?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “He is stubborn, unyielding, and a damn bastard and I’m tired of him always having his way, but…”

“So why do you want him back?” I teased. “Just to thumb your nose at Bradley and God?”

“Aye,” he said with mock seriousness and then grinned. “Nay, I love him. And if he loves me, then he will by God yield on this one thing. I will have a wife, and him.”

Gaston and I exchanged a look.

“We will do all we can to assist you,” I said. “Do you have some strategy in mind?”

“Nay,” he sighed. “I have a steadfast purpose and little else.”

“Well, it is likely you will be tested to be as stubborn as both Pete and God,” I said.

He grinned with resolve.

As we neared our own ship once again, Striker roused himself from reverie to say, “He’s still my matelot. I’ll not hear otherwise, just as he never heard me when I said I needed something more.”

“I foresee a siege,” I said.

“Aye, a long and bloody one.” Striker grinned and clambered up the rope to our deck.

“What think you of his chances?” I asked my matelot as we made the boat fast.

“I think he is taking the wrong tack,” he said with a shrug. “Pete feels he has already been made to give ground. He will not wish to give more.”

“Oui,” I sighed sadly.

We joined our friends, and they made room for us on the crowded quarterdeck as best they could. I sat between Gaston’s legs and he held me contentedly. Striker went to stand beside Pete, and proceeded to act as if nothing were amiss between them for the rest of the night; though they did not touch, and that was evident to all who knew them.

As I watched them, I thought of Bradley and his former matelot Siegfried. Did he turn to piousness now out of guilt or shame? If good Siegfried had not died so unfortunately, would Bradley have abandoned him to marry, or stayed on with him at sea after his marriage? Bradley had been quite forthright in saying he did not consider matelotage marriage in any fashion, and he always seemed to have difficulty acknowledging it in the lives of others. In my musings, I recalled another thing: I never saw them touch one another.

I turned in my matelot’s arms and kissed him thoroughly.

He raised a curious brow when I released his mouth.

“I feel Bradley was always shamed by his being with Siegfried,” I said.“I am proud of you,” Gaston murmured and kissed me as thoroughly as I had him.

The cabin was filled with rowdy men, and we barely had room to move on the deck; we could do little, as the revelry continued into the night, but make one another exquisitely miserable with unrequited pleasure.

We slept curled together, and only woke at Striker’s insistent prodding in the grey before dawn. By his bleary eyes, it was obvious he had not abstained from the rum, but he was far more lucid than the Bard, who lay sprawled with Dickey in another corner of the quarterdeck. Pete was not to be seen, and I thought it wise not to ask, as we assisted Striker in finding and rousing the men necessary to weigh anchor and make use of the morning breeze to sail out of the Hole and the Passage.

We dropped anchor in the sea beyond the Passage. The Lilly and Mayflower followed. The other small craft that would compose our fleet had already sailed to hastily provision amongst the cays in which we were to rendezvous. Once we met up with them and the French, we would supposedly have seven ships, and we guessed we would have some six hundred men. Bradley had added two guns to the Mayflower; and now, with twelve and sixteen guns, and nearly two hundred tons apiece, the Mayflower and the Josephine were the largest of our craft, with the Virgin Queen ranking third at ten guns and one hundred and fifty tons. The rest were smaller, all being comparable sloops of seventy tons or so, such as the Belle Mer and the Lilly.

The next few hours were spent apportioning approximately two hundred and fifty men among our vessels, so that none rode low in the water. As the Virgin Queen was already laden with boucan and salted beef, and the other ships were empty, we soon had proportionately fewer men than the others; and all aboard breathed a little easier, as we saw how crowded the decks and holds of the Mayflower and Lilly were. The Queen still carried close to a hundred men, though.

“We seem to have quite the army,” I remarked, as the boats were at last stowed and the ships prepared for elections and articles – such as they would be. At the rate things had been occurring, we would not actually sail until after the noon hour.

“This is less than we hoped,” Striker sighed as he joined me at the forward rail of the quarterdeck. “We will never take a large city.”

“Did Myngs or Mansfield have more?” I asked.

“Nay, and we never took the larger cities,” he said with a shrug.

“Morgan wants Havana, though.”

I looked about at the other ships and thought of all I had been told of the fortifications and size of the Spanish port of Havana.

“Morgan is a fool,” I muttered.

Striker grinned. “Whatever our target, he will wish to strike soon.

The Mayflower and Lilly have no provisions. And I’m not giving them our beef, though Pierrot and Savant might sell them some.”

“Are there cattle on these cays?” I asked.

“Non,” Gaston said. “Turtles, birds, shellfish, fish. All must be caught.”

I shook my head. “Generals have ever turned their men loose upon towns simply to feed them, but by the Gods, we are at sea. We cannot cast the men out like nets to find what they can in the countryside – not unless we worked our way along a coast, and then the Spanish would surely send ships once word reached them.”

Striker nodded. “We will pick a target as soon as we rendezvous, and hope it’ll have provisions.”