William Brand

John, do you ever go to conventions on the East coast?

I can't imagine needing a new anything, but perhaps more of everything. And to John...one steak, bloodied, beaten and served up like a treasure fleet defeated...

And thank you for saving so much of it.

Today's special is everything we have in the larder that didn't go bad while we were away.

Each time I see one of his 'first attempts' at a new project, I am astounded. It looks remarkable. If it's possible to be proud of someone else's work, then I am.

Said and done...

The cake is a green tea custard cake, and while I generally pass on tea, I think I'd have two helpings of that thing.

Those nearest to William remained quiet. He bore their eyes and whispers for a time, but then turned on them so suddenly as to startle a few. "Gentlemen, please...you may speak freely." "It isn't you...sah...well...it is and it isn't." "That's a contradiction. From the Latin... Contradictionem if I'm not horribly mistaken, which I most certainly am. I've vomited up enough unsolicited wisdom in the Ward Room as to leave a smell...lingering. Please. Talk. Otherwise I shall have to return there and lap up all that I disgorged. And that is not Latin. That is...French." There were a few sniggers at this and it loosed a few tongues. "Sah, what I meant to say is that...well...is it true about Klaas?" "I thought that news would be all about the place by now." William returned, then nodded. "It is true. Beaten and placed rudely down a well." There were grave nods at this and William nodded with them. "A bad business, that. We shall see it finished. Den Oven will know the name of Klaas Scymmelpenninck before he swings." William said with a tone both reassuring and absolute, like a truth already realized. "Be certain of it. Now...if it would not be too rude to the memory of him, might I change the subject to lighter things." No one seemed too grave to set the matter aside quietly, but quiet they were nonetheless. William also noted how many of the newest sailors looked on from their hammocks with interest. William made a few remarks touching the quality of the hammocks and the service of the Inn Lucy, but when he could not prime anymore conversation than a smile or a nod, he slipped from his hammock. "I must beg the favor of a man of my stature." No one answered. "My stature as a man...being just shy of six feet..." William prompted. "Will not a man of my size lend me clothing dry enough to pass the night? For apart from this shirt I am sodden still." A man was heard to slip from his bunk and fiddle with his belongings and clothes soon passed through the ranks. William slipped from his wet clothing, all but his shirt remaining. As he could not see Tudor present, he thought perhaps that she might not see him, though it was a passing thought. "As you see, Gentlemen, I am a man...like the rest of you." "Welll...not so, sah. More...red, sah." "Aye." William agreed as he began dressing again, for indeed his hair was red throughout and he laughed a little to be observed so much, like a creature of myth in the open. "Carved of white, unblemished alabaster and fashioned throughout with copper filagree." William joked. "Observe what efforts I make daily to keep the greater portion of myself pale, after the Roman fashion." These last, self deprecating remarks finally hauled down the silent curtains of his office, as men about him bared arms and legs to reveal where the sun touched them little, vying to see who was the most 'Roman'.

August 4, 1704 - Aboard the Lucy William did not ignore Jenny anymore than Preston did, but William soon realized that it might seem so, they being so used to having a Steward about, sight unseen. "I have served in many a navy, Miss Ashcombe, so let me be plain. I have served in a navy here and a navy there. I have witnessed in my years the subjugation of men. I have, with my own hand, taken up the lash against my friends to keep order in a navy crueler than this. I have, owing to my position, chastised greater men than myself for the purpose of protecting the Whole." William nodded to Preston as he said this. "Whatever you were before, Miss Ashcombe, be it slave or servant, you are now the Steward of my Captain Lasseter, who in another time ruled over me as a just and superior servant of the Whole. He is a singular man like unto no one else, being as righteous a man in frame, wit and spirit as may be had. You may keep any secret you wish, as do many aboard this ship and mine, but let any such secret harm but the lowliest of mine...and I will take up the lash. Let one misdeed from any man here or on the 'Dog cause further harm to my Mister Whittingford, more than his service and loyalty alone have already caused him...and I will take up the lash. This above all...should anyone harm or cause to be harmed my good Captain Lasseter..." William did not finish this final possibility with anything more then a slight tilt of his head. His voice had remained quiet and measured throughout, but for the obvious conclusion in his tone at the end. "We...sea creatures..." William said, smiling wryly. "...understand the necessity of seeking out what cannot be seen below the surface of that path laid before us. As the path changes, so do the threats unseen." He held out his hands on the table palms up and apart. It was the gesture of 'that is all and there is nothing more to it' and indeed, he and Preston seemed beyond the point, for the spoke freely of other things, having already passed over the obstacles of the moment to safer waters. They continued in conversation this way for a few minutes and then William excused himself. Preston insisted, more than once, that William should have use of a better space than the berth, but William begged off saying, "It will be tomorrow before I sleep, but I would hear the men talk, sing or snore. I could use the air." He seldom had the chance for any company in sleep, and he made his way to the crowded hammocks forward, content for his alloted width among the crew. Between seven and eight bells of First Watch

