The crude sign along the wall - for those with the letters to read it - read ANY PORT IN A STORM. But "Big Peg's" was the name by which Will had found the place, stumbling heartsick into its yellow warmth, and the name Jack had used with appreciation when speaking of its charms.
"You'll live, mate. You got friends in high places-" Will had flinched from that, but Jack had pressed on, remorseless - "you'll live. You'll walk free when we reach port."
He'd been adamant on that point when Will himself had been far from certain, until in the end there had been a kind of comfort in it. He'd extended no such assurance as to his own fate, shrugging it off with practised flippancy or jest, and the inevitable two-edged quip: "Son, what do you expect? I'm Captain Jack Sparrow-"
Jack Sparrow, whom Norrington could never afford to let free. Whose reputation would close steel doors around him like a trap. Who would be guarded day and night to the gallows-foot itself. Jack was no fool. He'd known it long before Will had.
But he'd turned all Will's concerns aside, rhapsodising instead in his own half-drunken brand of eloquence on the wonders of Big Peg's, the mysteries of the East, or simply on the ever-changing moods of the sea. Only Jack could have wrung poetry out of a cheerful, roaring dump like this, Will thought now ruefully, reaching unsteadily for the bottle in front of him. The liquor wasn't up to much, either. But if you poured enough down your throat, you started to forget.
Forget the intensity of Jack's unspoken grip in the darkness, the wordless fierce embrace that told Will more, now, than he'd wanted to know. Any port in a storm... and Jack had faced that coming storm alone, with open eyes and all his pride, and nothing but Will to cling to, two reeking cadavers in the black pit with no bridge between them but the basic human gift of touch. Will, who'd been alive, and Jack, who - he understood now - had already steeled all his strength to that last hard drop.
It had been the clutch of a drowning man. That much, at least, he'd sensed, uncomprehending; been relieved when Jack freed his hold and stepped back, seemingly steady as ever in the gloom.
"Now, when you hit the dockside at Port Royal-" His favourite topic. Familiar irritation washed over Will, dislodging the anchorless fear from that moment of desperation. Jack Sparrow was back on his hobby-horse again, and all was well with the world.
"Jack, I've told you, I'm not interested. I have to live there afterwards... remember? I can't just get roaring drunk, smash my way into a house or two, and leave on the tide-"
The old half-serious wrangle, both of them playing out their parts: Jack as tempter, himself as youthful moralist. The truth, as ever, lay somewhere in between.
At least, given Jack's aptitude for elaborate embroidery, not to mention outright fabrication, he had to assume it did... And he'd had to fetch old Master Brown home from the ale-houses often enough, of late. If the vivid palette of pleasures hymned by Jack's silver tongue truly existed, Will had thought, he'd surely have set eyes on them somewhere along the way.
Oh, but he had. He knew that now, with the warm glow of the second bottle inside him, and a rich honey-gold sheen riding high over the world all around. But he'd seen it with the eye of sober disapproval, and he'd missed the whole point-
Big Jeb, beside him at the table, swayed, and Will flung a muzzy, affectionate arm around him to keep him from pitching forward into his empty mug, linking hands with old Caley on the big man's other side. Jeb and Caley. He grinned enormously, loving them both. Best friends in the world. Never seen them before - never meet them again - but best friends in the world, all the same. Any man who bought your drink was the best. And when you bought his drink, that made you the best. All best together, win or lose.
The pile of copper and silver on the table was wavering in Will's direction again. Some native measure of caution amid the pleasurable fumes in his brain had helped him stick to games of foolery and pure chance: which fly would land first? which way would a penny fall? He'd won a little, all but lost everything he had, plunging deeper and deeper in the gambler's lustful abandon, then by some run of chance won it all back, and more. The money meant nothing. It was the gamble that counted... and he'd never have been a match for a card-sharp, even when sober. Best to keep clear of the cards and fleece himself by his own folly.
