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Wi' A Wannion	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2357 -:- 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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Chapter Six:

A Different Sort of Treasure

Now

The Cathay Rose was a fast ship---remarkably faster than any other in the Indian Ocean. Captain Jack Sparrow and his crew of Hindu and Chinese sailors had been prowling the waters between Madagascar and Singapore for three years, taking all they could waylay. Only rarely did they venture to other ports---on a dare, he�d traveled to the Caribbean again, simply to sack Nassau. He�d done it without firing a shot. Whether it be pirate, merchant, or East India Trading Company, The Cathay Rose had become the force to be reckoned with. In every port, the stories were told of Mad Jack and his insatiable pirate nature, his impossible luck. He'd come close to being captured two dozen times by the Royal Navy, only to slip past their fingers at the last minute, just as the trap was sprung.

Jack sat in the Captain's cabin, soused on brandy, his fingers tracing the lines of a map he'd won from a Chinese pirate while playing at a game of chance. The map was rumored to show the route to a lost treasure of Alexander the Great, which may or may not contain an ancient trinket that could make its wearer immortal. He himself could certainly use a way to conquer death, what with his debt to Davy Jones, but he was more concerned with the idea of what profit such a treasure could gather. The cache was not located on any inland but, instead, if the map was accurate, on an island in the southern seas. An island that seemed, when compared to other cartographs, to be uncharted.

He lifted the brown bottle to his mouth and swallowed several times, letting the taste fill his mouth to near-overflow. The flavor bit against the gold in his teeth. In the last five years, he�d become the pirate that Hector always said he should be---only, he still had a sense of moral code which couldn�t be completely buried, no matter how hard he tried. He rarely bathed, he never attempted to look presentable; on the outside, he knew he looked the part of a ruthless murdering pirate, but some things refused to be killed.

What could one do with such a prize as an trinket that brought immortality? Might he offer it to Jones and beg clemency? He had only five more years before his debt came due. Doubtful Jones would be interested in immortality...not exactly running low on years before the mast, Ol' Squiddy.

It had been five years since Barbossa had convinced his crew to mutiny on The Black Pearl and stories he'd heard of his ship were worrisome. Tales of rape and pillage and entire coast towns burned to the sand and coral, through every sea of the world. The story went that its 'captain' was a man so evil that the gates of Hell itself had not been enough to hold him.

Jack always winced at the story; it was his own doing, the start of that one. It was a complicated tale whose truth was now stripped and twisted away. He wasn't above embellishing the retelling of an adventure, but Hector Barbossa's real venture into death hadn't ended with that mutineer's wily escape from Hell itself. He had been the one who'd dared to go seeking a way to rescue Barbossa from death's clutches and look what it had earned him. Hector had done the final wrong, betraying that debt.

The sun had gone down hours ago and his first mate, the bearded Sikh, Khan, was at the quarterdeck, maintaining their course while he drank himself into a stupor of memory and, perhaps, a touch of genius.

The chart was but one part of his plan. He was currently in possession of a trinket he'd bartered away from Tia Dalma. The strange priestess had bartered him many things in the past, but visiting her never ceased to make him nervous. She knew too much of his past, she did, and was given to asking questions for which he had no answers. More often, she asked questions he didn't want to answer. She often was willing to accept a bedding as a token of goodwill, to sweeten the deal.

This trip had proven itself no different.

He dangled the trinket before his eyes, letting it sway over the stained chart as he pulled once more at the bottle he clutched. Its silver medallion was one that reminded him strongly of old coins long buried. Silver with a faded mark on one side and a man's horned head on the other, it dangled on the bit of red cord, swinging in circles above the uncharted island that had become his next destination.

Tia Dalma had said that his ship would need protection from the island's curse. She'd suggested that the waters around the island could drive men mad if they ventured forth without this coin on ship among them. Not as if he needed much help in being mad, but it would be in his own best interests if his crew didn't go insane.

So, with chart and coin, he was seeking a forgotten isle.

A place that Barbossa had once swore couldn't possibly exist.

Holding the coin by its cord, Jack let himself remember what there was to be forgetting about the man he intended to kill someday---with the very same pistol and shot as was given to him from Hector's own hand as a mercy. Love had turned to true animosity, at last, but animosity couldn't erase memory.

He was thirty-five, now; that would make Barbossa thirty-nine.

