PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR

By ErinRua

CHAPTER 12

Morning blazed in golden glory across the little harbor as the crew of the Black Pearl made their way from whatever beds they had found - some had simply passed out on the beach - and loaded their duffle aboard the ship's boats.  A number of them seemed to be squinting rather a lot, though whether it was the brilliance of dawn on the sea or a hangover was hard to say.  Out in deeper water, the Pearl lay waiting at anchor.

Will had very little gear of his own; the plumed hat that would be stowed below decks, a change of clothes wrapped in a single blanket, and his sword.  He stood half-asleep in a queue of men loading one boat, pondering how mad he must truly be to board what was arguably the most notorious pirate ship in the Caribbean.  Hard, unlovely faces surrounded him, visages worn to permanent sets of narrowed eyes and keen stares by the harsh governance of men and the sea.  Every man here was but a step away from the noose and he dared not think what the litany of their crimes must be.  Even weathered old Cotton, the mute, harbored some hidden darkness, for what enemy or what crime could result in a man's tongue being cut from his head?

Yet these men, that ship were the only tools he had, since he dared not trust that Commodore Norrington could find a pretext to stop and board the Royal Venture a second time.  One simply did not accost or detain a man of Sir John Biltmore's caliber for trifles.  Which left Will with no choices at all.  Of a sudden he found himself wondering just when and how his long lost father, "Bootstrap" Bill, had slid from the life of an honest sailor to that of a pirate alongside Jack Sparrow.  Did you run out of choices too, Father?

A bump and a sharp elbow jolted him back to the present.  "Sorry -." Will's apology fumbled and collapsed as he realized the floppy hat in front of him belonged to Anamaria.

As the woman's dark eyes pinned him he mustered a contrite smile and said, "Good morning."

Amusement warmed her expression, then, and she shook her head.  "Wake up, Will Turner.  Out there a man ends up dead, he don't pay attention."

"I know."  He glanced ahead to make sure he was not about to collide with anyone else.  "I was just … thinking."

"Havin' second thoughts, eh?"

"No."  And certainty washed over him as he lifted his chin and met her gaze squarely.  "I've chosen my path and I'll hold to it."

"But not without wakin' your conscience."

"No, it's not that…."  Will frowned as he pondered.  "I am certain there is no way within the law that would see Elizabeth safe.  Or at least not soon enough."

"You're a funny man, Turner."  Sunlight glinted in the coffee-hued depths of her eyes as she looked at him.  "You live in your town with all its laws and rules, sayin' who can do what and who bows to whom.  And you think you know what's right and proper.  But you're quick enough to toss all that out when it suits you."

Prickly though he knew Anamaria could be, Will was not prepared for an examination of his morals from her.  He in fact found the idea sat poorly with him.

"I do what is right."

"Do you?  Then you think you have a right to do whatever it takes to get your lady back?"

Ahead of them wood thudded hollowly as men and gear were loaded into the boats.  However, Will held his place in the sand and replied firmly.

"I'll do what I must."

"So do we."  Anamaria heaved her duffel into the boat, then turned back to seize Will's bundle and tossed it in after.  "Remember that.  Whatever you see while aboard the Black Pearl, whatever we do, we do what we must to live and stay alive."

Then she just stood watching him, slim and dark and fierce as a mongoose, and it occurred to him that she was waiting for some sort of response.

"I'll remember."

"Good."

"Anamaria …."

She halted in mid-turn and he hesitated awkwardly.  "Who are - I think the names were Ogun and Erzulie?"

For an instant the mulatta woman simply stared at him, her brown face unreadable.  "Where you hear those names?"

"An old man I saw here yesterday.  I was just going to sleep after arriving when I saw him, and we spoke.  He said some rather strange things."

"Such as?"

"I don't remember it all."  Will frowned under Anamaria's continued fixed stare, wondering what hidden thing he had just pricked.  "Something about a crossroads and I must chose the right way.  I'm sure it was all nonsense, he was quite elderly, but he mentioned those names to me."  With a soft chuckle of embarrassment he added, "He said I should listen to Erzulie, but Ogun knows who I am."

Sunlight played on the soft planes of Anamaria's face as the sea breeze lifted tousled black hair against her neck.  Her mouth tightened.

"Nothin' a white boy like you needs to trouble his head about."

"Anamaria -."

"Some things you don't mess with!" she said fiercely.  "Just never you mind."

"But Anamaria …" He offered a tentative smile.  "Won't you at least tell me if it's another curse?  I'd like to know if I should start avoiding moonlight."

