"…and I'm as content as a cucumber to wait until Sao Feng joins us…"
"Sao Feng is dead." Elizabeth announced.
The Pirate Lords were assembled around the table and all eyes turned to her and her crew. She wasn't afraid, couldn't be, but she felt James move ever so slightly closer on her left and in secret she was grateful for it.
"He fell to the Flying Dutchman." she continued, keeping her voice strong, proud.
Immediately talking broke out among the assembled court, noises of outrage, cries of shock. Taking a deep breath Elizabeth discounted it all and approached the globe where eleven swords were impaled. Quickly sighting the location of the South China Sea she thrust her own blade in and heard Jack ask incredulously,
"He made you Captain?! They're just giving the bloody title away now…"
Elizabeth ignored him and approached the table, placing her hands on the wood and leaning forwards as a Spanish Captain began shouting at her in his native tongue.
"Listen!" she called, "Listen to me!"
The chatter continued and she swallowed. James was still close but he said nothing and she was grateful. She had to earn the Court's respect in the same way she had earned that of her crew…on her own merit.
"Our location has been betrayed."
Instantly quiet fell and Elizabeth felt a dull thrum of satisfaction at that.
"Jones is under the command of Lord Beckett," she continued, "They're on their way here."
"Who is this betrayer?" asked a tall African man, standing almost a foot above everyone else.
Elizabeth looked around hoping that she would find Will. It was an empty wish, she knew, because if Will were there he would have made himself known immediately.
"Not likely anyone among us." Barbossa answered the question.
"Where's Will?" she murmured, directing her question to Jack.
"Not among us." was his answer, mocking in his tone.
"The question is not how they found us, but what will we do now they have?" continued Barbossa. Elizabeth glanced at the man, appreciating his adherence to business. Barbossa had done terrible things but he had always had control, a sort of inherent power, which she couldn't help but grudgingly admire.
"We fight." she said, answering the question with what she thought to be the most obvious, the only, answer.
Laughter broke out. Elizabeth frowned and she felt James press a little closer, murmuring under his breath so that only she could hear,
"Pirates."
It was reminder enough. Had she not learned from Jack that the surest way to win a confrontation was to avoid it? Pirates cheated and lied and stole, they were betrayers and for all their talk of codes they had a higher interest; self interest, which always won the day.
"Shipwreck Cove is a fortress," said a heavily painted old lady, smiling through blackened teeth, "A well supplied fortress!" she continued, standing, her insubstantial height doing nothing to denounce the power of her words, "There is no need to fight if they cannot get to us!"
Elizabeth's body tensed, ready to object. To fight was the only way to overthrow Cutler Beckett, the only way to stop Jones terrorizing the sea. The only way to make sure Will could regain the father he so longed for and the way she could gain justice for her own father's death.
"There be a third course."
Barbossa's words brought quiet and again Elizabeth felt envy for the power of his voice. Was it because she was a woman, or inexperienced, or merely young - which was the reason for why she could gain no respect?
Pirates, James had said. Perhaps that was the answer. For though she was a Pirate Captain and though she was Lord of the South China Sea she was, to those around her, a Governor's daughter; brought up spoiled and willful and too young to understand the games being played around her.
Well, she thought, at least that was what they imagined. And perhaps they had been right, once upon a time. But not now.
"In another age, at this very spot…" Barbossa continued, moving away now and drawing eyes with him.
As she turned she saw Jack's dark gaze scan her crew and widen slightly as he caught sight of James. She steeled herself for confrontation, for accusations of spies in the camp…but none came. Jack simply raised an eyebrow at her, gave her the patented Sparrow smirk and turned his attention fully onto Barbossa.
If anything that was worse. Jack was plotting, she just knew it, and if anything happened to James as a result the fault would be hers.
"…the first Brethren Court captured the sea Goddess and bound her in her bones."
The assembled court nodded in unison but Elizabeth looked from one to the other, puzzled. What did sea Goddesses matter? A glance to Jack offered nothing but before she could ask Barbossa finished,
"That was a mistake. Oh we tamed the seas for ourselves, aye - but opened the door to Beckett, and his ilk!"
Elizabeth once again eyed those assembled and she found confusion on many faces…but also interest. Barbossa had their interest. That, Elizabeth thought, was significant.
"Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures but the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone. You all know this to be true!"
Elizabeth looked up to James and saw him eyeing Barbossa, his expression set. He caught her glance and returned it with one of his own. She raised a brow, a question, and he inclined his head, just slightly, in response. She did the same. They were both agreed then, she had not gone mad…Barbossa was making sense. Barbossa was speaking the truth both she and James felt. Elizabeth wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not but it was something.
"Gentlemen!" Barbossa continued, moving back to his original position, pausing at her and smiling his terrifying smile, "Ladies."
He paused, expression set, before finishing with his final stroke,
"We must free Calypso."
