Chapter Twenty-Six
--
"How be the rest of the crew, Cap'n?" Hector asked, starting to tire from the conversation already.
"We lost three at sea," Morgan replied, "but Mr. Kempthorne and Mr. Harlow are fine, just for the record.
"A little bored with both you and the Oxford under repair at the moment," Morgan added wryly. "I should think it won't be long before they break down my front door that they keep knocking on, asking to see you."
Hector nodded, and then drifted off to sleep, knowing that he had a long road ahead of him.
--
While Hector was thankful for the fact that he had even survived the storm and the collapse of the Oxford's mainmast, things were extremely difficult over the first few weeks he spent in recovery at Morgan's home.
Frustrated that he could barely move, and drained by the constant excruciating pain, he found it difficult to not be short with those around him who were trying to help. Dealing with the logistics of being bed-ridden was unpleasant and humiliating, and Hector was grateful for Cezar's assistance. By the end of a few weeks the two had grown closer again, and it was almost as if there had never been any distance between them.
After the first three weeks, the doctor had decreed that Hector could be allowed to be propped up ever so slightly, and Cezar had just done so and then walked across the room to look out the window. "Looks like they're fitting the new mast today," he said from where he had a view down the hill over the small harbor.
"Good," Hector replied, uncomfortable with the fact that they were now discussing the ship both of them knew to be a pirate vessel under her façade of protector of the colony. Cezar said nothing else, and Hector spoke up again. "Cezar...I owe ye a great apology," he said quietly, having made up his mind over the past few days that he needed to have this particular conversation.
"For what, Hector?" Cezar asked, turning away from the window.
"Fer treatin' ye so badly when me mother died," Hector replied, not sure how Cezar was going to react.
"There is no need," Cezar replied quietly. "We both went through a lot of pain when she died, Hector. It would be even worse if you were out of my life longer than you already were."
"I feared that I be a disappointment to ye, Cezar," Hector said quietly. "Ye warned me time and again that I'd end up a pirate with the course that I followed."
"It's not too late to walk away, Barbossa," Cezar replied, trying not to sound too much like he was lecturing, "but perhaps we should just concentrate on getting you to walk first, yes?"
Hector nodded, and the two remained silent for a moment. "I'm good at it, Cezar," Hector said in barely more than a whisper.
"What?" Cezar asked him.
"Piratin'...I'm good at it...and I can't rightly say it doesn't suit me," Hector explained.
Cezar looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose there was never any getting around it since it is in your blood, Patife. I cannot say this pleases me, but I will tell you now, once and finally, that it changes nothing between us. Você compreende?"
"Sim, eu compreendo," Hector replied, smiling a little at the chance to use Portuguese with Cezar after so long.
--
While Cezar spent a great deal of time looking after Hector, he couldn't be with the younger man constantly, and much of the rest of the time he was under the watchful eye of Mary, Morgan's wife.
Grateful to the younger man for saving her husband's life, she brought him food and helped him eat, and conversed with him whenever he was awake. They spoke of his childhood and his mother, and of her younger days in Wales before she had met Henry Morgan.
One rainy day, when she came to see how he fared, Mary brought a book to Hector's bedside, thinking to read to him as she thought it might be entertaining, and wasn't entirely sure the young man could read.
"I thought I'd read to you a bit today," she said kindly, smoothing out her skirts as she sat in the chair stationed at the side of the bed. "Would that be alright?"
"Aye, if ye be so inclined, 'twould take me mind off bein' stuck in this bed," Hector replied, frustration evident in his voice at first. He quickly worried that he had offended his hostess. "Not that I'm not entirely grateful fer..."
Mary smiled at him, and patted his arm. "I know. I'd be frustrated by now too." She opened the book.
"What is it that ye've brought to read?" Hector asked, wondering what the older woman could have possibly brought that she'd think he'd want to hear.
"Shakespeare," she replied, smiling at the way Hector nearly rolled his eyes, but refrained from doing so at the last minute. "Now, none of that. Give it a chance...it's not as if you really have a choice, now is it?" she teased.
"I fear not," Hector replied from where he was trapped in the bed. "Isn't that...well, ladies' readin'?"
"You tell me," Mary replied wryly, and she began the story.
Several minutes later, Hector interrupted her. "Wait...witches...beheadin'...guttin' people...what is it exactly ye be readin'?"
"Macbeth," Mary replied knowingly. "Does it suit you, Master Barbossa?"
"We'll see," he replied, indicating she should continue.
At the end of the first act she could see he was growing tired. "Shall we continue tomorrow?" she asked.
"Aye, 'tis not as bad as I thought," Hector replied, smirking a little as he did so. "I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. Methinks I like this line of Macbeth's, dear lady," he said, teasing her before he closed his eyes.
--
Days passed as Mary continued to tend to Hector and sit by his bedside reading the rest of Macbeth to him. Often he would ask her to repeat a phase or a line that had caught his attention, intrigued by the elegant words and complexity of the plot. When she had finished the book, Mary next brought Romeo and Juliet, and despite the fact that Hector had enjoyed her first choice, he actually did roll his eyes at her when she announced their next reading venture.