His pockets were empty, the money was on the table, the drink was in his belly with a fine plate of highly-flavoured stew to keep it company, and he was fine, fine, fine, adrift on a rose-coloured sea of song and laughter, where every man was his friend and every woman had welcoming eyes. Take Big Peg, now. A queenly creature with eyes like violets and a body generous beyond measure, the curves of her spilling at neck and hip like the ripening swell of an island rising at dawn...
Half-recognised, the rhythms of Jack's own eloquence rolled within him, painting everything anew in ardent life. He'd come to this place to keep a promise; a promise he'd barely even known he'd made.
o-o-o
"You're not listening."
Jack had been no more than a silhouette in the dark, tangled hair shrouding the outline of his bent head, but Will could picture precisely the caricatured look of exasperation that would be playing on his face; mimic the weary chirp of the next line. They'd been shut up too long down here. He wasn't sure how much more of Jack's company he could take. Port Royal - well, whatever happened in Port Royal, it would be a change.
"You're not listening," Jack had pointed out again, aggrieved at the other man's lack of response. "You really-"
"-need to get a life, mate," Will had snapped in unison, still off-balance from that earlier, unheralded drowning grasp, and achieved a moment's rare silence. He pushed his luck. "Tell me, Jack, has it ever occurred to you that there might be more to life ashore than tall tales, taverns, and dice? That some of us actually like it that way?"
Jack had rocked back on his heels, apparently giving this novel idea full consideration. For a few instants at least.
The familiar slurred drawl held absolute conviction. "No - I reckon some of you just don't know what you're missing."
Will had turned away again with audible impatience, hearing the faint rattle of movement behind him as Jack scratched at something on his neck; they were both verminous by now, and only the jail-bird reek of his own scent could have drowned out that of his companion. Maybe they'd get a wash, at least, before they went into court, to avoid offending the high-ups' noses...
"Be a pity for a man to go to Davy Jones with never another wild night to his credit," Jack said softly from out of the dark. "Pity for the both of us, it seems to me."
"Tell you what," Will had flung back, unaccountably needled, "the next time I'm strolling down the streets of home with a few free hours I'll make a point of finding Big Peg's for the two of us - how's that? I'll drink a toast on your behalf and one on mine, and one to old Davy himself, and we'll consider honour satisfied and the point taken - agreed?"
He hadn't, at that moment, envisioned any future for either of them save the waiting dock and the gallows beyond, for all Jack's airy assurances, and the words were bred out of pure annoyance. But Jack had merely chuckled. "Done. I'll hold you to that - and an embrace on my account to Big Peg besides-"
"What?" Will, who'd witnessed Jack's idea of an appealing woman in Tortuga - not to mention his likely reception - almost bit his tongue.
"On my account - see?" As ever, the voice was - on the face of it - maddeningly reasonable. "Now if so be as you were passing by, surely you wouldn't grudge a greeting from a shipmate to an old friend? There's only one Peg, and you'll not miss her. Just drop my name and she'll see you're treated right..."
He hadn't heard the pleading note in it... then. Hadn't understood what Jack was trying to ask. It had taken a cool phrase from Norrington, of all people, to do that.
o-o-o
Whatever form of excess he himself would have chosen... He'd stood under the gate-arch at the fort and watched the tail of the big grey fade into the blur that was the rain. Then he'd turned away, down the rutted street beside the wall, toward the dockside and the sailors' taverns that clustered there. Big Peg's - the old 'Port in a Storm' - had not been the first he'd come across, nor the largest. But it had undoubtedly been the loudest inside.
One wild night, Will had thought, pausing on the threshold. Welcome and warm... He'd touched the scar from the blow that had driven it home; understood why Jack had done as he had. One wild night: his first. Jack's last. He knew now what that plea had been. One night of his life - for them both.
Elizabeth was very far away now; and his own drab existence, with its workaday rules and loyalties. Shades of homespun, brown and grey, with never the gold and scarlet or snapping black that trailed their drunken glories of promise here under the rafters.
Any port in a storm, Will thought again, feeling a foolish grin begin to spread at what was suddenly the funniest joke he'd ever heard. He beamed across at old Caley over Jeb's shaggy, snoring head, surprised to find the bottle between them empty.
