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[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes
The bread that is over-baked so that it cracks and bursts asunder hath not the form desired by the baker; yet none the less it hath a beauty of its own, and is most tempting to the palate. Figs bursting in their ripeness, olives near even unto decay, have yet in their broken ripeness a distinctive beauty.
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He finishes the dregs of the thin soup and uses his thumb to wipe out whatever clings to the side of the tin cup, licking it clean without a second thought.
"--And what about your companions? Shouldn't I bring them something?" the Frenchman in conversation with Richard and Frances is asking, filling his own cup again from the pot over the fire. "No spoon, I'm afraid."
"No, no please," Frances insists. Her tone is even, but something in the line of the girl's shoulder must bristle because without comprehension James's attention has shifted to her as she reaches to take the cup from the man's callous blackened hands. "Let me take it. Her condition is delicate."
The hunter surrenders his cup without so much as a moment of protest and he says something that must be kind as all of Frances' bristled hackles seem to smooth themselves. The involuntary rigid quality of James beside Thomas, so instinctive that a moment ago it might have gone unnoticed, eases.
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Anything further is aborted in favor of paying attention to Frances and the hunter; Thomas doesn't turn to something ready like James does, but watches, and passes a hand over her shoulder as she walks with the borrowed cup back to their ramshackle excuse for a tent with a warm look. She was right to dissuade him-- even if this man, even if any of them, genuinely mean no harm, strange men appearing suddenly in proximity of - well, Bettina, at least - would set them on a quick path to chaos.
"Does he have her hair when it's grown out?" asks the man as he steps closer to them instead, gesturing. He has surprisingly kind eyes (or maybe it's Thomas who should be reprimanded for finding that surprising), and there's a pause before Thomas answers, taking a moment to keep from expelling an overly-fond laugh. Oh.
"Yes," and then, to James: "She gets her hair from you."
Apparently.
He goes on for a bit, about absent family, and Thomas wonders a little at what he isn't saying - everyone has their own tragedy, in this and any world. But he shifts, "How do you think he's doing? Victor?"
"Ah.." Mm. "The fever must break, I think. Otherwise whatever ails him is an injury inside. You could try bleeding, but he's so weak."
The hunter makes a thoughtful, though slightly negative, sound. "Smell might pull fuck knows what. Spirits and bears alike. You ever run from a bear through the mud?"
"I have not."
The look on Thomas's face makes him laugh.
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(But optimism aside, he can think of literally no legitimate reason for them to be out in the wood in this state. Maybe they aren't escaped slaves, but they must be something unwelcome by the road.)
The rest of the exchange passes in a series of incomprehension, punctuated by the connecting words he knows and selections from a limited vocabulary - how is he and fuck, mostly. He nearly reaches to touch Thomas's elbow side to draw his attention, then thinks better of it.
"Ask if there's something else we can help with. Anything they need done."
Richard has moved to refill his borrowed cup from the pot, pointing toward the crooked sail cloth tent to indicate the rest of their party while wearing a clear question on his face. One of the Frenchmen, the man Thomas had first brokered with, waves his assent. Richard fills the cup then slips away from the fire.
"--And if they'll trade," James adds. "A gun for food or the sail cloth or anything like it." They have more than enough of the former, even if it means doing away with one of rifles.
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Thomas relays this and there's minimal back and forth, the man offering a shrug that isn't a denial but not expressing any immediate interest, either. He calls over his shoulder at their ringleader, who is similarly very medium about the idea, but that could mean a lack of concern for their scraps being carried away as much as anything else.
"It's a maybe," he says to James. "I don't think they're hurting for anything besides a miracle for their man and drier weather."
The third man sitting on the ground says something that makes Thomas's spine go tense, and the man they're speaking to give an exasperated denial before Thomas's, "No, that's out of the question." His voice is quiet with effort to not sound-- something. But it's uncompromising. The man by the fire shrugs, and the party boss's indifference holds, offering no real reaction.
"He didn't mean anything by it, there'll be no trouble," the friendly hunter says, placating in a gruff way.
Thomas just nods. Behind them Richard is returning the tin cups, and Thomas decides that's cue enough to go back to their shelter-- waiting a few paces out to speak to James, hopefully without being overheard in either direction.
