Disclaimer: No mouse ears for me. No profit made, just a little fun.
A/N: "And ye shall know the snorks, and the snorks shall set you free." Aimee 8:22
Wait For No Man
Chapter 12
A violent pounding on the door woke Edmund from the sound sleep he hadn't been aware he was having. The pounding from without subsided, to be replaced by an equally furious pounding within.
"Ow," he said to nobody in particular, rubbing his aching forehead. He sat up in the bed, cradling his head in both hands, shaking it gently.
He blinked. Bed? What was he doing in a – oh. Edmund stifled a grin. He remembered now.
There was a scuffle outside the door, and raised female voices, and then the door slammed open.
"Anamaria?" Edmund hurriedly got to his feet, wrapping the thin blanket around him. "What's happened? Where's Will?"
"Taken, and the child with him," she said shortly, looking him up and down. "Hurry up."
He nodded and decided that nodding was a very bad idea. Edmund stumbled across the room to the screen, rubbing his head.
"Something wrong?" Ana asked.
"It's nothing, a rum headache," Edmund replied, ducking to look under the chair behind the screen. "Where the hell are my pants?" He peered around the edge of the screen to find Rose flouncing into the room, her nose high, her back to the amused Ana, her arms full of clothing.
She came around the screen just as Edmund dropped the blanket. Rose grinned; Edmund rolled his eyes and took the folded bundle she held out to him. "Cleaned and mended, my lord," she said pertly, dropping a curtsey.
"Thank you, Rose," he smiled at her, buttoning his pants. A thought occurred to Edmund. He patted down his pockets and cocked an eyebrow at the wench, who blushed and slowly produced a small leather moneybag from behind her back. Edmund chuckled. "Tell you what – you can keep it all if you find me a nice, sharp sword in the next sixty seconds." Rose's blue eyes grew round, and then there was nothing to be seen of her but a swirl of skirts as she ran out of the room.
He shrugged on his shirt and padded across the bare wooden floor, groping under the bed for his boots and tugging them on.
Ana shifted off the doorjamb where she had been leaning. "Ready?"
"Aye, as soon as I get a weapon." Edmund tied the bright sash around his waist and ran his fingers through his hair, wincing slightly. Anamaria rummaged in a leather pouch at her side, pulling from it what looked to Edmund like a twig and offering it to him.
"Chew on this," she said.
Edmund examined the twig. On closer inspection it was a thin layer of bark, rolled up tightly. "What is this?"
"Willow bark. 'Twill help your head." With a what-the-hell shrug, Edmund popped the twig in his mouth. The lady pirate turned to go. "We've little time. The whore won't be back," Ana tossed over her shoulder. "Not now she has all your gold."
Edmund merely smiled as Rose then shoved her way into the room past Anamaria and presented him with a cutlass and another curtsey, panting. He cupped the young wench's cheek. "Again I am in your debt." He nodded to the purse tightly clutched in her hand. "Use that well, my friend." He slid the cutlass through his sash and turned to a surprised Ana. "Let's go."
~*~
"And Belle said they'd been held at this abandoned sugar plantation?" Edmund liked to have his facts straight, even when it annoyed his conversational partner, as it clearly did now.
Anamaria huffed out an irritated sigh. "Yes, 'tis what she said. Watch yer step here, 'tis mucky."
He could swear she covered a grin when he squelched up to the knee in marsh. "Thank you for your timely warning," Edmund said dryly, though in truth that was the only thing dry about him by the time he was finished extricating himself and retrieving his boot.
Ana chuckled, then grasped his arm. "Be still."
He duly froze in his tracks. A long, thickish shadow was looped about a low-hanging branch; as Edmund watched, the loop detached itself at one end and slithered into the marsh. Edmund's brows nearly climbed off his forehead as this process went on for long minutes. The snake must be absolutely massive, though he couldn't see it clearly in the dappled moonlight.
Something brushed against his leg; Edmund swallowed. Ana, for her part, whispered out what sounded like a prayer or charm or possibly just a string of epithets, here eyes closed, her body swaying slightly.
And then, as suddenly as they'd seen it, the serpent disappeared; whether into deeper water or a puff of smoke Edmund was hard pressed to say. "What was that – that thing?" he whispered when it was safe to speak again.
