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“It hurts,” whined Ed.
“Yes, well,” said Stede, tucking another cushion next to Ed’s side and making a prim little moue of distaste at his besmirched bandages, “not very clever, letting yourself get run through again so soon after the last time. Honestly, it’s just showing off. You are certain, are you, that they missed all the important bits this time?” He shuddered and began to lift up the stained length of linen wrapped around Ed’s midsection, but Ed caught his hand and gripped it.
“Stop,” he said. “You’ll make it bleed again. I’ve only just tied it up.”
“You ought to have let me do it. You ought,” Stede lectured loftily, “to have let me come along on the raid, and then likely you wouldn’t have been run through at all.”
Ed scoffed. “You’d have only distracted me. Likely I’d be dead. Do I feel warm to you?” He lifted Stede’s hand to his face and rubbed his cheek against it.
“Ooh, you do a bit.” Stede’s frown deepened. “Awfully soon, isn’t it, for an infection to be setting in? Perhaps I should summon medical assistance.” He began to get up. Ed tightened his grip on Stede’s wrist and yanked him back down.
“You mean the cook? Fuck off. He’d only amputate one of my ribs. Put it in the soup tonight, too, wouldn’t put it past him. No. You stay here and nurse me—I’ll only have you. Maybe a cold rag?”
Stede cocked his head at him. He did look flushed, beneath the salt-and-pepper scruff that still wasn’t quite a beard yet. “Very well,” he agreed, and went to fetch supplies.
*
Ed sighed at the cool touch of silk against his brow. His eyes half opened, and he gave an inquiring sniff.
“A touch of Eau de Cologne,” Stede supplied. “A new concoction out of Europe I’ve recently discovered. The alcohol possesses cooling properties, and the scent is rather exquisite. It’s not too much, is it?”
“Mmmm,” was all that Ed had to say, but it sounded appreciative, and his eyelids fluttered shut again as Stede pressed the scented cloth to his temples and then moved it down to his throat and chest. It would have been a lovely sight to behold, Stede couldn’t help thinking, if only the wound weren’t such cause for concern. He slid a hand down to the bandages and tried once more to gently lift them so that he could get a look at the damage, but Ed stopped him yet again with a surprisingly quick and strong grip.
“Don’t,” he said. “Here, I know what I’d like. Read to me?”
“Oh,” said Stede, taken aback, though he shouldn’t have been. He’d noticed some time ago that Ed only pretended to scorn the bedtime stories he still read to the crew and always found an excuse to linger nearby during the exciting bits. “Well, of course, if you’d find it entertaining. What are you in the mood for?” He draped the cloth over Ed’s forehead and got up to peruse his library for something that might amuse an invalid yet otherwise deadly peril of the high seas. “Tom Brown’s Amusements? A bit of Dryden? Or would something more soporific be the thing? I’ve some essays by a chap called Locke that are really quite—”
“How about this?” Stede turned to see Ed holding up a small unfamiliar cloth-bound volume that he’d produced from somewhere. “Dunno what it is. Found it on that French ship we took last week. Probably stupid enough to put me to sleep.”
Stede came over to inspect the little book. “Well, it’s in French,” he said. “Obviously. But I suppose I can translate as I go. ‘Venus in the Cloister.’ Hmm. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, whatever, I don’t care, doesn’t matter to me,” Ed muttered, which meant that he wanted Stede to read it to him very much indeed, and so Stede settled himself by the side of the bed and began.
“‘Venus in the Cloister, or, the Nun in her…Smock,’” Stede intoned. “Hm. Sounds a bit racy.” He scanned down the first page. “‘If these secret Conferences should be made Publick…occasion no small Scandal…exposed in her shift!’ My goodness. How did you say you happened to come across this?”
“French ship. Captain’s quarters. Read it properly, now,” Ed complained, raising up on his elbows. “I need something to distract me. I’m in a lot of pain here, you know.”
Stede narrowed his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I can see that. Lie back down. Close your eyes.” He pressed Ed back down into the mattress with a firm hand on his chest, and readjusted the cloth on his brow. He was undoubtedly fevered; really quite warm. Almost inhumanly warm. Stede leaned in closer to make sure that Ed was being properly supported by all the cushions and pillows he’d surrounded himself with, and as he did so, his hand brushed something hard and smooth that nearly burned him: a jug. Of what must be boiling hot water. His eyes traveled quickly down to Ed’s bloodstained bandages. At this distance, they had a distinct smell of tomato.
He sat back in his chair. Ed opened one eye. “Well? Are you going to read to me or not? Send the boy in to do it, if you don’t feel up to the task.”
