Tortuga, it turned out, was a rock. A small, wild, almost uninhabited island. As we approached it the only signs of life I could see were concentrated to one port in a small cove.
But from the way Jack talked about it you would have thought it was Athens in the Golden Age of Greece.
I had spent the remainder of the journey searching for any signs of food I could find below deck (with meagre results) and by pondering the mysteries of my past and of the medallion that hung around my neck. There was also quite a bit of time spent worrying about Elizabeth, I could not get it out of my head that if she died because she did not have the medallion, it would be all my fault. I went over and over the events of the pirate attack in my head, torturing myself into believing that had I acted differently, or just handed the gold over to the pirates, that we would not be in this predicament.
It was from these happy thoughts that I was interrupted from at Jack's exuberant call of "Land ahoy!"
Night was falling rapidly as we approached the settlement, gliding like a swan on the calm waters. As we neared the lights of the town I saw a grin on Jack's face as he and Will pulled on various ropes as they prepared to come into land. His excitement was evident and I walked over to where he was steering the boat.
"Anything I can do?" I offered, not wanting to appear like a complete invalid just standing there watching.
Jack gave me a look and raised his eyebrow. "I very much doubt it." He said with a grin, then with a gesture of his hand towards the rock, "Just lie back and feast you eyes on the finest known port in the Caribbean."
As I looked I could hear the mingled sounds of laughter, shouting and music drifting across the water along with the not so occasional bang accompanied by small flashes of light.
I looked back at Jack sceptically. "So what's so good about this port again?"
He didn't answer but turned his gaze towards the port, the grin on his face was wide enough to reveal gold teeth and his triumphant posture made it appear like he was a king returning to his kingdom in glory.
And, I thought with a smirk, with his ego I wouldn't be surprised if that's how he saw himself too.
In what seemed like no time at all, the three of us were walking down the main street of Tortuga; Jack striding forward eagerly, obviously taking up the violent and loud atmosphere with some delight, while Will and myself lingered a few steps behind looking around shocked and, myself at least, slightly disgusted.
I could not imagine a place viler and more utterly lacking in decency and morals.
Everywhere I looked I could see drunkards drenching themselves in rum or some other alcoholic beverage, men shooting pistols into the air or even at bottles placed atop of people's heads, and women flaunting themselves openly.
As we walked I saw Jack snatch the walking stick off a passing drunk, who staggered for a few steps before falling to the ground.
"Jack!" I cried, bordering on stopping to see if he was alright.
"What?" He asked, stopping and turning to look from me and then to the prone figure. With a wave of his stick he dismissed both the man and my indignant outrage. "'Ee would of collapsed anyway. But more importantly," He said in a more serious voice and holding up a forefinger to accentuate his next sentence. "It is indeed a sad life that has not breathed deep this sweet, proliferous scent that is Tortuga, savvy?" He turned to thump a hand on Will's back. "What do you think?"
Will looked around with a look of disgust before replying; "It'll linger."
I don't think Jack picked up on Will's tone.
"I'll tell you mate, if every town in the world were like this one, no man would ever feel unwanted. Or any woman, eh, luv?" He added with a sly grin watching my alarmed attempts to fend off a groping drunk. With a quick poke of his stick he poked the offending drunk in the direction of another woman. "Stick close to the blacksmith." He said patronisingly.
I decided that that would be a good idea and hastily grabbed Will's offered arm.
"Quite a town..." He observed quietly to me.
I nodded my agreement but was distracted by a thin woman in a red dress with rouged lips and red hair walking towards us from a group of matronly women standing next to a building with the sign 'Buy a Bride'.
"Scarlett!" Cried Jack as she reached him and I let out a loud laugh as Scarlett slapped him across the cheek making his head whip round.
"Not sure I deserved that." Remarked Jack as she walked away.
Another woman, this one in a white dress and blond hair, immediately came up to Jack in Scarlett's wake.
