Rogers wants to know how Eleanor ended up in a London prison cell despite her previous success to have control over Nassau for eight years. It leads to a confession of an act of desperation she has not forgiven herself for. She has a strange confrontational dream and wakes to witness the birth of dawn. Rogers is surprisingly understanding of it all, prompting Eleanor to discuss the book he lent her and the subject of reformation.

Chapter 5 - The Reformed

Twiddling his hands in his pockets, Rogers paced his office. "You told me all about how you acquired power over Nassau, over the hundreds of murderers and thieves, and what you did to maintain your business." He stopped and turned to face her, his feet wide. "But what you have left out so far was how you ended up being surrendered to Captain Hume of the HMS Scarborough. How did you come to lose it all?"

Eleanor flinched. She had read enough of Locke's book already to know that Rogers was not simply asking her who had betrayed her, what others had done to her, but what she perceived as her mistakes that caused her to end up in a London prison cell. She struggled to find her voice and licked her lips. Rogers walked to his bar where he had a bottle of brandy. He poured it into a tin cup, and then surprisingly held the cup out to her. Eleanor reached for it, but could not entirely keep her hand from shaking. She took a sip. It tasted entirely different than rum. Rum was sweet, heady with a mix of spice, vanilla and caramel - closer to running syrup. But the brandy was hot foremost, instantly warming her mouth. She swallowed and could feel the burning sensation seep all the way to her stomach.

"It b-began when Captain Hume came to arrest my father at Harbour Island. Though he escaped, my father foresaw that England wanted to end piracy and recapture New Providence." Eleanor took another sip from the brandy. This time she could taste the sweeter after-taste behind the burn of the alcohol. "But I did not. The pirate republic was all I knew for most of my life. England stopped caring what happened to us for so long. I could not imagine them going through the trouble for it."

As she said it, she realized how silly that had been of her. But then, Nassau was all she had ever truly known. She had never stepped a foot off the island, not even to see her father at Harbour Island. Even though she had barely seen anything but the hull of a ship, endless water, a filled court room and a dank prison cell, the short glimpse of London and the vastness of the ocean had impressed her with its sheer size and how tiny her world and home truly was. It baffled her almost that nobody had actually tried to squash piracy in Nassau for good before. Shyly she glanced at Rogers, who had circled back to his chair and leaned on it.

"Go on," he said with a sympathetic smile to her.

She needed another sip of the brandy for this. With each sip the liquid became easier to drink. Her stomach was snuggly warm now. "So, I continued to conspire and lent money to Captain Flint to hunt a huge prize."

"What was the prize?" Rogers asked as he walked through the quarter.

"The Urca de Lima," she whispered.

With his back to her, he froze mid-movement right next to his high table with the bottle of brandy. He grabbed a second tin cup. "I believe I may join you, in order to hear this." He lifted the glass stopper from the glass bottle and poured. In a very measured manner, he asked, "How did you even learn of its whereabouts?"

And so Eleanor told Rogers the story of the Spaniard named Vazquez as she had heard it from Flint. How the dying Vazquez had revealed the secret course he had plotted for the Hulk to the English merchant captain Parris, that Flint learned of it and had hunted that captain to get his ledger. "When I learned of Flint's goal simultaneously with the news of my father being a fugitive, I believed the gold of the Spanish treasury was our chance to ensure a defense – more guns for Fort Nassau, bigger fleet, a true independent state with its own treasury that could attract settlers and provide a life inland for those who wished it."

Still with his back to her, Rogers drank deeply from his cup as he leaned on his bar. He turned. His eyes were cold and he flexed his mandible joints before he spoke. "It never occurred to you that stealing gold from an empire's treasury might require a response? You who survived the Rosario Raid?"

Ashamed, Eleanor looked down at her hands wrapped around the cup of brandy. "It was a combination of mad hubris and desperation. I was so convinced of our strength if we got organized and yet so afraid about what I was about to lose - all the work, all that I had invested in it - that I clung to the plan like a lifesaving sloop." That was pretty much it, she realized. She had been frantically grasping for straws to avoid loss. But inevitably, she had lost all anyway.

