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Whispers of Redemption	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2243 -:- 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.

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Year Thirty-two

Elizabeth's Journal

I do declare there�s something reassuring to the thought of having a physician of some sorts on board. At the first, I did feel quite skeptical at the idea, but as I�ve had a word with Captain Barbossa, I�ve been reassured that many pirates pick up a number of skills and that Henriette De la Hoya was trained as a doctor of sorts by a proper physician as was trained in England�s finest colleges. I�ve been down to examine her surgery and I�m quite impressed with the work she�s accomplished in but a week. It�s nothing but a hull and three curtains, but it suits for the purpose, with its table and surgical box, books, and articles of medicine.

Tomorrow, we sail for the Cape and onward to the other side of the world, to the island of my home. It will be a journey of two months, but perhaps more if we are slowed by bad winds. Captain Sparrow had put it about among the men that Henriette De la Hoya is a good luck piece, being the beloved fosterling of Calypso herself. This morning, as I walked the beaches, I saw in the early fog the shape of a ghostly galleon. Another might say it was merely a play of light and mist, but I do know it was my Will and his ship. Even as I stood there, my eyes on it, I could feel his dark gaze on me. It was not a trick of my imagination, overwrought as it seem might be. Does he think on me as I think on him? Surely he must. I dare not believe otherwise.

***

Year Thirty-two

Tellin' Tales

It was still yet light on the horizon, the western skies a glorious bleed of gold and damson and madder. As they would sail in the morn at first light, the entire crew was aboard and prepared. But, none yet were ready to sleep and all felt a need for drink and company. Jack sat on a large coil of rope at the mizzenmast, using his dirk to carve a bit of wood he'd found on the rocks of the shore---a piece of some long-lost wreck, from its appearance, well-worn and sturdy despite its grayish-brown, pocky surface. Its shape had felt right and, as he carefully chipped and carved at it, the form emerged. A wee, fat wifie. Like the kind that Tia Dalma had kept tied to her kirtle's edging. When he finished it, the carving would go on the necklace Henriette wore. Right beside the little iron key she kept tucked in behind her buttons.

Wouldn't do for Barbossa to figure out the meaning of that key. Not at all. He'd already warned Anamaria's daughter---as they were hauling sacks of fruit up from the longboat---to make sure she never spoke of it to anyone, not even if she was dying. It wasn't until this morning that he'd known she had the tiny thing on her person---which made him rethink about the reasons Tia Dalma might've sent Hector looking for the ship-wrecked L'Sauvage. Perhaps it was about the key, after all, and not Henriette. But, as he'd told the lass---Captain Barbossa couldn't know of it. Not yet. Perhaps later, as an inducement during negotiations---but, not yet.

So, he sat and carved another beadling for the necklace and thought on why the lass possessed that particular key. T'wasn't no mistaking it, not with him knowing what it looked like, the funny shape of its head and all. How many keys had the head shaped like wings and a star, aye? Not very damn many, he suspected. Just as he'd suspected what it might mean, years and years ago, when he'd seen it tied with ribbon to Tia Dalma's sash.

Mad witch had worn all sorts of lovely and wicked things on her person, as it were.

All around him, the men talked in soft tones, passing bottles.

They'd brought everything aboard, in readiness for the morn. He didn't need to look up from where he sat to know where his protégé was---she was perched in the ratlines above him. To his port side, Lizzie sat cross-legged in front of a barrel near the rail. She was leaning back against its curved side with her head tipped back and her eyes closed---as if she was beyond all of the crew and their petty conversations. He suspected her mind was far, far away, sailing with another ship. Another captain.

The men were sprawled everywhere, eating apples and drinking. Among the fruit they'd brought aboard was three hogshead of apples from the trees that grew a bit inland from the shore---planted there many years ago, no doubt, by some passing ship and its hopeful crew. The fruit were smallish and bitterish, sharp to the taste and greenish-yellow.

If he looked up from his carving, he knew he'd see Hector at work with his own dirk. His co-captain was peeling one of the fruit, slow and at ease, successfully taking the skin away in one long ribbon. He knew, because he'd already glanced up a time or two. Only to find Barbossa's gaze sweeping away from him the moment he looked. As if he'd interrupted the other man in watching him.

"Oy---" One of the men---Pintel, it seemed---called out to Hector. "Captain Barbossa? Tell us the story of yer baptism. That's one we've never heard, I bet."

Jack flicked his gaze up to find Hector's pale eyes moving away from him again.

"Nay." Barbossa laughed, answering the Bo'sun. "Tisn't a tale I mean to be sharin'."

