Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (95 page)

As the damn man passed me, I could see the fear and frustration in his eye. Gaston was death incarnate: cold and cruel.

Hastings decided he could take no more. He charged. Gaston threw up his leather-wrapped arm to ward off the blow, and men yelled

“Knife!” all along that side of the circle. Gaston feinted and kicked his opponent’s legs from under him: pouncing before Hastings finished falling, so that his weight drove the air from Hastings’ lungs as they landed. Gaston pinned the knife-wielding hand with his knee, and coiled his own whip about his right hand and proceeded methodically, and with great force – such that it twisted his entire body with each blow – to strike Hastings in the face until there was no more face to strike and Gaston’s hand dripped blood and flesh.

The crowd had at first cheered; but as the beating continued and the body grew still, they quieted, so that when Gaston stood and spat on the faceless corpse, the square was so silent I heard his spittle land.

I hoped the Gods were pleased with this day’s amusement: though I was pleased with the outcome, I was not pleased with the cost.

My matelot divested himself of the whips, picked me up, and carried me from the square to the hospital and then up the stairs to the bedroom we had claimed. He set me on the bed and knelt before me to press his forehead to my breastbone. Our friends crowded the doorway so it was filled with curious, worried, and expectant faces.

I did not wish to speak to them. I wished to curl with my matelot in the bed on which I sat and pretend the last hour had not occurred. But that would require laudanum, which I did not have at hand; and I did not wish to sully the bed with my filthy fruit- and blood-covered feet; and I knew I required stitches, and Gaston bandages; and I knew fetching those things was beyond my capability – or, seemingly, Gaston’s. Thus, I must exchange the coin of human kindness and speak.

“There is nothing to be done now,” I assured them quietly. “All those who need to be dead, are dead. Well… all those here. There are others elsewhere who must die, but we need not worry about them now. Now, we need a basin and bandages, and Gaston’s medicine chest. Please.”

Most of them seemed disinclined to move, their curiosity and concern instilling them with stubbornness.

But Pete nodded sagely. “We’ll Fetch That.” Then he bellowed such that Gaston twitched and clutched at the bed linen. “ClearOut! AllO’ Ya!

YouToo,” he added quietly, and hooked an arm around Striker to drag him into the hall.

Cudro chuckled as he closed the door. It sounded as if annoyed cattle were being herded down the stairs, but we were at last alone and safe.Gaston breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and the tension drained from his shoulders. He sat back, and without looking up to meet my gaze, began to consider my wounds. He touched my bandaged feet. “What?”

“Glass. Jars of candied fruit. I was throwing them. Then I had to run through the room. Cramer removed the glass we could find.”

His fingers were on my arm, and he frowned at the crude splint.

“How is it broken?”

“I know not. I cannot close my hand without pain, or bend my elbow.

He had my arm twisted behind me and I… knew it would break, but I had to move.”

He had found the bloody part of the bandaging on my forearm.

“He had a dagger,” I continued. “I had to block with it, since the arm was damn useless for anything else.”

He was running his fingers lightly over the rest of me.

“Nothing else except my head, I think.” I said. “He hit me from behind when he attacked.”

His fingers gingerly probed the swelling on the back of my skull. I winced, and he met my gaze, letting his Horse and even the physician fall away to reveal only him: and he was very worried.

“It was so like what Shane used to do,” I said.

Gaston closed his eyes in pain.

“Non, non, listen,” I breathed. “It did not end like it did with Shane.”

He looked at me through tears and sighed with relief. “I do not want you ever hurt in that way again. Thinking about it is enough to drive me to madness. I have been holding it very far from my thoughts.”

I smiled. “You need not fear. I will not be hurt in that way again. I will die first. I learned that today. It was one thing for me to overcome my fear and fight you as I did last year. But that was madness and… I did not lose myself to madness this time.”

He smiled. “Neither did I.”

“I know. I am so very proud.”

There was a polite knock on the door; and at my word, Cudro entered with Pete. They had brought all I asked for – and a bottle of rum. They left with smiles that said they needed no thanks.

Gaston pulled the medicine chest to the bed, gave us each a small dose of laudanum, and began to clean, sew, and bind our wounds.

