Disclaimer: I waited and waited for the rights, but alas, still not mine.
A/N: I do feel I owe y'all a warning for this installment: it is dark, angsty, and almost completely Jack Sparrow-less. However, it is necessary, and gives us all a good chunk more of insight on why Will and Elizabeth have marital problems, and I'm sooo glad I've got it over with. I also must add that I have begun to like the Commodore more and more as I continue writing him. He has hidden depths. I do like that in a man...
Author's Addendum 07/02/07: It was pointed out to me that the word Navidad means "Christmas" in Spanish and is thus not a particularly good name for a town. However, "La Navidad" was the name of the original fort founded on Christmas Day, 1492 in Hispaniola by C. Columbus. The location of Fort Navidad in this story corresponds with the port marked "Nativita" on a period map of the island viewable at Wikipedia (under the filename 15thcenturyhispaniola.jpg, should anyone want to see for themselves)--on the coast of modern Haiti, southeast of Tortuga. Whether the settlement was still there and still named the same thing during the hand-wavy period of PotC is anyone's guess. I've played extremely fast and loose with the history of Hispaniola here, I should add, but at the same time, I'm not just pulling this stuff out of thin air. Well, not all of it, anyway.
XX.
The Bells of Navidad
The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!
If it were not with friendship and love intertwin'd;
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose
When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind.
But they who have loved the fondest, the purest
Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed;
And the heart that has slumbered in friendship securest
Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived.
--"O! Think Not My Spirits are Always as Light"
(words by Thomas Moore)
"We've changed course."
Norrington stirs at the rail of the Dauntless, nodding acknowledgment to the speaker who comes to stand beside him on the foredeck; in the pre-dawn light, Will Turner's face is drawn and pale. Turner has kept to his cabin for the past two days, and Norrington's lieutenant reported that the standard-issue rations delivered to the boy's door have been cleared away untouched. Norrington wonders if Will has slept any more than he's eaten; somehow, he rather doubts it.
Turner stares past the Commodore through the drifting mist off the Dauntless's bow, bleak gaze seeking the fuzzy, swaying lantern glow that marks La Venganza's position; he continues as if to himself, "I didn't think it would be so soon..."
"We have not sailed nearly as far as Port Liberty," Norrington agrees, and clears his throat. "I had supposed that the prisoners were being held there at the garrison. But it appears Morena has some other destination in mind..."
Will jerks his head around, dismayed, a hint of life flickering momentarily in the shadowed eyes. "And you trust him?"
The Commodore sighs, feeling suddenly as exhausted as Turner looks. "Of course I don't. However--"
"You don't know what kind of trick he's planning, what trap he could be leading us into. For God's sake, Norrington, do you know what this man is capable of? What I've seen--" His voice cracks a little and he falls silent, passing a hand across his face as if trying unsuccessfully to wipe away a vision plaguing his mind's eye.
"I do what I must," Norrington says, after a moment. "Had I a choice in the matter..." He pauses, adds sharply, "Surely I don't have to remind you what's at stake here, Mr. Turner."
He hears Will's sharp inhalation; the boy has stiffened, recoiled from Norrington's words as he might from a blow, the color of real emotion flaring on his waxy cheeks. "No!" The single syllable bursts out as if torn from his throat; officers and sailors look toward them, trying to determine whether their commander is in any immediate danger from his distraught civilian companion. Norrington catches Hayes' questioning glance and shakes his head slightly, gesturing that they all should return to their tasks.
"I know," Will rushes on, in a hoarse undertone. "Of course I know. I can't forget. I'd like to...God help me, I'd like to, just for a little while at least...but I can't sleep, can't close my eyes, because every time I do--" He swallows hard, then continues carefully, "Morena's men are not chosen for their kindness to prisoners, or to the weaker sex. It might have been a happier fate for Elizabeth had she--"
But the import of what he was about to say overwhelms him. He turns and walks hurriedly astern before the Commodore can formulate an appropriate reply; his steps are haphazard, the gait of a half-blind man, and he stumbles more than once before he reaches the rear cabins.
Norrington's never been an extraordinarily religious man; God-fearing and meeting-going to be sure, but more a man of action than of contemplation. But now, he braces both his hands on the salt-soaked wood of the rail, lowers his head, and prays.
"God preserve us all." The words come awkwardly to lips more used to issuing commands than asking for grace. "Have mercy upon us sinners..."
Now; and in the hour of our deaths...
In his cabin, Will buries his face in his hands. His ears are ringing. He wishes he could sleep, sleep without dreaming.
No more dreams, soon enough...
He wonders if he will see her again, and he tries to picture how it will be if he does: sees a slim figure standing at the end of a line of bedraggled men, three days ago (only three days?) his crew. Sees tangled, tarnished-honey tresses spilling over proudly unbent shoulders, her slim back straight, though her gaze seeks the ground; in his half-waking state he calls her name, and imagines that she starts, stares around wildly, unable to see him where he stands surrounded by Morena's lackeys.
