Evie was drunk. It was the first time she'd been drunk in a good few months. She drank gin in such quantities now that she scarcely remembered how it felt to be without it. Her drunkenness was entirely the result of over much rum, and she was enjoying herself a great deal.
She and Giselle whirled about upon the sand in their underpinnings, shrieking with laughter. It had been a dead night, the sort that creeps forward, minute by achingly dull minute, like a slow, cavernous yawn to which there never seems an end, just a constant pungent darkness. So she and Giselle had called it quits, taken a few bottles down to the seaside, and had their own private party.
Few merchant vessels dared stop in at Tortuga now for fear of being caught doing dishonest business by the East India Trading Company. What pirate ships that dropped anchor still were very much willing to spend their coin on the usual pleasures, but as Giselle wearily observed, there seemed to be less and less of them each week. Both of them frequently muttered darkly to each other that it was high time the Company passed through its little show-off to the King fancyin's and left them all alone – either that or direct their ships and hard-working sailors to drop anchor in the harbour of Tortuga!
But the East India Trading Company was forgotten now as they made merry in the damp sand under a brilliant full moon. Grasping hands they whirled about singing childhood nursery rhymes that Giselle, who had arrived on Tortuga aged sixteen, remembered from a childhood on the dirty cobbled streets of London whilst her mother took in sewing work and her father shined boots.
"Ah-TISH-oo, Ah-TISH-oo, all fall DOWN!" They collapsed in a giggling heap on the sand and rolled about in it, shrieking still further to feel the grainy particles sift their way into the crevices of their bosoms and beneath their stays. The more they wiggled, the further the sand infiltrated until finally their bellies ached so much they could do nothing further but be prostrate beneath the stars, clutching hands, until their laughter subsided. Evie's eyes stung from the kohl that had run into them from her tears and her brain spun and swam within her skull, tipping the night sky first one way and then the next.
"Giselle?" and her friend murmured in acknowledgement. "You ever wonder what it would be like, to be some fella's wife, like? Lady of a 'ouse with nowt to do but take care of one bloke?"
Giselle's head lolled in Evie's direction and with a great effort she rolled over onto her belly and pushed herself up onto one elbow.
"You ain't thinkin' of that bugger Barbossa again, are you? Evie!"
Evie rolled away, her head dropping heavily to the sand, covering her face with both hands. "Oh shut it!" she moaned as Giselle launched into a lisping scold.
"Now you listen to me, Evie, I am bloody sick of your mopin'. Even if 'e comes back, there ain't nothin' 'e got for you but a few coins and a 'ard cock and don't you forget it, because 'e sure as 'ell 'asn't!" She leaned over her pal and grasped her arm, shaking Evie vigorously so that the younger girl grimaced and brought her knees up to her chest. "'Ow many years 'e's been about, mm? You think 'e's gonna lose 'is 'ead over a tu'penny, ha'penny docks whore, pretty though you might be?" Evie was silent, her face pressed into the sand and her shoulders hunched up to her ears and Giselle wrapped her arm tight across her bosom in a hug. "Think about it. 'E's fucked me, 'e's fucked Jasmine, e's fucked Katie, Scarlet, Bessie, Imogen, Cheryl, Maude, Tabitha –for fuck's sake, 'e fucked your mother when you was still just a babe!"
Evie jerked her head up and opened her mouth to respond, sand showering from the fronds of her hair. But the sudden movement gave her belly a lurch and she barely managed to propel herself to the waters edge in time before she was vomiting up the contents of the evening's excess whilst behind her, Giselle shook her head and dusted off her skirts.
"Forget that blighter and forget bein' a wife – imagine, you, cleanin', cookin' and 'ostin' tea – you'd only be useful for bed makin'. Stick to what you're good at, for God's sakes!"
