June 1799, Off Sicily
Hamilton woke up with a start. Someone was watching him.
A woman.
"Nasira?" he tried to ask.
"You're going to be all right, Edward."
His eyes came into focus. Katherine Abington was looking down at him, and after a moment he realized she was speaking. Hamilton tried to sit up, but a surge of pain across his head put an end to that. Around him he could hear moans of agony, men asking for water, and then someone a few yards away cried "Hold him steady!" and there was a loud scream.
Hamilton was on the frigate
Ariadne
, the he knew. He had been brought down to the orlop deck, under the ship's waterline, where the wounded were sent during battle. Where the surgeon did his work. With a sudden panic Hamilton forced himself to sit up, ignoring the pulsating pain in his head. Like most men he feared the surgeon's knife far more than any cannon ball. He looked and felt to make sure his limbs were intact before collapsing again.
"You should lie still, Edward. You were hit with a splinter, but Dr. Maitland says he was able to clean the wound. You'll feel better soon, but you must rest."
He heard what she said, he understood it, but it seemed to be happening to someone else. Hamilton reached up and felt a bandage around his head.
"I need to return to my duty," he said, weakly.
"Stay here. The battle is over."
"Did we..?"
"I don't know what happened, Rachel and I have been helping the doctor. I heard Lieutenant Mabson say that both galleys were sunk."
"Mabson? On no..."
"He will be fine, Edward. Quiet yourself and lie back."
He couldn't see Rachel Palmer, but Katherine's voice was steady and reassuring. It seemed odd that such a flighty woman would take the horrors of battle so calmly.
"Rest, Edward." He felt something cool on his forehead and then he did.
##
Hamilton dreams.
He is standing on the walls of Massih Bey's fortress in the middle of Tunis. He looks out across the harbor, but this isn't the Lake of Tunis. He sees the Royal Dockyards in Deptford, along the Thames, crowded with warships and East Indiaman, wooden hulls packed together, a forest of masts and yards, oared boats and tenders and other small craft slipping between the ships. All of this is somehow before the white stone chaos of densely packed buildings that is Tunis.
Nasira is standing next to him. The wind is whipping her hair, streaming it to one side just as it had done when she stood on the deck of the
Rose
holding a cask of powder. Nasira is not wearing her uniform. She is wearing only a light wrap around her hips; the same simple covering worn by the household slaves of Massih Bey that are available for sex. He is walking toward Nasira. He puts his hand on her face. He feels her cheek and she smiles as he slides his hand down her neck, down the top of her breast, down to her nipple. He loves her breasts, the softness is perfect, they fit so easily in his hands.
"Nasira," he says. He wants to say something more but the words are not there. He tries and tries but all he can do is say her name.
"No man may be inside me," she says, quoting one of the rules of the Kocek Kapikulu, the female Janissaries of Massih Bey. He knows this rule, he knows it all too well. But when he was in Tunis, months before, those rules did not forbid him from touching her body, from caressing her ass and moving his hand slowly down along the soft skin of her inner thighs, from letting his tongue slide around and around her nipples, from tracing the soft folds of her pussy.
Hamilton dreams he is lying in bed.
Nasira is underneath him as he sucks on her left nipple. They are in a room at a boarding house in Portsmouth, one he used when he was a midshipman, on a soft feather bed, though much bigger and much softer than any he could possibly have afforded back then. He puts both hands on her left breast, squeezing her soft flesh and playing as his lips over her nipple. Nasira runs her hands through his hair. She moans softly. His cock is pressed against her slit. He moves his hips, just slightly, just the right way, and his hard shaft presses against the dampness. He knows that she wants him inside her as much as he does. He wonders if this time, just once --
"Never," she says quietly, even though he hadn't asked the question.
Hamilton dreams of Katherine Abington.
She is in bed next to them, naked, with her hands bound to an iron ring in a wall inlaid with geometric tiles. Katherine is struggling against her bonds, twisting her body, sliding her legs up and down on the sheets. Katherine is breathing faster, starting to panic as she pulls harder and harder on the soft silk wrapped around her wrists. The bonds look like they are going to rip at any moment. But they don't part. Katherine knows she is bound to the bed and at their mercy.
"Fuck me," Katherine says suddenly, urgently. "Fuck me like you fucked the slaves in Tunis."
He rolls off Nasira. He reaches out for Katherine but Nasira catches his hand. She is gently holding him back. Nasira rolls across the wide bed, she is moving over Katherine, her tongue slides across the bound blonde's torso, leaving a growing trail of slick dampness leading down, closer and closer, over her mount, and to Katherine's slit. Nasira uses two fingers to separate the her folds. She flicks her tongue back and forth over Katherine's clit. Nasira presses one finger up inside the bound woman's wet cunt as she licks and teases her clit. Katherine stops struggling.
