The Intrigue

Chapter 1 –

"Cutler Beckett? Hm, Cutler…. sounds like something fierce, or like a breed of fish. Hope it wasn't your mum who gave you the name."

"It was my grandfather's name, actually. He was admiral of the King's personal war fleet. Won eleven honors. Two in battle for injuries he sustained in his upper chest and lower…." Beckett's eyes flickered downward as he hesitated. "Regions."

Jack sucked in his breath sharply and whistled. "One hell of a price to pay for some pieces of tin on your jacket, wouldn't you say?"

"They were symbols of honor," Cutler explained, wondering why he bothered even justifying it to such a man.

"Symbols….. Honor, you say?" Jack seemed amused by this, as if it was a novel idea.

Cutler waited for Jack to say more, but he didn't. He merely closed his eyes again and tucked in more comfortably against his tree. Cutler scowled self-consciously. It had been a fool's mission to talk to the imbecile. Cutler wasn't entirely sure what had possessed him to approach the rouge in the first place. His classmates would never let him hear the end of it if they found out. He looked over his shoulder self-consciously at the group of lads currently strolling by the university's inner courtyard. They were older classmates. Probably no one that knew him personally. Although, no doubt their families had instructed them to single him out as a potential contact, to be approached at soonest convenience. Cutler knew what politics were like—it was why he already had Presidency in several of the school forums, even though he was merely a second year student and was shortest by several inches to all the group members who attended.

He brushed an invisible piece of dirt from his coat before folding his hands behind his back again. He gave a slight, curt bow. "Good day to you, Mr. Te—"

"Leaving already, are we? And here we were getting along so well," Jack commented dryly. He opened one eye to look at Cutler.

Cutler got the impression suddenly of being stared at by a cat. "I have a class lecture to attend," he explained.

"Yes, the one on French rhetoric, right?"

"How did you know?"

"I'm in that class, too."

It struck Cutler as odd to having Jack admitting to sharing his classes. It was odd knowing Jack was even in his university. With a name like his—and the rough, obvious lack of propriety he had, he had to have been a bastard son-- of one of the deans, no doubt, or maybe a charity case. There was no telling where this Jack character had come from. His presence was a disruption, an affront on the clean, carefully made granite stairways and sculpted walls of learning the previous generations of his family had helped create. Cutler wondered if Jack knew that if Cutler wanted to, he could have him expelled. His father had that kind of power. In the very least, Cutler could damage him. With one slight of hand, he could give permission to his peers to let lose their boiling displeasure at sharing their aristocratic home with the likes of--- but Cutler was curious of Jack. He walked like no man he'd ever met. His clothes were well-taylored, his shoes and leggings finely bought, but he carried himself as if they were burdensome, nay—shameful.

There was something else, too.

"May I ask you a question?" Cutler asked.

Jack snapped his compass shut. "Yeah?"

"That compass, why do you carry it around?"

"What compass?"

"The one there, in your hand."

"Where?"

"There."

"Oh. This. Nothing, really. Just a good luck charm," Jack said as he pocketed it.

"That's it?" Cutler asked.

"You could say it was won in a battle, too," Jack said.

"You didn't completely answer my question," Cutler noted.

Jack hopped down from his tree. "I have class," he apologized. "Some other time, maybe."

It was the first time someone had walked away from Cutler in school. The action infuriated him, and his curiosity burned even stronger than before.

Rumors circulated through the London university like gossip in a fish market.

"I hear he's not even English. He's from the Caribbean."

"Is that why his skin's so dark? I heard he was a bastard son from some south heathen country."

"The ruling classes out there in the Caribbean are so backwards, I've heard."

"That would explain his lack of manners."

"How did he get here?"

"Did you notice his nails? They have dirt under them."

"How vulgar. It's as if he were a peasant."

"But how did he get here?"

"Money, obviously. A giant chest, it'd have to be."

"Can you really buy your way in here? Surely you'd have to have some sort of social status."

"It's so barbaric. Someone should do something."

But nothing was done, and Jack continued to grace the halls of London's finest, most elite university. And although he was nineteen years old and an underclassman with no status, he paid no mind to the superior students who passed him by. He barely even glanced at them and never bowed. People began to purposefully avoid him in the halls. Even the teachers seemed afraid to go near the obvious black sheep of their school. There was also the matter of his drinking. While any gentleman of worth knew that vices were kept strictly in the secrecy of closed doors, Jack would openly come into buildings with the scent of strong ale and rum still on his breath.

One student had even claimed to have seen him go down to the lower region of the city, a place where the mud was thick, the smells rancid, and no one of class would venture, unless it was to find whores, perhaps. There were whores in the upper regions, but only for the older gentree, such as their fathers. Many of the students, even with their ample allowances, could not afford the pleasure houses that their male relatives frequented. Most just improvised—some took wives, others found release amongst their peers, always in secret, of course.

