Disclaimer:
Usual stuff. I own nothing...and I mean nothing, not even a rug. Woo its all going violently!
Chapter 7
Jack watched, stunned. He had known many women in his time (One, appropriately named 'May' which had been short for 'Mayhem', had once offered to fight a bar full of men who didn't take her seriously as a pirate. What she'd done to them had been……memorable.)
But Eowyn was something else. You just didn't expect such a slim, lovely girl to punch like that!
As if in slow motion, the fist connected with the mouth. The man looked surprised as he staggered back and fell over into the grass.
'She's going to be killed!' Jack thought, 'she's going to be killed and then they're going to notice me, and then I'm going to be killed!' There was only one thing for it.
Jack turned, drawing his sword, and stabbed the man closest to him. The man crumpled without a sound.
Jack grabbed Gibbs' collar, facing him nose to nose.
"Alright mate, you'd better know how to fight because if you let her get killed…well…she'll never forgive you for a start, and then you'll have to face me next, savvy?"
It took Gibbs only a few moments to make a life-saving calculation that life on Jack's side would be better, easier, less deadly and above all longer than life against him. He grinned feeling, perhaps, a change in the wind. "You got it mate!"
The real fight began.
Eowyn, having grown up with no mother or sisters, had never been told what 'nice girls' should do, or how to behave like a 'lady'. She had been taught how to fight like a man until she was old enough to be taught not to. But for all the years spent in a dress, playing faithful niece and nurse to an old man, her frustration and anger boiled underneath the icy surface. She had an advantage over men in battle, who didn't expect her to fight as well as any of them. As she dispatched another bandit, she was vaguely aware of Gibbs in the background, bowling a man over so that he was easier to hit, and Jack over her other shoulder, leaping around like a dancer.
In a few minutes, it was over. Only the chief bandit, with an already swollen lip, was left. He looked around him at his departed comrades, and up at Jack, Eowyn and Gibbs, then up at the sky.
"Alright," he said, "let's make a deal."
Eowyn pointed her sword at him.
"It's a little late for that."
"Waitwaitwaitwait! I can help you!"
"How?"
"I know you need horses, right? I can get horses, and…um…look, I tell you what—I'll even travel with you, there are dangerous bandits on the roads these days…"
"And how would you be of help to us?"
"They're my bandits!" The man said, lisping slightly, "If I'm there with you I can guarantee your safety!"
Eowyn, however, wasn't in the mood to make a deal, "So you can sell us out to your own men? I think not…"
Jack stepped forward, coughing politely.
"Um…If I may, M'lady?" He turned to the bandit. "We are riding with the river to recover the Black Pearl….Amongst other things," he waved his hand dismissively.
"The what?" The bandit's scarred brow furrowed.
"The strange ship that arrived a few days ago."
"Oh yes, everyone knows that ship."
"Well, we're going after it. If you help us then your reward with be beyond measure." 'At least', Jack thought, 'I'm not lying about that….'
The bandit's eyes glittered with the promise of riches. "Reward, eh? Well, I'm your man!"
"Don't trust him!" Gibbs growled, "he's a cheat an' a thief!"
"This coming from a horse-rustler?" Jack muttered back. Gibbs opened his mouth to reply…and kept it open while he tried to think of a reply.
"I have always said, m'lady," Jack continued aloud, "that a dishonest man you can always trust…even if it only to be dishonest. What say you, bandit?"
"Absolutely!" The bandit replied, knowing exactly which side his bread was buttered.
"Surely you are not proposing that we take him with us?" Eowyn glared at Jack, warning in her voice.
"It's alright," said Jack cheerfully, "I'll swear him in!" He cleared his throat.
"Do you, bandit, swear loyalty to the Lady Eowyn and myself through darkness and danger, facing hardship, toil, mortal danger and almost certain death?"
"Um…Almost certain" The bandit asked, nervously.
"I now pronounce you," Jack went on, proudly, "a pirate!"
A breeze swept through the bushes.
"All alright?" Jack looked around, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. "good, let's…"
"What about me?" Gibbs asked.
"What about you?"
"Well I'm not letting him be a bloody pirate if I'm not a bloody pirate!"
Jack sighed, "Oh fine, do you, Gibbs…All of the above?"
"Aye!" Gibbs beamed proudly.
"Fine, now shall we get on?"
"What about our names?" The bandit asked.
"What?"
"Aye, ee's right, sir," Gibbs nodded wisely, "Every pirate has to have a piratey name, everyone knows that!"
Jack looked blank. His imagination left much to be desired. Cunning and guile he had in spades, but imagination was something else.
"Fine….you—" he pointed to the bandit, "you are now known as…."He racked his brains for all the pirate names he knew, and clutched at the first out of the hat.
"…Polly." He said, decisively.
"Polly?" The other three echoed the strange alien word.
"Yep. That's it. Polly."
"What does it mean?" The bandit asked.
"It means blood-drinker of his enemies." Jack explained without so much as a blink.
Polly rubbed his chin with one dinner-plate sized hand, producing a sound like two pieces of sandpaper making love.
"Pol-ly" he tried, rolling the strange syllables around his mouth, "hmm….I like it."
"What about me?' Gibbs asked quickly, but Jack's imagination was dry.
"You are now known as...Mister Gibbs."
Gibbs puffed out his chest proudly.
"And just what is your name, pirate?" Eowyn asked, still eyeing him suspiciously.
Captain Jack Sparrow!" Jack bowed low, sweeping his ragged hat off his head smoothly.
"Where's your ship?" Polly asked.
Jack sheathed his sword. "let's go and get it."