Aye. It may very well be. And now... ...CAKE!

Toasting the kidneys by assaulting the liver. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

August 4, 1704 - Aboard the Lucy "To forget...to conceal...even to misplace such information could damn us all." William said in his quietest voice of the evening looking out at nothing in particular. He said it almost to himself. He was a long time quiet after that and Preston let him have the silence, though he gave Jenny several meaningful looks that were hard to translate. William let the blanket that had warmed him fall about the arms of the chair in which he sat. Then he began to speak in halting phrases, interrupted by the task of removing his own clinging shirt. If he was conscious about any embarrassment this might cause the new Steward he did not show it, for he undressed without looking up, all the while remaining seated. As he did this he spoke about a sailor named Augustus Muller. "He was a singular man of good carriage. He was well spoken for an able seaman and, as I learned after his death in some conference with others, he was a man of some wit." William had stripped the shirt from his shoulders by then. He ran a hand over a well knit scar at his collarbone. "He kept as much to himself as any of mine might have aboard a ship, until an engagement which held us trapped against the shores of La Desirade." William looked at her with a calm, almost conversational expression. "He shot me just here. The ball passed between the bones of my chest and lodged itself against the interior of my shoulder at the back. I had not the opportunity to turn away, expecting no such attack from the sanctuary of my own ship. However, I was fortunate in this, for had I known to turn but a little in any direction, I might have sounded my own end." William shivered then, but it was against the cold of the room and not the memory. Still, it had the effect of making him more mortal than before. "Augustus remained aboard ship, his treachery unknown, as did Van Buren, of whom I have spoken before. Their pact of evil remained undiscovered beyond the death of John Sons and two officers of the Danzig. Only when Augustus stood before me in the Ward Room of the 'Dog, pistol in hand, did I know his purpose." William ran a hand through his wet hair, drawing it back from a finite scar which ran along the part there. The scar was so small, that it was all but faded and would be completely gone within a year if not sooner, but William drew attention to it when he explained how the mutinous Augustus had struck him across the skull, knocking him to the floor. Preston had heard this story several times in pieces, and listened to the details with as much interest as any good listener, for he had an appreciation for good stories. He did notice one difference between this telling and the ones which came before. William was making a point of using Muller's first name throughout the narration, and he had never known William to do so when speaking of Muller. He wondered if Jenny understood the reasoning for it; the demonstration of a more intimate mutiny. William continued explaining scars, including one on the back of one arm where Augustus had dragged him unconscious through the broken casement of the Ward Room windows. He bared his wrists where the chain scars had not completely faded from his time in the bilge. He did this with no more drama than the displaying of them. His voice had remained quiet all the while. He finished there without conclusion. He did not show the many slivers of scars from the thrice daily beatings he suffered at the hands of his captors. He did not explain his rescue, the death of Jean Micheale Fournier being still too fresh on his mind to speak of his lost friend. He made no mention of the execution of Augustus Muller. He did not amend his story with any cautionary wisdom. He simply reached for the dry shirt waiting for him and slipped it over his head, hiding away a dozen or more stories in the scars they could see elsewhere. Preston tipped a little of his drink into William's glass then. William smiled at the gesture and they made a toast of no words, each drinking and thinking of times past, Preston from where he stood, and William from his quiet chair. Jenny stood apart.

