Chapter Text
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind”
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
London, 1647
There was an unforgiving chilliness in the wind that disclosed the impending start of the fall when Louis walked with his friend, and soon-to-be-fiancé, in the palace’s neatly trimmed garden. The air smelled fresh after the rain that had fallen down that morning, making the nature shine a bit brighter before the unstoppable. And although the place was all about artificial shapes and patterns, there was something calming about being surrounded by so much green.
The prince's companion walked with calculated, graceful steps, her spine rigid thanks to the corset in order to maintain the desired pose of a young lady. And while it too felt staged and unnecessarily restrictive, even the limited contact he was allowed to have with her—just the touch of arms that were looped together—was nice and intimate.
Some of his discomfort also came from the chaperone trailing behind them, whose presence was noticeable only because of the small pebbles that crunched under her feet on every brisk step she took. It wasn’t like in the old days when he had been able to bait ‘El’ into running through the gardens barefooted, clothes stained by grass while laughing at the faces of the horrified adults.
Improper, as he had learned later. Indecent.
Very few people had stopped to talk to them during their walk around the park, leaving them time to gaze at the exquisite flowerbeds that flanked the geometrical walkways around the white, slightly discoloured fountain in the middle of the garden that gave rise to a pleasant ripple of water. Dozens of the variously coloured flowers that still proudly presented their summer hues as good as pointed the right direction towards the stairs to the entrance of the estate they were walking towards. A gardener made a hasty bow when the prince and his lovely companion walked past the round hedge he had been trimming carefully.
“I quite like those lilies,” Eleanor observed, pointing at the bright orange kind. Even though Louis doubted she knew the names for any of the trees or plants, she was very keen on pointing out the most pretty - and apparently most French flowers. It had become dizzying to keep up with, and Louis sighed in relief once they stepped off the narrower path and onto the main walkway. “They remind me of the French lace I got sewn into my newest gown. I would love for you to see it, Louis.”
The prince hummed non-committal. “Oh, yes. I shall look forward to seeing it at the Harvesting Ball. Orange is one of my personal favourites, like sunset.”
He said it almost forcedly politely, the words sounding stiff only to himself when coming from his mouth and past his lips that had been trained to vocalize mundane wishes and everyday pleasantries for the past decade. But it had come out with renew vigour, for the palace and its entrance loomed few hundred feet before them.
The estate of the Hampton Court palace was a sight to behold: the distinct contrasting architectural styles, the domestic pink bricks and the symmetrical, successive low wings bathed in the rare but welcome sunshine. Due to his father's and grandfather's greed, it had been built to represent Versailles, but only the garden managed to awe the prince - perhaps because a park did not have four walls. A tall, dark nobleman twirling his cane descended the detailed stone staircase that led down the entrance and walked towards them. As he gradually came nearer, Louis tensed.
“Lord Isaac Boyd,” Eleanor whispered into his ear, familiar with Louis’ troubles – and distaste for –remembering all the noblemen in the court. He squeezed her hand in gratitude as he angled his chin subtly as a greeting when the lord, one of those they called ‘New Money’, walked past them, tipping his flamboyant hat.
“I don’t quite understand him,” Eleanor whispered to him once the man was out of earshot. “Usually those who have gained their fortune by trade are less ostentatious. I do not like when he so pompously shows off his money. And all those gambling debts-” she broke off with a breathy whisper.
Louis stopped himself from looking back at the scandalous nobleman as they reached the bottom of the stairs. He tightened his hold on her arm and trailed his other hand along the railing when they started to ascend the steps. “At least he has earned his money fairly.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Eleanor stopped them at the top of the stairs for a breather – it wasn’t acceptable for a fine lady to exercise or sweat, and even though most of the rules weren’t targeted towards his sex, Louis felt caged inside all these rules. The most exotic lands he had travelled were unfortunately just works of his imagination, having to picture the remote countries by how they were described in those books his father brought from his travels.
