The darkness didn't bother her. That she had grown accustomed to. It was the noise. It was beginning to be light outside, and were it not for the guinea sack over her head, Rose could have gauged her surroundings and known what was happening. But she was now blind and disoriented. Noise was everywhere; yelling in languages she could not comprehend, mumbles and desperate cries, the shuffling of feet on the wooden floorboard beneath them. She had been shoved into a large group of pirates—she could tell by the smell. There was little room, so there was much dissension and unrest in the group and she was displaced everywhere she turned.
A round fired into the air killed the noise. Rose was so taken aback, she ducked low. The noise had ceased altogether. Apparently they had all been shocked by the sudden gunfire. A voice pierced through the air, for once in a language Rose understood. "Silence!" the man yelled. "The first one of you to talk will be killed!"
Rose started when the bag was lifted from her head. Her eyes adjusted to the blinding light as she turned in the direction the voice came from. "I demand order!" he shrieked again. It was Mercer, that wretched man Will had recognized in Singapore. Having not caught the Pearl, they must have been heading with what pirates they were able to capture. Rose had been here before as a child; This was most assuredly a slave ship.
Another shot rang out. "You are under arrest for crimes of piracy against His Majesty King George of England," Mercer cried. "As officials of the East India Trading Company, we have been commissioned by His Majesty to convict you of high treason for which the punishment is death."
Rose took a sharp intake of breath. They truly were everywhere. The crown wanted an immediate end to piracy, no matter the costs. This was no slave ship; They were going to make another three month-long journey back around Cape Horn back to Port Royal, where they were to be killed.
They were pushed into crowded lines. The officials grouped the women, five of them, including Rose, and the men, which numbered around fifteen, into two separate groups. They were onboard a large ship which flew the white sails and EITC flag. Those domineering letters seemed to mock them, jeering at their impending doom.
There were five or so wigged men standing on the balcony above, reading the rites of their death sentence. Serve imprisoned sentence in the brig...the time we reach to fortress at Port Royal...Hanged by the neck until dead...May God have mercy and understanding...
Once that had finished, the lines were forced down into the brig, where the men and women were separated by a cloth curtain. Rose could soon feel the rocking of the ship, signaling their departure from Singapore. She would be returning to Port Royal, but this time, she was the one in need of rescuing. And there was no one left to rescue her.
Yet again, Rose found herself blind in a ship's underbelly, utterly alone in a room full of strangers, only this time Jack would not be there to help her through this one. She was being captured and taken prisoner to a foreign land without any hope of escape. The only time they were taken above deck was once a day for meals, wherein they were served scraps of food like pigs. By this time, the makeup had fully worn off her face. Up on deck, some of the men would call out to the chain gang of women when they would surface, but they all chose to stick together, knowing that the hell they faced below deck was far better than the hell they would have endured at the mercy of those men. Below deck was stiflingly hot, then bitterly cold as they made their way south towards Cape Horn again. Rose was always blind down here, and when sickness hit once again, she had no herbs to help anyone this time. Four of the prisoners died in the freezing, illness-ridden conditions, and their bodies were thrown overboard.
She never spoke a word because there were no words that could have been understood by anyone else in the vicinity, and instead just leaned her head against the walls of her wooden prison, drifting in and out of sleep. For the most part, Rose was just appreciative that she was blind to the darkness; That meant that she couldn't see what atrocities the prisoners were living in. The stench was horrible, but she could breathe through her mouth. All that left her with was the sound of their suffering, but even that she learned to tune out. Especially when a familiar face arrived.
"That's alright. Read it again, Rose," an etherial voice spoke, clear as day into her ear.
Rose's eyes flew open. There, right in front of her, sat her mother Anna, as clear as day.
Rose licked her cracked, dry lips, and hoarsely whispered, "…maman?"
"Read it again, Rose," Anna repeated. "Thine sea of beauty, is without limit, stretching forth eternally.'Till darkness raises from the deaths…"
"'Tis shimmering for thee," Rose mumbled weakly.
Anna raised an eyebrow at Rose. "Ma cherie, you're giving up so soon?"
"It's the end, maman," Rose replied, closing her eyelids. "I will join you soon, I know."
Before she drifted off to sleep again, she heard her mother say softly, "That's not the Rose I know…"
And then one day, the ship stopped moving. The usual, casual sound of chatter in the brig faded to hushed whispers.
