Captain Auguste Rochat furrowed his brow and put his steepled hands to his lips. His prisoner, the Russian, lay on the floor of the cell smirking, relaxing with his bound hands clasped behind his head. He had been speaking for hours now, and his story, whose authenticity could be verified by no one but himself, had had the desired effect of enthralling his listeners. Indeed, both the guards and Captain Rochat had been struck with silence, until now.

“You are telling me, monsieur, that you are accusing the governor of this province with the most serious crime of sodomy, made illegal under the Buggery Act, which prescribes hanging by the neck until dead?”

“Well, that is what he said to me,” Rodion chuckled. “Also, if I may say so, sir, you sounded just a bit like Andrei Vasilyevich there.”

“Please don’t change the topic, monsieur. Accusing the sitting governor of any crime is a serious matter.”

“I am not accusing him of anything, sir. You put those words in my mouth. I am simply relaying what his words to your ears.”

“You should also take great care about what you have been saying. The theft of slaves is also a great crime.”

Rodion pursed his lips, “Are you accusing me of this crime, sir?”

“You seem to be accusing yourself, according to your own story.”

“Elaborate.”

“Damn you, monsieur. The letter of credit used by Captain John Glass, under the alias Johnny Tarr, is a forgery. You said so yourself.”

“No sir, I did not. I merely stated that the man did not have a letter of indication on his person, and that I was suspicious of its lack thereof. However, this can be simply attributed to the fact that I am unfamiliar with the banking customs that are carried out in this part of the world. Therefore, I remain guilty of nothing, and if the documents were false, your man at the harbor surely would have marked them as such, having seen countless other documents of the same time before, and we should have all been summarily arrested already. Besides, the matter of the purchase has been invalidated anyway, and you know perfectly well why.”

Auguste sighed and removed his hat before sitting next to his prisoner on the floor of the cell.

“Your English is much more proficient now than it was when you first came here, no?”

“It has improved very much, I think. Just as your opinion on me has improved.”

“You assume too much, monsieur.”

Rodion scoffed, “Sir, if a prisoner was put in my charge, and I was to expedite his passage to the afterlife, no amount of desperate lying would save him, but an entertaining story, well…”

“Are you saying that you have been lying to me all this time?”

“Why would I implicate myself like some imbecile? I shall tell you again, sir, as far as you know, I am not guilty of piracy in any form, and neither am I involved with the theft of slaves. Captain John Glass, as far as you know, legally purchased those three hundred souls, and if he wished to free all of them post-purchase, he was well within his legal rights to do so. Have you any arguments against that?”

“None. In fact, I believe that liberty is the natural state of man.”

“Oh?” Rodion said with a smile, “So even if what we had done to free those people was completely illegal beyond a shadow of a doubt, you would have turned a blind eye to it?”

“I would have done what was expected of me by the law, and I would have restrained myself from the base, carnal acts that you committed with those poor slaves.”

“You assume too much, Captain Rochat.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that if you let me finish, then you will know the whole story.”

If one has lived as a soldier, one understands the feelings of soldiers. In the same way, if one has lived as a slave as I have, then one would be expected to understand the fright and anguish that occupy the mind of a slave.

Imagine then, what I felt when Garlington summoned before me a young African woman, scarcely older than seventeen, shivering despite the heat and silent as a stone with tears rolling down her cheeks. Andrei, too, was given a similar young lady whose large brown eyes darted between him and Garlington as she clutched her bare shoulders. Garlington smiled at us.

“I trust that you would like to be afforded some privacy, gentlemen. We are not beasts that copulate in the field for all of nature to see. My men guarding the door will show you to private rooms where you may relax. Remember – you must be firm with these creatures. They understand nothing but violence.”

When I looked into the girl’s eyes, I knew that she was more than what Garlington was describing. Though we did not exchange words, her soulful eyes pleaded with me for mercy.