She sighed, for though he knew it not, his eternally guileless sincerity found chinks in her armor that no amount of masculine charm or sweet-talk ever would.  "Not a curse.  It's … it's just old superstitions.  Things people like to talk about when there's a ring around the moon or a strange wind."

Will's gaze held hers with gentle amusement.  "That's what people like me are supposed to think.  But that's not what you think, is it?"

He was also far cleverer than that earnest, honest face would suggest, and Anamaria scowled.  "I'll tell you, but then you don't talk about it no more, hear?"

"All right."

He meant it, too, she saw that clear as day, and she gave an exasperated sigh that such an innocent had come among pirates.  Setting her fists on her hips she began to speak, and her gaze challenged him to so much as think of grinning at her explanation.

"Erzulie and Ogun be loa, spirits you call them.  Erzulie is the loa of love and dreams, great love, and the hurts of the world grieve her.  Ogun … he be the loa of war and iron and fire.  Very powerful and a strong benefactor, but dangerous."  Then she gave a toss of her head and pivoted away.  "Now you know.  And now you can forget about it."

"But why?"  Will hastened to catch up, sloshing into the water and seizing the gunnels of the boat as other hands began to ship her off the sand into the waiting waves.

Anamaria's reply was sharp as the boat slid and lurched into floating.  "Because some things are better left alone by people who don't know nothin' about them.  Be a smart boy and remember that."

With a splash she sprang lightly into the boat.  Will stared after her for an instant - and ducked as a rush of blue feathers shot past his head.  Cotton's parrot swooped into the boat to its master's shoulder.

There it ruffled its wings and squawked, "Pieces of eight!  Pieces of eight!"

With a last glance towards shore Will heaved himself aboard, and Cotton and Tearlach picked up the oars.  Gentle surf lifted them as they set their course for the dark ship waiting at anchor.

***

The Black Pearl that Will Turner sailed on now was not the Black Pearl upon whose decks he had stood as Captain Barbossa's captive almost a year ago.  Then she had been a half-dead thing with an undead crew, sodden in the bilges and running like a horse before the lash, with no heart in her speed and no life in her tattered sails.  But now - aye, now she was a warhorse charging a running sea, a tempest racing the tides, and her joy sang in the wind in her rigging.

With the brilliance of the Caribbean all around them, Will stood on the cap-rail at the bow, a tight grip on the stays, and leaned into her flight as if to outrun the cares that weighed upon his heart.  Here he and the Pearl surged on the backs of strong blue waves, before each downward plunge left his stomach somewhere above.  Even so, his legs bent to the heave of the sea as if born to it, and it almost seemed that the Pearl knew his urgency and rose in answer to his desperate hopes.

"You get it in your blood," announced a familiar drawling voice.  "And there's no getting it out."

Turning his face into the wind Will looked down at Jack Sparrow, standing wide-legged on the deck.  The pirate had shed his coat for a thigh-length waistcoat over dingy white shirtsleeves, but his trademark sash and belt still clasped his waist.  For a moment he stood with his gaze fixed on the rise and fall of the horizon, as firmly in his place as the winged figurehead at the ship's bow.

When he looked up at Will his black eyes gleamed beneath the point of his disreputable tricorn hat.  "Now you see her wings, boy.  Now you see what the Pearl really is."

Uncertain how to respond to this oddly poetic turn, Will instead opted for silence and glanced upwards into the sails swelling taut against the blue sky.  Dark as oil smoke they were, not the bright blazing gull-wings that drove other square-riggers, yet he realized there was a strange beauty to be found in her.  Whereas before she had been but a grim, bullying thug, she was now a dark and lethal huntress.

"You've done a lot of work on her," he said.

"Once Barbossa was gone, may he rot in the seventh circle of hell, there was little left to drive the old Pearl but pure stubbornness," Jack replied.  He shifted to lay a hand on the rail, a consoling pat to the shoulder of an old friend.  "Least I could do was get her shipshape again."

The young blacksmith waited a beat until the ship once again climbed a watery slope, and dropped to the deck.  Aft he spied Anamaria's lithe figure at the helm, black hair tossing beneath a ragged hat.

"That must have cost you.  Not everything can be gotten by looting merchant vessels."

Jack merely gave a wise smile.  "I have my means and ways.  And that brings me to the point in mind, which is that I really should have you sign me articles."

"Your what?"

"Ship's articles.  Same as all the crew.  Of course if you can't write, you can simply make your mark."

"I can write!" Will bristled at the sly smirk on Jack's face.  "I just don't see the need to sign anything.  I'm not a member of your crew."

