Episode XLIII - The Dread Pirate Gulliver

            Ellis got very little sleep that night, instead spending much of the time staring up at the ceiling and wondering where he had gone wrong – trying to interpret Siren’s look just before she turned away.  He was so lost in this fretful pattern of thought that he barely noticed Gulliver’s snores.

On the few occasions when he did manage to catch some sleep it was plagued by unpleasant dreams: Larksborough on fire; Sarah running from the Slatewings; their last meeting in DUSK - all in the flash in Siren’s eyes, the glint of a Grinder’s teeth, the spark of an hypostatickal explosion.  He would wake up in a sweat, dizzy, disoriented, nauseated.  His eyes were damp and his forehead was burning.

Gulliver woke up as the first greenish amber rays of dawn light filtered through the curtains into their room.  He rolled over and saw Ellis’ pale face staring straight up and wondered if he was ill.  He would be the first to admit that he didn’t really understand the strange young man from the other world, and he was not a little jealous about Siren’s obvious interest in him – something he hoped was little more than an adventurer’s curiosity – but he didn’t like to see people suffering and, ill or not, Ellis did not look good.

“Are you alright?” he asked after he had managed a half-hearted stretch and yawn wake-up combo.  “You look like death.”

“I… didn’t sleep very well,”  Ellis managed, turning his head towards his roommate.

“Well that much is obvious even to the likes of me.  What I ought to be askin’ you, then, is why didn’t you sleep?”

“Bad dreams.  Don’t feel too good.”

“No, and you don’t look it neither.  I think we’d best get Franck to ‘ave a look at you.”

“No.  We shouldn’t bother him with…  It’s nothing.”

“It don’t look like nothin’.  ‘Ere, let me get dressed and then I’ll go see if I can’t rustle up someone to ‘ave a gander.”

“Really… I’m fine… I just need to…”

            But Gulliver had decided that ignoring Ellis’ pleas was for his own good and was already up across the room, picking up the various bits of clothing he had shed like debris on his meteoric collision course with the mattress the night before.  It didn’t take him long to pull up his trousers, rake his shirt over his neck and hang his waistcoat over his skinny form, so he was out the door looking for the Former Baron before Ellis could utter another syllable.

            The Former Baron was, of course, in his basement laboratory, although, to Gulliver’s surprise and relief, he was not bashing away at a piece of metal, or making anything explode.  He was, in fact, having a cup of tea accompanied by Felicity Barkcastle

            “Ah, Gulliver!  Good to see you awake.  Would you like a cup of tea?”  The old Philosopher gestured to a tray on which there was an array of cups and an ornate clockwork teapot – one which Gulliver had never seen before - puffing steam into the air in cheerful fashion.  Seeing the pirate’s expression Von Spektr added, “A gift from the delightful Miss Barkcastle.  It boils the water for you!  Ingenious, eh?”

            “Uh, yes, I think.”  He scratched his head.  “Look, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think there’s somethin’ wrong with Ellis.  ‘E didn’t sleep at all well last night, apparently, and now ‘e looks all pale and pathetic, like.  I think he might have a fever.”

            “Oh, the poor dear,” Felicity said, rising to her feet at once and reaching for the tray of cups and the softly ticking teapot, “I’ll fetch him up some tea right away, and then we’ll see what else we can do for him.”

                        “Quite right, Miss Barkcastle, quite right!  Best make sure it’s not plague, though, first.”  He stood and approached Gulliver cautiously, peering at him as if he were looking through a microscope.  “You aren’t feeling peaky as well, are you, Gulliver, my boy?  No headaches?  Itching?  Nausea?  Sweating?  Shakey Limbs?  Trembling bowels, palpitations or inexplicable aches?  Aversion to bright light, aversion to no light, dizziness or uncontrollable swelling of the extremis?”

            “Well, now that you mention them-”

            “Excellent!  Quite excellent.  You’ll be fine.”  He turned to his elderly companion and gave her one of his thin smiles.  “Go on up, Miss Barkcastle.  See how our boy Alvin is doing.”

            The kindly old lady nodded and disappeared up the stairs with the tea, whilst the Former Baron returned thoughtfully to his cup, completely ignoring Gulliver.  The pirate waited a moment to see if he would be told to do anything, but as the silence stretched on he figured he would be better heading back upstairs.

            He met Siren on the landing.  She looked tired herself, although nowhere near as out of it as Ellis had been.  He greeted her with what he thought of as his ‘good morning’ grin, but she didn’t seem in the mood for such pleasantries.

            “What’s going on?” she asked, looking in the direction of the room he shared with Ellis.  The door was slightly ajar and Miss Barkcastle’s soft tones could just be heard through the gap, although no words were discernable.

