Ok, hopefully this chapter will have more humour, now that everyone is present and correct. At least most of them...

Thank you to all my wonderful reviewers, as well!

*********************************************************** Chapter four: Elizabeth's Tea Party

Lord Edmund Blackadder awoke to find himself swinging from side to side. His head was banging painfully. He attempted to climb out of the rough, canvas contraption that he lay in. A few seconds later his addled mind registered the pain of falling onto a hard wooden floor.

"Where in God's name am I?"

He looked around. Meltchett was snoring in a hammock not far off. Blackadder stood up with all the grace of an elephant in roller skates. The commotion woke Meltchett. He snorted, and fell out of bed.

"Oh! Blackadder, it's you."

"Indeed."

The religious man stood up. The floor rocked alarmingly.

"Good Lord! Blackadder, it is God's punishment, quick we must escape!"

Meltchett scampered over to the stairs. The hammocks now swung like flags in a breeze. The cloaked man was hurled into the stairwell. He gave out quite an un-holy curse.

Blackadder sniffed disdainfully. He looked round the grotty surroundings.

"I don't think so, Meltchett. Although I'd like to be watching when you succumb to God's will, it will, sadly I fear, not be today. We are aboard ship!"

He started up the stairs, taking care to stand as much on Meltchett as was physically possible.

Out on deck, it was windy. There appeared to be no crewmembers about. Save one, tall-ish man, with over-long braided hair, a devil's beard and kohl- lined eyes.

"Ahoy there! Are you a crewmember worth talking to, or am I wasting good oxygen?"

The man turned to stare at him. Blackadder liked to think he could outstare a snake, but the man's gaze was intense. Blackadder looked away, but even then he called feel the man's eyes boring holes into his skull.

"So? Who are you? Or are you a mute?"

The braided man took three steps toward Blackadder. It was three steps too many.

"I, my posh English passenger, am 'Captain' Jack Sparrow."

Blackadder, unlike the newly arrived Meltchett, did not lean away from the Captain's breath. He was used to far worse aromas at home with Baldric.

"Well, it makes little difference to me. Sail us home to blighty at once!"

Jack leaned away, but in amusement. He fiddled idly with a hair braid.

"Why would I be doing that?"

"Because I, 'Captain', am Lord Blackadder! Close friend of the Queen, who in turn is head of the British Navy! Fancy being hung on return to Port, do we?"

Jack started to laugh. The crew, who had appeared in dribs and drabs on deck, began to chuckle to. Soon the air was filled with the promise of raucous laughter. Jack leaned in very close to Blackadder's face, staring directly into the appalled Lord's eyes.

"That's all fine and nice, my 'Lord'. Just as well I'm not a member of the royal Navy, hmm?"

Meltchett took some time to view at his surroundings. The black sails. The black wood. The crew of roughly clad and villainous men, with a particularly feisty looking female first mate. The 'Jolly Roger' flag, snapping back and forth overhead. He smiled benignly at Jack.

"Merchant vessel this, hmm?"

"Miss Swann, are you 'quite' sure Lord Blackadder isn't here?"

"Positive, milady."

Queen Elizabeth I took a dainty sip of tea. She gave the snuffling Lord Percy a withering glance.

"Do shut up Percy! What is wrong with you?"

Percy sniffed again. He dabbed a fairly feminine hanky to his eyes.

"Nothing, milady. Just a little homesickness. I'm sure it'll pass."

"Jolly good thing too! Don't want you blubbing all over my new friend's nice shiny floor."

Elizabeth was sitting ramrod straight. She held her mug, cupped in her delicate hand. She felt pale and papery. And there, just opposite, a previous Queen of England sat, referring to her as friend. If she made one wrong move, she would be kneeling over a chopping block, waiting for the axe to fall.

All the while, Will had been watching and listening to the flow of animated chatter. Fair enough, it was very one-sided. Queen Elizabeth seemed to have a great many opinions on everything. And his own Elizabeth seemed to be treading a thin and treacherous path around the conversation, attempting to be an interesting hostess, without being condemned to death.

The short, disgustingly dirty man named, as Baldric never said a word. He just sat there, oozing smell. And, Will observed, his own special mix of mud, dung and other unpleasant substances onto the floor.

"And, who exactly are you, Mr Turner?"

Will gazed up from his inspection of the apparently brainless individual Baldric, into the face of another mentally challenged individual.

"Oh, er. I'm Miss Swann's fiancé, milady!"

Queen Elizabeth wrinkled her fabled nose. She sipped her tea. Then, a flirtatious smile crept onto her face.

"Are you? Oh, what a pity..."

She said, with honeyed sweetness. Elizabeth slowly looked up from her cup to the Queen.

Will looked at the floor. Yet another disapproving noble.

Baldric suddenly seemed hit by an idea.

"Why's that, majesty? Seem like a nice couple o' people to me."

Queen Elizabeth stared at him. She smiled sweeter at Will.

"Yes. But Mr Turner is very handsome. I think he ought to marry someone with, oh I don't know, a prettier nose. Or someone who has lots of land and power, like a Queen!"

Elizabeth began trying to bite her tongue in desperation. Will was blushing beetroot. He managed a half smile at the grinning Queen, before excusing himself hurriedly. He stood up to leave.

"No! Did I say you could go?"

"No, your majesty."

Her face and voice became childish.

"Well, don't worry this time!" She eyed his shoulders and face appreciatively. "Someone like you is far too pretty to be killed! But don't forget again, hmm?"

"No, milady." Will sat down, closer to Elizabeth. She put a firm hand on his knee. The two Elizabeth's eyed each other like predators of the same prey.