Chapter Three

"Donae touch it!" I spat as I tried to wave off the young woman's hand. However, she swiftly gelded me across the back of my head, and I seethed once again with a new onset of pain. "I swear womon... you're gonna kill meh afore I-" Although I knew she had not done so out of cruelty, the light touch of her fingertips trailing across the various cuts across my back caused my entire body to burn, and as a matter of pride, I fought hard to keep myself from crying out.

"Had you told me of this earlier, then you wounds wouldnae have festered like this," she scolded me with a mocking laugh before becoming quiet once again. "You may respect my brother, but if he should ever strike me in such a way, I would not tolerate such cruelty without complaint."

"Aye, but he ne'er raise a hand against the likes of you, Miss," I reminded her with a weak chuckle. The young woman was frowning no doubt, but she said little while she continued to tend to the marks that cut deep into my flesh. Even though the pain had been nothing but a dull throb for the most part, her gentle touch seemed to reawaken all the suffering I'd gone through more than a week ago. She wasn't the one to blame for any of it, of course, and yet it was obvious to me that she still felt guilty for everything that had happened to me since then. "Sides, yer brother wasnae the one holdin' the whip."

"Perhaps it was Mr. Miller then?" she mused quietly as she dabbed at my back with a damp rag. Against my will, I winced every time the cloth touched me, but she didn't seem to notice for which I was grateful. I offered her a stiff nod. "How you men go about doing this to one another just because it is under the orders of your superiors... I will never know," she sighed. "Would it not be better to refuse if the action is unjust?"

"Not if it doesnae keep yeh alive," I muttered under my breath. Even when it it means becoming more a dog than a man... I had no chance of dwelling on the thought further before I seethed in pain once again. "If yeh'll pardon my speech, Miss, what the hell are yeh usin' on those cuts?"

"You have to clean them out, or you will be dead soon enough from the infection, I can assure you," she shot back, narrowing her ruby-red eyes at me. However, when I glanced back and caught sight of the amber liquid that rested in the bottle in her hand, my blood boiled to see it. After all, there was no reason to be abuse something as rare as that.

"Are yeh daft, womon?" I snarled, shooting a glare right back at her. "Whiskey's fer drinkin', not healin'." As I went to snatch it away from her, she pulled it further from my reach, and then she smarted me right across the face. She just happened to be wearing her rings as she did so, and I was sure she had caught me with one of them although I made no complaint.

"Gray, though I will admit to being quite fond of you, I cannot tolerate being spoken to it such a blatantly disrespectful manner," she huffed as I brought my hand up to my left cheek. The woman had even managed to draw blood, it seemed, which actually caused me to smile ever so slightly. "And you shall not have so much as a sip until I've cleaned off your wounds," she nodded, dampening her rag again. "Elli assured me that it should stay the infection if not reverse it entirely, so at the very least, you should be grateful to me for going through the trouble of learning the art of medicine for your sake."

"Better to drink myself dumb than suffer through any of this shit if yeh be askin' meh," I grumbled, slumping over once again. I knew she was probably driving daggers into the back of my head at that moment, but I didn't mind her any. Miss Hurst wasn't one to concern yourself with when she happened to be in an ill temper, and so I could only 'stay my tongue-' as she and her brother seemed to be so damn fond of saying- lest she dole out another punishment by her own hand once more.

"If you ask me, you are certainly dumb enough already without any drink," she laughed, "but I suppose you can have a drop once I've finished with you."

"Heh, thank you kindly for that, Miss," I thanked her, rolling my eyes as a rare smile made its way across my face. Never would I have imagined I'd do that again after I became the property of the British Navy- and a disposable one at that, but... well... the young woman had the unusual ability to turn even a surly sailor such as myself into something of a gentleman, I guess.

Of course maybe that may have a result of me not having seen the sea is so unmercifully long as well...

"Now, tut tut, Gray... there's no reason to look so downtrodden all of a sudden, and please call me Popuri," she insisted. "Not 'Miss' or 'Lady...' just Popuri."

You'd think she'd learn after all this time spent trying to convince me to call her simply by her name only to be met with failure each and every time, but it seemed that the poor girl was still set on having us speak on even terms with one another. Even so, she had completely overlooked the fact that if anyone happened to overhear us speaking to one another in such a friendly manner, I might receive more than just another lashing knowing these god damn pricks that strutted about here like kings.