Jack smiled, considering immortality. Someone would have to test the trinket, to be sure. He could see it being profitable, to be the first man to own such a treasure. Did the trinket stop aging or did it remove lost years? He thought on that and decided he wouldn't mind being twenty-four again---that was the time he'd turned pirate, after being locked up for a year. A very good year, his first year as a pirate...once he'd escaped Singapore and Cutler Beckett. Beckett, who likely couldn�t relieve himself without cursing the name of Jack Sparrow.

On the other hand, he could divide the treasure among his men and offer Tia Dalma the immortality as a token in barter. She had hinted twice now that the day was coming when he could successfully win back The Black Pearl. In her wild ramblings while under the influence of those belladonna berries she was rather over-fond of, the crazed priestess mentioned Port Royal, but said that it couldn't be done yet.

Maybe if he took her a truly rare treasure, she'd impart to him information just as rare.

***

Twelve Years Ago

His captaincy was gone, his ship burned to the water line and sunk, and he'd been imprisoned in Singapore's worst gaol after being branded a pirate. He was going to die in this filthy hole, only twenty-three years old and very much sober. He only hoped Hector would take the chance and run for the other side of the world's seas. With his eyes closed, Jack lay still on the bug-infested pallet and pictured what his first mate might be doing, in this exact moment.

He hoped it was fine and pleasurable.

When he'd realized that The Wicked Wench was nearly scuttled after a ferocious battle with the ships of the EITC, he'd ordered a retreat. They'd managed to slip past the Navy and the EITC ships and make berth on the Portuguese coastline of Goa. He'd wanted Barbossa to stay there, laying low, while he attempted to find a place to hide their ship for repairs. But, Hector had argued with him---damn, if his friend and mate didn't offer a good debate---but, in the end, he'd chosen a method of expediency. Knocking Barbossa unconscious with a belaying pin, he'd left his first mate in Goa with most of their crew while he struck out for a port to the north.

He hadn't made it to port.

Captured by Cutler Beckett himself, he'd been brought to heel---now, he lay in prison, unsure of how long the sentence would last. His arm hurt---the branding was clean, but the wound near his elbow was dirty and, no doubt, infected. He was going to die, if so, and it wouldn't be a good death, but he could stop caring if he knew for certain that Hector was safe.

He missed his first mate, whose pale blue-green eyes had grown only sharper over the eleven years they'd sailed together. Hector, who had saved his life and his body countless times---in his heart, he could admit his affections for the man, but he would rather be gutted than breathe a word of it out loud. Oh, it wasn't out of shame, but instead out of a need to keep Hector placated. Barbossa wasn't a man for expressing the gentler, nobler emotions----what regard he could claim from the wily bastard he called friend was an unspoken loyalty. They'd been lovers for eleven years, but never exclusively. It was simply an impossibility, for him.

If Barbossa had any sense---and he certainly did---the man would not come to Singapore looking for trouble and Jack Sparrow.

Pirate. He was now a pirate, by legal declaration.

He let his breath out slowly and turned over to face the stone wall he was shackled to. Perhaps the infection in his arm would kill him quickly and save him from the ignobility of living in prison, an outlawed sailor. He needed the sea like he needed a drink of rum.

***

A year later

There was a metallic click and grind as the lock turned. The door creaked and a shaft of muted light from the lantern outside fell on him---he could see, through his lashes, its play on the moss-creased stones above him. Was it more food and water that he couldn't stomach? Or had the guards returned for more fun at his expense? He'd grown to accept the beatings---and the once or twice occasion when he'd been forcibly taken.

Bootsteps sounded on the filth-covered floor and then a hand touched his shoulder, turning him over to face the thin, watery light. Through swollen eyelids, he stared at the face that studied him with such indifference and satisfaction. It felt right that his first mate would look on him with such an expression. Barbossa couldn't possibly be here, in the prison. Barbossa would be more sensible than that.

There was a flicker of something darker in Hector's pale, slanted eyes that belied his dispassionate face. Dark and cold and cutthroat, that flicker. It didn't bode well for the man who had caused such icy anger. Was it him? Had he done something to aggravate Hector? He couldn't remember.

Barbossa spoke. "He's been interfered with, Mister Beckett. This is not as we agreed."

Beckett? Did Barbossa think he was Cutler Beckett after all these years?

Just how long had it really been, him locked away here?

A dry, chilly voice answered from that point where the lantern light emerged. "I think you will find he is alive, Mister Barbossa, as I have said. Now, please take him and leave before you are discovered by the guards."

