Disclaimer: Ioade: She doesn't own this, savvy? Now gimme rum!
Ariandir: *withering look* Thaaanks, darling - you're almost as nice as Jack.
Jack: *jerks awake* S'm'one say m'name?
Ariandir: *sigh* Can anyone help me? Please? Anyone?
Chapter summary: Kate takes Jack to Ioade aboard the Dark Horse, where the two captains engage in a war of bargaining, but moreover, of wits. When Ioade and Jack exchange halves of the map to ensure authenticity, Ioade employs a cunning scheme to con what she needs out of Jack, and at the same time, rid herself of the vitality of his help. An incensed and ridiculed Captain Jack Sparrow is then 'escorted' from the ship and back to his own, but his thirst for revenge will see that by the next morning, Ioade will have no chance of sailing off into the sunrise...
-~*~-
Kate closed her eyes and prayed for patience as she heard a muffled thud behind her.
"Mr Sparrow..."
"Captain."
"I'm sorry," She turned to face him, smiling beatifically. "Is it me, or do you seem to be having some difficulty in controlling your legs?"
Jack was sitting sprawled on the dusty floor of the alleyway, gazing up at her, with one arm draped rather limply over a barrel next to him that he had attempted to use to steady himself; this wasn't the first time he had done this since they had left the Singing Mermaid.
"You're drunk, Captain." Kate informed the pirate, pursing her lips.
Jack frowned, and then raised his eyebrows at her.
"Only a little, luv."
"Then you don't hold your alcohol nearly as well as I had approximated." She replied quietly, holding a hand to help him up, and almost falling over herself under the drag of his dead weight.
"Do you think...you could possibly...lean on Master Gibbs...for the rest of the way?" She said in a strained voice as she heaved Jack to his feet. "Or at least something like that, because I have a looming notion that having your limbs collapse out from under you every few minutes isn't going to get us back to the ship very fast."
"Kate, darlin', what on earth is wrong with talking the same way as everyone else?" Jack groaned. "It would make you a hell of a lot easier t'understand."
"For a drunk man, perhaps; it's one of my more endearing traits, Captain." Kate smiled.
"Oh, I could probably name a few more..." Jack said in a low, rough voice, and sauntered forward to slip an arm round her waist with a smirk.
"Mr Sparrow, a man who baits sharks will one day find himself lacking an arm."
"What?"
"It means kindly disentangle yourself from me, or you will be treated to rather a closer inspection of my axe than I think you would find comfortable."
"Ah...I didn't quite follow the entirety of that, luv, but I think I get the general gist." Jack said, backing away and eyeing the large weapon in her hand warily.
"I'm so happy for you." Kate said with a benign smile.
Putting an arm about Gibb's broad shoulders for support, Jack watched the woman with narrowed eyes as she turned and walked on ahead of them, her dark hair shining in the occasional shafts of candle and torch light that intermittently penetrated the alleyway.
"Just out of curiosity, luv," Jack said eventually, to her back. "Why did you turn pirate?"
"Hmmm? Oh...something about a short drop and sudden stop - that's what they say, isn't it?" She answered negligently with a careless gesture of her hand.
The two men behind her, however, could only stand and stare at her, and then each other, as she continued on along the alley, not once turning back, nor faltering in her step.
-~*~-
Because Ioade had managed to convince herself almost totally that Kate would return empty-handed to the ship, and that Jack Sparrow and the other half of the map would never be found, the irascible, tousle-haired captain nearly fell off her chair in shock when someone knocked on the cabin door.
"C'min!" She called, grabbing hold of the edge of the table to steady herself in her seat.
As her first mate pushed open the door, and stepped in followed by a stocky, side-burned pirate and Jack Sparrow himself, Ioade had to resist the strong urge to fall off her chair again.
"Kate!" She exclaimed, gaping at the dark-haired women. "Tell me, how do you feel about a pay rise?"