All the same, I'd surely be hung should anyone walk in on us with her tending to me in my current state, for knowing that brother of hers, he'd argue I'd stolen whatever innocence he thought a woman should have in this society. God only knows the woman shouldn't be allowed to see a damn man shirtless before marriage...

"There we are," she said at last after she finished bandaging me up. "And as I promised, here's the rest of that foul liquid you call a drink." She wrinkled her nose in disgust to see it, but she still tossed the bottle into my lap all the same. "Goodness knows you should not have it being as I know how well you take to it, but I suppose I owe it to you for all the trouble I've caused you in recent days."

"What? Fer this?" I asked as I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder. "Ainae nothin' to be worrin' about," I assured her. I'd certainly had worse in my short lifetime, and I knew she'd seen as much while tending to me that day and the ones that came before. However, neither of us was willing to talk about those uglier days at the moment. "Just leave it be and I'll be fine soon enough," I continued with a shy smile. "It'll take more than hour's floggin' to break this surly sort, I can promise you that."

"Dear God..." she gasped, resting her fingers on her cheek as her mouth dropped open with horror. "How many lashes can be given in an hour?" I almost chuckled since I'd been thinking the same thing as they were doling out my punishment, but I didn't want to trouble her further by doing so. "Surely that is beyond cruel by any man's standards."

"Let it lay, Popuri," I sighed, popping off the cork of the bottle in my hands. Although I offered it to her first, I wasn't surprised to see her wave it away, and with that, I considered me free to enjoy the rest of the contents all by my lonesome.

"I suppose I shall be retiring to bed then," she dismissed herself, standing to leave me behind in the small study which lay adjacent to her own bedroom. However, when I took a gentle hold of her hand, she stopped mid-step, and I caught the softness that settled in her ruby eyes as she gazed down at me. Had I been more suited to it, I might've told her how lovely they were to my own eyes or some other nonsense, but thankfully, for her sake, I was not such a man.

"What seems to be troubling you, Gray?" she asked quietly. "You have been acting most peculiar if I may say so, and should you wish to speak with me about the matter, I would be more than willing to lend my ear."

"I only wanted to thank you for what'cha done today..." I replied. "Yeh know yeh didnae have to go through all the trouble fer a man like myself."

"Gray... it was no trouble at all," she assured me as she squeezed my hand back and bent down to kiss me on the forehead. "As I have said countless times before, you are too good of a man to have to suffer at anyone's hand."

"An' yet... I'm always the one to have it done," I sighed. Glancing up at the young woman, I found her eyes had become glazed over with hurt, but even though I offered her a reassuring smile, I still couldn't hide the animosity that seeped into my voice. "Ainae that right, Miss?"

And with that, I finally stood and grabbed my shirt which she'd laid out for me on the nearby chair. However, I still hesitated a little to leave the room since I knew full well that I had just gone and made an ass of myself. That was only made clearer by the way she bowed her head when I glanced back at her as if I was the first person to lecture her. "Lissen..." I began with another heavy, apologetic sigh. "I didnae mean to-"

"No, that is quite alright, Mr. Cameron," she said quietly. "I completely understand what is you were trying to say." When she gave me that reluctant smile of hers, though, I knew I'd really stuck my damn foot in my mouth this time. After all...

That was the very same smile she always gave her brother.

--

"Dat womon cares too damn much..." I muttered to myself as I hunkered down into my own bunk for the night. It wasn't like I meant to offend her any, of course but what I'd gone and said was the damn truth. I was only a dog to be kicked around by those pompous bastards with their powdered wigs and stern faces, and although she probably meant well enough, knowing her, I still felt like Popuri was just too confident in things such as equality. Especially in this day and age.

Men were never equal... Not in Europe and certainly not in this 'New World' of theirs, either. Even knowing that I had never once been a respectable man even before my capture, I still felt as if I were growing dumber with every passing day spent in this manor house, and the dumber I got, the less I seemed to recall who I had once been.

Soon I ainae gonna know nothin' from nothin' an' then whut?

"You've been drinking again, haven't you, Gray?" Upon hearing the soft sigh from across the room, I glared at the man who'd spoken to me, and as always I found the pair sitting there playing a game of chess the same as every other night I'd spent there. One of the men, whose chestnut brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, was willing to glance my way in recognition, but the other only shrank into himself just a little bit more under my cold gaze. "You only talk to yourself when you're drunk, after all," the first reminded me with a pitying smile as if he could possibly understand.