Here, Here!

Dorian passed a kidney stone. He gets free drinks and fare for a week. Oh...and hide the kidney pie. He needs no outward reminders.

"Taken you aboard or employed you in his service." William repeated, quietly. "Of course. How gracious of Captain Lasseter to offer you the safety of the Lucy, as no such safety was afforded you on the 'Dog. I wonder what my Steward would say to hear you dismiss our Ward Room so casually. I have not had the occasion yet to explain to her how inhospitable you found our sanctuary...so recently quit. Inhospitable enough to drive you openly before a dozen ships on the Cul du Sac Royal and those eyes which fell upon us from the heights of Fort Royal. I thank you for discovering our lack. I must see to it that my table is better defended and dressed for solicitous vagabonds to come." There was a pause, which would have remained heavy enough, but it was punctuated by thunder rolling off the hills of Martinique and the seacoast. "If this is all that you have to say on the subject, then I will say no more of it." William said with an air of finality, then added. "Of course, it should not trouble you then to know that Monsieur Durand questioned me at great length but yesterday concerning a Miss Poole. He was careful to note that Miss Poole did not appear anywhere within the pages of our most excellent ledgers. He made no secret of this curiosity, returning to the subject several times and on various points. His curiosity was great enough to encompass the assassin who fired upon my people for reasons unknown." William looked at Preston and then back to Miss Ashcombe. "I have observed men of power in equal earnest, Miss Ashcombe, but few possessed of greater capability than Monsieur Durand."

William drained his glass and set it aside. "Then would you be so kind as to tell me who it is that you are running from? You are strongly encouraged to be as forthcoming as possible, as your answer might, and probably will, endanger the lives of some seven score men and women."

August 4, 1704 - Aboard the Lucy With little room to maneuver in the small room, Preston was brief. He explained the death and discovery of Klaas Scymmelpenninck as it had been explained to him. This was met with mixed reactions, for some had known him well enough and others not at all. Nathanial Brocke seemed most effected, having served with Klaas aboard the Heron. The man might have sat down if the space had permitted, but he kept his feet with his head lowered. Alder, having also served with Klaas, was seen closing his eyes in the slow deliberate way of one trying to shut out the images of bad news. Nigel asked the question on almost everyone's mind. "May we ask if there is any news of Ajayi, sah?" If anyone noted that his inquiry left out Joshua Wellings, no one said anything about it, for Ajayi was simply known so well as to eclipse the other missing man to all but a few. William shook his head a moment. "Neither Mister Wellings or Ajayi have been found alive or dead." Some other news followed this, with William explaining the roles of Turcotte, Durand and other members of the French government at Martinique. William let his eyes fall on Miss Ashcombe at the mention of Durand and at Preston when mentioning Turcotte. Preston made a face demonstrating his disdain for the lieutenant. William further explained to them that he would exhaust all the powers at his disposal to find out what had become of his missing men at Martinique and return them alive or dead to the Whole Company. Some questions followed and soon the business was complete. Preston excused the officers of the ship as William excused Miss Smith. Preston would have given the deck over to William then, but William declined, insisting that no such formality was necessary. "I...we...are content to be your weary guests until this rain abates. Please see Miss Smith and the others lodged in the empty hammocks of those men ashore and we will wait to see what the morrow brings." "Aye, Sah." "Preston..." William began, shaking his head as Miss Ashcombe refreshed his glass. "...you are risen above the ranks. When in this place, let it be William." "Aye, s...William." Preston returned, purposely slipping. "My ears are weighed down by 'Captain' too much in a day. The Spanish, French and my own..." William rubbed the bridge of his nose and stretched his water weary feet. "Besides...we have no secrets before the Steward." William added, and he looked at Miss Ashcombe with a look that was made up of too much of nothing. His calm face before the storm. "Why did that man in the boat shoot at you as you crossed to the Lucy, Miss Ashcombe?" Six Bells of the First Watch

I forgot to mention that our Can't Stop the Serenity screening went very well. We raised over $2,000 for Equality Now and Our special guest, Geoffrey Mandel, gave me a screen used Alliance Bill from the movie.