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"We should be on our way as quickly as possible," he says the very moment it seems they're outside of earshot. "Before the potential for this balance to shift realizes itself." If it were just the women or just that they are escaped slaves or just the dying man, it might be a tenable situation in which to rest for a duration until circumstance drew them in different directions. But the combination draws a line impossible to walk.
Better to not attempt it.
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That one man is friendly and another is prioritizing their presence as access to low level medical care is not enough to outweigh the danger. They knew from the first moment it was to be a tenuous thing, as all windfalls must be, as carefully negotiated as possible. From a practical standpoint one man being crude doesn't cancel out the help they so desperately needed, but from a personal one, Thomas hopes he gets eaten by one of those bears apparently lurking out in the trees.
Bettina with her vigilance, Sophie's whispered I don't like them (and Bedlam, he doesn't, won't think)-- the world is the world is the world, and they are out in it.
His hand twitches towards James, reroutes to his neck, some absent twinge.
By the time they've reached the seam of their little island, every tense edge in Thomas has smoothed out by sheer willpower, and somehow he does not immediately say I don't want any of you to wander alone, even a few meters. Though that's coming. Instead he crouches down and quietly checks in with all. It'll be dark soon, the day wasted in water, and everyone can use more rest.
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(They could chance the alternative. It would be safer for most of them to simply be done with this place. But James pretends not to think it even if the idea lingers at the edge of his thoughts: a ghost with no voice, but some kind of weapon in its coal black hand.)
When night falls and the light has whittled down to just the fire coals and the slash of moonlight casting strange twisting shadows onto the canvas over their hands, James doesn't lay beside Thomas though it's what he wants most in the world. He wants to set himself shoulder to shoulder with him. To be warm against him. To feel him breathing and to know that in the dark he could touch his skin or the back of his work worn hand and no one but them would need to be aware of it. Instead, James sits at the mouth of the tent and tells everyone that they're leaving come morning and then spends a significant part of the night studying the pitch blackness, tormented by the possibility of something dangerous in it.
"Why are you awake?" Sophie asks him once, having roused in the middle of the night from lying on the cold hard ground or from a nightmare. She is sluggish and dense from sleep. He tells her to go back to it and she does.
Bettina takes the watch after him, her pale hair glowing in the shadows and the rifle across her lap. Let this be sustainable, he thinks before sleeping. Let nothing have changed when he wakes up.
But it does.
In the morning, he wakes up because someone is speaking French. James squints against the light of morning, sweat at the back of his neck already. The weather has broken. "What did he say?" He asks without knowing who spoke in the first place.
Frances says something back to Victor, then-- "He said there's something for all of us to eat and to thank God. I think it must be Sunday."
It's not. But the man with the head injury is propped up near the fire, awake and talking (very, very slowly), so it might as well be.
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He's not sure if he sleeps the whole night through solidly - he thinks he was half-awake for a while, but when he comes up from unconsciousness the memory of it becomes elusive. James's profile, but it couldn't be overnight, could it? There was light and wind, and the smell of salt, or blood. It was peaceful, if they held still.
"Richard. Never far from you."
Thomas's voice is quiet, tranquil, but the look he gives him is pointed enough that the young man understands, hurrying up to play escort. Thomas is busy cleaning out Bes's wound, Bettina sitting between them and the opening to make sure no one can see her. She looks over her shoulder at James for a silent Good morning, her gaze keen. Eager to be on their way as much as he is, cognizant that this turn of events may delay them.
"It still hurts like hellfire," Bes is saying, breathing slow and deliberate, "but inside isn't so bad? I don't know how to describe it. Yesterday it was awful from my stomach to my toes, it's just this, now."
Thomas murmurs, "That's good." With his palm over clean bandages to hold them in place while Bettina ties it off, he looks to James, blue gaze communicating--
everything.
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"Don't say much. Or let Sophie talk on," James warns her as she ducks out of the canvas' shade. Charlotte throws him a sidelong glance - does he really think she's so stupid? - then makes after Richard and the younger girls to the fire. It's been stoked up again. One of the men is laughing and another is whistling as he stirs the pot. There is a comfortable hum of conversation there; it would be easy to be drawn into it.
James turns back into the lean to's interior. To the twitching flesh of Bes's bared leg and Thomas, his hands certain and trembling all at once. "Bettina, pass me those guns."
He spent the night taking mental stock of their inventory - every weapon, every bullet, every dry grain and wrinkled apple. But a real assessment can only be done by light, so he goes through it now: checking flints and wear, the tightness of triggers and how straight the sights are set. If there is any difference in them, he means to know what he's offering in trade.