"If only it worked that way, ma'am." Kate sighed. "Is there anything else you'll be requiring for the time being, apart from elusive pirate captains and rum?"
"Privacy, perhaps, m'dear." Ioade smiled wryly, leaning back on her chair and putting her boots up on the table. "But send Grapple in, and put Khale outside the door." She added as an afterthought.
"Aye, aye." Kate nodded, and motioning for Gibbs to follow her, left the cabin and closed the door behind them.
The two pirate captains gazed at each other in silence for a long while, smouldering, smoky eyes locked with sparkling, dark brown ones.
"Well, Jack, it's been a while." Ioade said eventually, running the length of an index finger along her lips as she considered him.
"I did keep meaning to write." Jack assured her in the sweetest manner he could muster.
"Meaning to write, my foot!" The blonde young woman snorted. "Don't play angelic with me, Sparrow - it's most unbecoming of you."
"That's...uh...Captain Sparrow, luv." Jack pointed out, as though Ioade had been searching for something, and he had spotted it lying out in a completely obvious place.
Ioade held him with her grey eyes, which now burnt with a dangerous edge.
"I wouldn't underestimate your intelligence quite so much as to assume that you didn't know why I had Kate bring you here." She said, her tone suddenly businesslike. "In which case, Captain Sparrow, I suggest that we get down to affairs and stop larking about, savvy?"
"Would I be correct in guessing that this has something to do with a certain map?" Jack asked as he drew out a chair at the table and seated himself, keeping his eyes always on his unpredictable sparring partner.
"Funnily enough, it does." Ioade smiled, leaning forward towards him. "I'm interested in acquiring your half."
"Now, that is funny." Jack said, feigning surprise. "Because I'm interesting in acquiring your half."
"But, you see the problem there, Jack," Ioade said. "Is that then we'd be right back where we started: with one half each."
"Sounds like a bit of co-operation to me." Jack concluded, picking out a banana from the bowl of fruit in the centre of the table, and reclining in his chair as he began to peal it.
He wasn't so thick as to refuse to into enter this bargaining with Ioade, and question what profit was in it for him - the stakes were equal on both parties. However, having known Ioade for as long as he had, and also having observed that people, in general, didn't really change much no matter how many years passed, he knew that baiting the female hotspur would give him the upper hand in the dealing. He was also aware, of course, that Ioade would never agree to co-operate with him, but it was worth trying just to see how incensed he could get her.
Ioade stared at him.
"Do I look that stupid?" She asked slowly.
"Now, do you want me to answer that question, or was it rhetorical?" Jack said, glancing up at her over his banana.
Ioade slammed her fist down on the table, and her jaw tightened.
"Stop playing, Sparrow!" She growled. "You know quite well I'm talking about buying it from you!"
"Oh, now you are being stupid, luv." Jack observed. "Do you really think I'd trade all that wealth and power for anything you have to offer me? I mean, I know you're attractive and all, but..." He trailed off with a helpless shrug.
Ioade opened her mouth to reply (or rather, to maul him) when the cabin door opened, and a dirt-smeared urchin of about twelve years old sidled in, clutching two comparatively large bottles of rum in his arms, and, curiously, a sheet of blank parchment and a stick of charcoal.
"Miss Kate said yeh be wantin' some rum, Cap'n." The boy said in a breathy, lilting Irish accent, kicking the door shut and scampering across to the table with the manner of a small, energetic rodent.
"Aye." Ioade nodded, sounding somewhat relieved. "Good lad, Grapple. Give us that rum, and then go and sit in the corner over there, will ye?"
Relieving the young boy of the bottles (he did keep hold of his parchment and charcoal stick, however), Ioade then slid one across the table to Jack, keeping one for herself.
Jack hesitated for a moment after uncorking the bottle, and then brought it to his nose to delicately sniff at the contents.
Ioade regarded him quizzically as she lowered her vessel from taking a swig.
"I'm just checking you haven't poisoned it." Jack informed her, still intent on his inspection.