Raising a stiff finger in reprimand, Sparrow arched his eyebrows and said, "There are no passengers on a pirate ship, boy.  Only pirates and prisoners, of which you are certainly not the second."

"Nor am I a pirate."  Will turned away to scowl across the glittering water.

"Ah!"  Sparrow flung both hands up as if to catch that thought before it could go any further. "But you are standing your watches, manning the sheets, swabbin' the decks, paintin' the hatch covers, splicin' lines with Gibbs, and if I was not mistaken, that was you washing pots in the galley not an hour past."  He gave a guileless smile as Will glared at him.  "Seems a shame to work you so with no recompense.  It may be a long voyage."

"I see no point in standing about being useless.  But I want nothing but Elizabeth safe."

"Yes, yes, I got all that.  Look, Will, do us a favor, aye?"  Jack stepped closer - too close, but he apparently thought this was a good way to irritate people into compliance - and opened his hands beseechingly.  "Sign the ruddy things?  You can give your share to the widows and orphans fund if it pleases you, but the crew will rest easier knowin' you've agreed to the same conditions and rules as us all."

"The crew?"  Standing his ground despite Jack's pleading expression, Will said, "I find it hard to believe a crew of pirates has the least worry about me."

"But they do, mate," Jack assured him earnestly.  "You've a bit of a reputation, it's true, what with you being Bootstrap's son and helping me steal a British warship and finishing off Barbossa and all that, but at the moment you're rather a loose cannon, if you get my meaning."

"I'M a loose cannon?  They're bloody pirates!"

A gold-toothed grin flashed.  "And so are you, mate, at least so far as the Royal Venture is concerned.  Look, it's a simple and painless thing, a mere formality, really, so just please make your mark and be done with it."

With a sigh that was equal parts growl, Will looked at his feet.  "I think it's ridiculous."

"But …?"

"But I'll sign."

"Splendid!"  Sparrow grinned delightedly and pressed both palms together with a brief bow.  "I feel much better."

"Jack …."

"Aye?"

"What happens now?  I mean … what happens now?"

"Ah, that."  Hand on hip, Jack launched into a breezy explanation.  "Well, we sail and we wait and we apply the old looking glass to every sail on the horizon betwixt here and Hispaniola.  And when it's the right one - apparently if she's upwind she'll be that much easier to identify - we make chase.  Then we board her, and we'll do what we do, you'll do -," he waved vaguely, "whatever you do, and we all go away happy.  All that is but the master of the Royal Venture, whom I am sure we will leave exceedingly UNhappy.  Unless of course you intend to kill him."

Sparrow peered at Will.  Will scowled back.  "I am not a murderer, Jack.  I fight only when I must."

"Oh, good.  Then I won't worry about you offending me sensibilities." Ignoring the longsuffering look that appeared on Will's face, Jack gave a rakish grin.  "I'm actually glad you're on board, Will.  Seems almost like old times, the Black Pearl and the son of Bootstrap Bill."

"It's not old times, Jack!  I'm not a …."  But he was talking to Sparrow's retreating back as the captain sauntered aft.  "I'm not a pirate," he finished weakly, and sighed from the soles of his shoes.

Canvas ruffled somewhere high overhead, and he glowered up into the rigging.  "And no comments from you, either."

Then it dawned on him that the canvas noise probably meant a sail was out of trim, and he took himself off to ask Gibbs - or someone - which line to tighten to fix it.  He liked Jack, he truly did, but the man made an industry of being absolutely aggravating.

***

"You know your punishment, then?"

The grating voice rasped as if dragged up a set of broken cellar stairs, and Elizabeth could almost have laughed at the ridiculousness of such a charade, just as she could almost laugh at the absurd red silk mask that shielded the speaker's face.  Only the eyes were visible, glinting through carefully stitched holes, and that's where the urge for laughter died.  Cold those eyes were, devoid of human feeling and simmering with latent brutality that the powerful size of the man could easily enforce.

"My punishment?" she spat, and yanked futilely at the hard hands clasping her arms from behind.  "You 'punish' only the weak and innocent!  I know who you are, Sir John, and I swear - ."

"SPEAK NOT THAT NAME!"  In an instant he was on his feet and she flinched back.

"Why do you do this?" she cried desperately.  "How can you possibly think you will get away with such villainy?"

"I already have."

The big man's rasping voice quieted to a sound like gravel under an iron rake, and he stepped around the ornate table that dominated the captain's cabin.  Across the room a silent black servant crouched polishing a pair of shoes, the same African man the girls had assaulted in their escape attempt, yet he worked as if oblivious to the entire scenario.  Elizabeth felt her neck hairs crawl as she fixed her attention on the eyes staring from behind her captor's crimson mask.

