Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots by Raised by Wolves 02 Read Free Book Online Page B

sail with us?”
    “I have broached the matter with Belfry. He is reluctant to agree to my going until he knows if his bride will arrive this winter. Of course he cannot stop me. Yet, I did decide to be his partner for the endeavor, and I feel I should not abandon him. Also, he has atrocious taste in clothing, and I feel without me the enterprise may be doomed.”
    I was bemused. “Dickey, you are at quite the crossroads.”
    He nodded soberly. “That also weighs heavily upon my decision as to whether to tell the Bard or not. If I tell him, and he does not reject me, then it will change everything.”
    “Aye.”
    “He treats me like a man, Will.” Dickey chuckled ruefully. “And here I am prattling on like some maid. It is ironic, is it not?”
    I considered our words from several perspectives. “Do you feel that baring your soul to him on this matter is required in order for you to sail with us as his apprentice?”
    “Nay.”
    “So there are two decisions facing you, not one.”
    He nodded. “Yet,” he sighed. “I do not know if I can sail with him without telling him. What if he found another?”
    I sighed. In order to fully grasp the situation, I needed to either speak with the Bard, or observe them together for a time. Conversely, I did not wish to meddle. I looked about. The Bard sat in the shadows across the fire, speaking with Striker and Pete. I did not see how I could speak with him without it being meddling.
    “So, on the matter of your heart, you fear rejection,” I said. “Have you been drunk with him?”
    “Aye.”
    “To the degree where you have to hang all over one another to return home?”
    “Once.” He grinned. “I do not remember much of it, though.”
    “All right, I would suggest drinking with him again, just the two of you, in a tavern. You pretend to be far more intoxicated than you are.
    As you stagger home, you initiate some form of contact, and see how he responds. If he rebuffs you, your dignity is intact: you can claim you were drunk. It is a time-tested tactic.”
    “What the Devil do I do if he responds?” he asked with alarm.
    “Well, here is the true test of your commitment to the matter. Do you wish to have that problem? Once you have answered that question, find a way, drunk or sober, to ask the other.”
    He was silent for a time as we watched the fire.
    “How did you know, with Gaston?” he asked.
    “Oh Lord,” I sighed, as I recalled our first meeting yet again. “I was smitten with him the moment I saw him, and he with me apparently. It took months to get the matter truly sorted out. We were named matelots by those around us well in advance of our actually becoming matelots, if you take my meaning.”
    “Ah.”
    “He does not favor men any more than you do,” I said.
    “Oh, and yet.”
    I shied from the truth. “He loves me.”
    “Of course,” Dickey said as if I had scolded him.
    “Nay, I did not mean it to sound so. Love brings greater pleasure than the flesh alone. He finds pleasure in pleasing me and in being pleased by me, even though a man would not be his choice if it were not I. Do you understand?”
    Dickey smiled and nodded. “The flesh is easy to please, is it not?”
    I seized on it. “Aye, it is.”
    “So my flesh should truly have no issue with the matter.”
    I found myself grimacing. “Aye and nay. Your manhood has its own mind at times, does it not?”
    “Aye,” he sighed.
    “Well, if it does not favor men in the least, it may not rush to follow your heart at first. It might require some coaxing.”
    “Ah. Well, I feel it would be happy about the matter if it were the one… active, in the… endeavor.” He was flushing again. “I do not know how either of us will react in regards the other. I am very…sensitive…
    there…”
    I saw his concern, and instinct told me he was running from the wrong boar.
    I smiled. “Dickey, has it occurred to you, that quite possibly the Bard would prefer you do the bestowing? I do not