Chapter Eight: Checkmate

As if it weren't hard enough keeping a straight face festooned in lilac tights and matching frilly cravat, Jack had to stare at the bloody whelp all afternoon.

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

And though the unexpected gaming appointment with Governor Swann and his military escort didn't readily seal his demise, certainly the boy would send him to hell in a hand basket. He considered it a miracle that he'd gotten this deep into the belly of the beast. Weaker men would have floundered. Jack tightened his grip around the only comfort and lifesaver at his disposal, a snifter of brandy. He'd never been much of an aficionado when it came to brandy, particularly when rum was so abundant. But right now, the strong amber liquid was the only thing saving him from almost certain doom.

In all reality, it was rather pleased to see a familiar kind face. After Norrington's convincing little prank, he had half expected the executioner himself to come barge through that parlor door with a noose in hand. It seems neither the Commodore nor his employer were onto his deception.

Yet.

Will and Jack exchanged several conspiratorial looks. Contorting his face as he did, Will's head looked about ready to burst like a tomato, red and shiny. Jack feared his head would do the same if subjugated under these conditions much longer. To have one's head spontaneously explode all over a government official seemed a fitting and welcome end to such roguery.

"Here, over here!" Swann waved to a marbled chess table as he lined up the pieces, to the best of his knowledge. Jack certainly wasn't going to correct the man, as he himself didn't know a pawn from king. Gracefully, he slid into a seat and narrowed his skillfully haughty stare on the perplexed blacksmith.

Will glowered back, none to happy with having to play out such a farce before his very own relative. Had he known he was to endure an afternoon of merry-making with the pirate under these conditions, he would have been far more reluctant to respond to his father-in-law's call. This not only compromised their 'expertly concocted' plan, but their very lives as well. Both men were walking a very fine line, and Will sure as hell hoped Jack knew it.

All they had to do was shut up and look pretty. It worked before. It could work again.

Will was first to move, advancing a white pawn forward. As Will gave a nod to his opponent, it dawned on him that Jack, conceivably, had never played a game of chess in his life. Perhaps he, for once, had the high ground. A shame no money was involved, for Jack had won many a shilling (and once on a very stagnant evening in the Grenadines, his very own pants) off Will in cards. Jack's poker face was not a force to be reckoned with. Though if the quizzical look on the scallywag's freshly shaven face proved evidence, they were royally screwed.

After a reluctant grunt, Jack plucked his black king and moved it clear cross the board, into the vacant space Will had abandoned in his last move.

"You can't-" Will squinted at the board, counting the squares Jack's king had recklessly bounded over. "That's an illegal move, Captain."

Jack blinked repeatedly as the chessboard, and then looked up at Will as if he could see right through him. "Are not you familiar with ze... French rules?" Jack's accent was astoundingly convincing... to a poor blacksmith barely into of his twenties who had never met a Frenchman in his life short of the day he abducted one. Was the worldly Governor Swann equally as convinced?

"French rules?" Will asked after a skeptical pause.

Jack spoke into his brandy as he sipped it. "Oui."

"How charming!" The Governor exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "It must be all the rage in England nowadays, though... I suppose you've not been back for years." He cast a somewhat merciful look Will's way.

Swallowing the quip on the tip of his tongue, Will managed a half-hearted smile. "Yes, many years, Governor. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with such rules. Perhaps Captain Briault could teach me?"

Two sets of eyes, one from the elated Governor and the other from his less than thrilled son-in-law settled on the stranger. "But of course!" Jack blurted out nervously, but quickly regained his composure. "Though I fear I may play too roughly and viciously for this little... garçon."

Will just barely restrained himself from giving Jack a swift kick right in his stupid purple tights.

Though, Governor Swann found it all utterly amusing. "Will is not one to shy from battle, Jacques. Why, once, the strapping young lad fought off a rather unsavory band of pirates, did you not, boy?"

A sly smile of retribution curled Will's lips as he moved his bishop diagonally onto a black square. "Filthy and dimwitted scoundrels, the lot of them, Sir."

The phony Frenchman bristled noticeably at the comment, only serving to deepen Will's smile.