(Frances still has her pistol on her. Good.)
"It seems," he says, examining the action of one of the rifles. "That you have nothing to worry about. It seems Thomas is quite the doctor." Said low, though there's some narrow trace of humor there - a slyness secreted at his edges though his hands are busy and his attention is otherwise occupied.
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"Well mine fucking isn't," Bes immediately interjects through gritted teeth, "so let them call you brilliant so we can get their shit and get out of-- Ow, Bettina!"
"Alright, alright, that's plenty, thank you both."
Bettina has one hand still hovering menacingly over Bes's good leg, ready to pinch her again if she gets too chatty (no matter that it's in English, apparently). Thomas just sighs, though there's no ill humor in it, because even if they're bickering, Bes is well enough to be doing it and that's more than he could have hoped for a day ago. He'll do whatever James thinks is best-- he's out of his depth with trading and negotiating alike.
Outside, there's easy-sounding chatter, and Thomas keeps half his attention there to catch snippets of words and the tone of the girls' voices. He'll get up once they get Bes back in a pair of trousers without a hole in and half her weight in dried blood. He gives brief consideration to the merit of digging up something to change into himself, but decides against it given the muddy state of the world. No point.
I used 'it seems' twice in basically the same line of dialogue and I want to be dead
Bettina produces it from her pocket, unfolding it out over Bes's good leg ("Do I look like a table to you?") where he might take a look. The land in which they're moving is, naturally, largely featureless. There's no guessing where this haunted plantation's land ends, but if he's guessing (relying on his extremely limited knowledge of how one might lay out land for farming and growing), he can select a place on the map that seems the most natural. Is it better, he wonders, to shoot past Savannah and then beat their way back into the town from a direction in which no one will be looking? Or do they cut down back to the road and simply trust how unspeakably brazen that would be?
Or both?
There's no ticking clock here - nothing by the murmur of conversation and the progress of dressing Bes's wound and putting it into a pair of clean trousers to mark the passage of time by. But he must feel it. Some animal uneasiness. There will come a point where they can't expect to keep their number together. Simply put, eight armed men and women is far more strange than one or two strangers traveling the road. Once they leave the Frenchmen's company, some decisions will have to be made.
Eventually, he nods to Bettina and she folds the map back up, stowing it away as Sophie makes her way back to their tent. She has a steaming cup in each hand and is careful about passing them inside. "Mr Masson is asking after you, Mister Thomas. And so is Mr Leroux. That's the one who was so sick."
i thought it was deliberate for ominous impact of some kind
(Shouldn't it be easy? He thinks of his father and the men he'd been pushed to associate himself with as a boy, pioneers of pack hunting for foxes and deer marksmanship; he thinks of James's attempts to teach him how to use a sword; would it have really been so unbearable for him to spend time at any it? Learn to load a pistol, read a map, hold himself defensively? Where might he be now? The same place, probably, but maybe he'd be something besides-- whatever he is. You can change a bandage, and recite poetry. How useful. Fucking vital.)
"Thank you, Sophie," he says. "I'll be right there."
It takes some particular maneuvering to exit without jostling Bes's leg, anyone else, or the cups, but he manages. Hand on James's knee for leverage (and yet, lightly). And then he's away, heading over to the fire and the men and girls gathered about it. To his absolute bafflement, the Frenchmen are indeed convinced his advice had a critical role to play in Leroux's recovery. "We'd never have thought to let him breathe more," and hands wringing nervously as Thomas crouches before him and looks at his eyes and touches the side of his head, as if he has any idea of what he's doing.
"Just make sure you look after him," Thomas says. "Have you ever struck your head and felt dizzy? He may feel like that for some time."
Leroux has some trouble speaking, but is ambulatory enough, and apparently cognizant. He communicates with Thomas quicker through holding up a hand for yes or no (shaking his head is right out).
nope just incompetence
Breakfast is the same as supper - maybe even the same batch left to cool overnight then stoked hot again this morning. He swallows down some of the thin soup as Thomas performs his examination, clinging as a shadow to Frances rather than to the other man. But James watches, eagle-eyed, as Leroux and Victor wind Thomas into some halting conversation that's as much gesture as French.