"Giselle!" I thought I could detect a hint of apprehension underneath his tone.
"Who was she?" Giselle demanded, motioning her head in the direction of Scarlett.
"What?"
"That was Scarlett." I jumped in gleefully, earning Jack another slap.
"I may have deserved that." He admitted.
I didn't try to hide the amusement on my face. "You know," I said to Jack with a grin, "I think I'm beginning to warm up to this town."
He narrowed his eyes and smirked at me before continuing down the street.
I raised my eyebrows in amusement to Will, who looked as though he was fighting back laughter himself. "So what'd you do to piss off those women anyway, Sparrow?" I asked, filled with sudden curiosity.
He paused and spun around. "It would appear that we have different ways of defining the term 'honest'."
I raised my eyebrows. "Now why doesn't that surprise me?" I mocked.
Jack studied me for a moment with narrowed eyes. "Well it t'would appear that I ain't the only one present with that problem, Miss Gateau."
I put my hands on my hip. I was getting sick of these constant connotations and opened my mouth to confront him, but he had already turned and was walking away.
Will looked around in a disheartened way at the men brawling in the streets. "How exactly are we meant to find a crew of decent sailors in this mob?" He asked Jack loudly.
"It just so happens that you know the man who knows the man who knows the finest sailors in all Tortuga." Jack boasted.
"Who?" I asked sarcastically and pointed to a man who had just fallen off a stack of barrels and was lying face down on the ground. "That man over there?"
Jack ignored me and led us out of the main hustle and bustle of the town. He passed his stick to Will, who passed it to me. I looked at it for a moment then dropped it unceremoniously to the ground.
Jack paused to pick up three buckets which were lying outside a door and handed one to me and one to Will.
Following his lead, we dunked them into a trough of water, filling them to the brim.
"What exactly are we going to do with these?" Asked Will suspiciously, causing Jack to grin.
We followed Jack's sauntering figure to behind a pub to where we found a man asleep on top of three large pigs. A nearly empty bottle of perhaps rum was lying next to the man and an ungodly stench accosted my nostrils, making me gag.
Jack looked at the man for only a moment before flinging the entire contents of his bucket onto the poor man with evident amusement, causing the man to splutter and sit up, knife drawn and cursing loudly.
"Curse you for breathing, you slack-jawed idiot!" He stopped when his eyes fell upon Jack. "Mother's love! Jack! You should know better than to wake a man when he's sleeping, s'bad luck!"
"Ah," said Jack with a grin, stepping forward and crouching down in front of the man. "But fortunately I know how to counter it. The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink. The man who was sleeping drinks it, while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking!"
I blinked, lost for a moment in the rapidity of Jack's speech. The man also took a minute to peer at Jack, confused, but quickly assented.
"Aye, that'll about do it!" He growled good naturedly as Jack pulled him to his feet.
As he took a step forward Will splashed the water from his bucket onto the already wet man.
"Blast! I'm already awake!" Shouted the man.
"That was for the smell." Will retorted calmly.
Jack looked from Will to the man as though this was completely acceptable, and the man shrugged.
"Miss Gateau…" Jack said invitingly, stepping me aside and motioning for me to spill mine.
"No, no." I said hastily, putting my bucket neatly down and stepping away from it. "I've… ah… heard it's bad luck to splash a man three times in one night."
The relief in Gibbs' eyes nearly made me laugh.
- - -
Once inside a small but very crowded pub, the man from the pigs, Gibbs as his name turned out to be, found his way to a table in a quiet corner while Jack headed to the bar to purchase the promised drink. Will positioned himself sullenly leaning against a pillar, close enough to the table to be in earshot.
I myself was busy gaping around the room, taking in the abundant amount of candles casting light on the brawling men and immodestly dressed women. My eyes widened in disbelief as they fell upon a goat that was happily sitting on top of the bar.