            “Ellis seems to ‘ave ‘ad a rough night.  Miss Barkcastle’s just makin’ sure ‘e’s okay.”

            Siren’s expression changed from grouchily tired, through groggily confused and then to worried very quickly and Gulliver felt a sudden pang of jealousy.

            “I’m sure ‘e’s fine, mind.  Just bad dreams and all that.”

            “Yes,” she replied, almost too dismissively, “I’m sure you’re right.”  Gulliver wasn’t sure, but he thought she sounded almost guilty.  “Well, I’ll just head back to bed, then.  I had a late night thinking about plans and stratagems and… all that, so I could do with another couple of hours.”  She turned and began to slouch towards her room.  “Wake me if anything happens,” she added just before she vanished into the darkness beyond her door.

            “Will do,” Gulliver muttered, staring after her in some confusion.

            When he entered his and Ellis’ room, Ellis was sitting, propped up, against the wall and Miss Barkcastle was plying him with tea.

            “Really, Miss Barkcastle, I’m fine.  I just had a restless night.  That’s all.”

            “You do look terribly pale, my dear.  Let me feel your forehead.”  She tentatively reached out her frail hand, withdrawing it quickly as she felt the heat pouring off him.  “Gulliver was right, you have a fever!  Get into that bed and then I’ll make you some toast just to keep you going whilst I consult with Franck.”

            “I’m not sure I could eat anything just yet.  I should probably have a wash and get ready to help.”

            “You wouldn’t be much help to us like this, my love.  You’re ill and you need rest. I’ll make some more tea and get you some toast with butter on it and we can see what Frank says, okay?”

            Before Ellis could protest Miss Barkcastle had whisked away the teacup from his hand and was back off downstairs towards the kitchen.  Ellis gave Gulliver a plaintive look as the pirate came and sat on the bed, looking down at him.

            “Sorry,”  Gulliver said, “but you was lookin’ really unwell.”

            “I didn’t want any attention, though…”

            “Maybe you needed it nevertheless.”  Gulliver sighed.  “Oh well, cheer up.  I bet Miss Barkcastle’s toast is a treat and a ‘alf.”

            Ellis nodded, but there was no enthusiasm in it.

            “I just met Siren on the landin’,” Gulliver began, but, noticing that Ellis had flinched at the mention of Siren’s name, continued a little warily with, “but she was be’aving  mightily odd.”

            “Oh,” Ellis replied, his fake nonchalance peeling away even from so brief a syllable, “and what made you think that?”

            “I dunno,”  Gulliver admitted, “just the way she was talkin’.  It looked like she had a rough night as well.”

            “You think so?”

            “Well, she didn’t look as bad as you did, but ‘er eyes was all puffy and she seemed particularly un’appy to ‘ave been woken up.”

            “It’s still early.”

            “I suppose it is.”

            Ellis closed his eyes and Gulliver found himself examining the strange young man’s pained expression.  Something clicked.

            “Somethin’ ‘appened between you and ‘er last night, didn’t it?”

            Ellis didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to.  It was written all over his face now.

            For a moment, just the briefest instant, Gulliver wanted to kill him.  In that moment he imagined himself as he often did when his mind wasn’t entirely grounded in reality.  He was the great adventurer pirate, dashing like his brother, courageous like the heroes of the great pirate ballads he had listened to as a tyke, ruthless like the dread pirates of old.  That Gulliver Blake would never have let Siren lose her ship.  He would have made his brother walk the plank in the Sea of Swords and sailed the Crest home to his love.  To that Gulliver Ellis arrival was an insult and anything that might have happened the night before with his Siren, his beautiful pirate queen, was nothing short of desecration.  That Gulliver would have drawn his blade straight away and sliced the interloper’s head off.

            There were times, not many times, not often, when Gulliver was glad that he was not that Gulliver Blake and this, it turned out, was one of those times.  The moment passed and when it was gone, drifted by like a piece of flotsam, Gulliver was left in a room with a man his own age, one he hardly knew, who was clearly miserable and possibly quite ill.  He slid off the bed onto the floor and shuffled over beside him.  One thin hand reached out, uncertain, tentative, perhaps a little shaky, and then patted him once, twice on the shoulder.

            “Want to tell me about it, then…” he said, uncertainty turning slowly into a strange kind of confidence so that he could add “matey?” at the end.

            Ellis looked at him warily at first, but then something within him melted, whether from the fever, or something else and in a voice that was gradually growing hoarse, he began to talk.

            And Gulliver, gods love him; he listened.

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