Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Four Months Later
Galveztown, Tejas, Republic of México (formerly Nueva Espana)
The most merciful thing Alarie could have done, Everard thought, was put him in a ship’s prison hold bound for Spain.
Or Cuba. Florida. Yucatán. After four months of being shoreside, Everard would’ve done anything to be on the water once more before he died, even if it meant being confined in a prison hold.
Even if it meant that upon landing on Spanish ground, upon a last glimpse of the frothy blue sea’s horizon, the soldados would take him out onto the beach to be shot. No trial.
But they hadn’t. Everard wasn’t important enough to be held by the Crown, to be made an official prisoner, earmarked for execution.
Important enough to be a target for Jean Lafitte, spy for Spain—certainly.
Important enough to be used as a bargaining piece between the bastard governor Louis-Michel Alarie and said spy for Spain—absolutely.
But not to be put under the swinging focus of Fernando VII or his viceroyalty. Not yet.
Instead, Alarie’s men—Everard’s men, he would’ve said, hitherto—had left him there, in Alarie’s earthwork hut of a fort, with feet fettered and hands manacled in iron.
Alone but for the servant who, without meeting Everard’s eyes, delivered just enough food and water every day so that he wouldn’t perish.
Neither Jean Lafitte nor his brother were known to be violent men—at least directly—but they wanted him alive for something. Everard tried to shy away from thinking what for, but couldn’t, because he knew precisely what it was—and knew it wouldn’t work.
He merely wondered how long it would take for Lafitte to realise it too and give him to the Spanish to recoup his lost investment.
Xavier Mina, he thought, had been a friend enough that he maybe wouldn’t have let Everard be held arrested without cause or explanation.
But Mina was two weeks gone now, back on the Caledonia alongside Alarie, with all of his men and his ships en route to southern México—including most of the men with whom Everard had got along quite well.
Despite his reputation to the contrary, and indeed the immediate situation, he wasn’t entirely friendless.
He shifted his fettered ankles. Just currently… alone.
Alarie, plain and simple, had begun an irrational campaign against any and all authority he perceived as threats. He’d tried to arrest his army colonel, Henry Perry, on the same day: an unwise choice, as Perry, unlike Everard, had loyal men who could fight and had fought back.
Everard had a dozen disconnected privateer captains with loyalty to nothing but coin, and an unequal friendship with a Spanish filibuster obliged to the plans of rich American men.
In theory, he had Varfolomey, too—but of course, eventually, Alarie had seen through that, seen through Everard’s posturing when Vitya had not brought the San Telmo or any other ships in support. Not that Everard had or would have asked.
Galveztown hadn’t achieved recognition from America, in spite of their “navy,” despite that the privateers were under strict orders not to touch any ships flying the stars and stripes, and they’d unilaterally complied.
This had more to do with the two U.S. Navy frigates posted watch outside the bay than any orders.
But New Orleans had got a new man in customs who let their unmarked goods in freely.
Marques were issued in an orderly and official manner from the very same printing press Vitaliy had acquired—not the Stanhope, of course.
Everard wondered if she were still bolted to the parlour floor, or if she had been broken up and sold.
Lastly, despite his threats and demands, Everard had not really been able to stop the privateers from plucking slaves from Spanish prizes and taking them straight to New Orleans.
They saw dollars and nothing else. Everard wasn’t Varfolomey, with a fleet and cannon and seductive wages and fat vanilla profits behind him.
The Americans turned the other cheek, and so did Alarie.
More likely, Everard’s betrayal had been motivated by nothing so heated as passion, or even strong dislike, but only cold silver. Lafitte had asked how much, and then all Everard had been to Alarie was an amount quite a lot less than his weight in Spanish coin.
He couldn’t even say that this—being bargained over, being handed over in exchange for monies—was compared to being sold, because in truth, this was vastly more humane.
In estimating Everard’s price, whatever it had been, neither governor nor pirate had ever considered Everard less than, as property only.
His essential humanity had been maintained in their eyes throughout, by the color of his skin, that simple and thoughtless presumption, by his birth and speech and health, all informed by generations of wealth behind him.
No matter how much he’d tried to refute them, redistribute his own.
The bargain had been a gentleman’s agreement. V. Varfolomey wouldn’t fold to it. It would only make him angry.
Well, perhaps sad for the loss of Everard himself, possibly, but mostly angry. Disdainful, that someone would try and sell his matelot for ransom—his mate, who’d abandoned him—that he would deign to respond to such a thing.
Everard imagined Vitaliy receiving the letter of demand, reading it, and throwing it aside in disgust. He laughed to himself, repositioned his manacles over his lap, and let his head fall back to the plastered log wall.
In fact, he thought, they couldn’t have done more to repel Varfolomey.