"Yer makin' a joke, are ye not?" Hector asked, glancing in a concerned way at the book in her hands.
"Not at all," Mary replied, amused by the young man fretting over the story she had chosen. "Let's see if you find the strength to endure this, shall we, Master Barbossa?"
Hector caught the teasing nature of her words and let his head fall back against the pillow with obvious angst. "Fine."
Becoming more interested in the strife between the two families in the story, and the young Romeo's plight of being in love with Rosaline, Hector nonetheless snorted when Mary began reading the fifth scene.
"Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night," Mary read, and then looked up as Hector huffed at her reading. "Yes?"
"Yer sayin' this Romeo falls fer Juliet after one glance at her across the room?" he asked doubtfully.
"Yes, that is what Shakespeare intended to convey, I believe," Mary answered, trying not to smile too broadly.
Hector rolled his eyes again.
"You don't think love at first sight is possible, Hector?" Mary asked, setting the open book in her lap for the moment.
"Sounds ridiculous if ye ask me," he replied, waving her off.
Mary picked the book back up to continue reading. "Let us see how ridiculous you find the rest," she replied knowingly, and picked up where she had left off.
The next afternoon, Hector stopped her again. "So, now he's sayin' that Juliet still loves Romeo, even though he's a murderer?"
Mary set down the book again. "Do you not think Romeo just for avenging his friend Mercutio?"
Hector thought it over for a moment. "Aye, but that the girl would still love him..."
"Do you think I still love my husband not, after some of his deeds?" Mary asked softly.
"Nay, 'tis fer certain that ye be constant in yer affections and loyalty, dear lady," Hector replied, mocking Mary and Shakespeare lightly.
"And if I can love a pirate, cannot Juliet love poor Romeo who only thought to avenge his companion?" Mary asked.
"Aye, I suppose, but 'tis a rare an' marvelous thing to find such a woman, I wager," Hector said softly.
"Yes, that is why Shakespeare's heroine is so famous," Mary answered as she picked the book back up.
"I meant a woman such as yerself, that can love a pirate," Hector said, looking away and staring out the window for a moment.
Mary stayed silent, giving the young man a moment or two with his thoughts. She knew he still lamented the loss of Christine, and that he assumed his life as a pirate and indeed a maimed one at that, would preclude him from having love in his life.
"Yours has not been an easy life, Hector," she said kindly, " but I'll bet you've done more living than most men twice your age." She smiled when he looked back at her. "It might not be right away, but I think you'll find her at some point."
"Who, my Juliet?" Hector sneered slightly.
"No," Mary replied, flipping to the next page, "any woman who might find herself enamored of you, Hector Barbossa, had better be made of sturdier stuff."
A wry grin finally managed to tug at the corners of Hector's mouth.
--
By the time Mary had finished Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hector had improved enough that he could sit propped up higher for short periods of time, and began to read the books Mary brought him on his own.
He devoured more Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, several books on natural history, and finding himself alone when he finished Paradise Lost, turned to the only other book within reach of the bedside.
Morgan himself came in to see how Hector faired, and found him engrossed in the Bible when he did so.
"I didn't realize that you were a religious man, Barbossa," Morgan said as he pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat down.
Hector looked up. "A bored one, more likely," he said, letting the book in his hands fall closed. He set it down on the table next to the bed. "'Tis full of tales as fanciful as any of those," he said, indicating the pile of books he had already polished off. "I'm afraid I've not much use fer it beyond that."
Morgan merely smiled at him. "Shall I bring you more to read, Hector?"
"Aye, but I could use a rest from Shakespeare, as much as yer wife continues to insist that it's good fer me," Hector replied with a great sigh. "It be work reading that man's writin'."
"Well, then, I believe I have something that might interest you," Morgan replied, handing over a thick stack of papers that he had carried in. "Read this, if you would, and then let me know what you think of it."
"What is it?" Hector asked curiously, taking the pile Morgan offered him.
"A little project that I've nearly completed," Morgan said, rising from the chair. "When you've finished that, I would say it'll be about time to get you on your feet for a bit, don't you think?"
"Aye," Hector replied. He returned to the first page in his hands to read the heading. Pirata Codex was scrawled across the top in Morgan's elegant script, and Hector recalled enough of the Latin taught to him by Father Connor that he understood it.
"The Pirate Code?" he asked, just before Morgan exited the room.
"Aye," Morgan replied from the doorway, " uniting the Brethren from the western Caribbean and Tortuga has taken some doing, and I thought it best to jot down, oh... a few guidelines to make things run a bit smoother." He smiled again. "See what you think, Barbossa."
--
Morgan had been right, and by the time Hector got through the stacks of pages that Morgan brought him, another week and a half had passed, and the doctor declared, after examining him thoroughly, that Hector could try getting out of bed the next day.
"Well, that's good news," Morgan declared, watching Hector scrutinize the last stack of papers. "Which section are you reading?"
