It's a new day. It's a new dawn. And instead of Mr. Eames servicing her, she gets a chambermaid. Rogers makes it very clear what he expects of her if she wants to live. Eleanor reveals to him how she managed to boss pirates around at seventeen. Rogers is not pleased at all, while Eleanor is shocked about Captain Flint's most recent atrocities and struggles with civilisation's expectations on how a woman ought to behave.

Chapter 3 - A Lady

Piano music sounded from the house, while she stood in the sugar cane field where the sun beat down on her skin. The music stopped and her mother who had hair like the bright Bahamian sun stood in the doorway. "Eleanor!" she called. "Come and put your fine dress on, and your shoes. We're going to Nassau. Don't you want to see Nassau being built?"

Eleanor came out of her hiding place. She should have been a child, but she was a grown woman, in a black mourning dress. "What about father? Won't he be cross?" He always acted embarrassed whenever they visited.

Green blue eyes her mother had, and the smile of an angel. "Don't worry about your father. He wants you to meet a friend, newly arrived and barely made it through that tempest." Her mother held out her hand for her to take. "But the storm has come and gone. It's such a beautiful day, Eleanor. Come, I'll be with you. You won't be alone." Eleanor grabbed her mother's hand.

Feeling fresh and stronger the next morning, Eleanor clambered out of the bed and stared at the black dress on the floor. If she could, she would rip it to shreds, but it was all she had. Just then there was a knock on the door.

"Miss Guthrie, I have some heated water for you." Mr. Eames unbolted the door and turned the key.

Before he could enter, Eleanor covered herself with her blanket. But Mr. Eames had only taken the bolt off. She waited several moments, and then eventually slowly opened the door ajar, enough to peek out. There was nobody and nothing to see, except for a tray with bread, cheese, oats, creamy milk and the last of the strawberries. Beside it stood buckets of water and a towel with a bar of rose scented soap resting on top it. Eleanor dragged the steaming water inside, before picking up the tray with her breakfast. She closed the door, threw the blanket onto her bed, and pulled the heavy buckets near the mirror with a groan.

She sighed with delight when she ducked her head in the water and washed her hair with the soap. Weeks of imprisonment and bad nourishment had made her hair brittle and course like straw. Letting her hair dry, she went to her tray and took a bite of the cheese. It only made her aware how hungry she was. Eleanor ate the bread, and the oats, and finally the last of yesterday's strawberries. Taking off her chemise, she returned to the bucket of hot water to cleanse her body. She closed her eyes with the pleasurable experience of the steam of the warm water surrounding her. But as she stared into the mirror, she lifted her hand and touched her face. I look gaunt and pale. And where lurks my pride and confidence?

Without any warning the door opened. Startled, Eleanor dropped the soap and covered her breasts. She turned around, ready to scold Mr. Eames. Instead, there stood a woman holding a pair of clothes in her arms. "May I help you?"

The woman was tall, her face sour, her eyes icy blue, and her auburn hair was neatly tight in a bun at the back of her head. "The governor requests your presence on the quarter deck. You should dress." She laid a dress on Eleanor's cot.

So, this was the way of it now. She would be serviced by a woman, and Mr. Eames no doubt was relegated to another task. Quickly, Eleanor flung her chemise over her naked body. "You must pardon me. I've never had a proper chambermaid before," she said spitefully. "Is that how they dress all their employers?"

The woman threw the bathwater out into sea through the window. "Governor Rogers is my employer." She put the bucket down and her hands in her sides. "You are a convict in need of someone to keep your things clean, your movement restricted and your door shut. As such you are the first daughter of privilege I have been able to serve whilst speaking my mind openly."

Eleanor pressed her lips together while she picked up the stay the 'chambermaid' had laid on her bed. She frowned as her fingers fiddled with the confused mess of laces. She had never worn a corset before, preferring shirts and jackets above wide frocks. "I would have thought my story is well told by now, but I come from no privilege."