"Doctor, you said you'd like to trade." This from their defacto leader - Mr Masson, his dark eyes all heavy and temperament unchanged from the evening prior. "What things do you prefer before you go? Very sorry, but they paid only for one night."
i forgive u
When he registers the question (doctor? honestly), Thomas sits back and pushes himself to his feet, joints quiet but protesting internally. "No need for sorry, we're already packing. One moment." Still seated, Leroux follows Thomas with his eyes, and Victor looks somewhat pinched. Perhaps the subject of their hospitality was under debate somewhere out of their hearing; even more reason to be on their way. If the men who'd prefer to invite them to stick around are displeased, it means there's vocal opposition.
"James," is quieter. "What do we need and what are we offering?"
That they are more keen on trading today must be a luxury bought by Leroux's consciousness. That's fine.
thank
"We need food, something to carry water in, and the canvas and rope if they'll part with it. Gunpowder and shot wouldn't hurt either, but--" The former is more dire. If they find themselves in a position where they need more rounds than they have, where they need every weapon in their possession, then the situation might already be hopeless.
There are other things hypothetically on the table - manual labor of the acceptable kind, information about the territory they've crossed - but better to let the Frenchmen suggest it. It's possible neither is valuable to them and mentioning it seems too potentially vulnerable to bother leading with. Nevermind that Masson seems perfectly willing to be done with their company before some trouble finds this place. He'd rather not extend themselves without reason.
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The Frenchmen don't have much in the way of transportable food, but offer a modest hunk of raw deer meat wrapped tightly in a cleaned membrane of some kind, gut or intestine. A waterskin, the canvas and rope, and shot and powder from Leroux personally ("Give it over," he insists haltingly at Masson's less than enthusiastic reaction, "I bought it.") make up the rest of what they'll part with in trade for one of the pistols. The fine one from Oglethorpe's house, chosen for what Thomas suspects is its high resale value, and he's personally somewhat relieved to be rid of it. If guns of that make are recognizable or not, he doesn't know, but better it be here than with them if they are.
Business sorted, Thomas crouches down again in front of Leroux to thank him and talk a little more about the practicalities of looking after himself-- "You're not guaranteed anything just because you got up, you have to be mindful or you'll squander your body's hard work to get this far" --and then it's joining the others to finish packing up.
"You don't think they'll follow us, do you?" Sophie is asking, so very quiet.
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It's a reasonable thing to do. Clearly the eight of them are trouble of some kind, but is the risk worth whatever might be earned from it? Particularly when profiting off them would require the confirmation of an unknowable rumor and a long trek back toward civilization. Or maybe they are simply a kind of decent - sure that there is something wrong, trusting that a group made up largely of white women in the middle of the woods must somehow be victimized, and respectable enough not to press too hard at taking advantage of the obvious.
He's suspects the former - that their company is simply too more trouble than Masson perceives them to be worth. That's fine. They're leaving and so the motivations of the Frenchmen make absolutely no difference.
It takes considerably less time to break down the canvas in clear weather than it did to set up during the storm. Strange - how the folding and packing away of that flimsy shelter makes them seem so suddenly vulnerable there at the edge of the camp. Once again, they're untethered: trespassers. Bettina seems sharp and brittle in the open air, her pale hair tangled and her face very pale. She's staring, too secretly wild to be mistaken for anything but ready to be gone- gone-- gone---
James helps Richard haul Bes upright, checks the pistol at his waist, then hauls one of the packs up onto his shoulder. "Ready?" He should be asking the woman with the bullet hole in her leg, but he's looking at Thomas.
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Are their adolescent patron saints are still out there, watching, he wonders.
For so long, Thomas had found himself incapable of imagining what the woods outside the plantation might be like - his world for years had been walls with no windows, peeling hospital plaster and cold stone, and it stole something intangible from him. When he found himself able to, bit by bit, memories of the countryside and visualizations of fairytales found him, timid daydreams of alien forests and shorelines. In his mind it was always beautiful, peaceful, but empty. That thing stolen away, leaving him isolated even in imagination.
The reality of it is terrific - causing terror, great intensity, extremely good, all of it - so alive. From worms and birds to the deer that past them, whole communities and cultures of native peoples wisely keeping their distance, imperial cast-offs wandering to define their own lives. It's beautiful enough to make him feel choked with an emotion he can't name if he thinks about it pointedly, and also-- so frightening, and he doesn't know why. Feelings he hasn't ever experienced before, can't qualify.
But he is feeling.
"Ready."