Disclaimer: I own no PotC characters, despite several daily sessions of quiet weeping directed towards Disney.
1/20/04 UPDATE: What was once the prologue has expanded into Chapter One. Gracious thanks to all my reviewers!!!
Author's Notes: The idea for this fic came as I was reading a recent book on Captain William Kidd; I began to wonder how Jack would have fared in the environment of the actual "Golden Age of Piracy," which extended vaguely from 1699-1720. This was the period of history in which piracy flourished along the eastern seaboard of North America, South America, and of course throughout the Caribbean; this is not to say that there were not pirates before and after this time period (Captain Henry Morgan, for example, preceded it), but the lifestyle, if you will, was at the very apex of its popularity at this time.
I have set this fic largely in Colonial Massachusetts, beginning in Salem, a town (today, a city) notorious for hanging several accused "witches" in the early 1690's. I imagined Jack wouldn't have gotten along very well with the Puritans, being, well, Jack, so I had to explore that…
This fic opens roughly around 1699, and I imagine Jack to be somewhere around 25 years of age, and pre-Black Pearl.
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Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1699
Something miserably pointy and savagely rotten hit Jack Sparrow hard in the side of the head, making a decidedly unpleasant squashing noise. Jack reeled briefly on his feet, the beads and baubles in his hair jingling a strange accompaniment to the grim metallic clanking of the irons that bound him, arms and legs.
Carrots.
The sodding Puritans were lobbing carrots at him. And last season's carrots, too, by the smell. Jack stopped short in the midst of his forced march and wrinkled his nose, disgustedly. A veritable fog bank of dust from the dry dirt road swirled around his legs in the chill October dawn. From the depths of the crowd another soggy carrot flew in and nearly put out his right eye.
"Oi!" he protested, swinging in place on his heel, eyes darting furiously around him, trying desperately to discern the thrower from amongst the rather uniformly dour mob now pressing in on him from all sides. A shove from behind, delivered by the ample gaoler set Jack again in a rather swaying forward motion.
"No stopping," growled the huge man, his cold hand now set at the back of Jack's neck like a large cut of meat, guiding him ahead with a considerable lack of finesse. Jack frowned. He had no idea Puritans could grow this big. He imagined it had something to do with eating lots of vegetables, of which Salem seemed to have a distinct surplus.
"I beg your pardon," drawled the pirate, tripping elaborately over his heavy chains as he tried to keep pace with the grip of his captor, "Truth be told, I don't really disapprove of the whole 'pitching foodstuffs at the prisoner'-thing…I mean, it's practically an institution at this point, and loads of good fun to boot, don't get me wrong, mate…it's just that, well, I was rather hoping me friends in the maddening crowd here would have come up with a less poke-y choice of weapon. Me eye's gone all puffy already – look…" Jack swiveled his head briefly and batted his eyelashes pitifully at the gaoler, who responded by giving Jack's neck a painful little shake.
"But in all fairness," Jack continued unfazed, stumbling onward, "I can't say I blame 'em. I hate bloody carrots meself as well and wouldn't hesitate to pitch 'em at some poor, defenseless, condemned bugger if it meant the bleedin' things wouldn't make it into the evening's stew-pot…"
"Shuddup!" the gaoler barked, tightening his hold on Jack's grimy neck and giving him an almighty rattling, "Shuddup, shuddup, SHUT…UP!"
"Right," choked Jack, briefly occupied swallowing gulps of ocean air in an attempt to decompress his windpipe, "You're in luck, mate -- I just so happen to be the strong, silent type."
"It's you who'll be lucky, pirate, if yer as silent as ye claim," intoned the gaoler, leaning in to lambaste Jack with a lungful of foetid breath, "If I hear one more noise outta the likes of yer rotten mouth, I'll hold yer neck so fast ye'll have to breathe outta the top o' yer skull."
With the gaoler's sweaty hand planted firmly at the top of Jack's spine and ready to squeeze at a moment's notice, the pirate wisely suppressed a beautifully pointed retort and decided he had better just walk and continue walking. Forever, if need be. Yes indeed, he was a very good walker. One of the best.
Jack's captor, who was by now emitting a constant low drone of Jack-related curses and profanity, steered him impatiently through a thin break in the bevy of townsfolk swarming about the Salem Town Commons.
All of these blighters are here to enjoy the fun and hijinks of a good ole'-fashioned Saturday prisoner-gawking session, and I'm the piece de resistance, Jack seethed silently, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized the gathered masses, If I wasn't so wholly revolted, I'd adore the attention. But at least they stopped with the bloody carrots.
As the imprisoned and the imprisoner continued their macabre parade through the common pasture and the crowd grew thicker, Jack felt the gaoler's back straighten and his pace stiffen. Momentarily baffled and half-expecting another throttling, Jack hunkered down for the worst. And then it came to him.
Sweet Mary on the half-shell… Jack rolled his kohl-dark eyes in realization, He's playing 'soldier,' the great fool. Thinks he's one of the King's own. Oh, this is mighty…
Suddenly inspired to add to the show, Jack took up the strangest, mincingest, most stinkingly drunk walk he could muster, grinning with obvious pleasure. A collective murmur rose from the stupefied onlookers as the funny little pair made their lurching way across the pasture.