I felt Jack's arm wrap around my waist as he passed, holding in one hand two mugs of rum, and he unceremoniously led me over to where Will was standing.
"Keep a sharp eye on the lass." He instructed Will as he let go of me and continued onto Gibbs.
"I can look after myself, thankyou!" I retorted sharply.
"Not what worries me." He returned over his shoulder, leaving me to pout and take my place next to Will on the pillar.
"He doesn't trust you." He commented quietly, half questioningly.
I glanced over to where Jack was teasing Gibbs with the mugs. "I noticed."
"Should I?"
I looked at him, taken aback. "What do you mean? Of course should. Why wouldn't you?"
"Well, first you have no memory, then you are a kidnapped Governor's daughter, and now you are off to rescue a woman who you hardly know. Not to mention the fact that you risked your own life to save the life of a pirate, I can't help but feel a little uneasy, Miss Gateau."
He said the last part possibly a little too loud, for a large woman with abundant cleavage nearly bursting out of her dress, came and began to lavish herself onto Will.
"If ye'd be wanting Miss Gateau," she said with a loud giggle as she walked her fingers up Will's arm. "She's right over there." She pointed to a young woman sitting at the bar, deep in conversation with the man sitting next to her.
"That's Miss Gateau?" Asked Will, a shocked expression was on his face and he looking back and forth between us.
"Aye," the large woman purred in what I can only guess she thought of as seductively. She suddenly let out a laugh, high pitched and short. "Whoops, I wasn't s'posed to tell enyone 'at!"
I couldn't say anything, I couldn't even describe how I was feeling in words. I just gaped and stared at the woman whom I had been told was me. I didn't look at Will, didn't wait to see if his shocked expression changed into an accusing one.
I left him leaning against the column clumsily trying to fend off the woman's advances and crossed the room to the bar, avoiding the brawling drunks and pushing away any stray, groping hands.
I stood for a moment before the woman, Miss Gateau. Her dress was plain yet not revealing or immodest in anyway, her complexion was fair and her hair was dark. Black like mine was. I opened my mouth to say something, but could not find any words.
On noticing my presence she stopped talking to her companion and looked at me, sizing me up with one glance up and down my body.
I shook my head slightly, trying to force myself out of my stupor. "Uh… Miss Gateau…?" I uttered dumbly.
The man beside her stood up defensively, but her face remained calm. "Oui?"
Oh, god, she speaks French… of course she speaks French. "Uh…" How do I say 'can you speak English' again? "P…parlez-vous l'anglais?" I stuttered.
"Oui." She replied pertly.
I realised how stupid I must look standing there gaping and stammering. I swallowed and frowned in confusion. "Aren't… you're supposed to be kidnapped?"
She laughed but the man beside her bristled.
"You're a little young for a marine, aren't you?" He snapped.
"I'm not…"
Miss Gateau laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Did mon father send you?" She asked dryly in a heavily French accent.
I shook my head vigorously. "No, I… Jack said… They thought I was you…"
A sudden crash and a scream sounded from behind me, causing the raucous crowd to fall silent. I turned to see Will standing behind a kicked over table, brandishing his sword. A thin woman with her dress falling off her shoulder quickly hurried away from him into the crowds. I could see Jack and Gibbs still sitting at the table, muttering something. Jack was looking at Will with an expression of bemusement.
Suddenly there was too little air in the dense pub. The sea of noise and movement started up once more and I felt myself go dizzy. My hand went to my forehead in a dazed motion. The only thought in my head was to get out of there and I quickly stumbled away from Miss Gateau and the man, heading for the nearest exit and escaped from the smoky interior.
On the street waves of jeering faces leered at me but I hardly noticed them as I pushed my way past intoxicated bodies, turning into a dark alley beside the pub. I splashed my face with water from an open barrel and slid to the ground beside it. My body was shaking, my breath was coming in dry sobs. I let my head fall into my hands.
I wasn't Ebony Gateau.
