When Norrington woke again, he felt recovered. Oh he still hurt as though the anchor hawser were wrapped around his chest, squeezing, but the merciful detachment had fallen away, leaving him fully aware of his precarious and unpleasant position, and his duty to escape it by whatever method he could. He got up, gingerly, and investigated the cabin. Everything in it was grubby, and things lay scattered about in wanton untidiness - scarves spilling out of sea chests, curios and crusted plates on the floor, a ruby the size of a musket shot lying in the darkness beneath the swinging cot next to a stem of grapes that were well on their way to raisinhood.
Many of the lockers were empty; there were no charts, no weapons, no log book, though of course that would be because Sparrow had them in whichever of the officer's cabins he had removed himself to belowdecks. Nor could he find his shoes or coat, and his stockings seemed to have been cut up for bandages, though he discovered his cravat wedged into the window. He took it out and tied it, yearning for warm water and soap and fresh linen, while the wind rattled the frame and the keen hum of the rigging sang through the timber and spoke to him of recklessness and speed.
He was trying the door when it opened, and something azure and crimson exploded into his face with a flurry of wings. By the time he had fended the parrot off, the harmless looking elderly man who had come with it had set down his tray and pulled a pistol from his sash. "Awk! Dead men tell no tales!" cried the parrot, circling back to sit on its master's shoulder. "Once for a doubloon!"
Warily, Norrington waited for the inevitable demands, conscious of the round muzzle aimed at his stomach. Being shot was so much more pleasant without the anticipation beforehand. Indeed the expectation was almost worse than the experience itself. "Yes?" he said, growing impatient with the silence.
"Once for a doubloon!" said the parrot again, and fixed him with a tremendously self satisfied look. The man continued silent, but gestured towards the tray with his free hand. Taking his attention from the pistol with some difficulty, James investigated and found - by Hob! - coffee, ship's biscuit, and shaving tackle. Another evidence of decency he had no intention of spurning.
Ignoring the armed pirate, he sat and shaved. His hands shook with weakness but with concentration he only cut himself twice. Then he softened the biscuit in the coffee, ate and drank, and decided that even if today was the day of his death, it was starting off remarkably well.
When he had handed back the razor, the pistol was put away. It made him smile a little. He had thought himself too much a bleeding heart at times, for not throwing Sparrow in the brig during the voyage to the Isle of the Dead. But now he reaped the benefit of that kindness. Evidently, even in this case, one good turn deserved another.
The door was left open as the silent man departed. James set his hand to the latch, and paused. On the Dauntless, Sparrow knew he would not be assaulted or murdered except by Norrington's command, but Norrington had no such assurance here - indeed he had already been nigh killed out of turn. Whether Sparrow wanted him alive or not, a pirate captain in situations of peace had little sway over his men; could not tell them where to go, what to do, or who to spare. Jack had been a great deal safer on the Dauntless than James was on the Pearl.
Nevertheless, he was not going to cower in the cabin like a landsman in a storm. He straightened his back, winced as the posture pulled at raw scars, opened the door and dared the quarterdeck.
The sun was rising, the wind nor-nor-east. The Pearl's great press of canvas bore her eagerly forward at a rate of - he thought - about 9 knots. Most likely heading toward the Antilles, and at this speed due to make landfall in less than a week.
It was comforting to see proper sailcloth above, rather than the eerie, tattered sheets that had borne the ghost ship into Port Royal. Even now, the thought of her sailing beneath that cobweb seemed more unnatural to him than the walking skeletons of the crew. Didn't Ezekial say that God could raise up dry bones and make them live? The possibility of corpse-pirates therefore had solid Biblical authority behind it. But a ship could not - should not be able to make way when her sails were nets of rottenness. It flew in the face of all reason, and he was glad to see it over with; the natural order of things prevailing once more.
The decks were not even tolerably clean, and there was not a spark of polished brass to be seen. But the pirates now looking at him with expressions of glowering gloom had an air of fallen gentility about them; old men worn and withered by the sea, faded and twisted as driftwood. He noticed his waistcoat on the back of a handsome black man, and his wig on the head of a stooped grandfather in a gentleman's frock coat. Good grief! How did they man the topgallants with these ancients?
Looking up, he studied the rigging. Old fashioned as the crew, but seamanlike for all that. Evidently they managed - and he had known men of sixty, seventy even, to be sprightly and nimble enough, at times. Even so, there would have been younger men in Tortuga eager to sail with a pirate as notorious as Sparrow, particularly once he could show them the Interceptor, taken almost single handed from beneath Norrington's very nose. The pirate could have had a crew as lethal as his last...
He became aware that just as he was staring curiously down on the men, so they were staring back at him with open malice. He could not stop himself from smiling slightly. The crew of the Dauntless could outdo them for surly staring any day. There was nothing quite like a waister with a post shore leave hangover for a truly heart stopping evil glare.
"Alright ye lubbers, back to work!" Gibbs stepped up to the quarterdeck. "Fine body of men, eh?" he said, with some pride.
"You chose them?"
"Aye, handpicked the lot of em," reaching under his arm, Gibbs proffered James' hat - it was crushed out of shape and had a mysterious stain soaked into one corner, which smelled strongly of cat, but he put it on gratefully nevertheless and sighed with relief at the shade. "Jack's none too clever at knowing the difference between 'charming scoundrel' and 'utter bastard' between you and me."
Norrington's smile broadened slightly, and saddened to the same degree. Sparrow, well, he chose this life and seemed at home in it as the flying fish - absurd little creatures - were in the sea. If he was caught and killed it would be inevitable as a fish being hooked - a very mild matter of regret. But Gibbs... in another life Gibbs might have been master of the Dauntless by now, a trusted and valued man. It was going to pain him to hang Gibbs.
