Fic: Metal and Words, 5/16
Friday, 17 August 2012 20:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aletheiafelineaTitle: Metal and Words, 5/16
Author: Aletheia Felinea
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
compassrose7577. Thank you so much!
Rating: PG-13 overall
Wordcount: 3 320, this chapter
Characters / Pairings: (this chapter) Jack Sparrow/Scarlett, Jack Sparrow/Anamaria if you squint... But Jack/Pearl is without squinting.
Genre: Gen fic supposed to be a crime story.
Time: Months before CotBP.
Summary: The sweet air of Tortuga can be dangerous sometimes, even for the certain Captain. And curiosity can kill a sparrow. Or... save?
Disclaimer: Not my hunting territory, The Big Black Mouse prowls here.
Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Note: The fic was translated from Polish. Jeśli wolisz czytać w oryginale, zapraszam.
The fic's map can be needed from this chapter on.
Scarlett opened the door and stepped over—
“Oh!”
She would have stepped over the threshold, if it hadn’t been filled by Jack Sparrow, standing there with an air of women hearts’, and not only hearts’, conqueror. Involuntary, Scarlett felt a bit conquered already.
“Milady! Nature’s blossom shows barely a meagre reflec… er, that is, an equivalent of your beauty!” The pirate snatched off his hat and bent in a dashing bow. A bunch of scarlet flowers appeared out of the blue before Scarlett. Jack, tricorn against his heart and bougainvillea in his outstretched hand, straightened and flashed a grin.
“Allow me to declare my deepest conviction that a flower so resplendent like you, Milady, shouldn’t wilt for the scarcity of admiration. Being of tender heart, as the lushest flowers of the women kind could assure you… that is, flowers hardly daring to dream of being equal to you, Milady, of course! So, being of tender heart, I’ve come to offer you my eager services and the admiration of the most genuine assay. No need to thanks, Milady,” he said magnanimously.
The blooming branch, all the time in front of the stunned ‘Milady’, trembled in a draught which gusted through the narrow, dusky passage on the upper floor of the Faithful Bride.
Scarlett, who had been lost since ‘equivalent’, suddenly realized that she must look silly with wide eyes and dropped jaw. So she giggled professionally, trying to hide her confusion. Actually, what did great ladies use to do with flowers gifted to them? At any rate, they probably accepted…
It was not long until evening yet, but she meant to start on streets earlier this day, in urgent need of money. The week was coming its end, and Tidy Bertie already had begun to “Ahem” upon seeing her. Scarlett was aware that if it wasn’t a successful night, her room would fall to someone… well, solvent. Yet apparently money just came on its own.
Wait a minute… She cast a suspicious glance at the pirate’s grin, shining above the flowers. His eyes shined as well. Surely he didn’t think that a smile and a handful of smooth, if terribly long words was enough, did he? Not again.
Jack felt her scrutinizing look deep in his pockets. He straightened further and tried to present like the owner of a heavy pouch. Admittedly he hadn’t great experience in owning, at least in last months… well, years… but in presentation he was an expert. He widened his grin hopefully.
***
Some time later, Scarlett suspiciously examined a shilling, and threw it on a stack of others. Then she counted the coins for the third time. They looked to be pretty good silver, but there had to be something wrong with them, she was sure of that. What else could be the reason why her customer had vanished faster than rum from mugs downstairs?
She still couldn’t decide if she should feel affronted by this.
***
Gravel, thrown from under abruptly halting boots, rattled against a large wooden pole protruding from the ground. Jack held onto the weathered wood, bent double and for a good while tried to save his lungs from bursting. At last, breath regained, he straightened and looked around.
Well, perhaps he had overdone the getaway… that is, the tactical retreat. He stood on a desolate beach, abandoned years ago, when Tortuga had moved its center towards the new docks, like a heavily turning leviathan. An irregular row of wooden poles, driven deep into the ground, was all that remained of the old pier, even older than the one called “the old” today. The majority of sturdy logs was no longer washed by even the highest tides, and some of them were slowly disappearing under sand and greenery. The land was winning against the sea, and people had contributed to it, dividing the coast with the barrier on which the sea current shed its sandy load.
There were thoughts Jack shared with no one, one of them being: when will the old pier follow the fate of the oldest one? When will the time come that loaded fluits and galleons will no longer reach the stone wharfs of the increasingly shallow port? When he had seen Tortuga for the first time, the flow had reached a dozen pilings further than today. Yet no one treated a vagabond, with a captain’s compass but without a ship, to a mug for a tale about the tide’s reachings, and so he told of far away isles, where sand was of gold and diamond dust, and didn’t inundate ports.