Rogers set his cup down and went to stand at her side of her desk. He put his hand on the back of her chair. "And so it truly began with the Urca gold."

"Yes," she whispered. "Once the word spread about the prize, it led to Captain Vane taking Fort Nassau from Captain Hornigold so that he could take the gold Flint might bring back. It led to a pirate war between Flint and Vane, with Flint shooting on Fort Nassau with a Man-O-War. And the brothel madam set up her own pirate crew with Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny to steal the Spanish gold that lay unprotected on a beach, after the Urca wrecked in a storm and the Spanish succumbed to a disease."

"Wait," said Rogers as he walked away to the other side of the desk. "I thought you said the brothel was run by a Mr. Noonan who was in your pocket." He sat down.

Eleanor shook her head. "He's dead, murdered. One of his girls, Max, believed she could strike out on her own - sell Flint's lead on the gold to Charles. When Flint and I intervened, Vane's crew took her captive and kept her as their personal toy in retaliation for making them lose money." She furrowed her brow. Max had not lost their pearls. That had been Rackham. "Mr. Noonan sought compensation, and paid for it with his life. Jack, Anne and Max took over the brothel, and worked against me ever after, selling leads to competing captains."

Rogers gaped at her for a moment. He rolled his shoulders. "By God, did such things happen regularly?" For the first time perhaps, even this diminutive picture of Nassau's cutthroat world made him realize what world Eleanor had to survive and grow up in. The casualness in which Eleanor mentioned it underscored it.

"Not regularly, no. But perhaps not out of the ordinary, at least when my father still ran the business in Nassau and Edward Teach commanded the pirate fleet. If anyone volunteered to become part of Teach's crew, he had them fight each other, and the survivor could join him. But I tried to establish some order, some rule, some humanity. Hornigold protected the street and I funded better housing." She bowed her head. "Unfortunately, I took my protective measure too far when I deposed Charles over it."

"It provoked him."

"Yes. After he took Fort Nassau, he forced me into accepting him as a partner in the new consortium of pirates-turned-merchant that I had installed. And yet, he refused to openly protect the street. And with my father's name in shambles in Boston and Carolina we had a hard time selling the fenced goods for a good price." Eleanor closed her eyes. "I acted as if I had all the power, when in fact I was losing more power with every new day."

Rogers nodded."So, you were basically running out of business and partners as they fought their wars between themselves."

Eleanor nodded. "I did eventually figure that the Urca gold was poison and should never reach Nassau's pirate shores. So, I set out to create a joint venture with the inland settlers, who farmed sugarcane but had no way to transport it, aimed to seek a reconciliation with England and denounce all piracy." Eleanor downed the cup of brandy and set the cup on the desk. "But everything went to hell. Charles murdered my father. And I was taken by Captain Hornigold and surrendered to Captain Hume in exchange for ten pardons."

For a very long moment, Rogers' quarter was filled with silence. Even the clerk's plume had stopped scratching away on the paper. Eleanor sagged her head and rubbed her forehead. She felt so tired all of a sudden. Her head pounded heavily.

"Leave us," said Rogers to the clerk. "That will be all for today." Slowly Rogers rose, walked to her side of his desk, leaned against it with his back and held his arms folded in front of him. In a soft voice, he said, "Why did you never tell the court any of the latter?"

"Because it would have been a lie."

"A lie? Why?"

Rubbing her head, Eleanor whispered, "I did not turn my back on piracy because I thought it was wrong. I did it to keep my father's legacy, out of self-interest."

"Does the reason matter all that much?"

"I did an awful deed," she murmured. Maybe she should not have drunk that last big swallow of brandy. It seemed to burn a hole in her stomach. She felt nauseous. "A deed so dark and foul that I did not wish to live anymore. I was no better than Charles Vane or Anne Bonny." Eleanor heard Rogers' breathing, the waves lapping at the hulls outside, the creaking of the ship's planks and the sailors hollering orders at one another on the deck outside.

"Go on."

