Side Quest: Charlie

It was early in the evening and Bessie was attempting to teach me how to play a game called Jeu Royal de la Guerre. It was a simple game, mostly involving rules about how much a person needed to contribute to the pot. But guess who continuously got dealt the ‘death’ card? I’d just lost ten silver coins to her when there was a commotion by the door.

“Capitaine!” the voice roared. I turned my head to see Charlie storming into the joint, a head of steam already built up. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Bessie,” I hissed, “out the side door, now! Go! Run!” Bless that girl she was gone in the blink of an eye. Charlie and his entourage were still making their way through the tavern as Bessie’s boots disappeared around the corner. 

“Charlie!” I called out to him and kicked out a chair on the other side of the table. I loosened my sword in its sheath. “I was just coming to see you.” I left my hands open and wide on the table. There was a chance I could talk my way out of this.  

Charlie took the proffered seat and his entourage stood protectively arranged around him. Charlie, otherwise known as King Charles the II of England, was currently living in exile from his country. 

“Where’s my cargo, Capitaine? We had a deal.” He took the bottle of wine and passed it to his guards, who drank it dry. “You were due back with it all in Portugal a year ago. I was there. I waited. Where were you? And where is my cargo?”

“I had it,” I tried to assure him. “I did have it. I was on my way here and got waylaid. I was imprisoned -”

“I’m not looking for excuses, Capitaine. I’m looking for my cargo, cargo we made a deal for, cargo you assured me would be in Portugal a year ago.” 

“Listen, I was robbed –”

“Shoot her,” Charlie commanded and the henchman on his right cocked a pistol.

“Wait!” I really did not feel like being shot tonight. “I was boarded and robbed –”

“‘I do not get boarded,’ you said to me. ‘I know just where to meet that rat bastard thief. It won’t be a problem at all,’ you said to me.” Charlie was calm and picked at his teeth. “I had said to myself that it was folly to trust a woman, but you came so highly recommended.”

“I can pay you –”

“My father was killed, executed last year. The guns, the powder, all that would have changed the course of his life. So in effect, you are the reason he no longer walks this world.”

“I have gold –” Charlie motioned delicately to the man who had his pistol out and the man fired, missing my head by inches.  

“You will stop talking now,” Charlie ordered.

I nodded. 

“I don’t want gold. I have gold. I want guns and I want my father back. Can you bring me either of these?”

I shook my head. 

“I thought not.” He leaned back in his chair. “So what are we to do with this situation?”

“Let me pay you,” I tried.

“I want more. I want your blood for my father’s.” He motioned delicately again and I was immediately seized by four burly and absolutely-loyal-to-their-king bodyguards and manhandled out the side door Bessie had just run through.  

“But you are king now!” I was desperate. “Isn’t that good?”

“King of a nation of roundheads and zealots. I am an exiled king of a nation of fools.” The men held my arms outstretched and forced me to my knees. One of his cronies stood back with an iron tipped cat o nine tails. Another ripped the back of my shirt open. 

“Charlie, you don’t have to do this –” I tried to shout at him but the crack and burn of the whip shut me up real good. Three more times the whip cracked out and separated the skin of my back and stole my breath away. The pain was blinding. The trickle of blood down my back was warm and dreamy against the backdrop of searing pain. The man struck again.

I had picked up the guns and gunpowder under contract for Charlie in exchange for his negotiating with a wealthy Portuguese family for the castle Izzy and I were supposed to occupy for the summer of 1649. None of that came to pass. Not the contract. Not the castle. Not the summer of sisterly fun. After killing that rat bastard thief I’d managed to take double what I was due to bring Charlie for his war. Then Bermuda happened. Izzy sold Charlie’s cargo for undeveloped dirt and I was left foundering as to how to reimburse Charlie for the service he’d done me.  

I sagged against the men’s arms, my mind a wash of sparking nerve endings and blinding pain. The whip cracked again and again and I cried out. The sharp pain and loss of breath alerted me to the collapse of one of my lungs. These lashes were deep. Charlie beckoned again and I realized he was going to kill me. The whip cracked. A rib broke. I didn’t have air to scream.

And then the night exploded.  

