The simple use of a long-forgotten Indian word for "hut" seemed to please the midshipman no end, for he beamed wider, expectantly, as if starved for information long denied him.
"Of the White Turtle Clan, I recall," Lewrie further reminisced. "Or was it the Wind Clan, on his mother's side? Muskogee royally, as it were, in any event. He stood high in their councils, with their… uhm, mikkos and their… talwas! Their ministers and chiefs, as grand as a peer in the House of Lords," Lewrie told him, the terms springing to the forefront of his memory after all those years. "At his urging I ended up anhissi, myself, toward the end…"
"Made 'of their fire,' " young McGilliveray exclaimed with growing excitement, "to my grandmother's huti. A grand honour, is it not, uncle? Captain, sorry." Young Desmond reddened.
"It was, indeed, Mister McGilliveray," his uncle gravely said.
"And… and were you there, then, Captain Lewrie?" Midshipman McGilliveray hesitantly pressed, his curiosity getting the better of him, and to the great astonishment of Midshipman Grace seated beside him, who had never heard the like back in staid old England. "Then you must have met my mother. They were married, grandfather Robbie always told me, on that trip. You must have seen her!"
"Ah…?" Lewrie hedged, trying not to gawp. The boy's father, he sourly recalled, had been the hugest sort of prig, and he doubted that Cambridge had had a thing to do with it. Desmond McGilliveray, as he knew him, had ranted like a Baptist hedge-priest against fornication 'twixt the English and the Indians, forever lecturing and scolding the live-long day regarding "sensible" Muskogee customs and how stupid and "heathenish" Whites, and Lewrie in particular, were! Frankly, Lewrie had come to quite heartily despise him! Don't even look at an Indian woman, especially when she was in her "courses"; don't even piss in a stream above them! Lewrie couldn't recall Desmond McGilliveray even smiling at one of them. He'd taken no wife, as long as Lewrie had been ashore and inland with him. Perhaps after they'd sailed off, that frail little dandy-prat from the Foreign Office dead and all their plans gone for nought, even after thinking they had a settled agreement that the Muskogee would back England in the war.
Only one marriage I recall, and that was mine… at the point of the knife/ Lewrie thought, working his mouth in silent, resentful, reverie; 'Twos Desmond made me do it, and thought it hilarious.1
"My mother was a visiting Cherokee princess," young McGilliveray stated with a stubborn, piss-me-in-the-eye pride, as if daring anyone to demean his antecedents; probably from long practice. "Her name in Cherokee meant Soft Rabbit, Grandfather Robbie said my father was dumbstruck in his tracks by her, from the very first, and…"
Soft Rabbit, God-DAMN! Lewrie quietly screeched, almost knocking his wineglass over; He ain't that stiff-neck's boy… he's MINE! SHIT!
His mouth dropped open of its own volition; his eyes blared as wide as a new-saddled colt's, as he took note of the lad's eyes. Grey-blue eyes, just like his own. And what had his father Sir Hugo smirked after calling upon Theoni Connor and her new-born bastard, right after the Nore Mutiny? "He's got your eyes, Alan, me son," the old rake-hell had cooed; followed by a gleeful cackle!
His eyes. Soft Rabbit's glossy and thick, raven-black hair; but with a fairer Englishman's complexion that he'd never have gotten from a union 'twixt Soft Rabbit and a half-blood, even were McGilliveray as fair as a Finn! A leaner face, not rounded; a fine nose, not hawkish.
"I knew her," Lewrie confessed. "Met her," he quickly amended.
Damme, didn 't I just! he frantically thought, recalling all the sweet, stolen hours when they went at it like fevered stoats, like… newly-Weds! And the only reason he and Soft Rabbit had been made to "leap the sword" was because she was war booty, a slave taken by a Muskogee war party up near the Tanasi River, far to the north. A girl slave of the haughty Wind Clan couldn 't birth a bastard, and holding a rantipoling "outsider" responsible was amusing to them! The poor deluded lad, Lewrie thought.
"What was she like, sir? " young Midshipman McGilliveray begged
"Oh, wondrous handsome!" Lewrie truthfully said. "Pretty as a picture. Not so very tall, d'ye know, but as slim and graceful as any doe deer. Sorry, but they didn't wed whilst I was at their town. And I never conversed with her. Gad, imagine lettin' an outsider, English sailor such as me, in such exalted company, what?
"Point of fact, the last time I saw your father was when he and his warriors escorted us back to our boats, then downriver to the sea. The Spanish had gotten wind of our presence, and they and the Apalachee attacked us before we started unloading the trade goods and arms we'd promised. It was neck-or-nothing there, for a bit, 'til your father rallied his warriors and ran them off. All I was left to show for it was a bayonet in the thigh, and a tale t'tell. Early spring of '83, it was."
"And he called you imathla lubotskulgi" Captain McGilliveray contributed of a sudden, drawing Lewrie's attention to the top of the table. "In Creek, that's 'little warrior.' Desmond told me that," he declared, seeming to gawp in wonder over such a coincidence happening in regards to his long-dead relative. "All these years, and both gone to their Maker, of the smallpox. I'd quite forgotten, but… well, I am dashed." The other supper guests smiled, but he didn't.
Though McGilliveray didn't sound "gawpish"; quite the opposite, in point of fact, as he squeamishly, uneasily looked away, eyes almost panicked and averted, "harumphing" to reclaim his proper demeanour.
He knows! Lewrie thought, cringing, fighting manfully to keep a calm exterior, himself, and not turn and look at Midshipman McGilliveray; Desmond must have told him who really fathered the lad, he looks so English, he 'd've had to. Indians annul bad marriages at the Green Corn ceremonies… Soft Rabbit must've said ours didn't take when I didn't come back for her, and McGilliveray took her on. Said he'd see to her, and didn 't he just… the bastard.
"Well, gentlemen," Capt. McGilliveray said, balling up his napkin and laying it aside. "Let us have the port, or the whisky, fetched out, and honour our distinguished guests with a hearty toast to the King of England. Charge your glasses, if you will?"
Lewrie again chose whisky; he was badly in need of it.
At a nod, Midshipman McGilliveray at the foot of the table rose and proposed the toast to King George III, with all the fulsome titles including "Defender of the Faith, of the Church of England"; to which Midshipman Grace responded with a shorter toast to the President of the United States-then the serious toasting and imbibing began.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thank God for a quiet day in port," Lewrie muttered to himself as he struggled out of his coat sleeves, with his long-suffering manservant Aspinall trying to help, trying to keep up with his captain's slow, staggering circle of the day-cabin. "Wouldn't trust me with the charge of a row-boat, t'morrow."
"You circle, I pull yer sleeve, sir, that's th' way," Aspinall meekly suggested. "Mind yer kitty…"
Rrrowwr! Toulon bickered, fleeing the imminent danger from his "beloved" master's clumping feet, wisely taking his tail and paws out of reach in an offended scurry under the settee.