The Commodore's Daughter
Chapter Eighteen
The court-martial was convening. From their position close to the front of the room, Anna and Thomas saw the two other men who would judge Norrington come into the room and take up seats on either side of Rear Admiral Corry. "Who are they?" Anna whispered.
Thomas squinted at their faces. "The one on the left, the youngest one, is Captain Stonebush," he whispered, "promoted six years ago and before now just patrolling the more far-away Caribbean islands." Anna nodded – Stonebush certainly looked more tolerant than Corry. "And the other one is Captain Wilkinson," Thomas went on, "who was in Europe fighting Napoleon until now." Anna swallowed. Stonebush looked like the only one who might possibly be tolerant of Norrington during the court-martial. The other two looked ready to convict him on the spot. Then again, maybe Wilkinson just looked that way from fighting in Europe.
There was no counsel for the prosecution – the judges would merely question the witnesses, view the evidence, and then vote. It had been by sheer good timing on Anna and Thomas' parts that there was a counsel for the defense. Anna clenched her hands in her lap, forcing herself not to fidget, to look adult and mature.
"Call in Commodore Norrington," said Corry loudly from the front of the room as the witnesses shuffled in. Anna turned around to grin weakly at Gillette, when the doors opened and Norrington walked in – and Anna wanted to cry with pride. He had dressed in full naval uniform, wig and all, his buttons shiny on his freshly cleaned coat. The sword that Will Turner had made for him hung easily at his side. Norrington looked every inch the ideal naval officer, and Anna hoped wildly that this might make an impression on Stonebridge and Wilkinson.
"Rear Admiral Corry, Captain Wilkinson, Captain Stonebridge – good day," Norrington said politely, inclining his head just slightly.
"Your sword, Commodore," Corry cut in abruptly. Norrington removed the sheath from his belt and placed it on the table in front of the judges. "Be seated," said Corry.
Norrington turned to the table for the defense – and stared for an instant in goggle-eyed shock to find his children there. "Come on," Anna mouthed to him. Norrington hastily patched together his composure and, with only a slight jerk in his step, walked to the table and sat.
Once he was there, however, he whispered fiercely, "What are you two doing? You shouldn't be here, you should go –"
"By the authority I hold as an admiral of the King's Navy," Corry intoned, "this court-martial has now begun. Commodore James Norrington, you stand accused of smuggling goods unpaid for on your last voyage to England aboard the ship Mercury. If ruled guilty, you shall be stripped of your rank." Corry turned to face the witnesses. "Will the first witness please step forward." He consulted a list briefly, then looked up and added, "Josiah Crewe, dockyard worker."
A small scruffy man shuffled forward to stand before the judges. "Mr. Crewe," Corry said, "you were one of the workers who loaded the ship Mercury when it set sail for England on Commodore Norrington's last trip, were you not?"
"Aye," answered Crewe, shifting his cap back and forth from hand to hand. "That I was."
"And you specifically loaded the salable cargo that Mercury carried, did you not?"
"Aye."
"Would you please tell the judges if you loaded anything that seemed out of place?"
Crewe furrowed his brows in thought. "Well, I do seem to recall a large box. 'Twas not that heavy, sirs, I remember that...and it was nailed shut fairly tight, sirs."
Corry looked at Thomas with a gleam of triumph in his eyes. "Can you refute this, counsel?" he demanded.
Anna raked her eyes down the Mercury's inventory. When she found what she was looking for, she shoved the list over to Thomas, her finger tapping one item insistently. Thomas got to his feet, list in hand. "Indeed I can, admiral. I have here with me the complete list of items that the Mercury carried with her on Commodore Norrington's voyage, and I believe that the item Mr. Crewe has described was a case of cotton – lighter than usual because of the properties of cotton and nailed shut so that none could escape. Cotton is precious to England, sirs, especially since it is hard to produce in the mother country – as a good English citizen, Commodore Norrington would know this, and would take extra precautions to make sure that all shipped cotton arrived in England." He sat back down and shared a grin with Anna. Norrington sat between them, blinking a little and looking in astonishment at them both.
"Mr. Crewe," asked Stonebush, "do you agree that this case you mentioned could have been cotton?"
