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Betwixt Hammer & Frizzen	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2032 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Prologue:

Twilight had fallen on Tortuga in the manner of a full-scale invasion. It was only after the sun went down that life truly began in the pirate town. Men and women who didn't make their appearances until after the shadows began to lengthen were already roaming the filthy, odorous streets, despite how the taverns only closed when there was no one to watch the bar while the owners slept. The entire town was built on the scale of a ramshackle shanty village, but on the larger scale which did make him think of Cheapside, London. Only with more spirits flowing and less roaming legal authority. There were, after all, no constables in Tortuga. He was sure that if one ever did make landing in the pirate lairs of this island, the hapless gent wouldn't live out a full day, no matter how well-armed said constable was.

This was, after all, the town where all the dregs came. Port Royal was, as time wore on, much less friendly to pirates. In fact, since the Crown had installed a regular garrison and a few well-manned forts just after the death of Captain Henry Morgan, it had become down-right respectable, much to his dismay. But such was Progress, the poxy harlot. T'was fine; Tortuga had boomed only after the party was broken up on the sands below Gallows Point.

Upon bringing the Pearl into Cayonne, the Tortuga port, he'd sent off the men with their swag and a reminder that they would weighing anchor in four days. In front of the crew, he'd charged Henriette with going out to find what herbs and salves she might need, to supplement her surgery. As Tortuga was famous in the Spanish Main for its medicus, that had not seemed too strange a request from the captain to his physiker. Right before the men, she'd announced that she would also go to get fresh fruit and more of her cigarillos, which came from the tobacco of this island.

This subterfuge had given her the cover necessary by which to meet with him in secret.

Of course, the lass had retrieved all that she'd set out to barter for. But, with that stowed on board the Black Pearl while the men were very much at their leisure in the taverns, his protégé had time enough to sneak away from the crew and the ship. When he had checked in with Gibbs, at the Faithful Bride, his first mate had informed him in a very quiet manner that the ship's chiruirgion needed to be speaking with him in the service alley just after twilight. With an eye to his lover and the other crewmembers within sight, he had purchased himself a bottle of rumbullion and slipped away, headed for the rendezvous point.

It was growing dark; the remaining light came from torches and small bonfires that flickered forth in the shadows. The air was smoky, humid, and, in the service alley, absolutely foul---the tavern's backside had not grown any easier to bear in his time away from its muddy, garbage-strewn path. Jack Sparrow sat on an empty ale hogshead with a shuttered lantern at his side and his hand lightly tapping the pistol in his sash. He'd started drinking early, but had carefully watched how much he downed; there was no call for careless words here, when one mutiny's main protagonist met with the other mutiny's secondary protagonist for the purposes of playing out a hidden card in what might be considered a third mutiny. He had no intentions of coming out of this debacle as anything less than the winner, even if it meant 'betraying' one side to the other as it were.

He had taken his share of the ship's booty and sold it for coin; careful of his wealth, he'd stashed it about his person so as to hide the jingle. T'was nice, to be back in the game. To be back in coin and rum and intrigue. Earlier, he'd sent a lad---paid five pennies for that, he had!---to make sure Hector stayed put at the gaming tables, playing endless rounds of both Liar's Dice and cards. The lad had been instructed with just as much care as everything else, this last few days. If Captain Barbossa moved from the table with any intent to leave the Faithful Bride, the lad was to come warn him double-quick. He could well imagine the lad was drinking, by now. But, as long as this meeting remained a secret, he did not mind such laxness on the part of a hired pair of eyes.

As the last vestiges of purple and red faded from what he could see of the horizon, his co-conspirator turned the corner and started down the service alley. He knew her on sight, even in the rising gloom between the two wooden buildings. She had a particular swagger, did Hen. In her gentleman's finery and broad-brimmed cavalier's hat and carrying a sloshing bottle by the neck, she cut a lovely and boyish figure with both cutlass and pistol tucked into her own sash. Between her teeth was a lit cheroot and she swayed with the step of a sailor only newly back on solid ground. But, he didn't take his hand off the flint-lock at his sash until she was close enough to see clearly---when he could see her pale green eyes, he gave a slow exhale, lowered his guard by some measure, and lifted his chin to study the lass.

She was tipsy, but steady. A good sign.

She was also armed, so he didn't entirely lower his guard.

