Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (57 page)

“Of course,” the Marquis said with irritation, and then he gazed up at me and frowned with compassion. “You need not worry about that.”

“Then can I go to Negril?” Vivian asked, oblivious to all but her own concern – though in fairness, she had not understood the French conversation.

“Nay,” I said quickly. “Not alone.”

“I can take Henrietta,” she said with determination.

I could not picture that, and then I could. “Nay! It is too dangerous.

The Devil with all this.” I indicated the chess board. “You could be raped, robbed, and killed by the crew of any passing ship that happened to see the smoke from your cook fire. And all the water must be hauled up from the bog. Nay. Nay.”

She took a ragged breath, her eyes desperate. “Then can we rebuild the house I burned?” She cringed and looked away with shame. The baby was waking, probably sensing her mother’s unease. Vivian jiggled the baby to quiet her, and only succeeded in disturbing her more. I thought both of them would be wailing at any moment.

“Nay,” Theodore said. “The property belongs to Will’s father.”

Vivian swore and looked up at me with pleading eyes again. “But I cannot. I cannot live here. I just cannot.” The baby began to wail.

I struggled to think of another solution. “I am sorry. I fear you will have to. We will try to come up with an alternative, but this seems best.”

“Nay,” she sobbed. “Are you trying to drive me to drink?” She stood and hurried to the stairs.

I watched her climb them and run down the hall to her door, which she slammed upon entering. It did little to mute the baby’s now frantic cries.

“Does she hate us?” Agnes asked.

“Nay,” I said. “She fears all hate her.”

“She can come and live with us,” Rachel said, and gave Theodore a look that would brook no argument.

He nodded pleasantly. “That will be lovely.”

Rachel smiled at her husband with great love and kissed his forehead before following Vivian up to her room.

“I am sorry, Theodore,” I said. “For everything.”

He smiled. “I am not.” He turned to look at me. “I will not have any regrets no matter how I am judged in the end.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. I looked at the others. “Thank you all.”

I felt I had stood at a table with them and said that before. I felt I would ever be saying that, because anyone who befriended us would always be inconvenienced in some fashion.

Rucker grinned. “Nay, thank you; after a life of reading about the battles of kings and queens…” He raised the black king piece. “I find amusement I am finally party to one.”

I smiled. “At least we serve some purpose.”

“We should have more pawns here who can shoot,” Agnes said as she shoved chess pieces around the board.

“Aye, you should,” I said. I could hear the winds howling in my head again.

My gaze fell across Christine. She was studying the table with a frown, her finger tracing the same whorl in the wood over and over again. I wondered if she heard winds howling in her head.

“Will?” Theodore queried.

“What?” I asked and turned to him. For a frantic moment I wondered how long I had been watching Christine’s finger.

“Are you well?” he asked.

I glanced around. Pete, Rucker, and the Marquis were watching me with concern.

“Nay,” I said. “I am… I need to see to Gaston. It has been a very trying time for us. We really wished to retreat to Negril.”

This elicited frowns, and even Christine looked up to gaze at me with concern.

I was afraid I would say something else I should not. I nodded at them and walked away, forcing myself not to run to the stable.

I found Gaston sitting with the puppies. He looked up at me with sadness and calm, and I dropped to sit beside him and take his hand.

“I am afraid,” I whispered. “That we will lose. That I will lose you, and on the way to losing you, we will lose everyone.”

He nodded solemnly and handed me a puppy. “I am afraid the Gods do not know we play chess.”

Seventy

We shed our fine clothes and donned our buccaneer garb, and lay in the straw and smelled puppies and allowed Bella to clean our faces and hands. The winds receded as I concentrated on the reassuring smells of milk breath and dogs. After a time, I calmed, and then I realized my matelot had retreated even farther than the stable, into the mien of the Child. I wished to go with him, but I did not know how.

“Can horses sit?” he asked, as he placed a puppy on my chest, and arranged my hand about it with earnest concentration: as if the little bundle being sheltered and not rolling away were the most important thing in the world.

“Non,” I said. “Not by choice. If their arse is upon the ground and their front legs are straight, it is because they have fallen or they are ill.”