"Don't you? My understanding is that your father built a criminal enterprise and you inherited it." Eleanor bit her lip and met the woman's challenging stare, who then bent down and picked up her black dress and shoved it in a trunk. "The only difference between you and the ladies I have served in the past is that their families had better lawyers." Eleanor widened her eyes. This woman was frank, but perhaps not unlikable. "Let's not keep the governor waiting."

Finally, Eleanor had managed to unlace the stay and pulled it on. As her head reappeared, she asked, "And by what name shall I call you then? Or should I simply refer to you as jailor?"

The servant came to stand before her and pulled the laces. "You can call me Mrs. Hudson." She pulled hard enough to knock Eleanor's breath out. "There that immediately improves your posture."

The stay pulled her back erect. Her shoulder blades nearly touched. And when Eleanor looked at her breasts, they were pushed upwards like a pair of plums. Then Mrs. Hudson attached a triangular stomacher that covered the stay. Next followed the wool petticoat and matching mantua, all in a matching dark green. The color was muted enough to fit her age, while the lack of ornamentation and uniformity of color was like that of young, unmarried women. "I almost look like a proper lady in this."

Mrs. Hudson turned her around and appraised her from top to toe. "Clothes do not make you a lady."

Eleanor felt like sticking her tongue out at Mrs. Hudson, but instead she brushed her hand along the soft, warm wool of the dress. "My mother used to wear such dresses. She was a lady. She would have liked to see me in these."

"What happened to her?"

Eleanor looked at her bare feet under the dress. "She died in the Rosario Raid. The debris of a building broke her neck."

There was a moment of silence between both woman and Mrs. Hudson's icy eyes shifted to a kinder expression. But then Mrs. Hudson shrugged, came around, picked up a brush and started to pull the knots out of her hair. When that torture was done, Mrs. Hudson twisted strands of hair from her temple to bind them at the back, while letting the rest of it hang free. "You have pretty hair. If you brush it well every day and evening, it will soon feel like silk again." Mrs. Hudson nodded approvingly and gestured at her cheeks. "Pinch those. It will give you a healthy looking, rose-colored blush."

Mrs. Hudson produced a pair of backless mules with a curved heel and pointed toes, such as Eleanor had never worn. And when Mrs. Hudson opened the door and ushered her out, she feared her first steps in it. But they were easier to walk in that they looked.

When she arrived on deck, Eleanor was met with the sight of open sea and the complete fleet sailing beneath a sheltered sky of dark blue and grey clouds. Mrs. Hudson pointed to the quarterdeck. "There he is. Try to act the lady there. "

"I know how holy the quarterdeck is," Eleanor muttered under her breath, before she climbed the stairs with the utmost, ceremonial care.

The governor stood with his back to her and his hands behind him. He turned his head at the sound of her step, nodded and invited her onto the quarterdeck with a welcoming wave of his hand. "Miss Guthrie."

Eleanor was sure of it that Mrs. Hudson was watching her like a hawk. She probably expects me to curtsy. But Eleanor had never curtsied anyone in her life. They could dress her like a lady-in-waiting, they could demand of her to give the quarterdeck the respect it was due, but as a daughter of privilege and having owned the largest business in Nassau, she was any man's equal. Eleanor lifted her chin, more daring than she had the last time she saw him, and waited patiently for him to speak, her hands folded in front of her.

He narrowed his eyes at her before turning away. He pointed at one of the navy's ships, while he placed his other hand in his side. "The HMS Milford, a hundred fifty soldiers, sixty guns. My naval escort. Behind her, the HMS Rose, forty eight guns. The HMS Shark, thirty guns. The Willing Mind, twenty guns. She's carrying two third of the farming implements and most of our food stuff. The Buck, eighteen guns."

Eleanor stared at the ships, counting the cannons, totaling one hundred seventy six. Wil it be enough? The Spanish Man O' War that Captain Flint had captured carried ninety four guns. The Walrus had thirty. Ned Lowe's Fancy that Charles Vane had captured carried twenty six guns. She was unsure how many Rackham's Colonial Dawn counted. And those were not the sole ships of the pirate fleet at Nassau. Then there were the six cannons of the fort.