“Oh, I’m up to it,” Stede said fondly. “Would you care for some water? Bit of brandy? No? Very well.” He cleared his throat, crossed his legs, picked up the book again, and began to read aloud the scandalous dialogue between a young novice caught pleasuring herself in her cell and the concerned sister who offers to help her dispel her animalistic humours.
He made it as far as “Ah God! How thou graspest me in thy Arms, thou little thinkest I am naked in my Smock! Thou hast set me all afire!” (doing the voices, of course; the young novice very whispery and shamed, the older one all firm command) before Ed began shifting in his cushions and clearing his throat. Stede ignored him and read on and on, up to the bit where the novice admitted to having flogged her own backside to cure herself of lust, and her confessor demanded to see the results. “‘My pretty little Dear, prithee let me see and search it, I’ll see what an ill managed fervency is capable of—’ ‘What! Do you kiss it?’”
“Stede!”
Stede looked up innocently from the volume. “Bit too warm for you? Yes, I thought so; I’ll find something else more suitable to the occasion.”
“Stede.” Ed cleared his throat again. “No, the book’s fine, but I was thinking. You could, you know…lie here with me. Next to me. While you read.”
“Oh? No. I don’t think so. I might jostle your wound.” He searched for his place. “Where was I? Yes, here we are— ‘Lye still, my pretty rogue; ah! This part of thy body is delicately well made; what a Luster it does receive from its whiteness and plumpness—’”
“Stede, please,” said Ed, in a hoarse whisper, squirming now. “Good god, man. Are you not affected by this at all?”
“I’m hardly paying attention to it as I translate,” Stede lied, re-crossing his legs. “I did say it sounded racy. These French! Surely you’re not becoming undone by it? In your condition?” He cast a long look down the pirate’s half-clad body stretched out before him, raising his eyebrows and tutting at the evidence of Ed’s arousal. “Well, now. This seems to be an alarming new symptom. Perhaps I really had better summon Roach; you might need to be bled—”
Ed clapped a pillow over his nether regions.
“Or a cold-water bath might prove beneficial—”
The dread pirate Blackbeard exploded up off the bed, scattering cushions everywhere, and stalked toward the door.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Stede protested, swiftly rising from his chair and getting between him and the exit. “Come back here. What’s this all about, then?”
Ed glowered and sulked.
“Something you want to tell me?” Stede prompted, glancing at Ed’s bandaged middle and then at the bed, where the hot-water jug now lay exposed.
“I wasn’t run through during the raid,” Ed said. “It was only a bit of a fuckery.”
“So I surmised.” Stede took hold of his arm and drew him back over to the bed, sitting down next to him. “In aid of what, exactly?”
Ed shrugged and sighed and looked away.
“I’d read anything to you at any time, you know,” Stede offered. “You don’t have to be at death’s door.”
Ed made a frustrated sound. “I was only thinking it would be…nice,” he said finally, in a very low voice. “Being…tended to. By you. Like the last time I got run through. Only without, you know…”
“Being in excruciating pain,” Stede supplied. “Yes, I see. Well. I think we can arrange something like that. Lye thee down, my pretty rogue,” he intoned, patting the bed.
“It’s no good now,” said Ed, still sullen and glum.
“No? We’ll see about that. Come here, next to me,” Stede commanded, stretching out on the bed and picking up the book again, and Ed heaved a sigh and followed suit.
“It’s going to be weird now.”
“It’s not going to be weird. Did you really get this book from that French captain, by the by?”
Ed gave a short laugh. “No. Lucius did. I had it off him yesterday when I caught him reading it aloud to half the crew. You’re much better at it than he is.”
“Isn’t it, though…oh…a bit tame for the likes of you? Surely, in all your travels, you’ve run across stronger stuff than this?”
“No, but that’s the beauty of it.” Ed turned toward him suddenly and snapped at his ear, then let out a low growl that made Stede’s prick give a startled throb. “Doesn’t need to be anything stronger. You, with your posh voice and your fine fabrics, reading this polite and proper smut out loud, translating it from fucking French, cool as milk, making me want to beg you to put your hands all over me while you do it…”
“Oh,” said Stede, “oh, god. Yes, please, let’s do that now. Where was I?” He fumbled for the volume.
“Go back a bit,” Ed suggested. “Do the part where she demands to see her bum. And kisses it.”
Stede caught his breath. “Perhaps a bit of a, ah, reenactment might be in order, after I’ve finished…the reading?”
“I think we can arrange something like that. Go on, now,” said Ed, drawing Stede’s free hand down and placing it firmly on his stiffening member. “And don’t forget to do the voices.”