“Thank you, Your Lordship,” I said, without averting my eyes from her. “We will remember generosity.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Lord Krym,” Garlington replied with a bow. “Before you leave, I do not wish to impose, but I would like to suggest that we gather for a more formal party to celebrate your sovereign’s long-awaited adoption of slavery.”

“Ah… yes, naturalna. Next time we return for slaves…”

“Don’t be daft, man,” he scoffed. “We can have a little carnival on your vessel. I shall supply the spirits and the food, and all you shall worry about is setting the table. We’ll have a jolly old time indeed!”

I said nothing but gave him a smile and a deep bow. In all honesty, I was glad to finally be able to leave. The slave girl, however, posed a final impediment. I did not wish to offend Garlington and thus invoke his suspicion, and neither did I wish to harm the girl. I looked to Andrei, who seemed equally uneasy, and beckoned him to me.

“How do you feel, Andrei Vasilyevich?” I said in Russian.

Through his clearly fake smile, Andrei wheezed, “We need to get out of here.”

“The best action is inaction, my friend. Follow my lead.”

When we stepped outside, we barely needed to explain our situation to the guards at the door. In well-rehearsed gestures, they walked Andrei and I to two separate, well-furnished rooms adjoining Garlington’s office and wordlessly walked back to their post, leaving us with the slave girls.

No sooner had they turned their backs than I nodded my head at Andrei, saying in Russian,

“You know what to do.”

Andrei swallowed, “Oh, I know what not to do, monsieur. I don’t even like women!”

That was good enough for me. With that, I took my assigned slave girl’s hand in the gentlest manner I could and slowly led her through the door. Andrei did the same, whimpering as he entered his room.

As soon as we entered, the girl fled to the corner of the room furthest from me and braced herself against the wall.

“Biko… biko emetụla m aka…” she pleaded. I did not need to understand her language to know that she was begging me not to violate her.

I sighed and sat myself down on a nearby stool.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said in Russian. I made the effort to make my tone sound calm and soft. The girl had no reaction, and stayed flat against her corner of the room. I supposed it was better than a shriek of terror. A mahogany dresser was within my reach. Inside its drawers, I found a pipe and some tobacco, but no matches. That was a shame, since an accidental fire in this place would have been a happy accident. However, I had long been without a good smoke, and I needed to calm my nerves after my conversation with Lord Garlington, that scrubber of the devil’s balls. Since I had no matches or any method of lighting the pipe, I resolved to chew it out of sheer desperation to calm my nerves.

The tobacco’s aroma was pleasant, but when I put it on my tongue, I experienced a horrible dryness that contorted my face and forced me to spit out the vile mess.

In the corner of the room, the slave girl let out the shortest laugh – a single, suppressed “ha,” before covering her own mouth in regret.

She doubtless believed that I would beat her for laughing at me. To ease her mind, I gave her a warm smile and started chuckling at myself. The beginnings of a smile formed on her lips.

There was a large comfortable looking bed in the middle of the room. I had longed for such a comfort, for my back had known nothing but dirt, straw, and swaying hammocks for the many days I had been on the road. It would have been heavenly to lie on a true mattress, but I decided that she needed it more than I.

I looked at her and pointed to the bed, and instantly her smile vanished. She shook her head vigorously, and tears welled up in her eyes.

“No, no, no,” I said, rising and backing away from her. “Nothing like that. You deserve a rest, madame.”

I cupped my hands like a pillow under my cheek, in a gesture that was unmistakable for “sleep” and extended an invitation with an open hand. Now, she seemed to somewhat understand. Ever so slowly, she made her way towards the bed, and gently placed her hand on its soft covers. Immediately, she began to sob. She did not need to tell me anything. I knew that she, like me, had not seen a real bed for many months.

She gave me one last look to make sure that I would not try anything and laid her head on the pillow. There, she wept for a moment, the sound muffled by the goose feather pillows, while I looked away out of respect.

I allowed her to rest before whatever great ordeal she faced when her new owners were to claim her. It was a terribly unfortunate that she and the other slaves were promised to a different buyer. If Captain Glass knew about their predicament, he would have surely wanted to free them as well.