"Git off it, Cliff," I snarled as I lay back on my cot. "Ainae nothin' wrong wit a man havin' a lil' somethin' to drink now an' again. Not all of us are tryin' so damn 'ard to be saints, yeh know..." Then I turned my attention to his meek, red-haired companion just as he went to make his move and asked, "Ainae that right, Elie?"

The young man didn't say a word when I spoke to him, but he still hesitated long enough that he seemed to forget where he was planning to put his piece. I watched while he set it back down to where it was from the start, and he chose a different one and moved it to an open square just ahead of it. However, after he'd placed it on the board, his face paled more than usual, and I knew he'd made a mistake. Not that that wasn't anything new, of course.

"Checkmate," his companion deadpanned, moving his own piece straight across the board to meet with the other's king. "You almost had me that time, Elliot," he assured the other with a chuckle, "so don't take it too much to heart."

While he sounded gentle enough, I knew full well Cliff was glaring at me for addressing his friend as I had, but I only turned my back to him. As if unsatisfied with my silence, there was soon a sharp tap on my shoulder, and I groaned to find he was hovering over me with that disapproving look of his etched on his face. "Gray, you know he doesn't go by that name anymore..."

"An' why's that?" I demanded as I turned to face the wall again. I didn't even wait for an answer before I went on. "Cause he let 'em take it from 'im, that's why."

As if seeing your own ship be lost to them wasn't enough to cause you grief, these men took everything they could from you. Your name, your history... your pride. "Had he been a real man, he'd a fought to keep his name like I did."

"But look at you now," Cliff reminded me, his usually quiet voice picking up volume and speed. "Forgive me for saying so, but I'd wager that that stubbornness of your is what gets you in trouble over half the time around here. You may talk a good game, Gray, but you're in the same boat as me and Elliot here if you'll pardon the expression."

"And how's that?" I challenged half-heartedly with a yawn. "Last time I checked, youse was an Englishman, he was a Frenchmen, an' I's was a Scotsmen."

"That has nothing to do with it," he argued with another sigh. "I may be English, but as I'm a worthless debtor, I can promise you they treat me no matter than either of you." Well, I highly doubted that since I was damn sure they would never think to whip their own kin. Just by looking at him I could tell that much. Probably for the best, too, being that he never would've lasted through the punishments with a will as weak as his. "As I was saying, though... we all chose this life over prison or worse, and so not one of us can really have much to say against the other, now can we?"

With that he stood right again, and I figured that'd be the last of it, but it seemed he wasn't quite finished with his preaching. It was rather unfortunate, too, since he could've saved himself from trouble just by keeping his trap shut.

"And for another matter, you can't say you haven't had more than one opportunity to be rid of them unlike ourselves." When I glared at him over my shoulder, he wilted some at first, but soon enough he started up again. "I might not know it as well as you do," he continued, "yet I'd surely be lying if I said I didn't have my suspicions that your loyalty to this navy lays solely with Miss Hurst."

I gave him no warning before I gripped the man about his throat and picked him clear off the floor. "Now see 'ere, Cliff," I snarled, leveling his eyes with mine. "I like yeh well enough, but yeh best be keepin' yer 'suspicions' to yerself if yeh be hopin' to live long," I warned through gritted teeth. "Cause if yer not smart 'nough to button that lip of yers, I'll be knockin' a few of yer teeth loose to make it harder fer yeh to keep flappin' yer gums like yeh know every damn thin'."

"Gray," he chocked out, clearly unable to hear me correctly, "you have to admit it's rather clear you seem to fancy her a little more than you rightly should... given the circumstances, of course."

"I tol' yeh not to go spoutin' off none of that shit!" I snapped again just as Elie tried to come his friend's aide. However, all it took was a glare from me to keep him in place. "I'll admit that she cares greatly for meh," I admitted, "but I'll be damned if she e'er loved meh or I 'er."

After saying my bit, I threw the man back down onto the floor, and I muttered under my breath. She's too fine of a woman for the likes of me anyway...

"Didn't mean to you hurt you any..." the man explained while his companion helped to righten him again. "I really ought to have let it alone, I suppose."

"That yeh ought've," I agreed gruffly as I shuffled back to my bunk. Though I knew he meant no harm by saying any of it, I still couldn't risk the chance of word ever getting out concerning my relationship, real or imagined, with the young miss. Even without proof of any wrong doing on my part, I wouldn't doubt the likes of the Admiral and his officers would find me guilty by some stretch of the law, and I'd be damned should they hang me for taking a liking to a woman. As if I had a choice in the matter to begin with.