As far as the eye could see, the beach was deserted. There were even fewer gulls than above more populous parts of the island. A few small sails loomed on the horizon, and some hundred yards back towards town, the hatches of the nearest huts were visible between palm trees. Just in case, Jack went around the piling and sat on the ground, leaning against the wood broad enough to shield him. Then he took out the paper and unfolded it. Finally he drew a mirror from his coat. He examined the small oval plate framed in filigree brass. He grinned at the sight of his own face, and squinted when the silver-plate glass, tilted, shined as if he held a sliver of the sun’s disc.
Scarlett always claimed that the mirror was a love token from a Burgundian marquis who had happened to visit Tortuga in his adventurous voyages. Her competitors in the trade peddled a less romantic version: Burgundian or not, he was certainly not marquise, but Captain Armand Le Verre, who had been fortunate to encounter a Venetian merchant with a hold full of fragile wealth, and – having relieved the merchant of the worry of such a delicate fortune – soon squandered it. Captain Le Verre couldn’t affirm nor deny either version, since more than a year hence, he had danced for the last time on the end of a Spanish noose. One way or another, the shiny piece from the far and luxurious world was envied in Tortuga by all women of any profession and all wenches of any sex. Scarlett always kept her treasure hidden in her bodice, so ‘borrowing’ it required a method other than searching the room in the owner’s absence. The method more risky, yet definitely more pleasing. Jack smiled dreamily, then looked at the paper and brought the tilted mirror to the end of the first line.
Which turned out to be the beginning, indeed. The mirror showed an intricate tangle of lines, forming a decorative initial. The letters following it were still barely discernible in the ravel of ornaments. One long word made up the first line.
Monseigneur.
Ah, so whoever the author of the mysterious message was, its recipient was French. Moving the mirror, Jack kept reading.
Nous esperons… In hope the letter will find Your Excellency in good health, we send our regards and wishes of good fortune. Allow us to say that we invariably desire to contribute to the latter, expecting the equally invariable favour of Your Excellency, in the spirit of the old truth that the Fortune favours allied, and a shared fortune becomes multiplied, bearing fruit of the mutual profit.
‘Nous’? Who, besides monarchs, said ‘we’ about oneself? Or was the scribe’s hand the tool of a group?
As a sign of our good will and evidence of our word’s weight as well as our powers, we enclose a small gift to these words, reckoning that it will meet Your Excellency’s approbate, as a famous connoisseur in this matter, and possibly, as we dare to suppose, will match expectations.
Jack reflexively looked under the sheet. A gift? Worthy of a monseigneur’s attention? Where it could mislay…
Our reverence assured, we should mention it is dependent on Your Excellency whether this reverence will be lasting like an imperishable castle embed on the rock of unbetrayed trust, or rather volatile like chaff on the wind stirred by inconstancy…
Well, well, carrots ran out, time for a stick. There was as much reverence, Jack thought, as mercy in the last words of a death sentence read at a gallows.
…inconstancy which, however, we are not afraid of. Our certainty is based on three reasons. The person of Your Excellency is the most excellent guarantor for two of them, since we are deeply convinced of Your Excellency’s fine merits, that is the noble reliability, and an unerring flair to catch so profitable opportunity. Therefore, we trust that inconstancy is as implausible for such respectable and reasonable personage as the Governor’s office fitting.
Governor’s? Jack frowned and moved the mirror back, reading once more. No mistake, it said Gouverneur-général.
The third reason we secure by ourselves, its manifold forms at our service, and if the need calls, we will not hesitate in using them. Your Excellency’s enlightened mind undoubtedly realises that where the brute power of metal fails, there a subtle word can prevail, sinking through the mightiest ramparts to reach the one who deemed himself safe.
Not a stick, but more like something sharp or red-hot. Metal… Jack gazed at the sea before him, his skin prickling under the shirt cuff. Words? One letter sometimes is enough.
Thus let our gift, a living evidence of what we are capable to achieve with the jangling metal, become the seal of agreement and a memento which, unable to speech, reminds about the gifters’ power on words, lest this power would have to be unleashed.
Jack was increasingly curious as to whether the recipient had received this highly peculiar letter, and if so, what colours he had turned at reading it.