“Well,” the prince started, “I have rather enjoyed our walk, Ms. Calder. I shall see you again, soon.”
He brought her glowed hand to his lips and placed a lingering kiss there, feeling the quickening pulse of her dainty hand but it, again, failed to rouse the feeling inside him his mother and father had talked about. Being with her didn’t feel like being struck by a spell.
He left her standing there and with an impish wink towards the chaperone, Louis walked through the double doors that were opened by two servants in matching uniforms. His steps ricocheted in the high-ceilinged corridors as he headed to his chambers.
Louis hated how love wasn’t an important factor in royal marriages. He wouldn’t indulge into a sham of a union whose only meaning was to look good on the family tree and please the public – whether aesthetically or financially or just simply to give the air of a strong alliance with a neighbouring country. Make us look strong. But how strong would they really be if the king and queen were unable to share a bed for longer than the absolute necessity? Louis shuddered. Though, it was clear from his father's behaviour and insisting that he believed Louis would grow to love Ms Calder like his father had grown to love his mother.
“Is it bad that I still don’t feel like asking for her hand in marriage?” he asked from his valet once he was standing before a mirror, inside his own quarters, stripped from all the pretence he kept up all day – and sometimes the nights as well.
“Maybe his Highness hasn’t found the right one, yet,” Stan said. Louis regarded them through the gilded-framed mirror.
The prince smoothed down his hair self-consciously, trying to make it seem it hadn't been ruffled by the wind. His father, and the rest of the court, preferred the children not to look messy. If one did not wish to wear a wig, one should know how to control one's hair, they had always said. Other than that, Louis was not surprised what he saw there. His own pale face, his smooth chin that had yet to start growing beard, his thin lips and his blue eyes under his currently judgmentally angled brows. But even though his clothes were made to flatter, he did not look regal.
What he saw from the mirror was a young boy bored to death, and while he still recognized the old sparkle of mischief, it had gradually dimmed, now discernible only in the subtle crinkles in the corner of his eyes—a token of the times he had been allowed to be himself. He soon looked elsewhere - and watched the angles of his friend’s round face; the lashes that weren’t particularly different from a woman’s; his mouth which was distinctly thinner and rougher-looking than Ms. Calder’s plump lips that looked shiny with spit he was nowhere near ready to exchange with her. Louis averted his gaze from the mirror for good, frowning.
“Why do you constantly continue to act like I haven’t already asked you to stop speaking like I’m not in this very room with you?”
“Because you’re the crown prince of England and therefore my superior.” Stan tugged Louis’ waist coat for the last time, his fingers ticking the prince’s sensitive sides. He brushed some non-existent lint with a swift flick of his hand.
“His High- you’re presentable for dinner.”
Louis nodded, moving his shoulders a bit because of the uncomfortable pressure of the unwieldy texture of the new coat. “Hopefully my father won’t expect more walks and courting from me. I have done my part of the deal by chattering about French this and French that for the past one hour and a half.”
“His Majesty is merely looking out for you, Sir. His lordship has left Ms. Calder quite the dowry. Eighty thousand guineas, wasn’t it?”
Louis barely managed to refrain from snorting at the awe in Stan’s voice. “And Good heavens if my father can’t have that when our marriage is consummated. England would fall.” Sarcasm had always been one of his most persistent vices. Stan gave him one of his patented disapproving glances.
“Whenever his Highness is ready to start acting like a royal, he can join the rest of his family in the dining hall. Your father has demanded for your immediate presence.”
“The seaborne trade is getting costly,” his father lamented during dinner. “I thought our economy was doing well since we commandeered that island from Spain but it appears that the buccaneers have grown in power in French Tortuga. Corsairs are after the treasures again; an English ship that was laden with gold and valuables was attacked by the outlaws – no survivors, no gold left. Last week it was the silk from our colonies in the East Indies. Their thirst for wealth is insatiable!”