He wants to take her by the shoulders and demand to know why, why, why, why she did it, why she deceived him, why it's ending this way. They're already pulling him away from her, but not before he sees that her face is bruised, her forehead bloodied, and her eyes-- As they finally meet his for the last time, her eyes are dull, all the spirit gone out of them, lifeless and weary as he feels. Her skirts are ripped, stained with filth; his imagination shrinks from what she must have endured these last few days, and he cannot bear to look anymore...
The ringing in his ears increases steadily, filling his aching brain. He raises his head. The sound is not just in his mind. He drags himself to his feet, flings open the cabin door.
The fog has begun to lift; through the scraps of mist he can see the shore, a small garrison and harbor village, and on the cliffs a whitewashed Catholic mission, from whence the bells. God, the bells--he shields his eyes from the morning light, shrinks back from the clear, continuous noise floating down to the Dauntless, sways on his feet. The bells keep ringing, the sound vibrating in his aching temples, haunting him.
Soon, the bells say. Soon enough.
But in his heart, it is already over.
Across the water in the harbor, he suddenly recognizes the triad of masts and the graceful if storm-battered hull of a vessel trussed and anchored at the pier.
His lost ship...the Lady Swann.
He shuts the door.
The two warships have dropped anchor a wary distance away from one another, looking bulky and out of place in the small, serene bay of the small port known as Villa De Navidad; the Dauntless, a larger and heavier ship, drifts some hundred yards off-shore while the lighter La Venganza noses smugly up to the docks.
There is no response to Norrington's light knock; he pushes the door of the stern cabin open, suddenly afraid of what he may or may not find therein. But Will Turner is there; back propped against the near wall, he sits unmoving on the sailor's cot he's been provided with, staring fixedly at the knots in the woodgrain of the hull, his hands loosely covering his ears.
"Good God, man," Norrington begins; at his words the younger man startles as if out of a sound sleep, and the Commodore experiences an odd little shock of relief. For a split second, he thought the boy might have done the unthinkable. But Turner is alive, though he glances toward the door with an blank expression so void of recognition that Norrington may as well have been a stranger to him.
"It's time," the Commodore says, and does not allow any trace of relief into his voice.
Turner doesn't answer. Rising mechanically, he walks out of the cabin past Norrington, looking straight ahead at nothing at all.
Around him, an argument is taking place. He sways, knowing he must look like a drunk man, or perhaps a crazy one; he realizes vaguely that his own fate may be one of the major objects of contention, but he's devoting his full concentration to maintaining his balance on solid ground, his sleep-starved reflexes slow to adjust to a world that does not dip and roll. He never used to have this problem; most of the time, it's much easier to correct for his sea legs. Still, Elizabeth had noticed it the last time he'd come home to Port Royal.
"Look at that roll in your step, Will," she'd teased. "You're starting to walk like a sailor. A few more years, darling, and you'll be staggering about like Jack Sparrow himself..."
She said it laughingly, but she'd sounded oddly wistful too, and a bit scolding; reminding him he spent more time at sea than on shore with his wife, as she has been more frequently each time he returns. He has begun to dread her pointed comments; they've become steadily sharper over the years, stinging him with lingering needles of guilt.
When did coming home become more obligation than reward?
He remembers that conversation vividly; it seems far more immediate than the surreal events unfolding around him, the nightmare of the past few days.
She'd waited at the top of the main staircase, thin arms crossed, not coming down to greet him but challenging him to come to her. If anything she'd lost weight in the time he'd been away, though before he'd left last time (four months ago was it? Or five?) he'd sternly assigned the cook the responsibility of making sure Mrs. Turner was tempted with the richest, most varied fare the Governor's pension could provide.
He took the steps two at a time to meet her and swing her into his arms, and she embraced him as warmly as she always did, but after they'd kissed their hellos and stood back he caught a curious remoteness staring back at him from her smiling face, and he felt suddenly as if he was looking at a woman he barely knew; her glance veiled, brown eyes dark with secrets. She must have been planning her foolish scheme even then, he thinks. If only he'd tried a little harder to discover what that expression meant, lifted the veil enough to see her...
"What is it, love?" he'd asked her, then, and she said only, "Nothing, darling; I'm just glad you're home," and took his hand gaily, leading him toward their chambers; and he'd thought nothing more about that guarded, distant Elizabeth he'd glimpsed, until now.
Elizabeth, my love...how long ago did we become such strangers to one another?