Everything worth scrutinizing was done in secret. That was the proper way of doing things. Only the poor could afford open pleasures. In aristocracy, if people knew your pleasures, they also knew your weaknesses. That's why alliances were made, and friendships forged carefully—usually only through the bond of blood via warfare or marriage. Yet again, in this, Jack rebelled. If he was caught flirting openly on the street with a woman below his class, he did not hide it. When his stockings were stained, he did not change them. His very manner suggested complete and utter lack of personal awareness. It was simplistic, borderline imbicillic, and yet, admittedly, all eyes could not help but follow him, despite the steely willpower of their owners to ignore his presence. Was he aware of this? No one could tell. No one could read him.

And the mystery of it fascinated them.

- - - - - -

Cutler was surprised to suddenly to see Jack in front of him one fateful afternoon. Cutler had just finished setting up a chess board for his friend Proteus to join him, outside in the cool evening sunlight. Jack looked confused and somewhat off balance. He blinked a few times to focus in on Cutler then smiled a toothy, white smile at the board.

"You playing chess?" he asked.

Cutler hesitantly withdrew his hand from the last piece he had set. "Obviously," he said.

"Oh, good." Jack sat down across from him and moved a white pawn forward.

"What are you doing?" asked Cutler.

"Playing chess," said Jack, looked at him oddly. "What are you doing?"

A small twitch took Cutler's lips, stretching them and upturning them but only slightly. The effect was striking, but seemed to go unnoticed. He mirrored Jack's attack with a black pawn, and thus the game began.

Two hours later, a few minutes from dusk, Jack's and Cutler's game had managed to create a curious effect on much of the student body. On one hand, there was Cutler Beckett, the protégé of their university, who was hardly seen without a group of faithfuls flanked around him. Then there was Jack, the imbecilic nut case that they had all taken a silent vow to ignore and avoid at all costs. So while they wanted to approach the game, and take advantage of the empty spaces surrounding Cutler, they didn't want to approach Jack and have their reputations sullied.

A compromise had to be made, and it eventually was. There was now a small gathering of groups of men in the courtyard, spread out nearby the game; all were faking polite conversation, speaking in low tones, so not to disturb the players, but neither one seemed to notice their noise…. Or their presence.

Jack stifled a yawn as he waited for Cutler to move. Cutler carefully swept his bishop back two spaces, to rest beside Jack's knight.

Jack moved his queen left. "Your move again," he said.

Cutler leaned forward, with his hand against his chin. Jack, leaned back with his arms dangling behind the back of his chair and his eyes halfway closed.

The stance was unnerving. It took Cutler several minutes to decide what to do next. The light of the sun was rapidly fading now, and the pieces were casting long shadows. He moved a pawn forward, in the path of Jack's queen.

A rook was quickly moved to counter him.

Cutler was sweating now. His mind whizzing with calculations. There were three possible strategies he could try to take Jack's king, but which one was the less likely for him to predict? The most direct course would have Jack beaten in three moves. The most indirect… Cutler moved his piece with a shallow intact of breathe.

Jack's fingers moved than paused. Was he finally hesitating?

"Can't even see the bloody pieces anymore…. Maybe we should call it a draw," he muttered.

A triumphant glow sprang up in Cutler's face. He snapped a finger and waved at one of the students pretending to not be paying attention to go and get a lamp. It was brought and placed beside the board.

Jack chuckled wryly. "Into it, are ye?" He moved his queen again, under the new light.

It was an open move. Too stupid to be accidental, or…. Cutler thought it out for a while before finally moving his knight. "Check," he told Jack. His eyes flickered up to the darker man's face. It was unreadable, and briefly, in the glow of the orange light and fading dusk, unearthly.

Jack moved his knight to block him. Cutler responded with a counterattack. If all went well, he could have Jack in two turns.

Jack placed a finger lightly on his knight. He moved it down and right then let go. He waited for Cutler to examine the board and the move then once the realization began to dawn on his face, he leaned forward and whispered near his ear. "Check."

Beckett had only one move to stall the inevitable. He made it.

Jack moved his queen up a single space, effectively cutting off Beckett's knight. Checkmate….mate."

Cutler's eyes rapidly moved up and down, up and down, in a futile attempt to erase what was in front of him. "You tricked me," he accused.

"Tricked? Me? How?" Jack's face was innocent…. Polite…. Infuriatingly calm.

"You—this—it's not how you are supposed to play. There are rules." Cutler was stammering. He knew it.

"I followed the rules," Jack said.

"No—you, well, yes… But—" Cutler got up from his chair. His jacket was undone so he buttoned it quickly.

"You want to rematch some other time then?" Jack asked.

