Book One - Chapter Ten: A Fine Education

Barbossa was incapable of seeing his daughter when ever he so chose. If Victoria's attitude wasn't deterrent enough, the call to the sea made going homewards a distant memory. Barbossa's heart, however, was never far from his daughter. Periodically Barbossa would write to Amelia, but never directly. Each letter was signed "H. B. Smith". He would rarely state his location and would never mention any detail of pirating. He would write in the language of patrons and merchants, exchanges and profits. Amelia read through all of the linguistic disguises.

It was a good year before her father mentioned coming back near Stone Chapel. Amelia took that letter to her mother and spoke to her candidly about seeing her father again and going back out to sea. Victoria disproved initially, but upon contemplating the matter further, agreed to allow Amelia go and "visit her aunt" once more.

When June came around, Amelia spent a whole week impatiently waiting near the docks and always jumped at the sound of some approaching their house, though each time it was only just Colonel Crestcastle coming to see Victoria. Then, one morning, a mail carrier came to the house with a letter from H.B. Smith.

"Dearest Amelia,

My ship has docked at the pier. I will not disturb your mother by coming to the house. If you cannot find me at the inn of the Black Rabbit, I will return shortly. The crew has not since changed. I trust them to see you to the ship should I be detained. Come at your own discretion. I will not encourage you to defy your mother. While she and I have our different views, she still loves you and cares for your wellbeing. If you cannot take leave with us this time, I shall not be offended. Nevertheless, I would be pleased to see you, even if only for an hour or so.

I wait patiently,

With greatest affection,

H.B. Smith"

Amelia had barely finished reading when she was ready to dart out to the pier to meet her father. Victoria was quick to sit her daughter down. There was much that needed to be done before allowing her daughter to go off gallivanting. Most importantly was the task of making sure that the young girl looked presentable. Victoria did not have her wear her best dress but it was necessary for Amelia to look pretty enough. Once Amelia was presentable and had a few belongings packed, Victoria trusted Amelia to go on her own, though it was not customary for a young girl to do so. Victoria had no intention of drawing any attention to herself and the man who would claim to be Amelia's father.

Amelia ran giddily along the dock. She could see the Roving Maid just as she had remembered it. She wanted to run straight to it and up the gangway, but she remembered her father's letter telling her to meet him at the inn. She changed her direction. The people around the inn and shops looked questionably at the young lady who seemed so determined and yet was unaccompanied. She found the inn and entered it. She did not see her father but she did see the captain. Captain Jack Sparrow was not quite so drunk just yet, but was nonetheless too distracted to take any notice of the young girl. Amelia figured that it was not worth bothering the captain since she was bound to see someone slightly more coherent than him from the ship. She went back out in the direction of the Roving Maid. The closer she came to the ship the more faces she recognized. Crew members were handling goods and transporting them too and from the ship. She greeted each passing man by name and each man returned the greeting with a grin. She followed some of them up the gangway.

Once on the ship, Amelia saw her friend Ragetti up in the rigging. He waved to her and proceeded to descend from his high perch. When his feet touched the deck Amelia ran to embrace him. He returned the embrace and then looked her over, measuring the height of her head to his own chest and noting that she had indeed grown taller. He then progressed to tell her that her father was busying himself to get all of his errands completed today since he did not expect to see his daughter until tomorrow, assuming that Victoria would have put up quite the protest on the matter. Seeing as Amelia was here now, Ragetti helped her with her things, which was unnecessary since she barely had a single bag with her, and took them to Barbossa's cabin. Ragetti did not enter the cabin, he simply reached his arm through the doorway and handed the girl her things. Amelia then proceeded to ask her friend of all the adventures that he must have been on since she last saw him. She confessed to having received her father's letters but was disappointed by the lack of great detail. Ragetti replied that there had not been much in the sense of adventures, but Amelia took his comment as being modest, which she did not find pleasing to her enquiry.

"I'll say what I can," he said, "but I've got me work to do, too, you know."