The humidity that week clung to Evie's dresses and gathered in the pit of her arms and the crease of her thighs. The fine threads of her hair sprung wildly from her head and if she brushed it or wet it down it only grew wilder, as though lashed into a frenzy, choking on the suffocating air as the streets of Tortuga readied themselves in a swelling, groaning mass for the wet season. Evie did not drink any more rum and thought she might very well not ever again, although the gin quieted the pounding in her head as reliably as ever. She had a mind not to speak to Giselle and then realised that was sheer silliness and the two palled about as always. Business picked up a bit and the publicans, whores and traders of Tortuga found their dealings with each other to be far pleasanter, for their moods were all much improved, despite the heat.
One sultry evening, Evie did not bother with corsetry, or indeed even a dress, but went about in a lavender chemise, with dark purple stockings and cerise bloomers. She wished she need not bother even with the stockings, but that seemed overmuch even for Tortuga by moonlight, and they did show off the legs a bit better than bare ones. One publican was selling white wine that had been brought up from a storeroom dug deep into the earth, delivered into eager, sticky hands fresh from barrels of water and Evie gratefully bought a couple and found a swig or two to be sweet relief from the clogging air. So about the streets she went, cool wet bottles of wine tucked under her arm, hair hanging limp upon her forehead, no matter how much she had tried to enliven it before leaving her room. Tortuga seemed almost its normal self this evening, with people pouring out of the taverns – like in the old days, when there had been simply too many bodies for the walls to contain and they had spilled out, like beans from a tipped jar. Evie felt herself grow quite cheery – for perhaps things would be back to as they were – until she squinted closer at one or two and realised they were only half full within – and that it was the heat that had driven people to stand out on the streets. To the outsider, Tortuga seemed a bustling place, overbrim with business folks of sinister bent and, therefore, great opportunity – only one who had seen Tortuga three years earlier would recognise the difference and how vast it was.
Thinking of it sent Evie spiralling into ill temper and she swigged from her wine and muttered curses at the hypocrisy that drove swells to penalise the underdog. A mangy dog went hurtling past her ankles, fish head clutched between its yellowed teeth and she tittered and rounded the corner after it, finding herself face to face with Jack Sparrow.
She choked and started, dropping the bottle she clutched which shattered around her feet. Wine went hissing over the cobblestones, streaming through the gritty crevices to bubble around Sparrow's brown boots.
The two squinted at each other in the hazy light, and Evie's heart beat hard and fast within her breast.
"Well, well." Jack said, his arms crooked at the elbow, fingers curling. "Miss Evangeline. Still plyin' your trade in this disreputable place then, eh? I thought for sure by now one as ambitious as you would've set sail for finer shores and be in service to a King." He paused, rolling his eyes downwards, then back to her. "Or at least his butler."
Evie sneered at him, recovering from her fright quickly. "And I 'eard you was dead, Jack Sparrow."
"Ah!" He widened his eyes at that and flashed her a toothy smile so that she could see his missing teeth had been filled in with gold ones. "Reports of that nature were somewhat exaggerated, as it were." He took a step towards her, eyes shining sardonically. "Not that your villainous lover didn't do his damndest."
She blanched at mention of Barbossa and Sparrow caught it, a sneering smile tugging his lip upwards. "And how is the mighty Captain?"
Evie shrugged, careful to mask any pain that might glimmer through in her next words. "Wouldn't know. 'Aven't seen 'im for a couple of years."
Sparrow feigned shock and cocked his head sidewards. "Got bored of you, did he? Don't take it personal, love. He grew quickly tired of those who most helped him. As it happens." His voice was deadpan, his eyes suddenly dark as he stared at her and she realised it was not Sparrow, not as she'd known him. His smile was sharper and his eye was hard as flint. Was he wiser now, or simpler a more sinister version of the intrepid pirate lad who'd thieved her fee back from her and spoke of vanished treasure? Whatever it was, he looked mean now and he had her cornered in an empty alleyway. But it wasn't the first time she'd found herself in such a position and she bridled and advanced on him with gritted teeth. "I didn't 'ave owt to do with what 'appened to you, Sparrow. And 'is not bein' about 'as more to do with you and your tricky ways doomin' 'im to a wretched fate. So give me no lip about it!"