"Hardly. It was foolish of me to even play with someone so obviously beneath my station."

"You don't take losing well, do you?" Jack said dryly.

Cutler wanted to strike him. His hand itched for it, and even rose up before retreating back to his side. Cutler took a long, even breath and felt the blood flaring in his face. He had to calm himself, get his rage under control. He bit at his tongue until he tasted metal than turned and left the courtyard, not bothering to acknowledge the awkward shuffles of men trying to move out of his path, or the polite bows given to his shadow. He bowled through the halls, gables, and staircases of the university before finally make it to his room.

The fast walk had done him good. His rage had subsided into a strange, humming in his body. He raised his hands and they shook, so he went to his desk and he set himself down beside the lamp that had been lit by a servant, dutifully burning into the thick English night.

He stared into it for a while, doing nothing, thinking nothing. Only staring.

- - - - -

After Cutler and Jack's encounter in the courtyard, the gossip surrounding Jack skyrocketed. Everywhere he walked, there were hisses and whispers behind him. What had been a hidden, passive dislike for the outsider, was beginning to take shape into something more sinister. Some were starting to show disdain for him more directly. Books would go missing from his desk and turn up floating in the fountain by the youth lodging. Some would cut him off in doorways, others would audibly talk about unwanted riffraff as soon as Jack came within earshot.

Cutler watched all this from a distance, with a cool apathetic attitude. Jack would occasionally glance over at him when they passed one another, and Cutler would turn away. He had a cruel need to see Jack suffer, to know Jack could be broken down by his peer's bullying. However, the lone young man bore no sign of humility or shame by his classmate's antagonism.

It was only when one of them, a freshman looking to show off, boldly insulted Jack to his face that he responded by breaking his nose. After that, things began to cool down again. Cutler's anger dissipated and the university gossip moved onto something else.

Jack became an irksome shadow, still an annoyance, but tolerably ignorable. Cutler Beckett was actually on his way to forgetting him before they encountered each other again.

It happened on a Saturday night in mid-winter, after Cutler had been drinking with his friend Proteus. They had drank more than their fill at King James' tavern, and were well on their way to becoming dangerously intoxicated.

As Cutler braced himself against the cold, he spotted Jack beside a dock where one of the larger merchant ships was currently stationed. It was a rare thing for Cutler to be so close to the shipyard. His pulse, quickened by the ale, leaped even further at the tangy scent of the salt of the sea. He breathed it in deep and took a step closer to the ocean. Proteus followed him with uneven steps.

"Where you off to, Cutler, my man? Are we going for a swim?" Proteus laughed a high, unmanly laugh and clutched Cutler's arm. He looked up at the dock where Jack stood and squinted his eyes. "Why is that what's-his-name? The young brigand that bested you at chess?"

"Proteus," Cutler warned.

"Ow, I hit a soft spot, did I? Wonder what he's doing here, hmm? Off to join some pirates maybe." Proteus snickered. "Could you imagine? Think we should push him in? He's close enough to the edge. Oh, let's!"

"No, wait," Cutler said. He tried to grab his friends arm, but he went ahead of him, towards the darker-haired man. Cutler went after him with a sense of alarm bells ringing in his head.

When they got closer, Cutler noticed that Jack had his compass out and was holding it towards the ocean. He turned when Proteus come within reaching distance of him and stared him down with steady but unfocused eyes. "Yes?" he said.

Proteus had clearly not planned for Jack to turn around and face him. He stared at the man, breathing loudly through his nose and mouth. "You…." He began. "You are quite the strange one, aren't you?"

"Eh?" Jack seemed distracted as if his mind had been far away and wasn't yet ready to come back to the present.

"What heathen place do you come from, anyway, hmm? The Americas? Africa, perhaps?"

It suddenly occurred to Cutler that Jack might not have been entirely sober either. Instead of decking the man for his clear impertinence, he seemed nonplused. "The Caribbean," he answered.

Proteus' body swayed as he tried to make his face register a response. "Ah, I see. Nice coconuts there, I hear. And pirates. You ever see a pirate?"

"Have you?"

"--'Cause we were thinking, Beckett and I that is, that you should go join them. Someone as ill-mannered and ill-kept as you would probably feel right at home with them."

"You think so?" Jack said, unfazed.

"Yes, I do. In fact I—"

Proteus suddenly stopped talking, for it was at that moment, as he attempted to approach Jack closer, his foot went over the edge of the dock. With a wild flap of his arms, he lost all his balance and went tumbling over and into the water.

Jack cursed and tried to grab onto him. "Stupid sod," he growled.

There was a splash, brief silence, then the night air was full of Proteus' coughs, splashes, and sputters as he struggled to keep to the surface.

"Swim, man," Jack said impatiently. "The edge isn't that far."

