The King Midas was a merchant's vessel on its way back from delivering a particularly fine load of spices in England. Everyone was in a remarkably good mood, considering how long they had yet to go to reach the Midas' home port in Jamaica – they had made good time on the trip over, Carlos Torres (the merchant who had sold the ships' cargo) had managed to outrageously cheat each and every one of his buyers, and had paid Captain Alameda more than the original bargain had set, who in turn gave some of the unexpected surplus to the crew, so everyone was happy. Plus, they were making very good time on the return trip too, and if they kept up as they were, the Midas would drop anchor a full week before its expected return time. Due to this unusual good cheer the Captain and his First and Second Mates weren't being as hard on the crew as they were wont to be, and while the crew was taking full advantage of this, they were only a little less careful than the norm. Like … the lookout wasn't paying quite as much attention to the horizon as he was to his bottle of rum, and that small black speck that wavered so on the horizon was discounted as just a trick of the rum, soon to be cured by more rum.
So the crew paid very little attention as the small black speck coalesced into a small black ship, which then grew into a steadily larger black ship. The first time they saw it, it was thanks to a crewman who had, all unsuspecting, looked over the deck to the horizon, to find that the ship had grown to be quite a large black ship really, all done up in it's own little black sails. By the time his alcohol-fogged brain had worked out what that meant and he had scrambled to alert the rest of the crew, they could read the elegant writing on the side and see the other crew grinning and beckoning and making downright rude gestures and well by then it was far too late. After all, gold sinks, and the ocean has no room for kings, but a pearl is the diamond of the sea.
The Captain of this Pearl was currently on the deck of the Midas, watching his crew's reactions to some of the wealth stored on the ship with the air of an indulgent parent observing his children squeal over new toys.
After all, he'd already gone ahead and taken the majority of the most valuable things for himself as the crew was … "cleaning up" as they liked to put it.
Jack Sparrow … excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow was quite pleased, no, more than pleased with the way things were going. This was the second successful raid they'd made in a week, and this one had been more of a "couldn't resist, mate" rather than a planned foray, and had been just as profitable as the first one. And they'd managed to do it without killing anyone, which didn't happen so often that it could be ignored. There were some who scorned his preference for bloodless raids, saying that that was the whole point, and wasn't he a pirate and not some sissy-livered navy man anyways? On the whole, Jack preferred to ignore them, because he at least found it much more fun to leave the attacked to report that they had been attacked by pirates who had come up on them unawares and taken all their gold and valuables and had done so without needing to kill even a single crewman. Hauling the entire crew up to the deck and leaving them there stark naked while hiding their clothes in various places around their ship had not, unfortunately, been Jack's idea, but it was a nice little touch.
"Jack!" That would be Anna-Maria, and she'd forgotten the "Captain" again. He was beginning to have serious doubts that anyone on his ship knew the word. "JACK!" Ah well, no choice but to answer her. Maybe she'd found something interesting.
'Yes, luv?" He sauntered over to where she was standing, curiosity increasing in leaps and bounds when the normally-irritable bo'sun didn't look annoyed at his easy pace. "Y'had somethin' y' wanted t' tell me?" Jack blinked, taken aback when the accustomed slap didn't come and then realized that Anna-Maria hadn't even noticed he'd been talking to her chest. Well, well, well. This must be serious indeed.
"That girl who 'elped us git t' Pearl back, 'er name was Swann, wasn'it, Jack? T' uppity guvnor's brat that was gonna marry Bootstrap's whelp?"
"Yeah, it was." Ah, good ol' 'Lizabeth. Damn crazy 'risotcrat girl. Burned all the rum. Completely uncalled for, that; what'd the rum ever do t' her? An' what's she got t' do with anything?
"Well. Kin y' think of a reason she'd be getting sumptin from a mate like this'un?" She gestured at the body near her feet, and Jack recoiled in spite of himself.
The man was very dirty, and coming from a pirate who's idea of "regular bathing" was getting caught in a rainstorm every other month or so, "very dirty" was very dirty. He watched in horrified fascination as something moved in the thick, sometimes-crusty layer of grease and sweat and what he prayed was dirt that covered the man like a revolting lacquer. If Jack had been told that the man was host to a thriving colony of as-yet unnamed organisms that already had a thriving culture and a rich oral history and were making good progress on discovering the wheel, he probably wouldn't have been surprised. As for the stench, which hung around him in an almost-visible and potent miasma of putrid rot and filth … well, words have not been discovered that could adequately describe it, which is most likely for the better.
"'Ow did y' get up t' balls t' touch 'is clothes, much less take 'em off?"
She smiled without humor. "We didn't, Jack. If y' wanna do it, go ri'on ahead."
Jack looked down at the unconscious breathing garbage heap again, noted that what he'd originally taken as exceptionally crusty dirt was actually clothes, and then looked back up at still-mirthlessly-smiling Anna-Maria. "Ah … that's okay, mate. Le's … leave 'im as … as 'n exm'ple t' all t' others; pound t' point in home t' them, whatsay?"
"Jus' what we thought, Jack." There was a surprisingly little amount of sarcasm in her voice. "Now, kin y' think of any reason this'un'd be contactin' t' lass?"
"Not really – not 'less the lass was planning on burnin' 'im fer t' betterment of human'ty. Why don' we save 'er t' trouble, actu'lly? Sun's strong 'nough – y' gotta bit o' glass on y'?"