The truth had never been bitterer. I was back to being just Ebony. Lost and hopeless, without identity or any chance of finding it. I shuddered as I felt two tears roll down my cheek.
Why was I reacting like this? Had I actually believed myself to be Miss Gateau?
I let out a short laugh at my stupidity, then regretted it as I recollected that my dress did not like laughter, or any other kind of breathing other than very small breaths. I hated the dress, with a passion. I had only been forced to wear it due to the common belief that I was in fact the daughter of a Governor.
More tears fell as I remembered the events of that day, yesterday. It seemed so long ago since I had woken up in the forge, so long ago since Jack had held me at gunpoint and pronounced to the world that I was Miss Gateau, daughter of the Governor of Haiti.
Well at least I now understand the constant jibes about me calling myself Miss Gateau.
I froze as I heard footsteps coming in my direction and willed them to keep walking past me.
They didn't. Instead, they stopped in front of me, carrying with them the scent of rum and smoke.
"Miss Gateau?" Came the voice of Jack Sparrow with it's usual sneer on the name.
I seethed and pushed myself up off the ground, glaring at him.
With a quick movement of my hand I hit him across the face with a resounding slap.
"Don't you dare say you didn't deserve that!" I hissed at him furiously before turning and walking down the alley.
I heard him curse before starting to follow me.
I sped up.
"Miss Gateau!"
I spun around, my eyes narrowed. "Why are you calling me that, Sparrow?"
"As I recall, luv, it's been you who's been brandishing that name around town."
"No, Sparrow, that would have been you! And thanks a bloody lot for it too!" I shouted, unable to contain my anger.
"You could of denied it at any point, luv."
"Oh, you figure do you? At which point exactly could I have denied it? The point where you were holding me at gunpoint? Or the point where I didn't know any better than to accept the name? The point where I was so confused about who I was that I was willing to grab at any clue that would lead me to remember…" I turned away, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of seeing the tears that were now pouring down my face.
A pause.
"I'm afraid I'm not quite catching your drift, luv."
I sighed. "I woke up yesterday with no memory of who I was or where I was from. Nothing. Will found me lying on a beach, for God's sake!" I told him scathingly. "Then you come along and say that I'm 'Miss Gateau', and I'm taken in by the Governor and told that I fit the physical description. So what else am I meant to believe?"
Jack was silent for a moment.
I didn't turn around.
"Oh." He said at last.
"Oh." I mocked. "Thanks to you, Sparrow, I am stuck in a corset and Elizabeth has been kidnapped! If you hadn't been so eager to save your own neck at the expense of others'-"
"And how exactly is it my fault that poor Elizabeth got herself kidnapped?"
"Had you not named me a Governor's daughter, I would not have been in Governor Swann's house when the pirates attacked, and I wouldn't have-" I stopped abruptly. I had been about to mention the medallion.
"Yes?"
"…I wouldn't have told her that it was the gold they were after and she wouldn't have gone to Barbossa to negotiate, and thus, she wouldn't have been kidnapped." It was half true…
A wind blew and the cloud that was covering the moon parted exposing its waxing face and leaving a silvery light over everything.
I felt his breath stir my hair as he stepped up behind me so that his mouth was next to my ear. I looked away. "One more thing, luv, having lost your memory, how is it exactly that you knew the gold to be cursed, and the object of the pirates plunder?"
I swallowed and looked down, remembering the ghostly image of the skeletal hand holding the coin. How could I explain that? "The… pirates who attacked the house, they, ah, mentioned it." I lied.
I felt the metal of the medallion burn cold in my flesh. I did not mention it to Jack.
A cloud drifted across the sky to cover the moon once more and Jack stepped back. I let out a silent sigh of relief.
"Come on." He uttered darkly walking out of the alley.
I followed silently and he said nothing more.
I was led through the streets away from the crowds and brothels into a quieter part of town filled with closely packed houses.
