Chapter 36: Dancing for a Prince
(PART ONE)
"India?" I whispered to myself, furrowing my eyebrows and leaning harder on Jack's cabin door.
The sun had set but minutes ago, and the sky was suffering the invasion of a wave of twinkling violet, but at the sun's leave we did receive one blessing. At least the temperature had gone down somewhat. Other than that, however, things hadn't much changed. The rest of the crew still meandered about lazily in the dying light, the last bottles of rum in their loose grips. Many of them had avoided me since our encounter with the sharks. Wouldn't want me to almost let them die, too, now would they?
"Diamond? Yellow?" I paused and listened further, nearly wishing that my ear was part of the woodwork of Jack's door panel. "What? Damn! Speak louder in there!" I grumped, about to punch the wooden door in my frustration when I was interrupted with an ill-amused, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," I sang, spinning around and curling my lips. "I thought you'd be in there"—I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at our captain's quarters—"Shouldn't you be?"
"Shouldn't you be mindin' yer own business and not eavesdropping?" he retorted, stepping forward and pressing his ear against the door nonetheless.
"And yet you still follow my lead," I snickered, gracing him with my vexatious grin.
"Can't help it," he answered, honestly enough to my surprise. "You're a bad influence, sister." His eyes veered upward as he absorbed the spoken information going on in Jack's room. "Who knows? Next I'll feed someone to a shark or other man-eating beast." He laughed, and I repaid him for the jest with a painful pinch in the side.
"I treated him, all right?" I said in my defense, prompting Roland to take a break from the spying to tell me what he heard.
"Oh, really?" he returned, smiling in his frivolous disbelief. "How's the Dago doing then?"
"He's peacefully asleep," I hissed. "Now lay off it."
"Right. He's bloody asleep because ye drugged him with laudanum," he stated, scoffing slightly thereafter as he straightened his back and lifted his ear from the door. My mouth had formed the perfect 'o' of protest, but I retreated from arguing. He was right.
"Jus' tell me what ye heard, Roland," I demanded, tired of his disappointingly accurate comebacks.
"We're going to India," he said simply. "To find a yellow diamond that belongs to a prince that lives there. But before we go there, someone's going to get a mighty good lecture from her dad, isn't she?"
"Roland," I growled, readying my fists. "I told you to lay off it."
"Aye, I will, sister," he told me, a tad too bitterly for my own comfort. "I'll lay off it when the man you almost killed—might I remind you that in civilized society, that is called murder?—is well and on his two feet. And lucky if he still has both legs, considerin' it's more likely he'll get the one chewed up by the shark you refused to shoot amputated."
My eyes avoided his stare yet again, having always cowered from belittling confrontations, and I was placed in the position of child again, with my younger brother in the position of parent, staring me down and chastising me. Something was terribly wrong with that picture.
"I'm probably gonna get this same talk from Jack, so I don't need ya to be actin' like my parent. So shut up," I grouched, pushing him back a bit.
He waved off my minute act of aggression with a harder shove.
"Jack wouldn't give you this lecture, Astrid. You know it. It's going to take someone else to beat sense into that head of yours because you still think that the world revolves around you. You nearly killed a man—intentionally. It wasn't like we were fighting in a battle and you had to fight the enemy. You targeted one of your own shipmates and he paid with his blood for your stupidity."
He would have said more, knowing him. He wasn't done yet, but he could say nothing further because the cabin doors parted, and Tom stood at the entrance, shifting his glance from me to Roland and to me again.
"Could you keep it down, please? We're trying to discuss treasure here," he said. Roland glared at him indignantly, appalled that he was being discouraged from hammering me with degradation. However, Tom quickly figured out what was going on and suggested that Roland join them in their talk. I would have protested, but since it got Roland away, I didn't. I could still eavesdrop without him.
"An' if I catch ye spyin' on us again, bonnie," added Tom, "Yer brother an' Jack ain't gonna be the only ones givin' you lectures." He ended his threat with a wink that made me blush and then shut the door, and I was left behind, as usual, to amuse myself with my silly wishes.
My decision to honor Tom's request and end my snooping session was more on the part of my girlish speculations about receiving some sort of romantic compensation from him in return rather than on the part of me actually respecting the man. And I figured, to go along with my streak of good behavior, to pass the time waiting for my long postponed father-daughter chat by tending to the slumbering Spaniard I almost left to die.
I expected to pretend to care for him, dabbing a wet cloth to his feverish brow every now and then and never taking my eyes off his poor, ailing form. However, when I went below decks to complete such an act, I found the Don to be awake and engaged in a lively conversation with Cordelia.
"Astrid!" she hailed, waving both her arms in the air as I neared them. "¿Cómo estás?" I didn't answer and she peered at me curiously, her eyebrow raised. "What happened? Ye came down here smilin' an' now you're… not."
"Oh," I replied absently. "I… I hadn't noticed. I see…" I had difficulty swallowing. "… Hernán is feeling better."
"Not quite so," he corrected, his words vaguely slurred. "I still feel a bit… how do you call it? In altitudes?"
"Drunk?" I postulated, certain that that was the word he was aiming for.
