TWELVE: Ignominy
Lord Leonard lowered his head into his hands, sitting at the stall that had been set up for him and the other rich people who had gathered to watch the hanging. The dragoons were out there, patrolling Port Royale, but apparently Beckett and his mother had slipped into the grimiest, lowest slums of the city, and making themselves very hard to find.
He looked up in time to see two familiar figures streaking across the town square and vanishing down the road.
"Was that... men!" He looked around—and realized that he had deployed all of his men to go and flush them out of the centre of Port Royale's grittier area. He ground his teeth and rested his chin on his hand, seeing Cutler Beckett's face before him—'See, I would have thought of that, and kept a squadron behind,' the image of Beckett drawled. Lord Leonard wished he could reach out and punch it.
The crowd of baying peasants had evaporated once it had become clear that there wasn't going to be a hanging—at least, not for a while yet. They were now all wandering down various streets, wondering who that black-haired man had been.
As for Lord Leonard—well, he was pretty certain that it was no other then Cutler Beckett. There was no proof of that, and he hadn't seen much of him, but it had looked enough like him; though Lord Leonard felt that the way Beckett had dealt with the situation had been rather brash and thoughtless, but then again, he must have arrived with minutes to spare.
Lord Leonard had no idea that upon arrival, Beckett and Elizabeth had sat in a pub, arguing lightly. He underestimated Beckett greatly.
Which was, as always, an advantage.
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His hour was nearly up when Beckett arrived, he and his mother both looking worn out, and slightly sorry for themselves. Beckett's shoulder was torn up, and he was drenched in blood—some his, some of the unfortunate soldier who had had a hold of him when he'd had his head blasted off. Audrey looked in slightly better condition, though she looked like she was finding it hard to breathe.
Elizabeth felt a great anxiety that had been gnawing at her insides lift—they were here, they were alive! They'd all managed to come out of this one, miraculously alive! Then she quickly disposed of the feeling, scolding herself that she shouldn't feel good that Beckett was alive—but being secretly glad anyway.
"I was starting to think you wouldn't get here on time," Elizabeth said. William lay asleep in her arms—she'd nursed and changed him in the time that Beckett had been gone. It had obviously taken a while to throw off the dragoons.
"Bloody hell, Elizabeth," Beckett said weakly, "That shot nearly took my head off..."
"Sorry," Elizabeth said, with real remorse in her voice, "I did tell you that I wasn't that much of a good shot."
"I didn't know you knew any women, Cutler," Audrey said, frowning.
"There are a lot of things you don't know, mother. Now, kindly go back to being silent." Beckett said, sounding annoyed. Elizabeth shook her head—after going to all of that trouble, and facing all of that danger to save her life, he was still acting offhanded and slightly distasteful of her. Which was just typical of him.
Oh, this is going to be fun, Elizabeth thought, looking from Beckett to his mother and back again, very fun indeed.
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"Can we rest? My feet are hurting," Audrey complained as they walked; they were going directly up a steep hill, so it was no wonder really. Elizabeth turned to her, and saw a large pout form on her lips as she complained... wow. Elizabeth could actually see Cutler Beckett in her.
"Mother, your neck would be hurting rather a lot right now if not for me. I'm sure those dragoons didn't go home for a nice cup of tea once they realized that we were no longer in Port Royale. So keep walking, be brave now," Beckett said, sardonically.
"I'm going to forgive you for talking to me like that, because these are unusual circumstances," Audrey said, though there was a scolding tone to her voice.
Beckett did nothing but go slightly pink with anger at this. His shoulder was killing him, he was tired, hungry and frustrated, his life was over... and his mother seemed determined to try to embarrass him! Sigh... how could life be any worse?
"Where are we even headed to?" Elizabeth asked, as they walked through another gate into a field. Port Royale was behind them now, and it was well into the evening.
"It doesn't matter too much where we're going to be—we just have to get away from Port Royale. I could do without being at the receiving end of four dragoons again." Beckett said, looking out ahead of him, "I'm sure there'll be another barn somewhere. I have to get the slash on my shoulder seen to. And wash some of this blood off of me. And steal some other clothes. Oh, and probably get this boot polish off of my hair, too..."
"Yes. Right," Elizabeth looked downwards as she walked, picking her way through the lumpy field carefully.
"So, mother... did you actually find out anything that could help us?" Beckett asked her, looking like he doubted it highly, but might as well ask in any case. Audrey thought for a minute, and they walked in silence.
"Well, the man who seemed to be in charge of it all was Lord Leonard," Audrey said finally. Beckett showed no recognition.
"Who's he?" He asked, with a frown.
"Augustus. Augustus Leonard—he's a lord now. He took your place," Audrey explained. Beckett blinked, and then sighed theatrically.
"Oh, not that pillock," Beckett groaned, "He's always had an unreasonably massive grudge against me, for no reason whatsoever!" Elizabeth snorted, obviously not believing him. "It's true," Beckett insisted, "All I did was beat him at chess... once!"