Circumspection checks our quill, therefore this letter is but our envoy’s credential. However, if a stroke of fate falls upon him on the way, let it be our voice. Hoping that Your Excellency is reading these words as received from the envoy’s own hand, we entrust him further negotiations, looking forward to Your Excellency’s decision.
With wishes of sagacity, we assure about our unchanging respect.
There was no signature. Jack absently turned the mirror, and clenched his eyes when it shot a glare. He pocketed it, wishing the trouble in his other hand could be disposed as easily.
The paper was the reason Hans had been seeking him. But it wasn’t the solution. It only brought new riddles, solutions of which were more riddles. The flood of eloquence disguised the lack of any concrete information, same as the tangle of ornaments disguised the words. However, once the trick was solved, familiar shapes could be picked out from the embellishments. So, what facts could be picked out from between all this reverence?
The paper was a letter.
The authors had to be French, or at least they handled the language to perfection, and moreover, the same had to apply to the recipient.
There had been a lot of means and work put into the letter to relate the power of… who, actually? Those who hadn’t signed their name. In spite of that, the entire message seemed to be a signature, clear to the aware, and enigmatic for others.
And last but not least, there was a good deal more reverence in letter than spirit. Amid the exquisite calligraphy, under the sublime courtesy of form, there was a hidden threat. Smooth words, paid in gold, veiled sharp steel, sharp enough to take Rusty Hans’ life, even though he had no notion of what the words were. Nevertheless, he had known he had gotten into trouble.
Then how had he come into possession of something that not only couldn’t have belonged to him, but neither would he have stolen it, since it didn’t walk on four hooves? And why had he died before he had learnt what it was? And why the sea doesn’t bring rum bottles to one’s feet, instead of sand and driftwood?
The world shouldn’t be made up of nothing but questions without answers, Jack thought bitterly.
The sea hummed, shimmering in the sunlight, uncaring of human thoughts and wishes. Rum and answers don’t come by themselves. They have to be pursued, and what shows the way is… desire. Jack touched the smooth wood of the box at his belt. He unfastened it and opened the lid.
The disc swayed, turned slowly, and stopped. The arrow pointed at the sea. As always.
Far away, behind the horizon, the Black Pearl cut the waves, the wind in her dark sails, unseizable, free.
For all – a tall story about ghosts. For Jack – an eternal dream, more real than the reality around him.
He always knew where she was. He never knew how to reach her. She always was there, more firm than the land underfoot, more unattainable than the clouds above head.
The compass didn’t fail, yet it didn’t help. As always. Driven by a human desire, it led directly to the goal, oblivious to the obstacles. Its owner asked for the solution to a mystery, but what he desired was the escape from all mysteries, traps, and worries confining him to land. Whatever form a mystery took, for Jack Sparrow, the final answer had always been the same black-sailed shape. The compass had no soul and no mind. It wasn’t able to lie.
Jack stared into the hazy distance, yielding to a sudden weariness, overwhelming him with the weight of years. A mystery without resolution, the sea without a ship, and a desire without the satisfaction, all the same cage…
“Won’t come for you, Captain.”
Jack nearly jumped out of his skin. He snapped the compass shut, turned towards the voice coming from behind, almost knocked his hat off against the wood, and winced when his hair caught on a splinter. At last he half unhooked, half tore himself free, shoved the hat square, and glared a look of the offended dignity.
The glare slid down Anamaria, leaning on the top of the pilling, like water from the impregnated paper. She smirked. “A nonexistent boat can’t sail,” she said with the expert confidence of someone who had spent half a lifetime on the experimental launching of nonexistent boats. “Captain,” she added with a sneer.
“Ship!” Jack growled. “Frigate,” he precised scrupulously. He stole a glance up the gravel beach stretching behind her, wondering how the hell had she managed to sneak up on him, and sail up, before that. No more than ten yards away, the Jolly Mon rested on the shallows, leaning like her owner. Even her planking seemed to curve in a similar sneer. Jack glared at the impudent boat, and then Anamaria. “She exists,” he said firmly, “an’ it’s me who’ll go for her.”
Anmaria snorted, resting her small fists on her hips. “Swimmin’, mebbe! Followin’ what you saw on a bottle’s bottom!” The sneer came back. “Captain.”
Jack huffed, touched to the quick, more than Tortuga’s all wenches en block had ever managed, even the ones most implacable in demanding payment. He leapt to his feet, straightened his hat, took a breath, and… Slowly he lowered his hands. He turned back, sat against the piling, and gazed at the sea. “Someday, you’ll mean that.”