Eleanor looked up into his eyes, like a fearful little bird. If she told him, it would be the Gloucestershire for her. And it will be the Gloucestershire too, if you withhold. She closed her eyes. It rolled off her tongue without her even wanting to say it. "I organized an assassination team to take out Captain Rackham and his crew, before they could set sail for the Urca wreck." Eleanor's heart beat in her throat. Trembling, she waited for the verdict, but there was only silence.

When she finally dared to open her eyes, she stared up in his thoughtful blue ones. "When was this?"

Her voice trembled. "The day I buried my father, the night I was taken."

Rogers brought both his hands to his lips and seemed deep in thought for a while. When he finally met her eyes again, he said, "Do you still want them dead, even now?" Eleanor shook her head. "Where was your guardian in all this? This Mr. Scott?"

"Him and I fell out over the Urca gold. He joined Hornigold's crew and later Flint's crew. Flint wasn't even on the island."

Rogers sighed. "Miss Guthrie, sometimes we can be so alone with the demons that haunt us that we lose perspective. You said earlier that you had scrambled in fear of loss. And it sounds to me that all your worst fears came true in that moment. You had no one, were orphaned in the most awful way, surrounded by enemies in truly deadly competition, abandoned by even those who were a voice of reason."

Eleanor gaped at Rogers. "You're not sending me back to London to be hanged over Wapping?" And then even more incredulous, she argued, "I just told you I'm a cold hearted killer."

"No worse than any of the pirates I'm willing to pardon. No worse than the Spanish intelligence or the King of a nation for that matter." The governor shook his head. "In fact, I am rather surprised that you managed to lord over Nassau for so long without resorting to such drastic measures far earlier. Nor does it seem you were all that successful – Rackham lives and managed to acquire the Urca gold. It lies in Fort Nassau as we speak. I do not condone the act, nor am I a priest who can give you absolution. But I do think you are too harsh on yourself." Far gentler than she had ever expected anyone to speak to her after her confession, he said, "You described Flint as dangerous, but reasonable; Rackham as devious, but only caring about his legacy. I would say that you are rash and impulsive, but care about Nassau. I don't need to trust you, Miss Guthrie, but we do have mutual interests – civilization and commerce at Nassau."

She looked into his concerned eyes and for the first time felt like he was truly looking at her as she was – not as a convict, not as a pirate, not as a woman, not as an informer, but as Eleanor. There was no prejudice in his gaze, no preconception of who he believed her to be. Eleanor was all amazement at seeing her own reflection in his eyes, as if she was looking into a mirror. In that moment, it felt like a huge weight that had been crushing her heart ever since her father's death had been lifted.

That night, Eleanor dreamed herself floating in the cover of darkness on a launch on still water beneath a purple grey blanket of billowing rolling clouds. On shore smoldered the burned ruins of a town and blackened land around it. She could only see the back of the man that rowed her, but in his brown justaucorps and with his brown hair bound into a tail in his neck, he looked like her father. The only sound was that of the oars splashing into the dark water. When she looked across the rim of the launch, shadows lurked there. And at length, she realized they were floating corpses – a lake of the drowned. Filled with dread, she snapped her head to focus solely on her father's back as he rowed.

A bit of clear night sky appeared above the horizon. A bright morning star winked at her as the first semblance of colors entered this world. But a reflection near the water's surface caught her unwilling attention. Eleanor's eyes were drawn to the waxen image as the launch glided past. To her horror it was the pallid face of her dead father, mere inches below the water's surface. Frantic, she reached over the rim, grabbed his vest, and pulled him up. But as she dragged the corpse out of the water, she held a young woman in a black mourning dress and leather riding coat in her arms instead. Her features were wan, pale and bluish, her lips grim and grey. A warrior. And then she recognized herself. She wanted to scream, but no sound escaped her constricted throat.

"Just, let go of her," said the man, in a velvety, gentle voice. "What is dead already cannot die."

Reluctantly, Eleanor released the coat's lapels and her self-image sank into its watery grave of the deep blue under the wide and starry sky. Her fear receded. She folded her saffron, calico shawl around her, as a zephyr wind rippled across the lake. A yellow breasted eastern meadowlark landed on the rim of the boat.