"Oh, are zey?" Jack feigned vague interest as he puffed his chest up beneath a delicately tailored crimson coat. "A scruffy bunch, to be sure, but it seems ze ladies far prefer such scoundrels over, oh, I don't know..." His waving hand was accompanied by a smug sneer. "...blacksmiths, or other men of such innocuous occupations."

Before Will could spit out a retort, Governor Swann beat him to it. "William here, is a blacksmith and had not the slightest bit of ill fortune in acquiring my daughter's hand. She's assured me on a number of occasions, he's quite the charmer."

Jack clasped a limp hand to his chest in feigned apology as Will fumed on across the chess table. "Are you a blacksmith? I had not ze slightest clue."

The hell you did, Will wanted to shout but rather managed to say, "Of course you didn't. I could not expect a well-regarded Frenchman to have heard of such matters. And, I never got to ask, Captain, what are you doing in Port Royale?"

Jack skillfully avoided the question with an all-encompassing shrug, as if to say 'No reason at all'. Oh, but there was a reason. And a damned fine one at that.

Turning his attention back to the game at hand, Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose in contemplation of his next move. Snagging the black chess piece that he silently dubbed the 'pointy hat chap', he delicately rested it in place of one of Will's white 'castley things'. With a contented sigh, Jack settled back into his chair and gave his opponent a victorious smirk. "Stalemate!"

A grunt of surprise escaped Will's lips as he struggled up in his seat. Darting wearily between the recently moved chess pieces, he spoke. "That would be 'checkmate', Captain." At Will's correction, Jack merely shrugged indifference. "And I'd be inclined to agree with you, had you compromised my king."

"French rules." Jack reminded him with an arrogant snort. "To compromise a queen is far more dangerous for king and country."

Will's brows must have gone clear to the ceiling. He would have protested once more, but took the opportunity to lay rest to this stunt for now. And Jack was already preoccupied with draining the contents of his half consumed snifter of brandy.

"My, and in only three move?" Governor Swann lifted a monocle and began to examine the chessboard in close proximity. "Absolutely astonishing!"

"Indeed." Will scowled at Jack now that the Governor's attention was elsewhere. Jack deftly countered by sticking his tongue out in a triumphant taunt.

Over the course of the two more rousing rounds of French Rules chess, the two of them managed to conceal various vulgar hand gestures and faces behind the Governor's back.

Both men were more than gracious to take their leave when the Governor granted it them. Jack had managed to make a jackass out of himself, no doubt much as Briault would have. Will had only managed to maim and shred the inner lining of his coat pocket as he had clawed at it, rather than claw the stupid smile from Jack's face, as he so desired to do.

Two rather young footmen escorted both men off the Governor's property. Once outside the large gates, Will kept a brisk pace, wanting putting as much distance between himself and the infuriating pirate as possible. Unfortunately, Jack skipped along side the boy with ease.

"That was the most fun I've had since-"

"Since you humiliated me last, oh, say three days ago?" Will hissed through clenched teeth.

Jack placed a lithe finger against his chin as his eyes rolled skyward in contemplation. "Aye, actually... I do believe you're right. Now that was a sight ta behold!"

Determined to keep his voice down, Will clamped his own jaw even tighter. "Have you even the slightest inkling how close we came to utter ruin?"

Tugging on the sleeves of his waistcoat, Jack merely shrugged his shoulders in indifference. He, so often, had been to the point of utter ruin and beyond that it did little to dissuade him. There was no time to sulk as pressing matters needed attending. "Bring the Pearl around to Hunts Bay at eight bell in the mornin'."

Will opened his mouth to smart off once more, but held his tongue. "H-Hunts Bay? Is that where you are to drop the... umm, goods?" He whispered the last word, as a boy would do a childhood secret.

"Aye, the majority of it." Jack saw little reason to inform his companion on the fact that only two out of three containers were to be sold. The boy hadn't much of a penchant for rum anyhow. "We're almost home free, boy!" Jack slapped Will on the back, hoping to lighten his spirits. "Come high noon tomorrow, you and I will be swimmin' in more sterling silver than we know what ta do with!"

Author's Note: For all those reviewers out there, I love you. Platonically. From everything to fueling some much needed inspiration to catching mispellings (XtineSparrowDepp's got a damn keen eye. Thanks!) to just making me happy, you guys are the icing on the cake o' fan fiction.