Sparrow clucked and threw his hands up. "What? Takin' charge of my ship? Plunderin' and lootin' freely under her sails and having his name on the lips of every sailor from here to England? A right rum fate that! Evie…" he stepped forward and grasped hold of her suddenly, leaning in close so that she could feel his breath upon her eyelashes. He was no longer beardless, a small goatee roughened his jaw, seeming to cast a permanent shadow on his face. "…I know a sweet thing like you would be ignorant to Barbossa's schemes… because you would not be ignorant of those more sour sisters what have fallen before you in dark alleys. " And he smiled, sharklike, bringing to mind Barbossa in his more cunning moments. Evie glared at him, refusing to be bowed and wrenched her arms free of his grip.
"Swimmin' your way about now the Pearl's gone might've roughened you up, Jack Sparrow, but I knows you ain't got devil enough in you to raise a 'and to me. And it's 'appened enough that talk of it don't do much to curdle my blood!"
Jack laughed, a harsh sound that was singularly devoid of mirth. "Aye, Miss Evangeline. Seems I fall short to your traitorous Captain in more ways than one, as my pal Belinda could attest. He was late in Barbados, did you hear?" Jack tipped his head to Evie and cocked a brow and Evie struggled hard to let nothing more than a disdainful jut of the chin betray her curiosity. "Oh aye, he was. Tell me, Miss Evie, did he used to knock your jaw out of place if you failed to satisfy him? Or was Belinda just - lucky?"
Evie had nothing with which to reply. It was the first news she'd had of Barbossa in almost two whole years and a tumult of emotions was pouring through her, all gathering together in a lump that obstructed her throat. He was alive – he had not been so far from Tortuga – he'd been with another woman – he'd beaten her. A hot and prickling sensation gathered behind her eyes and to mask it she popped the cork from the bottle that had not met its end on the stones and took a hefty swig. Jack kept his eyes fixed upon her, dark and silent and she glared at him as she wiped her mouth before proffering the bottle to him. He took it with a gesture of acknowledgement and had a gulp, keeping his head bent backwards to the sky afterwards though he handed the bottle back to her.
"Though one would think I'd learned from the last time accepting drinks from a whore is not wise on Tortuga."
Evie snatched the bottle back and Jack smiled, gold teeth glinting in the moonlight. "She worked hard, she did. But all to no avail. But then… he is gettin' on in years." He looked back down to Evie whose eyes had taken on a murderous sheen. "And what of you, Evie? You were always a hard worker, weren't you? But word's got about business ain't what it used to be here in old Tortuga." Jack sidled forward, lifting an arm to rest on the stucco wall beside where Evie leant. His other hand went playing about his belt. "As it happens, I'm feelin' inclined to charity this evenin'." His smile appeared lecherous at first glance, upon second it was merely sinister. From lowered lids he appraised Evie's scantily-clad form and produced a couple of gold coins, waving them beneath her nose "For the usual favours of course." He added, practically as an after thought and Evie found herself frozen there in the dank and stinking little alleyway, all of it a wasted, wretched mess of grey and black but for those two brilliant yellow discs, one catching a pale arc of moonlight as though winking at her. She lifted her eyes to Sparrow's and he held her gaze calmly.
Evie swallowed the urge to scream and pounce upon him, scratching his eyes out and dashing them onto the cobblestones so that she might crush them beneath her heel. She spat on his boot instead. The frothy white of it was joined by first one drop, then two, of rain. Evie felt more, hot and hard, falling slow upon her shoulders and head but stood her ground, her teeth bared at the pirate wretch.
Sparrow shrugged, his face's expression altering to one of resigned nonchalance, but not before Evie caught a glint of hatred in his eye fierce enough to match her own.