Eleanor woke in the dark. How strange that dream was. And yet, despite the dread she had felt, she was now light-headed, muscles tingling. Eleanor got up, lit an oil lamp and scrambled around to find her clothes. She was getting better at lacing and dressing herself. Her door was never locked anymore, though she had respected her curfew hours the past fortnight. What to do? Where to go? She felt eager to move, but unsure about going on deck during the dark hours. It would not be long though before the hour of dawn would be upon them. The sudden desire to see the sun rise decided for her. Eleanor grabbed her stockings, slipped her feet into the mules and rummaged in her chest for the saffron shawl.

As she crossed onto the deck, she pretended it was normal for her to appear during night hours. She lifted her green skirt and climbed up the quarterdeck where young Mr. Forris bowed over what appeared to Eleanor a spyglass on a tripod. But it was not like any other spyglass she had seen before. The tube had a diameter as wide as her hand and the eye-piece was mounted on the side of it. As Eleanor studied Mr. Forris go about his observations, she realized he was not watching for ships or land, but the night sky itself. The moonless sky appeared a black, velvet canvas, sprayed with a thousand dazzling diamonds. Only here or there, white veils of elongated clouds interrupted the view. A bright star shone above the eastern horizon.

Finally, when Mr. Forris made notes in a log, he became aware of her presence. "Miss Guthrie."

"Please do not let me disturb you, Mr. Forris." She smiled apologetically. "I simply came out here to watch the sunrise."

"It should be beautiful. The evaporation of the warm waters makes it redder. " Then he pointed to the morning star. "And of course, we have Venus there heralding it."

"I thought Venus was a planet." Or at least Eleanor seemed to remember it being mentioned as such in a book about Galilei her father had possessed.

"It is. It just appears to us as a star with the naked eye." Mr. Forris stepped away from the spyglass. "Have a look through my telescope." Eleanor bowed to look into the eye-piece and saw a shimmering image of a thin crescent and a dark disk that seemed to reflect some type of ashy light, making it discernible against the background. "Venus reflects the sunlight like the moon," said he. "It has phases, and looks like a crescent."

"She is beautiful," said Eleanor in awe. Finally, she rose and smiled gratefully.

"Yes, both to the naked eye and at closer inspection," said Mr. Forris with a sigh.

At last, Eleanor noticed that her shawl had fallen open and became self-conscious enough. Though she rarely stood on modesty, she quickly folded the shawl closed again. Spending her days with the Englishmen, their prudence started to rub off on her.

"Well," said Mr. Forris as he grabbed the tripod. The eastern horizon showed its first splash of bright red and yellow against the darkness of the night. "I must make some calculations." He laid the tripod against his shoulder and carefully went down the stairs.

Deep in thought, Eleanor reflected on the things she had learned, seen and experienced on this voyage – the warm water stream in the ocean, this telescope invention, seeing what Venus actually looked like, theories on the formation of personality. Mr. Forris was not the sole scientist Governor Rogers had taken along. Mr. Lardiner, a botanist, studied the kelp men fished up for him. The biologist Mr. Tortleby made careful drawings of the fish he dissected. There had never come a scientist to Nassau before to Eleanor's recollection. Eleanor appreciated society's finer arts and had sought to make Nassau a world that could have access to it. She had furnished her office with an amalgam of paintings, drawings and architectural models from some of the prizes. But in the past few weeks she had met men studying the world around them just for the satisfaction of studying it for the first time. This was civilization too, but despised by Teach and Charles. The bleakness and depravity of her previous existence hit her to the fullest, just as the sun peeped over the edge. The horizon brightened fiercely like a fire spreading. Looking at her past life, Eleanor recognized what horrors she had survived for the majority of her life. How rash she had been, struggling, warring not just to survive but to make something better of the violent world she had inherited. That young girl had longed deeply for a better life, for herself and others, but she had been lost in a world of people who did not value it at all.