I could not bring myself to leave her, knowing full well the pains that awaited her in slavery. Somehow, I would find a way to free her. Her sobbing had dwindled into silence, and I turned to face her. Her reddened eyes were affixed on me, but somehow, I knew that she was not expecting me to do anything to her.

“Rodion,” I said, pointing at myself. She said nothing, so I repeated my name and placed my finger on my heart, then pointed at her. After some seconds of hesitation, she finally spoke.

“Ogonna.”

I let out a short chuckle. Halfway across the world, here was an African woman whose name meant “fire” in my own language.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Fire,” I said with a low bow. “I promise to God and the saints that I will find some way to free you from bondage.”

She smiled at me, not fully knowing what I said, but doubtless understanding that I did not mean her harm.

After that brief introduction, we spent some time in silence together, and she lay on the bed to rest while I kept still in my chair. After some time, the guard gave a knock on our door, which woke her up with a start.

“I will come back for you,” I said.

“Daalụ nke ukwuu,” she replied. Even though I did not understand the language, I knew that she was thanking me. She cast her soulful eyes down onto the cold stone floor as I left the room and the guard went to retrieve her. While I went to fetch Andrei, I heard the soft gasps of her weeping behind me.

I picked up Andrei from his room, who related a similar experience to my own, with the only difference being that he was the one who cowered in the corner while the slave girl assigned to him stood over him and worried about his well-being.

We returned to Lord Garlington’s office to find him dressing himself while on his desk lay a naked male slave, gagged and trussed like a chicken. He shivered and wept, and his eyes looked at me with the same pleading that I found in Ogonna’s. Blood trickled from his head and anus.

“Well,” said Lord Garlington with a smile, “I trust you two fellows enjoyed yourselves. I like taking my bucks on the table. It is quite sturdy for riding, and blood is much easier to clean from wood than from carpet. Had this brought in all the way from Bristol, don’t you know.”

At this point, nothing could shock me about Garlington anymore. I bade him false gratitude and a hasty goodbye, but before we left, he reminded us of the party he insisted on attending aboard the Chaesar, and that we were to make sure that Captain Glass and Lady Glass knew he was coming. We nodded our acknowledgement and strode at a brisk pace back to the Chaesar to await the Glass’s return.

Upon reaching the safety of my cabin on board the Chaesar, I dismissed Andrei, who, quite eagerly, dashed towards the ship’s head as if he were about to be sick. I slammed the door behind me and bolted it shut.

“God in heaven,” I said to myself, “Would that I never meet the likes of that damned Englishman again.”

“My, you are quite the unobservant fellow, aren’t you?”

The voice was feminine – and very familiar. I turned around to find one of the sailors sitting in my chair drinking my ration of tea. It took me only a moment to realize that it was not a common jack tar, but someone I thought I had left behind in Hamburg!

“Lieutenant Morozova! What are you doing here?! How…”

“I should be proud of myself,” she interrupted, “or disappointed with you, not being able to detect me for thirty days. And don’t call me that here, for aboard this ship, I am known as sixteen-year-old Renatus Morse, but me mates calls me Renny,” she said, playfully changing her accent.

“You stowed away?”

“Not at all, Rodion Ivanovich. I signed on as a ship’s boy.”

“But you’re a wom…”

“Do you like what I did with my hair?” she said, tossing her significantly shorter curls. She had also discarded her green military uniform for a baggy beige sailor suit that made her look to all the world like a conspicuously attractive young lad.

“But how did you get aboard?”

“Well, Rodion Ivanovich, while we were traveling together, I had made up my mind that exchanging love letters with you would be a rather dull affair, all offense intended at your dreadful attempts at what you call ‘writing’,” she chuckled. “So, I decided that, instead of wasting away after my unit’s disbandment, I would join you on your adventure. That, Rodion Ivanovich, is how we shall both serve our Czarina.”