Slim and homely in the face, his protégé gave him a wicked grin and swung herself up and around to sit on the hogshead at his side. Now, with the shuttered lantern between them and at some distance from any prying eyes, Jack relaxed enough to talk.

"You'll do as I asked?"

A glance at her told him all he needed to know. She was disappointed and angry with him, still. Hen took the cigarillo from her mouth with two large-knuckled fingers. She plucked a stray bit of tobacco from her curving lower lip with the ball of her thumb as she shrugged, answering in her husky, odd voice. "Aye, uncle, I'll do. I think you're mad, but...aye."

Her short brown hair, collar-length and thick like Anamaria's, had been tucked in snug under the line of her sun-faded scarf and then there was the brown hat, which did bother him. It looked like something Hector might wear, but without the feathers. She wore fine brown breeches of softly woven wool this night and an embroidered white shirt that seemed to be of the best Chinese silk he had ever clapped eyes to. It was stitched in fanciful ways at collar and sleeve and bore six ribbon ties down its breast and did offer testament to the lass' wealth. Over this, she wore a sash was a broad and bright blue and seemingly new---had she actually purchased this?---and went nicely with the darker blue of her wool frock coat. Over the entire of it, she wore a worn leather baldric. She appeared a proper pirate with coin to spend.

He commented on it. "You looking to find a lass to spend your shine on, then? Rigged out like a prince of England, you are."

She shrugged. "If I am, t'is me business an' none of yours."

Jack had to let it go; true enough, it wasn't his business if she took up with a lass or a lad. As long as she did as they'd agreed, he couldn't argue with her private choices. But, he tapped the bottle with his fingertips as he held it, studying the lass he had fostered. "Love, you have to let it go---I've made up my mind."

She scowled at him, the cherry of her cigarillo lighting up the angles of her long face. "You've sold yourself damn cheap, uncle, to my mind. How can you think he would keep any promises? He's a---"

"Mutineer." He smiled at her crookedly, but no less sharply for that. "And so are you, aye? I care for you, lass, but neither of us, you nor me, have a claim to a nobler emotion for what we�ve done between us as bedmates. On the other hand, t'is him as is my matelot and that's not so lightly forgotten. I like having you both on my ship. But, we all have to get one thing indisputably straight---it's my ship."

Even as he said it, she echoed him. "It's your ship."

Silence fell between them and he could hear the uproar of men singing from the street and the taverns.

She flicked ashes at the mud beneath their dangling feet. "I would never have let him talk me or the men around to it, if you hadn't said I must. I wouldn't mutiny against you. I'm a pirate, but I've some sense of the right. You did teach me that, aye, and I'll not have forgotten. But, you say as how I should help that bleeding barbarian convince the bleeding crew to mutiny against you even as I was trying to get the men to put him off the ship---and so I have. I still can't see why you asked it of me."

Jack took a deep breath of the alley's effluvia and fought the urge to retch. "Lass, some lessons need to be learned and then, to be sure of their sticking in the mind, those same ol' lessons need to be re-learned. I want to make sure as how he does remember a very important lesson about me and my ship. It's only right as how it would be you that teaches this lesson to both my matelot and our crew. Aye? Ride them hard, love---just as I have asked."

His belly complained about the lack of food.

Henriette laughed at the rumbling sound and then shrugged, smiling at him with more honesty than she'd shown in a thirty-day. Having expressed her disapproval, she seemed to be now at ease, accepting the charge he'd laid at her feet. "Aye, uncle. I'll stick to the plan, every last bit, and we'll be awaiting you here in one month."

"One month?" That confused him and he stopped the bottle even as he lifted it to his mouth. Over its side, he stared at the lass and tried to remember why 'a month' sounded familiar.

"Aye, one month." She puffed at her cigarillo, squinting at him through the smoke. "You told me that you set the accord with Gibbs and Her Nibs for one month---that the Black Pearl will be waiting here at Tortuga in one month, to receive them back. So, if I'm doing as you want for a bit, it does make sense as that I'll be running this scurvy lot ragged at both ends for near a month---aye?"

Jack Sparrow narrowed his own eyes at her and shook his head; his beaded dreadlocks clinked. "No, lass. One week, two at the most. You'll be meeting me at the southern-most tip of Cuba, a fortnight from today."