It was a compromise which Amelia was willing to accept. Ragetti was to return to his perch to work and Amelia was welcome to speak to him from there. Amelia proposed that she climb the rigging as well due to the fact that the conversation would seem far too impersonal if it were to be shouted back and forth. This proposition Ragetti was not quick to agree upon, fearing that he would break Barbossa's daughter before they had even been reunited. Amelia continued her argument by stating that if she was to continue her visits upon the ship, she would have to learn the skill of climbing the riggings eventually and her father was less likely to have a heart attack if she learned while he was not present to witness it. The negotiation continued as such until finally Amelia changed into one of her other simple dresses, one without the excess layers. Ragetti also advised her to remove her shoes so that she would be able to get better footing, as he did.

The lesson began smoothly. Amelia seemed to have decent balance. Ragetti needed only point out the best step to take, where to grab hold and where to secure each foot. Ragetti followed close behind her, so close that due to his length and her shortness, he was able to have a foot just below her and his arms just above her, ready to catch her or boost her up if need be. Once up, there was the matter of sliding over. With this, Ragetti passed above her and helped her over until she sat right beside him. She had to get used to supporting herself in this awkward position but she managed to find a way that suited her. Ragetti, of course, gave up the best sitting place to his young friend.

When Barbossa returned to the ship, he did not think to look up at who might be in the rigging. Amelia saw him - that is, she saw his hat - and called down to him waving. Barbossa looked up and did nearly have a heart attack.

"What the blazes are ya doin' up there?" Barbossa shouted in fear of his daughter's safety.

When Ragetti first heard Amelia call her father he quickly put aside his work and began to help her descend, knowing that he was probably going to get in a lot of trouble for having agreed to take the young Barbossa girl up there in the first place.

Barbossa did not address Ragetti at first. His immediate concern was his daughter. Ragetti would receive his scolding later when the time was not so pressing. Amelia was so glad to see her father that it did not even occur to her that he might have been angry at that moment. Her innocence, however, quickly melted away her father's temper and he was pleased just to embrace her, and like Ragetti had done prior, note how she had grown since they had last seen one another. He was not entirely impressed with the fact that she had only just arrived and already she was looking like a rag doll, shoes off and everything.

"Good Lord, if yer mother could see ya now she would have my head on a platter," Barbossa sighed.

Amelia was much too proud of herself for learning all of these new skills and becoming more useful to the ship and, in turn, to her father, to worry about the consequences. From the start she dedicated this trip to learning everything she could. It seemed to be a respectable thing to be able to run a ship. She was not yet fully aware of the purpose or the profit involved with pirating, or really had piracy fully explained to her. Amelia delighted in feeling useful, which she felt she was not attaining with her regular studies at home. She knew that life on the ship was hard work and very seldom held much fun and adventure since she had spent the most part of her first voyage in full complain of that. What Amelia loved was the change. Her expectations were not as strictly defined aboard the ship. In fact, she had no expectations from anyone. That fact alone encouraged her to make the most of this experience with her father and now new friends.

This voyage, when Captain Jack Sparrow was finally brought back to the Roving Maid a few days later, was the official start of Amelia's pirate lesson. She mostly followed Ragetti around and learned to help him with his variety of tasks, but would also learn from others as well. She had already learned how to clean the ship and its contents in the most basic manner, which she was occasionally called upon to do on her own now. Her fascination, however, was increasing in the riggings. Ragetti did his best to explain each one and its function. Knot tying was an extensive lesson which took many days of practicing before Ragetti would let her try on an actual rope in use. Even Captain Jack Sparrow was beginning to notice the young Barbossa girl's use aboard the ship, but that was as far as his acknowledgment of her went. Barbossa was not overly thrilled to have his daughter physically working the ship though he was content that she was finding a place aboard, strengthening their own bond as father and daughter.

The adventuring was minimal. Most of the gold pickings were literally just pickings, leftovers from where scraps of the Monchris could still be found. Captain Jack Sparrow was opposed to doing the dishonourable thing of attacking ships. Jack was all about indulging in his freedom as a pirate and was not about to take that privilege away from another soul. Some crew members, more experienced in the ruthless attributes of piracy, ridiculed the captain privately on his softness, not wanting to get his hands dirty. They figured that all money was blood money. Jack did his best to hush that sort of talk aboard his ship, and if by chance the opposing views proved to brewing trouble, Jack would see to it that that crew member was relieved perpetually from his duties on the Roving Maid. The captain did not have anyone killed, only removed, and that seemed good enough to him.