He does recall a time when it seemed there was no stray concern or dream or fancy that was too small to share between them. Then, he'd been content to listen to her hour upon hour, hear how she'd run about like a wild thing in the moorland where she'd been born, where her family's old gamekeeper had filled her young head with exciting tales of adventure and piracy on the high seas. How once transplanted to America she'd run about on the beaches and cliffs of Port Royal, just as wild as ever, waiting to see pirate sails on the horizon, until she'd been taken in hand at fifteen years old and cajoled, bullied and bribed into learning to act like a lady. How by the time pirate sails finally had appeared, she'd almost forgotten she'd ever been anything else but. And she'd been fascinated (or pretended to be fascinated!) when he talked about the discipline of metalworking, of how a blade had to be heated to a precise temperature before it could be shaped, and what Master Brown had done to him when he'd let four blades cool too quickly one day so that they were brittle and snapped under the hammer, back when Brown had been occasionally sober enough to notice when he ruined an order and had to start over again from scratch...
But after awhile, it had seemed they knew all each other's stories, and Will would fall asleep in the sun while Elizabeth tried to describe the scent of heather after a thunderstorm, or her focus would wander off to sea while he discussed how difficult it was to forge a perfectly balanced sword. Maybe it was then that he'd begun to neglect the woman he knew for the horizon he didn't, gone seeking for new tales with which to catch her fancy. After all, she'd married him for a pirate, not a blacksmith.
He hadn't expected her to change on him in the meantime. It makes him wonder how well he really knew her to begin with.
"We will absolutely not release Mr. Turner into your custody until you have assured us of Mrs. Turner's well-being." Norrington speaks with his chilliest authority; the mention of Elizabeth registers sluggishly in Will's wandering mind.
Do believe you've fallen behind again, mate...
Is that Jack Sparrow's voice in his head again? Will shakes off his memories, straightens his aching back, and forces himself to pay attention to the heated discussion in progress, struggling to catch up.
"And I assure you, my men have not harmed the lady." Morena, ever smooth, never seems to stop smiling. "Again, you question my sense of honor, Senor Commodore, as if you have the advantage. But it seems to me that you are in no position to argue."
Morena's men watch them, impassively alert, from behind their Captain; and there are guards at the pier, armed sailors at the rail of La Venganza. Will reflexively weighs their number against that of the Commodore's personal escort, factors in the Dauntless's position and distance from shore, and comes up with a statistic which Norrington cannot possibly help but be aware of already. Craning his neck, he searches the tight knot of Spanish soldiers, the curious crowd of townspeople gathering at the waterfront; but the captured crew of his Lady Swann is nowhere to be seen, though the ship herself languishes a ways down the wharf, decks empty, proud sails lashed and furled.
"I told you it was a trick," he mutters. In front of him, Norrington makes no sign that he's heard.
"In that case," the Commodore is saying, "there is no reason why you should not bring the prisoners down without delay. I must remind you that the agreement into which I entered specified a direct exchange."
Will waits for the Spanish captain to object. Instead, the man gestures lazily to his lieutenant; his wolfish grin is not the expression of a man who has been out-negotiated. "Very well, then," Morena drawls. "As you wish..."
His officer salutes and moves up the quay towards the village, followed by a small contingent of blue-and-white clad soldiers. Will tracks their progress, the sense of dread that's haunted him for three days rising in his throat and choking him like bile, until the Spaniards disappear into a large, squat building--the harbor-master's offices, perhaps?--at the edge of the town.
The prisoners must have already been brought down from the garrison, he thinks, as soon as Morena arrived. Which must mean that Elizabeth's been there, less than a hundred meters away from him, probably completely unaware of what was happening; maybe she even believes that she is awaiting her own execution...
At the back of the crowd, there is a slight commotion; the villagers make way hastily as the door into which Morena's men vanished a few moments ago swings open, and the prisoners are led out two by two, hands bound behind them, blinking in the morning sun. Will hears someone make a strangled noise; then a hand closes firmly on his shoulder, surprising him. "Steady, man," Norrington says, and Will, beyond questioning the oddity of the Commodore offering such a friendly gesture, realizes that the sound he heard had come from his own throat.
He recognizes his first mate immediately; broad-shouldered Gabriel is one of the last to emerge. He seems to be limping rather badly. He's not the only one wounded; all in all, Will's remaining crew numbers twenty at the most. Of course, a good percentage of the men were ashore on Tortuga when the Spanish attacked the Lady Swann, but Will knows he hadn't left less than twenty-five on board, most asleep, some on night duty. They've lost some, and this new grief pierces his numb brain with unexpected intensity. But where is Elizabeth? Heart pounding, he scans the other weary faces, looking for fine bones, luminous eyes and a slender build...
Norrington curses explicitly and violently under his breath.
Will looks again.
Elizabeth is still not there.
Norrington steps towards Morena. "What is the meaning of this?" The kid gloves have come off, and his voice rings cold with fury. "Where is the lady?"
