Liberty,Equality,Fraternity - by Cunien
Hey Kiddiwinkles! Fear not! This story is no longer a Work In Progress! I've been working on it for some time but didn't want to post until I'd got it all done. So, depending on the response I get, expect to see the last few chapters up in the next few days/week. :D
Please forgive obvious typos and mistakes - I'm not the most observant person. I've tried to make it reasonably accurate, historically, but as there is no definite date for PotC and the Caribbean was changing so rapidly at this time, it's probably a little bit off. I've taken a lot of liberties with Nassau, and more specifically it's ability to grow sugar cane...but there we go. It's fiction! I also don't pretend to know much about this at all. I'm just freewheeling here people! Whee!
Warnings: As a series - Mild swearing, not so mild racism and slavery. Also violence and torture, mostly aimed at Jack - Don't worry your pretty little head about it - Jack doesn't.
Chapter 13 - Blue satin and Skeleton men.
As much as I wanted to sit there all night with Megan, I knew it couldn't be so.
Soon, without a word, she slipped away, back into the night, and back to Gabriel. It hurt my heart something awful, but I knew there would be a time for justice.
See, I've never been one for revenge me. Nope. Because for me, it's justice all the way. I didn't want vengeance - I wanted only what I was due. Gabriel was a bastard, and an evil and cruel one at that. He deserved all the hellish delights I'd been dreaming up ever since he brought me to Nassau - all the little treats I knew I for one would never let him have. Because I may be a bastard at times, but I am not evil, and I am not cruel.
But it didn't stop me dreaming about it though. Oh, such wonderful dreams...
So it was back to the fields and back to work, and the day was easing itself out slowly and surely when I noticed the slaves shifting, just slightly, to let someone move places along the line, slowly making his way to where I stood, stripping the cane beside Nathan.
The man stopped when he got to Nathan's side, and looked casually around to make sure none of the guards had noticed his move. Nathan stiffened and continued working. Someone started up a song nearby, and soon the African's voices filled the air. Convenient, I thought. A nice song, loud enough to cover, oh, a conversation between two men, let us say.
"Nathan," the man said, saying the name slowly, as though it amused him.
Nathan glared at his cane but did not look up.
"Yes, Samuel," he answered. The other man laughed, loud and clear. Only Nathan and I heard him though - the African's singing made sure of that.
"You may call me that if it makes you feel more comfortable," Samuel said.
I was now sure that this was the Skeleton Man. He had the same, slow, tensed way of moving, as though he were a snake about to strike.
"I call you that because it is your name." Nathan looked up at the Skeleton Man, long enough to meet his eyes, but quickly so that the overseers did not notice.
"We could do this all day. You know I'd enjoy it," said the Skeleton Man, thoughtfully stripping leaves from a sugar cane and watching them drop into the basket. I had the strange feeling that the song of the slaves had formed some sort of a bubble around us three men, and we were alone, hidden from the guards in our own little world where the Skeleton Man could idly strip cane and laugh as loud as he pleased.
"But there are more important things," he finished, glancing at Nathan, and then at me. "We will not be here much longer, that is certain. Whether we die in the doing, or rid ourselves of this place," he shrugged, "no matter. We will not be here much longer."
"'We'?" Nathan asked, deliberately keeping his eyes down and on his work, which he carried out just as carefully and skilfully as ever.
"Yes. All of us. All of us but you. Last night we spoke with the heads of each village - people from many tribes came to talk. We are all together, as one person. Now it is time for you to decide: be with us, or not. If you refuse, if you hinder us in any way, then you are against us. You are our enemy."
"It's because of me that you now live to speak such lies!" Nathan spat, glaring at the Skeleton Man. I busied myself at work, trying to look as though my ears weren't burning.
"Lies!" the Skeleton Man laughed.
"Yes. You spread them like disease amongst our people, our children. You lead them to believe there is hope - hope to go back to the old land, the old ways. They are gone Samuel! There is no going back!"
"So this is your answer then."
"This is my answer," Nathan said, going back to work.
The Skeleton Man, Samuel, stood and looked at Nathan quietly. His eyes were sad, despite it all.
"You have led us for many years, Nathan, but your people can no longer bear to look at you."
Nathan spoke not another word. The Skeleton Man left, the sun rose high in the sky and back down again, work came and went, and the day with it.
Back in the village Sarah's attempts at conversation were ignored flat out. Nathan brooded through dinner, and went to bed soon after, his back to Sarah and the baby and I. His wife shrugged her shoulders when our eyes met, and went about her work in silence.
It was not long after that company arrived: two brutes, sent to fetch me for Gabriel. "What kind of time to do you call this?" I huffed, glaring at them. "Gentlemen, I can walk my own legs you know."
"Promise you won't run away?" one spat around a mouth full of black and rotting teeth. I winced at his awful breath, and promised I'd be good.
"Right," I said as they ushered me out the door. I looked at Sarah, standing protectively in front of her baby, her eyes sparking fire at the two men, and at Nathan, who was frowning deeply.
"I might be some time," I managed to say before they whisked me away. Sarah ran outside after us. "Where are you taking him? Answer me! Where are you taking him!", but the two men hardly spared her a glance. After all, she was only a slave, and a woman too.