His old matelot's gaze was narrowed down in genuine mirth at the idea of being asked such a personal question. In the slow-fading light, it seemed to his gaze that Hector's cheeks were a bit reddened. Just how much of that fruity brew had the ol' beastie had? He knew better than to think it would be any such emotion as embarrassment what might put a gleaming flush to Hector's face. It could only be the spirits.

To the starboard side, sitting on a crate he'd drawn up, was Ragetti, whose nervous voice was slow to pick up strength. "I was a lad o' ten when I went to sea. T'was on Tortuga, me papa lost at dice to a pirate captain as what needed more men for 'is ship. To set'le 'is debt, he gave us to th' captain, me an' me sis. I was put to th' powder an' she...aye, well..." The gunner's soft voice dropped and faded completely.

Jack winced inside at the idea of it. No one had to ask what had become of the lass.

The change in discourse was a welcome one and started a new round of toasts and stories.

Next to speak up was Gibbs, his own first mate. From somewhere mid-ship. "I was apprenticed to a miller, back in London-town. I ran away to join the Navy, I did. T'is a sin, aye, as how poorly a jack-tar is treated by His Majesty's service."

One by one, the men spoke and gave their own stories. For some, it was the first time of telling such a tale to the group---but, then, there was only a small part of the crew that was left from its earlier voyages. Cotton, of course, didn't give his story---and yet one of the newer pirates---Mullroy, maybe---did ask.

The parrot issued forth an pithy comment. "Go hungry, go to sea!"

Jack grinned at that, blowing hard at the dusty carving under his fingers.

"What of you, lady? How came you to the sea?" It came from over his head.

From Henriette.

Elizabeth Turner, at his port side, gave an unusually harsh bark of laughter. It sounded somewhat unnerving, as if she'd been thinking on the matter for some time and come to bad conclusions. He watched as she waved a hand about expansively---tipsily. But, tipsy or not, she didn't slur. Yet. "That's a most excellent question, I think. I made the crossing over from England when I was a girl, but I don't think of that as my first time at sea. For me, it was this ship and a crew of cursed, undead pirates under the command of its most ruthless captain."

That brought instant silence, but the quiet died without effort.

"Thank ye, missy." Barbossa almost purred at being called ruthless.

"Our apologies, ma'am." Ragetti tugged at his blonde forelock, blinking his one good eye.

Quiet came again as Jack worked with the tip of his knife to carve a hole in the knob of wood he'd left at the top of the wee wifie's head. Only slowly did he realize that everyone was looking at him, waiting.

He sighed, giving a shrug, and answered, brushing the back of his hand against the dreadlocks that tickled his stubbly throat on one side. "It was the Flaming Sword, under Captain Rob Bushby. I was twelve---the cabin-boy. Before the end of the first voyage, I was promoted to head cabin boy and then rigger's mate. Fast in the ratlines, I was." Then he took a sly look at Hector, to find his old matelot watching him with a searching gaze---as if undressing him right in front of the crew. Jack decided to turn it on the other pirate lord. "What about you, Barbossa? What was your first?"

Hector bit into a piece of the apple peel, pale green-blue eyes speculatively moving from him to the deck that lay between them. His voice didn't boom or rumble or roar, now, but came with a tone made of softest brown velvet. "I ran from me home, a big lad for eight years o' age an' th' youngest son. I went to Christchurch, thinkin' to apprentice meself to a shipwright. But, no one hires a lad wi'out papers as what can't read a word o' a page. T'is a bit o' valuable work, shipwrightin'. I near to starved afore I was caught in a tavern liftin' th' purse o' a merchant captain. Captain Teague Sparrow fed me that night an' offered me a place as his cabin boy."

With a moment's look, he knew...everyone was in awe. It never failed. Captain Teague was legend, the penultimate pirate. Pirate Lord of Madagascar, a title given to the pirate as what became the Keeper of the Code.

"D'ye remember, Jack?" Hector looked at him, voice still soft like silk. "D'ye remember how ev'ryone believed Captain Teague an' his ship, th' Mattie Barrett, lost an' dead to th' hurricanes off th' Cape, that voyage?"

He nodded, pausing to bend and pick up his bottle. With a drink, he leaned back on the rigging at the base of the mizzenmast. "Aye, but I better remember, nine years later, when we found that he was still alive and turned pirate."

Barbossa's eyes shifted in a way which only he could translate and he discovered himself agreeing with the silent sentiment. They hadn't appreciated the situation with Captain Teague, at the time of its happening, but now...now, as pirates, they could see the events of that day from a uniquely situated position. He found himself wondering if Hector was contemplating it from a father's position or a pirate's position and then stopped, realizing how ridiculous his thoughts was altogether.

