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Chapter 6
It was cool inside the shop, and dark. Anamaria touched the merchandise with a reverent finger, and knew she had found the right place.
She had left Newgate two days earlier filled with despondency, and almost ready to do as Jack Sparrow suggested and go back to the Caribbean. After changing back into her comfortable breeches and shirt, she had gone and got uncharacteristically drunk in the taproom of the 'Dagger'.
But Anamaria was not one to lose hope - something, she considered ironically, that she had learned from the formerly irrepressible Sparrow. And so the next day, with her head aching a little, she set out to find allies.
The innkeeper at the 'Dagger' had been a little help, directing her to a friend of his, "who might be able to help you". The friend had indeed been useful, and had nodded when Anamaria explained what she was looking for. So it was that on this morning, she had taken a ferry across the Thames and then paid for a seat on a cart heading east to the village of Greenwich.
There was building work going on here too, and several large naval vessels anchored along the riverbank. But once she had climbed down from the cart, Anamaria headed into the centre of the little village and swiftly found the shop with the hammer and anvil sign hanging outside it.
Now, she wandered around examining the beautiful swords hanging from racks on the walls, and remembering the day Jack Sparrow had received such a weapon. It had been sent in a wooden case to Tortuga, where - astonishingly - the owner of the 'Faithful Bride' had looked after it until Sparrow turned up. She wondered what had happened to the sword.
A door opened, and a skinny lad came in, wiping hands on a leather apron.
"Can I help you, sir?" he asked, politely.
Anamaria turned around. "I was hoping to speak to your master, if he is here?"
"He's workin', out back," said the boy. "I'll fetch him."
He disappeared, and returned in a few moments with a tall man, clad also in a leather apron with sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
"Jimmy said you were asking for me, sir?" the man began, before taking Anamaria in properly. He paused, and laid a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Go and finish polishing the dagger for my lord Tiversham, Jimmy."
"Yes, sir!" The apprentice cast a last, curious look at Anamaria and hurried away.
The swordsmith folded his arms. "Anamaria, wasn't it?"
"Aye. You have a good memory, Mr Turner." She took off her hat, and laid it aside.
"What brings you to Greenwich?" asked William Turner, one-time rescuer of Jack Sparrow. "I must confess, it's quite a surprise."
"Jack," she said, simply.
The corners of Turner's mouth turned up, as if he were suppressing a smile. "I've put the Caribbean, and all that happened there, behind me. I had my wife to think of. I haven't spoken to, or heard of, Jack Sparrow for five years."
"Next week," Anamaria said tightly, "they hang Jack Sparrow on Execution Dock. He is in Newgate."
"Oh." Turner looked away from her, and straightened a sword that was marginally out of place. "Well - I'm sorry, but I cannot say I am surprised. Except that he is still alive. I hardly thought he'd have survived this long."
"I need your help to get him out." She stared at him, defying him to avert his gaze again. "He would not listen to me."
Turner raised his eyebrows. "He wouldn't? Sounds unlike Jack Sparrow, to turn down an offer of escape." He shook his head. "I can't help you."
"You would see him dead?" Anamaria felt as though the deck was tilting away from her in a storm.
"Dead? No … but …" The swordsmith broke off as the door opened, letting in a blast of cold air and a fresh, perfumed scent along with a flurry of pale blue material.
"Will!" The newcomer hurried across to Turner, and planted a kiss on his cheek before looking round. "Oh, I beg your pardon - you've a customer."
"Madame Turner," Anamaria said.
Turner's wife, a slim, elegantly beautiful woman, turned to Anamaria. "Oh!" Her eyes narrowed. "Oh." She took off her gloves and folded them neatly together. "It's a long way from Port Royal."
The swordsmith took Mrs Turner's arm and steered her off to the side of the room, where their heads bent together and he evidently explained the situation. At the end of the talk, both Turners looked up again.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Mrs Turner asked, smoothly polite.
Two can play at this, Anamaria thought, and accepted with the same politeness.
Jimmy was called back to mind the shop, and Anamaria followed the Turners through into a neat and comfortably-appointed - but not overly lavish - parlour. There she was offered a seat, and Mrs Turner disappeared to fetch the tea.
Neither Turner nor Anamaria said anything whilst his wife was out of the room. Anamaria picked at her nails and thought of her nephew, safe under the sunny skies of Tortuga island. Turner seemed to be examining the scuffed toes of his boots.
Eventually, Mrs Turner returned with a tray, and proceeded to pour. She passed Anamaria a cup, and took a seat.
"So," she began, "you say Jack Sparrow is in Newgate Gaol?"
"Aye. And they be forging his gibbet now too," said Anamaria. "I cannot help him alone."
"No, you wouldn't be able to," Mrs Turner said, sipping tea. "To get people out of Newgate, you need power, or money."
"I have money."
Mrs Turner nodded. "Doubtless. But enough to pay off the executioner?"
Anamaria looked down at the tea in her cup, and swirled it a little.
"This isn't the Caribbean," he said. "And there are more important people here than Elizabeth's father - sorry, love - to get in the way of any daft escape plan. If I tried what I did in Port Royal, I'd hang too."
"And there's no ship here, to pick him up afterwards," Elizabeth Turner added. "What has happened to the Black Pearl?"
Anamaria explained, succinctly.
The Turners exchanged glances. "I'm sorry," William Turner said, after a moment. "I know what that ship meant to Jack."
"You cannot do," said Anamaria, growing tired of being polite. "You should do - your father knew it. But how much time did you spend aboard her?"
"Several days," Mrs Turner defended herself.
"No, you're right," Turner agreed. "We can't understand. But what you must understand, Anamaria, is that I have a respectable business here, and a family to support. I cannot risk that."
"We came back to England," Elizabeth Turner put in, "to start afresh. And Will has done well. Can you not see that?"
"It is Jack Sparrow!" exclaimed Anamaria, standing up. "Your father's closest friend."
"I got him out of prison once and off the gallows once," Turner returned. "Is that not sufficient? He's a pirate, for God's sakes; it's a miracle he's still alive now. I can't afford to pay for his release, and I can't afford to break him out."
Anamaria clapped her hat on her head. "Bien. I see. He hangs on Friday, should you wish to watch. If you change your mind, I have a room at the 'Dagger', on the street called Holborn. Bonne journée, m'sieu, madame." She nodded at them, and walked briskly out of the room.
She dreamed that night. The Black Pearl, with a full compliment of crew - Joshamee Gibbs, bewhiskered and jovial; silent Cotton and his talkative parrot; little Marty; the rest - was sailing under clear skies, her captain at the helm. The black sails were spread like stormclouds above their heads, and the ship forged through blue waters. Sparrow was singing the idiotic song Elizabeth Turner had once taught him, loud and off-key.
Anamaria looked down at her hands, and found that instead of coiling a rope they were knotting a noose. She called to Sparrow, to warn him, and found Admiral Norrington had replaced the captain at the helm, and his uniform was black.
The clouds had rolled in now, and the rain began to fall. But the Pearl's crew did not notice, continuing to unfurl sail after sail after sail. The ship picked up speed, rocking and rolling in the rough water, and Anamaria fought her way aft, searching for Sparrow.
"Jack!" she shouted. "Jack!"
Norrington turned empty eyes to her. "The Turners have him," he said, pointing over the stern. And sure enough, there was Jack Sparrow, bobbing in a longboat with the swordsmith and his wife. As Anamaria watched, he raised a hand to her - and then the boat was gone.