Chapter 30
Thirty
Galveztown was a sandbar: a beach surrounded by swampy, undeveloped wetland. But it was still land, and therefore Everard hated it on sight.
Evidence of frequent and recent wrecks floated all around them as they slowly approached: flotsam planking; rigging snagged in foamy sea-weed; the odd wave-tossed barrel.
Through a borrowed glass Everard spotted palm trees on the distant mainland, some ripped to shreds on the beach, others steadfast and lonely; there were clumps of green-leaf mangroves with their white roots exposed on washed-away shores, and before these, a spotted, weaving carpet of marsh reeds and underwater grasses.
Within the bay itself, the water was infamously too shallow for anything larger than a canoe or light jolly—they’d heard Alarie himself, the fool, had wrecked a handful of ships in this same bay only weeks before—so the Caledonia and Mina’s accompanying ships hovered in a vulnerable-feeling white-winged murder just outside the sandy peninsula.
There were a handful of smaller ships already at anchor around the port: these being what, Everard assumed, would soon make up his own fleet under Alarie.
Half of them had been lost, and the rest of them were a sorry bunch.
He’d have gone so far as to call them ragged: small and two-masted at the largest, at least half of them needing careening; others were possessed of soggy, tearing sheets.
The best-looking was one Anemone, the corsario slaver that Everard remembered had carried the Galveztonian marque—and slaves, humans, souls—to Louisiana and then Florida. All in the name of profit.
Everard lowered the glass, swallowing heavily. He remembered Louis-Michel Alarie, standing beside him at the rail of the Sévère, covered in expensive, masculine pink satin.
Profit for him.
I have seen what motivates him.
Money. Everard had thought Vitya meant power, position, glory; and he had surely meant those things, but primarily, he had meant Alarie was motivated by money.
Of course he had. What else drove the world but greed?
All ideal, no practice. Everard’s convictions seemed more impossibles than ideals at the moment.
But why now? What had changed?
Throughout his career, he had upheld the brutality of authoritarian kings, obliged greedy admirals, endured tyrant captains, swept away officer injustices; all while telling himself he was different because of convictions and opinions he’d kept—for the majority part—private.
Different because of a few anonymous essays, because of a handful of scratched cartoons mocking an untouchable man.
Different because fucking other men had been the only thing he’d been unwilling to desert in his quest to become an unimpeachable, honorable, English officer of the Navy.
But he wasn’t different. Not really. None of those things had been active; none of them had changed him in any significant way.
Not even that last point; the thing he’d refused to let go, refused to think of as a flaw to be corrected.
And perhaps he’d fucked—and loved—two men, and that was radical in itself.
But he had never sincerely admitted or confessed that love, to the point that neither man even had been aware of his depth of feeling.
Neither had trusted him with their true selves.
Neither had had faith that Everard would, in fact, give up everything for that love, fight tooth and nail to keep what he’d found in them.
Because he hadn’t fought. Hadn’t given up anything. Had blamed them for inaction when it was inaction driven by his inadequacy.
No practice.
No; what was practice was what he was actively doing now, in this moment, with this decision he’d made to follow and support and uphold a man he didn’t trust and didn’t respect, who wanted revolution not for the sake of the people fighting and dying for it, but for the glimmering mirror that would shine the daylight of fame back upon him as gold and renown and legacy.
And in fact, it was with Alarie’s first act as governor—that Everard witnessed, anyway—that the man immediately proved himself ill suited to leadership or respect.
He refused to let Mina’s ships into Galveztown port.
The bay was too shallow. There was no other option for the Caledonia but to wait. Mina had his heart set on Galveztown, and Everard had nowhere else to go.
Fearing plague or worse, Everard sent a gig with a letter informing Alarie of his arrival, his answer to him in the affirmative. Yes, he would be his admiral.
No response, which stung Everard’s pride, but less than he thought it might.
Mina sent one too, reminding Alarie of his commitments to México and his pledge to assist him. No response. Mina was infuriated.
Eight days later, Alarie relented, with no excuse more legitimate than he had too many mouths to feed already and that he was himself convalescent.
He received Everard in his tent as though nothing had happened. He was indeed convalescent, but seated upright at a desk regardless, a pillow behind him on the chair.