It was Lizzie who re-captured his attention; her young voice made him---and Barbossa---look around. "Captain Teague was a merchant captain first? All the stories of him say he was always a pirate. The Keeper of the Code."

This was enough to elicit a snort from Barbossa, who was back to peeling another apple. The peeled apples themselves were being put in a galley bucket. Perhaps breakfast was to be fried apples? Hector was only eating the peel this evening. His old matelot answered the charge. "There's no call to be thinkin' such about Captain Teague. T'wasn't always a pirate, but e'en as a merchant comp'ny captain, he ran his ship wi' an eye to freedoms only a step right o' piratin', to be sure."

Wetting his thumb with his tongue, Jack wiped at the knob he was boring a hole through. His eyes on the work, he began to tell the story. "I was newly a captain for the company and younger than most of you, then. We had sixty men and a commission. T'was only our first voyage, going between Djibouti and Sri Lanka, when we were chased down by a galleon nearly the same size as the Flying Dutchman, only this one t'was painted black. My first mate said we should fight, but I had a mind to the practical---we hoisted the white flag and hoped for the best. Most pirates, as we all know, keep to the Code and won't kill unless they have to---if you resist, you'll probably be murdered. I knew we could make up the lost profit. But, only as long as we had a ship and crew."

His current crew were drawing closer, little by little, in respectful silence.

Jack lifted his eyes and looked at Hector, who looked back with an implacable expression. What ever his co-captain was thinking, it was lost behind the somber consideration in that pale gaze. He went on, concentrating on his carving once more. "We'd dealt with pirates before, savvy? Not under the condition of being boarded, but...I ordered my men to lay down their arms and offer no resistance. We---Barbossa and me---we was on the quarterdeck when they began to board. I called for parlay, thinking I might just save a bit of my dignity, as it were. The captain of the pirate ship---her name was Prometheus---came over with his first mate. But, at first sight, I tell you it was like three pounds of shot in my belly. He was the conquering hero in a swirl of coat and that giant, feathered tricorn of his. He moved like a king all a-swagger did ol' Captain Teague. He was so sun-blasted as to belie his English blood and his first mate was a tall Irishwoman with red hair and a fishwife's face. I knew we had to do something careful-like with the parlay. To put us on the same level as Captain Teague. Lower than, he'd laugh, but higher than...he'd cut us down to size."

Only now did Jack realize he had drawn all the men to the area around the mizzenmast; they were all close enough and quiet enough that they'd be able to hear him if he so much as whispered. He didn't quite dare to look at Hector---to see a reminder of how sour the situation had gone for them. Bad enough that he was recounting the tale for the crew of the Pearl.

With a drink from his bottle, Jack went on. "Captain Teague asked us what we knew of the Code. We did explain as we were acquainted with Yasar Basak, who was Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea---before."

As he told the story, he slipped into the memory of it all.

'I see.' Captain Teague's kohl-lined black eyes traveled over him and then over Hector Barbossa with all the calm slowness of a man who had forever to make a decision. 'An' how did ye find Captain Basak, then, Jacky?'

Any chance he had of playing a bluff was immediately gone.

Drawing himself up a little more, he went gruff even as his belly turned to water. 'He's a pirate, Captain, and some pirates own honor. Be you one of those men?'

Captain Teague smiled, revealing gold teeth and a potential for wily brutality. 'Ye've never been boarded before, then. T'is good to see ye wi' a good man at yer back, boy. How be ye, Hector?'

His lover didn't step back or forward, but lingered at his shoulder, sun-warmed and familiar. His voice was firm. 'Mostly well, Captain Teague. Jack Sparrow's been good to me, both friend and captain.'

His father's gaze moved over them a bit more carefully, taking in all that was visible, and Jack wondered for a brief, mad moment if Captain Teague Sparrow could read his face and mind---was it visible, the nature of his friendship with Hector? If it was, nothing was said. Captain Teague nodded, giving a sharp smile.

'What be yer terms, lad?'

No paternal concern at all.

'Spare my men and my ship. You're an honorable man, Captain, and you see the need I have for both...aye? The holds are full of goods. I'm pleased to offer that to you and your men.' It caught in his throat, a sharp burr of anger that made his words rough.

As he was talking, Captain Teague's dark gaze traveled over him and over Hector again, who stood so close as to be brushing his shoulder and back. But, as he finished his offer, he saw another figure coming over from the pirates' ship. A tall, red-haired woman dressed in men's clothing whose bright eyes were also lined in kohl. Under her tricorn, her long hair flowed like liquid fire. She bristled with weapons and an air of arrogance he'd only ever seen in the sauciest of wenches. This was a woman as what knew her own worth, not much older than him, if he guessed rightly.