"I'm sorry," Eleanor whispered to the mental image of a girl with the fears and feelings of a thirteen year old in the body of a twenty year old. Her tears started to stream unbidden, silently and unhindered, while the sun had become a gigantic red disk in a pink and orange sky. Venus shone even more brightly above it.

A gust of wind ripped at her frock, her shawl, and her tears. Her eyes followed a tear wrung from her cheek as it flew across the stern into the golden foam forming on top of the waves. Fins appeared on the surface and ducked again, dozens of them. A pod of dolphins, she thought, chasing us. Eleanor could not help but smile at them in delight. She felt hope for the first time, and actually looked forward to return to Nassau, because with her sailed civilization.

Unbeknownst to her, Rogers appeared on deck below to inquire with his men about the progress of their course. He turned around at the mentioning of Eleanor being on deck and was struck by her image bathing in the golden light of the dawn. Her saffron scarf around her shoulders had been ripped from her head. Her golden hair and her hairdo glistened like a bright diadem in the sunlight crouching onto the quarterdeck. It was as if Aurore herself graced his quarterdeck. Compelled, he reached for the rail of the stairs and climbed them. He came to stand to her left. "Are you alright?" he asked in a low voice, leaning his head closer.

He had never stood so close. Eleanor wondered whether it had been her imagination or had his breath truly gusted across her neck and cheek. He smelled of soap, lime and cinnamon. She glanced at his profile and could only see the side of his face that had been left unscathed. He had a long, straight nose, a strong jaw and high cheekbones. The shadow of his stubble sculpted his profile and Eleanor was partly tempted to reach out and test its coarseness. Then her eyes trailed the hairs in his neck, pulled taught by the tail. She felt quite stirred, and alarmed. When she noticed the flicker of sideways movement of his eyes, she bit her lip to interrupt her smile and looked in front of her again. "I think I am now, yes."

"Good." Rogers pressed his lips together in what she had learned to regard as his approving smile.

The golden disk of the sun was well up now. The magical palette of the dawn was gone. So was the morning star. The dolphins dropped the chase one by one. The silence between them became almost unbearable for her. She wanted to say something, anything to still her sudden beating heart and the flutters in her belly, as well as give him a reason to remain. "The book!" she blurted.

"Beg pardon?"

Eleanor shook her head slightly in self-reprimand. "I meant, I've been reading the book you lent me." Rogers raised his eyebrows and his eyes sparkled amused. "It is interesting. Very interesting," she said. You sound silly, she told herself. She blushed and lowered her head. "I mean challenging, and it makes compelling arguments." She finally mustered the courage to meet his eyes for a longer time. "Although, I'd rather wish Locke were right than believe him to be right."

Rogers frowned. "How so?"

"Well, Locke argues how much of our nature and personality comes from our years of formation and experience. He seems to be saying that under the right circumstances, experiences and inducements any man can reform."

"And you disagree with this?"

Frustrated, Eleanor furrowed her brow and thought on how to express herself eloquently. "I mean that I have observed violent men behave no better than animals. How despite the enticement to better themselves, they fail or even strongly oppose it. Meanwhile, I have seen many a decent man, and women, be far more easily swayed to behave like animals with little to no incentive."

"You are talking about vices and how easy it is to tempt people."

"It takes an exceptional, rare man who can withstand and overcome what I regard to be instincts," she said. "I understand you privateered during the War, captured Manila Galleons and sold them for profit."

"I did."

"Am I wrong to say that your purpose then and your experiences are not that much different of many pirates of Nassau?"

"Go on," Rogers said in a darker, lower voice, avoiding to answer her question.

"You lost your gains to others who depend on you or invested in you. And yet you chose a different path than what I have seen the majority of men choose. Many continue the practice for their own profit without commission. That is why England regards them as pirates. You, however returned home and now sail for Nassau to end piracy."

Rogers shook his head. "What is your point, Miss Guthrie?"

Eleanor took a deep breath. "You are an exception, Mr. Rogers, not the rule. You had as many inducements to do as the pirates of Nassau. And despite of it, you chose your current path, rather than because of it. Am I then wrong to conclude that it may because of your nature, rather than your formation?"

