Trouble Has Landed Ch. 1: A Spectacular Entrance
By Honorat
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I am a cursed woman, Mr. Disney. Compelled by greed for PotC stories, I was, but now I am consumed by it.
Summary: Something very odd is happening in the harbour at Port Royal. Jack Sparrow is arriving. Everyone lock up the silverware! This fits in with the "Odd Occurrences" challenge at Black Pearl Sails. More movie novelization.
Thank you Geek Mama for editing this. Here is a portrait of you in the Really Big Hat I've been promising you!
A Spectacular Entrance
The sun was just rising on another peerless Caribbean day, flushing the horizon a soft rose and shivering the surface of the water into prisms of light, when the ship sailed into the bay of Port Royal, capitol of Jamaica. Silhouetted against the luminous clouds of dawn, a man stood on her topyard, legs braced apart, one hand resting against the rail of the crowsnest, the other at his hip. A sharp morning breeze whipped the skirts and barrel cuffs of his charcoal greatcoat, tossing his long dark hair with the ends of the red scarf that held it back, and snapping the swallowtails of the ship's white, red, and blue pennant. Beneath a battered leather tri-corn, the man's dark eyes, heavily lined with kohl against the sea's glare, scanned the perimeter of the bay, alertly noting the number and size of the tall-masted naval vessels anchored there.
The eclectic conglomeration of buildings that made up the town of Port Royal stretched out below his booted feet. Sharp-ridged headlands closed in on him like a refuge—or a trap. And above him on the cliff, the grim stone walls of Fort Charles, headquarters of the Royal Navy in the Caribbean, perched proud and threatening, bristling with cannon.
The stranger sailing into this harbour did not look like the sort of man who would be welcome here. Where an officer or a gentleman would have worn an elaborately powdered and curled wig, and even a respectable tradesman would have had his own hair neatly queued, this man allowed his overly-long locks to hang loose and knotted, a thick braid trailing down his back. On one side of his head, a tail of dark hair tied with a leather thong was decorated with a slender strip of bone. And the whole wild mass chimed and sparkled with assorted strings of beads, coins, and other small ornaments as the wind stirred it. Instead of a clean-shaven chin, his narrow, swarthy face sported a luxuriant moustache and a bedraggled beard, admittedly not uncommon with the lower classes. However, this man would be remarkable even among the riffraff that collected around the docks of any port town. From that beard dangled two small braids saucily tied off with beads.
If his appearance might at first appear absurd, that impression was given the lie by more dangerous elements. A black leather baldric with a heavy silver buckle was slung across his chest to accommodate a businesslike sword, and the butt of a pistol protruded from the faded, red and white striped sash and heavy belt around his waist, completing the picture of a man well-acquainted with trouble—both the finding and the causing of it.
Just now, he was finding trouble. A quick glance down caused the stranger to curl his lip in disgust. Seizing the line that held the pennant, he leapt off the yard and slid down the mast. It was not a very long drop. In fact, it was a very short drop indeed before he was standing up to the wide tops of his boots and trailing ends of his sash in sloshing salt water. Now salt water is all very well in the sea where it belongs, but it has no business being so plentiful in the bottom of a boat. The man bent over and pawed through various items bobbing in the bow of his vessel to no avail. Scrambling to the stern, he had better luck, discovering a bucket hiding behind a wicker basket. He splashed back towards the bow, seated himself on a crate by the mast, and began bailing.
The little ship bore the look of a vessel for which this was a common occurrence. Its red paint was present only in peeling strips. Its planks were gray and flaking. Although fading letters proclaimed it to be the Jolly Mon, there seemed very little for the small craft to be jolly about. Other than its absurdly thick main—and only—mast topped with its miniature crowsnest and supporting its one large, square sail, the Jolly Mon looked about ready to dissolve in the water rather than float in it. Nevertheless, its lone occupant seemed determined to keep his craft seaworthy, pitching bucket after bucket of water back into the ocean where it immediately found its way back, returning through the gaps in the hull.
This process was interrupted suddenly as the Jolly Mon limped further into the harbour and its single crewmember caught sight of the great natural stone arch that jutted out into the bay. Across this arch, a plank had been wedged, and from this plank hung the grisly skeletal remains of three men. The stranger froze for a moment, a look almost of pain on his face, the bucket dropping unnoticed to the water at his feet. Rising awkwardly, the man stood in silent tribute as his boat drifted past the grim memorial. When he was opposite the gently swaying bodies, he swept off his hat to cover his heart. A fourth noose dangled empty beneath a sign that read, "Pirates Ye Be Warned." As if he needed any more reminders that he was sailing in range of the guns of Fort Charles, home to the Scourge of Piracy in the Caribbean. Touching his free hand to the wide red bandana that wrapped his head and brushing the small strand of ornaments hanging from it, the man saluted the bodies respectfully, his dark eyes somber. Time and heat and scavengers had not left enough of the unfortunate pirates to tell who they had been in life, but he might have known them in better times.
That day in Port Royal, the docks were as busy as usual. Against the lush tropical green backdrop of the headlands that rose above the half-timber and stone warehouses of the port, small boats belonging to merchants and farmers skittered over the turquoise surface of the water like insects, swarming around the outgoing vessels loading cargo and supplies. Close to an empty dock, the East India Company brig, the Richard Darley was loading bales of cotton from her boat while the crew of a local skiff attempted to pass over an indignant black goat for a price the Darley's indignant quartermaster was disputing vociferously.
The ruckus died down, however, and all activity gradually ceased as the dockworkers and seamen and general layabouts became aware of a strange spectacle. First, an elderly sailor noticed a bailing bucket floating by. This was in itself not so unusual, but when he raised his head, he was struck dumb by a sight he had never seen in all of his 53 years at sea. His shocked silence drew the attention of his shipmates and then of the dockworkers and merchants surrounding them. All of them turned in awed amazement to watch as, not a ship, but the top of a sail and its mast slowly drifted up to the dock. Poised in triumph atop the tiny crowsnest was a most unusual looking man. Unperturbed by the improbable disappearance of his vessel, he rode the diminishing mast towards the dock, one hand gripping the very tip, as though it were the main topgallant mast of a man-of-war and he far above the surface of the water. Slowly the sail was swallowed by the sea, leaving only the top yard showing; the little swallowtail pennant waved jauntily as the submerged boat bumped gently to a well-earned rest against the dock.
Without a pause, the stranger stepped just as jauntily off the crowsnest and onto the planks of the dock. Apparently oblivious to the stir his arrival had caused, he sauntered off down the pier, swaying as though he hadn't quite left the sea. All eyes followed him in stunned fascination.
Port Royal didn't know it yet, but Trouble had landed, and before the day was out, not one of its inhabitants would ever forget his name.
TBC