But Caley's attention had been snared by a passing girl and a glimpse of gartered stocking, and Will swayed to his feet, remembering at the last minute to gather up his winnings. Stray coppers spun down to the rushes at his feet, each the price of a quartern loaf or a measure of charcoal for the forge, and some far-back corner of sturdy sense sent him to fumble after them. But the movement sent a sudden intoxicating rush to his head and he was sprawled against the bench, laughing helplessly, as Big Peg swept across the room.
Now there was a woman who could deal a fine slap, Will thought, laughter still bubbling up as he struggled to his feet, prompted by a faintly-urging recollection. Slap you into next Tuesday, most likely. The prospect was enchanting. Look at her move... all the curves of her sails set and drawing, surging like the crest of an oncoming wave...
The memory of Elizabeth's lost, elusive sheen flashed briefly, minnow-like, across the shallows of his mind, leaving only the constant half-drowned ache. She was out of his class. She always had been... and she'd traded her hand away to another man. Will stepped out into Peg's path with surprising grace, proffering the hopeful passport of Jack Sparrow's name, and slipped both arms about the abandon of her body, taking the wine-scented intimacy of the promised kiss.
You could lose yourself, in a woman like that. And a few minutes later, with the explanations sorted out and the ringing mark of her palm fading on his cheek, Will Turner found himself doing just that.
Rain spattered sharply against the single horn-pane of the window, like a tattoo rattling across a drum-head's tightly stretched skin, and he drifted back to faint, pleasantly-aching consciousness of the feather-bed's warmth and the muffled howl of the wind in the chimneys above. For a moment, half-expecting the hard straw ticking of his mattress in the forge, he was uncertain where he was.
Then the memory of Jack's dark face livid in death shot him bolt upright, shedding covers in the icy air of the little room. The bite of the cold on his body went unnoticed. Details of the evening's events were starting to come back, in mercifully-blurred clarity.
Will swung himself abruptly out of bed, ignoring the muffled protests at his side, and padded barefoot across the boards to the window, pulling the casement ajar to the accompaniment of a rain-laden gust. If the 'Port in a Storm' stood where he thought it must lie...
High across the sheltered waters of the anchorage, the shoulder of Lookout Point could just be made out against the lowering sky. Will stared out into the dark for a long moment, straining to see movement or even the faintest glimmer of dim, bobbing light. Between one instant and another he thought he caught a tiny lantern-speck. But fresh curtains of rain swept across the waterfront, and he could not be sure.
The waves would be wild at the cliff-foot, and it would be pitiless for the living up on the Point tonight. Imagination painted him Norrington's tall figure held rigid by the lash of etiquette as rain streamed from his shoulders, while the mule, head-down, endured patiently, and soaked and cursing men worked to cover the lonely grave. Jack would not be the only one out there wrapped cold and stiff in his cloak, Will thought wryly, his own eyes crinkling in amusement that unconsciously echoed a certain wicked grin.
Candlelight scraped behind him, and he turned back, struggling for a moment to get the window shut.
Her hair, beneath the white-frilled cap, was warm brown, he'd discovered, and as generous as the rest of her. The first, hesitant moments over, she'd found the way to all that needed to be said. The scent of her was sharp, of stale wine and warm flesh and - unexpectedly - of soap.
Maybe Captain Jack Sparrow had had the last laugh on them all, at that. Will shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the clinging fumes of all he had drunk. There would be a reckoning in the cold morning light soon enough; he'd fetched his master home from enough sodden bouts to know that. There would be life to face, and to go on.
But the night was young, and the candle cast a warm circle of welcome that walled away the storm. With a little laugh that shook him, Will cast off sobriety and responsibility for one last time and came back across the chamber to slip between the covers, into the unquestioning billows of Peg's soft clasp. Unspoken, Jack's memory burned brightly between them against the grey beyond.
Live twice as big, love twice as long,
Work twice as hard - play all of your cards
Live for me...
'Live for Me', Blue Öyster Cult 1998