"The amount of energy it took for me to persuade my investors to fund this, it's hard to properly convey." He turned to face her. "This fleet, every ship at sea, every man contracted, every penny lent." If other people lent the amount of money needed for this, it spoke of how trustworthy his investors believed him to be, Eleanor knew. "I am personally answerable for all of that."

"I'm impressed," she spoke truthfully. "Though somehow I don't imagine that's what this exercise intended to accomplish."

He sighed and pointed at the smallest vessel. "The Gloucestershire. I wasn't entirely sure I needed it, but seeing it was someone else's money I figured it couldn't hurt. She's the one I can do without. The moment I believe you are no longer necessary for this endeavor you go on that ship. That ship turns back for London, and soon thereafter you swing over Wapping."

And now he had finally gotten to his point – I am at the mercy of his whim. But then he had gotten her out of her cell, her sentence commuted, and would drag her all the way to Nassau in order to conquer it. Obviously, he believed he needed her, so she believed it an idle threat. "Except you can't actually do any of those things."

Rogers shifted his head sideways. "No? Why?"

"Because you don't know that Samuel Wayne never once paid for a drink. Because you don't know that the Boyd Brothers can't be in the presence of any of Captain Multon's crew. Because you don't know which of the street merchants is in the pocket of the brothel madam. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know." She straightened her back some more. She was not that easily cowed. "But I do. To slay Nassau you must know her, and amidst all those ships, all these men and all that money, I am the only one who can introduce you."

"Provided you tell me the truth." He watched her steadily. "So," he sighed and his tone became somewhat more accommodating. "Let us assume that those are now the rules of the game. I need to know everything you know of Nassau. If you withhold, if you manipulate, if you lie, you die." His voice was warm and velvety, but deadly serious. She remembered what Mr. Eames had told her about the leader of the mutineers. Rogers expected her to tell him all of her history… her story, honestly. My story for my life. Any repeat of the little trick she had attempted the day before with Mr. Eames, and he would do as he said. "Shall we begin?"

Finally browbeaten, Eleanor lowered her eyes and nodded a slow consent. Three days ago she believed herself already dead anyway. But now, perhaps life might still prove worthwhile living. She followed him into his captain's hut where a clerk sat waiting to take notes. Rogers offered her the chair opposite his desk and then seated himself into his own, his legs outstretched, his hands folded in front of him. "Let us start with the very beginning, Miss Guthrie. You were not born in New Providence, but brought there when your father started his business in Nassau. You and your mother lived inland."

She sighed. "Yes, we had a cottage where we grew sugar cane, while my father ran his business in Nassau, until the Rosario Raid, in which my mother was killed and shortly afterwards my father left for Harbour Island."

"But you remained. Why?"

"Nassau was my home."

"How old were you then?"

She whispered, "Thirteen."

Rogers raised his eyebrows. "And your father did not take you with him?"

Eleanor shook her head. "No. He asked me to, but when I said no, he put up little argument after Mr. Scott offered to be my guardian and try to keep the business running." Even if her father had wished to take her, he would have been required to bound and tie her to his skiff.

"Did you like it?" Rogers asked.

"W-What?" Eleanor lifted her eyes in confusion.

"Indulge me. I just want to know how a motherless young girl liked to spend all of her days in such an establishment, forced to live on a beach or in the woods in a tent or hut."

"I liked it better than my father's new home. My father preferred to pretend he was a better, honest man than he actually was. At least those of us who stayed were honest about who they were. And our tavern still stood. I made it my home. I helped out with customers or watched and listened to what happened from the landing. Yes, I liked it – the noise, the people, the gossip."

"You were never harmed?"

Eleanor shook her head. "No. The name Guthrie still meant something, even with the privateers settling on the beach. It would have cost them to ire my father to whom they had to sell their goods. They had nobody else to sell it to."

