The Truth Behind the Rules

I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean, its all copy righted to Walt Disney and Co. As much as I'd like to claim I do, I also do not own Norrington, Gillette and every other character you may have encountered in the movie. However, the crew of the Artemis and the Roses are all figments of my over active imagination. :D

If you'd like to use any of the original characters, make sure you clear it with me first. I can be quite picky about that. What can I say, I'm an author.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, enjoy!

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Chapter 1: The Sea

The Artemis had been sailing the easterly winds for the better part of a day and night. Her crew had ever vigilantly monitored her position on the sea chart, shepherding her through the more dangerous shoals and coves that lined the coastline of Jamaica. She was headed for Port Royale, a new stop on the extensive lists of ports that the Artemis had acquired during her time at sea. On a typical run for supplies while on the open ocean, she might have made berth at Falmouth but the goods she needed were not there, or so the quartermaster had told them. All shipments in the area had been diverted to Port Royale, and the Artemis had set sail there with all haste.

As the sun was bright and the sky blue, ship wide attitude was pleasant. On a mixed crew of freed blacks, former military seamen and pirates, it was hard to keep up a constant morale. The Artemis's captain, Andraste Rose, was a shrewd woman with a penetrating, tactical mind and an excellent sense of navigation. She was the third generation of a sea fairer in her family, both her paternal relatives serving in the navy for a number of years. Her love of the ocean was even more fortified by her upbringing in a small village upon the sea in South Wales. The high seas were in her blood and she had been nurtured from her first days to either be a part of them, or understand a man who was.

Bending over the rail of the quarterdeck, she requested the presence of her first mate, a man known to all as Mr. Durson. The Captain had her suspicions about the area, though only fifteen nautical miles from Fort Clarence the lack of sails passing by unnerved her. The current route was not often traveled, but she should have been able to see telltale signs of an active area. If it was one thing she remembered from her reading on Port Royale, pirates in any and all sense were not suffered. She, however slanted her record might be, was no pirate! Given a letter of marque by the British Admiralty, she dutifully attacked Spanish, Dutch and French ships, protecting British colonies while making a nice profit in the process.

The rose crossed by two swords black standard was something that no respectable Spanish captain wanted to tangle with. Indeed, the same could be said about other pirates and merchant vessels. The Artemis was but one ship in a fleet of three that belonged to the Rose family. The oldest ship was the White Rose, the decommissioned flagship of the Roses. This belonged to Andraste's grandfather, Charles. The next ship was the Agamemnon, and that belonged to Robert Rose, Andraste's father. Both the White Rose and the Agamemnon made port at Falmouth, where the Roses had a coffee plantation. Because Charles Rose was too old to go to sea (and do much else really), Robert stayed behind to watch over his aging father and so both warships collected barnacles in the harbor.

"Ye sent for me, cap'n?" came the gravelly voice of the first mate. The graying man presented himself, his hands behind his back and feet together; his rough checkered shirt unbuttoned at his thick chest and his boots scuffed from heel to toe. Durson had never been one to better his appearance. He had sailed as a gunner on a ship of the line and been a pirate to boot. He had served the Roses for a long time and it had not escaped him how similar they were in mind: refined and seeking freedom. They were very well versed in speech craft and were hard to imagine as career seamen. This one in particular, probably because this captain was a woman, was a little more peculiar about the running of the ship and how the crew seemed to others.

Durson felt it his duty then, to mercilessly torture his captain (in private, of course) about these things. His jokes had been met with a laugh and a wave of his captain's constantly gloved hands. She took them rather well.

The Captain eyed her first mate's casual attire, knowing that her first mate did it on person to try and get under skin. "I did…yes." Today was not the day for idle games. She turned her back on him to stalk her way starboard, back straight and head held high. "May I ask your opinion on something?"

"Aye, ma'am."

"Does it not seem questionable to you that we are the only vessel on these waters?" Andraste's Welsh lilt bobbed much like the sea, something it did when she was agitated.

Mr. Durson shook his head, "No, ma'am."

Removing her looking glass from her belt, Andraste scanned the area quickly before turning back to her first mate. "Well I do. Call me skittish if you must, but we are not too far from an operating military area. Why do the fort's frigates not patrol here? Certainly this is a haven for the less than savory characters. These coves, the rocks, it could be a potential trap for any unwary ship."

Durson had considered this, in fact he had been anxious himself, but there was no potential threat to the Artemis out here. Her thirty-four cannons and ingenious crew were a match for any buccaneer who thought to get his name imprinted in pirate legend by destroying the ship. The Artemis hadn't been around for very long; it was severely junior to its parent vessels, but it was nonetheless well known. During its infant year, Robert Rose had commanded her. Eventually he had handed it over to his daughter so that she might claim it has her own and draw her own legends in the sand of the Caribbean.

"I do not like this situation, Mr. Durson," Andraste sighed, "I do not like it at all." She started forward but was immediately halted by a call.

"SAILS, CAPTAIN! WE'RE BEING PURSUED!" came the cry from the crow's nest.

Captain Rose spun midstride and again opened her spyglass. Sure enough, there were sails; how she had missed them was anybody's guess. "Blast. They must have been in hiding at Cutlass Point. I can't believe we didn't see them!"

"Should'n we cut and run, cap'n?" Durson asked. The shipment that had been diverted was oddly enough cannonballs and gunpowder. No ship should be without them, but in all his years at sea; he couldn't understand why it was that the Artemis ran out of these necessities so quickly.

Andraste raised an eyebrow and curled her upper lip in disdain at the thought, "that's a bit desperate, Mr. Durson. Surely we're not that bad off. They're on our wind, true, but we're further ahead," clamping the spy glass closed, Andraste gave the order to take in sail and allowed the coxswain to alter course by a few degrees to make the most of the wind.

Slowly but steadily, the fifth rate ship began to push herself quicker, riding the waves to give a few extra meters, yards, what ever would allow her to put some more distance between her and the unknown ships. Unfortunately, with every nautical mile she gained, the mysterious ship seemed to close in a little quicker. How it was managing to cross the distance was beyond reckoning and the helmsman used every nautical advantage he knew to try and speed his own ship. Though it was probable that this ship wasn't a foe, no merchant vessel would speed up to catch a ship flying a flag that looked like a pirate's.

There was a touch of unease about the Captain's stance as she stood rigidly upon deck, awaiting news that it was not one ship that tailed her, but two. Earlier, the crewman in the crow's nest had reported that he had seen an unusual number of sails on the new ship and had suspected a second to be tailing it. These suspicions were only confirmed when the Artemis was a quarter of a mile away from Fort Clarence. He had seen the second ship move away from the first, and had caught sight of a flag flying freely from both. It was a black flag adorned with a grinning skull and dagger. It was the pennant of Geoffroi le Noir, better known to the Roses as Geoffroi the Butcher.