"So there is such a thing as the loyalty of a whore!" Jack wiped his boot off against a trouser leg and re-pocketed his gold. "I'm not entirely sure whether I should admire you or pity you, Miss Evangeline, but the very best of luck to you all the same." Pushing past the younger woman, he placed his peaked Captain's hat down hard upon his forehead where the rain drops splattered, staining the fabric, and called over his shoulder. "Don't let the Trading Company harden that pretty mouth of yours, I'm sure the lads don't want to go home bruised. "
Evie clenched her fists in the darkness and resolved to break his head open with her wine bottle. But just as she felt her arm rise to do same, Sparrow turned back to her, brows creasing in the centre of his forehead, as though something had just occurred to him.
"Oh – should your wayward Barbossa ever darken your doorstep again you might consider passing on a little message for me – the gold ain't enough. Blood is the key. " With a grimy wink he whirled about and was gone, rain rising to patter down in his wake. And though she was soaked through in moments, Evie watched after him awhile, contemplating the meaning of his last words.
Should've taken Sparrow's coin and just fucked the bugger, were Evie's grim thoughts a week later. The rain had been relentless and business had been bad. With wet feet jammed into flaking shoes and sopping petticoats flapping about her legs, Evie recalled the rainy days of old with no small amount of nostalgia – Tortuga, once a whore's paradise. It made one laugh to think of it now.
Still, the money came steady enough and she certainly wasn't starving. Though there had to be better ways of spending an evening than shivering in doorways, throwing back your hair only to have it plastered to your skull, thrusting out your bosom only to have it collect rain like a bucket!
Pushing open the door of The Goose's Breast she sighed heavily and grunted a greeting to a couple of the girls who sat there, looking as foul-tempered as she. Black Ruth said nothing as she approached the bar but dolled up a glass of hot wine for Evie who made her a silent toast and sculled the lot and rapped the glass for another.
"What you got to nosh on, Ruthie?" And the matron shrugged, double chin compressing against the swell of her bosom.
"Same as usual, my sweet. Pies, bread, soup and stew. Take your pick."
"Mrmph. " Evie spun her glass about in her hands and felt an unbearable weariness about it all. "Give me a pie then, ta. Pork if you got it. Otherwise I don't care."
As Ruth turned to fetch the supper, Evie spun on her heel and leaned her elbows back on the bar, surveying the small tavern. Though the candles were all blazing and the fire was lit, it seemed a wet and wretched place that evening, due in no small part to the great quantity of water the whores had trekked in, from which it seemed their gloom wafted, drifting into the very cracks and crevices of the wall.
Ruth lumbered back from the kitchen, bringing with her a wonderful steaming hot scent, a wrapped pie in one hand, a bunch of apples in the other, pale green and gleaming softly in the candleglow.
"'Ad these too." Ruth said gruffly, jerking a head to the apples. "They ain't gonna last much longer and thought you might fancy a couple."
She dropped them onto the bar and Evie gazed at them silently before lifting her glass to her lip and swigging. So much whispered of the past.
"Thanks, I will." She said flatly and slapped down a couple of coins.
With mouthfuls of greasy pie and three green apples thumping a persistent rhythm against her leg, Evie braved the Tortugan night once more.
There was a new tremor to the air, a pulsation that was intangible, impossible to articulate but most definitely there. Like a shiver along her skin, Evie felt it and it enlivened her. There was a shift in movement on the street, a rising in the voices in the taverns. There was a new ship in, she was sure of it. And that meant money.
Without missing a beat she hastened towards the docks, tucking up her skirts, tossing back her hair and loosening her bodice. The dark horizon rose before her, the hulking still shapes of ships anchored there like shadowed beasts that watched over Tortuga, and there on the docks the swaying silhouettes of smaller creatures – men, roping in their boats, climbing up onto the wharves. Evie's heart leapt to see it.