A horn rent the air of the little alley we were occupying. A harsh and demanding and totally 21st century explosion of compressed air released through a valve. Charlie and his men dropped to the ground in fright. Then a blinding light lit up the edge of a sharp sword, a bright LED flashlight duct taped to the hilt of a 17th century blade.  

“Let my captain go!” Bessie shouted before tossing a smoke bomb into the small space. The men scrambled and attempted to attack this entity before them only to be forced back, screaming and clutching at burning eyes as Bessie let loose with a full canister of pepper spray. “Captain! To me!  Allons-y!” I staggered to Bessie and she pulled me along out of the alley and the short distance to the Try Your Luck.  

“Bessie, we have to get out of here,” I gasped.

“I agree most heartily, Captain. Can you -”

“No. You have to sail us out.” I collapsed against the starboard bench, my blood had soaked through my clothing and painted everything I touched on the ship. The lashes were deep. I was not even able to stand let alone sail. I lay collapsed against the rise of the port bench desperately holding onto consciousness as Bessie ran to and fro, releasing the lines, raising the sail, and pushing us away from the dock. Charlie’s shouts echoed off the buildings and down the docks and I urged the young girl to move her ass faster. I was going to pass out before long.  

“Hit the big yellow button under the wheel!” I shouted. The girl punched the engine start and we were off. Charlie and his entourage shot at my sails as we motored away and I thought to myself, I fucking hate 1650.

****

“Bessie, listen.” The girl came close but didn’t know what to do for me. We were out of sight of Calais and on our way to Little Jean. “I don’t know what Izzy’s told you but I’m not like…you.”

“1999, 2002, 2006, 2025. You are from the future.” The girl recited as I bled on the deck.

“More than that, Bessie. I’m more than that. I –” My back seized up and I gasped for breath. “I have a flask in my cabin, run and get it. It’s on the shelf with my helmet.” She sprinted below and came back up with the correct vessel. 

She was pale and shaking as she handed it to me. “Don’t die, Captain. Please. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how to get back to them. Please don’t die, Captain.” 

“Bessie, I won’t die. Listen. I don’t die. Okay?” She nodded and backed away, not believing a word I said. “I’m going to take a sip of this and you are going to stay down below until I tell you to come up. Understand?” She most definitely did not understand but, bless her, she did as she was told. I maneuvered myself to the swim platform and lowered it with extreme difficulty. I took a swig and carefully placed the flask to the side. This was going to suck. 

All the retching and vomiting and excretions tore my back open again and again and again until it finally calmed and the blood had an opportunity to clot. By that point I was on the verge of acute blood loss. I knocked weakly on the door and asked Bessie to come up and help. I had to toss my filthy clothing overboard and leaned against a mast for support in a canvas tarp that had been loose on the deck. I shivered and tried to stay upright in the light breeze. 

“Captain!” She ran towards me and put an odd collection of clothing from my drawers in my hands. I had to ask her help getting it all on and felt like a toddler being told when to raise her leg or let go of the mast to put my arm into a sleeve. Why is every muscle connected to the back?!? I was in tears by the end of it and Bessie helped lower me onto a padded bench on my belly. 

“Captain, you are bleeding again.” She hovered as I tried to calm myself down. “Captain what happened? What is that? I heard – you were in pain. Great pain. What is that?” She eyed my flask as if that was the culprit of my distress, not the half dozen fatally deep lashes decorating my back.

“This is Fountain. I know what you heard. It’s okay.” I was going to pass out soon. I had to get this information across to her. “Bessie, I don’t die. I don’t age. I don’t die. If you think I’m dead, you wait. You wait and you do not bury me. Understand? Do not dump me off the boat even if I’m not breathing or there’s no heartbeat. Just wait. Leave me here. Do not bury me. Understand?”

“What is Fountain?”

“It’s Time. It’s Youth. It’s Rebirth.” My vision was blurry, I couldn’t tell if she marked the capital letters in my words. “It’s okay, Bessie. Don’t be scared. Just sail us back to Little Jean. We can rest there.” 

Rest. Rest would be best now. I lost my fight and passed out.

****

Along with copious direction from me, Bessie managed to sail us back to Saint-Brieuc and anchor. I passed out twice in the rowboat as we went ashore. Little Jean had met us on the sandy bank and helped bring me to his bed. I hadn’t left that bed in three days.