"Monsi... Mister Gray, please don't take mind to me asking," Elie murmured, "but... is it true that the man known as 'the Women's Keeper' was to blame for Miss Hurst's unfortunate incident?" I glanced up at him, my brow furrowed in annoyance to be bothered with such a thing, but although he bowed his head in shame, it was clear he was just as stubborn about getting me to talk as his friend. Well, as much as a coward like him could anyway...

"Yeah but what's it to you?" I grumbled, leaning back and resting against the wall with my arms crossed over my broad chest. "Yeh know 'im personally?"

"Fortunately not," he assured me as he shook his head. "I only ask because I heard rumor that my sister may be among his crew," he explained.

I raised an eyebrow doubtfully at that, for I'd never heard of a captain who'd take a woman aboard his ship, let alone take them for his fellows. After all, as a seaman myself, I knew full well that a woman on board was only asking for misfortune upon the dark, uncharted waters of the ocean. However, the graveness of his sombre expression gave some credit to his tale, and I found I couldn't doubt the young man's words despite my own superstitions about how things should be done.

"So yer wonderin' if I caught sight of 'er?" I asked to which he replied with a nod. "'Fraid I canae say I did..." Elie only sighed then, and with a quiet word of thanks, he began to set up the chess pieces once again for another game. Cliff, on the other hand, continued to stand in the middle of the room as though he was still dwelling on some matter or other, and at last he decided to let us in on his thoughts, unwanted or not.

"Was he the gentleman in the light coloured waistcoat by chance?" he asked, his brown eyes flickering over towards me. It took me a moment to think back on the evening since I hadn't caught more than a glimpse of the rogue, but after a time, I agreed that I was certain he'd worn such a coat. "Well, if I remember rightly, he had a blonde woman with him. Wearing a lovely blue gown if memory serves..."

"That wouldnae been 'is sister," I scoffed. "He's told us 'imself she's the spit of 'im."

"Aye..." he agreed. "But I was only thinking that maybe that woman served some other purpose than mere decoration, for I highly doubt a man such as he would only have the desire to deliver a message to the Admiral... After all, the only thing he could hope to gain from it was the man's humiliation."

"Maybe that's all he was after?" I offered with a weary shrug. Hell... if I had the chance to make a fool of the likes of Hurst, I knew I'd take it without a single thought otherwise.

Even so, Cliff wasn't the sort to let such things alone which I was sure would be the end of him one day, or at the very least, it would keep him in servitude till the very end of his time in this here world. Of course, being that he was such a religious man, unlike myself, he probably thought nothing of the possible death that loomed just overhead for the three of us just by speaking, for he had a friend in God who, it seemed, would bail him out of anything.

"I wish I didn't doubt that so highly," he replied, finally sitting down for another game with his friend. "He isn't known to be a cunning man for no reason, you know. They say he even outsmarted his own countrymen by claiming to accept a pardon from their king before taking her gunship as his own with nothing but a skiff," he told us in a low whisper. "All with only three men aboard his craft, or so I hear anyway."

"Cliff..." i sighed heavily, closing my eyes. "Just leave it alone already... There ainae no reasonin' wit the lot of 'em." I took a moment to yawn, and while I almost lost my train of thought doing so, my mind was too far gone to keep from talking. "Even the best of men can go astray if you offer 'em fortune, and once yeh git the lust for riches, sense isnae worth a damn to yeh anymore..."

"Do you know this for yourself?" he pressed, glancing over towards me out of the corner of her eye as he made his first move. However, I didn't offer him an answer in return, preferring to act as though I'd finally fallen asleep. There were just some things that a man the right to keep to himself, and my past was one of them. Surprisingly, though, he didn't push the issue any further on that night or any other, but the question still hung in the air as the two continued on with their game. As I let myself drift into a deep sleep, I could only hope the matter would be forgotten entirely by the morrow.

--

Author's Note: - During the 18th century, both the French and British navies were well known for forcibly inducting sailors of their enemy ships into their own crews, especially if those ships belonged to one another.

- England just so happened to be in a conflict with Scotland (as well as many other countries) at the same time.

- Most pirates were actually Englishmen hired by the crown to capture and raid Spanish merchant vessels. This was done not only in the hopes of expanding the British Empire and its wealth but also weakening the only country that stood in its way of becoming arguably the world's greatest naval power.