"As is probably why he's keeping you around."
"Indeed. Most unwise of him."
"Like I told him m'self. Ye should be shot, Sir, or marooned. No disrespect."
"None taken, Mr Gibbs."
"S'when's the wedding?" Jack's mocking voice cut into the conversation, forcing Norrington to finally have to acknowledge the pirate who stood at the wheel in scarf and trinkets and his best bullion-braided blue coat. Jack looked briefly disgruntled, but the expression was gone before Norrington could tell what it meant, or even if it had been genuine, leaving a bright, wicked grin in its place. "An which one of ye's to be the bride? Ave to be you, Commodore darlin' - Gibbs aint so pretty, and I swear the mutton-chops wouldn't look good in a frock, lacy veil or not." He paused, considered this, and added generously, "though I do know of them that like it better that way; s'the contrast, see?"
The combination of gold teeth and gold braid in the dazzle of the Caribbean sun was dizzying. Much like the flow of arrant nonsense. "Sparrow, I wonder that you trouble to speak at all when you cannot say anything of worth." He sighed, feeling nowhere near as robust as he would have liked. He felt, indeed, like a sail, taut and strained before forces he could not control, hoping only to hold until the storm was over. But it would not do to show it.
Jack handed the wheel to Gibbs and paced over to him. His gait was steadier on the pitching ship, and the bloodstained coat of a Post-Captain of the Royal Navy looked good on him, in a barbaric way. Somewhere between a tribute and a trophy. I should have worn full Dress James found himself thinking, amused, so that Sparrow could prowl the streets of Tortuga in an Admiral's uniform. He felt a surprising lack of outrage. After all, there were men in the Service who deserved their captain's rank less, had talent been the only issue.
Sparrow got him by the elbow and drew him away to the taffrail. "Let's you an me have a little talk, eh?" he looked uncharacteristically earnest. "It's Captain Sparrow, Commodore. Seeing as how we're on my ship, and I'd like me crew to show a little tiny bit of respect, because if they get used to you giving me trouble, next step it'll be them giving me trouble, and mutiny, and hello deserted island, bye bye Pearl, and Gibbs gets to shoot you all he wants, Sir."
Fear. It was the first time he knew beyond doubt or deception what was in Sparrow's mind. Jack had suffered mutiny once, and never again would its threat be merely academic to him. Norrington, who had held crews together through some appallingly tense times, understood the feeling of helpless dread well enough. It was a terrible thing for a Captain to be so humbled - a thing that broke men, where fear of death did not. To come back afterwards and command again... it must be hard.
"My apologies, Captain Sparrow," he said, loud enough for the nearest tars to hear it, and sketched the smallest of bows, "I am a little out of sorts today."
"Knew y'could be reasonable," Jack smiled, but for an instant there was puzzlement in his dark eyes. He had evidently not expected capitulation, and now had to work out whether it was prompted by self interest, or sympathy. Neither of which - Norrington flattered himself - must seem likely. "So. Ave a nice chat with He indicated the silent man who had brought breakfast.
Norrington sighed again, wishing they could get down to further negotiations before he collapsed. Already his legs had begun to tremble beneath him, and though it gave some relief to lean casually on the gunwales, he doubted his strength would last. "I don't speak Parrot, Jack."
"Ye could learn. I could teach you! Sensible birds, macaws. More brains than a dog. Heh, more brains than some o'your fancy folk back at the fort. Put a wig on 'im and 'e'd rival a gentleman." He lifted his head, swept the deck with his gaze and bellowed out "Matelot! The ropes if you please."
James' heart sank, then lifted again when the young man wearing his waistcoat struggled up to the quarterdeck with a canvas sack full of snapped and worn cable. Not a threat after all, then.
"Thought ye'd like to set your hands to something. Keep you occupied and out of mischief, while we have our chat."
Norrington thought about this. Did mending a pirate ship's shrouds count as 'aiding and abetting the enemy'? Or did it delay the time when they boarded some unsuspecting merchantman to steal the money to buy new? He had no illusions - if he pressed too far, nothing at all stood between him and humiliating abuse. Sparrow was taking quite a risk already in treating him like a guest, rather than a prisoner, when a little game of 'torture the Commodore' might be more to the taste of his crew.
Deciding that it was definitely in his interests to maintain the civil tone, and relieved simply to be able to sit, he sank down by the tangle of ropes and began to sort and pair them. When he had teased out the weakened fibres of the first and begun to splice two lengths together, Jack threw himself down to lounge next to him with a laugh. "Quids in," he said, and twirled one side of his moustache meditatively, "I had a guinea bet with Tearlach that you had no idea how to do an honest bit o'work."
"Because, of course, all we do in the Navy is sit and sip tea all day long."
"S'right. And speaking of rope - which we were. Alright, maybe not of rope, but having a conversation in the context of rope, I had a new idea about what to do with ye, seeing as y'wont join the crew. Thought I'd run it past you, see what y'think, savvy?"
It did not take a great wit to leap to the conclusion, not while his fingers were busy twisting together strings of hemp, and his mind was stocked with thousands of names of pirates, who had met their deaths on the scaffold in the grey stone heart of Fort Charles. Indeed, but for the strange feeling of disappointment - as though for some unknown reason he had expected better of Sparrow - it was laughably appropriate. A bitter, sickening irony he could appreciate as fitting.
"Thought we'd take ye into Tortuga," Jack was watching him carefully for a reaction, with those eyes that looked so warm and yet were so unreadable; flattering and decieving in turns. "Give ye a proper trial - all above board, as you like it. Then hang ye for crimes against the Brethren. Maybe dangle y'tarred body from the harbour wall afterwards, with a sign saying 'Navy bastards beware.' How does that strike you for a plan?"