Jack started when Sambal rattled the prison cell keys.
"Lord Cutler Beckett is coming down the steps," the jail guard said under his breath before leaving the stone room.
Jack nodded his thanks and promptly launched into a merry whistle.
"Still the amazingly nonchalant pirate."
Jack raised his eyes in mock surprise to locate the source of the silvery voice. A royal blue garb with laces of gold. Lord Cutler Beckett was dressed impeccably as usual. A nearly imperceptible smile played at Beckett's lips as he eyed the prisoner back. A comparably faint, familiar fragrance permeated the dank smelling space.
Beckett looked healthy, Jack thought.
"You look terrible, Jack."
Jack pinched at a tuft of straw on the ground and rubbed it, almost ponderously. Beckett eyed his movements with a faint amusement.
"Well, a prisoner's welfare is hardly your topmost priority, I don't think," Jack retorted, his tone light, eliciting a chuckle from Beckett.
"Jack, I suppose your friend Sambal has already leaked to you the reason for my visit today," Beckett said. "Oh yes, I know more than you think I do," he added when Jack's eyes widened momentarily upon his words.
Jack sat on the straw in his cell, nonplussed, and then he shook his head, and said, "Sambal told me that you've come to remove me from my cell. Not to set me free... but be brought elsewhere. Where... would 'elsewhere'... be, may I ask?" The "where" was what Sambal could not tell him. According to Sambal, not a word had been exchanged about that, anywhere.
Sambal...
Inwardly, Jack tried to suppress the panic and confusion that were on the verge of flooding his system. How did Beckett and his people find out about Jack's people? What ill fate was to await Sambal? Jack had confided a lot in Sambal, who had a major role in his plans to escape. Alas, these plans would never see actualization.
Fucking hell, Jack thought, forget Sambal's potential fate, forget all that! What of his own fate? What if Beckett gave Sambal the choice between betraying Jack and the gallows? Jack's skin crawled. His fingers caressed the dry skin of his throat, and felt the gulp that followed.
"You will be transferred to one of cells in my estate." Beckett said, his voice severing the surge of thoughts from Jack's skull.
"Why?" Jack shot back at once. A great fear came over him. He had heard things, things about the cells built deep within Lord Beckett's homestead. Windowless cells with walls of granite, all the better to muffle the occupant's anguished screams with.
"Why, for questioning, of course! There's always more to learn, and you, are no doubt a man of an abundance of secrets."
Beckett stopped there as if to give Jack space for his unease to grow. It worked.