"Aye. It would be a terrible thing, if there be a fight an' me men forgot to let ye live." He could barely see, but he watched as Hector's eyes narrowed with cruel mirth. Now, the tone went softer but no less strident. "Jack, can ye walk, lad? Or needs I carry ye?"

He didn't quite understand. Was he meant to be leaving the gaol? He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the daylight or the sea. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and his limbs felt as if they didn't exist anymore, he'd been chained to the wall in the same position for an eternity. He lifted the edge of his mouth in an attempt at smiling while he gave the matter consideration. His smile only made Barbossa's eyes go darker, more malignant.

"I think, Mister Beckett," Hector lightly touched his face, turning it from side to side; he wanted to shout at the sharp pain this caused him but only managed to grow woozy with the motion, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. "I could enjoy the sight of me men treatin' ye with th' same loving care with which ye've treated Jack Sparrow."

Near the source of the light, somewhere close, the voice---familiar, hated voice---offered no apologies. "But, you did give me your word, Mister Barbossa, that nothing untoward would happen to me if I gave you Mister Sparrow and safe passage from Singapore."

"Aye, but we be pirates, now, and I see where I might make a bit of profit here." Barbossa let his face go and now, the chain rattled. The chain held him to the wall by his right wrist; he could remember testing its length, being able to move only a yard away from the damp, frozen stones. Now, his first mate was examining it and seemed mightily unpleased.

"Profit? From beating me senseless?" Cutler Beckett sounded unfazed.

"The profit, Mister Beckett, is to be found in my personal satisfaction at repaying ev'ry injury ye've allowed to be visited on this man." The pain in his right wrist intensified as Barbossa lifted the manacle and examined the damage done on his skin by the black iron. His first mate wore a look of disgust at the weeping flesh that never seemed to heal even while appearing to atrophy itself to make the iron part of his body.

Jack swallowed the sore and swollen lump in his throat and forced his tongue to work despite its nasty attachment to his palate. Was he even coherent? His voice rasped. "Branded me with his own hand, the bloodthirsty git."

He tried to not cry out as his manacled hand was pulled up harder, the dirty sleeve dragged free to reveal the pale flesh of his scar. He watched Hector, biting his lower lip against the cursing scream that bubbled in his chest. His friend was smiling in a decidedly unfriendly manner. "That brave, was he? I'm surprised at ye, Mister Beckett. Did ye take pleasure in th' sullyin' o� yer hands on a pirate's flesh?"

"As much pleasure as can be derived from seeing justice done, Mister Barbossa."

Now, he began to shake with the pain; there was too much to focus on and the touch of Hector's hand was unkind. But, his first mate didn't seem to notice; instead, Barbossa laughed...coarse and brutal and Jack realized that he'd never seen this side of Hector. "I'm satisfied to hear ye say so, Mister Beckett. Gents...take this scurvy lubber back to th' ship. Clap him in irons in the brig until I have th' moment to attend him."

There were others, silent and unmoving, somewhere close. He heard them now, going about their business of obeying the order. At least two, perhaps three. Beckett tried a protest, but to no avail. He was glad to have not seen the evil git this time.

Hands moved him, rattling the chain once more. He gave a sigh, his words more breath than sound. "It'll never work, Hector. The...it's in me skin, now."

"Aye." Barbossa drew a two-headed hammer from his belt, thin-lipped and serious. "So, we take th' iron with us an' leave th' chain for these worthless dogs to ponder."

A piece of leather was thrust between his teeth---it tasted of salt and bitter herbs, sucking the last moisture from his mouth. The chain was broken and he flinched, almost gibbering with the pain that action sent up his arm and into his shoulder. But, then, the pain was made worse---he was lifted and covered in a blanket, but none too gently. The stinking wool covered even his face, protection against the light.

He drowsed, unable to focus beyond the jostling agony of movement as he was carried. At last, he jolted awake and tried to get his eyes open under the blanket, feeling that somehow the world had changed. He could hear water lapping against something wooden and he was moving without being carried. A boat, perhaps?

Jack sank into the darkness where pain receded, remembering the stories his father had told him of the ancient Greeks. There was, he thought, a story about a man named Charon...Charon used a boat to ferry the newly dead from one side of the River Lethe to the other, where their final destination lay.

Nearly blind and overly sensitive after his incarceration, he wasn't so sure that he hadn't died. His tongue was thick again. "Do we have two coppers, then? We can't go if we don't have the ferryman's tax. Hector?"

