Saunders comes slowly to the private parlor balancing the silver tray with the card in one hand as he opens the door. Admiral Norrington looks up guiltily as the old butler shuffles in; he has been caught pouring a drink for Lord Beckett, again. At first opportunity he will be pulled aside and reminded that if Cutler can no longer pour his own drink, he has had quite enough. Even now, Beckett is slumped against one wing of the chair, pale and listless enough not to notice the butler at all. The shades and curtains are drawn, but the sunlight manages to seep through and fill the room with warm amber light. The light turns the silver tray golden and Saunders presents the florist's card to Lord Beckett. Norrington's gaze flicker from one man to the other and finally he touches Beckett's shoulder. A shaking hand reaches up to grasp at a glass that is not there. Cutler shifts, his head lolling, and he tries to focus on where James had his damned glass but his eyes find Saunders first.
"What is it?" he slurs.
"The florist has arrived with your order, Sir."
"Yes…James, take the card. Have it brought up here," Beckett orders and Norrington's long fingers pluck up the card. "All of it. I want all of it up here. Yes." He slumps back against the wing chair looking feverish.
"Yes, Sir," Saunders turns to go and leaves the Admiral to tend to his Lord. He could have said to Cutler that she had only been a whore, but the statement would hold as much truth if Saunders were to tell him he is only a butler.
Mercer has not been spoken to since the afternoon he arrived back from Tortuga, back from the dead. He had been missed for some time. Cutler Beckett had been relived to receive the message from the docks and had long vacillated between rage and despair at his servant's lack of communication. Mercer was gratified to be back and he had almost expected gratitude upon his arrival. Cutler had been on the edge of such an emotion, Mercer had felt it, but Beckett had stopped short at the sight of him. Everything about him had turned awkward instead of elegant and the reunion of almost-friends ended with Mr. Mercer being walked up to his room by the butler.
Mercer sits in his room in the dark - he has no need for tapers - and he runs his fingertips over the contours of his face. Beckett will no longer see him, no longer speak to him - not even in the dark - and Mercer seeks the answer to Cutler's silence in the scars on his face. They were as close to friends as two fiends could be: Mercer alone being the man Cutler could converse with about the diminished capacity of his heart. Without polite lies and without polite ignorance - they could speak freely to one another and suffer no consequences. Now Beckett's silence is a poison whispered into Mercer's ears.
He speaks to her now. Surely her scars are no less than his, her ugliness no less vulgar. What good is she? He had always earned his keep, he had always been useful, was still useful, why was it that Cutler could no longer see this for himself? Mercer could not see. He could not put a finger on the guilt Cutler Beckett felt and all his quests for answers lead his fingertips to red threads of fate. Scarlet was the only thing he could feel.
Darkness beneath the blindfold and his voice commands, "Stay still." Rose expects a knife, cold and sharp-edged, to tickle down her skin. Instead there is a rose, soft, cool, and fragrant, its petals kissing her lips. There will be thorns, she is sure of it. The bloom of the rose travels along her body, lingering over the scars she wish she did not have to show him. Her fingers wrap around the leather straps and squeeze, tightening her bonds and seeking greater control. Suddenly, the rose is lifted away and in the silence she can hear the faint noise of ripping and she trembles. Their scent fills the air as fistfuls of bruised petals flutter down on top of her. Still, it is not enough for him and his hot hands come down on the petals and he rubs them into her skin until she stinks of crushed roses.
Later, after she has peeled the dead petals from her breasts, belly, and thighs and put her clothes back on, he is waiting for her. In place of her pouch of money he gives her a glass bottle. Rose does not take it and stares defiantly at Lord Beckett.
"The attar of rose," his fingers stroke the curves of the glass as he explains, "is so valuable because it takes a thousand roses to produce just this tiny vial of it. The petals of a thousand are steamed to extract the essential oil-"
"I don't want it," Rose flatly states. Beckett grinds his teeth in annoyance, "No, but you will take it. You will wear it. It is more than you are worth, but it will ensure you keep coming back: You owe me for a thousand roses."
She snatches the vial violently, ensuring that Cutler feels her displeasure with the scrape of her thorns against his hand, and flies off in a rage. Rose did not want this; she did not want any of this.
Moonbeams are broken by the wraith that moves unseeingly through the hallways. Mercer remembers how well, how clearly, he could see in the dark. Things are different now: he is exiled in the servants' quarters of the house and not allowed out. Mercer goes out at night so as not to be seen. He thought he knew the darkness because he could see it. Now he knows differently, Mercer is relearning the darkness – no, he is becoming part of it, swallowed up by it, an extension of it. The darkness has no eyes to see the dying of the light, Mistress Ching taught him that…
An ambush had been planned for the Pirate Lords in Tortuga, but little did he know that an ambush in Tortuga had been planned for him. Mistress Ching, the proprietress of the brothel and former pirate, is the driving force behind it. Marines and Black Guards slump dead on the ground and those that are still alive are having their throats slit – hot blood black in the moonlight steaming into the cool night. He is bound and forced to kneel in the sty of her neighbor's yard, the pig shit seeping into his breeches.