But Will Turner doesn't wait for the Spaniard's answer; the smug, mocking satisfaction written on the man's face, the cruel twist in that smile, is answer enough for him. With an inarticulate cry, he pushes the Commodore aside to launch himself at Morena; his hands close about the other man's throat, his momentum bringing them both to the ground.
"I'll kill you," he hears himself snarl. "By God, I'll kill you for this, you bloody bastard--"
And pain crashes through his skull, bringing darkness and silence.
A Spanish soldier's musket butt hits Will's head, hard, and the boy slumps atop his adversary. Morena pushes Turner's unconscious body off of him, on his feet in an instant.
"Arrancale," he snaps to the soldiers on either side of him. "Ahora, al barco! Take him away!"
"Wait," Norrington barks out, and Morena freezes, his glance dropping lazily to the Commodore's drawn pistol. "What of our agreement, Captain Morena? What of your honor?" He allows his disgust for this charlatan to creep into his tone. They are done negotiating, now.
The man's eyes glitter with triumph. "My honor, Senor Commodore, is intact. I agreed to give up these prisoners in exchange for Senor Turner. I never promised that the senora was among them, only that my men had not harmed her...which they most certainly have not." He gestures, and the soldiers lift Will's inert body between them, carrying him up the gangplank of La Venganza.
Startled, Norrington recalls the tense dialogue on board the Dauntless.
"Hand the prisoners over unharmed, and I'll go without a fight, Morena."
"Now that, mi amigo, is an exchange to which I may be persuaded to agree..."
He does not lower his pistol. "And what of yourself, Captain?" he says softly. "Did you harm Mrs. Turner, then?"
Morena bows, completely undaunted. "My Lord Commodore," he says, unctuous. "I cannot say what I would have done with the lady, had I discovered her. But the fact remains that Senora Turner was not taken into my custody."
Norrington stares; then he turns to the crewmembers of the Lady Swann. "Is this true, man?" he demands of the tall Scotsman whom he remembers as being Will Turner's first mate. "Was Mrs. Turner on board when you were captured, or not?"
"Nay, sir." The sailor shakes his bearded head, expression bewildered. "I don' rightly know what you be meanin'. There never was no female aboard th' Lady, an' certainly not Will's Lizzie. I know her, an' a right noble woman she be, sir." He hesitates. "Something happen tae th' Missus Turner, Commodore? What be all this about?"
"That, my friend," Norrington says grimly, "remains to be seen."
Nichole D'Bouvoire, perched on the white rocks of the cliff a stone's throw from the quaint little Christian mission, lowers her spyglass and frowns, just a little.
She'd actually thought for a second that the young, dark-haired man might really kill Morena. She saw it in his face, apparent even through the imperfect lens of the glass: the despair of a man who no longer cared whether he lived or died, the rage that sent him blindly grasping for his enemy's throat like an animal. She knows that expression because she's felt it contort her own face, a lifetime ago but not long enough ago to be forgotten; knows what it's like to be trapped with nothing left to lose. She'd done the same, then, that the young man did: fight. Strike out, draw blood if she could, take as many down with her as possible, because when all else was considered equal, and survival ceased to be a worthy goal, there was never a good reason to go quietly.
She puts a hand to her side, tracing an old scar, proof of one of the many times she went biting, scratching, and kicking. They'd left her for dead for her troubles; she'd never have survived, otherwise. Ironic, that's what the memory is now to her, although at the time she had taken her own salvation personally, as if it was God's own little sadistic joke to save her life when the last thing she'd wanted was to be saved. That was back when Nichole still believed in a God, sadistic or otherwise, before she learned to believe in herself, first and only.
Down in the harbor, the stiff-faced British officer allows himself and his men to be escorted to that lovely captive ship anchored down the wharf, another of Morena's conquests, no doubt. Nichole, watching idly, eyes the graceful carrack, coveting her as she has since she caught sight of her yesterday evening when she arrived, and disgusted because she has no crew with which to sail her. The Redcoats, however, seem to be interested in the ship for other purposes; she observes their thorough search of her, above and below decks, and their evident failure to find whatever it is that they are searching for.
When the Redcoats have finally taken leave of Navidad harbor, and when Morena and his officers at last quit their ship and headed up through the town to the plantation beyond, Nichole has long become impatient and utterly bored with the view. She makes her way down to the village by the goat's road, inconspicuous enough for her peasant girl guise and the shortest, though steepest, path down to the harbor. She has precious few hours of daylight to set up her plan, and she finds herself unexpectedly gripped by a desire to learn the identity of the man who is apparently worth an entire barracks-full of captives all by himself, the man who wants to kill Captain Francisco Morena almost as badly as she does.
To my readers: Thank you! And thanks so much to those who take the time to leave a review--I treasure each and every one.