"Beckett. Please excuse me for not believing you," Elizabeth rolled her eyes, "But I know that you are quite capable of driving someone absolutely crazy with your insanely gigantic ego and your habit of spewing a thousand snarky come-backs per hour," she grinned. Beckett looked offended.
"I don't know what you mean," he said casually, though a small smirk was tugging at the edge of his lips.
"You know exactly what I mean—and you take pride in it, too," Elizabeth shook her head, exasperated. It was only when Audrey coughed that they remembered her existence.
"He kept on saying all of these horrible things, about how he was going to get you hanged, and he wasn't even going to hold a trial—apparently he held a trial for me, but I wasn't even there! He just said that he had to 'pull a few strings'... I mean... what does that mean?" Audrey sighed, "I don't know anything about politics."
"Lord Leonard wants me dead on account of being a tosser who has nothing better to do, and he's probably also afraid I'll steal back my rightful position," Beckett said, inspecting a nail, "Because I'm beginning to see something here... you say he took up my old position?"
"Yes... and did you just swear?" Audrey demanded.
"Why, yes, I did," Beckett said, annoyance clear in his voice. Elizabeth had to stifle a laugh. "I am a grown man, in case you didn't notice, though I suppose you wouldn't, seeing as you spent my childhood ignoring me."
"You can't talk to me like that," Audrey whispered, "I'm your mother!"
"Well, I couldn't talk to you like that back when everything was proper and how-do-you-do, but really, I think we are beyond that now," Beckett sighed and rubbed a strand of fringe between his thumb and forefinger, making a large black smear appear on his hand from the polish. Elizabeth had scrubbed his head over good with that gunk.
"But..." Audrey trailed off, unable to find a reply to that. Her son had always been polite, neat and aloof in her presence before—the change was rather dramatic. The sad thing was, this was more of a friendly tone then he had used with her before.
"If we ever manage to get our lives back to normal, things go back to the way they were before, hmm? But for now, I'm a little worn out to bother with niceties," Beckett shook his head, though his inner gentleman seemed to surface for a moment, "But for the books, I am sorry for being rude to you."
"Oh, but you're never sorry for being rude to me, of course" Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes.
"Cutler, who is this woman?" Audrey asked, wrinkling her brow.
"That's Elizabeth Swann, mother," Beckett said wearily, hopping over a style through to another field. Audrey blinked, seeming surprised, and then looked at Elizabeth closely as they trudged on.
"Really?" She asked, "The one who ran off to join the pirates? And left behind her father and that nice Norrington boy?"
"Really," Beckett said, looking slightly uncomfortable at the mention of Elizabeth's father. That was something that he felt was not going to fade from their memories any time soon. Elizabeth's expression hardened notably, too.
"So have you really turned pirate, then, Cutler? If you're with her..." Audrey wrinkled her nose, "And the baby?"
"Not mine," Beckett said quickly.
"I married Will Turner. This is our son," Elizabeth smiled.
"Will Turner, the blacksmith—yes, I remember people talking about it. Apparently it was quite the scandal," Audrey shrugged at Elizabeth's expression, "I only know what I was told."
"People will say the most spiteful things," Elizabeth muttered to herself.
"When are you going to get yourself another woman, Cutler?" Audrey asked.
"Another woman? Ooh, hello—I didn't know you'd been married before," Elizabeth grinned, though she was interested. Beckett frowned.
"That's funny, because neither do I. I think my mother is just being confused again," Beckett rolled his eyes, "She always was under the impression that if I said one nice thing to a woman, we were obviously heading directly towards a happy marriage."
"There's a reason for that," Audrey sighed, "You are just so rarely nice to girls! That poor Freda Tellerman was almost in tears when you told her exactly what you thought of her dress," Audrey sounded scolding, but Beckett was smiling at the memory. "You're not meant to be truthful, you know. And there was Elaine Carr—the one you labelled forever as 'monobrow.' Oh, and so many more... I really don't know why so many women carried on being so interested in you." Elizabeth suspected that this had something to do with his immense wealth.
"I do remember," she said slowly, "A girl called Darla Dunlap saying to me once that when she asked you if you thought her hair looked good that night, you replied with 'passable'." Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, thinking about how Darla had carried on to say how 'smooth' he'd looked that night. And she thought about how Beckett couldn't possibly know this little about women. It must be impossible, she reasoned, for someone as intelligent as Beckett to be so incredibly idiotic when coming to something as basic as the original 'does my bum look big in this' moments of life. You did not say that a woman's hair looked 'passable'!
"Good times," Beckett said happily.
"Anyway, I just don't know, but am I ever going to get any grandchildren? Though being a grandmother does sound rather old..." Audrey sounded like she was thinking aloud now. Elizabeth snickered, and Beckett shot his mother a filthy look.
"Mother, did you know that talking excessively gives you wrinkles?" He asked her sweetly. Audrey Beckett opened her mouth—and then closed it again, seeming to think about it.
NB: I don't know why I added the last few paragraphs of conversation--it just seemed... Beckettish. Anyhow; next chapter--money matters, madness, mother's boys! Can't beat some good old alliteration...