"You are precious to me, I must not let the evil spirits think you are worthy of stealing," the old, blind woman tells him as an odd apology to the shit soaking into his boots. "This is not business, you understand? This is revenge," Mistress Ching tells him as she moves towards him with a dagger that only looks decorative. She places a hand on the top of his head, not in blessing but to orient her sightless slice.
"You will weep tears of blood," she whispers to him and strikes swiftly from one eye, across the bridge of the nose, to the other eye. The last thing he sees is the flash of his own blood spraying from the bridge of his nose with his last eye. The pain is excruciating. Expecting to have his throat slit also, he is surprised that the rope is cut from him. Mistress Ching explains, "You murdered my nieces, my sister's daughters, who were much loved and quite useful. You are lucky that I am merciful. I have the right to kill you, but I have merely decided to make you useless to your master."
He does not want a fucking explanation. Left without his sight and without his weapons, he must make it back alone, defeated.
The darkness presses on him mightily. Mercer must lose everything before he can take that final step into the heart of darkness. There is one more thing he must do, one more test. Mercer must see the scarlet spray again, blooming in the space behind his empty sockets. He stalks by smell now, among his other remaining senses. Mercer can smell the moonbeams, and he is seeking out the scent of roses.
Rose had been summoned in the afternoon and paused in the entrance to Lord Beckett's office. Here was an old man with great skill applying paint to the plaster and giving color to graphite geography. Her eyes skittered across the surface of the water to the continents and islands. Surely there must still be a place to escape; some forgotten detail that the cartographer had failed to mind. The world was all laid out before her and there was no place to run to and no place to hide. A silent shadow crept in the hallway and threw a silhouette upon the wall. The corner of her eye caught the sudden darkness and Rose was reminded of where she should be going. Shrinking from the wraith that pursued her, she climbed the stairs to Cutler's chambers.
Patience is a virtue, one that Mercer greatly exercised while waiting under the eves of the mansion. The air was floral and humid, but there was only one scent he was searching for in the night. His fingertips were pressed against the wall and feeling the vibrations of every little thing that moved and breathed inside. He sought out her heartbeat and timed his to match. She was coming down the servant's stair now and slamming out the door into the garden. Mercer exhaled when she did and fell into step behind her, the stink of roses filling his nostrils and the red threads of her hair teasing his fingertips.
Oh, but she knows he is behind her. Clever whore. She does not run - she just keeps walking into the shrubbery. Mercer wonders whether she can feel the puffing of his breath on the back of her neck. He is going to slit her throat and in doing so he will lose the closest thing he has to a friend. Mercer must do it, he must lose everything to achieve that darkness and then… And then Cutler shall be compelled to come to him as he did before and speak with him. Mercer would again be the master and Cutler an apt pupil in the study of the darkest of human hearts.
"James!" she screams and starts to run, her shoes crunching the gravel of the path. "Rose?" comes the soft reply from a distant part of the garden. A happy rage fills Mercer as he realizes the whore and the Admiral have cuckolded Lord Beckett countless times in his very own shrubbery. Naughty creatures, he will put an end to it, two will die tonight. Blade sharp and ready, Mercer pursues Rose as she and James search frantically for each other in the starlit garden. She screeches as he nabs a fistful of her hair and jerks her off her feet from a dead run. "JAMES!" she wails and claws his fist as he forces her head back. Mercer runs the edge of his blade across her white neck like a lover's tongue.
The bloom of blood is accompanied by a boom. Mercer can see red stars spinning into infinity as he twitches and gurgles, his blood seeps into the gravel. It is a painful thing to be alive after a bullet besplashed his face against the shrubbery. "Rose! ROSE!" breaks through the crimson haze and he pictures the pitiful sight of the Admiral clutching the dead whore and willing her not to be so. Mercer tries to laugh, but his mouth is exploded among the leaves, his teeth are nestled in the gravel, and all that happens is a pathetic wheezing sound. It is not mercy that leads the Admiral to use his spent pistol as a club against the glistening mass of jagged flesh. The squish and spittle of blood continue long after Mercer has passed into the maw of darkness.
James pressed his palm against the precious cargo hidden in his waistcoat as he quietly leaves the room. He passed down the hall, around to the stairs, into the kitchen and out the door. Behind the kitchen garden and under the shade of a few decorative trees that mark an entrance to the shrubbery are two unmarked graves. Norrington unprickled the roses from his brocade vest and smoothed out the ruffled petals. Kneeling down, James arranged the roses carefully over one of the mounds of earth just barely covered by greens. His lips moved, but he did not speak. Norrington stands and intends to return to the house. The sun was setting. James had forgotten what time of day it was; shuttered in the mansion with Cutler Beckett day and night time had lost its meaning. Norrington could not move as he soaked up the scarlet heat in the dying of the day.
Saunders is alone in the house once more: There is no wraith to stalk the hallways and staircases. Admiral Norrington is absent from the private parlor and somehow Cutler has managed to reach the decanter and slosh himself another drink. There are no more roses in the vessels, but their smell is overpowering. All that is left is crushed rose corollas littering the floor and Lord Cutler Beckett – guilty and drunk and sobbing - with a fistful of petals.