Sorry, Jill. I never made it out to San Fransisco. Too busy while I was there.

Ahhh, the benefits of being a guest in my own house.

The book mobile was a much bigger deal way back when. I loved the book mobile.

Welcome aboard, sah. Which part of Britain do you hail from?

I need some sunlight for a variety of reasons. Now an act from Hamlet is going through my head.

The Making of Tawny: Part Three The days and weeks which followed David's arrival were as joyous and real as those which follow the arrival of any child, but only outwardly and in unequal portions. Cormac was the perfect picture of a proud father, grinning ear to ear and everywhere speaking of his son. He could not speak of the weather but to say how it would touch his boy. He was alive with the excitement of the moment, and it seemed that that moment would never end. Aingeal, almost Cormac's opposite, was quiet and silent on the subject. Almost everyone around her took this for an inward and thoughtful peace, for she never spoke but to agree with Cormac in the simplest of ways. Indeed, she was so quiet that she was oft compared to the Madonna, ever reflecting inward about her newborn son. As for David, he was a strong child and of a good voice when it came to appetite and requirements. He was vocal on all subjects and seemed to prefer wailing to any other sound. Cormac was delighted by this and ever reminded Aingeal that David's lungs were powerful. Aingeal agreed with a solitary yes, all the while plotting outrageous ills upon the child for the crying grated upon her and made her murderous at times. Despite their differences in affection, the family soon became a matter of routine, for weeks gave over to months and months to years. Cormac soon lost a little of the pride in his stride and returned to his work. His affection did not dim, but it rather altered, for he took on more work than before, anxious to provide for his son and wife in the long term. As many men were wont to do, he turned the matter of David's early years over to Aingeal, content to wait until David was older before stepping in to make him a man. This was of course an unforeseen mistake on Cormac's part, for he could never have imagined Aingeal's unnatural plans to alter the boy. So it was that David became David to his father and everyone else, while in secret he became something else. When no one else was about Aingeal called him Tara. Being as young as he was the name meant no more to him in the first few years than any pet name or nickname that a loving parent might use, but Aingeal was careful to use only Tara and nothing else. After a time she took to calling him Tara openly, but never loudly enough for anyone to hear. As David grew he took this for a distinction of affection from his mother and nothing more, and as no one else seemed to notice this, he never thought to mention it. In addition to this private use of his middle name, Aingeal was also careful to flatter Tara with words or adjectives generally reserved for girls. While Cormac used words like Handsome or clever, she would call him lovely or sweet. She also took advantage of Cormac's absence to dress her Tara up in clothes befitting a girl, not that the clothes of an infant boy or girl contrasted greatly at first, but she carried on doing this into his toddler years and beyond. In addition to dressing her son in garments covered in lace and sprinkled in perfumes, she would also speak to him as if he was a girl, making no distinction concerning gender. She would use phrases like 'We girls' or 'Ladies like ourselves'. She even went a step further and dressed up an unused room in a corner of their very arge home with dolls and delicate things. She would spend most of her time here with Tara ever reminding her child that such things were a secret between women and were never to be spoken of to men. Now Aingeal did sometimes question herself in this regard, but not enough to quit the road she travelled on. She sometimes hated herself for being purposefully strange and secretive, but not enough to change her mind, repent of her actions or alter her course. With each decision to push beyond her conscience, she became stranger still and began to relish the perversion her son might become, imagining new ways to alter him over the course of his years. Time passed this way, and the child was sometimes David and sometimes Tara. For himself, the young Tenile was intelligent, witty and imaginative, enough so that most of Aingeal's efforts of madness had little effect, except to make Tenile confused and more quiet than some children. When he was David, he was awkward and shy, though possessed of physical strength and stature at even an early age, owing to some traits passed to him by his father. As David he was very polite, so Cormac took no notice of early oddities. When he was Tara, or rather when she was Tara, she was genteel and modest, though of a stronger, more outward confidence. She felt comfortable, even