"Was that a tactic you applied?"

"Yes."

"And they accepted that from a woman?"

Eleanor bit her lip for a moment, before saying, "They had to accept it, but it angered them, because I'm a woman." She met his eyes, tried to read them.

"Because you are a woman," he repeated after her, and she had to bite her tongue to prevent saying something nasty to him over it.

Tea was brought in and Rogers gestured for her to pour it. That was another reminder by him that she was a woman, just as the latest dress was. A woman was believed to behave with propriety, desire finery, and service tea to her father, husband or brother in the salon. She had scoffed at such a notion of pouring tea for her father the few times he visited and had it done by one of the serving girls. Whenever people pointed out that she was a woman, she believed they meant to remind her she was weak, at a disadvantage when negotiating.

But as Eleanor poured the tea into the delicate cups of china, she was surprised at the amount of peace this small routine task of the social contract seemed to give her. While Rogers and the clerk conferred with one another, she had a moment to breathe, collect her thoughts. And when she handed him his cup, she realized she was in control of the moment. She noted how Rogers had to come to her, instead of her to him, and for a slight moment his hand was uncertain at the receiving end as it required an effort from him to avoid his pants from being scalded with hot tea. In a flash, Eleanor realized that the china and her dress of class forced men to behave, speak and move with delicacy themselves, how it put them out of their comfort zone.

"Thank you," Rogers said and walked to his side of the desk, circling his spoon to help absolve the sugar. "So, how did you learn the business and took over?"

Eleanor sat down and set her cup in front of on the desk, allowing it to cool. "At first, when my father left, I only watched. My guardian, a slave belonging to my father ran the operation instead. Eventually, I felt it was time I stepped in."

Rogers lifted his cup to drink and asked, "How old were you at this point?"

"I was seventeen."

Rogers' cup of tea halted mid-air. He chuckled incredulously. "How does one persuade an island full of thieves and murderers to respect the authority of a seventeen year old girl?"

"I identified the one they were most afraid of and I threw him off the island."

Rogers set his cup back on the saucer in his other hand. "What was his name?"

"His name was Edward Teach."

Rogers straightened his shoulders and stared at her. He understood well enough of whom she was speaking - Blackbeard was probably the most formidably known pirate in the West Indies, besides Flint. Rogers addressed his clerk. "You're getting all of this, yes? Ahm, please, continue." When he sat down again, Rogers was far less relaxed, reaching into his pocket.

"He sailed at the head of a pirate fleet with a man named Benjamin Hornigold. I conspired with Hornigold, offered him control over Fort Nassau to turn against Teach. Eventually I isolated him from all of his former allies, until it was just him and his protégé – a young captain he had groomed in his image, trained as a peerless fighter." She picked up her cup and drank from it "Had they stayed together, they might have resisted me."

"But the protégé turned?"

"Yes," she said. "And once he sided with me, Teach had no choice but to withdraw. After that, my credibility with the crew on the beach was in good order."

Rogers pondered this for a moment, before asking, "And the protégé. What was his name?"

She chose her pace of answer with care. "His name was Charles Vane."

Rogers face hardened and he stared at her angrily. In a low voice, he spoke to the clerk, "Leave us please. Now!" When the clerk was gone, the governor said coldly, "I need very specific answers to the following questions."

Here it comes. "Ask me what you want to ask me," she said without any guile.

"Charles Vane sided with you?"

"Yes."

"Betrayed his mentor, betrayed Edward Teach, for you?"

"Yes."

"You were…" Rogers raised his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

Eleanor saved him the effort to find the words to pose the question delicately. As bluntly and honest as she could, she said, "I was fucking him." Though she respected the amount of self control Rogers had over his face, his eyes did not belie he was seething inside. He rose from the chair and started to walk out of the room. "Where are you going?" she asked in a slight panic.

He halted mid-step, turned and hovered above her. "To inform the captain of the Gloucestershire he's going home, plus one passenger."