“Well, you have certainly acquired quite a bit of cheek since the last time we’ve seen each other.”

“I saw you yesterday, actually, and the day before that. You might mean ‘since the last time we have spoken.’”

Ignoring her remark, I continued. “You mentioned you were getting disbanded?”

“Indeed. Do you remember that night around the campfire when you called me the toy soldier, while you were the devil, and Andrei was the czarina’s pet monkey? Well, this toy soldier knew that when Prince Potemkin and Her Imperial Majesty were done playing with their toys, they would have no use for us. We had assumed that in the beginning. We would be returned to our estates to live as women again, free to sit, gossip, and do our embroidery… what a wretched hell of a life that would be.”

“And yet you prefer to spend the rest of your days on a ship as a man, in disguise all the time, fearing for your life and your virtue if you are discovered?”

Irina sighed. “You think too lowly of these men. And no, I do not intend to stay here and grow old on board the Chaesar. Did I not just say that I was here to serve the Czarina, as you are?”

“Well, I…”

“I intend to reveal myself to our gracious hosts at the soonest opportunity. I only chose this moment to seek you out because I knew that if I had done it while we were out at sea, my disguise would be that much harder to keep up.”

“How so?”

Eirene scoffed, “Kepten Gless,” she said, mocking my accent, “plees to be sending for kebin boy again, I vud laik to tok to kheem. Imagine that every night. People would be suspicious – they would assume you to be a pederast.”

“You assume that I have some attraction towards you that blinds me like the sun,” I said with a nervous chuckle.

She smirked and rolled her eyes, “I have heard you speaking of me to Mister Glass and to our dear friend Andrei Vasilyevich. I know I assume correctly.”

Before I could offer any token counterargument, she lifted herself slightly from her seat and let out a fart that resembled the squeaking of a mouse. I had expected this behavior from my Cossack brothers, but I never seen anything so unladylike from a woman. Whatever romantic tension there was in the air had been shot and buried.

“One develops habits like this when one lives among sailors, sir. Now, as I was saying – why reveal myself to you now? Now that we have made it to shore, we have the perfect opportunity to escape.”

I narrowed my eyes, “Escape what? What are you talking about? No one is being held here against their will.”

“Rodion Ivanovich, we are on a four-gun merchant vessel on a return route from the Bight of Benin. It is nothing short of a miracle that we were not attacked en route, but here, on the way back, they will know that we have something of value, and our chances of emerging unscathed diminish significantly.”

I shook my head in confusion, “They? Who are you talking about?”

“Why, the pirates of course.”

“Pirates,” I said with raised eyebrows. “You can’t be serious. You’ve been reading too many stories. Nothing happened to us on the way here, and nothing shall happen on our way back.”

She slammed her fist on the table, spilling some of the tea.

“Rodion Ivanovich I am deathly serious. Besides, it is no business of yours to see if Glass’s plan succeeds! We both know that he does not have the means to buy these three hundred slaves, and if we can see that then so can the British port officials! And they will stop him from leaving!”

I sighed and took a seat in my hammock. Eirene kept her eyes on me, impatiently awaiting my response.

“There is a girl named Ogonna. She is a slave, like I was a long time ago. Garlington, the governor of this place, expected me to rape her… to break her, like a horse. I did not do it, but the thought was unbearable. We must get her out of here and away to safety, before she meets someone who is not as kind as I am.”

Eirene’s face softened, and for a moment, her quick, witty tongue found nothing to say.

“Rodya,” she said softly, “I know it is the right thing to do to help these people. But Glass will be fighting a losing battle, and it is not your place to fight beside him. All you wanted was a ship and a crew so you could…”

“Your Nobility,” I whispered as I caressed her hand, “it is not your place to tell me where I can or cannot go.”

She quickly withdrew her hand and let out a deep sigh. She stood up, kissed me on the cheek, and walked out of my cabin.

“Come find me again if you want to live.”

And she left me there, with nothing but the questions swimming through my head and the sound of the crashing waves in my ears.