But these men did not hasten, did not move with the frenetic energy of newly docked sailors eager for earthly pleasure, unable to stop darting glances up towards the town even as they went about the necessary duties. No, these fellows' every step seemed leaden, their heads bowed as though a weight too great for their necks to bear. They moved as if underwater, slow and heavy, and not a one seemed able to look upwards, up to the steaming town, aromatic with the odours of spices, wine and sex.
To see it brought a stumbling pause to Evie's step; and for a heart choking moment she fancied it was a ship of spectres that had docked, recently ruined and wandering the oceans still, haunting the ports of the Caribbean, trapped by the habits of their past lives.
And then, as the silent group stepped from the wharves and moved into the flickering light thrown by the town, she saw Barbossa's Boatswain and thought that her heart would indeed stop.
One by one the pirates approached the town, dragging their feet as though the sacks slung over their shoulders held the weight of the world, and one by one they dragged their gaze upwards until it came to rest upon her, where she stood outlined in the fiery light of the taverns' lanterns and damp from the elements.
They did not smile, their did not cheer, they did not quicken their pace but each came silently to a stop and stared at her, stared with a gaze that chilled Evie to her marrow. Each gaze was hunger-stricken with lust; but lust was not a gaze with which Evie was unused to being beheld with. No, it was the nature of the lust that chilled her – the haggard and leeching depth, the bare force of it. The sudden tension that gripped their jaws, ran down their arms, dug their feet into the sand, and for a moment she thought they were about to pounce upon her all at once, and she prepared herself to run.
Then there was a rippling movement amongst them, they drew apart in jerked syncopation and from the centre came their Captain, dark, tall and with shoulders as stooped as their heads were bowed: Barbossa.
And though Evie had prepared herself, upon seeing the Bo'sun, for the sight of him, still she drew back. It was not that he was ragged and glowering now, although he was. It was not the new scar that split his right cheek below the eye or the twisted set to his lips. It was the eyes; pale and gleaming in his weathered face, that so froze the blood in her veins. They were hollow and unrecognisable.
He surveyed the town beyond her, hard gaze traversing it until he came to where she stood and stopped. They stared at each other, he with his silent crew scattered behind him, and she, alone and shivering. He pressed his lips shut tight and began to step forwards and at his action the rest of the crew began to move also, hovering behind him like shrinking shadows. Evie felt her heart shred in her bosom to watch him, wrenching in a way that seemed it would seize altogether and pitch her, headfirst and dead to the ground, a creature that seemed all threat where before he had promised only pleasure. A bitter and savage sneer threatened to curl her lip and to mask it she snatched out, a desperate move she would never before have dreamed to do, and grasped the filthy wrist of the pirate nearest her; a skinny and hunched fellow with a wooden eye, who gasped at her grip as though it burned him and stared at her in wide-eyed apprehension.
"Oy, love" She managed a smile though it ached. "You fancy a tumble? Might temper your spirits. Tell Evie what you want, I'll make it 'appen for you."
The boy swallowed, hard and slow, and forced his one good eye to her shoes, as though to look at her was painful. "You can't know the 'alf of what I want, " he croaked and then he was pushed out of the way by the imperious and forceful arm of Barbossa.
He fixed his eye upon her with a look that was at once sardonic and savage, cocking his head to the side so that the feathers upon his battered hat bobbed and Jack the Monkey, who perched upon his shoulder, snatched out tiny brown fingers to play with them.
"Forgettin' your loyalties, Missy?" He enquired of her in a voice that softly hissed.
Evie was anything but quick to forget, even if the memories pained her. She allowed herself now to sneer and put her hands on her hip, tossing her head to the side.
"Seems was you who forgot. Thought you must've passed on or some such." Feeling her bravado as keenly as he must see it.
A smile crooked his mouth, frightening in its dispassion. "Ah. But I have." And his eyes widened ghoulishly. "Passed on further than the likes of ye could imagine." And with the slightest inclination of his head, gestured that she should follow him.