The outburst was of course caused by a sealed letter a servant had brought on a silver platter just moments ago. His father’s face had gone purple and Louis had lifted his goblet just before his fist hit the walnut table with inlays of gold and marquetry, shaking the jelly on the middle of the silverware and candelabras.
“Was it the Crimsonblade again, papa?” asked Félicité, the middle child. She had always held a guilty kind of fascination towards the outlaws.
In response, their father carded his fingers through his dark blonde hair that had started to recede within these past five years – Louis was only slightly guilty to confess that he had been the reason for a premature grey hair or two.
“Unfortunately there are others who manage to take us by surprise. They prevent our nation’s power from spreading wider, from developing our colonial empires. We shall double the amount of the raids. The French have found recapturing loos profitable enough. But those ruddy colonial officers of West Indies are defending them as it is, apparently, ‘very harsh to hang people that bring in gold to their provinces’.”
“I heard the pirates aboard Mary Anne were too drunk to fight,” Lottie giggled, enjoying sharing this conspiratorial piece of rumour. “And Crimsonblade reputedly invaded Port of St. David’s without firing a shot!”
“Charlotte!” their mother hissed to her eldest daughter who quickly dropped her gaze into her lap, cheekbones flaming.
Louis found himself chewing his food mechanically without actually acknowledging what he had put in his mouth. He set his silver cutlery down beside his almost full plate and waited until after a servant had finished refilling his glass, before he addressed the participants of the dinner table.
“Mama, papa,” he said, gaining their attention. He fidgeted in his chair under his father’s stern look. “I want to travel somewhere.”
“May I ask why?” his father inquired suspiciously – and not without reason as his eldest had come up with most cunning excuses and propositions about trips to get liberation from courting the youngest daughter of Lord Calder.
No immediate prohibition, Louis' mind added. This was as good time as any. “To actually try out all the languages I’ve learned-”
“You will once you’re the King. It’s part of diplomacy.”
“I’m already eighteen and I haven’t even seen-”
The King’s hand rose between them, cutting off Louis’ further arguing. The young prince had always had a hard time biting his tongue, often being punished for his impertinent statements in the hopes of getting him tamed. The proper calligraphy of a formal letter had been hard enough to drill into him, not to mention the proper manners that were more prone to cave in due to his intense nature.
“Yes, we are aware of that, Louis. But at eighteen one should be looking for a suitable partner; fortunately in your case, that’s not a priority. Ms. Calder is a wonderful young lady who will make a wonderful wife and even more wonderful Queen. Still, you should engage yourself in the variety of social activities more often – attend all masquerades you have been invited to – in order to show the public what kind of man will rule the country after me.”
“And this ‘engaging’ is not possible in a foreign country?” he asked dexterously, shooting a pleading glance over the table at her mother who had always been the easier one of them; had had a closer connection to her son. Her kind eyes held an apology that told Louis she had no power over the King.
His parents shared a look. The King grunted at the end of the large table.
“All right,” his father started in his diplomatic, compromising voice. “My dear friend, King Henri of France could take you to his custody for a few months. How does that sound?”
Dull. But maybe when he was in the foreign country, there would be fewer rules that concerned him. Besides, the King was a nice man with intelligent green eyes, long dark hair and aristocratic lineaments as he had seen on a painting that hung on their gallery. It was of Louis’ father and him on a fox hunting trip and Louis had heard enough of those that he knew the Frenchman could provide some fun.
“Splendid,” he agreed swiftly.
He should have known it had sounded far too good to be true, until: “On one condition; you take Preston with you.”
Preston was a large man of muscular physique with hairy forearms, and whose only evident purpose was to scare the buccaneers away, in Louis’ mind. His stern glances, continuing snooping and barking on the other hand, managed to frighten off even the prince’s pleasure as the carriage bumped on the unsteady, muddy ground of the street that led to the docks.
“You seem exited today, your Highness,” he remarked as they neared the Thames. “Looking forward to your first journey abroad?”
"Obviously," the prince remarked. "I find my company lacking pleasure, though."
