Chapter 17 #2
He sat up, drew his hands through tangled hair, pushed it behind his ears. “I think that he is planning. Sitting on a corsair in the Gulf with his secretary, writing letters.”
“A secretary. He sounds quite dangerous,” Everard teased.
Vitaliy nodded. “He is,” he said, matter-of-fact, either ignoring Everard’s tone entirely or not hearing it. “His loyalty is as unfixed as his citizenship. He’s American now, but before that, he was spying for the British, and before them the French.”
“What a coincidental pattern,” Everard said dryly. “Who do you suppose is next?”
Vitaliy’s gaze turned suddenly serious, fixed on Everard. “Spain.”
The query mark was back, loud as a bell.
Everard swallowed. “Of course. Galveztown. He’d want it for Spain, then. And Varfolomey, in contrast, has declared his support for revolutionary México?”
“No,” Vitaliy replied. Still serious.
Vitaliy wouldn’t… suspect Everard? After all that, for an offhand, accidental remark? For a surname, a language? Vitaliy had been more forthcoming, more honest than anyone he’d ever met. Trade routes, ship manifests, crew numbers, gun counts—he’d kept nothing back.
Vitaliy nudged closer, ’til his knees were touching Everard’s hip. He began to pull at the sheet entangling Everard’s ankles.
“No?” Everard watched warily. “Not even México? I thought…”
“Varfolomey declares for no one now. I learned this lesson with Alarie, and Cartagena. But Spain is his enemy. And the enemy to most of the Sévère’s ports of call.”
“Slaver bastards,” Everard agreed.
He resisted the urge to defend himself against those cool dark-blues. Could Vitaliy really think him a spy? With their history? It made no sense.
What in hell would the Spanish crown have wanted in York, Upper Canada, anyway?
But one couldn’t just say Yes, I am Spanish, not actually English, you have me there; but not a spy, I swear it.
In the silence, Vitaliy bent to Everard’s left ankle, sheet in hand, and wrapped one tail around. He glanced up as he tied a knot that Everard didn’t recognise—Russians had their own system of knots—but it had a slip loop. When he had finished, he sat back, and waited to see what Everard would say.
Which was a mystified “Er” but definitely not a “No”, which was what he suspected Vitaliy was looking out for.
He didn’t want to give it. He wanted to see what came next.
“Are we done with talking?” Vitya said. Watching him, he wrapped Everard’s other ankle with long fingers and pulled it closer, across the width of the cot. Then Everard’s legs were spread obscenely, toes almost meeting each corner, one thigh resting across Vitaliy’s lap.
“Yes, fine, if you wish.” Done talking, but Everard’s prick had a lot to say about this situation. “Are you really tying up a man with six fingers?”
“Yes,” Vitaliy said, and then did the same to the right ankle—again inserting a slip loop, drawing the sheet taut between Everard’s spread ankles. Everard groaned.
“The stones on you. Mayhap I should revise— Are you really tying up a Navy man? With slip loops?”
“Yes,” Vitaliy said, this time with a smile.
“How insulting,” Everard said. “I thought pirates only tortured those less than forthcoming.”
Vitaliy slid out from under Everard’s leg. The look on his face was strange. For a moment, Everard thought he’d changed his mind, that he would undo the knots himself.
“That was a jest,” Everard said quickly. “I didn’t mean it.”
“If I want to know something I don’t,” Vitaliy said, slowly, “I will ask.”
Everard’s heart thumped. He raised up on elbows, careful not to move. Even done in linen, the knots would fall apart at a sharp movement.
“All right. But what is it you think you know?”
Vitaliy straddled over to kneel in the wide space between Everard’s knees, and sat back on socked heels. The mosquito gauze framed him like a caped cloak, shimmering in the horizontal dawn light.
“I know you trust me,” he said.
He didn’t wait for confirmation. He put a single finger on the tip of Everard’s prick and drew it straight and upright, until Everard shivered.
“I know you want to be here. With me.”
Vitaliy dragged his finger down, back up again.
“I know you speak like an Englishman…”
He grasped firmly, broad callused palm and long fingers cool and practiced, and stroked once.
Everard gasped. “S-so do you,” he said, “when you wish it. Lieutenant-Marine.”
“But you are not one.” Vitaliy’s gaze was dark blue, flame where it was hottest. “I have known that since I first put my mouth on you.”
“Christ.” They hadn’t done that yet—not in three years—not since York. Everard wanted it more than air, and couldn’t think why he hadn’t asked for it from get-go. “Really? You did?”
Vitaliy nodded, and stroked slowly, up and down. “And I know your heart.”
“Oh, God.” Everard writhed. “Yes, you do. And I’ll tell you whatever, you know,” Everard rambled. “I’m Spanish Catalan—pressed from the docks of Barcelona at twelve—forged my citizenship papers to make officer—I’ve never known anything but the British Na—”
Vitaliy leaned in quick, and kissed him, hard, on the mouth.
“I said I will ask,” he said, forehead against Everard’s, lips still touching. “Do you wish me to suck you or not?”
Everard gulped. “Please.”
“Good,” Vitaliy said. He nudged Everard’s thighs carefully wider, slid down onto his stomach. Settled in and hooked his elbows to either side of Everard’s hips, watching him the while, as if to promise, This isn’t going to end soon, oh, no.
Then he took him in, all the way down.
“Ohh, Sant Jesús. Vitya.”
Even after last night, Everard wouldn’t outlast the fading-orange dawn. He was damn well going to try. He put a hand up to push back the bed-mussed, fine-silk hair, to gather it—
Crack-boom.
Vitaliy flinched badly, gagged, and, as Everard exclaimed and reached for him, levered himself upright. “What?” he gasped. His red-lipped expression was pure disbelief and shock.