This seemed to sadden him. “And they do not lie down to sleep?”

“Non, very few horses lie on their sides upon the ground to sleep. A grown horse lies on the ground only if it is ill or birthing. Foals and even colts will sometimes lie on their sides to sleep, but often they will lie like a cow does, with their legs folded beneath them.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “How do centaurs sleep?”

“How do you want them to sleep?” I asked.

“I am very tired, Will,” he sighed, such that it made my heart ache.

“I would like to lie beside you for a time. Like colts do, or goats, or bulls, I suppose, with my legs beneath me so that I can rise quickly if there is need.”

“Then you should rest, my love,” I whispered. “Lie beside me Raised By Wolves - Treasure

and watch over us, but rest. I will watch too, and I swear, if danger approaches I will find my feet.”

“I know you will,” he said with a warm smile, and moved to lie beside me with his head cradled in the hollow of my shoulder.

I saw us as centaurs, kneeling side by side in the traces on a steep road, with dark forest all about and wind howling in our faces. But we had one another’s warmth; and though the cart creaked in the gale, it did not roll. The vision gave me strength and set me at peace.

“I think we should geld the puppies when we return,” he said sometime later. “And Taro. I love puppies, but we cannot have them all the time. There will be too many for us to feed, and I will not give them away to have them misused. I am afraid of what will happen to these if we do not return.”

“So am I,” I breathed. I felt my peace and calm begin to crumble, but I knew he needed to speak: that it was part of his request to lie beside me. “What else are you afraid of?”

“I am afraid of leaving children behind,” he said thoughtfully. “I do not wish to have a child born of my seed that I will not be there to grow.

I should not get Christine with child before we sail. Not until all this is behind us.”

“You should perhaps not fret on that,” I assured him. “There is no guarantee you will get her pregnant even if you do marry her before we sail. Not every seed finds fertile soil in a woman. Not all babies are conceived as Sarah’s was. It can take weeks or months, even for the diligent.”

“I have thought that,” he sighed. “I feel my father shall be disappointed. I wish he did not need to worry, though.” He pushed himself up to one elbow to gaze at me earnestly. “How feel you of Pete’s plan?”

I sighed and allowed myself to think on it, to recall what I had felt while Pete revealed it. “I think he is correct. I do not think we will be safe here. We must fight. And I am dismayed to admit I feel this will be but the first battle of a war. I attempted a treaty, and I feel it has failed. But… That is not true, as the enemy has not even received my offer yet: it has only been rejected by his agents, and they are, perhaps, misguided.”

“So we will feint in order to keep his forces busy while an ambassador delivers the treaty and sues for peace,” Gaston said. With the Child’s mien about him, it seemed as if he were a precocious boy discussing the dealings of men.

It made me feel as if I were a very old man explaining the workings of the world. And I felt other things as well, listening to my soul in this quiet place with him. “Oui, but… If I listen to my heart… I feel the treaty was the feint. I feel the war is inevitable, and that is perhaps the major source of the gravel strewn before me. I so wish to go to Negril and escape it all, but I am afraid Negril is not far enough – no place will ever be.”

“And the sea will not be bad,” I added. “We have often felt the road is level there.”

He nodded. “But Negril is better. There, the road slopes down, and the cart rolls forward of its own accord, and we need not haul it. We can play in the fields.”

I closed my eyes and prayed we would be able to come to such a place again. I did not tell the Gods I wished for it: I begged.

I felt him brush my tears away, and I opened my eyes to find him gazing down at me in the golden afternoon light, as if he were an angel come to grant my prayers.

“All will be well, Will,” he said kindly, as if he were indeed inspired by the Gods and filled with Their wisdom. “We are dangerous men. None can take us if we are prepared. We will kill them first.”

I grinned at the incongruity of his words with my thoughts. “I love you. You are my angel of the flaming sword – and hair.” I pulled at his red tufts that always glowed like fire in the evening light.

He smiled. “Do you feel the others will accept this course?”