Elizabeth let out a breath. There went the sanity. A moment's pause and the court erupted and yells came from the Lords,
"Shoot him!"
"Cut out his tongue!"
"Shoot him and cut out his tongue!" Jack exclaimed, making the most, as he always did, of the chaos, "And then shoot his tongue…and," turning to Barbossa, "Trim that scraggly beard."
"Sao Feng would have agreed with Barbossa," spoke up Tai Hung.
Elizabeth looked on but said nothing, though when Tai Hung turned to her to see whether he would be punished for speaking out she inclined her head slightly. He tightened his mouth and bowed his head low. Elizabeth knew she had few enough allies as it was; there was no sense in losing her first mate for the crime of simply speaking his mind.
"Calypso was our enemy then, she will be our enemy now!" roared the tall African Lord, causing murmurs of assent, followed by the Frenchman saying,
"And it is unlikely her mood will be improved."
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. This was getting them nowhere.
"I would still agree with Sao Feng," the Spanish Lord announced, laying down his pistol with a thud, "We free Calypso."
She wondered whether they had truly noticed that Sao Feng was not there, and she stood in his place. It appeared not.
"You threaten me?" asked the Frenchman, his voice going deadly smooth.
"I silence you!" the Spanish Lord exclaimed, raising his pistol and waving it in the air.
He was promptly cut off when the Frenchman punched him squarely in the nose.
Immediately fighting broke out, the table becoming a mass of bodies trying to punch and kick and bruise every part of everyone else. Elizabeth watched, flabbergasted, at the brawl.
"This is madness." she murmured.
"This is politics." Jack corrected, reminding her once again that these were pirates, not gentlemen.
"Meanwhile," Elizabeth pressed, "Our enemies are bearing down upon us."
"If they not be here already." Barbossa confirmed before, in a movement which belied his age and the wear his life had had on his body, climbed atop the table and let off a shot towards the sky.
Immediately all went quiet, all freezing in position and looking up to where Barbossa stood, as a King atop a throne.
"It was the First Court what imprisoned Calypso." he announced, his voice booming, "We should be the ones to set her free and in her gratitude she will see fit to grant us boons."
"Whose boons?!" asked Jack, "Your boons?!"
Barbossa rolled his eyes in exasperation and moved to dismount the table.
"Utterly deceptive twaddle speak says I," Jack continued, taking control from where Barbossa had held it.
Elizabeth felt as though she should speak, should press for war, because what was being achieved thus far was nothing. She could practically feel Beckett and Jones breathing down their neck and she looked to James for guidance. However he was looking fixedly on Jack and with a sigh she took that to be her cue. When she had become a Pirate Lord she had borne no thought for the fact that there were eight others, more cutthroat and determined, more selfish and experienced and, yes, more piratical than her. The power she had hoped to gain was dwindling to nothing.
"If you have a better alternative, please share!" exclaimed Barbossa in answer to Jack, sarcasm laced thick in his voice.
"Cuttlefish." Jack promptly answered.
Barbossa did a double take and Elizabeth herself closed her eyes. Jack was not completely mad, that she knew, but there was enough madness in him to drive her to despair - especially now of all times.
"Let us not, dear friends," Jack continued, moving away from them with measured movement. "Forget our dear friends, the cuttlefish."
James bent closer and she felt his breath on her ear as he murmured lowly,
"Sparrow has a plan."
Her attention sharpened. Of course he did - when did Captain Jack Sparrow not have a plan? She nodded to show she had heard him and James stood again, his presence lifting but not moving further away as he stood straight.
"…glorious little sausages," Jack continued, rambling, "Pen them up together and they'll devour one another without a second thought! Human nature, isn't it? Or…or fish, nature. So yes," he leaned down and placed his hands on the small Japanese lady's shoulders, "We could hold up here well provisioned and well armed and half of us would be dead within the month which…seems quite grim to me, any way you slice it. Or…"
He continued his circuit of the room and Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. Was he doing what she thought he was doing? Was he pressing for war?
"…as my learned colleague so naively suggests, we can release Calypso and pray that she will be merciful. I rather doubt it."
Jack had turned most of the room and Elizabeth's suspicions were aroused. He had discounted the other two options put forward which only left her own. But why? Why would Jack Sparrow of all people press for the most dangerous, most righteous, way of handling the situation?
"For can we truly pretend she is more than a woman scorned, which fury hell hath no? We cannot."
He spoke in a language she did not understand before finishing up with the simple statement which he had taken so long to come around to voicing,
"We are left with but one option."
Elizabeth couldn't stop a self satisfied smile from emerging as she waited for Jack to make his final blow.
"I agree with…and I cannot believe these words are coming out of me mouth…Captain Swan. We must fight."
She released a breath. Jack was on her side. She didn't for one moment think it wasn't to further one of his own self serving plans but he was with her and, in her experience, once Jack Sparrow set his mind to something it was always done, in the end.
"You've always run away from a fight!" Barbossa exclaimed in retort.