His first mate was obviously closer than he'd thought; he imagined he could almost see the expression on Barbossa's weathered face. Hector would think him a fool. "Damn th' coppers, Jack---yer not to die. Yer goin' home."

He felt as if he might be sick, at the mere thought of his ship. God, he wanted water. He needed rum. "Home was with The Wicked Wench, Hector, and you..."

***

He was wearing only trousers and a shirt when he woke. He'd been bathed.

He could feel the shift under him and knew that he was on a ship---and that was a good sign. His head was much clearer than it had been in more time than he could recall. Had he been locked away a year? A glance told him that it was daylight outside the windows and he was laying in a wide, handsomely appointed bed in a handsome cabin---the Captain's cabin.

His head was muzzy, but it was obvious to him that this was Hector's cabin.

Mostly crippled in every joint and bone, Jack crawled out of the bed and nearly lost his footing several times as he edged the room, reaching the carved doors. Opening them, he found himself standing on main deck under the quarterdeck. Nearly a dozen men were visible, stripped to the waist and in various stages of personal dis-repair, working the sails and cleaning. His eyes fogged and he nearly stumbled, then realizing that his sealegs were gone. He'd become a land-lubber during his time in prison. Not good...not good at all.

Holding onto the shrouds, he turned and looked up at the quarterdeck of what seemed to be a lovely little brigatine. Barbossa stood at the wheel, hands lightly resting on the spokes, his pale eyes on the distant horizon. His heart jumped at the sight. His first mate was a first mate no more. Hector had gone pirate and...was that a frock-coat and broad-brimmed cavalier�s hat his friend wore? It looked utterly overdone.

Jack slurred; his voice was still not steady. "You look bleedin� silly, mate."

Those familiar pale blue-green eyes shifted and found him, narrowed with disapproval. Hector's freckled face twisted, making him look older. How could he have not realized, before, that the sea-life was weathering Barbossa in the body and the mind? His friend barked at him. "Get ye back to bed! Yer not fit to walk th' deck---I'll not have ye fallin' overboard, ye pulin' rooster!"

He clapped his mouth shut, swaying on his feet. He suddenly felt ill and weak again. Too long on land, too long in the dark. The sun hurt his eyes. He scowled, waving a hand at the cabin door behind him. "Presently, Barbossa, I shall return to that glorious bed you've provided me with. First things first, mate. Have ye a drink on this floating brig?"

Back in the cabin, Jack sat on the bed's side and studied his right wrist. The manacle was still imbedded in his skin. The edges were blackened and the movement of his bones hurt, as if he might never be able to use them again. He was considering the thought of a knife when the cabin's door opened and a young boy with brown curls and bright gray eyes, perhaps ten years in age, entered with a wee cup held carefully between both hands.

"Captain says ye must drink this medicine first. Then, ye can have yer rum."

It was said to him with a serious, parroting tone, as if the lad was simply repeating the words. This was the cabin boy? Ah. Right, then. Lad sounded Scottish. He looked the lad over and realized how very nervous the child was. It came to him that someone on-board might be using the cabin boy in lieu of a wench. Not good, if it was unwanted attention. He�d have to see about rectifying that.

He accepted the wee clay cup and looked into it. There was but a few sips of clear, oily liquid---a sup he recognized for its potency. Juice of the poppy-seed. A sniff confirmed it.

Jack looked up from the cup and raised his brows. "Medicine, is it? So, he would give me opium and call it medicine." He decided to have a bit of fun; what could it hurt? It might make him feel a bit more alive, at that. "D'ye know what your captain likes to do, lad? When a cabin boy is not careful, it goes badly. He gives a lad opium like this and, then, when you are incapable of protecting your jewels, Barbossa has you cut. Snip-snip. Once you've been cut, you're no good to a wench. Savvy?"

The boy's face paled dramatically. Those gray eyes widened.

He felt better, immediately, despite how weak his bones seemed.

"What's your name, lad?" He lifted the edge of his mouth in a curling smile.

"Tam." The cabin boy whispered. "Captain said ye were a good man, someone we should be respecting, sir. Mister Jack..." It was sweet, coming from the lad's lisping tongue. "Is that true, about Captain? How d'ye know? About that? That...th' cuttin'?"

Oh, the fish had taken the bait and was trawling with hooked fear, now.

Sly, he gave a chuckle, using his manacled hand to touch the front of his trousers. "I was his cabin boy before you, lad. Would you like to see what cruel disfigurement Captain Barbossa does to his cabin boys when they don�t mind?"

