Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Everard had had four months—and then this past fortnight of imprisonment—to work it through his memory. Like beating a rug until the rays of sun shone clear of dust over it: with everything fallen away, he saw it plainly.
D’Arcy had implied to him that his beating had been to make Alarie believe him initially unaligned with Vitaliy.
To confirm Alarie’s assumption that D’Arcy was a weak-willed, drunken Navy defector.
That had been successful, because despite his superior Navy record, D’Arcy had not been targeted by Alarie for Galveztown’s admiralty; Alarie had seen him as a follower only, unthreatening.
Definitely not a spy for anyone, not even the British.
A sodomite only, led by a prick, or pricks: Everard’s, at first, and then Vee’s.
But if Alarie had a wasp’s intelligence, D’Arcy was a hawk, snapping him up to fill out hungry corners.
What he had really done was to highlight to the world how inured Vitaliy—V.
Varfolomey—man and pirate, as one—was to manipulation.
He’d said it was a favor for him, Vee obliging him, but it had been the opposite: D’Arcy had been upholding Varfolomey’s reputation.
This was important, he thought. It meant someone significant in America knew Vitaliy Gray was V. Varfolomey and exploited that same reputation to their shared goals.
Whatever they were.
What D’Arcy had done in truth was counterbalance the effect Everard himself had had upon Varfolomey’s identity. When Everard had made himself Varfolomey’s proclaimed, advertised vulnerability, D’Arcy had threaded doubt through: But false, everybody see?
In this way he had protected Everard, too: from the very same hardship he was facing this moment. It had worked against Alarie, and probably would’ve done for longer, against others.
But then Everard had failed to take his pride in firm hand and had dangled himself deliciously before Jean Lafitte.
He understood now. Far too late; but at least he’d got there before his death.
If D’Arcy had come to Everard and said, Hit me, bruise me—nothing permanent, I’ll feign the rest—and in doing so you’ll protect everything we’ve worked for and the one you love, too, well…
he might not have been able to go through with it, in the end, because it was D’Arcy, but he’d understand why one could do so, given a bit more distance of feeling towards the one being bruised.
And now they wanted Vitaliy—Varfolomey—to undo it all? To unravel everything for the sake of one man? He, Everard? Useless and worthless?
It was laughable.
The irony was that Lafitte hadn’t had musket sights on Everard until he’d met him, hadn’t known who he was to Vitaliy until Alarie had whispered in his ear what it meant for him to be there, at Alarie’s disposal, as Alarie’s port admiral.
Hadn’t heard a thing about the matelotage or the San Telmo.
Lafitte had been lost in the wilds of Arkansas, surveying land with a French-Creole mapmaker friend.
Alarie had known where he’d been the whole time, and yet had let Lafitte take the blame for the San Telmo, which of course had been his own doing.
He merely hadn’t counted on Everard not bringing her to make his navy flagship; had not counted on Vitaliy taking her on for his own.
It must’ve been the final blow against him.
The ultimate irony was, of course, that after accepting Everard’s forced surrender as a token of good faith, Lafitte had since taken advantage of Alarie’s absence and claimed Galveztown in the name of La Corona. He’d declared himself governor, and his men had declared for México.
Everard couldn’t see how any of it—beyond Mina and his intentions—was tied to true revolution.
He saw only greed.