A door opened and light flooded the cell. "Everyone out!" a nasally voice yelled. Rose stood once she heard the excitement of the her cellmates, the hushed murmurs and the rustling of shackles. The cells were unlocked and one by one, the prisoners filed out in an orderly line. Rose's legs were unsteady, but at least the light gave definition to the shapes in front of her. As they surfaced above deck, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the scenery. They were docked at Port Royal, where the fortress that Jack was at one time sentenced to die at loomed over a formidable cliff a mere jaunt away. Now that death march was his sister's to bear. They descended the ship and were loaded into a wagon, where they were lifted to the square.
Rose passed the time by examining her fellow prisoners in the chain line, seeing them all together for the first time in months. All native Singaporeans. Probably Sao Feng's. In the front, an old man, skin rough from years of salt water and sun. Next to him, two young men, probably brothers. Then Rose. On the other side of her, bringing up the rear, was a heavy set woman, cheeks blackened with kohl streaks from the tears she was currently shedding.
Rose had no tears to shed. Her fight was never for herself. Her fight was always to keep those she loved alive and she had failed. She felt she needed to be punished. By comparison, her death was a gift to her and those around her.
The cart pulled up alongside the stone entrance to their death-place. The guards roughly pulled the pirates from the bed of the wagon and forced them in line behind roughly fifty others. Just within her line of vision, the gallows loomed ahead. Seven ropes above seven trap doors. A single trigger. The sight sent shivers down her spine.
Ahead and to her right stood many wigged officials. Two of these men were approaching, examining the line, one tall and one shorter. She caught wind of their conversation as they grew nearer to her.
"Witness the power the new and improved East India Trading Company has over the ruffians, Admiral," the shorter man said.
"Yes, Lord Beckett," the taller man replied in monotone.
Beckett. So this vile creature was Beckett, the man causing so much chaos in the world of pirates. He grinned evilly. "New shipment in from Singapore." He stopped next to a man only a few bodies ahead of where Rose stood. Beckett lunged at the terrified being, causing him to jump and cower. Beckett chuckled cruelly, turning to his Admiral. "Not so tough when you take it all from them, eh?"
The Admiral did not acknowledge this action, but instead changed the subject. "And...all of these people are to be executed, then?"
They stopped right next to where Rose stood. She watched Beckett turn to the Admiral. "They're not people. They're bilge rats. Scum. They need to be exterminated so that our world can be cleansed."
Beckett stood closest to Rose, his back to her. She took the last bit of fight left in her malnourished body and directed it at him. If she could just get at him...she might be able to swing her chain over his neck and strangle the life out of him...
Her eyes met the Admiral's, who had seen her staring intently at Beckett. Beckett followed his eyes to Rose herself, who quickly lowered her gaze.
"My my my," Beckett said, taking Rose by the neck and forcing her face up so that he could peer into her eyes. "You seem to have caught the eye one of our kind, Admiral." His soulless eyes beat into Rose as he sneered, "It would seem as though you were in the wrong country at the wrong time, eh?"
Rose said nothing, returning his glare and matching his hatred. She then made an incredibly dangerous move— Rose spat at him. He immediately released her as he recoiled, wiping his face. He turned back to her, slapping so her hard across the face that she fell down to her knees. A guard was quick to prod her in the left side with his bayonet. "Rise!" he yelled. Rose obeyed with a wince, feeling the sting of his hand still across her cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the immense satisfaction she felt at having retaliated against him even in that small manner.
Beckett, however, was relentless. Once she was standing, he grabbed her jaw with his right hand, pulling her face close to his. "Do you speak English?"
She said nothing. He shook her face. "I asked you a question!"
Rose sneered, then through her clenched jaw, she muttered, "Yes."
"Then understand this," he put his face aside hers, and threateningly whispered into her ear, "We could have done so much worse to you. Especially to a woman. Think of your untimely end as a release. Count yourself lucky, harlot."
He let her go, and her gaze returned to her hands, though her stomach boiled with anger at the horrific threat. She could tell Beckett and the Admiral were still at her side, but she dared not look up again. That was until...
"On the other hand," Beckett said. "What's say you, Admiral?"
"What do I say to what?" he replied coolly.
Beckett grabbed Rose by the hair, shoving her head toward the Admiral. Rose yelped in pain, but had no choice but to look right at him.