Cutler ran over to the edge of the dock, by Jack. "He can't!"

"Can't what?"

"Swim!"

Jack sighed and looked briefly at the heavens before taking off his hat and handing it to Cutler. "Don't lose this," he warned. Then he tossed off his coat and shoes and jumped into the water right as Cutler shouted "No, wait!"

Holding Jack's hat, Cutler tried to peer into the dark and see the two men struggle in the water.

Jack reached Proteus fast, but had to spend a good minute or two fighting to keep the frantic man's hands from clawing at his face. He at last got his arms around his chest and began to heave him towards the shore. "Lie still, you stupid bastard," he said angrily as Proteus kept thrashing in the water.

Proteus miraculously obeyed, and Jack and he made it to the shore. Proteus immediately started shivering and coughing up salt water as Cutler came over to him. He put his hand on Proteus' back, which was sopping wet and cold. "You alright, Proteus?"

"I think I'm going to be sick," said his friend right before he vomited into some plants.

Jack wrinkled his nose in distaste at the youth he came sopping towards Cutler. "My hat, please," he said.

Cutler handed it over to him wordlessly. Jack put it on his wet hair and made a bow-legged journey back to the dock to retrieve his coat and shoes. He tore off his clothes and leggings until he was only in his breeches than placed the coat on his bare shoulders. He slipped on his shoes then rang out his wet things into the water.

"Best help your friend out of some of those wet things," he suggested to Cutler, who was half carrying Proteus away from the shore. Cutler had been watching the darker youth, mesmerized and had to shake his mind awake to the matter at hand to do as Jack suggested.

"I can do it myself," Proteus complained feebly as he tugged at his necktie and fumbled to get rid of his coat. Cutler placed his dry jacket on his friend's back once he had gotten rid of his things.

"You've really made an ass of yourself tonight," Cutler said.

"None of this gets repeated to anyone, alright?" Proteus grumbled right before he passed out into Cutler's arm.

Cutler strained under the sudden weight of the man.

"Need help?" asked Jack, his wet pants clinging to his thighs and his hair damp across his face.

"He fainted," Cutler said in surprise.

"But get him back to his room," Jack said as he took Proteus' other shoulder and hoisted him up.

The walk back to Proteus' room was uncomfortable, not just because of the weight of carrying Proteus but because of all the stares their journey generated. Cutler was also thankful for the alcohol still buzzing around in his system, that deadened the cold air. At least he was wearing a shirt, he thought to himself. Jack must have been the first men to ever dare walk bare-chested through the upper city as he did. It was a blessing it was so late at night.

They ran into some trouble briefly with a guard, who Cutler generously bribed to let them be.

By the time they made it to Proteus' room, Jack was visibly shivering.

"Why does everything about this place have to be so damned cold," Jack complained as he wearily sat down on a chair while Cutler took care of Proteus. Wordlessly, Cutler went to the other room and brought back a spare shirt and blanket for Jack.

Jack stripped down completely, put on the shirt and buttoned it a few times then wrapped himself in the blanket. His compass, Cutler noticed, had spilled out of the pocket of his damp britches, which were lying bunched up on the floor. He reached down and picked it up, and it was in that moment the sudden reality hit him of just what had happened tonight and who was sitting across from him.

He sat at the foot of Proteus' bed and used the orange glow of the lamplight between Jack and him to see the inside of the compass.

"That's mine, you know," Jack said crossly. His voice lacked much of its spark and slightly ebbed with fatigue.

"It doesn't work," Cutler said after he pointed it west.

"So it doesn't. Now give it back."

"Why keep a compass if it doesn't work?"

"Strange, I know. Now if you don't mind." Jack extended a hand out of his blanket.

"The arrow's stuck," Cutler noted, ignoring Jack. "If I move it, it just keeps pointing to the same spot."

"And what spot is that?" Jack asked.

"Where you're sitting. Southeast."

Jack's hand lowered. A peculiar expression crossed his face that Cutler caught out of the corner of his eye. He shut the compass and looked at him hard. "What?" he asked.

"Towards me, you say?" asked Jack.

"Yes, you. Why?"

Jack reached down and pulled back on his trousers then caste away the blanket and stood up. "I'd best be off to my own room. Properly dry off and get some shut eye."

Cutler flushed with annoyance at having his question ignored. "Yes, I should leave as well. Although—" he looked skeptically at Proteus, who was now curled on his side with his mouth hanging open in his bed.

A ghost of a smile graced Jack's lips. "He's going to wake up in a lot of pain tomorrow, that's for certain."

Jack gathered his things and walked towards the door before turning back. He gave a shrill whistle and motioned with his right hand to Cutler.

Cutler understood at once and tossed the compass. Jack caught it and pocketed it. "Night," he said, and left the room.