Then, midway across the Common, disaster struck. The hulking Puritan gaoler slipped on an impressively gelatinous example of cow leavings, and lost his footing entirely. Muscle-bound limbs beat the air uselessly in an imitation of a terribly ill duck as he tried to keep upright. Finally, the gaoler succeeded in steadying himself with the help of the one massive hand clutched round Jack's unhappy throat, painfully repressing Jack's ready giggle. Newly-crushed and nearly asphyxiated for the second time in a day, the pirate descended into another paroxysm of coughing and choking, punctuated occasionally by a well-disguised chortle.
Although a severely bruised windpipe and the humbling grip of his gaoler had thus conspired to make Jack Sparrow a very quiet and well-behaved prisoner indeed, once he had recovered the use of his trachea, Jack's mind whirred unfettered, taking in all of the sights, sounds, and a few choice and unforgettable smells that surrounded him in this strange seaport called Salem.
Jack had been in countless port towns before, but he was willing to swear there was never a one akin to this in all the shabby world. Jack believed that generally the sea was want to wash ashore those who were most like her: changing, moody, quick to excite and slow to calm. Those who found their calling upon the ocean tended to live every blessed moment as though it was their last, because often it was. On land, these marked men sought every imaginable worldly pleasure (and some better left unimagined): strong drink, fresh grub, willing women, wild music, and shameful dancing. Port towns the world over were notorious for making available all manner of earthly sins to any man who rolled in on a rogue wave with a fistful of coins and a yen for depravity.
Without warning, a sweet, sweet memory came tumbling unbidden into Jack's consciousness like a man drunk. Ah, Providence, Jack mused with a sigh, remembering the lovely, lawless glory of his all-too-brief stay in New England's pirate haven, just three short weeks before. Caribbean buccaneers trawled the murky streets there in their ill-gotten finery, hordes of blood money paid out for their fine silk stockings, gold-trimmed greatcoats, and silver-buckled shoes. Not a one of his fellow rogues had so much as turned his head as Jack Sparrow made his exotic, hypnotic, swaying way through the teeming waterfront byways of Providence; with his silver and beads, rings, trinkets, cutlass and kohl, he had blended seamlessly into the seedy throng. It had been an oddly warming experience for Jack, a first.
But here.
This was a port town with no wind in her sails at all. Jack hadn't even caught a lingering whiff of a tavern or a punch house since he arrived in Salem harbour eight days ago, though he had been assured such establishments were in existence.
From the look of the locals, Jack considered, frowning deeply and regarding the crowd around him through squinted eyes, their public houses must be obscenely dreary affairs, with loads of pasty, unhappy men in pinchy shoes sitting bolt upright in rows of straight-backed chairs, sipping watered ale prettily from the bowls of thimbles...
He shuddered mightily at the thought, and felt the gaoler's fingers flex at his sudden movement. Jack smiled miserably at the man's reaction.
You think I would try to escape, mate? he wondered, somewhat bemused, wiggling his fingers distractedly in his shackles in a largely futile effort to restore their circulation, And go where, exactly? Dashing off into this welcoming mob? I'd be two quick minutes in there and they'd have me done up in a sad black frock, clutching a prayer book, and weeping piously down the front of me cravat. No. There's no escape here. 'Least not in the usual manner.
This realization caused a minute but quite sharp feeling of despair to well up within the young man and prick him soundly. He had been so sure, lying awake and curled up cat-like in his musty, damp, freezing, piss-scented gaol cell the night before, that escape would come easy once daylight broke, once they hauled him into the freedom of the open air. Now things looked entirely different. The heavy gaoler's irons surrounded not only his increasingly sore and cold hands, but also his feet; and while Jack was reasonably sure he could still run at a fair and fast clip with bound hands, he knew that with bound feet he'd never be able to outrun so much as a child -- not even one of the horrid little Puritan children that peered at him, pale and wide-eyed through the press of the crowd.
So, that's it then, Jack decided, shaking off the weight of doubt that had descended fast upon his shoulders, and gathering himself up from the inside out, We shall just have to see what manner of situation next arises. We must wait with patience for the opportune moment, and then try not to do anything…stupid.
With that, Jack's boots suddenly caught in the long heavy chains of the leg-irons he dragged, and he very nearly upended himself in a most humiliating fashion on the stony, cowpat-strewn ground of the common pasture. He recovered hastily on largely ineffective sea-legs and resumed his unwilling march towards an uncertain fate. He could almost feel the delighted smirk on the face of the gaoler burning into his back. Fighting hard to control his racing heartbeat, Jack marked with considerable curiosity how little the expressions around him changed, even at the unexpected movement of his downward plunge. These people were downright creepy.
Jack trudged on to the rhythmic clank of his irons, his eyes set and unblinking in contemplation.
If I'd known three weeks ago what I know now, Jack considered, That I'd be locked up, choked by a behemoth, bereft of funds, and left horribly ship-less in a town famous for their rather unfriendly rope and knot-tying skills, I wonder, would I still have stepped with such idiot eagerness into the bilgy belly of that god-forsaken little ketch in Providence, hell-bent for buttons as I was?
With slim deliberation, the filthy young pirate broke into a slow grin, a greasy, villainous look that besieged his entire sea-darkened face like the unexpected onslaught of a pestilence. His newly-pilfered gold teeth gleamed garishly in his bared gums, and the unholy sight elicited a muffled gasp from the surrounding Puritan assembly.
Would I…?
The grin grew impossibly wider.
Most likely, Jack decided, Yes.