Disclaimer: You know it, I know it: there are precious little things that I own in this world, but Pirates of the Caribbean nor Jack Sparrow are among them *sob*
Chapter summary: Jack gets further in his hunts for answers, and partakes in a little story-telling session with one Creaking-leg Tom, a regular at the Singing Mermaid Inn. The crew of the Dark Horse, meanwhile, are beginning to notice their captain's peculiar manner, and Elizabeth finds her courage again when Will finally wakes...
-~*~-
The Keelhauled Sailor was doing a roaring trade that clear, Summer night, mostly due to the fact that Rosaline and the High-Knee girls were staging a performance.
For some reason, the sight of bunched skirts pulled right up young ladies' thighs to expose stripy stockings, low-cut saloon-dresses, and energetic dances on tabletops and bars drew in customers by the horde, and since more customers always meant profits as high as the girls could kick, the tavern owners of Tortuga were always more than happy to welcome in Rosaline and her flock.
Rosaline herself was a fairly short, nicely-rounded and well-endowed young woman in her early twenties, with curly black hair, green eyes and alot of affection to spare for men who had full purses. When she wasn't singing and dancing, she was invariably perched on a pirate's knee, working her charms (and their wallet) for all it was worth.
"A sailor loves a gallant ship and shipmates bold and free,
And ever welcomes with delight, Saturday night at sea.
Saturday night at sea, me boys! Saturday night at sea!
Let every gal and sailor sing Saturday night at sea!"
The men hollered and whistled as Rosaline slalomed between the poles on the bar counter, singing her heart out as the whole tavern bellowed the chorus lines along with her.
Swinging round the last pole, she leaned down to swipe a tankard of rum raised half way to a pirate's mouth, and throwing back her head, took the biggest swig she could manage.
A roar of approval and applause went up all around her, and pouring the remaining contents of the stoup over the man's head, Rosaline swung her way back to the other end to the final bars of the shanty.
"One hour each week was snatched from care as through the world we roam,
To think of dear friends far away and all the joys of home.
Saturday night at sea, me boys! Saturday night at sea!
Let winds blow high or low we'll sing Saturday night at sea!"
The clamour of stamping feet, fists banging on tables, cheering and general acclaim quite easily drowned out the sound of the tavern door opening; Jack Sparrow edged his way towards the nearest free seat - a large beer cask in a relatively unlit corner - and settled himself down as Rosaline took her fill of theatrical bows up on the bar.
"Na', any o' you boys got requests fer me?" She asked, looking around the vicinity.
"I got one for ya, goregous!" Came a drink-riddled voice from a far corner of the taproom.
"Join the queue and wait in line wiv all the other gents, Miggs!" Rosaline called back, sending a ripple of laughter through her audience.
"'Ow about The Ebenezer?" Someone else shouted.
"Right you are!" Rosaline grinned.
A steady rhythm of drumming tankards and boots pulsed into life as the pirates kept time, and taking a deep breath that swelled her bosom so tightly in her corset that one young scallywag at the fore nearly fell off his chair, she began:
"I shipped on board of the Ebenezer,
Every day you scrub and grease 'er,
Send us aloft to scrape 'er down,
And if we growl they knock us down.
Oh get along boys, get along do!
Be 'an-dy boys, be 'an-dy!
Our firs' mate's name was Dickie Green, sir -
The dir'iest man you ever seen, sir.
Walkin' the quar'er wiv a bucko cap,
'E fought 'imself no common chap!
Oh get along boys, get along do!
Be 'an-dy boys, be 'an-dy!
We 'ad no spuds for our dinnah,
As sure as I'm a livin' sinnah,
Our bread was tuff as any brass..."
"Our meat was as salt as 'is wife's arse!" Someone bawled, and everyone laughed.
"Oh get along boys, get along do!
Be 'an-dy boys, be 'an-dy!"
"Oh get along boys, get along do!
Be 'an-dy boys, be 'andy!" The barflies repeated, before errupting out into the umpteenth round of raucous cheering that evening.
As Rosaline took her bows, and beamed around the taproom, her eyes widened suddenly as they fell on a pirate sitting in a shadowy corner on the far side of the tavern, his weatherbeaten, tricorn hat tipped down over his face as he rested back against the wall, sipping from his tankard.
Much to the protesting and disappointment of her audience, Rosaline slipped down off the bar-top, and made her way through the drunken, brine-stinking crowd towards the man, a broad grin lighting her pretty features.
"Wew, wew, wew, look what the catfish dragged in." She said as she stood over him, her hands resting on her ample hips. "Captain Jack Sparrah! Last I 'eard, you was bein' 'ung by them wew-tuh-doos in some Port or uvvah. Give 'em the Sparrah Slip, didja darlin'?"
"Rosaline, luv." Jack purred, reaching out a sinewy, sun-bronzed hand to hook her into his lap. "Got a little ditty for your dear old Jack?"
