Epilogue

Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,

Even so I will endure…

For already I have suffered full much

And much have I toiled in perils of waves and war.

Let this be added to the tale of those.

- Homer, The Odyssey

Three weeks later...

Elizabeth doesn't know what to expect when she walks into Fort Charles's prison. The smell alone is enough to convince her she never wants to set foot in the jail again, let alone be detained behind its iron bars. Her father, of course, had offered to chaperone her, even insisted on it. but Elizabeth had stubbornly refused his company, no matter how much she actually desired it. Who is she if she can put a man behind bars, but refuse to face him alone there?

A guard ushers her wordlessly before a dank cell and retreats to stand a courteous distance away. Elizabeth thanks him, then looks down at the man sitting in the cell. "Hello, Oliver."

He glances up, and a grin spreads slowly across his face. "Queen Elizabeth Swann."

The three weeks of imprisonment have not been kind to Oliver Quincy. He wears the same shirt and breeches he wore at the duel, and his hair, once an ash blonde, is matted and stained dirt-brown. His already pale skin is nearly translucent now, gaunt and carved with deep lines and hollows. Incarceration has drained away every drop of pampered, privileged snobbery from him, leaving a bitter husk of a man behind.

"You've come at last," he murmurs, ogling up at her as if in disbelief. "Am I to assume, then, that I've been tried and convicted without my knowledge?"

"The governor has been corresponding with the territory's magistrate. They've arranged for you to be shipped back to England. You'll stand trial there."

A muscle in Quincy's jaw twitches, but otherwise he doesn't react. "And Walter and Morris? What is to become of them?"

"Your accomplices have not been sighted in Port Royal since the duel," Elizabeth replies. The sailor who'd acted as Quincy's second disappeared before soldiers could apprehend him. She doubts neither he nor his companion will venture to show their faces on the island again, if they know what's good for them. "The rest of your crew deny any knowledge of your plans. They set sail for the Americas a fortnight ago."

Quincy is silent for so long Elizabeth wonders if his wits remain altogether about him. "It is to the Fleet I am condemned, then," he mumbles at last. "Debtor's prison for Lord Oliver Quincy the Third, Viscount of Avonshire."

Though it's been many years since Elizabeth lived in England, she remembers the Fleet well enough. Its reputation as hell on earth is well-known all over the London.

Elizabeth did not enter Fort Charles expecting pity to be chief among her sentiments toward Oliver Quincy, but it's present nonetheless. She moves closer, standing so she almost touches the cell gate. "Why didn't you ask my father for help?" she enquires. "Surely, he would have lent you the funds had you asked."

"I could no more ask Weatherby Swann for money than I could ask God Himself," Quincy retorts. "My father borrowed a hefty sum from him to start his company. He hadn't yet paid it off by the time he died, and I wasn't about to ask for money from a man I already owe."

"You could have explained your situation," Elizabeth points out. She shifts her dress and sits gracefully on the cold, grime-coated floor, skirt splayed out around her in a sea of lace, ribbons, and silk. "My father is a generous man. He would have forgiven your debt had you asked. He might've even remitted the sum you owe Lord Methuen."

"And Lord Dodington? Lord Astley? Fairfax? Byron? Yonge? Will Weatherby recompense them, too?" Quincy gives a wry, bitter smile. "The king of England himself wouldn't sustain the arrears I've incurred."

Elizabeth is quiet for a moment, studying Quincy through the bars of his cell. At last, she says, "Is there no one in all the world who will help you repay your debt?"

Quincy's smile fades. "The Quincy reputation died alongside my father, Elizabeth. Marriage to you was my last hope." His fingers, smeared with dirt and dried blood, curl around bars of the cell. Some of the old glint in his eyes sparks as he peers at her unblinkingly. Elizabeth meets his gaze, refusing to be cowed. "Together, we would've risen to greatness. You could have been a viscountess." His lax twists into an ugly grimace. "And you abandoned all of it for what—a common blacksmith?"

"If you mean to offend me, sir, you endeavour in vain." Elizabeth is pleased to find no quaver in her voice; only still, precise clarity. "I do not take umbrage to insults hurled by men locked behind bars."

"You think you love him?" Quincy continues, heedless of her statement. "You think you'll be together until death do you part? That man will leave you, Elizabeth. He will take your heart and break it a million times over, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

Elizabeth glances down at her hands. Quincy's gaze follows hers, and when Elizabeth looks back up, the disbelief written across his face is plainly evident.

"I do not know what the future has in store for us," Elizabeth begins, "but I do know this: I love Will Turner, and he loves me. What we have…I would live all the suffering and heartbreak in the world if it means I could be with him. And I would rather be a happy woman than a noble one."

"Then you are a fool," Quincy whispers.

"A happy one, nevertheless." Elizabeth rises like a queen from her throne, hands clasped elegantly over her midriff. "Goodbye, Oliver Quincy. I don't expect we'll ever meet again." With that, Elizabeth turns and walks out of the prison. She doesn't look back.

Oliver Quincy, however, remains pressed against the cell gate, staring after Elizabeth long after she's gone. A single image is seared into his mind, and he's sure it will endure to his dying days:

The third finger of Elizabeth's left hand.

Newly adorned by a simple golden ring.

The End