Louis, whose spirits had been clouded by his tedious company, couldn’t help how his excitement rose to a new level once the steady line of side by side built houses gave away to the view of the river. The prince soon caught the sight of the darker figures of the ships floating in the wide channel near the built-up but sturdy London Bridge, and the tall masts of the vessels anchored along the long wooden piers and platforms full of people and piles of goods yet to be stowed. He pulled the curtain of the carriage open wider and watched as men loaded up the ships, carrying heavy packs wrapped in light brown fabric, or rolling full barrels of either fresh water or wine up the loading planks, struggling as the gravity coaxed them to reel back down to the pier.
The sun was rising higher above the horizon, forcing the fog of the August morning to recede and the smell of the market nearby lay heavy in the air: the stench of fish, the grey and thick smoke coming from the blacksmith’s forge and some cheap perfumes mixed with the salt of the sea. The carriage came to a halt, jolting the prince who had admired a rather large frigate floating in the water, its stern adorned with a regal-looking British flag that waved feebly in the gradually strengthening wind.
Preston tugged the daydreaming prince’s arm to coax him out of the coach. “C’mon," he urged. "Let’s board the ship before it casts off without us.”
Louis snapped his hand back but stepped out of the carriage with great dignity. “Are you insinuating I am late? A prince is never early, or late for that matter. A prince comes and goes as he wishes.”
His burly companion surprisingly let out a laugh that reverberated deep inside the man’s chest. It was loud in the sudden hush that had fallen on the pier at the sight of the royal carriage and, undoubtedly, the prince whose lilac brocade jacket looked every inch the rich man’s attire it was. He almost smirked and waved at them, for, if it was up to him, they would not see him for a long, long time.
The ship in front of them was massive, to his eyes. The side of the ship rose out of the water like the face of a cliff, and the three masts towered into the blue sky. The rigging looked like spider’s net high above, but thickened into a rope the size of his forearms where it was tied to the pier. the loading plank was only waiting for them, the merchants having finished preparations and the vessel was ready to depart.
“Watch you step, Your Highness.”
They boarded the ship, The ship belonged to the English Trading Company and it would sail from London to La Rochelle, from where the prince would be taken to a summer palace where King Henri resided all the warmest months, away from the congested streets of Paris and the epidemics that raged about.
Louis took a moment to admire the sleek, lacquer covered railings and stairs of the ship's deck, mainly to avoid looking at all the bittersweetness he was leaving behind. Like the all too familiar red-roofed skyline of London, only broken by the occasional tip of a cathedral's rooftop, and the Tower of London looming regal and menacing with a large blue flag garnishing its highest flagpole between the four square towers. Louis, curious whether his father’s tales about racy adventures and debauchery were true to life, asked Preston about it. As a member of the Royal Guard, he would no doubt have heard about the juiciest of details.
“His Majesty is a very nice man,” was the answer. “Entertaining, but unfortunately he likes the company of ladies a bit too much.”
Louis let out a small ‘oh’ as he caught on. Love affairs were a taboo but it didn’t mean the ladies of the court didn’t enjoy spreading them when they assembled at their quarters to share tips about embroidery.
But even more fascinating to the womankind were the corsairs – especially to the young who found the idea of being captured simply too romantic to not dream about. And Louis, as well, found it easy to surrender himself into fantasies about freedom and life at sea in the flickering candle light that made the walls of the ship’s private quarters look haunted.
He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; velvet loveseats and golden chandeliers around him. It was only natural for him to be curious as he had no notion of the real world beyond the palace’s protecting walls.
A chained life, Louis liked to think.
The wind had picked up right after they left the English Chanel behind and steered into the open ocean. Louis, unused to the rocking movement when trying to sleep, lay awake; looking through the small windows at the back of the room from time to time to make sure they weren’t in the middle of a storm. It did look ghastly grey but he wasn't able to discern anything further than the reflection of the orange glow of the candle.
