Chapter 5
Five
When Everard returned at last to the Netley, he found that Jack had obeyed him. The newspapers were all—every single blasted gossip column and cursed satire—quite gone from his greatcabin.
He looked around the neat, clean space, checked the door was latched behind him, and removed his hat with a trembling hand.
It was the last straw. He hadn’t recalled the newspapers until he’d been nearly unto the cabin, but now that they were gone and he couldn’t look up a single thing more about Vitaliy the pirate, he was… he was bereft.
If he’d been listening at all to the charge sheet, he’d have it there, clear in his mind as a list on papercloth; but he hadn’t, because he didn’t like having the charge sheets of every defendant he’d ever passed judgment on imprinted upon him for eternity.
And now this God-blessed shred of self-defence could be Vitaliy’s undoing, and his own, too.
“Fuck!”
He threw his hat. It plunked off the window, rattling the latch and casing, and he was immediately regretful. The corner fold was probably crumpled to hell. He sat at his desk with a groan and put his head in his hands.
There was a knock on the door. Of course there was; Everard was captain. Some days he was endlessly in demand. It would be one of those, he despaired, just when he most needed a pair of hours to sit and think, read through C’s letters, and choose which ones would suit.
He’d just picked up his hat again, and called “Enter,” when he heard them from above: the bo’sun’s pipes, chirping the call for an approaching gig.
The head peeking around the door was Jack, telling him what he already knew: a captain was about to be piped aboard the Netley.
“Now, Preston?” Everard muttered, and dashed up the hatch. He made it just in time.
D’Arcy was still in full dress, like him, except hatless. He gave Everard a big, insolent grin as he stepped over the railing and put out his hand.
“Smile and nod,” he muttered, leaning in for a handshake. “Like nothing’s happened.”
Everard gritted his teeth and obliged him, irritating, correct man that he was. “Captain D’Arcy.”
“Been a while since we’ve been on Ontario together, Captain Anderson,” D’Arcy added, loudly. “Good we might do an early supper in Kingston, like old times.”
Early supper? Practically a late luncheon. But Everard would play along for now.
“You’re kind to oblige my invitation, Captain,” Everard said with a nod. “Though I would want a word before we abandon ourselves to liberty.”
D’Arcy returned his nod agreeably, perfectly polite. He greeted Everard’s first and second lieutenants, who were deboarding on their way to their own leave. He gave the first, Mr. Spicelay, a critical squint that Everard didn’t miss.
They went belowdecks to the little officers’ parlour.
“Sorry,” D’Arcy said, as soon as the doors were shut. “I know it’s all backwards. Johnson’s taken over the Brigitte, my cabin included.” He glanced around, checking each officer’s quarters to be sure they were empty, and sat. “How have you been, really? I’ve been so curious.”
What cannot wait until supper? D’Arcy’s raised eyebrows said.
The doors opened again. Jack set down a decanter, a pitcher of water, and two glasses, and whisked himself silently out.
Had D’Arcy recognised Vitaliy Gray? Had he let them shove him into the hot, wet prison hold and keep him there for a day? Two days?
Everard sat, took his time pouring a glass, then slid over the decanter.
D’Arcy caught it and held it steady between two palms. “You haven’t returned a single letter of mine, Ev.”
Everard downed his drink.
Since D’Arcy had returned to the Lakes Service last year, he had been writing Everard incessantly, spending a small fortune in postage to convince him to speak to him in friendship once more. Everard hadn’t written back a word, and not for lack of postage fare.
He raised his left glove, back of hand out.
D’Arcy recognised the gesture in spite of too many fingers. He smirked.
“We both know damned well that hand doesn’t stop you from a thing.
” He pushed back from the table, went to the little parlour bookshelf, and picked up the newsprint lying atop it.
It was the Canada Gazette, a week old, and nothing in it but the list of deceased, promotions, and Rags!
Rags! Cash and the Highest Price Paid for Clean Rags.
“Gad, do they even put His Majesty’s speeches in anymore?
” D’Arcy mused aloud, paging through. “The States, the States… the States are burning… Ah! Political Miscellany,” he quoted.
“Look at that. Good God, but what the Gideons are printing these days, they’re going to get themselves arrested for blasphemy. Listen—”
He quipped a few surprisingly faithful sentences from Everard’s latest submitted editorial, and then:
“Oh, my mistake. This is hardly the Niagara Independent.” D’Arcy tossed down the paper and gave Everard a pointed look.
Everard clenched his teeth. “You can’t be a subscriber.”
“No, but Maud’s keeps it in the nightstands.
” D’Arcy picked up the wine, pulled the stopper, and poured Everard another couple fingers.
“Out with it, then. Or d’you need more wine to speak to me at all?
” Seating himself on the table, he drank straight from the decanter, finishing it to dregs; at the end of it he smacked his lips. “Well, too bad.”
Everard turned to exit the parlour. “I’m afraid I won’t have time for supper after all.”
D’Arcy stood. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Ignorance is your defence?” Everard snapped.
“Well, yes. They brought him in with a hood, Ever, and as I’ve said, they’re not my usual marines, and by the time I heard about the—the additional charges, it was this morning, and—” He took a deep breath.
“I can recuse myself tomorrow, same as you; it’ll delay them further.
I should anyway, because sooner or later they’ll remember what they promoted me for… ”
He meant the Wanderer.
Everard turned round. D’Arcy’s eyes were wide and hazel and sincere.
“… but I don’t think it will do much good. They must want this to have as little travel as possible, or they’d have had a tribunal of twenty waiting to give a unanimous death sentence in Halifax. Make no mistake: they want him very, very badly.”
Everard sat down heavily. “A hood?” he said. “Why on earth? I don’t…” He groped for the wineglass. He knew D’Arcy hated sodomy trials; he always had. He’d warned Everard as soon as he could. And would such unfeeling, uncharacteristic brutality have suited a motive of regaining Everard’s friendship?
He thought… not.
“Letters aren’t going to do it,” D’Arcy said. “Not even your letters. You’re a damned good forger, but I think he could have Nelson himself as witness to defence and still not get out of this.”
“Was,” Everard muttered. “Was a good forger. I’m not yet sure of my right pen hand, you know.”
D’Arcy pulled a flask from nowhere and glugged brandy into Everard’s glass.
“I don’t, actually.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “All I know is that you continue to write editorials for illegal periodicals and that you are still, if by definition only, alive. Three years, Everard Rubén. Drink, God damn it.”
Everard obeyed, sipping this time. “I don’t think he’s innocent,” he said at last. “Not in the least.”
D’Arcy laughed. “That’s safe to say.” He grinned with sharp teeth. “You’re sure of the one.”
“God. Yes, very sure.” Maybe it was the drink affecting him, or the heat of the dining room, but Everard found himself laughing, too.
Just a little chuckle into the wineglass at first, and then he had to set the thing down to put a hand over his face; and before he knew it, he had slumped into the crook of his elbow, completely broken down with silent shaking.
Distantly he heard D’Arcy give a patient sigh, heard the assertive clack of high-heeled boots coming closer.
The dining room doors were six-panel windows that looked straight into Netley’s hold, the stairs that went up to the hatch, the crew hammocks; and somewhere just outside, the boy Jack hovered.
Nevertheless, Everard let D’Arcy pull him up and fold him into a hug.
“Soft as syllabub on the inside,” D’Arcy murmured, squeezing him tight. “I hope your damned pirate knows that.”