Book Three - Chapter Two: About Regatti

While there was no exact destination in mind, supply demanded that the ship make port at a well enough established town. Barbossa was making the arrangements for the purchases -as usual. The crew was scattered throughout the ship, doing the repairs and cleaning that was needed to use up some old supplies make room for the fresh ones. Normally they would be scattered in the town, but Jack had no intention of staying long. In fact, Jack did not even get off of the ship right away - very unusual for him.

Amelia had dressed herself up a little more civilized than usual, which caught the captain's attention.

Stealing up behind her, he said to her very alluringly, "And where are you off to looking like that?" He checked around him to see if it was safe to display his affection or not. It was not.

"Permission to go ashore, Captain?" she asked very precisely.

"What are you up to?"

"I'd like to go into town and have a look around."

"Like that?"

"To the decent part of town," she reassured him.

"Ah, I see. Sure. Just make sure that one of the men goes with you."

"Really, it's not necessary," she protested.

"Amelia, that wasn't a suggestion, it was an order."

It was not the idea of being accompanied that bothered her, it was the knowledge that there was not a presentable man among the deckhands. However, being unable to avoid her captain's commands, she agreed to select someone to escort her so long as she could make him presentable.

"Fine," she said to her captain. "I'll have Mr. Ragetti come with me once I get him cleaned up."

"What is it with you and him? You're all the time together, even when you were little," the captain wondered. "Should I be concerned? I could break his leg or something to that effect."

Amelia laughed.

"I'm sure you could, Captain. But that wouldn't exactly prevent what it is you think you should be concerned about now, would it?" she answered him slyly.

She walked away, leaving her captain behind with a stupid smile upon his face.

Amelia checked the crew's quarters for her companion, having not seen him above deck.

"Mr. Ragetti," she called, "will you come into town with me?"

He nearly tripped over himself while scrambling towards to young woman. She explained to him that she needed the accompaniment, and that if he would go and get himself cleaned up, she would have him dressed for the part.

Ragetti was actually very excited about this. He envisioned himself looking like a proper gentleman, which would be quite a change from the scrapper he had always been. He filled a pail with water and washed himself as best as he knew how. In the meantime, Amelia was tracking down some clean clothes that at least would not make him look a common deckhand.

When Ragetti came to report to her, Amelia could not help but giggle. He certainly did get most of the visible dirt off of his face but there was still much that needed to be done.

"My poor dear," she said sympathetically. Then she took his hand and led him out on deck where she was determined to have him scrubbed right down. It took multiple pails and a couple cloths to get the man cleaned. She poured water over his head, scrubbing and combing his hair. She had him trimmed and shaved before she was ready to have him dressed. Already he was looking much better, and he felt much more sophisticated just in being clean. Amelia brought him back inside and helped him dress. Though he could do most of it on his own, he was still a little confused about which layer was to go in what order. When he was finally ready, Amelia had to take a step back to look at the finished product.

"My goodness," Amelia said with an unexpected awe, "you are quite dapper now."

Ragetti did not get a chance to see for himself but he felt proud enough. Taking on his new role quite seriously, he extended his arm, as he had seen proper gentlemen do from afar, to his female companion. Amelia picked up her shawl, placed it over her shoulders, and then hooked her arm in his with a girlish giggle. As they walked down the gangway they passed the captain. Ragetti gave an attempt at a gentlemanly bow. It was not perfectly done, but it was sweet, at least as far as Amelia thought. Captain Jack Sparrow was not as impressed.

As the two of them passed by shops, Ragetti noticed his reflection in a window. He stopped and stared at it. He could not believe that it was his own reflection. There stood a man of class, he thought - a real proper gent with a real proper lady at his side. Even the eye patch did not diminish his sense of worth at that moment.

"Quite the gentleman, now, ain't I?" he said cheerfully to Amelia.

She giggled at his own self amazement. It pleased her that he was so happy, yet she knew that he was not as well placed as he thought himself to be. The local citizens that saw them did not see a gentleman and his lady but rather a merchant class man with a woman who, if it had not been for the fact that she clung his arm, was simply mediocre.

"What is it we're lookin' for, anyway?" Ragetti asked the young woman on his arm as they slowly promenaded up the street.

