Page 39 of Rears & Vices

Now D’Arcy’s—frankly territorial—message was plain.

Vitaliy received it without a blink.

But then, he had been carefully explicit as they signed the legalities. Their agreement didn’t preclude Everard from relations with others, and he himself cared not at all. It felt pointed, especially with D’Arcy sitting glumly as witness, Bellingham St. Clare at his side.

“Matelotage,” Vitaliy had explained, “is not a marriage as most understand. Not anymore. It is mostly inheritance, convenience. No pirate on the Sévère will care if you are found outside my bed. And,” he’d said thoughtfully, “the existing relationship explains the lieutenant’s presence, even if we leave him out of the papers.” He signed his elaborate majuscule V with a flourish; Everard signed his own meager initialed scrawl; and that was that. It was done.

Naturally, he’d said nothing about relations with his own person.

“I mean a fight to the death,” Vitaliy clarified now. “Which is not by any means excluded from civilisation,” he said pointedly.

D’Arcy rolled his eyes.

“But aren’t pirates supposedly democratic?” Everard asked.

“Yes,” Vitaliy said firmly. “But as I was never turned out nor campaigned against, but only presumed dead, I may challenge my elected replacement, if there is one, and defend my own prior election. And they also may choose a fight to defend the crew’s most recent election.” He pushed the last of the honeyed bread into his mouth, though seemed now to savor it less as he chewed. “It may be pistol proof, but more likely fists.”

“Why not have another election?”

“Expediency,” D’Arcy quipped.

“Bloodsport,” Vitaliy said. “We don’t yet live in an age where violence isn’t valued at utmost, and crew want a leader who will defend them to the last, and prove they did not desert them willingly.”

Hither to last week, Everard never had and never would’ve deserted a posting of his own, but Vitaliy spoke of captaincy like a privilege instead of duty or right. He spoke of captaincy and leadership as though it wasn’t often like herding bouncing seals, hanging on to authority’s slippery fur for dear life, only one’s read-in admiralty papers and the occasional reluctant striping backing him. Perhaps piracy was different in that way also.

“‘Government: the greatest of all reflections on human nature,’” Everard quoted. “They want a man after their own hearts.”

Vitaliy smiled. “Yes. But I’m not worried. If they’ve chosen anyone, it will be Milly, and she is too fond of her own command of the Birch. And does not want me dead, last I asked.”

She, her. Command.

“She? Milly—your fleet master—is a woman?” Everard said, aghast. Sailors sometimes had feminised sobriquets, so he hadn’t thought anything of the name—Milly, how ridiculous—upon first mention. But the pronouns plunked down like stones, undeniable.

“Mmm,” Vitaliy confirmed; he sucked his thumb clean of the last swipes of honey from his tin plate. “Mind, I hope she hasn’t tried to take the Sévère after all. She claimed her own captaincy via election, whereupon the previous captain was only two days gone ashore. He returned, claimed his prior election, enraged… Milly defended the Birch’s crew faster than I’ve seen prior or since.”

D’Arcy removed his feet from Everard’s knee and leaned forward, fascinated. “Pistols, surely? Was the other captain a drunk?”

Vitaliy chuckled. “No.” He didn’t offer further.

“And the crew?” Everard asked, though now it seemed a given. “They accepted her henceforth?”

Vitaliy stood, brushed off his trousers, and took the stack of tin mess plates into his arms. “They elected her. They loved her.” He smiled slightly, admiration and pride clear on his face. “And then she replaced them. One by one.”

Everard frowned. “With whom? Other… electors?”

“A select crew,” Vitaliy said cryptically, walking away. “You’ll see. And they love her even more.”

Twelve

July 1816

Matagorda Bay

Pirate flagship Sévère

Vitaliy’s flagship, the Sévère, was of course nothing less than an ex-Spanish meregildo. She was a massive 112-gun beauty, a Santa Ana–class ship of the line built in the late 1790s that Vitaliy had overtaken outside Havana and had refused to give up as prize to his president Madison. Everard liked him just for that. Her sails were square and plentiful, well kept, full-rigged; twin mermaids curled over the three-tier quarter gallery. She was so grand, this floating castle, that Everard wondered how Vitaliy had ever voluntarily left her, even for the sake of a free and unrestricted press.

Tonight in the greatcabin, as the light faded into magenta sunset, Everard’s new pirate husband sat casually dwarfing a plush, red armchair. Vitaliy was peaceful, head bowed, his big hands counting away at stitches: a pair of socks, worked first thing upon arrival, like that was the thing he had most looked forward to, having been away.