What is it with men about women choosing a lover or owning a business? He married into a family of wealthy connections and benefactors. Is that not mercenary? She had used the same rules as her father once did, or did the exact same thing to pirates and their crew as much as pirates did amongst themselves. And while men were respected for it, looked up for it, a woman was scorned for it, hated for it. "You never asked me."

"I need to ask?"

"I never lied."

"I was fully prepared to set foot on that island and say his name, say that the universal pardon had an exception, put my credibility at risk solely based on your council. And it was all to settle a personal feud with a former lover?"

The contempt in his face and voice made her cringe, but also provoked her. "Why did you bring me here?" she cried in frustration. "You know these men's names. You know the things they have done. But I know them. I know Flint is dangerous, but he can be reasoned with. I know Rackham is devious, but all he cares about is his legacy." She tried to explain it, that it went beyond a personal feud. "Because I have history with Charles Vane I know him most of all. I'm all too aware what he's capable of destroying when he sets his mind on it. I underestimated him and I lost my father. The Lord Governor Ashe underestimated him and Charlestown burned. What is it you'd like him to take from you?"

Rogers' eyes looked away for a moment, before they surveyed her again with disgust. Darkly he said, "Why in God's name would I trust you?"

She sighed. "Nassau is my father's house. It is my birthright and I am obligated to see it set right, to see its monsters driven out. You don't have to trust me, because we have mutual self-interest, and that makes for better partners."

He narrowed his eyes at her. Rogers whirled around and paced his cabin, while rubbing his chin. "You want to end piracy in Nassau?"

"Yes."

"Why? Your father and you had a lucrative business because of it for years."

"A business that my father and I tried to turn into a legitimate one. A pirate murdered my father; a pirate surrendered me to England to see me hanged, piracy was the downfall of my business, and it will destroy Nassau – if not by you, by Spain or the French in retaliation. Ultimately piracy destroys and halts all progress." She whispered, "I believed otherwise for too long after my father had realized the truth of it already and had taken measures to save me from myself." She felt a pressure behind her eyes, but she bit her teeth together and swallowed down the suffocating feeling in her throat. "But Charles would not have it. He wants no other king on the island, but himself. So, he murdered my father and burned Charlestown."

Rogers returned to his desk and leaned on it with both hands. His eyes searched for signs in her face. She felt tired, exhausted and defeated. Rogers nodded in thought. His earlier disgust had evaporated, but not his distrust. "Alright. You said earlier today you were impressed by my fleet. Let us assume for a moment that worst comes to worst. How does it compare with the pirate fleet at Nassau?"

"Even matched." She expected Rogers to be disappointed in hearing this, but if he felt it, he did not show it. "It would end as a massacre on both sides, especially with Captain Flint at the helm."

"You say you believe he is a man that can be reasoned with."

"Yes."

"He is causing mayhem in the American Colonies at the moment, attacks, plunders and burns towns. Murders governors and their wives in their beds. He has become the terror of the English colonies, more than Charles Vane."

Eleanor was startled by this news. "What?"

"In fact, all commerce has stopped in the whole region for several weeks now, mostly because of him. It is as if he is at war with England itself. His actions hastened the approval by Whitehall and the Lords Proprietor to agree to my plans. So, I am genuinely puzzled that you did not give his name as a pirate who would be hard to sway."

Eleanor was genuinely perplexed. "No, I was not aware of this," she protested. "I have been in prison all these past months, as we both know." What the fuck had happened in Charlestown other than Charles destroying it?

"And yet, despite learning of it now, you still believe he is a man of reason?"

"Captain Flint is a pirate out of necessity, not because he likes it. He wanted a peaceful life, away from the sea. He is a cultured man who loves his books, drinking tea, listening to the piano, a puritan wife. If he has attacked the colonies, he does so because he believes it is necessary for the safety of Nassau."

"Hmmm." Rogers frowned skeptically and stared at the empty china cup before him.