Anamaria, half disappointed, half delighted, a bit hesitantly straightened her own hat and leaned on the piling above him. “Yeah, an’ what else, I’ll stand at the helm, eh?” she muttered, mostly to have the last word. Nothing could make her confess that the heat in those particular eyes was the most look-worthy thing on this damned island. What bothered her most, was the amused gleam she had noticed sometimes in those eyes, seeming to suggest the confession was unnecessary. Annoyed by that thought and trying to chase it away, she looked around, but saw nothing of interest: clouds, a gull, waves, palms, gravel… a paper? Anamaria frowned, cast a glance at the hat below, still stubbornly directed at the far horizon, then the sheet covered with ink signs, abandoned on the ground next to the knee of the hat’s owner.
There was another confession, hidden so deep that Anamaria was reluctant to admit even to herself. Nothing good came of such thoughts, better to focus on caulking leaks or scaling fish. But if… in a flash of madness… just for a while… if the thought was allowed to whisper a bit louder…
It would say: take whatever you want, just give me the ink magic, show me how to know what paper tells!
Anamaria shook her head, brushing the dream away. She cast another glance downward, but it seemed the hat hadn’t moved from the previous time. She stooped and looked under the brim. The pirate looked as if he had forgotten her presence entirely, or as if he was looking for the most convenient place to drown himself. That was unusual. Unacceptable! The forgetting, of course.
“What, you still haven’t found how to get rid of this stuff?” she asked. “Need to remind you of Mandy’s tips?”
The only reply for the mockery was a weary look. Save your breath, it said, or try something better.
Anamaria rolled her eyes, hiding a shadow of shame. All right, then. “No way Hans could read it on ‘is own. So why did he carry it on ‘im, eh?”
After a moment of silence, Jack picked up the sheet and began to fold it. “Cause no way he could read it on ‘is own,” he said sarcastically.
Anamaria squatted down and pointed a finger at him. “The last who carried it, lost his life, as I know well. Curiosity stirs at why you’re carryin’ it now, though Hans needs no readin’ anymore, eh?”
Jack looked at the finger hovering menacingly before his nose, stowed the paper, and lifted his eyes to the equally menacing face of the finger’s owner. The face went from menacing to a bit confused, and then to more menacing, at the sight of amusement in the pirate’s eyes.
“Curiosity stirs at why your curiosity stirs at why I’m carryin’ it, though the last one whose curiosity stirred lost his life, as you know well, eh?”
Anamaria blinked. “My curiosity’s not your business to be curious!” she spat. “An’ looks like too much of curiosity’s bad for health of late,” she added with satisfaction. “Two burials a week is one over the top—“
“Much obliged for a kind word!” Jack, a hand to his heart, grinned and looked skyward.
“—cause fishes flee from the bay. Keep your nasty doings away from my fishes!”
Now it was Jack’s turn to blink, stunned by this peculiar demand. He looked thoughtfully at the sea. “Away, you say?”
He looked at the Jolly Mon, then turned back to Anamaria and treated her with his most charming grin. “Mademoiselle Capitaine, let’s settle what your unrivaled sense of business is telling you regarding an opportunity in the form of one willing for a trip to the mainland?”
Anamaria frowned suspiciously. The question itself was nothing surprising, since the strait between Tortuga and the ‘mainland’, that is Hispaniola, was crossed often, and fishers were the cheapest ferrymen. But this question was asked by Jack Sparrow. Cheapest doesn’t mean free. She crossed her arms and put her chin forward. “An’ what I’ll have of that?”
Jack tilted his head and slowly widened the grin. “Whatever you want, my beau…”
He broke off at the sight of Anamaria’s likewise slow smirk and narrowing eyes. Something was definitely wrong. According to the normal order of the world, he should be hurriedly ducking a slap, and most probably not manage on time. Yet Anamaria looked like a cat which spotted a mouse. Or a sparrow.
“Whatever, eh?”
Jack sweated a bit. The place under the piling, comfortable so far, suddenly became somewhat confining. “Er, actually…”
A moist bundle of tangled strings, followed by string on a reel, and an awl, landed on his lap.
“Mend my net!”
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you want to know whether Anamaria will ever let her thought speak, read the delicious Black Magic byhonorat.
The next part
-----------------
Your thoughts welcomed, as always! :)
Author: Aletheia Felinea
Beta:
compassrose7577. Thank you so much!Rating: PG-13 overall
Wordcount: 3 320, this chapter
Characters / Pairings: (this chapter) Jack Sparrow/Scarlett, Jack Sparrow/Anamaria if you squint... But Jack/Pearl is without squinting.