She blinked her slanted, pale eyes at him for a moment and then realization dawned in them, changing her expression from one of confusion. She sounded relieved as she rocked back on the barrel and bumped her bootheels on the empty wood. "Oh, aye! A fortnight, tip of Cuba. Then, a fortnight later, we come back here for Gibbs and the lady." Henriette De la Hoya tipped her bottle at him before raising it to her mouth. "Here's to a grand fortnight."

When they grew quiet, drinking, Jack watched the mouth of the service alley carefully before speaking again. "Just in case, Hen, maybe we should have a whats-it---contingency. If something in my plan doesn't go according to plan and I'm not on the tip of Cuba in a fortnight, look for me here when you come for Gibbs and Her Nibs."

Smoke unfurled around her hat's brim as she nodded. He turned his gaze to his protégé as she set her bottle down and reached up to undo the necklace she wore. With its beads and the tiny wifie figure, the key was nearly lost and unseen. She dropped it into his lap with a distinctly evil frown. She complained once more. "I still can't trust the scallywag and I don't understand why you're bedding him. I can't believe you've been his matelot all these years, even after he betrayed you that way. It's bad and wrong, uncle, that's what. I can't even imagine---" Hen made a particularly sour face, her frown turning into a grimace. "Why in the name of all that's holy would you want to fuck Hector Barbossa? How can you stand to have him touching you, Jack?"

He gave her a lusty smirk, reaching out to pat her knee with his free, leather-wrapped hand. "Love, I don't trust him, not yet---if I did, I wouldn't have you doing this. I really find trust to be overrated, when dealing with a pirate. Let him learn his lesson at your mercy and then we'll see about trust." Then, softer, he sighed and picked up the necklace she'd given him. "Someday, Hen, you'll understand what happens between matelots. T'isn't always an easy thing, to care so much about anyone. It isn't always about bedding them, aye?"

Not that he would ever admit to her that wanting to bed Hector was something that had fair driven him truly mad. She had known something of the truth, aye, but for him to go explaining the depths of the relationship would be rude; every pirate had their pride and there was no call for him to go bruising hers.

"I know he's the reason you came to me bed---you were wanting him all along." Henriette broached the topic for him, uncaring of protocol. She was clenching her cigarillo between her strong, white teeth now. It made her look even more fierce than usual. "T'will be a long time afore I trust you again, to be sure."

He chucked her under the chin and smiled beseechingly. "I've played up your ferocious reputation to Hisself. You'd best keep playing the rogue, aye?"

She hopped down from the barrel, graceful. Straightening, she swung around to look at him in all seriousness in the muted light from their shuttered lantern. "My pleasure, uncle." But, even as he watched, the stormy darkness rose in her pale green eyes and she studied him with a familiar, smoldering anger. "Jack...if the man betrays you...if I'm right about the mongrel and what he might do, after all...t'is your own fault what I'll do to him. If'n he betrays, you can't go crying for how I've carved me name over every inch of his poxy hide."

Growing serious in response to her reminder, Jack Sparrow nodded. "If you're right and he does, then I'll not bemoan it, so long as you leave a patch o'er his heart for my very own."

Hen started away, swaying down the service alley past the broken casks and muddy patches of stinking bog. But, then, just at the edge of light, she stopped to tip her chin around and look at him again with her sad eyes and terrible, disapproving frown. Under the edge of her hat, with the shadows darkening her skin, she did resemble her mother more than her father. "Uncle...t'is awful cruel, what you're asking me to accept."

He was of the opinion that accepting the situation was easy...it was the things he'd asked her to do in his name which did seem cruel. But, he wouldn't argue the point. With the necklace in his fist, he saluted her with the bottle he held. "Cruel is a matter of perspective, as I'm sure you know. Have a measure of faith in your ol' Captain, darling. I'll not have steered us wrong yet...aye?"

The lass sighed and nodded, straightening her shoulders as she went on, leaving. A swirl of tobacco smoke was all that remained to be seen as she turned the corner. Only then, when he knew he was alone, did he study the key he held. In the shuttered lantern's light, he lifted it in his hand and turned it back and forth. Black, iron, and very much the most special key in the whole, wide world. There was no counting what he could do with this particular key.

Giving a wicked smile, Jack tied the necklace around his neck and tucked the key out of sight. Then, he set out for the docks and his ship with lantern and bottle in hand. He had just one last thing to do.

Someone did need to look after those mystical charts...aye?
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Betwixt Hammer & Frizzen