Everard sat up. “God, are you all right? Was that our cannon?” he asked, idiotically, because obviously it had been. “We weren’t heading into Havana port, by chance?”
Vitaliy launched off the cot like a north-woods panther, just as silent as one; Everard shook his head to clear it, and scrabbled at his ankles, cursing the world.
Thankfully, Vitaliy’s mysterious slipknots worked as intended.
Vitaliy thundered out of the greatcabin in no more than a shirt, leaving the door ajar and Everard hopping into drawers.
Abovedecks, the cannon shot had already scrambled a fair few others from their beds and onto the weather deck: Louis-Michel Alarie, D’Arcy, León the bo’sun. Thom stumbled up out of the hatch, ahead of Stephan the surgeon, quickly followed by Romilly René.
“Who dares?” Vitaliy demanded. “Which cannon was shot? Milly?”
Romilly René answered quickly: “ángel.” Every one of the Sévère’s cannon were stamped and named. “Second deck, larboard bow.”
“The powder room?” Everard inquired.
“Secure,” León said. “Unbroached.”
Mystifying, but… “Thank God.”
“Sail, to larboard!” called out Louis-Michel Alarie. They all hurried to the rail.
There, D’Arcy handed him a glass, along with a raised eyebrow.
“You look…”
“Yes, rather, thank you,” Everard finished for him. He raised the glass. “Oh, damnation. Well, there’s wherefore the shot.”
There was a ship on the dawn horizon, its bow pointing in the Sévère’s direction.
A ship-of-the-line, riding the trades to Cuba, colours undetermined.
A ship to whom the Sévère had just made a warning shot, as though she were really a Spanish warship, wanting their colours.
And at the moment—Everard twisted to confirm—the Sévère was still flying the red-yellow-white.
“Pure provocation,” D’Arcy said cheekily. “And a good morn to you, too, Ev.”
As they watched, the boom of reply shot came, its smoke puff trailing up. But still no colours came.
Shite. They either recognised her as an enemy or didn’t trust she wasn’t.
“She’s Armada. Who the fuck was watch on deck?” Vitaliy growled.
León opened his mouth, but Vitaliy didn’t wait for a response. He hauled up onto the rail and into the mainmast ratlines. Everard put down the glass and watched him go, blinking. Vitya really hadn’t put on anything but a shirt—
He disappeared. Then something large and dark tumbled over the edge of the topmain platform where he had entered.
The falling, rolling thing narrowly missed the mainsail yard; and before anyone could yell, there was an incredible, meaty splat-thunk onto the deck before them.
It was the sprawled body of a white man, someone Everard didn’t recognise, covered in blood and bowels, very dead.
“Good lord!” Everard exclaimed.
“Madre mía.” León crossed himself rapidly.
Stephan the surgeon crouched over the broken body, needing no more than a moment. He shook his head. “Dead an hour, at least.”
“Putain,” Alarie cursed. “We have been infiltrated a-purpose.”
Everard looked up to D’Arcy. His eyes were wide. Another false watchman? Here? In the middle of the Gulf?
There was a sharp whistle, and Vitaliy appeared again over the platform.
“Marcus is dead,” he called down, loud but weary. “I need a chair.”
Thom ran to retrieve it.
Vitaliy gave Everard a long look, one that said: You know what to do. Then he disappeared back onto the platform.
And Everard did know.
“León,” he ordered, “an immediate all-hands, please. Fleet master René, take ten crew and search the ship, bow to stern. We’ve traitors aboard.”
If anyone minded the abrupt shift of authority, it didn’t show. León’s whistle blew, and the bell was rung. Romilly René disappeared; Everard heard her bellowing orders below.
León ran to the foremast. Everard feared what he’d find.
D’Arcy crouched beside Stephan. “Marcus put up a fight,” he murmured. “This one bled out?”
Stephan nodded. The ship’s surgeon was a slight, soft-spoken Black man with whom Everard, chronically healthy on the water, hadn’t had much conversation with one-on-one, but knew from the post-supper singing and music that the whole ship indulged in.
He had a Philadelphian accent in a beautiful low baritone that—more often than not—smoothed over Vee’s hesitant, staccato fiddle-playing, and steady doctor’s hands that corrected Vee on his fingering.
Everard hadn’t missed his subtle survey of Everard’s definitely-not-syphilitic forearm upon first meeting. The protectiveness for his friend and captain had endeared him to Everard instantly.
“Here.” Stephan pointed to a red-soaked rent of trouser. “Or here.” A lower right-side puncture, equally soaked. Marcus had fought hard and fierce; his murderer hadn’t outlived him long.
“The poor brave sod,” Everard said.
Thom returned, chair slung over his shoulder.
D’Arcy stood. “I’ll help with the chair.” He handed Everard one of his pistols, and then up into the ratlines he too went. It would take two to maneuver a dead man into the sling chair and carefully belay him down.
Louis-Michel Alarie stood behind his own gilt spyglass, eyeing the ship on the horizon.
“What do you think, Governor?” Everard asked. “Is it Armada?”
“I believe yes,” Alarie said crisply, after a moment. “Her make is very new: anti-revolutionary, as they have used against us in Amérique du Sud. I will say… seventy guns? But quicker than you would think. And she’s windward, of course—on the trades.”
“Right,” Everard replied. He blew out a breath. The Sévère was anything but fast: most especially when sailing against the wind as they were. “Well, shite. What’s the chance of Vee tacking and fleeing her?”
Alarie’s eyes flicked over, as if wondering why Everard didn’t know the answer to that. Everard wondered too.
“With men murdered on his deck?” Alarie tapped his lips. “Very small, I think. Especially now we have shot at her.” He grimaced. “We have a rendezvous.”