"Why am I the subject of this conversation?"

"Because you recommended the book to me. And while your choices and your character may serve Locke's hypothesis as an example, I wish to warn you that in most cases his hypothesis fails."

Rogers flicked his eyes left, then right and raised his eyebrows. Then he chuckled. "I must say that this may be the strangest manner in which I have ever been complimented, all to argue against Locke." He put his head sideways. "I think you may misunderstand his reformation point though. Nowhere does he say it is easy, nor does he stipulate the kind of inducement that may do the trick. And I find it requires great effort – yes, for me as well. The trappings to fall back on instincts without rational thought are always there. And well, tragedy may deform our psyche in our youth as well as reform us later in life. It either kills us, changes nothing, or changes everything." He seemed suddenly distracted and lifted his old, busted watch out of his pocket. Eleanor looked behind her to see what had distracted him, and noticed Mrs. Hudson frowning at her from the lower deck. Rogers put the watch away again. "Would you care to join me for breakfast? Then we can continue our discussion."

(On timeline: I see the 3x01 Eleanor scenes in prison as actually preceding all the other scenes of 3x01, as a type of flashback-reveal in answer to Flint's crew and Vane discussing what may be coming to the island. Eleanor's first scenes at the start of 3x02 also precede everybody else's timeline of 3x01 imo, while the 3x02 scene of Hornigold joining Rogers' fleet in Bermuda is alligned with the timeline of everyone else. About 6 weeks must have passed between Eleanor's first scenes of 3x02 and the one with Hornigold.

Eleanor's dream: again about death, but here as a symbol of transition between old and new.

Morning-star/Venus/Dawn:

The Newton telescope was developed by Newton (1642-1727) in 1672. The Venus phases was one of the things he could see clearly with it. In 1691 (around Eleanor's birth year) Mathematician James Gregory published a paper regarding improved calculations to predict a Venus transit (passing before the sun as a dark disk/spot) and an improved paper in 1716. Galileo discovered the Venus' phases about 100 years earlier. The second half of the 17th century and first half of the 18th science made predictions on all sorts of planetary and comet sightings. Many exploration voyages, including James Cook's first voyage to Tahiti (1769 Venus transit), had astronomical observations as one of their goals. In 1716 special observation trips were organized for a southern observation of Northern light, a comet and eclipse. I wanted to incorporate the feel of the "exciting times" in contrast to the exciting golden age of piracy - after all Sir Isaac Newton is alive still in 1715.

Venus (Roman) = Aphrodite (Greek) = Freyja (Norse) and believed to be related to the PIE goddess of the dawn, Hausus (love and dawn, "shining one"). In Greek mythology love and dawn was split between Aphrodite (Venus) and Eos (Aurore), though the Aphrodite name ("shines from the foam") still refers to Hausus. Like Roses and myrtle berries, dolphins and sea-foam are Venus symbols. Venus was born a grown woman out of sea-foam. The love goddesses are often paired with a war god (Greek Ares) or in Freyja's case she is the goddess of love & war both. Saffron is the color of Aurore's robe/shawl and she is nicknamed the "rosy fingered". Aurore stole husbands from disappointing wives and her tears form the morning dew. The Sioux dawn spirit Anpao (yellow of the dawn) refers to the yellow chest of the meadowlark. Possibly the show-writers hinted at them too. Many dawn goddesses have a legend where they are abducted and imprisoned by a dragon-like creature and rescued by a hero. The saffron colored shawl draped across half of Eleanore's body in 3x01 only appears once she's released, and only for that scene, and is quite a prominent feature. Hannah New's nude posture as she looks over her shoulder (3x07) is a cinematic copy of the classic Venus Kallypogus statue ("Venus of the beautiful buttocks" literally).

I feature Venus and Aurore both as Eleanor watches the sunrise, but split over POV. Eleanore focuses on Venus through the telescope and the Venus birth symbols. Rogers sees Aurore/Eos - the abducted, imprisoned one that he freed and attempts to save (physically, socially and metaphysically), hence the subject of the book he gave her is explored in a discussion between them.)