"Know this, young miss.  You do not know who I am.  My voice is not familiar.  You have never actually seen the name on this ship.  You have never seen, and will not see, the face of her master.  In short, Miss Swann, you have nothing to prove that our ways ever crossed, save for one … interesting day in Port Royal."

Fear and fury rose nigh to choking and Elizabeth hated the trembling in her voice.  "I know who you are!  Commodore Norrington already suspects you, and my father -."

"Is powerless here."  He raised a hand to touch her cheek, and chuckled as she jerked back with a furious glare.  "No proof have you that any court of law could sustain, neither face nor name.  This Sir John you speak of … does not exist here.  You are a prisoner, Miss Swann, a slave, and I have particular plans for you.  Oh, yes."

At her indrawn breath his grating false voice slowed, as if a smile grew beneath the scarlet mask.  "You will not be touched or sullied, have no fear of that.  Yet.  Your new master demands that for his was a very special order, and you were a most fortuitous find.  But you are a spoiled and pampered child, my girl.  For too long you have needed only to speak, and the world leapt to the crook of your dainty finger."

The big man stepped away, clasping gloved hands behind him as he stared out the mullioned panes of the cabin windows.  "Henceforth, should your willfulness overcome you again, your punishment will be to watch my wrath be visited upon those 'innocents' for whom you so protest."

He turned his head, face hideously blank beneath its crimson façade.  "They will weep and suffer the pain that should rightfully be yours.  As your little friend died the death that should have been yours."  The masked man paused.  "Once again, you have cost me.  That girl would have won me a pretty price.  Take her out, lads - and see that she is witness when you dispose of that Irish slattern's body.  Oh, but one more thing …"

Elizabeth could hear the evil smile behind the mask, as the captain added, "You will also see the punishment that comes to those who fail in their duties to me.  Take her out!"

The hard grip of First Mate Fry propelled her out the door, her last view of the captain's cabin being a black hand with a white cloth, methodically buffing a highly-polished shoe.  Outside a breeze whipped tangled hair about Elizabeth's face and filled the sails high above.  Sunlight beamed across sparkling blue waters as the ship rose and sank before the wind, but she saw only the still form laid on the deck, lifeless as a doll in tangled skirts.

She fancied she felt the eyes of the others upon her; Sarah with her pretty, chubby face blanched completely devoid of color, handsome dark Bess silent as if carved from ebony, and the others.  There were five newcomers aboard the slave ship now, young women notably fair of face and form, but all in the plain, simple dress of servants or other working classes.  Slaves-to-be, taken from farms or hamlets where no one had the means or voice to rouse a hunt.  Together they stood huddled and wind-blown and utterly lost.  As further chastisement all their shoes had been taken, and now their bare feet pinched together self-consciously beneath their skirts.

No one spoke as Mister Fry and bo'sun's mate Mister Stone bent to pick up the body.  A limp arm flopped from their awkward grasp and Elizabeth turned her face away.  Then they stepped and heaved and a flutter of calico skirts was all that marked Róisín's passing.  The ship was already surging onwards when the dull splash reached their ears.

"Remember …" growled a rough voice in Elizabeth's ear.

She stiffened and felt the presence step away, but held her head high as once again Fry seized her slender arm from behind.  His breath brushed her neck in a noisome caress.

"Got somethin' else for you to see, pet.  A little treat, if you will, for you to muse on."

He turned her and marched her a dozen paces aft - where she jerked to a halt with a strangled gasp.  There, spread over a cannon with his arms splayed and cruelly tied, lay a man and his back was a bloody ruin.  Every mark of the lash oozed livid and the only movement was the trembling of his buckled knees.

"That's the poor fool what let you bash 'im in the head for your escape," Fry said.  "Cap'n was not pleased.  Your lesson for today, miss."

Elizabeth was numb and silent while she and the others were herded aft towards their dark, dank cell.  Oh, but she would remember.

She would remember everything.

***

TBC …

A/N:  I have been emailing an announcement of each new chapter I post to everyone who expressed interest in this story and had a visible email address.  If you have reviewed on FF.net or emailed me and you are not getting these notices, then probably your email system thinks I'm spam.  Now I'll admit to being a ham at times and even to getting egg on my face, but I have never  been Spam … *ahem*  Anywho, so blame your email spam-filters if you think you should be getting my notices and you are not!  :-)