"Well, I was hoping to find a decent library, but I suppose any book shop would do as well," she answered him.

"My," he said, "I've never been to a library before."

"We shall have to remedy that, now shan't we?" Amelia replied with a large smile.

They did manage to find a library which was part of the town's court house. There were two armed attendants at the large doors who nodded their heads as they approached. Ragetti was wary of the guards but, thanks to only having one eye, it was not altogether certain what kind of a glare he was giving the men. Amelia unhooked her arm to reach for the door handle. Noticing this, Ragetti took it as his gentlemanly duty to open the door and hold it for the young woman. He did so and she thanked him as she entered. He took a moment upon crossing the threshold himself to gaze at the grandeur of the building. Everything was smooth polished stone. Ragetti whistled impressively, which echoed and made the few men in the establishment look at him with furrowed brows. Noticing the somewhat negative attention, he quickly checked himself and realized that Amelia had gone off towards the wing of the actual library. He awkwardly scrambled to catch up, the sound of his shoes betraying his every step. He saw Amelia standing in front of a desk speaking with an older gentleman who was seated on the other side. Amelia smiled at Ragetti upon his rejoining her and then continued to speak to the librarian.

"I cannot be entirely certain, Ms," the librarian said in reply to her questions. "However, if we did, it would be over in our collection of language books."

He slowly rose out of his chair, took hold of his cane, and proceeded to point the young woman in the right direction. As they followed the librarian, Ragetti noted every book spine that passed by him at eye level. He had never seen so many books. Rows upon rows of books were just sitting there, stacked up in numerous shelves. He could not imagine why such a building should seem so empty. He concluded that there must have been many people like himself in this town who could not read, and those that could probably had read all of these books already - as hard as that was to believe.

The librarian found his desired shelf and ran his finger along the book spines.

"Ah! Here we are!" he said excitedly, pulling one off from the shelf. He handed it back to Ragetti who was not expecting to be allowed to handle the books. "And perhaps this one," the librarian said, pulling down another book. "I might also look in cultural history. There are a few books in our possession about the Netherlands. I am not certain how distinctly language would be addressed, yet I will see to it. Please, Ms, take a seat at one of our study tables."

Amelia went to a table and Ragetti followed. He handed her the books one at a time. He sat down beside her. Amelia then produced the journal from Ewould's chest and laid it out on the table. She was determined to be able to decipher at least a few basic details of the journal. Opening the first book, she skipped over most of the general author introductions and dove right into Dutch grammatical structures. It was a very dense read and most of it was very confusing. Nonetheless, she did her best to understand the text in front of her. She knew that this would take her a long while and already the library's appeal was starting to ware away on Ragetti who tried his best not to look bored.

Quietly, Amelia snuck away from the table. Ragetti had not even noticed that she had left until she returned with a large text in her hands. She placed it down on the table in front of him. It was a version of the Canterbury Tales complete with illustrations. Ragetti excitedly turned each page, piecing together his own story from the pictures he saw.

The librarian returned to them with more books in his arms. It perplexed him greatly to see that the fellow was obviously engaging in only the pictures while the young woman was studiously reading these scholarly texts.

It seemed quite hopeless. There was just too much to learn and too many pages in that journal to be able to make sense of it in such a short amount of time. Amelia did not lose all hope though. It was a stretch for her to try and take on this task alone but reading did help her in an unexpected way. In the past one hundred years the Dutch had been colonising parts of the south of Africa and it was proven that many of the African people of that region had begun to communicate in Dutch. There was no way that the Roving Maid would be going to the south of Africa, however, they would not need to. Parts of the Caribbean had also been touched by the Dutch and the slave trade had carried many Africans to this side of the world. It would not be so unlikely to get the journal translated now. All that it would require is to convince the others of heading near Curaçao or thereabouts.

"Ragetti," she whispered to her companion, "have you ever sailed to Curaçao?" she asked him.

He thought a moment, scratched his head and taped his fingers on his book.

"Don't rightfully know," he said. "Quite possible I have."

Amelia closed up the books that were in front of her and sighed. "I guess I'll just have to ask Jack then," she said, a little disappointed that she would not be able to take credit for all of her hard work now.

Finished with all that the library had to offer, they left and walked back to the ship.

"So you think that we should go to Curaçao, then?" Ragetti asked his companion.