"Dambala," Ana breathed, clearly awed. "Protector of my people…" And then her mask of practicality slipped back into place. "Or possibly just a ruddy big snake. Come on."
They came out of the forest along a spit of land that lifted into a cliff face, atop which Edmund could make out twinkling lights and the ghostly shape of a large house. He nodded at Ana, who pointed out to sea. Edmund turned to look.
Across the white breakers he could see the shape of a ship at full sail, approaching slowly. He looked at Ana. "They mean to take the child away."
"Aye," she agreed. "Which means we'd best hurry."
~*~
If it hadn't been that no fewer than seven men held pistols on them, Jack reflected, he'd have made a clean break for it as he and Bill were untied, separated, and tied again. The false Jack seemed to take particular pleasure in nearly dislocating Jack's shoulders in trussing him securely.
'Jack' grinned at him. "Comfortable?" Jack yawned elaborately; Bill spat on the man's feet, and took a fist to the jaw for his trouble.
The captives were rousted to their feet. "Come on," one of the pirates said, jerking Bill forward roughly. "Ye've an invitation ye don' want t' miss."
They stumbled over the rocky ground, prodded along by swords and pistols, over the top of the cliff and down a narrow path toward the sea. Spray thrown up by the shoals below stung their faces; in the distance loomed a ship, sails ghostly white in the moonlit sky. Bill sent Jack a significant look, and he returned a nod.
They'd nearly reached the pebbled spit of land that served for a beach. Jack looked at the rock face, realizing from the half-dried algae clinging to the crags above their heads that they must be at low tide, or not far past. Getting toward dawn, then.
They rounded a pillar of barnacle-strewn granite and before them gaped the mouth of a mammoth cave in the cliff wall. Jack reared back but was shoved harshly inside, Bill behind him, and what he saw brought him up short.
It wasn't the lanterns all over the cave floor, casting an eerie light, that made Jack growl deep in his throat, nor the phalanx of pirates, armed to the teeth. It was the sight of the man in the elegant brown coat, nudging with his foot a badly beaten and tightly bound Will.
"So you see," the man was saying, "I am merely taking back what is mine. You were a fool to think you could keep her from me."
Will spat out some blood. "Lizbet is not your daughter," he snarled.
The man shrugged and chuckled, then lashed out with a vicious kick to Will's stomach. "And the first thing she will learn is that her name is Elizabeth, not that foolish nickname given her by an ignorant blacksmith. Elizabeth she was, and Elizabeth she shall be, if I must chastise her a hundredfold for it. She was always strong-minded, but this time I shall raise her differently, and she will know better than to throw herself away on a murdering pirate's son."
The false Jack spoke up. "I've brought you the others, sir."
The other man rounded on them, and Jack recoiled from the madness in Governor Swann's eyes.
"Ah, Jack Sparrow." Swann held up a hand mockingly. "I know, 'Captain' Jack Sparrow. You'll forgive an old friend for the informality, I know."
"God help us." And for the first time in his life, Jack meant it. "You're mad."
Instantly he knew he'd made a mistake. Swann's eyes narrowed. "Yet another in the long series of insults for which I receive recompense tonight. Starting with, of course, your corruption of my daughter."
Jack blinked. "I never laid so much as a hand on the girl, let alone f– "
Swann backhanded him across the face before he could utter the profanity. "Watch your mouth, pirate." He seemed to gather himself in hand before continuing. "I refer to your exposing Elizabeth to the corrupting influence of experiences outside her sphere, and to your brazen encouragement of a connection to this good-for-nothing," he nudged Will again.
Jack cut to the heart of the matter. "Elizabeth's dead, Swann. Killing Will won't bring her back."
Swann's expression went crafty. "You all think I'm a fool, don't you? I know what you did, Sparrow. What you all did. How you tried to hide her from me, telling me she'd died, when the truth was quite different, was it not?"
Jack was bewildered. "If you say so. What the hell are you on about?"
Swann chuckled. "The child, Sparrow. The child."
"He thinks Lizbet is Elizabeth," Will croaked from the ground.
Swann turned on him. "I have been given a chance to right my grievous wrong, and I shall take it. This time you cannot take her from me, Turner. You cannot kill her."