“Tell me what happened,” he said as he unwrapped my arm and examined it.

I did not feel I could begin any tale when I felt pain was so very imminent. “Non, set it as you must, first. The thought of moving it makes me wish to retch.”

He handed me a stick to bite upon while he manipulated my poor arm to determine exactly where it was injured.

“It will need to be wrapped and put in a sling,” he said at last. “It is broken at the joints, not the long bones. But first I need to stitch this gash.”

That, I felt I could talk through, but only because the drug was making my eyes heavy and the pain distant. So he began to work, and– after he had soaked the wound in rum, which stung such that I had to bite the stick a bit more – I told him of being alone with Alonso, and his cryptic words, and how I had gone to the storeroom.

“It was truly like Shane would do. He would catch me unawares, and hit me to stun me and knock me to my knees, and then he would pin me. Alonso even said the hated words. But… I felt nothing: no fear, no…” I sighed. “I think I have been afraid that I would succumb to the fear, or my Horse’s lust, if I were put in that position again. I have worried that my Horse did not care who brought me to my knees. But it does care. My love of being taken is only for you. All I felt with Alonso was astonishment, and then the need to kill him – and even that was not a thing born of red-hot rage and madness. I knew I would die before I would let him, and therefore it was a duel to the death. And so we fought. Me with one arm, and my head aching, and no breeches, and my feet bleeding, and… Still, I knew I must win. And then Hastings was there, and he stabbed Alonso and made some comment about arranging things and ran off…”

I sighed. “Hastings must have been following me. He realized he could get to you through me. He told Morgan that Alonso and I had been trysting; and I wondered why, and then I realized he wished to anger you, just as he had wished to anger us with the death of that family. He was goading us, but he did not want to duel me. There was no bounty on my head. He did not think he knew my weaknesses so that he could win.

I doubt he even wanted the money. Perhaps he saw it as a challenge.”

Gaston shook his head thoughtfully as he bandaged my now-stitched arm. “He surrendered to his fear when I got him down,” he said.

“I have seen the eyes of many men fighting me for their lives. I was not a man to him in that moment before I began to strike him. I was the Devil.”

He sighed. “I wish I could have beaten Alonso’s face in, too.”

“Oui,” I said with sincere wistfulness. “That is my only regret over his death: that I did not strike the killing blow. I feel cheated.”

“Let your arm rest at your side until we are done,” he said as he began to unwrap my feet. “You were cheated.” His face tightened with anger. “I want to kill anyone that thinks you will submit to them merely because you submit to me. It is an honor you give me. It is not a thing that any man can take.”

“Non,” I soothed. “It must be earned, and you alone have earned it.”

But that was not true. Shane had earned it once. But that was a shame I did not wish to contemplate at the moment. Someday, that too, would be resolved.

“I do not want others to know that we play as we do,” Gaston said as he bathed my feet.

I nodded solemnly. I realized I did not want them to know, either.

“Non, it will be a private thing. I would say I feel no shame in it, and I do not, but… non, others do not see it as we do.”

He leaned forward and kissed my knee and looked up at me with loving eyes. “You should lie on your belly for me to stitch these wounds and examine your head.”

I smiled, remembering the first time he had needed to stitch my feet, and my unease at lying on my belly and giving him my back. “I do not find alarm at that. I have traveled far.”

He rose up on his knees until he could kiss my lips gently, and then he pressed his temple to mine. “We have traveled far. Do we still have far to go? Or is there a meadow that we will reach someday and the road need go no further? And we can frolic about the cart for the rest of our days.”

I heard the hope and worry in his words. “I hope so,” I breathed.

“But I feel we have a ways farther yet to go.”

He nodded, and sat back on his heels to regard me with sad amusement. “First we must go home. You are wounded, so we should be able to do that now.”

I chuckled. “Is that what is required for us to end these damn voyages? If I had known that, I would stabbed myself weeks ago.”

But as I lay on my belly and he worked on my feet, I thought of all the things waiting for us on Jamaica, and how very steep the road seemed there; and I wondered why we wished to return.