It was a moonless night, the sky altogether obscured by heavy clouds that loomed above them. They walked at arm's distance to each other, Barbossa's stride with a lazy swagger to it that belied the hard set to his jaw. Evie kept her chin up and a downward slant to her mouth so that he would not be assuming that he'd been at all forgiven for the last two years, or that she even still cared for him. Their feet splashed in the mud and the damp air whipped around them and lifted Evie's hair. But Evie was not accustomed to silence and she was not comfortable with it and at last she sighed heavily, as though the whole affair was a burden to her, and enquired with studied nonchalance:
"Been alright then?"
Barbossa snorted and looked down to the filthy street.
"Alright? Ah, wench, well should ye ask… In the two years since last I saw ye I have surpassed the prior thirty. If my name were known before, it is learned now. Where all other pirate ships fall and flounder, mine merely flourishes. From the battles I have fought with my crew I have kept the dreams and legends of piracy alive, amassed wealth in hoardes, struck fear throughout the seas… but more than this. Far more. I have been to land's unthinkable, seen things undreamable… with the maps that led me to ruin before I have conquered new and unpassable passages, met beings who t'were thought were mere fancies or who had long since passed into myth and traversed their realm. From there I have drawn new charts… charts no other man could use for no other man could survive their leadin's… and there be more of it yet before me…" And though the phrasing was the same as what she might have heard him utter in earlier days – not boasting or prideful, merely assured in the knowledge of its own splendour – his timbre echoed with discontent.
Evie was struck silent for a moment, unsure exactly what to say for it made little sense to her and spoke yet more of the life he lived that excluded her entirely – more than ever it seemed, and it made her keenly aware of all the time that had passed and that though she might know every scar and freckle and line upon his body, what stood beside her was a stranger. In the end she opted for a quip: "So. Not bad then, eh?"
He laughed emptily, a husky sound. "I'd trade it all for a good meal. And a warm woman. " He turned his head a little towards her and she caught the look the crept over his face before he looked back to the path ahead. Wistful, it was, with a yearning to it she couldn't fully comprehend. Surely on such grand adventures as those, there'd been women more gloriously exotic than she and meals finer than even a palace had to offer – but cursed, he'd said he was, cursed to "endless existence" as Sparrow had put it that warm and fateful evening three years ago now, and that was a terming she did not understand except that it seemed to mean that all of life was now a series of disappointments to him and that no amount of searching could deliver what he sought.
And what could she, a mere whore, say to alleviate that frustration, if she could not understand the very nature of it? He'd looked at her in a desirous way and it seemed silly to begrudge him his absence now and so she slipped an arm about his. He turned his haunted eyes down to her and half-smiled in a pained way and it prompted her to reach into her skirts and pull forth one of the apples she had purchased earlier.
"This do?" She queried with a gentle grin and he halted abruptly, drawing her to a stop with him.
Barbossa stared at the apple in her hand and then turned his eyes to her, his gaze uncomprehending and his eyes growing wild in their expression. She felt confused.
"They was your favourite, wasn't they?
A rage so great it seemed to scorch her overcame his face and he grasped her wrist so hard she cried out and the fruit fell from her hand, splashing into the mire at her feet.
"Do ye mock me?" He hissed. "Is this yer petty vengeance?" He shook her, hard, and she thought her wrist might snap.
"What is it? What do you mean?" She squealed in terror. "Hector! Not again, please!"
He stopped rattling her but did not loosen his grip, merely stared searchingly at her, his eyes boring a hole into her very core. The fury slowly eased from his brow and was overtaken by a desperate longing. His hands, nails broken and knuckles red, drifted upwards towards her face. Her wrist burned in the wake of grasp but she did not dare move as his fingertips grazed her cheek, did not dare until he began to advance on her and in numbstruck terror she moved backwards, until he had her pressed up against a wall, its sticky coldness pressing against her shoulder blades.