Crewe scratched his chin. "Aye, sir. Could have been. I never loaded cotton before, sir, I wouldn't know, but what the lad – er, the counsel for the defense – said makes sense."
"And did you see or load anything else odd?" Corry asked quickly.
"No, sirs, nothing as I can recall. I do believe I could tell what the other things I loaded was, and none of them was illegal, sirs." Crewe seemed unsure if he had done right or not. Anna reassured him with a grateful smile.
"Thank you, Mr. Crewe," Corry said, in a voice that sounded anything but grateful. "You may stand down."
Anna let out her breath in a gush of air that went unheard as Crewe sat down. It had begun.
There followed more witnesses: a young lieutenant from the Mercury who staunchly declared his belief that Commodore Norrington would never go against the law when he had spent his whole life pursuing those who were outside it, a grizzled seaman who swore that he had seen Norrington secretly stashing some mysterious crates into the hold ("Do you think we can get around that, Anna?" Thomas whispered, worried), and another sailor who grudgingly acknowledged that it was possible to hide cargo on the Mercury. There were also two letters. One was sent by the factor who had arranged the sale of the Mercury's cargo, who, Anna hoped, would become an impossibly rich and happy man – his enclosure of his detailed lists of the ship's cargo and the sale of all of it was practically irrefutable evidence, as was his testimony to Norrington's worth.
The other letter was from a woman who, believing him guilty, had written of her purchase of silver household items from Norrington directly. Thomas nearly panicked on that one, but Anna managed to unearth a hastily scribbled addition to the cargo list, as well as a letter from a friend of Norrington's, a well-known silversmith in Port Royal who had asked Norrington at the last minute if he had room for the smith's new pieces. The smith had also asked Norrington, as a friend, to see to their sale himself. Thomas breathed a sigh of relief when Anna triumphantly held up the letter and note, and Anna laughed up her sleeve as Thomas proceeded with an audible note of assurance in his voice to refute the woman's attempt at slander. By trying to damn Norrington, the woman who had written the letter had not only helped them further prove their father's worth, she had given an excuse for the grizzled sailor's testimony, which had been the most troubling piece of evidence. Anna smiled at her father, her hopes high for an acquittal.
The last witness was Gillette, and he, as Anna had expected and trusted, swore repeatedly that Norrington was a good man and had never done anything in his career to merit being stripped of his hard-earned rank. In fact, Anna heard him mutter on his way back to his seat, "What he deserves is a promotion." She was glad that Gillette had not said that before the judges and possibly angered them, but she was also glad that he'd thought it.
Corry, face red and jowls quivering, got to his feet after Gillette sat down. "Will the accused and the counsel for the defense please leave the room." It was not a question, but Anna scarcely minded the order – the furious look on the Rear Admiral's face was worth it. With a secret smile, she gathered up the papers that, in the course of the court-martial, had been strewn over the table, put them back into the leather portfolio she'd held them in, and stood up. Thomas inconspicuously tugged at Norrington's arm, and the commodore rose and followed his children from the room. The heavy door made a slight boom as it closed behind them – Anna heard a key turn in the lock. She was suddenly reminded of being locked in the Black Pearl's hold, and from one look at Thomas' face she could tell that he had remembered the same experience.
Then her mind was jolted out of the past as Norrington suddenly spoke. "What on earth possessed the two of you to come down here and – and –" For once in his life, Norrington was without words.
Anna swallowed and looked up at him. "Father, you shouldn't be so surprised," she said mildly. "We have, after all, been studying your case since you told us about this."
"Yes, but that's an entirely different thing than coming here to be my defense!" Norrington answered. "I didn't want any of you to have to see this! No children should see their father treated so." He sighed heavily and leaned against the door. "And that Corry, of all men, should be a judge..."
"Why does he hate you so much?" Thomas asked, curious. "We could tell when we came in to present ourselves as your defense."
Norrington's head snapped up, and he stared with wide eyes at them. "You came here – and braved Corry – to be my counsels for defense?"
"It's no more different than interrogating a pirate who wants to do something else," Anna remarked offhandedly. She smiled up at Norrington and added, "We are your children, after all."
