Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots Read Online Free

the point and gave no further sound of alarm. Otter and Liam joined me, as their home was a little farther east, and we walked to the edge in time to see the Virgin Queen dropping sail.
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Liam roared. “I were sleepin’. The daft bastard coulda’ just came ’round an’ tol’ us the Queen be here.”
    “Well, he does not often have a chance to discharge his weapon,” I said.I returned to the work of laying stones before my mortar dried. There would be a party tonight on the beach, and I had ample time to attend it. I need not rush off now.
    Thus it was with surprise that I looked up a time later and spied a jacketless and panting Theodore cresting the promontory and staggering toward my house. Pete and Striker were with him, carrying a sea trunk I recognized, and my dear barrister’s coat and satchel.
    Pete reached me first. He shed his baldric in one smooth movement, and dropped it in a hurried heap with Theodore’s satchel and coat on the bench before my home. Then he was upon me. His embrace hurt both my ribs in its rigor and my heart with its unfamiliarity. I had not seen the two of them in three weeks, and no one else living upon the Point found need to touch me. I truly needed to be embraced more often. Striker followed Pete, and I did not wish to release either of them.
    “Gaston?” Striker asked quietly by way of greeting.
    I shook my head. “He is still… hunting. He lets me know he is well, or rather, still living, from time to time, but I have not seen him still.”
    “It has been a month now?” he asked.
    “More than that,” I sighed. “But in speaking to Cudro, I have learned that he once heard Gaston would disappear into the Haiti for months at a time, which agrees with things my matelot said in passing. I try my best not to worry. As I said, at least he comes around and leaves some small message for me on occasion.”
    “He’ll always return to you,” Striker assured me.
    “I know,” I sighed. I had settled that matter in my heart a month ago. I did not now doubt his eventual return; I only wished to know when.
    “And look what we have brought,” he said, and gestured to panting Theodore, who was finally joining us.
    Striker was carrying a bottle of rum in the hand he pointed with, and I snatched it. “Good, rum, I have been dry. Oh, you meant my barrister,” I added, after taking a good pull from the bottle.
    Theodore ignored me. He stood gasping, turning in a slow circle to take in the entire vista.
    “My Lord, Marsdale…” he began.
    “Will,” I corrected him as he drew his labored breath.
    He gave a disparaging snort. “Will, then. My Lord, Will, I see why you have not returned to Port Royal.”
    “Is it truly such a distance?” I teased as I embraced him.
    “Nay, nay, this, all of this.” He waved his arms to encompass the view when we parted. “If I had this to look upon daily, I should not care what else might occur in the world, either. Ah, and we shall see the sunset from this vantage soon. I can only imagine its glory from here.”
    I had not thought him to hold interest in such things. This added another mark of favor in his already full account.
    “You are welcome to stay and visit as long or as often as you wish, though my accommodations are meager.” I indicated my hut.
    Theodore gazed upon the dwelling for the first time and raised an eyebrow. “I suppose it keeps you dry.”
    “Aye.”
    I chuckled. The hut was as crude as it had been when first Gaston built it, but I had decided to enlarge it, and now it almost had two rooms. I had collected a great number of limestone blocks and begun to lengthen the walls, so that there was a much larger chamber in front of the original sleeping space. The eastern wall and the section of the northern wall running from it to the new door were complete; I had even made a window. The western wall would be identical except for orientation. It was the height of my chest, and the latest layer of