“Nini, this is no good.” Little Jean cleaned the wounds again and added fresh cloth to staunch the flow of blood from the wounds that continuously broke open. I gritted my teeth as the astringent seeped into the raw flesh of my back. These wounds were deep. My choices were to drink the Fountain again, attempt to heal on my own, or die and see what the secondary measures might heal.  

I always tried to heal on my own, it was far more pleasant than drinking and spewing my way back to a semblance of health. Only when I was in clear and present danger of the secondary measures did I voluntarily chug the stuff – anything to avoid the secondary measures.

“Just get them to stop bleeding,” I grumbled. My kingdom for some painkillers. My back was swollen and inflamed. I could only lie on my stomach on Little Jean’s bed and attempt not to move as my back burned. Bessie fretted over me and occasionally brought me the carefully measured doses of what was left of the laudanum. It didn’t help.

The Fountain brought you to a place where you could possibly heal on your own as long as you took the correct precautions. Living on a boat, giving my first mate a crash course in how to not sink us, was not within healthy parameters. I begged her over and over again to remember not to bury me if I died.   

“Should we go back? To Lady Isabelle?” she whispered to me after Little Jean had gone to sleep. “She seems to know how to…heal you? Maybe she could help?”

“I can’t–I don’t go back to Izzy when I’m hurt.” I winced at a sudden spasm. “We’ll just have to wait.” 

Bessie sat back in a chair next to the bed and played with a deck of cards.

“How long?  How long do we wait?” She eyed the deep lash wounds which continued to seep whenever I moved.  

“A few months? If it gets much worse I’ll drink Fountain again –”

“Drink it now.” She got up and rummaged through my satchel and shoved the flask into my hands. I didn’t take it. 

“Bessie, it’s awful. It’s terrible.” The tide would turn on the wounds in another week. I was sure of that. Probably. A flash of fever burned through me and I shivered. I was freezing but couldn’t take the weight of another blanket on my back. Bessie took it all in and shuddered herself as if she was the one burning with infection and bleeding.

“We cannot stay here. You are going to die.” She looked grim.

“I’m not going to die.” We’d been over this a million times.

“Whatever you do that is almost death is going to happen to you. We cannot stay. Drink your Fountain.” She opened the flask and held it out for me.

“No.”

“I’ll tell Isabelle. She will be unhappy.”

“Do not tell, Izzy.”

“Then drink your Fountain.” She pushed the flask closer to my eye line.

“No. I’ll be better eventually.” Wind blew in from the open door and brought me to tears as it stung my raw back. Bessie sighed. I tried to keep the pain from showing but I was weak and felt like shit.

“I’ll play you for it. High card wins. You win, you can stay a painful wretch. I win, you drink.” She held out the card deck. I wrinkled my nose. Fifty/fifty was good odds. If I won she’d let me be. I reached for a card. She reached out and slapped me hard across the back. I screamed and turned away from the pain; she poured the fountain down my throat. “Sorry, Captain.  Had to be done.”

I choked and sputtered. “When the hell did you get so brazen!” I shouted at her, my insides already gripping. I rolled off the bed and staggered to the ocean.  

After hours and hours of horror, I dragged myself out of the waves and pulled off all my clothing and left them to the seagulls. She had poured a large dose into my system. I was going to need to go shopping for new clothes and soon. After the whipping and the spewing, my wardrobe was spent. Bessie welcomed me back with a blanket. 

“We are even for all those times I spun you out of that hammock.” I pointed at her chest and shivered.  

“Yes, Captain.” She led me back inside and tucked me back into Little Jean’s bed. The wounds were much better but not fully healed. It still hurt like a bitch. I’d still need to take care and heal or I’d be right back in danger. However, the secondary measures had retreated out of sight whereas they’d been looming over my shoulder just a few hours ago.

We’d have to say goodbye to Little Jean today. I couldn’t risk revealing how quickly I’d healed. It would also be too easy for Charlie to track me back to Saint-Brieuc should he care to find me and demand more blood. I did not need Little Jean connected to me in any way. 

When the sun rose and I could stand on my own I kissed his cheeks goodbye and bid him to take care of himself.

“Nini, do not feel you are without friends.” He squeezed my hands and kissed my cheeks.  

And then I got in the boat and rowed away from him never to return.