"Don't flatter yourself, mate; I wouldn't go to that much trouble. I'd just get Kate to shoot you...although...I am sort of regretting not having thought of that, now..." Ioade added ruefully.
"I take it you're keeping that pack rat in here for a reason, darlin'." Jack said, eyeing Grapple with a certain amount of suspicion as the boy grinned cheekily, and tugged his wild forelock at the pirate.
"Well, if we didn't have him in the cabin every so often, there wouldn't be much point in calling him the cabin boy, would there?" Ioade smiled, as if humouring a littleun'. "We'd have to call him the deck boy, or the rigging boy, or the poop boy..."
"Yes, thanks, Ioade." Jack nodded with a falsely pleasant smile. "I think I get the idea."
"Oh, good." The blonde young woman sighed happily, taking another draught of rum. "Now, like any prospective buyer-"
"Haven't we discussed that option, luv?" Jack interrupted. "I believe we ruled it out."
"No, you ruled it out, Captain. I acquiesced to do nothing of the sort." Ioade replied. "As I was saying, I would like to see the goods in front of me, just to make sure that I'm not being cheated in any way, so if you would kindly show me your half of the map, please."
"Two things, luv." Jack said, holding up a hand. "Firstly, I'll only show you my half if you show me yours - just for fairness' sake, you understand - and secondly, how do you know that I even happen to have it on my person?"
The swarthy pirate narrowed his eyes as he asked the question, in his usual, melodramatic way.
Ioade smiled benignly.
"Because your first request is the answer to your second." She answered. "Map, please."
Reluctantly, Jack removed the ancient section of chart from one of his frock coat pockets, and handed it to Ioade as she drew out, and handed him hers.
The pirate felt his heart flutter as he took the map and let his eyes travel over its ink-scarred face.
The capricious lines that indicated the coasts of Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and even Greenland danced about the edges of the Atlantic Ocean, as though a spider had dipped one of its legs in black ink, and then trailed it this way and that over the surface of the parchment.
A thin, dotted curve showed the border of the Arctic Circle, and just beyond that curve, off the jagged coast of Greenland, was a tiny speck of land - hardly more than if the scribe's hand had twitched and accidentally spattered some ink - marked with a small, curling 'x'.
"The Chalice..." Jack whispered hoarsely, running a trembling thumb lightly over the island.
Across the table, Ioade's countenance near mirrored Jack's; the sensation that stirred in her was one of something heavy being lifted from her torso, elating her - something could now be done.
But Ioade, like any good pirate in her opinion, kept her wits shrouded closely about her at all times, and firmly shaking herself back to the mortal world, she glanced up over the top of the half-map at Jack; he was still wholly absorbed in staring at the parchment, like he would a woman's chest.
Ioade smirked slightly, though her heart was now beating a violent tattoo against her ribs, and shifting a little lower in her chair, she casually lifted Jack's half of the map up to face-level, so that it could quite easily be seen over her shoulder.
Almost immediately, she heard the sound of charcoal on parchment, and her smirk became a full smile, concealed from her company by the map.
"Well?" Came Sparrow's voice from the other side of the table (he had apparently woken from his reverie). "Is it to your satisfaction, missy?"
"It's getting there, Captain." Ioade replied curtly, keeping the chart up in front of her face. "My half of the map is simpler than yours, and has hence taken you less time to inspect."
"How's that?"
"It's only got the location on it." Ioade replied through gritted teeth, her characteristically short fuse re-lighting for an instant.
A clench of panic grew in her stomach as she made some show of scrutinising a bight on Jack's half of the map - she desperately needed an excuse to keep the chart where it was for as long as possible.
Looking away for a moment, she feigned a wide yawn and a stretch, raising the map up in the air, still facing back over her shoulder.
One of Jack's eyebrows rose.
"Keeping you up, am I?" He asked.
"Oh, no, Jack!" Ioade said in a theatrically yawn-thick voice. "Just had one too many late nights, you know..."