"I think it would be worth a try. I mean, obviously this was important on some level otherwise there would not have been such a fuss made over it," she replied.

"I thought the fuss was just over the gold," he said. "A great deal of it there was. Don't think I've ever seen so much in one place before. Shame we had to give so much of it up."

Amelia fell silent and lost some of the colour in her cheeks.

Ragetti immediately tried to change his statement to keep from offending her, "I didn't mean I wish we'd kept it instead!" he cried. "Was a good cause that it went to. Wouldn't've changed it."

"It's alright, you needn't apologise. I know that I cost you all a great fortune," she said.

Ragetti stopped walking. He pointed to some women he saw in a back alley of what must have been backing onto a saloon. "See them women, Ms. Amelia?" he said. "Them's what costs a fortune. Him what puts a price on you ain't worth his own soul, and that's the truth of it."

"Well, he has since been separated from it," Amelia said.

"The captain had him killed, then?"

Amelia replied, "Yes," not wanting to get into the details again.

"Sorry Ms, I know how you fancied him."

"It's no loss to me," she said. "I confess that there was something in the man's eyes that made me weak for a moment, but only for a moment. He was altogether selfish and heartless."

Those words hurt Ragetti more than Amelia could ever know. She had unknowingly admitted her heart's weakness as being through a man's eyes. Ragetti knew that he had many faults, but he also know himself to be more honourable towards her than any man he had met so far. She would never see that through his one and only eye.

They did not speak much more than that before reaching the ship again.

Captain Jack Sparrow saw them return and hasted to meet with them.

"You stayed out of trouble I hope," the captain said.

"Of course," Amelia replied. "Mr. Ragetti here played the perfect gentleman the whole time. It was quite lovely really. But, Captain, I do have something I must talk to you about," she said in earnest.

"Aye, and I you," he said just as seriously. He looked up at Ragetti, "As you were!"

Ragetti took the order and went up the gangway onto the ship.

The captain took hold of Amelia's hand and began to lead her away.

"Jack, really, I do have something very important to discuss with you."

"Aye, and we'll get to that," he said pulling her close to him. "I've got Barbossa running some fool's errand," he said. Kiss. "It should keep him occupied for a good hour at least." Kiss. He continued to lead her away.

Ragetti came aboard and immediately put himself to work. He found some odd pieces of wood that must have broken off from the crates and barrels that had been moving back and forth all day. He gathered them up and sat himself down in a corner where he began to whittle the wood. The wood was coarse and prone to fracturing. It made his purpose very trying.

"What've you got there?" Pintel asked as he passed his crewmate by.

"Fashionin' me an eye. Tryin' to leastways, but the wood's no good for it," Ragetti said with a defeated tone.

"Hey, I've seen me a good size scrap of wood somewhere 'round here!" Pintel said eager to save the day.

Pintle went below deck and rummaged around trying to remember where he saw it. He failed to find it there. He went back up to search the decks. Knowing that he should not be doing so, but unable to prevent himself from doing it, Pintel creped inside the officer's quarters. Sure enough, on top of a dresser was the dull chunk of wood. The string that was attached to it got caught on a corner as Pintel tried to walk away with it. Giving it a tighter tug, the capping piece over the hole broke off, releasing the string from the wood. Returning with it in hand triumphantly, he presented it to Ragetti.

"See, I told you I had seen something what might work. Nice and thick it is but not too heavy," Pintel said.

Ragetti held it in his hand. It did have a nice weight to it and a softer feel than the other scraps of wood. He put his knife to it. It cut nicely, almost like butter. While whittling, Ragetti told Pintel about the library and the book he got to read.

Barbossa had returned. He walked into his cabin and saw the string on the floor attached to nothing. He stormed out angrily. He saw the two men sitting in the corner, surrounded by little woodchips. Hearing the heavy stomps of Barbossa's boots, the men stopped talking and were frozen in fear by the first mate's accusing glare.

"You miserable wretch!" he cried snatching the rounded piece of wood out of Ragetti's hand. "Where'd you get this now?"

Ragetti pointed to Pintel who in turn pointed back at Ragetti.

"Have you any idea what this is?" Barbossa hollered at them.

"Wood?" Pintel said nervously.

Barbossa slapped him upside the head.