"Have not!" was Jack's answer.
"Y'have so!"
"Have not!"
"Y'have so!"
"Have not!"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. One step forward and two back.
"Y'have so and y'know it."
Have not! Slander and calumny. I have only ever embraced that oldest and most noble of pirate traditions; I submit here, now, this is what we all must do. We must fight…to run away."
A pause and Elizabeth wondered whether she could shoot Jack from across the table without being instantly filled with shots herself.
"AYE!" shouted Gibbs.
"AYE!" agreed the rest of the Court.
"Aye…" Elizabeth breathed, sensing this was not going to go the way she wanted it to.
"As per the code!" Barbossa announced, this voice once again rising above all others, "An act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be declared by the Pirate King."
"You made that up!" Jack immediately exclaimed.
"Good Lord…" she heard James mutter from behind her.
"Did I now?" Barbossa asked, cunning in his voice, "I call on Cap'n Teague, Keeper of the Code."
Elizabeth was taken aback at the way Jack's face fell at that. Was Barbossa right? Or was it this Teague who struck such fear into the usually fearless Jack Sparrow?
"Sri Sumbhajee," announced the first mate of the tiny Indian Lord who had yet to speak in Elizabeth's earshot, "Proclaims this all to be folly. Hang the code! Who c-"
A shot rang out, cutting off the man, and almost immediately his body struck the floor. Elizabeth's hand went to her belt only to remember her sword was in the globe but she clearly heard the slide of steel behind her; James was a step away from unsheathing his own blade. All eyes strayed to the cloud of smoke from where the shot came and from the shadows a voice came,
"The Code is the law."
Elizabeth turned fully to watch with everyone else as a man emerged, approaching steadily and looking remarkably like…
"You're in my way, boy."
Jack moved instantly, sliding to the side without comment. The man, Captain Teague she presumed, gestured to two men who carried a heavy tome between them. Murmurings broke out, all saying the same thing.
"The Code."
Elizabeth watched, entranced, remembering the stories she had read as a girl of Morgan and Bartholomew, the way she had used the Code against Barbossa and his crew to save her life; and to propel her into the world of piracy which she was now so entrenched in. The huge leather bound volume looked every bit as to what she'd imagined.
Teague whistled and a dog bearing a ring of keys appeared. He took the key and, saying something about sea turtles to Pintel and Ragetti, Elizabeth watched awestruck as the Code was opened. From her vantage point she could see the writing, flowing across the page, and also countless scraps of paper stuck onto the heavy looking pages; notes and amendments perhaps.
"Barbossa is right." Teague finally announced after several tense moments.
"Hang on a minute," Jack said as Barbossa waved an arm, self righteous in the confirmation. "It shall be the duties, as the King, to declare war, parley with shared adversaries…fancy that."
"There has not been a King since the First Court." announced the French Lord. "And that's not likely to change."
"Why not?" Elizabeth asked.
"See," Gibbs replied, leaning forward, "The Pirates King is accepted by popular vote…"
"And each pirate," Barbossa broke in, "Only ever votes for hisself."
"I call for a vote." Jack exclaimed.
Teague began playing a tune in the corner of the room on a stringed instrument while everyone let out noises of dissent before beginning.
"I vote for Ammand the Corsair!"
"Capitaine Chevalle, the penniless Frenchman."
"Sri Sumbhajee votes for Sri Sumbhajee."
"Mistress Ching."
"Gentleman Jocard."
Elizabeth shook her head when it came to her.
"Elizabeth Swann." she said, knowing it would do nothing useful but unable to say with honesty that anyone in the room, other than her, would follow the course of action she wished for. Jack was the exception - but voting Jack King of Pirates would have been the work of a madman.
"Barbossa."
"Vallenueva!"
They came to Jack and there was a pause.
"Elizabeth Swann." he said slowly and with glee.
Elizabeth's stomach lurched as she registered his words. Had he just…?
"What?" she asked, dumbly.
"I know, curious isn't it?"
Almost instantly yells of dissent broke out. People yelling at one another, at Jack, at her - she felt James discreetly place a hand on her elbow and knew that if anything happened, if anyone tried to attack her, they would not succeed.
"Am I to understand…that you will not be keeping to the Code then?" Jack asked.
A sharp sound of a string breaking drew all attention to Teague who was sitting tense and seething in the corner of the room at the very idea of the Code being ignored. Everyone went quiet and returned to their places under his fiery gaze and Elizabeth wondered what power the man had, to have so many formidable Pirates so terrified of his wrath.
"Very well," said Mistress Cheng, turning to Elizabeth, "What say you, Captain Swann, King of the Brethren Court?"
All eyes turned to her and Elizabeth felt the pressure of her decision. What she said would affect every man and woman in the room…yet there was but one option in her mind.
"Prepare every vessel that floats. At dawn," she looked to Jack to see his approval directed straight back at her, "We're at war."