"'Course - when don't I 'ave summin' for ya?" She asked, giving him a suggestive glance. Then she leaned forward and putting her lips by his ear, sang in a soft voice: "We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot - drink up, me hearties, yo ho! We kidnap and ravage, and don't give a hoot - drink up, me hearties, yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
"Music to me ears, darlin'." Jack smiled as she gently kissed the spot below his ear, her raven-black curls pressing against his cheek.
"I don't just sing an' dance, y'know." She whispered. "Perhaps you'd like ta see wha' else I can do..."
"I wish I could, luv." Jack sighed, leaning back so that he could look her in the face. "But right now I've a little bit of business to be takin' care of, savvy?"
"Oh, wew." Rosaline shrugged. "Your loss, I suppose."
"Any other time, though..." Jack assured her with a smirk, giving her a sharp smack on the rear.
Rosaline screamed and giggled delightedly, before hopping off his lap to leave.
Then she paused.
"I don't suppose you could see your way clear ta offer a girl summin' ta drink?" She added hopefully, turning back to face him.
Jack snorted.
"As if you hadn't had this lot offering them to you left and right."
"Rum always tastes be'er when its bought by men I like." She said sweetly.
"Well, I say if that's the case, then why not?" Jack replied.
Digging around in his coat pocket, he pulled out his purse and shook two dull-silver shillings out into his dirty palm.
Rosaline's eyes were wide.
"But..."
"That should be enough." He interrupted her, taking hold of her wrist and tipping the coins into her hand. Then, tightening his grip a little, and fixing her olive eyes with his dark ones, he added. "Seafaring stories are very interesting, don't you agree luv?"
Rosaline's eyes told him she understood.
"Creaking-leg Tom." She said in a hoarse whisper, her cheeks rapidly gaining an under-pressure-glow. "The Singing Mermaid. Na' let go, Jack - yer scarin' me!"
Jack gave her arm a sharp tug as she struggled against his hold, and his eyes narrowed menacingly.
"What's his preference?" He pressed.
"Mead." Rosaline hissed. "Na' fer the luvva God, lemme go!"
Jack released the girl's wrist as she snatched it away, and watched her storm off into the reeling, drink-addled crowd.
Indifferent, Jack glanced briefly in the direction of the door, and then tipped his head back to take another draught from his tankard; he only hoped Creaking-leg Tom would be up for a little storytelling tonight.
-~*~-
Elizabeth sat in the corner of her cell, staring at Will's motionless body - she was beginning to fear the worst.
It had crossed her mind more than once that the dark-haired woman on deck might have shot him along with the Redcoats, but then why would they have thrown him in the brig? Surely they wouldn't have wasted their time imprisoning a dead body, and she couldn't see any blood stains on his shirt.
And then the image of the dead soldiers spattered with their blood wrapped itself round her brain again, and Elizabeth buried her face in her knees with a dry sob.
Why did she have to be a Governor's daughter? Why couldn't it be some other girl that kept getting kidnapped by pirates, and not her? But then, Elizabeth realised, she would never wish this on anyone; if only she could shake that image of the dead Redcoats from her thoughts. She had heard the awful heavy, sliding sound the corpses had made on the wooden deck when the crew had dragged them off the ship; she had looked up and seen the light seeping down between the planks eclipsed as they were pulled overhead.
Elizabeth shivered, and hugged her knees tighter; she shouldn't have been there. She shouldn't have been there at all.
-~*~-
Ioade sighed, flexing her fingers about the handle of the ship's wheel as she looked out to the dark sea.
They were making good headway, but they wouldn't reach Tortuga until the small hours, and to add to that the sky was overcast, so they were having to rely on a chart rather than the stars, which was losing them time.
The captain sighed again, and ran her free hand through her thick, blonde mane of hair.
"Bleak, don't you think?"
Looking round, Ioade saw Kate standing a little way behind her, watching her through cat-like eyes.
"Aye." She agreed. "We'd be makin' better time if it hadn't've been so cloudy. Have you checked on the hostages?"
The dark-haired woman nodded.
"The boy hasn't woken up yet, but -"
"He hasn't woken up yet?" Ioade exclaimed, cutting across her first mate. "How hard did you hit him, Kate?!"
Kate raised an eyebrow.
"I haven't killed him, if that's what you mean."
"I'll believe that when I see it." Ioade muttered. "Tell Marlin to drop the Sprit sails."
"She's all in the wind, Captain." Kate pointed out.
Ioade swung round to face her companion with a flat look.
"Who's cap'n of this bloody ship - you or me?"
Kate gazed back at her with a serene air that made Ioade positively itch with irritation.
"Aye, miss." Her first mate said quietly, then faded away into a silhouette to speak to that of a man working on the port rail.