encouraged to be such under the auspicious care of her mother-sister Aingeal. Of course, with the passing of time, David-Tara began to understand that there were strange underpinnings in life which were confusing. David-Tara's father seemed to think that he-she was a boy, while his-her mother thought him-her a girl. By the time David-Tara realized this very important thing he-she had already noted a certain difference in genders among other people, for women seemed possessed of ample parts not associated with men and men seemed possessed of a very strange appendage not gifted to women, and as David-Tara had the one and not the others, he-she grew concerned. Owing to these concerns and the many contradictions they created, David-Tara began a secret third life. This life was devoted to learning things on his-her own. Much of this time was spent in spying on both genders to learn the subtle and confusing differences in the sexes, which also required David-Tara's young mind to wade through the impossible tangle of social and political views expressed and hidden by adults. This proved to be a difficult task for a child. Navigating the open and hidden life of people created so many different ideas in the young David-Tara, that he-she could not often decide what was true and what was false. David-Tara also spent a considerable time undressing him-herself to examine the strangeness of being what appeared to be a man as he-she knew it, despite his-her mother-sister's protestations. he-she was very thorough to check him-herself to be certain that as he-she grew older he-she remained unchanged. David-Tara understood that as girls grew they developed breasts, which became ample with some and not with others, but as no such alteration seemed eminent in him-her, he-she did not know what to make of this. By the age of nine his-her young mind came to the childlike, but perfectly understandable conclusion that all parents treated their children as a boy and girl as part of their education. Of course, David-Tara's exact thoughts on the matter were more innocent and abstract, but it was this general idea that gave him-her comfort and he-she decided then that all was well and right, though he-she continued to investigate every nuance of life as often as freedom permitted. he-she did in fact question this idea many times, for outwardly he-she was praised as a boy by everyone but his-her mother-sister and eventually David-Tara replaced the idea that he-she was a girl-boy and came to the conclusion that all people started as both only to become one or the other in time. The problem was, David-Tara liked being both. he-she liked it so much that he-she grew ever more concerned that the choice to remain so would be taken away from him-her. This made David-Tara very angry and even fearful for everyone about him-her seemed determined to make him-her a boy, and he-she was wise enough to see that his-her mother-sister openly despised being made into a women herself and would probably hate him-her if he-she became a boy. "Will they do that to me?" he-she wondered. "Will I have to become a boy?" he-she asked himself aloud, and often. So worried did David-Tara become concerning this that he-she began to wonder about the steps which might be taken to prevent such a choice. These thoughts carried him back to his-her earlier discoveries, for in his-her diverse attempts to understand gender and its purposes, he-she had often turned to the animals about the countryside, noting the similar traits that mammals all possessed. During these discoveries he-she had witnessed the gelding and alteration of animals to a gender of a third kind, at least as he-she understood it. he-she chanced to think innocently that it was possible to become neither gender, so that he-she might in some way escape the need to alter what he-she was with the simplest alteration to his-her anatomy. In these thoughts, David-Tara was utterly alone. Like most children he had reached the age of self discovery, but unlike most he was poorly armed to that purpose, being possessed of so many misguided and misrepresented ideas of life, gender, role, anatomy and even affections that he would never understand what he had been robbed of. He was so altered by this time as to be outside the purview of common understanding and as such he was beyond the many subtle epiphanies of other boys his age. The road before him did not even offer him the choices of sexuality as we understand them, for he would never be heterosexual, homosexual or even bisexual in the ways in which we define them. He would be unique ever after, the damaged son of a loving and oblivious father and a broken woman who dared to call herself his mother and sister.

I remember The Pop Shoppe drinks. Of course I grew up near Canada. I also remember the soccer craze in the mid 70s. Knee high socks and Pelé. My best friend had the first Atari in the neighborhood. The last Apollo mission happened at the beginning of my life.