"No, no," he shook his head. "I feel fine… my head is just moving… whirling? No, spinning. Yes, my head is spinning." He looked up at me, the light coming from the hung lanterns illuminating slices of his brown eyes, which, might I add, were watery and coated in a thin, light film of red. Perhaps I did give him too much laudanum. I smirked at the thought.
Ignoring his drunken babble, I leaned over his hammock, peering at his bandaged leg and noting the splotches of crimson spreading on the white linen I used to wrap his wounds in. "How's the leg fairing?" I asked nonchalantly, trying very hard not to care, but in truth, I did. An amputation was the last thing I needed, and I dreaded the very likely possibility for two reasons. Firstly, Cavanaugh never taught me how to chop off decaying limbs. And secondly, I did not have the stomach to saw a man's leg off. It was bad enough having to see Dobbin hobbling about with a crutch and a peg leg. I did not want that image to resurface.
Hernán only gave an agonized moan and grimaced. "Laudanum would—" I didn't let him finish.
"I think I've given you enough," I interrupted, trying to think of something I could do to help him, and finding myself incapable of such a task.
"Hernán was teaching me a song in Spanish, Astrid. Do you want to learn it?" proposed Cordelia, ever the cheery harbinger of sunshine.
"No," I said flatly, and she interpreted my answer as a sign that I was angry, which I was (though not at her). I could do nothing to help the poor young Spaniard except give him more of what he wanted: opium tincture. "Get me water… and rum, Delia," I ordered. Although she did not appreciate being given the order so snappishly from me, she obeyed, and I redid Hernán's bandages before debating whether or not to knock him out with the potent liquid drug again.
"Just give it to me," he insisted, still inebriated from the last large dose of physic I gave him.
I refused.
He issued his demands more harshly, and I returned his stubbornness with my own. He was not in the proper bearings to be deciding what was good for himself.
"No, I'll give it to you when the last dose wears off," I commanded, nearly yelling at him. Sighing, he turned away from me, and I sensed, by the streams of air that jetted out of his nose, that he truly wished that he could turn and walk away from me, but he lay, basically imprisoned in his hammock, unable to display the disagreement he felt. "You can handle it."
He glanced up at me and quicker than I could ever anticipate, seized my wrist and hauled me forward, causing me to let out a yelp.
"Damn you! Do you know how much pain I'm in!" he screamed into my face.
I stared at him stupidly, horrified at the ferocity of the suffering clearly visible in his eyes. Whether his burst of emotional frustration was due to the alcohol in his veins or to the unbearable throbbing in his leg didn't matter. I popped the cork from the laudanum bottle and offered it to him, my fingers trembling.
But before he could reach it, a hand from behind plucked the bottle out of my grasp and stole the stopper from my other hand.
"No," said Guerra firmly, stepping up from behind me and placing the piece of cork back into the bottle spout. "You need to see him suffer and you…" He turned to Hernán. "You live through this and there will be no questioning of your manhood." Guerra's younger Spanish comrade only growled, the humor of the joke obviously not an effective cure for his pain.
In that time, however, I realized that if Guerra was present, then Jack's meeting was over and… The day could not have gotten any worse.
I turned around, embarrassed enough for water to begin leaking out of my eyes.
"Please tell me you did not see any of that," I croaked, blinking rapidly as I returned Jack's stare. He said nothing and after a moment of excruciating silence, turned and walked away.
"Jack!" I whimpered, the first pathetic sob crawling up my throat.
"Hey now, bonnie." I felt two comforting hands land on my shoulders and shake me up a bit, gently. "Chin up, love." As soon as I felt the back of my head bump against Tom's chest, I relaxed and let myself fall back onto him, in which I was held securely in his arms, his chin resting atop my head as he spoke calmly and soothingly to me. "We know you're a good girl," he comforted. "Jack doesn't think badly of ye at all, bonnie. None of us do. Why, yer the one what got us one of our ships, ain't ya? C'mon, now. Enough pipin' yer eyes out."
"But I'm sorry for what I did," I quivered, the hiccups fighting to blast out of my mouth. "I really am. None of you seem to believe me."
Tom didn't say anything immediately after and his embrace loosened.
"You don't believe me either, do you?" I realized, pushing him away from me, but he refused to let me go.
"Let's have a talk, bonnie," he said quietly, leading me to a distant corner in Sick Bay. When I had gotten the sobbing out of my system and was left sniffling, he asked, in the same hushed tone, "Have you apologized to him?"
"To who? The Spaniard?" I returned, forgetting that our conversation was to be private and speaking too loudly.
"Yes, to Hernán. Use his bloody name, Astrid. You don't see me walkin' around callin' you Englishwoman, do you? Now tell me; have you apologized to the man?"
"No," I said bluntly, and as soon as I said the word, Tom ordered me to do so directly after he was done speaking to me.
"But he's still in altitudes," I parried, trying to avoid the apology at all costs. "It wouldn't make sense to say sorry to a drunk man."
"Then as soon as he's sober, you do it. I'm not playing a game here, Astrid. I am ordering you to do this," said Tom gravely, the line of his mouth straight and grim. I nodded halfheartedly and he became more assertive in reply to my disinterest. "I'm not joking, bonnie. You don't know what kind of tension you've built up on this ship because of your little mistake. Every man knows you nearly killed Hernán out of jealousy, and so now you've got them thinkin' that if it wasn't Hernán, who's it gonna be? Who's goin' to be the next man dead at the hands of the heartless wench? Hmm? Ye broke whatever trust Jack wanted in his crew, Astrid. You've torn this ship apart."
He said nothing more, hoping that in that pause I would come to realize the stupidity and selfishness of my actions, but none of it settled in yet. My face remained void of understanding and I looked down at my teetering feet.
Tom huffed resentfully.
"If you weren't Jack's daughter and if I didn't care about you, bonnie, you would be marooned or dead by now for what you've done. And if that doesn't tell you how serious your transgression is, I don't know what the hell will." He sighed and looked at me, a softer look in his eyes. "I like you, Astrid." He reached out to me, the tips of his fingers sliding down the side of my face. I shivered under his touch. "But if it comes to it one day, bonnie… if it comes to it…" His fingers took hold of my face in a tighter grip, and I winced at his break in leniency. "I will hurt you, Astrid. I will." And then his touch became cold and he left me, terrified and heartbroken, in his wake.
The stupid thing to do would have been to follow him, but it was evident that everyone on the ship had grown tired of my foolhardiness, and I wisely opted to spend the rest of the night alone. I had just come up from underhatches when I was suddenly confronted by Jack, and my eyes started to water again. Here comes the 'talk', Astrid. Brace yourself…
"Ye look a bit glum," he observed lightly, neither overly concerned or impartial to the fact. "Did the Irishman have a word with you?"
"Yes," I mumbled miserably. "Made me feel a hell of a lot like dirt, he did."
"I was hoping he'd do that," confessed my father, smirking afterwards and toddling aft but still keeping close to the railing.
"What do you mean you hoped he would do that?" I gawked, pursuing him with confused irritation. "Do you mean to tell me that you planned all of this?"
"Judging by how pleased I am with your current mood, then aye, it's certainly a possibility." He pivoted on his heel, catching me off guard, and the only thing that kept me from bumping into him was his foot, which I stepped on.
"But why would you plan something like that?" I asked in the time he used to grimace at the pain throbbing within the boundaries of his right boot. "Sorry," I murmured sheepishly, my eyes directed at his foot.
"Quite all right, love," he managed to say through his teeth. "At least ye didn't throw me overboard to be shark bait."
At the mentioning of 'shark', I flung my arms in the air and shouted:
"Why does it always have to come back to that? Why!"
Jack's reply was too lithely issued.
"Because if he dies, everyone's going to be looking at a certain very esteemed, universally famous and devilishly handsome pirate captain's daughter and saying that his offspring is a bloody, bilge-sucking, murderous temptress what deserves to be poxed and shot in the head, savvy?"
If what he said was meant to both stupefy and paralyze its victims with fear, then I was most definitely a victim. After being placed into such a state of mind, all I could honestly do was stare at him unblinkingly whilst tremulously gulping to rid the stunned sensation of terror housed in my throat. He observed my reaction for a good minute or so, either amused or… well… amused, before saying:
"Love, I think you'd make me less uncomfortable if you stopped staring at me like a dead fish."
Dead fish. More references to the shark instance. He just doesn't know when to stop, does he?
"Are you implying that I'm basically a dead man walking, Jack?" I put forth, returned to my senses at the irritation of more shark puns.
His face became awash with surprise.
"Did I say that? And clearly, Astrid, you're not a man. If you were, I'd be worried about the own orientation of Tom based on how much attention he gives you. A bloody pouffe, he'd be." He made a face at that mental image.
"You know that's not why I asked. I need you to be serious and straightforward with me, Jack. If Hernán dies, would it cause enough mayhem on this ship so as to instigate a mutiny? Or possibly my death?"
"I believe I answered that when I said the devilishly handsome pirate captain's offspring would be considered to be a bloody, bilge-sucking, murderous—"
"All right, I get it now," I interrupted, aggravated with his repetition, which, not surprisingly, was prompted by my own repeated inquisitions. "What can I do then?... To stop something like that from happening, I mean."
He finally smiled and the relief that swept through me was absolutely grand.
"I'm glad you asked, love." He took a step back, his arms slightly extended at his sides and took out a little container of rum from an inside coat pocket. "Watch carefully." With his eyes set on me, he inched forward, placed the liquor bottle in my hand and said (slowly), with his hands out before him, palms parallel to the deck, "Open it and drink."
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously on him and clenched my jaw.
"What the bloody hell is that supposed to do, Jack!" I shrilled, chucking the rum bottle overboard. He expelled a childish, "Ahh!" as he bobbled over to the railing, his hands now curled and guarding the look of pure queasiness on his distraught face as he peered over the edge of the ship, his eyes trained on the floating bottle.
"Clearly she's been too influenced by Elizabeth," he muttered to himself, turning to confront me again. "Thankfully, I always have a spare." He retrieved another from some pocket hidden in his coat and presented it to me.
"What do you want me to do? Get drunk?" I shrieked, slapping away his offering.
"That's the simplest way I can put it. If said it in any other, more complex manner, I'm afraid you'd be asking more questions than you are now," he replied, bringing the rum close to me again.
"How will that help at all?"
"I'm taking a risk here, Astrid; that's what I do, after all, and since you're unwilling to be hospitable and welcoming while sober, I'm hypothesizing that the opposite would occur in your drunken state," he reasoned happily. "Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?"
The only response he got from me was my incredulous glower.
"You mean to tell me that I have a listening problem, Jack? That I'm not friendly or nice or helpful? Is that it?"
"I didn't say that," he corrected.
"But that's what you're trying to say, isn't it? Well, what if I don't always want to listen? What if not listening is what got me here in the first place, hmm? Ever thought of that?"
Before my voice got any higher and angrier, Jack pulled me aside and said, as nicely as he could, "I'm not talkin' about your progress here, love. This isn't just about you, savvy? An' comin' from a selfish man—I know I'm selfish—"
"—Got that right—" I interrupted bitterly.
"—Well, then you should have no problem understanding this then, aye? You need to listen to your shipmates, Astrid. You need to show that you care—just a little bit, that's all I'm asking—about them. Now, I know you don't love Hernán and I highly doubt that you will, ever, but pretend for the next fortnight or so that you do, savvy?"
"But I can't do that," I told him. "I won't." He looked at me suspiciously, not expecting the reply that I gave him. "I won't act like someone I'm not. I won't pretend to care when I really don't, Jack. That's lying."
"Aye, it is. But it's no different from dressin' up like a man, acting like a man, and telling everyone around you that you are a man when you are, in fact, a woman. Looks like you are very capable of lying, love."
"You're one to talk," I spat back. "You made me believe a lie ten years ago, making me believe that I actually had a family when in truth, all I really had were a drunken pirate for a father and a dead whore from Tortuga for a mum! Did you have any idea of how such news destroyed the dreams I already had in mind? I was promised to a lieutenant in His Majesty's Royal Navy, Jack!"
"That's the way it should have stayed then," he returned calmly, almost regrettably. "I've told ye this before, Astrid. I didn't want you to find me."
"And why not? Were you ashamed of me? Did you just not like me?" I forced myself to put a halt to my questions, sucking up the snot starting to drip out of my nose and blinking the hot water away from my eyes. "Or did you just not love me?" I asked at last. "You obviously didn't care about me the same way you care about Cordelia because you decided to keep her. You didn't send her away. You didn't—"
"It was your mother's dying wish, Astrid," he said, his eyes seemingly lamenting the day he received my mother's request. "She wanted you to be a lady. She made me promise her that I'd never bring you to Tortuga, that you'd never be stuck in the same sad profession she had. That was what she wanted for you, Astrid."
"Well, I hope she knows that you broke your promise to her as well because I did end up in Tortuga, and I did get stuck with her awful job. And the only reason I was forced into such a situation was because youweren't there. You were never bloody there."
"Why do you think I took you to Port Royal to live with Will and Elizabeth, Astrid?" he asked heatedly, getting aggravated himself. "To keep you as far away from that life as possible."
I looked at him, the same frown still on my face, but I saw that he was, for once, being sincere. There was a sadness hidden behind his dark eyes, a sadness usually shielded with his quirky nature and silly gimmicks and only now revealed to me when the topic of my mother had come up. Perhaps there was something significant in my mother's past that affected him, but I couldn't really think of anything profound enough to instill such a feeling in the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow. And it only occurred to me after my failure to find anything that perhaps the thing that made him even remember my mother was, possibly, me.
Maybe I was more important to Jack than I thought.
"She made an impossible wish, then," I yielded, looking down and shaking my head and ending the argument. "I'll go tend to the Span—Hernán, I mean. I'm… I'm sorry, Jack… for nearly killing one of your men and ruining the trust on your ship. You're a selfish man; you should understand. You have a selfish daughter and all she really wanted to do was… impress you with her not-so-piratical abilities. That's all."
I was forgiven with a thin smile from him.
"She liked to make silly wishes, your mother," he said, more on a whim than to continue our dying conversation.
"Then I guess I'm more like her and less like you than I thought."
"Don't be too sure about that, love. You're a Sparrow. Jack-ish traits are inescapable."
I tossed and turned in my hammock, agitated and bothered by our nearing destination. It had been about two and a half months since we got out of the Doldrums, and our first target was to get some information about the treasure map hidden in Jack Rackham's sunken mound of treasure. It turned out that the map was not made by Calico Jack but was instead made by a more recent pirate. The map was a decade old at most because of the date Jack and his team discovered printed on the map somewhere. However, since the map held no specific location for the diamond we were looking for, Captain Sparrow decided that we'd need to do our research on the subject we were trying to "learn."
We landed in Arabia about a month ago, seeking information about any caravans or important travelers venturing into India. We trekked across the desert terrain, sand crawling into our boots and sunburn growing on our faces as we went from village to village, asking the same questions over and over again. Apparently there were few Arabs traveling to India because of religious reasons, and Jack found it necessary to ask the highwayman who ambushed us if there were any negotiations for religious acceptance or tolerance in India.
"There are few," was our answer, followed by a very snide, "Why?"
"Oh, nothing," smiled Jack despite the knife being held at his throat. I myself was successfully restrained by another bandit, sand blowing into my face as I twitched and spit repeatedly to get the grains out of my eyes and mouth. The niqab I bought at the last town was not doing any justice and failed to protect my face and head effectively. "I jus' happen to know that some prince in India owns a very special diamond that, if found, will lead to more riches, savvy?"
'Diamond' was all that really needed to be said for the highwaymen to let us go, of course, on the condition that they come along. Seeing as it was either getting our throats slit or letting them come along, Jack opted for the thieves to join us (momentarily) on our journey, which did not rest well with our Spanish comrades.
"They invaded our country and killed our people!" argued Guerra, marching up to Jack in his usual stomping manner. "You are going to let those damn Moors—" He didn't get any farther than that.
A knife was instantly thrown at him, and it missed by a thread, cutting Guerra across the cheek; and such an act of violence was readily answered with the 'click' of the pistol held in Hernán's hands.
"Try that again. I won't miss," he goaded, his stare leveled on the keffiyah-wearing felon. It was a good thing the Arab let his guard down because I happened to know that Hernán was a very good shot. But, despite the protests of our Dagos, our Arab band of thieves followed us to our anchored ship in the Persian Gulf coast. Luckily, none of them were experienced seamen, and they joined us on our ship as complete and utter landlubbers, paying for their previous hostilities with days and days of seasickness when we left the sands of Araby for India.
Hernán, obviously, did not suffer the most detrimental of consequences caused by his shark wound. His recovery was rather miraculous, in my opinion, and the entire crew only considered him to be our luckiest shipmate based on how many times he was blessed with good fortune.
Since he was really the only ill person on board the Pearl, I was obliged to give him my undivided attention, and I catered to his every need, despite how much I abhorred being his maid for a good six weeks. His wounds never got infected and the fever he developed gradually subsided over time. When his leg had stopped bleeding so profusely, I decided it was time to let him start walking again, and such a task ended up being hated by the both of us. It was bad enough having to support a man who was a full head and neck taller than me, but it was even worse when he was also as stubborn as an ass.
"Look at your bloody foot, man!" I'd scream, often, during such therapeutic sessions. "Your leg is bloody bleeding and you have to sit your arse down to rest. Now!"
"It's not that bad," he'd growl. "I can handle it. Ten more steps. I'm not going to lose this leg, damn you!"
And the only person who'd succeed in calming both of us down would be Cord, who'd promenade towards us and ease our tempers with her perky, optimistic character. She'd manage to get Hernán to rest in order to teach her more Spanish, which gave me time to seek out Roland, Jack, or Sefu to talk to. Tom was captaining the French ship we captured, and so I would have to admire the dashing Irishman from afar.
However, I did admit to myself that the Spaniard's persistence in ridding himself of an eternal limp amounted to something in the end. By the time we landed in Arabia, he and his leg were well enough to walk and even run (in case of emergency) during our short visit. He was, of course, not fully healed even though he liked to think that he was. Whenever we had to walk a long distance in a day, he'd complain of pain and cramps in his leg when we finally settled down at night to rest. And I'd chastise him with a brutal, "I told you so."
Although my public display of interaction with Hernán was teeming with extreme, snappish dislike, I did remain committed to his medical treatment; and that, thank God, kept the rest of the crew from suspecting me as a heartless wench who would slit their throats and toss them overboard in their sleeps should they anger me. Roland even commended me on how fast Hernán recovered.
"It's rather uncanny, don't you think?" he asked me in an Arabian village one day. Our landing party, which consisted of Jack, Tom, Gibbs, Sefu, some Spaniards, Frenchies, and Americans, had come to the settlement to get food and water, with the side-task of investigating for our diamond mission. "That he'd get better so quickly," Roland clarified, picking up a piece of dried fruit from a vendor's basket and inspecting it. I noticed small beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face, despite the head-covering he wore.
"He's a lucky bugger. God loves him, I suppose," I replied, asking the vendor how much the dried pieces of fruit cost through my veil.
"Aye, that's always possible," concurred Roland, adjusting the circle of rope securing his headdress. "But maybe it's more. You haven't been doing him any favors, Astrid, have you?"
I glared at him as the vendor handed me a sack of our newly purchased foodstuffs, and I did not hesitate to swing that same sack at my brother's grinning face.
"You're disgusting," I remarked.
"What? Those are the questions that come up when a woman spends a lot of time with a man," he piteously defended.
I halted my steps and jerked my head to the side, all the more insulted.
"Are you saying someone in our crew has been saying that stuff about me? Or are you the one spreading such malicious gossip, eh, brother?"
"No, I'm not saying that," he said hurriedly, laughing afterwards at how my veil rippled whenever I spoke. "We're men, Astrid. We like to joke around. It's nothing personal. We're not like women who spread lies and actually believe them. We know you like Tom."
His words were not comforting.
"And how do you bloody know that I like Tom?" I squawked.
"Aha! So you do!" he cried out. I had nothing to say to that. He tricked me into making the confession. Damn him.
"Boy, do you move on quickly, sister," he snickered before ridiculing me further. "Adieu, Stephen! Adieu, Adam! Adieu, Bennie!" He laughed as he pretended to wave goodbye to my past love interests. "Good Lord, sister. I'm not being funny, but you've certainly been around, haven't you?"
Well, dear brother, you can take that smack, and this one, too, ye scumbag, and how about another? Smack. Aye, that'll get ye to shut yer gob. Bloody hell.
By the time we actually got to the shores of India, our Spanish comrades and our Moors were about ready to really, really kill each other. Neither party walked around the ship or even slept on the ship without being fully armed, which only made me want to see what a crossfire between the two would actually look like.
"So what exactly is your plan for getting us into the Raja's palace, Jack?" I asked him as we prepared for docking at the port of Chennai.
"Don't worry, love, it doesn't involve you," was his answer, and I would have pressed him for clarification if Roland hadn't sprinted up to the helm, his eyes wide with fear.
"Astrid, come look," he said, panting. He handed me a spyglass and told me to look one point forward on the larboard beam.
"I don't see anything, Roland. Just the sterns of some ships in the harbor, just…" My voice died and any words that would have come out turned to dust in my throat. The Paramount was docked, and I knew very well who sailed on the Paramount and I was not about to run into him once we landed on Indian ground.
"We can't dock here, Jack," I said, panicking, my hands shaking as I returned the spyglass to Roland. "The British Navy is docked here. We can't… we'll get caught… we'll… oh, God… I'll… Adam… Dear Lord… what am I going to do?"
"All right, then," said Jack, not intimidated by my unfinished apprehensions. "We'll just row to port in some dinghies." And with that, he changed course to drop anchor at a safer location, but my breathing hadn't become regular just yet. Somewhere in that town wandered a Lieutenant Adam Locke, and I knew that if I ever ran into him, there would be hell to pay.
As soon as I found out that Adam was in that port city, I could not get a good night's sleep. The possibility of coming across his path and confronting him was too burdensome, and I'd whine and worry the first few nights we were in India. I refused to step foot on land and join our landing party to investigate the search for our wanted diamond, electing to stay safe on our anchored ship. My absence in their group would not make a difference anyway.
Roland, however, dared to tell me about the news he'd heard while snooping around the port city, dangerously close to our now ex-comrades, for we both knew that 'pirate' was now our official occupation and we had to be extremely careful around navy personnel.
"You really ought to come with us next time," he recommended, taking off his keffiyah and running his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "My God, sister! You won't believe where and what some of our friends have done! I overheard Murray just today, and—"
"Murray?" I burst, my eyes bulging. "Kenneth Murray? You saw him?"
"Aye, but I kept my face covered," he shrugged. "These Arab garments come in pretty handy, I'd say. I was with my good mates Hernán and Sefu and we pretended to be having our own conversation while overhearing Murray and a fellow officer chat amongst themselves. And guess what we found?"
"The diamond?" I honestly hoped he had. That way, we wouldn't have to stay one more day in India and I could rest easier.
"No. I know I'm good, Astrid, but even I don't have that much luck." I humphed at his growing ego. "The maharaja of Tanjore is in port, staying at the home of a British Lord who is visiting on behalf of Parliament."
"And supposedly they are going to have some high-toned and fancy to-do up at up at the Lord's estate," continued Jack, scaring me from behind. I had no idea he was listening in on our conversation. "We upstanding gentlemen… and gentlewomen… need to merit an invitation."
"And how are we going to do that?" I asked.
"Word has it that some important British naval officers are invited," added Gibbs, prompted by Jack to cough up the rest of the information they had discovered with a nudge from his elbow. "One in particular who's a bit of a rogue."
"What are you suggesting then?" My tone was not encouraging. The first name to come to mind at the mentioning of "rogue" was Griffith's, and I was in no mood to see him again after what he did to me.
"Someone should go speak to them," Tom advised, also scaring me from behind as he slipped his arm around my waist. "Someone who'll be attractively convincing."
"Someone who knows how the navy thinks," contributed Gibbs.
"And someone who can do both while appearing entirely… innocent," Jack concluded, taking an envelope out of his sleeve and presenting it in front of my face.
The wrinkles of my already formed frown only deepened.
"You must be bloody daft if ye think I'm going to use my face to get you what you want!"
"You did it to get us the ship I captain, bonnie," countered Tom, keeping me from storming off by tightening his grip around my hips. "That's all we're asking of you. Give them that letter, see what they have to say, and then if it's not agreeable, convince them that it is."
"The maharaja is highly influenced by his British visitors," said Roland. "He's apt to accept whatever they do."
"But I can't step on land! What if Adam sees me? He'll know something is up and then he'll—"
"Sister, that's why I bought you that veil-thing and Arab dress. It covers you from head to toe, save for your eyes. You're safe." I could only glare at him unbelievingly. "Tell you what, I'll go with you into town. Hernán and I. We'll follow you, make sure you get the job done, and then if you run into a bit of a scrape, we'll get you out, savvy?"
"The whelp has it well thought out, Astrid," agreed Jack. "You do it first thing in the morning."
I grumbled at all of them.
"Fine. I'll do it," I seethed, snatching the letter from Jack's hands. "Just one question."
"Aye?" posed Jack.
"What's in the letter?"
"This is never going to work," I griped, pinning the veil in place over my nose and mouth. "What kind of native do you see around port with blue eyes?"
"If anything, that unlikelihood will only make you all the more exotically appealing to that cocky officer," voiced Roland, tired of my complaints.
We descended from the Pearl down into a rowboat, in which we would row to shore and then walk for the rest of the journey. We had anchored the ships a good couple of miles away from the harbor, and so there would be quite a lengthy bit of walking before we could even start looking for the British lord's abode. While on the way to shore, Roland peered at me quizzically before laughing as he moved the oars back and forth with the Spaniard.
"And what is so funny?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes on him and Hernán.
"Your leg," he simpered. "It's showing."
I looked down at myself and noticed that yes, my dress was somewhat rumpled towards the hem and that yes, part of my bare leg was showing.
"And? It's not like you've never seen a leg before," I grumped, covering the limb anyway.
"No, but it makes me, and I am sure, Hernán, question whether or not you are wearing any pants under that dress."
"It's a dress! I'm not supposed to!" I defended, blushing beneath my veil. The Spaniard chuckled. "Ooh, don't you look at me that way!" I screamed, slapping him on the head. "And you!" I shouted, turning to Roland. "You need to bloody find yourself a girl. You've been at sea for too long looking at men's arses and you're taking all of that energy out on me. Like what you did in Arabia! Asking me if I was doing my shipmates damn bloodyfavors. You nasty pig."
By then, both Roland and his Spanish comrade were laughing and guffawing like no tomorrow, and I could do nothing to end their laughter. I was stuck in their unfavorable company and I had no option but to tolerate their boyish antics with a bitter hmph.
Their taunts, however, did remind me of how eager navy men could be for pleasurable company and I considered the thought as we searched for the British Lord's home. If this officer was as much of a hound as I thought him to be, then convincing him to convince the raja would be a very easy task, or at least, I hoped it would. Sometimes charm was needed to accompany the pretty face. Only, I was severely bereft of charm, and wit for that matter.
"That's it," observed Roland, pointing up at the large building at the end of the road. We had asked a good many people along the way where Lord Pemberton was housed, and Roland, along the way, just had to explain to Hernán and me the details of British residency in India. "I wonder if the Governor-General is with him, though I don't know why he'd leave Calcutta. Whoever this Lord Pemberton is, he must be here on Pitt's account."
I rolled my eyes at his political knowledge. What did I care of the British Governor-General, or the members of Parliament?
"Just knock on the bloody door," I grouched.
After speaking to the servant who answered the door, we were allowed to enter the home and meet with the raja's advisor, who, to my surprise, was a Christian missionary.
"Our sultan sends his greetings," said Roland, gesturing for me to deliver the letter hidden in my sleeve. The priest looked at it suspiciously.
"And why does he send you? It's not very often we hear from our neighbors to the west. Last time we dealt with sultans, we waged battle, discovering that they were preparing an alliance with the French."
That was something Roland failed to mention in his little history of Britain and India.
"The letter explains everything, sir," replied Roland, unfazed. "Shall we give you time to discuss it with the maharaja?"
The priest had already read the first few lines of the letter and glanced briefly at us, my breath becoming shallow beneath my veil. It was too bloody humid to breathe comfortably with a cloth over one's mouth and I had a bad feeling we were soon to be revealed for the frauds we were.
"A servant will provide you with refreshments. I will return shortly," was all the missionary said before dismissing us, and we were led through a series of open corridors and white halls ornamented with Hindu deities, contrary to the Christian influences taking place inside the palace.
Our destination lay in the courtyard of the elegant mansion, where uniformed men moseyed about on the white, tiled floors, drinking tea or liquor out of their fine white china and crystal glasses. A quaint little water fountain stood serenely in the background, partly hidden by the meticulous arrangement of colorful tropical plants sitting stoutly in their pots, the sunshine falling down in thick slices as it cut across the open air of the courtyard. I scanned the faces of the men with a couple of flicks of my eyelids. Thankfully, most of them were too old to be Adam, and I noticed one looked mighty dashing in an admiral's garb.
"Ah, look what we have here, gentlemen," said the admiral, lifting his liquor glass towards my two companions and me. "Arabs. And a woman among them. All wearing masks over their faces. If that's not suspicious, then I don't know what is!"
He meandered towards us, his heeled boots clicking against the polished, gleaming tiles and his narrow glare concentrated on our kohl-rimmed eyes. He was middle-aged, with strands of gray streaking his dark, nearly black hair. Yet, his face had a honed attractiveness to it—a quality of aged perfection on his swarthy skin. Were he ten years younger, I probably would have been giggling behind my veil. I questioned whether or not he was the rogue Gibbs had mentioned.
"Odd," he commented. "Never saw an Arab woman with blue eyes before. Are you certain you belong in such clothes? I'd be happy to remove them for you." His eyes twinkled with delight as I looked down.
Aye. He's the rogue, all right.
I said nothing and I could feel both Roland and Hernán bristle and tense at the crude joke.
"She's taken a vow of silence, sir," my brother voiced brutally, the 'sir' being uttered as more of a growl than a word. "In lieu of certain hardships her sultan has had to face these past few months."
Admiral Dick scoffed at the defense, bending over and searching with his eyes for my hand within the long, flowing curtains of my dress. He chose on a spot and reached, touching my wrist and pulling me forward, kissing my fingers delicately before letting them go.
"Well, if she's silent, I guess she won't scream when I get to know her better tonight, will she?"
I wondered if he and Griffith were related somehow. Roland and Hernán took one dangerous step forward, both of them nearly abreast the undaunted naval officer and both ready to defend me, which I found highly amusing. Perhaps they were taking this little act of ours too seriously. Or maybe they were overreacting to ensure that our act would be sold.
Intervening on their pre-dueling procedures, I gently touched both of my escorts on the shoulder, confronting the admiral only when I felt them relax; and, smiling beneath my niqab, I bowed before the admiral, hands together in a prayer-like fashion. He took that as a sign of my willingness, and he offered his arm to me, which I hesitantly accepted. I risked a glimpse over at Roland and Hernán and saw my brother give that small, subtle nod of approval in my direction as Admiral Giddy-In-His-Tight-White-Britches directed me over under a patch of sunshine to have some tea.
"Two lumps of sugar or three?" he asked me, dumping two spoonfuls in my cup anyway. He knew I couldn't answer because of my supposed vow of silence, and he purposefully forgot to ask me if I would like cream in my tea. "It's quite hot," he warned, prepared to hold my tea cup for me. And as he brought it towards my face, I realized that in order to drink the damn liquid, I would have to remove my veil. You stupid, stupid girl!
I shook my head quickly as the steaming liquid neared my face.
"Ah, here. I'll take care of that for you," he said, reaching to yank my veil off.
"Admiral Mardling!"
The call shocked both of us and the man dropped the tea cup and spilled its boiling contents over my astounded face.
Oh, God, Astrid. Don't scream. Don't scream. Do. Not. Scream!
My hands flew to my burning skin and Roland and Hernán, having realized what happened, rushed to my aid. At least the admiral hadn't ripped off my niqab.
"What is it, dammit!" bellowed Mardling, glaring at the broken china of the tea cup he had dropped. A younger officer came forward, seemingly out of breath, tucking his hat beneath his arm after he had made his bow and salute. When he rose, I gripped Roland's shoulders and moved him so that he blocked me.
"What?" he whispered, looking over his shoulder. He hastily looked away as soon as he saw who it was. "Right. Just stay… quiet."
I tried not to whimper as my heart leapt up into my throat, all while my face still stung unremittingly. Things were most certainly not going as planned.
After the admiral calmed down, he turned to his inferior, frowning. The longest pause I had ever known followed and the thumping of my heart beat uproariously in my ears. Oh, God… Oh, God…
"Don't you ever barge into my business in such a jarring manner, Lieutenant Locke."
With a huff, I swatted Tom's hand from my face, cursing at no particular person under my breath. We had returned to the ship successful, but our success was bought with a price I had no intention of paying. My face suffered minor burns from the tea spilt by the raunchy admiral, and my mind could not get off the fact that I had seen Adam Locke in town. However, the maharaja agreed to arrange a meeting between the Arab princess and his son, and he had already sent a messenger to bring his son down from their palace in Tanjore. The soonest the boy would arrive would be in three days and he would bring with him an engagement gift: the yellow diamond we had been thirsting for.
"Well, look on the bright side, Astrid, you still have the veil to wear." Tom applied some liniment on my burns.
"I don't care. I'm not stepping foot on land again until we've stolen the diamond." I slapped his hand away from my face again. "And you've put on enough. I look like I have a white, fluffy beard with this cream smeared on my skin." He laughed, happily agreeing to my observation.
I emerged from the hatchway and stepped foot on the top deck, creamy white beard and all, as I sought out Roland. If there was anyone who would understand how I felt, it would be him.
When brother dear had gotten over his giggles concerning the alterations on my face, we discussed, for a good hour, what to do about the Adam situation. We went over several of the things we had learned about him from our short stay at Lord Pemberton's mansion, such as how he had been in India for about half a year and that he and his father currently shared a residence with the Murray family, who had left Port Royal for the wonders of the far east, and how he had come to like coffee and not tea, and how he had started a budding relationship with Kenneth Murray's sister, Meredith.
"How could he bloody do that to me!" I exclaimed, pulling at my hair. "See? I knew there was some connection between the two of them. I knew it the day of my fifteenth birthday! I knew it!"
"Sister, may I remind you that you haven't been the perfect image of fidelity either?" remarked Roland as he rubbed his eye. "Let's go through the list again, shall we? Adam, Stephen, Griffith, Ben—"
"Fine. So I can't blame him for that," I scowled, scratching at my burns. "I don't know what to do, Roland," I moped, my anger turning into worry. "I want to talk to him, to just be with him again, but he might be angry, and I don't want to make things worse." I let out what sounded like a cross between a whine and a cry, only earning Roland's snickers in return.
"My God, Astrid. For a girl who moves on so easily, I'd think you wouldn't have a problem with confronting him."
I punched his arm.
"Or maybe find Kenneth and talk to him about your feelings about Adam?" he revised timidly, rubbing his shoulder. "But this you must do, sister," he added, becoming serious. "Focus on our mission. Then, deal with your romantic problems. Good Lord, I don't think I've heard so much unnecessary drama since the Alexandra era." He moaned and left me afterwards to contemplate whatever decision I'd make, and when I had chosen one, I checked on my Spaniard and his leg, finding that he was suffering from mild cramps and the occasional bruising under the skin.
"Tell me, Hernán," I began as I prodded the random blood spots on his healing limb, "What do you think I should do about Lieutenant Locke?"