"Ye are…" and he seemed to stammer over the words as though they eluded him. "… beautiful still. I first saw ye I wondered how somethin' so lovely could bloom here, like a bud from muck, and not already have been marred though hard ye had lived. I knew that I must have ye rough and often before this life robbed ye of yer loveliness. And I thought, by now, it would be gone, all rubbed from ye as though stained and grubbied by the film of livin'. But ye have it still. Oh, ye are older. And tougher. And leaf and drink has made ye pale and thin. But ye are not coarse. And not cold, though ye make a bold play of it." He cupped her face with both hands and leant down towards her, his great shape blotting out the light about them so that she could see little in the darkness but the pale blue of his wretched eyes. "It did not matter before, not before, it seemed nothin' but the glorified christenin' of another fuckin' whore, but now I wish that I had been first at ye, for I put in a bid. But ye were not woman enough for me then and I would go no higher. And what now," His hands tightened about her jaw and her heart sped up in response as he leant down even lower so that his odourless breath swept cool over her face like the foreshadow of sorrow. "Now I cannot know ye anymore and am lost to senseless regrets, what purpose is there to me bein' here? But I have need to see somethin' other than the same faces, the same deckin', the same sails, the same riches and the same endless damned horizon and all of it mere spectre to me gaze. And yet somethin' still familiar, somethin' which calls to mind the sweet blush of pleasure long lost."
His eyes were filmy and he blinked rapidly, as though he'd bewildered himself by this speech. She wanted to cry, to scream, to curse the vicious gods who'd thrown this life upon her – oh, not the life of a whore for that had never been so cruel to her as the life of a woman disappointed in love. Impulsively, she leant up to kiss him, but he stopped her, jerking backwards with a rueful smile.
"Oh Evie," He shook his head, a soft chuckle echoing from his throat. "No point. No point and no purpose, at all."
Point and purpose enough for her, she thought bitterly, gulping the contents of a gin bottle down swiftly once they arrived back in her room. Did he not think that, after two years, she might like the press of his lips upon hers?
Wearily he shrugged out of his coat and threw his hat down. She had not failed to note that he wore the same garments that he had that dark morning those two years before and though she considered that it might be simple coincidence, she thought it more likely it was not. He did not reach for the rum bottle at her bedside, or call for wine, but stooped at the knees and sat upon her bed with a heaviness that seemed to push the loud sigh from his belly. Jack scampered upon the cushions and clambered up the bedposts, squealing now and then with his findings and Barbossa looked up at him with a curiously indulgent expression before making to kick off his boots, stopping mid-action as though to consider taking it to completion, and deciding that he would, then bringing his bare feet up to the mattress. But it all seemed so route, as though he were following a pre-determined sequence of motions, not because he sought greater comfort. She understood him not at all, now, she realised, and took another long, hard swig of gin, feeling the liquor pool in her belly, spreading down and up at once, numbing her loins and warming her heart. He watched her, his face devoid of all expression, and she felt that he almost looked through her, not just her, but the room itself. Looked beyond the worn rug and the battered furniture and the ragged and colourful clutter that consumed every surface. Looked to a place she could not see.
Ah, but he was there, wasn't he? After two years he had come back, and had called her beautiful, and spoken of wanting her. And setting the gin bottle upon the sideboard with a grim determination, she unfastened her bodice and let her sodden dress fall at her feet, revealing the blue chemise that clung to her, for the rain had penetrated deep enough to soak her right through. Thin he might call her, but she was shapely enough and she saw that he noted it. She pushed her hair back over her shoulders, holding his gaze with her old knowing boldness, then drew the chemise up and over her head, so that she was naked.
And she saw it, saw desire mist his gaze, saw him raise slightly off the pillows, draw in a deeper breath. Then he looked away.