I made a mental note to teach them some gentlemanly manners as soon as I got the chance.
In truth I'd been expecting this for some time, since Gabriel and I had not had the pleasure of meeting for some while. I only hoped I'd survive tonight. I knew that the time of reckoning would soon be at hand, and I planned to be alive to do my part.
But right then, that all depended no how well I was going to behave.
Suck it up, Jack, I told myself. Haul in your pride and put it away till this storm's blown over.
But I wasn't fooling anyone, least of all myself, who I've always managed to see straight through.
I knew the game now, how things would go. They brought me in front of Gabriel and Megan, sat at dinner, and I shrugged away the two guards and shot them a mean glance or two.
"Evening Gabriel, Madame," I said, tipping an imaginary hat. I, of course, didn't want Gabriel catching wind of the way things stood with me and Megan, so I barely glanced at her. With a deal of restraint I can tell you. She was looking particularly ravishing that night. Dark blue satin. Brought out her eyes..
Where was I?
Ah yes, that bastard Gabriel. He made me wait while he picked the meat from a leg of chicken before he dignified me with a response.
"Yes it is a rather lovely evening, isn't it?" His eyes flicked sideways at Megan, like a snake, and I fought to keep myself from diving across the table, gutting him with the cheese knife, and catching it in the soup tureen so I could force him to eat it.
Lovely image for you there, boys and girls.
"How are you enjoying your new life then, Jack?" Gabriel asked, sipping at his wine. He looked disdainfully at his chicken leg, still fat with meat, and threw it over his shoulder, where a snarl or two signalled the dogs were having their fill.
I hoped he couldn't hear my stomach as it cried out for the rich food they ate.
"Wonderful. Bit of hard work never hurt a soul." I made him wait a while, this time.
Gabriel laughed. "Oh I think you'll find it has. And will."
"I think you underestimate me," I smiled.
"I find that very hard to believe, Jack Sparrow."
" 'M not asking you to believe it." I quirked an eyebrow at him, and put my head to the side, studying him. I find this a very useful trick, if you should ever want to disconcert someone and make them feel so uncomfortable it's like their bones are itching.
"I'll tell you what I do believe," he said, after a while. He'd tried to match my game with his own, but soon gave up. There's no one as can out-stare Jack Sparrow.
"I believe you think you have a plan. I can see right through you. You think you have the better of me, or soon will." Gabriel got up and moved around the table, so that he was facing me. Picking an apple from a bowl on the table, he inspected it, and said, "But I can assure you that you haven't. You see, I just don't want you to be disappointed." He smiled at me, as though he pitied me. But we've already established that Gabriel is incapable of things like this.
"I own you Jack," he said quietly. "You're mine to do with as I wish."
"Well." I said, with a little crooked grin, "I didn't know your tastes ran in that direction. I mean, with such lovely samples of the female species around."
Quick as a flash, Gabriel's calm and confident demeanour changed. Like a sudden storm, his face was clouded with hatred and utter rage. He threw the apple at me, hard enough to leave a bruise the size of...well of an apple... on my right cheek, just beneath my eye.
But I've never known how to hold my tongue, have I?
So I laughed. Hard.
"You threw it at me!" I wheezed, "You threw an apple at me! Who throws an apple!"
The next thing I new Gabriel was crossing the short distance between us, and two my sides rushed the two brutes, ready to hold me still as their Master taught me my lesson.
"No!" screamed Megan, standing up so suddenly her chair crashed to the floor.
Gabriel froze, his red face and raised fist just inches from me. He spun to face her, his eyes still sparking with anger.
"No?" he said, incredulously.
"No," she said, little chin raised stubbornly.
Oh God, I think. Oh God. She's going to go and kill herself now, isn't she? She's about to sign her own death warrant.
She crossed over to us and put a hand on Gabriel's arm, all affectionate like. Blinking those big long lashes and smiling like a dim wit at him, she played the only card she knew, and I loved her all the more for it. Lucky for the both of us that Gabriel could never comprehend the idea of a sharp and cunning mind behind a soft, pretty face.
"It's spoiling my appetite," she said, "Send it away. For me. Let it go."
Megan did not once look at me, and a good thing too, for I think she might have seen that my heart was somersaulting with pain that she would refer to me as nothing but an 'it', an animal. But more than that, that she cared enough to risk all, to save me a beating.
"And how could I deny my love?" Gabriel said, smiling benevolently at Megan and reaching out to touch her face. I fought to control myself.
"Send him back," he directed at the two men, before turning to the slave who stood in the corner of the room, "And bring us the next course."
But I hadn't said my words yet.
"That's always been your trouble," I side, pausing at the door. "Gabriel, old boy. That, is where your vision is irreparably flawed."
Gabriel looked up at me, his eyes narrowed.
"You think you can own people." I allowed myself a chuckle. "You boast about all these slaves you own, all these souls. But see, you don't at all. You can never own a soul. You may beat them, humiliate them, rape and slaughter them. But never, for a minute, were they ever yours."
Gabriel sat in silence, barely restraining himself, for Megan's sake I think. My eyes met those of the slave as he dished out their fancy dessert, and for a moment, I saw them twinkle at me. He nodded, just perceptibly.
TBC...