The rushing sound of charcoal on parchment quickened, and the blonde-haired young woman made a mental note to give Grapple more credit for his wit in the future.
Jack watched the captain with his kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed suspiciously, as she give a second yawn that looked as though it might have unhinged her jaw; the fact that she was up to something was so obvious, it was stupid.
"I'll be wantin' my half of the map back now, if you please." He said, a definite warning in his tone.
Ioade felt as though someone were unravelling her guts like a ball of wool, when quite suddenly, a quiet yet distinct little cough came from the corner behind her.
Ioade smiled, and lowered the map.
"Of course, Mr Sparrow." She obliged sweetly, indulging herself at his expense one last time as she handed the parchment back across the table. "But I'm rather afraid that I've wasted your time here, for I fear I shall have to decline your offer."
Jack frowned; this did not sound promising in his favour.
"What offer, luv?" He asked cautiously.
"The one of your allegiance." Ioade said brightly. "After much consideration, I don't think I'll need you, or your half of the map after all."
Jack snorted at this ridiculous observation.
"Of course you need me n' the map, darlin' - how else are you going to find the Chalice?"
Ioade smiled at him in a way that Jack didn't exactly like.
"Grapple." She called, without shifting her gaze or her smile, and the ragged little urchin of a Cabin Boy came forward, grinning from ear to ear as he handed his captain a sheet of parchment. Jack's brain told him that someone had just dropped a cannon ball in the pit of his stomach.
Ioade inspected the freshly drawn chart with a satisfied expression, and then showed it to Jack, waving it in her hand.
"A perfect copy, don't you agree?"
Flapping before the dark pirate's face was an exact replica of his half of the map, drawn in thin, sweeping and wriggling lines of charcoal. The lad had even thought to colour in the compass embellishments, Jack noted bitterly.
"Well, I'd say our business here is pretty much finished, don't you think?" Ioade said, clapping her hands together and whipping the copied chart-half out of sight.
She began to rise from the table, but froze when she heard the click of a pistol being cocked.
"Don't even consider it, Sparrow." She warned, not even lifting her bowed head. "I can have Khale here in two heartbeats."
"I can have you dead it one." Jack said in a low voice.
"You've slowed up since we last met, Captain." Ioade continued, seemingly unruffled. "The Jack Sparrow I knew would've known better than to've bargained under these conditions. Are you getting softer? Or are you just more foolish?"
The pistol went off in a flash of fire and billowing grey. A blackened, smoking crater appeared in the opposite wall.
"Oh, and perhaps I failed to point out that your aim seems to be going a little bit, too." Ioade remarked.
"That wasn't meant to hit you." Jack growled angrily. He drew a second pistol from his belt, and cocked it. "But this one will."
Ioade looked up at him slowly.
"Don't think you'll get the chance, mate." She grinned.
The door of the cabin suddenly flew off its hinges with a sound to rival the shot of Jack's pistol, and the captain just had time to register the towering mountain of man and shining muscle on the threshold before a huge, heavy hand landed itself atop his crown.
Khale lifted Jack out of his seat by his head as if he were no more than a child's doll.
"Khale, Mr Sparrow has outstayed his welcome." Ioade informed the brute calmly. "Please show him the way out."
The hulking animal turned, and with a pirate dangling from one hand, and a chunk of raw meat dripping blood in the other, he lumbered out onto the deck.
A few moments later, there was colossal 'sploosh', and Grapple grinned up at Ioade.
"D'yeh think he's wet, Cap'n?"
Ioade looked back with wide-eyed innocence.
"Wet? Goodness me - imagine that."
-~*~-
Anamaria watched the fuming Jack Sparrow board the Black Pearl, every inch of the near six foot from boot-toe to hat-crown dripping with sea water.
"Events taken a bit of a damp turn, Captain Sparrow?" She asked, just managing to keep a straight face.