"I didn't kill Elizabeth," Will said dully, as though knowing it was a futile argument. "I loved her."
Swann's voice went tight and high. "Did you not sully her body? Did you not get her with child?" He nodded to the pirates, who began to drag Will to the wall of the cave, where Jack could make out an iron loop embedded in the rock about four feet from the floor. They lashed him there as Swann went on. "Who but you should be blamed for her blood? So much blood," he whispered, almost to himself. "She left me then, but I shall have her back, and no man shall love her!"
That loop was well below the high tide mark, Jack realized as water began to pool slowly around the soles of his boots.
Bill cleared his throat. "Don' punish the lass fer yer sorrow, me lord."
Swann inched toward him, pushing his face close to the other man's. "So you do have a voice. Bootstrap Bill, isn't it?"
"William Turner," the ex-pirate said with dignity, "an' if ye're lookin' fer the author of this tragedy, ye should pick on me. After all, 'twas I begot the lad."
Swann stroked his chin. "Are you offering yourself in young Turner's place?"
Bill notched his chin up. "That I am."
Swann snorted. "A touching gesture from a man who left the raising of his child to others. Which is a mistake I do not intend to make." He beckoned to 'Jack', who with several others pulled Bill toward an outcropping about eight feet up the wall, securing him to another iron ring there. "However," Swann rubbed his hands together, "you may die with him. Well," he added puckishly, "not to say 'with'. More like 'after'. When you have watched your child die, of course, as I had to watch mine."
Jack struggled forward, knowing it was fruitless. The water had crept up several inches, and the pirates were sloshing as they dragged him to yet another iron ring, this one maybe twelve feet up.
"You know, of course, that the tide around Tortuga can go as high as twenty feet in a single swell. The rumrunners who built that sugar plantation knew it too, which is why one can find moorings in this cave at a number of levels." Swann grinned maliciously. "Though I do not know whether such a tide is in store tonight, I am convinced that there is a special place reserved for you in Hell, Sparrow. But as with all of you, your fate is in God's hands now, whether you drown or starve. He sketched them a mock bow. "Good night, gentlemen. 'Jack', I leave them to your care and the will of the Almighty."
The imposter saluted as Swann and the pirate crew left the cavern, then smiled at the captives. "Ye'll excuse me, gents. Must get to higher ground."
The tide was coming in with a will then, sloshing over some of the lanterns. Will struggled to his knees, all the higher he could get with his arms cinched securely to the iron mooring, water buffeting his thighs. Jack cursed succinctly.
"Can 'ee loosen the ropes on that rough stone, boy?" Bill asked, concern lacing his voice.
Will glanced at his father with a nod and began to scrape his wrists arduously against the outcropping. A good-sized wave knocked him over, and Jack nearly slipped from his perch in his agitation. But Will soon surfaced, shaking his head like a wet dog.
"Jack," Will said quietly, concentrating on his hands, "you have the best chance. Swear to me you'll save my girl from that maniac, and bring her safely to Edmund." His voice echoed in the depths of the cavern.
"Don't be a…" Jack began, but the younger man looked up at him intently, and Jack found himself nodding. "Aye, lad. I swear it."
The sea, cold and choked with weed, poured freely through the cave opening now, reaching up to splatter against Will's chest. Still the blacksmith struggled on, though Jack could no longer see his hands under the roiling surf. "Fight, lad," whispered Jack, though he knew his friend could not hear him. "Fight this."
A warm gale blew hard through the cavern, the sweet scent of roses on the air, and it seemed to Jack's blurred fancy that the wind was trying to push the tide away from its prisoner, futilely swirling and whistling around the cave walls. Below him Jack could see Will hesitate, closing his eyes as he breathed in the fragrant breeze, then redoubling his efforts to get free, jerking hard against the unforgiving iron.
But soon the waves were lapping at his chin, and Will strained just to keep his face above the water. Within minutes he was reduced to gulping for breath and plunging under the breakers, then surfacing with a gasp after several heart-stopping seconds.
Bill shouted his son's name, over and over, his voice growing hoarse; they could see his white face and the black circle of his mouth as he sucked in precious air. And then all they could see was the bleak and bubbling tide, closing finally over Will's dark head.