Due to this lack of cutthroat action, Amelia was still slow to learn the truth of the pirate ship. She knew that they would salvage gold and, more often than not, the crew would be faced with the immediate consequence of someone else laying claim to what they were salvaging, much like Amelia's first experience with the unexpected ambush of surviving Monchris members. She did, however, understand that Captain Jack Sparrow was the highest authority that the crew members had to answer to, and for that she found herself able to respect him, despite his vulgar tenancies. Amelia also understood how much control her own father had upon the ship. Being first mate, he was often occupied with less physical but more intellectually demanding work. Budget and upkeep were Barbossa's greatest concerns, and when there were issues on board the ship, they were to be directed to him first before anything would be brought forward to the captain himself. Also known to Amelia was that her father had, perhaps not first choice of the found booty, but nonetheless always managed to make claim to any piece of jewellery that was brought aboard. Usually in the form of a necklace, Barbossa would bestow the trinket upon his daughter, which she never actually wore but kept safe in her collection of them.

Apart from these two main figures, Amelia also found a great respect for Ragetti, whom she not only appointed as her teacher but as her companion and confidant. Eventually, it became difficult for the others to be able to distinguish if Amelia had become Ragetti's pet or if he had become hers. It was not looked ill upon since, as had been seen previously, Amelia was slowly gaining the skills necessary to be of use, and she delighted in being useful. Barbossa's only complaint was that his daughter would, on some days, become quite the little boy, even to the extent of adopting a pair of trousers which better enabled her to climb the riggings by herself without anyone else's help. Amelia took to being up high amongst the sails quite well. She seemed content in knowing that she was one of the few who could do so with such ease. She could scurry up to the crow's-nest, take in a view that the others below could not see, and scurry back down before her father had a chance to notice that she had gone up there again, usually against his wishes.

The surgeon, Tigg, also became Amelia's teacher, though his lessons were much more studious than her other ones. She was taken on almost as an apprentice nurse, learning how to handle the simple ailments that were often suffered at sea. This proved to be the most encouraged form of education since it meant that the surgeon had an assistant on hand whom the captain was not required to pay half as much for. Amelia tried to avoid these lessons, and above all, tried to avoid practicing them as much as possible. Her first task of having to cut Ragetti's nerve endings in his damaged eye was more than all the medical experience Amelia had ever hoped to have. Granted that now simple tasks like stitches did not seem half as stomach turning, it was still more than she was certain any lady-like woman should ever be called upon to perform. She was quite certain, in fact, that her own mother must have never even seen the sight of blood before.

This trip, Amelia felt obliged to write her mother, at least a few times, to reassure her of her well being. Amelia understood the format of her father's letters now after trying a few attempts to relate her experiences to her mother without sabotaging any future opportunities of returning out to sea later on. Her mother would have a fit if she knew anything about how her little girl was being put to work as she was. Amelia found herself writing mostly about some of the sights she had seen, beautiful starry nights, playful sea creatures, and some exotic locations that she had the privilege of exploring. Amelia was very particular on what she described about these locations. Not all of them were actual established colonies; some were just make-shift towns and infamous pirate coves. Amelia was never entirely certain what the purpose of brothel wenches was, but she knew that they absolutely adored her. "Sweet face" they called her, and would proceed to ignore the men, much to their patrons' displeasure. This was also added to Barbossa's list of things he had not entirely thought out and was very awkward to approach the subject with his daughter. Soon it only seemed natural, and none of the crew members questioned that Amelia was able to go everywhere they went.

The time had passed by quickly and before Amelia was ready she was taken back to Stone Chapel to be with her mother once more. Every time Amelia left, it was as though the crew felt a loss greater than Barbossa himself. She was always helpful and pleasant to have around. The ship became more and more eager to bring her back aboard. Captain Jack Sparrow did not feel the same way, but he did accept negotiations.