At that moment, when Louis was almost exhausted enough to fall asleep despite the see-sawing, the ship did to swift turn, forcing the prince to grab one of the bedposts in order to not topple over to the floor. Footsteps boomed in rapid thumps as the crew started to move in obvious alarm. The prince drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, looking at the door of his cabin, wide-eyed.
A whistling noise pierced the air. The ship shuddered.
Louis threw the covers away, donning his brocade jacket quickly over his nightclothes and stared at the door, ears perked up to distinguish further sounds of distress.
More whistles were heard and several peculiar noises in quick successions, like a handful of knives hitting against something wooden. Less strange was the following fear that suddenly gripped Louis. Judging from the shouts, there was another ship close to them and by the looks of it, this wasn’t going to be purely a social call.
The sputter of muskets and pistols filled the air and Louis stood there, numb, but the sound of bodies hitting the ground – whether those of an enemy or his own, he didn’t want to find out – cleared his head enough so that his instinct to hide overcame his horror.
He scrambled off the bed, blowing out the candle beside the bed, and looking for place to hide along with something possibly lethal to wield if they were to come through the door in search of riches. If there had been a time he had been glad to be two to five inches shorter than the average Englishman, it was now as he hid inside a chest, clutching the brass candlestick, and pushed its contents out to make room for himself.
He left the lid slightly ajar, which turned out to be a good thing.
“…open the door…”
The voice was muffled, clearly belonging to someone British but less ‘pure’ than what the prince was used to. Louis had to strain his hearing to make out the words through the thick door and the thick accents.
A second voice. “…not enough time……blows up.”
“There could be gold in there!” came clearer now as the stranger’s level of agitation rose. They were probably arguing in the corridor right outside his door.
“…too late. They’ve already lit the powder.”
Louis gripped the edge of his hiding place with white-knuckled hands. His legs shook as he forced himself to remain still, safely inside, until the lasts signs of movement stopped on the deck. The wait for the right time to abandon the ship was one of the longest Louis had ever encountered, including that one game of hide and seek where he had hid himself under the bed of a guestroom from where he wasn’t found for the next ninety minutes.
Then, he finally crept out of his hide, opened the cabin’s door and peeked his head thought the gap. The door opposite him was barely hanging from its hinges, the pirate’s having apparently headed straight to the captain’s quarters in their search for the most valuable. The floor was a mess, some invaluable items had been dropped on the way back to the deck, forming a trail of quills, brass buttons, books and, for some reason, several trousers. He followed the trail.
The deck was a mess of bodies, smeared pools of blood and goods that had been abandoned in the pirates' hurry to retreat. An empty barrel of rum, judging from the smell of it, lay next to men in red coats and white, bloodied trousers.
For some reason, his eyes and brain refused to register any of the further details, just allowing him to search for the most needful: the means to get away. His feet slipped on something wet, his hands fumbled to grip on anything to keep him steady, and if he did saw some more blood or got it in his clothes, he simply stared and wondered numbly where it had come from. Finally, the empty barrel he had seen closest to the door proved to be the best way to keep him at east afloat if he were to jump—and the probability of that was becoming frighteningly great.
With immeasurable gusto, the prince lifted the empty but surprisingly heavy barrel on the railing and pushed it overboard—and flung himself off the ship’s deck.
His back hit the water with a loud splash, and a thick cloud of silvery bubbles rose all around him. Or they stayed still and he sunk, lower and lower into the ocean. None of the air was from his lungs, though, for he kept his lips securely locked. The pain of the impact was the first to hit him, and after his senses numbed to it, he was able to register the coldness of the sea around him. His skin prickled with it.
Louis blindly started kicking towards the open sea, away from the ship’s hull, but thanks to the long drop down and the amount of cold water, he’s not sure which direction was which; the water above him was just as dark as the expanse of water below him. He couldn’t see further than his pale hands that pawed the water, fingers splayed. He didn’t stop to think how deep it was for too long.