"Filth like this is not of my taste," Beckett calmly stated, "But she might be of some use to you."
The Admiral narrowed his eyes. "I rather doubt that, sir."
"Oh but I insist," Beckett responded, causing Rose's heart to race in her chest. "What's stopping you? You cannot otherwise keep a woman in your care, so what's preventing you from taking this gift I am so graciously bestowing upon you?"
The Admiral instantly averted his gaze, his face growing red. After a moment, he said quietly, "I make it a priority not to associate myself with things tarnished by piracy."
"Oh that's not true," Beckett replied cruelly. "And if you honestly believe that, then by that standard no woman will ever come near you again given your own recent past."
The Admiral refused to break his gaze with the ground, simply stating, darkly, "Let her go."
"Are you absolutely certain?"
"Let her go!" blurted the Admiral. He looked up and glared at Beckett. Beckett did let Rose go, after a tense moment of the two men sharing a heated look with one other. Beckett then walked on without another word. Rose once again looked down at her hands, until she realized that the Admiral still stood by her side. She dared to look up at him again, and was instantly taken aback that he was staring at her, mouth slightly ajar and brow furrowed. Did he...recognize her? She searched his face. Something did seem horribly familiar about him...
"Admiral!" Beckett called from behind her. The man hastily hurried to catch up with his master.
After they had examined the entire line, the two men made their way back to the front of the gallows. Rose searched her mind and the many people's faces she had collected within it. And suddenly, she gasped aloud as she realized that she had met this man before. He had held her at gunpoint not but a few months earlier. This man was Commodore Norrington.
"Let it begin!" Beckett cried out. Shaken from her realization, Rose watched seven people ascend the stairs and take their places, heads bowed. The line move up seven places. One by one, each head was furnished with a rope.
"Admiral," Beckett said. "Are you not going to watch?"
Rose dared not look away from Norrington as he replied, forcibly placid, "Are you not going to read them their execution deeds?"
Beckett tossed his valid question aside. "We'll do that for pirates who can actually understand English. Why waste the breath?"
Norrington fell silent and looked back at the ground. "Watch!" yelled Beckett. Norrington tightened his jaw and obeyed, though doing so clearly pained him. The masked murderer standing at the ready pulled the handle.
The crank was sickening. Rose couldn't look after that, her body beginning to shake. She knew as soon as she was on the platform, all her inhibitions would leave and she would feel liberated, but every excruciating moment until then was a slow motion anxiety attack.
Time was unbearably long in those moments. Her eyes stopped focusing, and once again she fell blind to her surroundings, but this time, mentally, not physically. She could hear every horrible crank and every snap of seven necks at once and every sickening thud as body after lifeless body was thrown atop one another aboard a wagon that would periodically driven out to a mass grave somewhere outside the fortress. Her reluctant legs shuffled toward the gallows with every pause between cranks, and the blood pulsed in her ears. She didn't even wake up from the trance even when the line stopped moving, as she was standing behind a noose of her own. She felt the prickly rope against the skin on her neck, and still didn't think anything of it. She didn't think anything of the executioner and his dreadful steps back to the crank.
She did think when she heard the voice cry out, "Stop!" however. Everyone thought of that. Only then did Rose awaken from her dreamlike state. She looked up in alarm, searching for the source of the voice. Suddenly, the masked man was at her side, and she began to breathe shallowly in relief as he lifted the noose from around her neck. Next, her chain was removed. His firm hand grasped her arm and pulled her out of line, helping her descend the stairs and into the command of a different officer, who marched her away from the gallows. Her stomach plummeted when she heard the cranks and snaps began once again to move...without her.
It took her some time to realize what was happening. It finally hit her when she was led right up to Beckett and Norrington. It hit her in the stomach, as it fell again in total fear.
"I do believe this one will be of use to me after all, Lord Beckett," said Norrington.
Beckett gave a slight snort of laughter. "Isn't it funny what a man will do for lust?" He turned his shark eyes to Rose, causing her stomach to churn once more as he sneered, "Lucky girl…for now." He then tossed more insults back at Norrington to further demean him, warning, "Don't get too attached to your new toy, and don't think I won't be keeping an eye on you. Once a pirate—"
"I understand, sir," was all Norrington replied. Then, turning to the guard who held Rose by the arm, he said, "Take her to my office."
