Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters... ooooh, to have me darlin' Jack t' meself
Author's note: Dedicated to purplediamond7... thanks for the idea, mate... this was one of the toughest things I have ever tried to write! Pirate Cat downs a rum and pours another one!
This man has always been a thorn in my side. He has always questioned authority, and I should have followed my instinct and should not have hired him and his ship. A fine ship it was, to be certain, and I should wonder just how someone such as this pestilence should acquire such a fine vessel. Strange, here I am, the very embodiment of the East India Trading Company at my young age, albeit by the death of my father, and here he is, a guttersnipe... a veritable bilge rat... the very dregs of British society... he is the captain of his own merchant ship at only 24 years of age. Strange that we should both have come so far so quickly.
I must give credit where it is due, he is quite clever and has a strange honor about him, but he is brash and a braggart, and he drinks too much, even for a sailor. He is even what I would call a bit mad... a hard one to read. I have often wondered if all of the cargo that has been assigned to his ship has been delivered, or did he help himself to part of it and alter the books? He is crafty, but he was caught this time...
Perhaps I should rephrase that. He was not "caught". He blatantly pirated cargo that was not his. He completely disobeyed his orders from the Company to deliver this cargo to the New World in suitable condition... it is not his place to question what cargo is assigned to his ship, nor is it his place to decide what to do with that cargo...
"Mr. Mercer, have the prisoner brought in, please."
With a nod, Mr. Mercer opened the door to Cutler Beckett's shipboard office and gave a curt nod out out onto the main deck. Two guards of the East India Trading Company came through the door with the prisoner held between them, his hands shackled, and they pushed the badly injured man harshly to the Oriental carpet in front of Beckett. They were almost too rough, considering his wounds, and the fact that they were both much larger than he was.
The prisoner was still soaked from being pulled from the sea, where he had been found floating on a piece of debris... the only remnant of his beautiful ship, The Wicked Wench. In a fury of cannon fire, the Wench was now in blackened pieces at the bottom of the sea, and her captain, a slight man with wild dark hair and even wilder dark eyes, was the only survivor of the firestorm. He laid on the floor, crumpled in a bloody heap, his fractured left arm burned almost skinless on the underside, his back laid open by a cat o' nine tails. That was only the beginning of the punishment...
Beckett stared coldly down at this man, who laid motionless on the floor. "Look at me," he ordered. There was no response.
Beckett looked over at Mr. Mercer, who knelt down next to the figure, slowly, almost in a manner that might be at first concieved as gently, until he grabbed the scum by the back of his dark, long hair and roughly jerked the man's head back. Surprisingly, the man's dark eyes were open and conscious, and looked up at Beckett with a hatred so black and full of fire that even Beckett was taken aback.
"... ye burned me ship... ye sent her t' th' depths, you pompous little scab..." the wild eyed captain hissed. Even as badly injured as he was, he struggled against Mercer's grip on the back of his head, until Mercer, with the quickness of a snake, held a dagger across his throat so closely that the man could feel it slightly cut into the skin.
Undeterred, the prisoner glared up at Beckett with such fearless, inky black eyes that Beckett coolly said, "You, sir, pirated the cargo assigned to your ship. You took cargo that belonged to the East India Trading Company, and made your own decision to dispose of it. You, in effect, stole funds from the East India Trading Company..."
"... I will not deliver slaves..."
"... cargo..."
"... they were slaves! I will not deliver human beings into servitude! Ye can call 'em cargo from here t' Zanzibar, but they are people!" the prisoner spat the words out with such venom that Mercer had to hold himself back from doing the scum in.
Beckett picked daintily at the lace upon his cuffs, then gazed down into the flashing dark eyes of his captive. The color was starting to drain from his face from the exposure to the cold waters of the Atlantic, the burn upon his broken arm that was being wrenched out of place by the shackles, and the pain from his open back wounds... yet he still stubbornly fought unconsciousness... he refused to pass out. He was in an utter, complete, black rage that this pompous aristocratic ass would sink his beloved ship... he had done the right thing, by his mind, and this ... ass... sent his ship to the Locker. Mercer jerked back on his hair, again, and the man glared at him, fighting back the pain.
Beckett continued. "We cannot have this kind of insubordination. You broke the rules, Captain. You must be made an example of...You commited piracy." He walked slowly over to the cast iron stove that was warming the cabin against the cold dampness of the sea... he had wanted to do this for a long time... this was his chance to make certain that his authority would never be questioned again. This seafaring, tattooed, rum swilling dog would never be heard from again, to be certain, but Beckett would take great pains to make sure that the other captains in the Company would know exactly what had happened to this young fool... too young, and much, much too foolish..
And this one would always remember the East India Trading Company... this one would never captain another ship, nor would he even ever hold down an honest job again... Beckett pulled a red hot branding iron from the fire... a branding iron with a "P" upon its end... a branding iron for the marking of a pirate...
The prisoner looked at the branding iron, and very quietly said, "You use tha' on me, an' you will live t' regret it, Beckett."
"I doubt it." Beckett approached with ice in his eyes, his face strangely expressionless. "I use it upon you, and you will live to regret it."
Mercer jerked the man's right arm forward in its shackles, causing the prisoner to nearly faint with the pain from his injuries, yet he stubbornly did not... perspiration broke out and soaked his forehead, as his face became ashen. Beckett paused, and said, coolly, "I now proclaim you 'Captain Jack Sparrow... Pirate'." And he viciously sank the brand into the flesh of the prisoner's right wrist...
And finally, after the acrid smell of more burning skin filled his consciousness and the pain invaded his mind, blackness finally took over Jack Sparrow's vision... and his heart. He gave in to despairing unconsciousness. He had never showed one sign of weakness... he had never uttered one whimper of pain. Only defiance.
The guards, who had been standing by the doorway, had watched this entire exchange with horror. The man had only freed slaves on the coast of Africa. It was not a capital offense. He did not deserve this. Seeing their eyes, Beckett walked over and placed the brand back into the fire, then turned and locked eyes with them. "He must be made an example of. It's good business... now, throw this ... pirate... into the brig. He is bleeding on my carpet..."