Chapter One

I was born James Wentworth Norrington on the Twenty-Seventh of January in the Year of Our Lord Seventeen Hundred and --, in Weymouth, England, to Bertram and Dorothea Norrington.

My father, Bertram Norrington served as an officer in His Majesty's Navy, providing a daily contact with the ships in the harbor, and the sea upon which they sailed.

I never knew my mother. When I was still in my infancy, she was shot by a thief who was trying to steal her silver vanity. My father was at sea, and I was with my nurse. She died shortly after the attack.

I was raised by my uncle, as my father was at sea many months out of the year. When father was home, he'd take me to stay at his house by the harbor, and I'd steal into my mother's room and look through her things, trying in vain to conjure even the slightest hint of a memory. When that didn't work, I would spend hours sitting on the floor in the portrait gallery staring up at her smiling face. Though I never knew her, as soon as I was old enough to understand her fate, I swore to spend my life snuffing out the kind of dangerous greed and lawlessness that encouraged such murder.

When I was old enough, my uncle sent me to school in Southampton. There I gained a gentleman's education. When I finished school, it seemed only natural I should have a career at sea, as my father before me. My first commission was aboard the HMS Minerva under Captain Carriger, a fine man, and a fine seaman who taught me many of the most important lessons I learned about naval authority and discipline upon one's vessel.

I rose under the Captain to the rank of Lieutenant. On the day I was to test for my lieutenancy, I learned that my father had died of disease at sea. My examination was postponed for a month.

Once I achieved my Lieutenant's status, I felt I wanted new challenges to prove myself worthy of the title. I knew I wanted to leave England, to leave the memory of my parents behind me and build a new life for myself somewhere in the new world. My request was granted, and I was assigned to the HMS Endurance under Captain Helmer.

My first voyage as Lieutenant was across the Pacific to the King's colony of Port Royal, Jamaica. When I arrived, I was to take up position there under Admiral Braithwaite, a man whose sole duty was to eradicate the lawlessness that plagued the colonies thereabouts, and particularly to protect the King's trade ports from the rampant piracy of the Caribbean. I was eager to begin my new life, and I felt sure that I would do well under such a man.

I was joined on my voyage by the King's Governor of Port Royal, Governor Weatherby Swann. The governor brought with him his young daughter, Elizabeth, as his wife had died almost a year ago of consumption, and he had only just gained a reprieve from his duties to voyage to England and retrieve the child. At first my ambition provoked me to make the connection; I could rise well under the patronage of such a man; but soon I felt as though the governor were an old friend, closer to me than my own father had been. As the years passed, he oversaw my career at Port Royal, and often had me to dine with himself and Elizabeth. The girl grew older year by year, and it was apparent that he wished I should become a more permanent part of his family. In time it became the wish dearest to my heart.

Here the Admiral paused and poured himself a glass of port from the stock he had found in his cabin. He sighed and drank it down in one skilled gulp. He did it mostly out of habit, not that he felt its affect in this place, though the taste was a pleasant reminder of his living days. He loosened his cravat and leaned back in his chair. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes and thought about Elizabeth. With her image filling his mind and his heart swimming with affection, he sat forward, drowned another useless glass of port, and wrote.

The first time I saw Elizabeth, she was standing by her father's side, waiting to board the Endurance. She watched the ships in the harbor with excited eyes, and dropped a curtsy to every sailor or seaman that passed, much to her father's chagrin and scolding. I found from my perch upon the E's deck that I could not help watching her.

Her nature was so open and honest, so joyful and sincere, so unabashedly confident and carefree, that she quickly charmed each sailor as he passed. Even the men carrying heavy trunks up the gangplank would find a free hand to tip their hat to the young mistress. She made fast friends with the bosun Mr. Gibbs, whose tales of pirates and swashbuckling heroes fed her vivid imagination, though his seaman's superstitions kept him muttering about the ill luck a woman brought aboard a sailing vessel.

In some ways I suppose he was right. The efficiency of the crew seemed to have slipped with her aboard. When they ought to be mending sails or tending to the lines you'd find the men teaching her how to tie sailor's knots or dance the hornpipe. She even found a way to bewitch me from my duties. Her father could do nothing but fret about the exposure to rough life and rough language that his daughter was receiving at the hands of my crew.

I once came upon her in a secluded corner of the ship with her father. He was weeping for the memory of his wife, and she was there to comfort him. I drew back politely, but something made me watch from my hiding place. Silent tears were streaking her cheeks, which she was making a valiant effort to sustain, though her tiny lip trembled violently. She took one of her father's large hands in her miniature one, and with all of her courage put a hand on his face and, tears escaping her efforts, looked into the sad, tired, haggard face and smiled. As I watched her smile grow, I felt her take a permanent hold of my heart. She was only ten, but I knew at that moment our destinies were somehow connected.

Her bravery then I shall never forget. Nor the pain that would come immediately after my revelation. As I stood, watching this private moment, her gaze found me, and in sudden understanding of my purpose, her young watery eyes fixed upon me with indignant scorn.

I was shocked out of my hiding place and back to my duties, but I could not forget the burning of that gaze, the disdain with which she had harpooned me to the very core. It would not be the first time that she would look at me that way; nor the first time I would deserve her contempt.

The rest of the voyage continued without event until we neared the outskirts of the Caribbean Sea. When we were but two weeks from our destination, we happened upon the burning remains of a merchant ship. My immediate thought was of the pirates that terrorized the area, but not wishing to alarm the civilian passengers on deck and Elizabeth who was standing by, I made a comment about the powder magazine. Her eyes watched the damage with curiosity, and she positively bounced when Mr. Gibbs mentioned pirates.

In an impetuous urge to command her youthful admiration in the way that the grizzly bosun so easily could, I colorfully announced my determination to become a scourge of piracy in the Caribbean. My candor was admonished by the Governor, but Elizabeth seemed temporarily won, until she spotted one of the survivors in the water.

He was a young boy around her age, dressed in simple clothes and floating unconscious on a piece of the wreckage. We hauled him aboard, and to distract her from the carnage as we retrieved the other survivors, the governor assigned Elizabeth to watch over him.

Little did I know that in those few moments a bond was created that even my love could not overtake.

Having written this, the Admiral doused his candle, pulled on his coat, tied his cravat, and checking his appearance in his small mirror, stepped out of his cabin to take a brisk walk and clear his thoughts before his dinner with the Captain.