As I walked I wiped my tear stained face with my hand. I did not try to think about anything, I hardly cared where we were going. All I wanted was to fall into the deep oblivion of sleep.
Jack stopped at a door and rapped sharply on the wood. He did not look at me.
I swallowed my shock as the door swung open to reveal none other than Miss Gateau. The real Miss Gateau, that is. She stood back to allow us entry, then swung the door shut with a bang. She barely afforded me a glance.
I had no time to ask any questions, even if I had thought that they might be answered, as Jack motioned for me to follow him as he walked through the house and up some stairs onto a second landing. I followed him down a corridor until he stopped at the third door on the left.
He opened it for me but as I tried to enter he threw an arm across the entrance blocking me.
He studied me without saying anything for a minute. His expression was unreadable.
Then he leaned in slightly. "Don't be thinking for a moment that I believe your reasons for coming on this voyage, luv. Truth of the matter is, I don't trust you."
I met his stare but said nothing and he moved his arm out of my way allowing me to enter.
I closed the door behind me and took out the medallion, holding it in my hand.
"Trust me, Jack," I whispered to the door. "The feeling's mutual."
Wheeee!!
I finished another chapter! And I'm actually very happy with how this one turned out! Yayness!!
By the way, in case anyone was wondering, the reason the real Miss Gateau speaks French is because Haiti was a French colony, and actually, Tortuga is just off the coast of Haiti.
…Now, a few short apologies, and many thanks are in order!
First of all, I am VERY sorry about the big, long, humungous gap before I posted the last chapter. Really sorry… I just sorta ran out of spark, and I couldn't decide how I was going to write it, and Will was giving me the shits, but hey, it's up now!
Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter Five:
CompleteOpposites: hehehe…. Yes, I do like my cliff hangers "Always leave them wanting more." Thanks for your review, it's great to here that my story is entertaining you.
Morph: Thankyou! So you think you know what's going to happen, eh? I hope you don't, I like keeping my readers guessing so you'll have to tell me if it's getting too predictable, he he.
Saiyan-cheetar-girl: Ouch, two projects! That really sucks, I hope you got them done, coffee is god. I've learnt (and am probably still learning) the procrastination lesson the hard way. Happy to help you stay awake though! I'm glad you think this story is original, hopefully it'll stay that way. I'm actually having a lot of fun with the vocab, even if it is sometimes a struggle to find the right words for Jack, but then again, I'm quite weird! Thanks for you review!
Cheekybrunette: yay! I'm glad it entertained you and you liked it! I have to agree with you on Melbourne being nicer than Sydney, apparently it's the most liveable city in the world, but then again, I am probably not the most impartial person.
Argh, I'm jealous! I want to have finished high school! What a lovely dream! I actually had a dream about Johnny D last night, he came to lunch and started playing with my dog and I took a photo of him with my camera. It would have been better had he been in his pirate costume at the time, but oh well. It was still nice. I hope you're having fun at Uni/TAFE!
Panny Savage: Yay! Thankyou, I'm glad you like it and that it's different. I'll try to keep it up!
JessieRose: Aw, wow, you think I'm a good writer! He he. Thankyou, I'm really glad you like it.
Devilslass: Oh god, whoops. Sorry, I didn't mean to make it that much of an evil ending… I just meant to give it a bit of an edge.. he he. Sorry about the time it took to update..
VagrantCandy: Thanks for your review, I think it may have reminded me about my story a bit, not that I had ever really forgotten… anyway… thanks!
And another special thanks to Devilslass and VagrantCandy for reviewing the last chapter before this (whatever number that was).
VagrantCandy: …and another update! So soon, too! Gasp, shock horror!
Devilslass: hehe, is this soon enough? I would have actually posted it yesterday but my internet is acting very temperamentally at the moment. Anyway, thanks for your review, and the drink!
Now… make me smile and push the happy, little blue button in the bottom left region of your screen and review! Love you all!