Then she stared, amazed, as for the first time in her life, Anna saw Norrington's eyes suddenly grow bright with tears. "Father!" she cried, now very shaken. Norrington simply did not cry – that was a fact you could wager your life on. "Father, are you all right –" Before she could finish her sentence, Norrington had reached out and swept her and Thomas both up in the fiercest hug she had ever gotten from him. He didn't say anything, but Anna could feel his efforts not to cry, and she stayed silent too. She reached up and hugged him back, closing her eyes against the tears that suddenly threatened to leak out.
In the back of her mind Anna heard the door unlock. It seemed that Norrington heard it too, for he released his children and surreptitiously wiped his eyes as the door opened. A man in navy uniform, presumably the one who had locked the door behind them, ushered the three of them in.
Anna's heart began to flutter. A naval officer's daughter, she knew the procedure for announcing the guilt of innocence of a court-martialed officer. If judged innocent, his sword would be placed on the judges' table with the hilt facing the accused. If judged guilty, the sword blade would face the man. As she entered, her eyes sought the judges' table, her heart thumping wildly, so loud she could have sworn they could hear her in England...
The hilt faced Norrington.
Anna could not help herself. She let out a whoop of glee and threw her arms around her father again, her feet lifting off the floor and kicking around as though she were dancing. Thomas sagged, white-faced with relief, and then grabbed Norrington as well in another embrace. Anna looked at her father and saw his face alight like it had not been since the Mercury returned. His eyes were bright, and his smile was like an exuberant child. He pulled Anna and Thomas to him, and he laughed. Anna had rarely in her life heard her father laugh, and the sound fell like a blessing on her ears.
The formalities were over quickly. A grudging and plainly outraged Corry mumbled the words confirming the acquittal as fast as he could, and Stonebush presented Norrington with his sword again, a spark of relief in the captain's eyes. Anna was pleased that she had judged him right, but she was hard put to care about anyone other than Norrington at the moment. They practically flew out of the room, arms linked, all three with huge smiles on their faces.
They had made it out of the building before Anna remembered Jack. Cold fear gripped her all over, and she stopped, frozen, and clutched at Norrington's arm. "Father!" she gasped. "Father, I forgot – the pirates, they're going to be hung!"
The smile faded from Norrington's face, and he looked down at his daughter with unfathomable sadness in his eyes. "Anna, they're pirates –" he tried, not entirely believing his past, never-fail excuse himself.
She would have none of it. "And they helped save us all!" she protested. "Without them we would never have been able to win the colony back!" Angry tears started in her eyes – every moment they stood arguing was a moment to save Jack that was wasted. "Please," she begged in little more than a whisper.
Norrington was unprepared for the emotions that washed over him. First was his wish to help his daughter – she had helped him in a way that went far past filial duty – followed by acknowledgement that she was right. The citizens on their own would never have worked up the courage to overthrow the French, and no one could deny that it had been the pirates' careless bravery that had carried the day. And lastly, unbelievably, Norrington found within himself a regret that they should die. They were lawless, yes, and they stole whatever they thought they could get away with – but besides that, they were brave, steadfast, loyal. They had pledged themselves to a cause that they could only lose in aiding. In fact, Norrington admitted only partially unwillingly, they had many qualities that he himself had striven to attain.
And Sparrow cared about Anna, he added to himself, far more than Norrington would have liked, but there it was. And, more than that and perhaps more importantly, Anna cared about Sparrow. He, Commodore Norrington, had the power to stop the executions of the brave and lawless pirates, and his beloved daughter would never forgive him if he did not try.
Norrington closed his eyes for a moment, and gritted his teeth. What he was about to do contradicted nearly every moral fiber in his body – but it felt right to him. For some obscure reason he could not understand, it felt right.
He turned to Anna. "Where are they?"
Anna's eyes brightened, and her breath came in and out as gasps of shocked relief. "Probably the jail, or being taken to the square," she breathed. "Will said the executions were postponed – because of your court-martial."
Norrington set his jaw. He could not believe what he was doing. Perhaps I'm going mad, he thought dryly. "Let's go, then," he said, and started down the street to the public square.
Anna glanced at a startled Thomas, surprised herself – then snatched her unwieldy skirts up in both her hands and ran after Norrington, her brother on her heels.
Author's Note: Okay, I unreservedly apologize for taking this long! I've got the next chapter already written, though, so I'll post it as soon as this one gets up. Many many apologies again!