“I see you have broke your word to me, sir,” he managed, at last, teeth so hard-set Rusk could hear their grind in every syllable. Determined to stay unaffected, however, he merely yawned and stretched himself before inquiring, all lazy charm—
“What word would that be, exactly?”
“That you would trust I keep my oaths and let me do as I list, so long as I bend my skills to support your ventures. That you would not require—this of me, as a simple measure of respect.”
“I required nothing; showed my gratitude, only, for yesterday’s assistance. And from what-all I saw, ‘twas entirely your own idea t’accept the proof of it so . . . embracingly.”
Parry bared his teeth, silver-penny gaze now gone truly dangerous. “I’m sure! Yet enlighten me, nevertheless: What was it failed to convince you I am no one to be thus trifled with, Solomon Rusk? Surely even a barbarian idiot like you must grasp that small fact about me, if nothing else—”
“Aye, I grasp it, well enough!” Rusk snapped back, rolling them both in one quick twist, so he wound up once more most securely on top. Then added, right into Parry’s face, as the man all but bit at him like a trapped weasel: “Yet I can’t help but note, powerful as y’are, at no point in the preceding did I ever once see you try to stop me doin’ as I wished, not s’long as it was makin’ ye jump an’ sing! So don’t play the re-stitched virgin wi’ me, ‘sir’—’tis hardly my fault I choose not t’believe these lies ye tell yourself, ‘specially when I have such hard evidence t’the contrary—”
—and here he reached down between them, taking hold of the “evidence” he referenced with force enough to make Parry start back, as if scalded. Which Rusk was later forced to admit might not, in fact, have been the best possible way to calm the ma
n’s ruffled dignity, rather than rouse his ire to its furthest possible pitch—
Still: “You will let me go!” Jerusalem Parry roared at him, springing only momentarily naked from the bed, before a single gesture restored at least the illusion of clothing. “You will leave me be from now on, you bloody-handed bastard, or I will stave this Bitch of yours in and go down along with her, gladly—this I so swear, by every star above and demon below! Do you hear me, Captain?”
His pale face bright-flushed as it’d been during his first fever, lips near shaking, clerk’s hands clawed like some fee-cheated Tortuga whore’s. And how Rusk found himself driven to outright laughter at the sight, guffaws ringing both long and loud, hilariously unimpressed—which again, in retrospect, might well have been a certain grade of error, on his part.
“As ye say,” he replied, finally. “Or perhaps I’ll just wait ‘til you’re next in need of a good, long swive and see what happens then, shall I? When ye shut your eyes and lay back, waitin’ for me t’overbear ye—play devil t’your saint and give ye what ye really want, in a way that deeds me the lion’s share of guilt whilst you stay safely clean, my sweet Jerusha, at any cost; all high and mighty, with your vicar’s ways and your Hell-born powers. What a life it is ye’ve made for yourself, man . . . so sadly complicated, wi’ mine th’exact opposite! Yet if that’s what ye require, I s’pose, ‘tis the very least I can do . . . ”
Too much, too far; no time left for any sort of apology to mend the rift he’d just ripped wide with words between ‘em, even had Rusk thought to make one. In the sudden silence, Parry simply widened those eyes at him and vanished, winked out, so fast Rusk thought it unlikely he’d meant to, beforehand.
Snorting at these dramatics, therefore, Rusk turned over into their shared warmth and drifted back asleep again, all blissfully unknowing of events to come, which he himself had already set in motion.
***
Things did not play themselves out immediately, in terms of Parry’s retribution for what he considered Rusk’s many insults—but then again, they almost never do. In Rusk’s sleep, the Bitch whispered warnings to its master that he did not care to hear and thus did not remember upon waking; told him how he was trapped and where best to twist if he truly wished his freedom, only to find itself ignored. After which, having done all it could, it creaked a sad song to itself as it cut the water, knowing him fore-doomed.
Far behind, Tante Ankolee felt the Bitch’s mournings nudge at the corner of her own dreams and stole a quick look through Rusk’s witched eye, shaking her head at what she glimpsed there: Jerusalem Parry, back always kept carefully turned to the man who still thought them lovers, his neat mind deep-engaged in plotting out the arcane mechanics of his revenge.
Hearing Rusk’s voice in her own mind, bluff and hearty, so completely self-deluded: He’ll forgive me soon enough, once he finds there’s no other way. ‘Tis a certainty.
And thinking, sadly, in her turn: But here’s ya worst mistake, little half-me-blood, for that man wasn’t never no true Christian, ta begin wi’. What he knows best he learnt nah from the books he study, Good or no, but at his own witch-dam’s knee, her he saw swung in the wind for wantin’ freedom ‘bove all from the same fat squire got ‘im on her, in the first place. Him in he fancy coat, who sign her death warrant whilst drunk then don’t even stay ta see her neck snap.
And would I help ya, I only could? For you yourself, brother mine—aye, mayhap. But then I think of my maman, an’ yours. Of the man made us both, but let you run free soon’s ya told him that was ya will, an’ kept me chain at the neck to raise him other bastards, ‘til at last I make enough ta pay him for me freedom . . .
Between Rusk’s narrowed lids, Tante Ankolee caught sight of Parry looking back over his shoulder, studying the small reflection that moved there with care. Felt Rusk notice and smile, all teeth, as though he truly believed such attentions meant for him—and he did, of course. Of course. Since Solomon Rusk, like every other man of his line, had lived his life thus far in a world where all things bent to his desires, eventually.
Parry too, though—yes, even now, when he thought he’d been taught better. Which was, she supposed, just the sad damn pity of it.
Whites like hissin’ roaches, spreadin’ out all ‘cross this world wi’ no regard for any dream but they own, an’ always thinkin’ they know best. Yet there be surprises ahead for both ya stubborn fools, in this bed ya make together.
No help for it, on her end; those watery miles between would prevent any useful intervention even if she didn’t have other business, which she very much did. So she sighed and withdrew, leaving them to it.
***
Some days on—a period which had seen Jerusalem Parry shun Rusk’s company almost entirely, except where simple lack of space made that option an impossibility—Rusk noticed a new recruit, close-wrapped in layers of rags, whose looks disturbed him on some level far beyond mere instinct: squat but hunched, his eight grey-skinned fingers webbed and nailless, pallid skin visibly touched with chill. He did his work clumsily, forever turning a too-thick neck to train first one wide-spaced, lidless-seeming flat black eye on the task to hand, then the other; even what little of the currently sinking sun was left appeared to pain him, making him bare a double-jawful of serrated teeth in an aggressive sort of wince, as though he wanted to take a bite out of it and bring on a far more comfortable flood of dark.
“That man suits me ill,” Rusk told the bo’sun. “Who is he?”
With a grimace of his own, equal-uncomfortable: “Mister . . . Dolomance, Master Parry says ‘is name is, Cap’n.”
“And is Master Parry engaging hands, now? We will have words, he and I, once he sees fit t’re-evince himself. Where’s this troll of his hail from, exactly?”
“Over the side, Cap’n.”
Now it was Rusk’s turn to frown. “Off another ship, ye mean? That last prize? What was the name—”