"The Right of Parley," Hector replied absently, engrossed in the contents of the chapter he was reading. Finally he looked up. "Did ye write all this yerself, Cap'n? There must be a thousand pages all told."
"Nine hundred and eighty-seven," Morgan replied, wryly, "and no, I had help."
"I'm wonderin' what sort of man might take to writin' a piece o' work such as this with ye," Hector said teasingly, setting the chapter down.
"Oh, a man that I think you would have liked well enough," Morgan replied. "Went by the name of Bartholomew."
"Went?" Hector asked. "Does that mean he's dead?"
"Aye, since before you arrived in the Caribbean," Morgan replied. "So, what do you think?" He pointed at the pages Hector had been reading.
"I think the guidelines fer parley leave a lot of room fer playin' fast an' loose, if ye ask me," Hector answered.
"Yes, that's how Bartholomew wrote them," Morgan replied with a grin. "Always was one to make use of a technicality to his advantage."
Hector smiled. "Yer right. Sounds as if I would have liked him," he said, handing the pages back over to Morgan.
"More than you probably realize, Barbossa," Morgan replied quietly. "Get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a rough one, I'll wager."
--
Morgan was right yet again. The next day Morgan and his wife, Jedediah, Cezar, Turk and Harlow were all present along with the doctor when Hector would try standing for the first time in many weeks.
It took almost everything he had just to get himself situated with his legs over the edge of the bed, and Turk and Cezar stood on either side of him, ready to help him to his feet. Hector was already gritting his teeth against the pain that still shot through his lower back and his leg, and had to take a moment to gather himself to stand.
"Whenever you are ready," Cezar said encouragingly.
Hector hesitated for another moment, knowing that he had to do it, but that it was going to mean a great deal of pain when he gained his feet. He glanced once at Turk, who grinned back at him.
"Get yer fuckin' arse outta bed, Barbossa," he said jovially. "We're tired o' waitin' on yeh while yeh lounge around readin' them pansy books all day."
"Well, then get out o' me way, yeh daft lummox," Hector spat back good-naturedly, and he made a monumental effort to get to his feet.
The pain that shot through him took his breath away, and Hector found himself gripped by the arms by Turk and Cezar, who had each grabbed him to keep him from falling back.
"Merda!" he swore sharply, panting from the pain and breaking out in a sweat just from the effort of standing. He let a torrent of curses go, both in Portuguese and the King's English, and Turk laid into him again.
"Yer right eloquent after readin' all that Shakespeare, Barbossa," he teased mercilessly. "Such lovely words from yeh fer the lady that's present."
"Shut it!" Hector gasped, trying to decide if he was actually up to the task of trying to take a few steps. He didn't think he would be able to get any further than standing until he looked up and noticed that Hawkeye Hartwell was hovering around the doorway, curious as to how Hector fared.
Determined not to fail in front of the hated first mate, Hector took a step forward, biting back curses, and snarling wordlessly in defiance of the pain that continued to rip through his body. A dozen steps later, he was exhausted, and Turk and Cezar helped lower him to the cushioned seat by the window, and then the entire group celebrated the small but significant victory by the young pirate.
--
Hector continued to improve as the weeks went on, progressing from being able to get to the window and back two or three times a day, to being able to accompany Mary to her garden with the use of a crutch, if he had her to steady his other arm. The pain he experienced was still marked, but it seemed to dull slightly with each passing week, even as Hector felt his strength returning.
The day came when he no longer needed the crutch, and he joined Mary in a walk through her garden without her assistance. Although it was readily apparent that he was improving daily, it was also obvious to Hector that he would probably never walk quite normally again. He supposed it was a small price to pay for escaping the storm with his life.
When they reached the garden that day, Hector was surprised to see Jedediah Gray waiting for him at the end of garden with two swords. He handed Hector's own sword over to him and spoke. "Time to go to work," he said, indicating the small clearing nearby, and the two men engaged in the first duel they'd had in many months.
The third time Jedediah disarmed Hector and his sword clattered to the ground, the younger man found himself angry and frustrated at how slow he found himself reacting. He'd long been accustomed to handling a sword with a level of skill that surpassed almost anyone he'd ever met, and the fact that Jedediah was making short work of him so easily infuriated him. He picked up the sword once again.
"I think that's enough for today, Barbossa," Jedediah said quietly, seeing the familiar obsessive determination return to the younger man's eyes. When he saw that Hector was about to insist that they continue, he cut him off. "There is no sense in exhausting yourself today. I have no doubt that it will not be long before I find myself at the point of your sword again, Hector."
He smiled broadly. "Let me enjoy being the better swordsman again for a short time, eh?"
Hector reluctantly agreed. "I'd not be gettin' used to it, if I were you," he said wryly, walking slowly and unevenly back toward the garden with Jedediah.
"Oh, believe me, I don't plan on it," Jedediah said with a sigh, clapping the younger pirate on the shoulder as they walked.
--
A/N: For the purposes of this story, Bartholomew is not the same person as Bartholomew Roberts, who would actually be about the same age as Hector if I followed historical timelines, and likely couldn't have been the one who helped write the Pirate Code with Morgan.