"Don't..." Jack pointed a finger at her, and swayed absurdly on the spot for a moment as he fought to keep himself from bursting. "Get me some rum!" He snapped finally, storming off across the deck.
"I take that to mean he didn't find what he was looking for." Anamaria said quietly to Gibbs, who joined her just as Jack slammed his cabin door shut behind him.
Gibbs laughed.
"Now there's a twist of irony, lass." He chuckled gruffly. "As a matter o' fact, he did."
"He has a funny way of showing it." The black woman observed, as the cabin door was flung open again, and an irate Jack bellowed across the deck:
"Where's that bloody rum?!"
His eyes alighted on his first mate and sole female crew member. There was a dangerous glint in their dark depths.
"Gibbs, get a looting crew together!" He barked. "I want them up on deck ready to leave before you can say 'savvy'!" He went to shut the door again, hesitated, and then added in a calmer, colder tone:
"There's gunpowder aboard the Dark Horse, Gibbs - use it."
Gibbs stared at his captain.
"What's in your head, sir?" He asked.
"Revenge." Jack replied, and withdrew behind the door again.
-~*~-
It was past midnight.
Tortuga was bathed in darkness, and the roaring jollity and trade of the younger hours had slowed to a trickle, as does the flow of rum from a keg tap when the valve is part-way closed.
The port, at this time, though far from being silent, was fairly so when compared with the clamour of the days and the evenings, and now, all that could be heard was the keening of seagulls, the breath of the sea, distant music, and the occasional hysterical giggling of a pirate with more alcohol in him that blood.
Then, with a sudden roar like a stung lion, and a blast of billowing fire, amber light, and burning air, Tortuga was, for a single heartbeat, alive with all its earlier qualities.
Set a good number of streets back from the port, in a bed, in a room, on the second floor of the Faithful Bride, Ioade Morgan woke with a start.
The crude panes of the window above her cot were glinting with reflected firelight, and judging by the few leaves that whipped past outside, sending shadows rolling over the bedclothes, it had been some powerful explosion.
Ioade shoved off the sheets, and knelt up on her knees, shielding her eyes against the glare with one hand as she looked down to the harbour.
She could dimly make out the blazing skeleton of a ship, sinking into the water, and then, for one, brief moment in time, something extraordinary happened:
The figurehead of the Dark Horse had been split away by the blast, and was now bobbing upright a little way off from the carnage.
A tiny spark from the burning corpse of the vessel sprang through the air like a dart, to alight between the horse's flattened ears.
Fire ripped down the wild, flowing mane in an instant, tugging and snapping in the wind from the explosion, and deep shadows animated the animal's muscles, transforming wood into flesh.
The horse reared above the churning waves, its eyes mad, rolling, flashing, its nostrils flaring wide, and it pawed at the air in sheer terror and lunacy with its great, feathered hooves. It whinnied and screamed to its rider, its captain, in pain; it cried out to Ioade in its agony at its destruction, in horror at what had been done to it.
Then, with a last, wrenching screech, the horse plunged forward beneath the water, the light of its blazing mane vanishing in a huff of smoke.
Ioade cried out in response, and cried out again, like a mother to a lost child, banged a fist against the window pane, her eyes wide and streaming with incensed tears.
"The bastard! The bastard!" She sobbed furiously. "I'll kill him! My ship! My ship! I'll kill him! That bloody bastard!"
Hanging beyond the last remaining floats of flickering detritus, the silhouette of a ship lurked beyond the hazy veil of smoke that hovered in the air like the ghost of the sunken vessel.
"What will she do now, Jack?" Elizabeth asked, as she and Will stood on the fore deck of the Black Pearl with Her captain.
Jack raised an eyebrow, glanced sideways, and then back out at the familiar scene before them on the water.
"She'll get inconceivably angry, she'll shout alot, and wave her arms around, and threaten to kill a few people, and when she's done with her little temper tantrum, she'll come after me." The pirate replied coolly. Then he paused for a moment. "Just like she did last time." He added with a chuckle.
-~*~-