Eleanor remembered how Rogers expected her to volunteer information. She was as of yet still undecided to reveal all she knew of Flint, but she could say this, "What I am certain of is that it would be better for you if Flint is not in Nassau to mount a defense. And even better if you were to get him on your side. His commitment to Nassau's progress runs perhaps as deep as mine."

"I will think on this." He raised his eyes and looked at her. "Mrs. Hudson will see you returned to your room." He put his hands on the desk and rose from his chair. "You remain aboard another day, Miss Guthrie." He walked to the large window behind the desk, turned his back on her and watched the waters they were sailing away from. Eleanor stood, unsure of what he expected from her. Rogers inclined his head sideways, without really looking at her. "You are dismissed."

When she was gone, for a long while Rogers sat with his hands in his hair over his desk. Eventually, he opened a drawer of his desk and took out a miniature portrait of a young woman who had just come out. Rogers had not looked at it for a while, though he carried it with him everywhere since it had been in his possession. He took the portrait of the girl with blonde, curly hair, shy smile and dark eyes in his hands and his thumb traced the face. Sarah looked so full of hope and admiration on it. She had given the miniature to him in the last two years of his apprenticeship while he was sailing in Newfoundland, promising him she would ward off any suitor and wait for him.

But it all began when Sarah had been eleven years old and invited him, the eldest son of the neighbors, during his school holidays to her playing at tea-time. Sarah had him pretend he was her husband and she his dutiful wife serving him his tea. Initially, he believed himself to indulge in a child's fantasy game, but that child had presented such a picture that before long he was pulled into her vision, and he told his stunned father he wanted to be a sailor, because "Sarah Whetstone wishes me for her husband."

"And why can't she marry a lawyer or priest?" his father argued. "You may even get a political career out of it. The Whetstones are rich. We are rich. Besides, we are good friends. Who is she to turn her nose down against your career?"

"She is the daughter of the Commodore. He does not want a clergyman or a lawyer for a son-in-law. For your friendship's sake he might overlook that I am not in the Royal Navy, but he wants a man of the sea for a son."

His father was reluctant to give up the dream of his eldest son making a career in the law, but by the end of the summer he relented. Rogers carefully lay the portrait back in the drawer, closed and locked it.

(Eleanor's dream/The Tempest: decision to live, though it will require some changes. References Ariel's song with Richard Guthrie as Prospero and Eleanor's mother as Ariel wanting her to meet her Ferdinand, who laments the storm that life can be at times at the end of this chapter.

The corset of society's expectations of a woman: (also remarked on by the show's writers and the actress). Before, Eleanor had to prove she could do as well as a man. Now, she has to behave and function within the English social gender contract, reflected in her "new clothes", including the stay (they weren't as bad as the 19th century ones), and in return men treat her cordially and protective. I fleshed it out with Eleanor serving tea to the men. When Eleanor breaks the code by being blunt about her sexual life, we see Rogers lift the protection. Pirates too expect women to behave in a certain way, but without a social contract in return - men are free to namecall, rape, beat, and murder women without a consequence (Hamund's continued abuse of Max; Vane's words to Eleanor in relation to Ned Low). A woman is either forced to seek a pirate willing to be her personal bodyguard in return for sexual favors (Eleanor-Vane), or become an actual fighter like Anne Bonny.

Rogers- Sarah: Facts - The marriage was performed in London on the trip where they accompanied Sarah's father for his elevation to knighthood and Rear-Admiral in January 1705. Rogers became a freeman (right to vote) of Bristol because of it.
Speculation - Starting his sailor apprenticeship at 18 is an oddity. t seems there was another plan for Rogers' career originally. Possibly both fathers concocted the match, but this could have been achieved with the younger brother Thomas. Rogers could not have wooed Sarah much while he was in Newfoundland. Hence I have the deal struck between 18 year old Rogers and 11 year old Sarah, with Sarah herself as the driving force behind it (comparable to Middlemarch's Rosamund, but far younger))