Page 7 of Rears & Vices

“What!” Admiral Johnson was beside himself in waiting for the secretary to finish.

Finally: “Witness?” he spluttered. “But the inquiry… all charges were deemed viable! He’s a bloody deserter marine—turned pirate! A sodomitical pirate!” he emphasised.

“With due respect, Admiral,” Everard began, “I was not present at this inquiry. And I am telling you now the charges are inviable, without foundation. This man is not a pirate, or a deserter, or a sodomite. I’ve had contact with him these three years past, and he could not possibly have done any of those within that time frame. What we have here, I believe, is a case of mistaken identity.”

Everard would thwart all of Vitaliy’s charges if he had to do so one by one. He likely couldn’t have them dismissed—Vitaliy would not go free on felony charges, not when the admiralty clearly had it out for him—but he could at the very least throw certainty of guilt.

Vitya would be transported, never to be seen again, but he wouldn’t hang.

Admiral Johnson stared. “That’s impossible. Did you not hear who⁠—”

“He’s married,” Everard said doggedly. “I know him well.”

The admiral muttered to his secretary—likely striking whatever was forthcoming from the record—and said, “I don’t care if he’s your goddamned brother-in-law; these sorts of crimes ought not to go unpunished under any circumstance! You do understand me, Anderson?”

Everard understood perfectly.

“Ordinarily,” he lied, “I would of course agree with you, Admiral. But in this particular instance, I have some means of proof. In my possession I have three years’ worth of correspondence that proves this man cannot have—and would not have—done these offences within the admissible timeframe.”

Well, come tomorrow he would have, anyway.

“I trust these will prove more than acceptable to the court, once I have been sworn in properly as witness.” Everard stood, put back on his nonregulation hat, set it exactly straight. “I will have them brought you on the morrow. Sir.”

Three

Three Years Earlier

King Street

York, Upper Canada

It was quarter-nine of the morning, on a Saturday, in the midst of the coldest fucking April that Everard had seen yet in York. Arm-in-arm with him on the road, Lieutenant Preston D’Arcy was not only still suppertime levels of sheets to the wind, but also… singing.

“To market, to market…”

In the smack middle of wide King Street. Nursery rhymes, no less.

“To buy a fat p… riiick…”

Worst of all, he was loud.

Everard dug his fingers into D’Arcy’s sleeve and resisted the urge to shake the man ’til his teeth rattled. “Jesus sainted, Preston,” he muttered. “You’ll have us both swinging the yard.”

“Admiralty don’t hang officers,” D’Arcy said. “Not as we’re at war with the Yanks.”

Everard grumbled. “I don’t aim to be the exception.”

D’Arcy waved this off lazily. But then, he was gentry. Everard pushed him away so that he was forced to bear more of his own weight.

“And,” he added, “you’ve got the rhyme wrong, you utter sod. It’s to buy a penny bun.”

He knew he was right, too. Pages appeared, flash-powder white in his mind, as though he held the book in his palms.

Songs for the Nursery, Tabart and Co., London, 1805. Price 6d without Plates, 1s 6d with Plates, 2s 6d with Plates beautifully Coloured.

Even without his memory, he ought to know; those particular plates had been his own work. Between wars, children’s books had been about the only steady pay for a twenty-five-year-old Navy lieutenant-turned-satirist.

There, plain on page 8: