My sincerest apologies to every one of my readers for leaving you hanging for so long. Real Life has been... well, real.
I'm only just beginning to calm down to what passes for normal for me.
But here's the latest chapter, of which everything that you recognize
doesn't belong to me. (grumble, grumble, grumble!)
Chapter 33
So this was a pirate's paradise...
Lifting the hem of her skirts to avoid a puddle of some noisome substance, Miranda stole covert glances at this new world that she moved through. As port towns went, Tortuga was like any other she'd visited. That it reeked of unwholesome odors was a given. Miranda had yet to meet with a harbor that didn't smell like a brine-soaked midden heap. Why did people never seem to learn that garbage ridded in the convenient nearness of the ocean always returned upon the next tide? That the docks and shoreline teemed with all manner of rough men was also nothing remarkable. Wherever accessible land met accommodating sea there would always be cargo to load and unload, and the sweat soaked, flinty men who did so.
No, it was the very air that set her on edge and brought the fine hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck to stand upright. The sense of some terribly ravenous creature lurking just out of sight, waiting to be woken and unleashed. A sense that only deepened with every step that took her further from the water's edge and into the disreputable looking township.
Miranda made no effort to shrug off this notion. The subtle change in the man to whose arm she clung warned her otherwise. Angling her head, she studied his profile, wishing not for the first time that she could read what thoughts ran through his mind.
All outwardly unconcerned, Jack Sparrow lead her through crabbed, sorry little streets. His half lidded eyes glanced neither right nor left, but pointed straight ahead to his intended destination. He walked with the easy, rolling stride of a man long accustomed to the sea, which admittedly made it difficult to step gracefully along beside without the scabbard at his hip knocking into her. Miranda threw decorum aside and matched his walk. Who would know or care if she swayed like a seaman? Of far greater import to her was that sword to remain unimpeded.
For it was this walk that gave him away first. There was not a hint of the extraneous motion she'd seen him cloak himself with in Port Royal, or, to a certain extent, Havana. He was not trying to paint himself as foppish or ineffectual on this day, but moved as a predator among predators. One hand rested lightly on the butt of his pistol, and the arm beneath her fingers, despite his negligent exterior, felt like coiled steel.
And that profile... Despite those lazily hooded eyes, and the lips that were relaxed, even bent in a languorous curve, Miranda saw a muscle ripple along the side of his jaw that betrayed the clenching of teeth.
Jack's kohl-lined eyes flicked to herself. His smile spread, giving her a brief flash of gold and ivory. "See anything you're liking, Milady?"
"No," Miranda blurted, unthinking. Then added hastily when he looked down his nose in lofty affront, "That is, not entirely. I couldn't help but to notice that you are as ill at ease as I."
"Ah..." he intoned, nodding sagely. Jack glanced about then, and steered her into a small space between two ramshackle buildings. "I'll not lie to you, Miranda. We're right in the teeth of it now. Moreso than Cuba." He favored her with that cocksure grin, but his eyes were serious. "Only difference is, here we know there be monsters, eh?"
Miranda swallowed hard, and nodded.
"Good. So the neither of us will be letting our guard down, will we? Good lass." he said again when Miranda shook her head. "Now, a word of advice, if you don't mind -- you're a lamb amongst wolves here. You know it. I know it." Jack moved in, closing the already limited space between them. "But the wolves don't need to know it. So put up that haughty, aristocratic air of yours. In fact, use that face you throw on when someone says something you don't like hearing. Just don't let 'em see you're a lamb. Savvy?"
In other words, she was not to show that she wished nothing more than to run screaming from this dreadful place. Oh, a trifling thing, to be sure! And perhaps the moon was made of butter cake!
"I... savvy," was all she could manage. Jack continued to regard her steadily.
"Like the reefs and shoals of His Majesty's court, remember? It's just... another kind of court, if you will. One that doesn't smell as nice, perhaps."
Miranda wrinkled her nose. "I would say you've never had to control your behavior in the face of the unwashed aristocracy." His words were of some comfort, though. This could merely be another exercise in decorum: of knowing when to not offer offense, and when to assert one's self. It was an old and familiar game, and once upon a time, one nearly as great a matter of life and death as the game she would play now. She reflected that it might be an easier game with an island of howling cutthroats than with courtiers. The former might even be counted upon to prove bluntly honest in their avarice and brutality, and at least a knife or a pistol was more above board than honeyed, venomous whispers behind perfumed gloves and fluttering fans. Both, after all, were equally capable of immeasurable harm.
"Unwashed, eh?" Sparrow repeated with an amused tilt to his head. "Like swine drenched with attar of roses, wasn't it?"
Oh, dear... so she truly had spoken those words aloud. The memory was shrouded in a rum hazed fog, but she felt her cheeks color nonetheless. Sparrow was chuckling thoughtfully.
"Aye. Exactly like your smelly highbrows, then. But there's just one more bit of business before we beard the dragons in their den, lady. Answer me this first: What's your best weapon?"
His question catching her completely wrong footed, Miranda could only blink foolishly. 'Best weapon'... what weapon? She carried no firearm upon her person. Not even a knife or a scalpel, which in retrospect showed poor planning on her part. "I... I'm afraid I've left my pistol aboard the Black Pearl," she began apologetically.
"Oh, no need for stowing one of those in your skirts," he said quickly, then added in an undertone, "and besides, I've seen you shoot. And before I find myself skewered by the daggers spitting from Milady's lovely eyes," Jack went on, raising his voice over her indignant exclamation, "I'll remind you again that your best weapon's here." One long forefinger tapped at his temple, then slipped beneath her hood to touch at her own.
"Here. Your best weapon is here. But only -- only -- if you keep your wits." Jack drew his fingertip from cheek to jaw, then under her chin to tip her head back. "Though I'd not be so fast to discount other more... er... tangible assets in your arsenal."
Against her will Miranda's eyes dipped to her cloak covered bodice, and knew with mortification that the pirate had done the same.
"Charming as those thoughts may be," Sparrow laughed. "That's not quite what I was steering at." And Miranda, feeling rather silly, laughed as well. Something changed then. Miranda couldn't guess as to why, but her companion's eyes flashed. Only for a moment, but in the next those painted eyes regarded her in a way that made her knees tremble.
"Now that's more what I was meaning," he said softly. "I'll just beg you now to mind who you unleash those smiles on, Qianru. I'd hate to end up having to call out one of my own friends over you."
Qianru... "You... you heard Master Zheng..."
"Call you by that name? Oh yes -- in between the laudanum the two of you kept foisting on me. 'Treasured pleasing smile,' wasn't it? Wise bloke, this teacher of yours."
He stood so very near. Miranda imagined that she could see flecks of amber in the darkness of his eyes. "You are a flatterer, as well as outlaw, Captain Sparrow." she whispered on a throat gone horribly dry.
"Flatterer?" Jack repeated mildly. "Why, I'm nothing of the sort! If you're thinking I'm paying you compliments excessive and undeserved, I'll have you know --" The thought was left unfinished as just then thunder rumbled sullenly in the distance. Jack glanced up with a frown, and blinked as the first droplet of rain saw fit to bounce itself off the tip of his nose. More followed in rapid succession, as rain will do. Especially when most inconvenient.
So much for not getting wet, Miranda thought with a stifled giggle. 'Running between the raindrops,' indeed, Ani. Jack gave a much put-upon sigh.
"I'm taking it that's our cue. C'mon, let's get you out of this weather." He drew her into the dismal little street. "Can't have you looking like a drowned rat, now can we? Might ruin the effect."
Their steps took them on a path that convinced Miranda that the seediest and most disreputable people to ever populate a wharf town had been summarily picked up and deposited on this island. Men in obvious states of drunkenness littered the streets and doorways. She was forced to step over two before her companion -- whether for pity's sake, or for the goal of quickly reaching shelter -- had resorted to the simple expedience of bodily lifting her over prostrate inebriates just beginning to stir under the pelting rain.
Head lowered, Miranda kept her eyes on the ground that darkened under the rainfall that pattered on her hood. Around her the denizens of Tortuga scurried for cover. An overly powdered woman clad in a gown of mustard yellow hurried past. Vile curses spilled from her mouth as the rain brought an unhealthy pockmarked look to her artificially whitened skin. Jack lead them beneath a narrow archway, then neatly danced aside, sweeping Miranda straight off her feet. Miranda had cause to be grateful for the strength of those deceptively wiry arms as his actions carried her up and away from the path of several grimy individuals all barreling to reach the archway.
"Wait," he said calmly, and pinned her body to the wall with his own.
"What --" Miranda began, but he pressed nearer as pistol fire exploded somewhere close by. Two shots passed so near she could hear their whistling passage through the air. She flinched, clutching at her protector while one of the fleeing men voiced a high pitched, derisive laugh that faded with his rushing footsteps.
"All right, then." she heard Jack say, sounding for all the world as if nothing untoward had occurred at all. "Just up the way a bit." And patiently disengaging her shaking hands from their deathgrip on his coat, he placed an arm around her shoulders, keeping her close to his side as he resumed his rolling stride. Miranda had no choice but to go along, though her knees threatened to abandon their job of holding her upright and her heart slammed against her ribs in a painful tattoo.
"Cobb," he said conversationally to a white haired man seated beneath an overhang. The fellow bobbed his head and grunted a reply. But he never even glanced their way as he busily shoved a ramrod down the barrel of a pistol. A second firearm was tucked under his arm as he reloaded his weapons, all the while muttering steadily to himself.
How could Jack be so calm, Miranda wondered, once again studying his profile. That 'Cobb' person could have just killed the both of them, and yet to Sparrow it seemed to carry no more import than if he'd just been asked the time of day! Then she saw the muscle ripple in his jaw again and realized that he'd not yet removed his arm from around her. Nor did he do so until he'd lead the both of them to the entrance of a place more sturdily built than others they'd passed today.
'The Faithful Bride,' the sign read, while the cunningly crafted figure of a gowned and veiled woman continuously raised and lowered her carved nosegay of flowers. It gave Miranda an odd turn when she noted that this bride's wrists were rope-bound beneath her bouquet, but she had no time to dwell on this as she was propelled across the threshold. Inside, Jack steered her to the far end of the wide room, seating himself beside her at a table that, Miranda belatedly recognized, allowed him a clear view of most of the tavern.
The view, in her opinion, was not a marked improvement over what they'd left outside. There was an almost overwhelming odor of ale in the air, mixing with oil and wood smoke, and the scent of unwashed bodies. Miranda wrinkled her nose fastidiosly. The smokey tavern was filled with men whose appearances ranged from pleasantly casual, to warily forbidding, to outright homicidal in the case of the scarred, grizzled man with the eye patch who sat several tables away. He pared his nails with a wickedly curved knife while his remaining eye glittered viciously in the candlelight.
Miranda pressed herself farther into the wall at her back while Jack flirted outrageously with a serving girl who soon lost her bored demeanor and wriggled like an excited puppy at the pirate's attentions.
"No worries, luv," he said when the girl had gone. "Right now all these gentlemen are tied up in talking business. Bartering and selling their hauls, and the like." Leaning back, Sparrow's eyes swept the room, then flickered back to herself. "Won't be 'til everyone's reached a satisfactory accord that the celebrating'll get underway."
If what she'd heard last night from the deck of the Black Pearl was a true barometer by which to judge the celebratory norms, Miranda would happily forego the experience. She was tensed as a small animal whose only defense against a much larger predator was to remain perfectly still and hope to remain unnoticed. Not like her companion, who was able to embody the very picture of indolent ease. How anyone could appear to lounge whilst seated upon an uncomfortable wooden bench with stone walls as a backrest was beyond her, but the pirate managed with a naturalness that was infuriating.
But then, Miranda reflected, he'd certainly had more occasion to practice than she.
And after all, as she was sure he'd say himself, he was Captain Jack Sparrow.
Their serving girl, Betsy, threaded her way through the assorted patrons, avoiding collisions with painted and powdered bawdy women involved in securing business transactions of their own. The wench halted at their table to deposit earthenware cups of what Miranda presumed was the answer to Sparrow's request for 'something warming.' Next was a loaf of steaming, golden crusted bread and a generous lump of butter. Miranda's drink was set before her with unnecessary force. There was noticeable less liquid in it than Sparrow's, and young Betsy regarded her in a decidedly unfriendly way. But the girl was soon fawning and giggling all over the bench's other occupant again when Sparrow fondly patted her rosy cheek and passed on a few coins 'for her troubles.' Miranda breathed a thanks to Heaven when demands for the wench's service spared her a further display of bright-eyed, heaving-bosomed gratitude.
"Shameful man!" she whispered with more heat than she actually felt.
"What've I done now?" Jack demanded, blinking injured innocence. Miranda shook her head.
"Toying with that girl," she fumed. "Leading her on so. And did you see how she glared at me? For a moment I feared she might pour these drinks on my head!"
He laughed that low, secretive laugh. "Then let's not give her the chance." Jack drank deeply, smacking his lips with relish. "Wouldn't want to see your pretty dress ruined. You should try some of that before it cools," he added, nodding at her cup. Miranda lifted it, sniffing the contents suspiciously, then took a tiny sip. Mulled wine, she noted with some surprise. And a very good mulled wine, at that. Warm and rich, and something she felt wouldn't quickly addle her wits.
"Have some of this, too." A chunk of bread liberally coated with butter was waved under her nose. "You'll not find better in the whole of the Spanish Main. My word on it."
Glowing praise indeed. And from the smell of it quite possibly deserved. Miranda's stomach growled unbecomingly at the heady aroma. She'd not taken much for breakfast. Not with her insides jumping about as distressingly as they had this morning.
"Ah, ah, ah..." Sparrow chided, moving the morsel tantalizingly out of reach. With his painted eyes half lidded and a familiar lazy smile on his lips he brought his hand slowly back. Stomach now aflutter for a new reason, Miranda could only guess that he meant for her to eat from his hand. A hand that, like its mate, was remarkably clean and tar free on this day, but even so...
"Come on, luv," he pressed. "I swear you'll not regret it."
Miranda eyed him dubiously, but then leaned forward obedient as a baby bird, and allowed him to feed her. In another time and place such an act might have seemed extraordinarily intimate. In the here and now he gazed expectantly, like a child hoping for praise. "It's wonderful," she admitted truthfully, and he couldn't have beamed any wider than if he'd baked the loaf himself. Popping the remains into his mouth, Jack busied himself with readying a slice for each of them.
"Here you are." He passed one along. "Didn't I tell you you'd taste no better?" Mouth full, Miranda nodded. A good thing it was that he was right. The whole lot could have tasted of tree bark and sawdust and she imagined she'd have downed it without a second thought to see him smile like that.
"How long are we to wait here?" she asked while Sparrow licked butter and crumbs from his fingers. As if in answer a bright flash of light pierced the shuttered windows, and a loud peal of thunder shook the very wall at her back. Miranda jumped, hands gripping the edge of the knife-gouged table.
"All right there?" Jack gave her an odd look. Miranda willed herself calm.
"I... yes. Yes, I'm fine." But she'd never in her life been truly at ease in this kind of weather, and couldn't really say if it was the thunder or the lightning that unnerved her more. "Just like your mother," papa used to say with a great roll of his eyes when she would run to hold mama's hand whenever the flashing and rumbling had drawn to near. Not ever Elisse's taunts or Eleanor's entreats to come and watch the lights had ever made the slightest difference.
"This storm's all bark, no bite," Jack was saying evenly. "S'right over us now, but it'll be on its soggy way soon enough." Miranda shuddered at the thought of a storm right over her head.
"Once it's cleared up, the lads know to come straight here when Thadius shows himself." Jack grinned knowingly. "Never was one for pulling himself out of bed early. Doubt he's changed his ways since we last crossed paths." His eyes drifted to the clasp of her cloak, and then before she could object, or even move to stop him, his hands had opened the clasp and drawn the hood from her head. "We've a while to wait, luv. Might as well make yourself comfortable."
Raw nerves and the sudden feeling of exposure made her snappish. "Thank you, Mister Sparrow, but I was quite comfortable as I was." No sooner had the words left her mouth when the next thunderclap, so shockingly loud that it might as well have originated from right beside her, found Miranda virtually climbing into the pirate's lap.
"Well, well," Sparrow drawled, sounding insufferable cheerful. "Perhaps I should steer for foul weather more often." But the arm around her held her firmly, and his hand alternately squeezed and rubbed calming circles on her shoulder.
"Don't even joke about it." Miranda's voice sounded weak to her ears. She felt a flush of shame for such childish cowardice. "I can't help it," she complained. "I've sailed through swells that made even veteran seaman hang over the side without ever turning a hair, but when the... the flashing and crashing starts, and..." Well, that was when she wanted to crawl beneath the nearest piece of furniture as she vaguely recalled doing as a child.
Or, as this moment proved, into Jack Sparrow's lap. "Oh, bother it! I don't even know why I'm telling you this." But meeting his eyes Miranda saw a look of hurt flash through them, and felt dreadful all over again.
"No, s'all right, luv." Jack's arm tightened around her when she tried to scoot away. "I don't mind it, really. And besides..." He gestured with his head to the other tables. "You seeming a bit familiar an' all with me might go a long way in convincing these gentlemen that your attentions are already secured for the time being."
Miranda winced. It seemed she was destined to play the whore this day no matter how she might wish otherwise. But a cool little voice pointed out that it might be wise to give some weight to what her far worldlier companion suggested. So she leaned against him and Jack diverted her attention from the noise of the storm with a steady flow of what proved to be highly amusing anecdotes about several of the men now present in the tavern.
"You can't be serious!" she exclaimed, glancing askance to the hulking figure seated with his back to them. Jack's lips twitched.
"May my hair turn green if I'm not. And that's how they found him: mother-naked, all tangled up in the nets, and the goat had gotten clean away. Said it took three days to sober him up, and when he finally did, they all --"
A knife struck into the center of their table with a resounding thunk. Miranda jumped again but Jack only spared a cool gaze for the one eyed man whose grimy fingers were still wrapped around the hilt.
"Hammer," Jack said evenly.
"Sparrow," the other returned with equal calm.
Sweet Heaven, but this appalling vision was even moreso at close range! It was almost easy to understand the reasoning behind the strange appellation of 'Hammer', for the thought flitted through Miranda's mind that this pirate appeared to have received several blows to his face with one. The face in question was a pockmarked mess smeared liberally with grime and crossed with scars: some faint and others much less so, like the one that began at his hairline to run beneath the eye patch, and disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of of his scraggly, graying beard. His large nose had been broken at least once, and reset quite poorly to her practiced eye, and, as she quickly realized, there was a decidedly sour aroma emanating from him. Then, the single eye shifted to herself, raking for an endless moment over her face, as though he was determined to commit it to memory, only to drop, lingering for a most inappropriate amount of time on the front of her dress. Lips thin as a knife gash twisted into something that resembled a smile in name only.
"Yer a pretty little thing, ainchoo?" the ugly man observed. "I could look at ye all day long, I could."
Miranda wanted to shrink in her seat. Wanted to press closer into Jack's side, but the single eye riveted to her bosom held her frozen in place. She only stared dumbly until a nudge from Sparrow's knee against hers snapped her out of her paralysis. Remembering what he'd told her outside about disguising her apparent lamb-like nature, Miranda tipped up her nose and regarded the hideous pirate with chill disdain.
"Regrettably, sir, the same cannot be said of you."
Jack stiffened with a strangled croak while Hammer's eye snapped up to lock with hers. Amazingly, he began to laugh. A sound like ancient, rusty hinges that was about as pleasant as the rest of him.
"Ooh -- got a smart mouth, she has," he remarked aloud in a tone that implied that this was something unusual. As if a pet dog had begun to converse in the King's English. "Think I like her anyways." His eye still boring into her, the man stepped boldly over their table's opposing bench and settled himself onto it. His hand had never released the hilt of his knife. To Miranda's immense relief his attention at last transferred from herself.
"So," Hammer said in a voice like gravel grinding over broken glass. "Back, are ye?"
"It would seem that way." Jack's tone was light. Hammer scowled, the look not improving his twisted features, then made an attempt to appear pleasant. This effect was even worse, in Miranda's opinion.
"So, what be yer pupose, if I may?"
"Oh, a bit o' this, a bit o' that," Jack replied evasively.
"Business must be treatin' ye well," Hammer observed with a covert glance at Miranda.
"Can't say that I have any complaints of late," her companion admitted.
"Looks like," Hammer agreed, a bit sourly. "Seems yer luck is favoring ye again, eh?"
Jack only shrugged in self-deprication. Miranda wondered just how long this fellow would continue to clumsily 'feel them out.' If there was a point to this questioning, she hoped it would be reached soon, and that this foul smelling creature would quickly be on his way. Jack was completely unmoved throughout, one arm still draped around her shoulders, and his demeanor that of a man not a whit concerned by the fact that this fellow was still toying with his wicked looking knife. Hammer grunted, as if something had been answered, then narrowed his remaining eye.
"Thought ye'd taken it into yer head t' leave these parts, Sparrow," he all but accused. "Heard ye were for huntin' bigger game someplace more friendly-like. Said there be nothin' left t' keep yer interest in these waters."
Jack bared his teeth in a grin. Miranda found herself eyed in a leisurely fashion. "Oh, I think I've managed to find a couple of things to... hold my interest."
Hammer barked a laugh. "Aye, I'd noticed those m'self. Ye sellin' this one, Sparrow? I know the auction's not 'til tomorrow, but if yer willin' to be makin' an early start of it..." He left the thought hanging and pulled a large, ridiculously fat pouch from beneath his coat, jingling the contents suggestively. "An' seeing as yer always sayin' how women 'r nothin' but distractin' like, I'd not mind takin' her off yer hands."
Miranda's stomach plummeted. Bile rose into her throat as she remembered rumors of women abducted and sold like cattle to the drunken patrons of this island. Finding now that more than a grain of truth was behind these rumors made her want to claw her way free from the hand that tightened on her shoulder. For one panicked instant she wondered if all of Jack Sparrow's actions had been nothing more than an elaborate ruse to lure her from the safety of her home and bring her here for the true purpose of selling her to whomever had enough coin to suit his fancy.
"Oh, I don't know, mate." she heard Sparrow saying. "I've been waiting for the chance to enjoy this particular distraction for quite some time. I'm just not..." He paused and released his breath in a deep sigh. "Not feeling enough incentive to even think of changing those plans now."
Hammer gave a calculating squint. "There's nigh on eighty gold here, Sparrow," he growled, shaking the pouch again. "N' more than half again that aboard me ship. An' two full chests 'o silver beside! You give the nod, n' that'll all be in yer hands in two bells. Two bell! Now what d'ye say t' that, eh?" he emphasized, his hungry gaze shifting eagerly from Miranda, to Sparrow and back.
Miranda cast about herself, once again cursing her foolish trust and ignorance in not arming herself this morning. She knew there could be no way for her to pull Sparrow's own sword from it's sheath. Not with the pommel digging into her side as it was, and making a grab for the pistol was completely out of the question. Thought it would surely take more than even a brace of pistols to see her safely out of this trap. Her eyes fell on the knife laying beside the half loaf of bread still before them as Sparrow shifted, leaning back to stare thoughtfully at the vile creature across the table.
"Well..." he drawled slowly. "I'd have to say you make it difficult for a businessman such as myself to ignore an offer like that." Sparrow appeared to think hard on it, cocking his head in appraisal. "But seeing as you seem to have your mind set on it..."
"Done, by damn!" Hammer brought the palm of his hand down on the tabletop with his exclamation of glee. Grinning like a demon he wrenched his dagger free, and bolted to his feet. He'd made it three steps from the table when Sparrow spoke up again.
"Though it's only fair to warn you, mate: the last man to lay unwanted hands on this little prize finished his endeavor toes up with a shot in his brain case."
Hammer froze. So did Miranda in the very act of reaching for the bread knife. She'd hoped the movement looked casual, but in all truth she had not the slightest idea about what she could possibly achieve with such a pathetic excuse for a weapon. However, if these pirates thought that she would meekly submit to something so foul as this...
Now her mind exhalted. Jack had not betrayed her after all! Miranda closed her fingers around the knife, gripping hard to disguise the trembling of her hand, and calmly cut another slice of bread.
The ugly man turned slowly. "Ye doan say," he rumbled suspiciously.
"Oh, yes." Miranda didn't dare to look his way, but she could easily hear the smile in Sparrow's voice. "It was a mistake poor old 'Capitain' Javier will never make again."
This time Hammer started violently. "Javier... Vallasquar?" he said, sounding uncertain for the first time. Around them all conversation in the tavern suddenly ground to a halt at the sound of the late bounty hunter's name. Miranda became aware that all eyes were on the two of them and impassively buttered her bread, taking a daintily bite that she didn't taste at all. Beside her Jack lifted his legs to cross his feet over the edge of the table.
"Right in one," he said in that same cheerful voice. "'Seemed terribly upset when lovely Francesca here put a bullet into that hulk of a First Mate of his. Javier got it into his head to treat her in a... well, less than gentlemanly fashion, let's say. So, you can imagine that any lass bold enough to take a shot at Lonzo wouldn't hesitate to do the same to any fool enough to warrant it." Jack paused again. Miranda knew he was enjoying the undivided attention of his audience.
"Well?" someone called out -- the same huge man whose reported encounter with the goat had so shocked earlier. "What happened, man?" But Sparrow had taken a sudden interest in his fingernails. Hammer glared at the massive pirate.
"'E's talkin' t' me, 'e is!" the ugly man bellowed. The the single eye fixed on Jack again. "Well," he demanded loudly. "What happened, man?" Still caught up in the apparent examination of his fingers, Jack made no outward sign of having heard. Miranda nudged him gently.
"Hmm?" He blinked quizzically. Miranda nodded toward the silent patrons. "Oh! Too right, luv. Now, as I was saying..." His arm draped around her again, Jack glanced around the room. "Er... where was I?"
Hammer bared broken and blackening teeth in an awful grimace. "Vallasquar, Sparrow," he grated slowly. "You was tellin' me 'bout Vallasquar!"
"So I was," Jack said brightly. "Well, tis a pity I didn't exactly see the whole of it..." Disappointed groans from the assembled audience resounded. "What with it happening so quickly, and all," Jack went on, unpreturbed. "One moment, Capitain Javier had himself and armful of this sweet, demure little lass. And the next?" His hand rose, thumb and two fingers cocked at sharp angles to lazily describe an imaginary pistol. "She must have sweetly and demurely declined, because..." One finger curled inward as though pulling the trigger. Hammer blinked, appearing to mull this over.
"And when the smoke cleared, there was the late, woefully unlamented Javier Vallasquar flat on his back and still as a stump."
"Dead?" someone asked with a nervous giggle in the terse stillness that followed this declaration. Jack didn't look at the speaker, but trained his attention on Hammer.
"I've not seen anyone deader."
All around them the patrons of The Faithful Bride began muttering amongst themselves. Miranda heard snippets and bits of heated conversations as Hammer continued to stare between herself and Jack, chewing the inside of his cheek as he frowned in concentration.
"Can't be right," a deep voice murmured, to be answered by a heated whisper of, "You heard 'im. The bounty hunter's dead, 'e says." and "That bit of tail took him down, she did! Vallaquar's dead!"
Hammer was staring hard at Miranda now, and the look on his twisted face said that he wasn't as sure as he had been about pursuing this course of action.
"So, you see, mate. I couldn't just let you go rushing off into something you might regret later. She's got a bit of a temper, my Francesca does. Ah, I'll be taking that from you now, luv." Jack neatly plucked the bread knife from her fingers, placing it far from her reach by his booted feet. Miranda cut him an irritated glare. He merely grinned in response. "Couldn't leave you free to be sticking something sharp into me again, now could I?" Miranda favored him with her most 'haughty, aristocratic face'. "I didn't think so, luv. See, old boy?" Sparrow returned to Hammer. "A man would find himself in a world of pain trying to take up with this one without her say-so."
Hammer nodded absently. Still weighing his options, Miranda supposed. Then he beamed from ear to ear, a sly look that did make her shrink back this time.
"Aye," he rumbled. "But seein' as I don't mind a little pain now 'n again..." Hammer trailed off suggestively, running his tongue over narrow, sun-cracked lips. "An' maybe she doan neither, I'm thinkin'." He leered at Miranda, his horrible one eye sparkling lasciviously as it dipped down to her bodice. "It's eager I am ta be hoistin' my colors on this little prize. Two bells, Sparrow. I'll be havin' yer coin in two bells." With that the disfigured pirate spun and lurched away.
Miranda stared after him, trembling with revulsion, and, frankly, with terror. She shuddered violently, and exercised what remained of her self control in not burying her face in Sparrow's coat and sobbing herself sick.
"Well, that's gotten rid of him." Jack scowled after the departed Hammer, a disdainful curl to his lip, and with his hand at last emerging from beneath the gouged and marred tabletop. His flintlock was primed and ready. She wondered when he had done this. How long had the pistol been covertly aimed at that repulsive fiend? Noticing her look, Jack smirked as he rose to his feet, and uncocked his weapon.
"Never hurts to be cautious, luv. Come on." Shoving the pistol through his belt, Jack reached for her. "Wouldn't be prudent to still be here when he gets back, eh? We'll just have to brave the elements and wait someplace -- ah! Looks like we don't have to wait at all." Miranda followed the direction of his glance, feeling her heart lift as she spied Joshamee Gibbs standing just inside the doorway. Upon seeing Jack, the iron-haired man's face grew sly. Nodding briefly, he tapped a finger to the side of his nose. Jack dipped his head in return and drew Miranda to her feet.
"Shall we be on our way, then?"
The invitation couldn't have come soon enough to suit her. Miranda thought longingly of the cramped little cabin she shared with AnaMaria, and caught up her cloak behind her. Then, as a low groan rippled through the Faithful Bride, and she glanced around the tavern, Miranda wished for the plainest, most uninspired of dress to magically appear upon her body. It would seem that she had gained the undivided attention of most of the ruffians present.
Or, rather, the cut of her bodice had gained it for her. Honestly, why were these men behaving as though they'd never seen a woman's bosom before? Why, the other women darting here and there in the smoke-hazed room were far more immodest in apparel than she.
But upon further inspection, a good deal of these same women were currently eyeing her with active dislike -- even open hostility. Miranda shivered, then locked eyes with the most offensive of these: a fair haired woman whose face was probably quite stunning when it wasn't buried in layers of gaudy cosmetics and twisted into a snarl. Miranda lifted her chin and stared back with icy disinterest. Remarkably, the other looked away first. A small victory, and a rather petty one, as well. But any victory was a good one just then.
"Ain't you supposed to be waitin' on Hammer?"
Sparrow turned, blinkin innocently. "Now, why would I be wanting to do a thing like that, Tyler?"
Tyler, a dark skinned man with enormous shoulders, and ropes of hair that reached to his belt, looked back curiously. "You be breakin' your accord if you be leavin' now. Ole Hammer not be a happy man if he don't be gettin' the woman for his coin, what you promised." Several of the men nodded in agreement with this.
Jack pursed his lips. "Aye, that's true," he said seriously. "And he'd be in his rights to be so." Then he smiled in a self-satisfied way. "That is," he prefaced, holding up a finger. "He would -- if I'd ever agreed to his offer in the first place."
Tyler gaped like a freshly netted fish. "But you did be sayin' it!" he exclaimed. "We was all hearin' you tellin' Hammer --"
"What you heard was me telling him he drove a hard bargain," Jack said piously. "Now, telling a man he drives a hard bargain is a long way from actually coming to an accord, eh? If the man with the coin decides not to wait for the word from the man with the wares, or if the man with the coin takes a mere observation for acquiescence as good as a handshake from the man with the wares... well, that's just plain the lookout of the man with the coin."
The big man puzzled his way through this convoluted stream of thought, nodding slowly as he reached the apparent end.
"Now you get?" Tyler's bench mate confided, not quite sotto voce. "Dis be why I doan be playin' cards wit him no more." Jack sketched an ironic half-bow to this, then offered his arm to Miranda. She eagerly grasped both it, and the chance to exit before her would-be purchaser returned. As they started for the door a collective sigh once again rippled through the tavern, and a voice called out, "Did she really do in Vallasquar?"
Jack's brows lifted. "That's what you heard me say, isn't it?" he returned glibly. More quiet muttering answered this. Then the huge pirate who had experienced the unfortunate adventure with the goat climbed ponderously to his feet.
"I don't supposed you'd think o' selling her to me instead, would you?" he asked with a look that was almost earnest.
Jack eyed him with a gentle smile. "Unfortunately, my friend... you're absolutely right. I wouldn't." And with that said, he steered Miranda out into the muddied streets.
A/N: And I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, egged me on, nudged me, etc... I understand we're not supposed to do our thanks and shout-outs in the story pages anymore, but this site has been kind enough to give their authors their very own forums now. Mine is here: http/ w w w . fa n fic tion . net / f /433325 /
Just remove all the funky little spaces. (I can't believe they don't let you link to another part of their own site!) Or just check out the link in my profile.
So drop in and give me a yell, eh?
And, as always, let me know what you think!