Chapter Six- A Gypsy's Song
Up in the crow's nest Saviya stared out to the sea in thought. She was remembering a night not too long before she'd left her gypsy group. She was talking to Veshengo, a wise old man with wonderful wrinkles and missing teeth. Around them, people chattered and went back and forth between tents. She told him she planned to come back to them after she went to Port Royal. Veshengo was quiet for a little bit, staring at the ground as he drew in the dirt with a stick. When he looked up to her he said sagely, "You must not come back right away."
At first, she felt hurt. She knew posh-rats (half-breed gypsies) were for the most part shunned by the group, but she thought they had accepted her after all these years. After the death of Louzsa and Jessenia, these misfit drifters were her only family.
Veshengo continued, "There is someone you must meet, someone you must help and something you must find."
Saviya knew Veshengo knew things no one else could -she'd seen his foretellings come true many times before- but she was confused. "Who?" she asked. He smile. "You will know when you come upon it. Follow the wind, follow the signs and look deep inside yourself, and you will know what to do."
Saviya smiled softly at the memory. Memories of the hatchin-ton (pitching grounds) made her feel better. Someone she must meet? She looked down to see Captain Sparrow standing proud at the helm, swaying a bit as he moved the wheel, his head arrogantly tilted back. Could he be the one she was supposed to meet? Saviya decided not to answer that question, thinking it best not to analyze it when she'd just met him. She turned back to the clear horizon, tapping her feet as she started to sing.
She stands atop the wooded hill
Her soft voice fills the air
An August breeze gives me a chill
As I watch her standing there
Her lover plays the tambourine
She claps and sings along
Against his shoulder she does lean
As they play their gypsy song
!!!!-!!!!=======(
"We're devils, we're black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up, me hearties. Yo ho," Jack sang under his breath. He turned the wheel slightly and snapped his compass shut. They would be in Tortuga tomorrow. He watched his crew bustle about the deck, cleaning, fixing, pulling ropes, turning sails. He tilted his head back to see Saviya in the crow's nest. He watched her tap her feet and move about and, if he had been able to hear, he would have heard her throaty accented voice singing a song. Around mid afternoon, she grabbed a rope and swung smoothly to the deck and landed between Gibbs and Patrick, and Irish man who'd already earned his worth as a worthy and bloody pirate.
"Oy (Excuse me), where be the kitchen?" she asked the two men as they stared down at her, their conversation dying.
Gibbs muttered something under his breath and Patrick looked over Saviya, "Ye be the lass from all that commotion this morning?"
"Hai (Yes). I am Saviya," she stuck out her hand and he shook it slowly, confused by shows of civility because of his reputation.
"Patrick."
"Where be the kitchen?" she asked again. Gibbs directed her and a few minutes later she was there and ready to work. But, little problem. Jacob did not seem to like the idea of a woman on board. He reminded Saviya of the looks she usually got from Gibbs, but at least Gibbs was not this condescending.
"Well, at least the Captain put ye in the right spot. Kitchen is the really the only place fer a person like you," he said as he stirred something in a large pot.
Saviya muttered incoherently underneath her breath.
Jacob pointed to a large sack of potatoes. "First thing ye need to do is peel those potatoes." He turned around, "But it yer too 'fraid to break one of yer nails-"
THWACK.
He turned around to see she'd just chopped a potato on the counter neatly in half with a huge knife.
"Is dat all?"
He turned back to the pot. "Gypsy," he spat out, as though the name were a curse.
Saviya sat on the stool in front of the potatoes, knife in one hand and potato in the other as she prepared to cut. She looked up for a second, glared at Jacob's back and spat out, "Pirate," before letting long peels of potato skins fall into the bucket on the floor between her knees. With her bare heels propped up on the stool's rungs, she fell into a pattern of grabbing a spud from the bag, peeling it rythmatically over the bucket and putting the now naked potato in a pot on her right. Humming softly and ignoring Jacob she started singing again, continuing her song.
A monastery stands nearby
Its gates are shut to all
From inside I hear the cry
Of the monks' fateful call.
They choose to stay there locked inside
They aren't free to see
Any of the whole world wide
Or people like you and me.
She dropped a potato in the bucket and grabbed another, not noticing the person now in the doorway.
Clouds drift across the sky
The color of fresh snow
I always used to wonder why
They go the way they go
The golden light shines on her hair
The lake reflects the sky
The fish will swim and leap there
Until the day they die
Jack at the moment forgot why he'd come down here. He knew he'd meant to tell Saviya something.
I watch her from another hill
Not too far away
I hear her soft voice there still
I see her body sway
The fish are dead and gone now
And her curly locks are gray
I still often wonder how
She can dance her life away
As he watched her sing, sitting there in her gypsy garb, he realized she was not the same type of women he usually found himself with. Most he ever met were bar wenches and high class rich snobs who only wanted to scream for a guard. He'd brought her aboard because she intrigued him and because he thought he could easily bed her. But now he was starting to wonder if anything with her was going to be easy at all.
The monks still chant atop the hill
They call to people near
"Come and join us,
if you will Spend all eternity here."
I still watch from a distance though
Remote behind a wall
My heart and mind won't let me go
And heed their endless call.
Her lover plays the tambourine
She claps and sings along
Against her cane she does lean
As she plays her gypsy song
Saviya looked up and saw him, "'ello, where are me bags?"
Jack watched her cut the potato in her hand. She peeled it in one long strip around with the knife instead of slicing down the sides. "In me room."
She nodded, "I'll get them later."
Jack moved closer to her. "I don't want ye sleeping on the deck anymore."
Saviya shrugged, "It's alright. I'll just sleep with my churi."
"Yer what?"
"My knife."
"What language do ye keep saying?"
"Romany, my language. The language of the gypsies. 'Tis odd to speak all English again, bits of Romany come out."
He remembered again what he had to tell her. He kept getting distracted. "Yer not sleeping on the deck. Yer to stay in me quarters."
Jacob chuckled quietly but stopped abruptly at Jack's glare. Saviya kept peeling. "No."
He couldn't speak for a moment. "What do you mean 'no'? I'm the Captain 'ere and , by the way, have ye forgotten what happened this morning? That's not happening on me ship again!" Or to you, he added silently.
She finished the last one and wiped her hands on her skirt, looking like she was arguing with herself inside her head. A couple seconds later, she looked up into his eyes on her and nodded.
"Misto."