'My first mate, Linah---an' yer new mum, lad.' Captain Teague nodded toward her, tapping his dirty fingers on the broad, black belt he wore. 'Linah, this be my son, Jack. Th' other is his first mate an' shieldmate, Hector Barbossa.'

New mum? Not likely.

"I told the woman I was very pleased to make her acquaintance. Then, Captain Teague said as he didn't see how it was possible to leave so many men without food---he would take all we had to offer, let us live and our ship intact. But, he was demanding his pick of the men---all who would sail with him might sign Articles with the Prometheus. If we didn't agree, he would burn us to the water-line, dead the whole lot of us. I didn't see another way, so I agreed." Jack grimaced. "I thought the men wouldn't sign on with a pirate...I was wrong."

The knife he held finally bit deep enough to core the knob. He began grinding the blade in a circle, cleaning the hole he'd made. Spitting on the blade to wet the work, he gave a sigh and continued. "All the men signed Articles then and there and helped Captain Teague's crew clean out our holds. Finished, he told his men to leave us be---us and the ship. T'was just me and Barbossa, by then, standing there like a pair of sun-struck gomerels. Captain Teague said he wished us luck of it, sailing to port without men to crew. Then, he left us standing dead in the water with naught but a barrel of water, a small cask of rum, and just enough food to get us through a six-day. A true pirate, Captain Teague Sparrow."

Examining his work, finished up, Jack stood and offered the bead to Henriette, where she perched within reach in the ratlines. It was to her that he directed his last thoughts. "The Irishwoman---mum, as he called her to me---is, however, no longer his first mate. It seems she's died. Captain Teague was good enough to keep her on in spirit, though. He carries her head shrunk down and mummified to a mere third its size. Mad ol' bastard."

Taking the new bauble in her slender, boyish-tough fingers, his protég�s solemn green eyes didn't so much widen as engulf her plain, unattractive face. As he turned and walked toward the cabin, he remembered the last of the conversation he'd had with Hector about being boarded, as they were watching the Prometheus sail away with their cargo and their crew.

He stared after the black ship, at his tall father whom he could see on the quarterdeck there. Captain Teague Sparrow was free and seemed pleased with the turn of events. Clenching his fists, Jack muttered. 'Bloody pirates.'

Having now stepped out away from his side, Barbossa gave another curse---just one in a long series of many given over the last hour---and wheeled around to look at him with cold anger and the scowl that matched. 'We could've joined 'em, Jack. No one would've ever had to know th' truth o' what happened to this ship, then.'

That drove him to momentary silence. He pushed past his driftwood-blonde lover, headed for the hold, to get a grasp on what might be left to help them survive until they limped to a port of any kind as what would take their ship. But, at the last, standing on the very last step of the quarterdeck, Jack shifted again to look up at his first mate. Unable to keep his silence any longer.

'I would know, Hector, and that makes all the difference.'

As he passed Barbossa, he realized that his old matelot was sitting on the bottom-most step of the quarterdeck. Just in the same spot as he himself had stood, in that moment of denial for the pirate life. His eyes met Hector's gaze and he knew---he knew!---they were both thinking on it. Thinking real hard.

With knife paused over a half-peeled apple, the other captain asked it of him, soft and low, almost lost in the noise of the men talking in quiet murmurs. "Does it still make a difference, Jack?"

Jack lifted his chin, turning away as he continued toward the cabin. "Aye, Hector, it does."

***

The distance between their bodies, in bed, should have been enough to put his mind to ease, but it wasn't. He imagined that he might stretch out his arm to the left and put a hand on Hector's chest. Not that he would do any such thing. That would be bad and wrong and while he was a pirate, being a pirate didn't exactly mean also being 'stupid' or 'foolish' or 'rash', though he had certainly seen his fair share of such scallywags.

It was dark and the men were quieter, now. The majority of them had bunked down for the night. He was so tipsy that the feel of the ship's rhythmic sway from rolling wave to rolling wave was as a lullaby to him. Was there anything more soothing? He could almost forget that Hector was breathing next to him---loudly in the silence, as it were, with his old matelot's typical half-snore. He could almost forget. Almost relax.

"T'wasn't thievin' Cap'n Teague caught me at, Jack." Barbossa's voice slurred.

"Huh?" It startled him from dozing; he jerked to alertness once more.