"Can't get the bloody crew these days." The blonde captain murmured as she turned back to face afore.
Marlin looked up from his splicing when he heard footsteps. Kate emerged into the halo of the port-side lantern, streaks of red and gold glittering in her tawny eyes.
"Captain says to drop the Sprit sails."
"But she's all in the wind." Marlin frowned.
"I know." Said Kate.
The West Indian pirate carefully set down the two half-joined lengths of rope and his marlinspike, and stood up, reaching nearly a head higher than the Dark Horse's first mate.
"What's going on?" He asked after studying Kate's face for a moment (which was, as always, placid).
The woman returned his study for a lengthy pause, as if judging whether she could trust him, and then spoke:
"The Captain's been in a very strange humour of late - I don't pretend to know why."
"She seems keen to reach Tortuga." Marlin noted in his Caribbean lilt.
"Ah, well - not much rum left in the hold, you see." Kate said with a small smile.
Marlin gave a quiet snort of laughter, and the dark-haired young woman glanced out at the night sea.
"Drop the Sprit sails." She nodded to her shipmate after a moment of silence.
"Aye."
As Kate made to leave, she stopped suddenly, and turning back, she asked:
"What's that smell?"
Marlin looked at her.
"Good God! Don't tell me you can't smell it, man - it reeks!"
The dreadlocked pirate sniffed at the air.
"Oh, that!" He said after a pause. "Khale's been eating raw meat again."
"I'm going to have to have a word with that Cabin Boy of ours." Kate murmured quietly. "Sprit sails, Marlin."
"Aye, ma'am."
-~*~-
When Will came to, he immediately wished he hadn't - it felt as though someone had fired a cannonball into the back of his skull. Prying open his disinclining eyes, he found himself in what was unmistakably the cheerful, welcoming confines of a ship's brig. A pirate ship's brig. Yes - he remembered now how he had got here; that woman in black must have rapped him over the head with a pistol-butt at some point.
Will made a valiant effort to sit up and then quite quickly abandoned it with a loud groan as the pain at the back of his skull erupted suddenly, like a firework.
"Will!"
The startled cry rang in his ears afterwards like the screeching of splintering wood, but in that instant, his heart leapt to hear it.
"Elizabeth!"
Battling through the pain with gritted teeth, Will hauled himself upright and crawled to the divide between the cells, where Elizabeth, ashen-faced and clad only in her nightgown and dressing robe, sat waiting on the other side with a beautifully relieved smile lighting her features.
The young blacksmith grabbed her hand in his, the both of them twining their fingers together as tightly as they could, not caring if they broke.
"Oh, Will! Thank goodness you're awake - I thought you might be dead!"
"Near enough." He smiled stoically. "Where are we?"
"Out at sea." Said Elizabeth, her courage returning rapidly by the heartbeat. "Although you've probably already guessed that - this ship is the Dark Horse. I didn't get the captain's name, but she's a woman."
"A woman?" Will repeated, raising his black eyebrows. He was surprised, but not entirely - after all, he had met Anamaria - and found himself wondering if this pirate, by any chance, knew Jack.
"How long have I been unconscious?" He asked.
"Quite a while." Elizabeth answered seriously. "I'm not absolutely certain, but five or six hours, at least."
"We're well out to sea, then." Will noted.
Despite himself, he felt a great swell of shame inflating in his ribcage - Elizabeth had spent six hours alone, frightened and thinking him to be dead, and he hadn't even be able to offer her solace.
"I'm so glad you're alright, Will." The young woman said quietly, squeezing his hand through the bars. "I'm glad you're here with me."
Will smiled, and lifting their twined hands to his lips, he placed a gentle kiss on her fingers.
"So am I." He nodded.
-~*~-
Compared to the Keelhauled Sailor, the Singing Mermaid was deserted; in fact, compared with any tavern in Tortuga, it was deserted.
The only occupants of the well-lit taproom were the landlord, who was behind the bar, polishing tankards with a rag; a drunkard snoozing in the corner, whose face appeared to be glued to the tabletop by the large pool of spit oozing from the corner of his slack mouth; a whore in a low-cut, red dress perched on a beer keg, and a white-haired old man with a wooden leg, sat at the bar.
Jack glanced around cautiously, standing hipshot in the doorway.
The tavern owner, without looking up from the tankard he was polishing, cleared his throat, twitched his bushy moustache and said:
"You coming in, or what?"
Jack grinned, his gold teeth catching in the candlelight.
"Don't mind if I do, mate. A rum, if you do it." He added as he stepped over the threshold, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Don't be a fiddle block - everywhere in this port does rum." The man snorted gruffly, setting down the tankard and heading out of the room.
"Don't s'pose you'd care for a bit of a frolic, would you sir?" The whore in the red dress asked in a bored voice.