Anna-Maria snorted, whether to agree with him or something else, he wasn't sure, and gingerly prodded the body with her boot. "Wha'ever she wan'ed t' do wit' 'im, or 'e wit 'er, t' man 'ad this on 'im." She proffered a sealed and only slightly dirty letter (a miracle if it had been in close contact with this man for any length of time) at him and Jack took it, noting that Miss Elizabeth Swann was written on the front in calligraphy that could not possibly be the work of this man, whoever he was. He had the look about him of a man who'd only just barely mastered printing, and had difficulties with even that. "Thought y'd like t' see it."
Roughly translated, that meant "I've already read it, and it sounds like something that might affect us, and I really don't want it to, so you read it and tell me I'm wrong, please?" Except that Anna-Maria would never say that, not if her life depended on it, so it was really more a matter of listening to subtext and pretending he didn't notice the little marks on the seal that indicated it had been broken and then resealed.
Jack read the letter (also written in a script far more legible than the man lying unconscious at their feet was possibly capable of producing) cautiously, looking for any clues or hints that there might be more to it than inked words on paper. Then the words sunk in, his eyes darkened, and he read the letter again. And again. And then again, just to be sure.
Oh hell. Not him again. Oh bloody hell. He was slightly aware of Anna-Maria saying something in the background, and the tone seemed resigned enough, but he couldn't for the life of him tell the words.
"Jack!" Gibbs this time. Someday he really needed to sit down with everyone on the crew and have a nice long talk about certain words beginning in CAP and ending in TAIN and the uses and advantages thereof. "JACK!" He twirled around, more aggravated by the letter than he'd like to admit.
"What is it this time?" Gibbs seemed a bit taken aback at his near-growl, but to give the man credit, he recovered quickly. He always did, that Gibbs.
"T' crew was jus' wonderin', Jack" Captain. Captain, goddamnit! It wasn't so difficult a word, was it? "What're we plannin' on doin' next, what with this extra ship an' all? They'd kinda be likin' some shore leave, Jack, ifin y' get my drift."
Jack smiled with all of the joviality he didn't feel, and companionably draped himself over about half of Gibbs' body.
"Well then, Gibbs, we're in luck, aren't we?"
"We are?" Gibbs had gotten used to his Captain's tendency to be overly spontaneous, but all this touchy-feely business was going to take a bit more time.
"O' course we are! Would I tell y' we're in luck if we weren't in luck, or about to be in luck, or in any other way looking at a future that's vaguely lucky?"
"Err … no?"
"'Course not! Y're a good man, Gibbs. Now, t' lov'ly Anna-Maria jus' over there" he flopped his hand loosely in the direction of the Pearl's bo'sun, who was looking less and less happy by the moment "Has jus' given me this wonder'fl li'l letter that I simp'ly must get t' my good friend 'Lizabeth. Y' remember 'Lizabeth? Bonny lass; mean righ' hook? Unnat'rl likin' fer t' burnin' of prefc'tly good rum. She married ol' Bootstrap's whelp – 'member 'im too? Both of them 'elped m' pick up t' Pearl 'gain."
"I remember t' kids, Jack. How'd'ja get a letter fer 'em, I wanna know?"
Jack flapped a hand in a dismissive – and extravagant – gesture. "'S connections, mate, 's all about connections. Who y' know an' whatnot. But that ain't t' point. T' point is you," and here he swept his hand in a gesture that included the entire crew, as well as the crew of the Midas, the clouds, those seagulls over there, and quite possibly most of the western coast of Africa "be wantin' some leave time, I be wantin' t' deliver this letter, and Port Royale be just three days fast sailn' thataway." He gestured again, in the general direction of Jamaica, certainly, but also in the general direction of Mexico, Cuba, America, and probably Canada too. "Savvy?"
"Right, Jack." Gibbs had long since learned the folly of trying to make Jack see reason, but something compelled him to make a token effort. "But, Port Royale, Jack? What 'bout that Commodore that's so keen t' get yer neck inna noose?"
Jack turned and gave him a sardonically amused look that was – if he only knew it – almost a complete mirror of the look worn by the aforementioned Commodore on the day of their last meeting. "'E ain't lookin' fer y' lot, mate; and t' day Cap'n Jack Sparrow can't 'ide from a bunch o' weasly Redcoats an' a Commodore wit' an' infestat'n of badgers in 'is ass is t' day y' lot kin hang me from t' bowsprit of t' Pearl – an y' kin use me miserable black guts as t' noose." Jack turned back to the crew, who were for he most part done with looting the Midas and starting to look rather twitchy about not being aboard the Pearl.
"Oy! Back t' t' ship, y' mutherlovin' sons o' dogs!"
Jack barked a few more orders and reprimands to crewmen who were taking too long, and made his way to the wheel of his beloved Pearl. His face was set in a mask of meditative satisfaction (his usual expression when at the wheel), but his eyes gave the lie to "normal", if anyone would look at them. And, everyone being busy doing his own job, no one did, so Jack's impression of carefree relaxation remained quite unspoiled. If anyone had been standing close enough to hear what Jack murmured as he changed the previous course, they would have probably seen through the mask too, but "close enough" in this case would probably involve being draped over his back, so again the mask held up.
"'S all who y' know. Who y' know –an' who y' wish y' didn't."
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So, that's chapter 8. Yup. It's #8 all right. Wow. Not really much to say here. *shifts glance from side to side quickly* Um … woo-hoo! Alright! GO ME!!! Yeah … Anyways … Thanks to LordLanceahlot and charmedfanatic12 for the reiviews, and …um … that's it.
Right.
I'll just … go start on #9 now, shall I? Yeah …
Ta!