"My nature says I oughtn't tell ye o' it---but, I feel as though I must. Ye deserve to know, maybe." His co-captain was shifting, turning over to face him in the darkness. "Cap'n Teague wasn't visitin' no tavern when we met in Christchurch. He was in th' room next to me own perch."

When he didn't answer, Hector went on, almost whispering. He imagined he could see the strain of honesty coming out in a scowl on the other pirate's weathered face. "Yer father was in a house o' ill repute, aye? Me custom, he went to punchin' me---an' I fought back. We ended up on th' stairs, where I pulled me knife an' put a hole in 'im. He fell on me, like. Next thin' I knew, I was bein' dragged along naked as th' day I was born an' covered in that man's blood---'is mates were to string me up an� throw me carcass in th' bay. Cap'n Teague caught up an' said as how I was 'is cabin-boy an' that th' man had mistak'n me nature---an' any man had a right to defend 'is own body 'gainst bad use."

Jack, against his own better judgment, turned over and that brought them within only a few hands' length from each other. "What happened, then?"

Hector sighed, his breath sweet with apple and spirits. In the shadows, he could see the shape of his old matelot's features. Long face, broad cheekbones, the long curve of mouth. Slanted eyes that moved, gleaming, in the dark. "Those men turned me loose an' Cap�n Teague took me away to find clothes an' some supper. T'was th' first hot bath an' clean clothin' in o'er a year, see. I knew, wi' that, I'd do anythin' Cap'n Teague demanded o' me. He treated me right proper an' like a man, even wi' how I was naught but a lad o' nine."

Thinking it over in the quiet, Jack realized the extent of how much trust was being shown to him. Wasn't a small thing, what Hector was confessing to. He answered the whisper. "You were selling your arse in Christchurch."

It came, the response; flat, without emotion. "Aye."

Jack reached and muzzily patted the shoulder he could feel. Even through worn linen, it was oddly familiar. "That be fine, then. Explains a lot, to my mind."

He could see how Hector's eyes narrowed, even in the shadows. The other pirate's tone went cold and almost threatening. "How so?"

Smiling at the memory of his first days aboard a ship, he gave a half-shrug---impeded by how he lay. "When I met you, Hector ol' boy, I thought...I had the thought as how you'd never been a lad at all. As if you were born already a hard man."

The hostility melted with a sigh and Barbossa nodded, whispering once more. "That's no so far from th' truth, Jack me lad."

Something impossible and unlikely bloomed in his chest. A great swelling of affection for the knowledge of how much he was being trusted---pirates did not share such intimate stories without good reason and what good reason could exist if betrayal was expected? Hector was trusting him with something he understood, now. This part of his matelot's past was a reason for so much anger and hostility from that quarter---and also part, no doubt, of why Hector had only rarely allowed him to 'top' when they were lovers.

Jack moved slowly---gently---and wrapped his arm around the ribs and waist of the other pirate. His other arm, he pushed under the pillows. The maneuver brought him in direct contact with the shoulder and chest of a man he'd not embraced in fourteen years. With a sigh, he let it happen. His cheek and jaw rested on hard muscle and sinew. The body of a man he'd loved for most of his life and then mourned, in death.

"I don't want yer pity." Hector's voice was half-whisper, half-growl. Fingers found his bare wrist and closed, prepared to toss him off.

He relaxed, giving another small smile. "Nay, mate, no pity to offer." Things were quiet again, for a moment, as he considered how to express it. He kept it low. "When I shot you and you were dead, it was strange how very empty all the world felt. It took something from me. I couldn't forgive---not then---but, I could let us be even. I do know, now, all the reasons for what you did, Hector---and while I still can't forgive the actual betrayal as it were, I'm willing to let it lie dead and buried."

Hector didn't speak, didn't comment on his offering of peace.

Jack, tipsy and feeling right with the world, went a little further. "It's a difficult thing, forgiveness. But, perhaps I can forgive you for being a black-hearted devil if you can maybe forgive me for not being the same."

The fingers on his wrist tightened in a squeeze, but they didn't move to push him away. His matelot's voice came now with a chiding hiss. As if he was but a lad again. "Jack, don't be askin' me for such a fool thin'. I'll no askin' for yer forgiveness for bein' what I am---an' I'll no be forgivin' ye for bein' what best serves as me own conscience. Are we agreed?"

He could find no words to say for something so large.

He simply nodded, knowing that the movement would be correctly interpreted.

"T'is good, then. G'night, Jack me lad." Hector breathed the words.

With a shifting move that rocked the bed, Jack felt the kiss smack against his forehead.

He drifted off, smiling still yet.
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Whispers of Redemption