Too soon, the explosion caused the ship somewhere above him to fall apart, the shock wave of the exploding gunpowder tossed Louis around like he was just a piece of driftwood. His thick jacket only made it worse, becoming heavy as it got wet, forcing Louis towards the bottom of the sea.
He shrugged it off, arms and legs flailing as he fought to resurface with the last remnants of air still left in his aching lungs. In his mind, he apologized to every person he had ever insulted when they had insisted to teach him how to swim. He swore to never complain about his privileged life ever again. He kicked himself forward harder, towards the reddish glow.
The first gulp of air was like a good night’s sleep after week of insomnia; refreshing, invigorating his numb muscles and sharpening his trail of thoughts.
And if Dame Fortune hadn’t been on his side before, she was now: the empty barrel – or another one that had flown there during the explosion – was floating right beside his head, drifting and bobbing along the waves that reflected the orange glow of the ship’s remains that were aflame and scattered around him. As Louis took hold of the barrel, it dawned on him that he would be spending a long time holding the wooden object for his dear life.
His salty tears of frustration soon mixed with the equally salty water of the Atlantic.
Louis came about slowly. First, he barely had no recollection of what had happened. He merely though he was young again, laying on his back on the grass and picturing the weird-shaped clouds had the forms of animals, each more exotic than the other. As he lay there, blinking his sight clearer, he suddenly remembered flitting on the borders of consciousness, where each bout had come and went in hypnotic rhythm, and he had been surrounded by an enormous body of water. Then, he noticed that he lay on a hard ground that see-sawed, rather than on anything garden-like. He distinctly remembered moaning about it before, and came to the conclusion he was on the board of a ship again.
The clouds that had looked big and white against the starling blue of the August sky above him, were not clouds at all but huge white sails of a dark-wooded mainmast, ropes and rigging going around to and fro, to every direction and back. He startled once he recalled his ship had blown up. Where was he?
A man came to his line of sight, his silhouette shielding the prince from the too bright sky. Brown, ungroomed flyaway hair framed his face that had a notably long nose, and Louis had the misfortune of having a rather good look up his nostrils. When he spoke, Louis saw he had two, unnaturally big front teeth.
“Think he’s alive?”
Even without the following poke aimed at his ribs when the man ‘checked’ whether he was still among the living, Louis disliked him immediately. As the man kneeled to take a better look, Louis kicked him, hearing a satisfactory scrunch as his foot connected with his length-wise abnormal nose.
“Fuck – shit – twat!” the stranger shouted, cupping his now gradually bloodier lower part of his face. “Keelhaul him!”
“He’s got spirit!” exclaimed another voice, extraordinarily delighted taken the situation. “Who knows how far he’s comin’ from. Could’ve been driftin’ in the sea for ages!”
Louis looked towards the voice and saw a blond man on his left; not any better groomed, but whose skin was not withered and peeling of due to the exposure to the sun, and less tan. He had lots of small cuts on his forearms and palms, like he handled knifes all day long and wasn’t particularly careful about what he cut – that, or a tight schedule.
“He must me hungry, then,” said a third voice, now from his right, belonging to a considerably less unkempt and more sophisticated-looking man, but who was definitely burlier than the rest, so Louis didn’t take any comfort in that. “Niall, fetch some food for our newest addition.”
“Aye, Payne,” said the blond, Niall, apparently. He disappeared under the deck, hopefully heading toward the kitchen. Louis stomach grumbled in agreement but he couldn’t hear its laments over the noise of the waves crashing against the prow and whooshing under the keel. The salty sea water was starting to dry on his skin, causing it to tingle uncomfortably under the glare of the sun. His clothes were still wet.
“Where am I?” he asked from the man with the kind, round brown eyes, although his judgement may have been altered by his offer for eatables. The man smiled at him, relieved to notice the boy was physically as fine as he could have been under the circumstances.
He said, “Welcome to Queen Anne’s Revenge, Drifter.”