Wee Tam, the cabin boy, fled as if Ol' Hob Hisself had sprung up from the deck.

Jack smirked and drained the cup.

***

He woke briefly, later, to find Barbossa sitting on the bed's side, watching him sleep. His friend was stripped down to undershirt and trousers and boots, his hat and frock-coat laid away. In the lamp-light, under the edge of a piece of emerald green calico, Hector's hair gleamed like golden, silk-polished wood.

There was such concern in Hector's face, an expression that he knew would be denied if he dared to mention its existence. He wouldn't suggest out loud that his lover and friend was capable of giving a damn for anyone and Barbossa wouldn't turn colder than a sudden north wind. It worked to both their advantage.

"Here, drink." Hector helped him sit up and he obediently opened his mouth for the mug of broth. "Ye've a fever, Jack."

Everything felt too cold. He was sweating.

The taste was something he had truly missed; someone had been kind enough to kill and stew a chicken for his recovery. After a few moments, he realized that the soup was seasoned with garlic and rosemary and kari-veppilai leaves---he'd have known this flavor even without a tongue to taste it with. His Hindu nanny had made it for him, when he was a boy; a curried soup that the Indians claimed would cure almost every illness.

Barbossa had stewed the chicken himself, remembering his previous liking for it.

As he worked his way through the mug, Barbossa spoke, his voice solemn. "Did ye tell Wee Tam I like to castrate me cabin boys?"

Jack smiled weakly, scratching through his sweat-dampened hair at his brow. "I'm fevered, aren't I? I might say anything."

His friend's brows rose almost into the scarf he wore on his light brown-blonde hair. "Well, thank ye, Jack. The crew was merely afraid of me, before. Now, they're in fear for their immortal souls."

"Anything for a mate, eh?"

***

His fever broke.

When he woke again, his right wrist burned as if it'd been scraped raw. Blearily raising his arm, he found white cotton wrapped on it. Speckles of blood were seeping through. Barbossa had managed to find someone who could remove the black iron manacle.

Focusing, he found the lamp was still yet lit and Hector was in the cabin, seated at the large, round table. There, charts and maps lay unrolled. His lover and friend was drinking rum from a mug and making notations on the parchments, obviously charting a course.

"Who's on quarterdeck?" He asked, knowing that the ship's captain would hear him.

"Bootstrap." Hector didn't look up at him; his voice was a hissing whisper. "How's it suit ye to pay our prisoner a visit, now? D'ye think yer up to th' job, Jack me lad?"

Prisoner? It was slow to return, the knowledge of what had happened before he was brought to the ship. Beckett...the prisoner was likely Cutler Beckett. Jack yawned, pushing his way up from the bed. He needed to relieve himself and then...rum. The desire was, watching Hector drink from the mug, a sharp pain in him.

Jack Sparrow considered the idea of Beckett as their prisoner as he sat on the side of the bed and used the chamberpot. Sliding it back out of sight under the bookshelf, he pulled himself up and realized, weaving with the ship's tilting rhythm, that he was wearing naught but a long sark-shirt. Somehow, he'd been stripped and washed again. Probably while he was fevered. He lurched across the cabin, his feet nearly losing the battle for balance when he encountered rugs. At last, he was able to grasp the bottle on the table and tip it to his mouth.

After several drinks and long minutes to allow for his guts' need, he shook his head, rubbing at his loosened hair. It was hanging free and tangled, tickling his face. He blinked, watching Hector study the maps, and then remembered. Beckett.

"How long've I been...like this?" He gripped the chair before him, lifting the bottle again.

"We've had ye back nearly a ten-day, Jack." His friend's pale gaze turned and tilted up to now study him. Hector's mouth was turned downward in a dark expression of disgust; it made the scar under his right eye stand out in relief. "Thought we'd lose ye, at th' first. I was ready to stitch ye up in yer shroud an' toss ye to th' sea, I was that sure ye'd had th' full eight bells."

Ten days of freedom and he'd slept almost every hour of it.

Jack drew himself up to his full height and winced, trying to keep the pain to himself. He had much to do, to bring an end to his illness. He had just the plan for how to start. "I need clothes, I believe. Let's go pay our prisoner a visit, then, mate. I feel an over-strong urge to carve something to messes."

There was no lifting of the potentially bloodthirsty darkness he saw within Barbossa's face. Hector pulled a wicked-nasty knife from his belt and laid it on the table, directly in the center of a chart. "Let me help ye with fulfilling that urge, Jack."
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Wi' A Wannion