"Tempting, luv." Jack said with a pained expression. "But I'm a little busy at the moment. Thanks anyway."
The tavern owner came bustling back in a moment later, and placing the mug of rum down on the wooden counter, asked a price of two pennies.
"No wonder this place is quiet." Jack grumbled as he reached into his coat pocket for his purse.
"Business and needs must." The publican grinned. "Mr..."
"Captain." Jack corrected, pausing in his search to point a warning, black-smeared finger at the man.
"My apologies, Captain." Came the reply.
Jack took a very sudden liking to the tavern owner when he made no further inquiries as to the pirate's name, and so decided to allow himself to forgive the man for the obscene price of the rum as he made his way over to a table. Pulling out a chair, he sat down, put his boots up on the board, and tipped back his head to take a long swig of rum.
"Now, then." Jack said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he lowered the mug. "Which of you fine gentlemen - this excludes you, luv." He nodded politely to the whore. "Is Creaking-leg Tom?"
"I be Creaking-leg Tom, lad!" The white-haired man at the bar crowed, and hauling himself to his foot and peg, began a very slow, lopsided, lurching limp towards the pirate.
Jack winced, as every time the gaffer took a step with his false limb, there was a horrible creak of thinly-covered bone grinding against wood.
"Landlord!" Jack cried, tearing himself away from the hideous sound and banging the tabletop with the flat of his palm. "A mead for Master Tom!"
"Ar, ye knows me well, lad." Creaking-leg cackled as he seated himself beside Jack. "But I knows a'nuthin' o' ye."
"And things are always much less complicated if it stays that way, don't you agree?" Jack smiled charmingly.
Creaking-leg gave another cackle, which turned into a fit of raucous hacks before he spoke again:
"Cagey, be we, lad?"
"Merely wise, good sir." Jack said, lowering his voice melodramatically.
Creaking-leg nodded. Then, pausing as if something had just occurred to him, he reached down and wrapped his claw-like hand around the top of his wooden leg.
With a sickening wrench, the old man suddenly, and quite without warning, twisted the limb right off, and turning it upside down, emptied what looked like a cloud of fine, white dust out of the cup. Jack felt he was going to be violently sick.
"Bloody bones!" Creaking-leg growled, giving the wooden leg a few cursory bangs on the edge of the table. "This ol' thing's ne'er fitted me right!"
Jack's hand was clutched protectively to his stomach as the old man jammed the false limb back onto the end of his knee, and twisted it firmly into place.
"Now, then." He continued, turning to face Jack, who was staring at his wooden leg with horrified fascination. "I be a'feelin' a mighty strong thirst fer infermation about ye - what is it ye be wantin', lad?"
"Sorry?" Jack asked in a rather tight voice, blinking his dark eyes back into focus and tearing his eyes from the leg. "Oh, right - you've been recommended to me as an oracle of yarns."
"Which partic'lar yarn is it ye be wantin' t'hear?"
"Anything that concerns the Palagian Chalice." Jack replied. "And the whereabouts of the corresponding map."
Creaking-leg's watery eyes widened, and Jack smiled.
"That be a strange request, an' no mistake." The old man said. "What be yer business wi' that, lad?"
"Stories are told much faster without interruptions." Jack countered, staring pointedly at Creaking-leg from beneath half-lowered lids. "Savvy?"
Creaking-leg raised his wire-haired eyebrows.
"Aye. Well, 'tis an odd tale, t'be certain; I not be a'knowin' much about the map isself, 'cept that it were held by one Bootstrap Bill."
Jack nodded.
"Know 'im, do ye?"
"Did." Jack corrected. "You were sayin'?"
"Aye -well, from what I heerd, the map were rended clean in two to forever a'bury the location o' the treasure, if ye'll excuse the pun." He added with a chuckle.
"Alls I be a'knowin', lad, is that one half were lost somewhere along the passin' o' time, while the other half ended up a'fallin' into the hands o' some pirate captain - descendant o' the infamous Henry Morgan, or so I heerd."
Jack smoothed his moustache thoughtfully with a long finger.
"That's very interesting..." He mused; his mind had alighted on the memory of an old acquaintance.
"Anyway, as I was a'sayin', the map were lost, and with it, the location o' the treasure," Creaking-leg continued. "But the stories still be a'tellin' that the Chalice be hidden on an island far to the North. Surrounded by ice, it be, and guarded by all manner o' fearsome beasts; ye'd have to be cracked as a cook's pot to be goin' after it."
"Oh, you've noticed, then." Jack said brightly. "Can you tell me anything more about the Chalice itself?"
Creaking-leg narrowed his pale eyes.
"They say the power o' the Heathen Sea Gods theirselves be bound to the Chalice." He growled in a low voice. "An' that whoever so holds the Chalice in their possession also be a'holdin' the power of the entire Ocean in the palm o' their hand."
-~*~-