She went to him, crawled up beside him on the bed, her knee pressing gently into his groin, an arm on either side of his waist so that her breasts dangled against his chest, and she pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. He was hard, she could feel it, and she lifted a hand to stroke him. He caught her wrist and pushed her away and now she could not hide her hurt. "I'm not that fuckin' old." She whispered bitterly and he gave her a consoling smile, pulling a lock of her hair forward to toy it about gentle fingers
"Ye be a great temptation, make no mistake of that, wench. And I have spent many a pleasurable night in yer arms the last seven years. Ye have bestowed me with many fond memories on which to reflect upon when the voyages have been especially long and weary but these were all but obliterated last time I was about. " And they both averted their eyes at mention of it, as he curled a finger about her hair. "So let's leave it at that, eh?" He sounded as though he were striking a deal and she hovered only a moment before pushing herself from the bed and fetched a wrap with which to cover herself. He watched her once more with a funny little smile and then fished a small purse from his vest pocket, dropping it upon the coverlet.
"Consider it a night off. " And raised his brows. "Without the losses."
She turned from him, and fetched her bottle, searching for something to say. An empty green bottle stood on the sideboard, it had been filled with wine a week ago and brought to mind Jack Sparrow, the wretch upon whom she blamed the loss of her Captain. She stared at it for a long moment, considering her next words before turning back to Barbossa, saying carefully with eyes to the rug and giving no hint of the man who'd given her the information.
"So this… ah, this… curse…" She sensed him grow more alert, jerking his head up. "I 'eard somethin'. Don't know what there is to it. I don't even know what to make of what I 'eard. I just 'eard… look, I don't know if this will mean anythin'…" she sighed hopelessly and shook her head a little. "I don't understand even now… but what I 'eard… I 'eard that blood was a part of it." She dragged her gaze to him beseechingly. "That mean anythin' to you?"
He was gazing at her with quiet stillness, his face utterly composed, and yet she could feel he was drawn taunt. She feared he would question her further, want to know how she had come about this information, what it meant, but then he relaxed, shoulders easing downwards and his head dropping, an inutterable tiredness upon his face.
"Aye. I have heard similar." His sigh was great and followed by a murmur she only barely caught: "Then we can but hope the Turner child lives and was not upon the ship after all…"
She moved to him, curling herself up against his body on the bed and looking up into his face with all the desperate sadness she felt.
"What are you goin' to do then?"
And he smiled and dropped his head back on the pillows, chuckling. "It seems a pirate's search for gold never be finished. Least of all when the gold be cursed." He looked down at her, furrowing his brows. "I hear gold does not so easily find its way to Tortuga as once it did."
She shrugged, and drank. "I get by. Still got me room.."
He fell silent a moment, lifting a hand to play idly in her hair, then with deliberateness, drew the great ruby ring – the one Jack had thieved from him and she had thieved back for him – and pulled her hand from where it gripped her bottle, slipping it onto her thumb.
"Sell it." He said gruffly. "Don't go keepin' it. All paupers be the sentimental sort."
And she knew that he said that because he knew that she wouldn't heed him.
But she did not reply; she did not even thank him. She merely wrapped an arm about his waist and buried her face into his chest, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall.
"You can't know how glad I am to see you." She managed to whisper, but he did not respond and she was not sure he had even heard her. He did draw her closer against him though, and one hand lifted and fell in long, gentle strokes against the back of her neck. She sighed, and pushed her cheek further against his breastbone and strove to catch his heartbeat. There was nothing, however, not even the rhythm of his breath.
Nonetheless she was comforted by his nearness and his touch soon lulled her to a deep and aching sleep in which she dreamed they drank and danced on the shore of a far off land she did not know the name of, and she was wearing a new dress, brand new, and the feathers in his hat were a bright and brilliant yellow. She bared her breasts to him and he laughed and kissed her warmly and they fell down on the sand together, dry, clean sand.
When she awoke she was tucked beneath her counterpane, her room dark and cold with the rain once again heavy outside, and he was gone.