There was a hopeful tone to his question, and I was minded of Sarah saying we had grinned like ghouls when Pete presented his plan. Did we relish war? Perhaps we did, because my matelot was correct: we were dangerous men, and we knew how to solve problems with blades and pieces. It was the rest that was confusing.

I thought of how the others had reacted. “Sarah is angry,” I noted. “I should not have spoken to her as I did.”

He shook his head, and his words were not so very childlike. “Non, you saved Striker the trouble of saying it, and Pete’s words also angered her. It is better she is angry with you.”

“Oui, I suppose so. Vivian was quite distraught.” I realized Gaston had left the table before I spoke with her. “But Rachel has offered for her to live with them.”

He sighed with evident relief. “That would be very good. That is one puppy I will not have to worry about, then.”

I smiled. “Oui, if my silly wife does begin to drink again, they can toss her on the street and still the child will be well cared for.” I sobered.

“I think it will truly be better for Vivian, too. She cannot live in a house with Sarah and Christine. They will all fight like cats, and she would be back on the rum in no time.”

He sighed and sagged down to rest his head on my shoulder again.

“What?” I asked.

“I suppose Christine will live here,” he said.

“If you marry her,” I said, “and… Well, I suppose even if you do not.

We could send her to France with your father, but not if she is to bear you children.” I snorted. “I keep thinking we should do that, anyway, and you can find her later and have children.”

“If I do not marry her we could send her to France?” he asked hopefully.

“Will you marry her?” I asked with true curiosity; and not merely as a prompt to know his thoughts.

“I do not know. I must decide. I know I must decide soon.” He sighed. “I would bed Agnes again. Soon.”

“Tonight?” I asked.

He rose so he could peer at my face again. “If you can bear it.”

I did not rush to reassure him: I considered my heart. “I stand at the center of a storm of howling winds. I feel they will close in on me at any time, but I am safe for now.”

He nodded sagely. “It is a fearful place. I always envision you there with me, anchoring me against the winds.”

I imagined we were two centaurs lying together upon the road again, in the center of a storm howling all about us. I smiled. “You have not been resting. We have been regarding the road ahead a great deal, but not resting. I will watch for a time.”

He looked to the open doorway beside us: the Child hovered at the edges of his face and nearly slipped away. “It is getting late, and I need…”

I put fingers to his lips and shook my head. “We will not sail tomorrow. We have no ship until the Queen returns. And even if she did arrive tomorrow, we would not sail until Sarah births. You need do nothing this night but rest. Unless your Horse has other desires you feel you must sate.”

He shook his head quickly and emphatically, a child’s gesture, and lay beside me again. “I only need do that to… show me what decision I must make.”

“Let it go for now,” I whispered, and rubbed his back.

My Horse was now very calm, and I wondered at that, until I realized a decision had been made: several of them, and they all sat well with the animal. I thought they might cause trouble with others, but I did not care. We would escape to a place where the road was level and we could battle that which opposed us, and for a time lighten the cart of several women in spirit if not in actuality.

When Sam came to tell us dinner was served, Gaston did as I bade, and chose to remain curled up with the puppies in a state of innocent bliss while I went to fetch our meal. I was not yet ready to face most of our housemates, either, and so I was relieved to see the dining room empty. Sam and Henrietta were dismayed, but I told them to keep the food warm and people would surely trickle in as they hungered.

As I filled a plate with corn biscuits and pork, Henrietta approached me with her hands wringing her apron.

“Might I have a word, my... Mister Williams?” she asked. She smiled wanly and continued at my nod. “Mistress Williams has moved off to the Theodores’.”

I was surprised. “Already? Well, I suppose that is good. We must visit in the morning.”

“She told me to tell you to get your arse out o’ bed and over there afore noon,” she said diffidently.

“This was Mistress Williams and not Mistress Theodore?” I asked with a chuckle.

“Aye, sir,” she said with a perplexed nod. “Would Mistress Theodore speak that way to ya’, sir?”

“On occasion.”

She seemed to have to think on that. “So, sir, I been wonderin’,” she said with her lip in her teeth. “Who do I work for now? Should I be goin’