Hamilton dreams he is in the antechamber of the Pearl Room.
Katherine is sitting inside a small golden cage. Her legs are drawn up and her hands pulled across her chest. Nasira is walking around the cage. She stops and reaches in to touch Katherine's hair. Katherine tilts her head and smiles. Nasira, now wearing the loose-fitting clothes of her uniform, opens the cage door. She reaches in. Katherine looks excited and then frightened, as if she can't decide which. Nasira drags her out by the hair.
He is watching the two women. He is wearing his naval uniform. Something feels wrong, and it isn't his cock which is pressing hard against his breeches. That feels very right. He reaches up expecting to find his hat but there is only a sticky wetness. He brings his hand down and sees it is covered in blood. He doesn't care about that. He wants to take both beautiful women into the Pearl Room, where there are iron rings and posts for securing slaves, crops and canes and floggers. He wants to see both women naked and bound. He wants to take the small golden chains and clamp them on their nipples, left nipple to left nipple, right to right, so that they are bound close together.
Hamilton dreams of the Pearl Room.
Rachel Palmer is standing against a wall with a shimmering pattern of geometric shapes. She is naked. Hamilton looks at her and then at Katherine and then Nasira. at Three women to play with! He is walking to them.
##
And he wakes up.
"Damn," Hamilton muttered.
Hamilton could see from shapes of the beams on the deckhead above that he was no longer in the orlop, but back in his cabin. He felt hot even though he was lying in his cot, naked, under a single, thin sheet. He closed his eyes for a moment and smiled when he felt the cool water on his forehead. He looked up.
"Miss Palmer?"
"Yes, sir," Rachel said as she pressed the damp cloth against his head and then down on his chest. "Mr. Hopley and another man, they brought you here from that other place, sir. I am taking my turn in watching you. My mistress was watching over you earlier, but she had helped the surgeon and needed to lie down, would you like me to go find her?"
"No. Where is Mr. Mabson?"
"He was moved to another cabin, sir. One of the other Lieutenants he... I'm sorry sir."
"Stepford? Galloway?"
"It was him sir, Mr. Galloway. They says he died quick."
"They always say that." Rachel looked down and nodded. He reached over and touched her chin. "It's all right, I'm sure he died bravely. Thank you for being here."
"My mistress tells me that I should be available, sir. If there is anything more..."
"Come up here." He guided Rachel up onto the cot, pausing for a moment to make sure the ropes holding it to the beams above were strong enough. They were, and soon she was lying on top of him. She was wearing a simple frock, but he could easily feel her thighs on his legs. His head was no longer pounding. "So, Miss Palmer, you will do anything Lady Dunsbrooke asks?"
Rachel nodded.
"And why is that? Your duties go beyond those of the usual servant. Why do you let her treat you like her slave?"
"I don't feel like a slave, sir. She treats me well, she does."
Hamilton nodded as they swung slowly against the ship's roll. "How did you come into the employ of Lady Dunsbrooke?"
"When I was married off, sir, three years ago and two months, I moved from Langton Green, to Palmer's farm out by the Dornden Common."
"You're married?"
"I am, sir, though by deed no longer. Mr. Palmer is a cruel man, though I didn't know that at first. One day, he was drinking, he was always cruel when he was drinking, but he pulls me from the kitchen and yells he don't want me."
"Then he is foolish as well as cruel. So you left this man and went to work for Lady Dunsbrooke?"
"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, but not like that. Thaddeus, that would be my husband, he said I was having relations with Hugh Ramsay, he drew wire and nails for the coach builders, but that would be a terrible lie! Hugh Ramsay is a fair man, more fair than my husband ever was, and I should not deny my warmth when he came round, but that was all, sir, I swear it, and I never done any of the things he says."
"I'm sure you didn't."
"So then Mr. Palmer, he had brought home a yoke, he did. He brought it from Mr. Ephram's place, right across the commons. He, my husband that is, he pulls me down and puts the yoke over my neck. He used a belt on me, most cruelly, to make me lie still, while he bound my hands to each end, and then he fashioned himself a loop for my neck, and all of this had me tight to the beam." Rachel pressed her head down on Hamilton's chest. "He tied a rope to the hitch then, and all the while I knew what he was doing and I swore I was not wanton. He wouldn't listen, he just told me to shut up, that I was a dirty bunter and that I was unfit and then he done took me down to the Roebuck's, that being an inn on the Tunbridge Road." She tilted her head to look at him. "It's a custom, sir, in the country, you see."