“Happy to see you, de Anglada. I knew you would change your mind.” Alarie smiled handsomely.
“Indeed, I had such confidence in you that I have written already to the American Congress: Galveztown is not only now possessed of a marshal, customs, port authority, and judges, but an admiral and admiralty court.”
“Indeed?” Everard said. “All that?” he couldn’t help adding. A week earlier, he had swung the glass over the smattering of shanty-like buildings on its east wing that made up Galveztown itself, and wondered.
“Yes. Now they cannot but recognise her sovereignty,” Alarie relished. “In fact, I hope to hear from Washington by the end of the year.”
Everard thought that unlikely, and not only because it was nearly December.
If all of Ha?ti’s might and beauty, their constitution and government and ideals, could not convince America to recognise her, what hope had tiny Galveztown, taken over by a disgraced white Frenchman with misplaced priorities?
“Is that not the Mexican flag flown outside?” Everard said pointedly. “The blue-and-white checkerboard?”
Power, position, glory, money. He saw it now. The man wanted all of it. He wanted to be a king.
“Of course,” Alarie said, without a blink. “Sovereignty for México.”
“Very good,” Everard said; and then he saw his opening.
Practice. Maybe this was a step down the ladder from the careful, deliberate impression Vitaliy made on the world around him—several steps, even—but maybe he could also still salvage something from this.
“Surely American recognition will mean we must comply with the Act?” Everard asked.
Would it be so easy? As easy as insisting to Alarie that as his admiral, Everard would oversee no human transport, would issue no marques to slavers, would use his full authority to persecute those not in compliance with the anti-slave trade laws?
If V. Varfolomey himself could not consistently ensure such a thing from an ally, how could Everard ensure it of his direct superior? He had no true leverage but to walk away.
But Alarie was desperate, and thought of Everard as a path to the most powerful pirate in the Gulf.
“Oh, of course we will,” Alarie said, offhand, as though it were nothing to go in either direction. “And have not I been doing so?” he challenged.
Everard gave him a steady, uncowed look.
There was no possible way Alarie wasn’t aware that Vitaliy knew what he’d been up to in his incarcerated absence.
Vitaliy hadn’t said exactly what for he’d fallen out with Alarie, but Everard knew it must have been something along the lines of violation of man’s basic rights.
“Well, henceforth, we shall,” Alarie went on, unperturbed and unashamed. “Neither I nor Mina could not get Haitian assistance without that assurance in writing, in any case; Pétion was adamant on liberation. As is right!” he added hastily.
Everard said nothing. He had already heard it’d been a crew of restless, slighted Haitians that had sent Alarie into his current convalescence; they’d become frustrated at Alarie’s unfulfilled promises of corsairs and riches, had converged upon him and shot him—twice—then fled back home, taking three ships in the process.
Had he been here then, as admiral, Everard would’ve turned a blind eye and let them go right on by. A promise was a promise.
“When a gentleman gives his word, in trust and confidence,” he said carefully, “there is no reason for assurance in writing.”
A ridiculous statement; one always got things in writing. But as Alarie sat silent for a moment, blank-faced, shocked, Everard knew his meaning to have been perfectly understood.
“Precisely!” Alarie said, at last. “We are in agreement, de Anglada. Given recognition, we will comply with the laws. In the meantime, customs in New Orleans is quite amenable—”
“No,” Everard said firmly. “Henceforth.”
Alarie frowned. “The privateers…”
“I understand,” Everard said, “that you wish me to condemn as prizes those vessels the fleet will bring into port, Governor.”
Alarie’s nostrils flared.
Beneath Everard’s words floated this: If you want any prizes able to come in at all…
He didn’t think Vitaliy would use the Sévère to exert force in that manner, but Alarie didn’t know that. Maybe even feared that.
“You understand correctly, Admiral de Anglada.” Alarie’s gaze narrowed, dark and shrewd. “Indeed. Henceforth, then.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know, I had thought you a bit of a different beast than our lion Vee. Despite your being his… mm, partner. But now I think your mint is just the same.”
Everard said nothing.
It was plainly untrue, and thus simple flattery, no more.
“This is a good thing,” Alarie emphasised, doubling down. “A good thing for me, and an excellent thing for Galveztown herself.”
Everard closed his eyes. “Surely, Governor.”