Later, after he finished examining the lump on my head, he bathed my naked body with a cloth. I drifted on the drug and luxuriated in the slow strokes.

“I want you,” I whispered when he stopped.

He gave a quiet snort of amusement, and I turned my head and found him administering unguents to the whip marks on his forearm.

None were so deep as to require stitching, and I thought it likely he would only have thin white lines for scars for a year or so. When he finished bandaging the cuts, he lay beside me.

“I took too much,” he whispered. “I cannot rise even for you.”

“Perhaps tomorrow, then,” I said with amusement.

“Definitely tomorrow,” he sighed happily and closed his eyes.

I woke to sunlight streaming through the shutters, and pain. As the window faced east, I thought it likely dawn. Gaston still slept beside me.

I nudged him, and he woke with sleepy blinks. He dosed me to ease the pain of my body – no other part of me suffered – and we relieved our bladders and he dressed slowly to face the day. I knew I could not walk without pain for several days, and crutches were not an option with my arm as it was. So I resigned myself to being forced to lie about and do nothing. He went to fetch us food and water.

He returned with Striker, Pete, Cudro, Ash, and Farley, and I wondered if they had done anything but wait about at the foot of the stairs all damn night. So I ate bacon and drank coconut milk and told my tale, while they sat about the bed or in the room’s two chairs and listened.

“Bloody Hell,” Striker said as I finished. “We should have shot him in Porto Bello.”

I snorted. “Nay, I should have slit his throat as he lay sleeping in Florence. But it is either the curse or blessing of man that we cannot see the future.”

“I am sorry,” Farley said, with guilt suffusing his face.

“For what?” I asked.

“I feel…” Farley sighed and considered his words while chewing his lip. “He became moody after he recovered from his head wound. I knew not whether it was because of the wound; or that… Well, he spoke of you a great deal. He spoke often of how you lived together in Florence.

He seemed quite convinced you would return to him, or… could be made to return to him.” He sighed and grimaced. “I knew he was not entirely as he had been before, thus my feeling a need to keep an eye on him; but I said nothing of all that because… As I said, I was unsure of the cause. His memory returned, and in all other ways he seemed free of any permanent damage from the wound; and so… I thought he might have been merely in love with you, and your assisting him in recovering gave him false hope.

“He never said he would do as he did, though,” Farley added quickly. “Though… there was some discussion regarding people having preferences for…”

“It is not your fault,” I said quickly. “Perhaps he was mad as a result of the wound, but… I think it was because he thought he loved me. To him, I … was… the epitome of another time in his life, when he felt he was happier.”

Gaston was regarding me with a knowing look.

I sighed and awarded him a sad smile, even as I spoke to Farley.

“He loved me still, despite my not wishing it; and he was quite intent upon winning me back: I knew that. The injury must have impaired his reason as to what method might be effective in obtaining that end.”

Farley nodded thoughtfully. “It is a sad thing. I would hope he would not have done as he did if his reason had not been so impaired. I still wish I had realized the extent of it. As I said, I felt something was wrong, but…” He sighed and shrugged.

“I do not blame you in the slightest,” I assured him.

He nodded with relief.

“So was Hastings the last of the pawns?” Cudro asked in the silence that followed.

Pete shrugged. “NoWay Ta Know. But One SetFailed With Tryin’TaShoot Us. An’AnotherFailed At Duelin’. An’Morgan’sGone An MadeA Rule AboutIt.

AnyLeft, TheyWon’tShow Now LestThey Be Stupid. An’The Stupid Ones Would Na’ O’ Waited This Long.”

“So we can return home and face them there,” I said.

He nodded with a grimace. “Aye. Best We CanDo.” Then he frowned.

“It Be Best That Bastard Hastings Died’Ere If Ya BeRight’Bout’ImBein’TheOne WhoKilled Them Women.”

“Aye,” I said, not wishing to think of the likes of Hastings being anywhere near our women. But that only made me worry about who might be near them while we were away. I could see my thought echoed in other eyes about the bed.

I sighed. “How much longer will we remain here?”

“Too long,” Cudro rumbled with a tired sigh.

They left us, and Gaston began to gather his things to go and look in on the wounded.