Now we head out, down the stairs and across the courtyard and into another big room with low tables laid out for a banquet. From listening to Azizi and to Saleha, I've managed to figure out that me princess is fifteen – me own age – and goin' to be married very soon to another Sultan of the city. Her husband-to-be, a wealthy man named Sultan Amid bin Yusouf, is bein' entertained at dinner tonight. It hardly seems fair, havin' just met Saleha, that I'm to lose her to another man. It's like a kind of torture to watch me very own girl servin' wine to a rich git who looks to be a good twenty years older than her.
The old woman who seems to rule the roost in the hareem sits next to Saleha's father, old Sultan Ibrahim, quiet as a mouse. By now I savvy that she's the Sultan's mother and she really does lord it over all the other women. But me little bird is her granddaughter, and the old bat's favorite at that. Old Granny lets Saleha have her way with most things, which is why I'm here in the mansion and not chained up in the gaol.
Some of the young women dance and others serve the food, but I sit way back in the shadows, wedged between Fatty and Azizi. Which suits me fine, except it is a bit crowded, scrawny little me next to those two hippos. "If the Sultan saw you here, he'd soon see to it that you were made a eunuch too," Azizi mutters. He seems happy about the idea.
"Aye, but wot's a eunuch ?" I ask him again, but he just laughs, with that odd high-pitched laugh of his. It's not very pleasant. Finally the banquet is over, and the entire gaggle of women troop back across to the hareem. Only Azizi grabs hold of me - ye guessed it - by the scruff of the neck. Before I can say a word to Saleha, he takes me down a hallway to a little room, not more than a closet, really, and tosses me inside. I hear a key turn in the lock after he shuts the door.
I makes the best of it. After I unwind the veil, which is quite constrictin', I have meself a lie down on some pillows. I really do believe me cell is just a storage closet, but it's comfortable enough. A bit of light trickles in under the doorway, but after a while they blow out the lamps in the hallway and I drift off to sleep.
The snick of the key turnin' in the lock wakes me up in the wee hours before dawn, and Saleha slips into me cell, shuttin' the door behind her. "Jack," she whispers, huggin' me, and she says some other things that I take to mean that she's had to wait all this time for Azizi to fall asleep so she can nick the key and sneak away.
"I knew ye'd manage it somehow, love," I tells me brave girl, and then we're kissin' one another and we don't say anythin' more. Up to now I haven't had much experience with women, and I'm sure Saleha has had no experience with men, but we're determined to make the best of the situation we now find ourselves in, savvy ? Soon it gets quite hot and breathless in our little nest, and I'm discoverin' all sorts of interestin' facts. Such as, the finest silk feels rough as old rope when compared to me princess' skin. We're both so caught up in the moment that neither of us hears the footsteps in the hall, so consequently we're caught off guard when the door suddenly opens.
And here's Azizi, grabbin' me neck in a way that has become all too familiar. Just as me and Saleha were getting' to a point where somethin' - not just interestin', but really wonderful and glorious - was about to happen, too. It's just so awfully unfair. He drags me right out of the closet as the old Granny and Fatty swoop down and drag out Saleha, coverin' her up with a veil and hissin' at her in furious whispers. And that's the last I see of her as the giant hauls me, none too gently, right off to a doorway and tosses me out into the alley.
Azizi throws me so hard that I could have broken me neck, except who should be lurkin' in the alley but Mister Phillips, and he breaks me fall. I can't tell you how ungrateful I am – bein' torn out of the arms of me princess and thrown into the arms of Mister Phillips – it completely spoiled the mood.
I hauls me trousers up and we set off at a run. It seems there ain't goin' to be any pursuit though, and we slow down and slink back to the harbor through the alleyways. "Well, Jackie, ye have the devil's own luck," Phillips says as we make our escape. I don't entirely agree with him - if I'd been really lucky, Azizi could have waited just a few more minutes to open that door - but I'm not in the mood for an argument.
When we get down to the harbor, I'm surprised to see that the Bristol Maid is gone. "So Cap'n didn't even wait for me," I say, a bit downhearted about it. Phillips just laughs. I get angry. "He has me pay, too, thanks to you," I point out.
Mister Phillips shakes his head and pulls out a little purse, which gives off a merry jingle when he shakes it. "Nicked it," he says, all smug-like. He points to a little ship anchored out in the harbor. "We'll ship out tonight, Jackie me lad. There's dozens of little islands and hideaways in these waters; we'll find some like-minded buccaneers and get ourselves into a profitable situation."
"Ye mean for us to turn pirate," I says, frownin' as I think it over. "Ye do know that's illegal."
"That's freedom, lad," he says, suddenly fierce. "Freedom." And then he laughs his careless laugh. "And a life of fortune and adventure."
"Me own life ain't been very free since ye've come into it, Mister Phillips," I tells him.
"That's where ye're wrong, Jackie," he lectures. "Haven't I taught ye what ye need to survive ? To make yer own way in the world ?" He doesn't pause to let me get a word in. "It's a hard life for everyone, lad, landlubbers as well as sailors. But ye and me, we'll make the best of it. Take what ye can," he insists, "and give nothin' back."
That gives me an idea. "We have to go back and rescue Saleha," I tells him. "Yer girl Murni, too," I says, generously. "We can take 'em with us."
Mister Phillips just laughs some more. "Impossible," he says when I try to argue. "Ye're lucky the Sultan's guards aren't after ye right now. They'd have yer head on a pike, but not before they'd made a eunuch out of ye."
"For the last time, wot's a eunuch ?" I demand, exasperated. So then Phillips finally tells me, and I feel a little bit sick. "But, me princess," I plead, not quite willin' to give up."Ah, Mister Sparrow," he says, not even laughin' at all. "Ye're a pirate. She's a princess. It would never work out." And then he leans down and looks at me all serious-like. "Listen, Jack, ye have the wit – and the luck – to really make somethin' of yerself. Ye'll be a captain by the time yer twenty," he predicts. He's talkin' to me as though I'm an equal, savvy ? And in spite of meself, I'm startin' to believe him. "Don't ye see, that's what I been tryin' to get through to ye all these months."
Then he laughs, just like he always does. "Yer lady friend will forget all about ye. She'll just go on livin' the life of comfort she's accustomed to." It hurts to admit it, but I know Phillips is right. I was almost likin' him for a while, there, but now I start hatin' him again.
"What about yer own lady friend," I ask him, sarcastic.
"Wot, Murni ? She's no princess, lad, she's just a common maid in Sultan Yusouf's mansion. Ye don't see me wastin' away and pinin' for her, do ye ?" He seems to expect an answer, so I shakes me head. "That's right, and neither does she pine for me. But I do visit her whenever I'm in port," he leers.
Sultan Yusouf, is it ? Well, ain't that a coincidence – me little bird's bridegroom. I perk up quite a bit at that. "We'll just have to come back and visit them both, next time we're in port, Mister Phillips," I tells him.
"Mister Sparrow, ye just might be crazy enough to manage it," he says. And then we set off in search of fortune and adventure. And freedom.
-----
Author's notes: Many thanks to Cunien and the rest of the buccaneers at Tortuga's Finest for providing the inspiration and first home for this story, and to Luinecu for taking the time to leave a review here on FanFiction.