Genre: Gen fic supposed to be a crime story.
Time: Months before CotBP.
Summary: The sweet air of Tortuga can be dangerous sometimes, even for the certain Captain. And curiosity can kill a sparrow. Or... save?
Disclaimer: Not my hunting territory, The Big Black Mouse prowls here.
Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Note: The fic was translated from Polish. Jeśli wolisz czytać w oryginale, zapraszam.
The fic's map can be needed from this chapter on.
Scarlett opened the door and stepped over—
“Oh!”
She would have stepped over the threshold, if it hadn’t been filled by Jack Sparrow, standing there with an air of women hearts’, and not only hearts’, conqueror. Involuntary, Scarlett felt a bit conquered already.
“Milady! Nature’s blossom shows barely a meagre reflec… er, that is, an equivalent of your beauty!” The pirate snatched off his hat and bent in a dashing bow. A bunch of scarlet flowers appeared out of the blue before Scarlett. Jack, tricorn against his heart and bougainvillea in his outstretched hand, straightened and flashed a grin.
“Allow me to declare my deepest conviction that a flower so resplendent like you, Milady, shouldn’t wilt for the scarcity of admiration. Being of tender heart, as the lushest flowers of the women kind could assure you… that is, flowers hardly daring to dream of being equal to you, Milady, of course! So, being of tender heart, I’ve come to offer you my eager services and the admiration of the most genuine assay. No need to thanks, Milady,” he said magnanimously.
The blooming branch, all the time in front of the stunned ‘Milady’, trembled in a draught which gusted through the narrow, dusky passage on the upper floor of the Faithful Bride.
Scarlett, who had been lost since ‘equivalent’, suddenly realized that she must look silly with wide eyes and dropped jaw. So she giggled professionally, trying to hide her confusion. Actually, what did great ladies use to do with flowers gifted to them? At any rate, they probably accepted…
It was not long until evening yet, but she meant to start on streets earlier this day, in urgent need of money. The week was coming its end, and Tidy Bertie already had begun to “Ahem” upon seeing her. Scarlett was aware that if it wasn’t a successful night, her room would fall to someone… well, solvent. Yet apparently money just came on its own.
Wait a minute… She cast a suspicious glance at the pirate’s grin, shining above the flowers. His eyes shined as well. Surely he didn’t think that a smile and a handful of smooth, if terribly long words was enough, did he? Not again.
Jack felt her scrutinizing look deep in his pockets. He straightened further and tried to present like the owner of a heavy pouch. Admittedly he hadn’t great experience in owning, at least in last months… well, years… but in presentation he was an expert. He widened his grin hopefully.
Some time later, Scarlett suspiciously examined a shilling, and threw it on a stack of others. Then she counted the coins for the third time. They looked to be pretty good silver, but there had to be something wrong with them, she was sure of that. What else could be the reason why her customer had vanished faster than rum from mugs downstairs?
She still couldn’t decide if she should feel affronted by this.
Gravel, thrown from under abruptly halting boots, rattled against a large wooden pole protruding from the ground. Jack held onto the weathered wood, bent double and for a good while tried to save his lungs from bursting. At last, breath regained, he straightened and looked around.
Well, perhaps he had overdone the getaway… that is, the tactical retreat. He stood on a desolate beach, abandoned years ago, when Tortuga had moved its center towards the new docks, like a heavily turning leviathan. An irregular row of wooden poles, driven deep into the ground, was all that remained of the old pier, even older than the one called “the old” today. The majority of sturdy logs was no longer washed by even the highest tides, and some of them were slowly disappearing under sand and greenery. The land was winning against the sea, and people had contributed to it, dividing the coast with the barrier on which the sea current shed its sandy load.
There were thoughts Jack shared with no one, one of them being: when will the old pier follow the fate of the oldest one? When will the time come that loaded fluits and galleons will no longer reach the stone wharfs of the increasingly shallow port? When he had seen Tortuga for the first time, the flow had reached a dozen pilings further than today. Yet no one treated a vagabond, with a captain’s compass but without a ship, to a mug for a tale about the tide’s reachings, and so he told of far away isles, where sand was of gold and diamond dust, and didn’t inundate ports.
As far as the eye could see, the beach was deserted. There were even fewer gulls than above more populous parts of the island. A few small sails loomed on the horizon, and some hundred yards back towards town, the hatches of the nearest huts were visible between palm trees. Just in case, Jack went around the piling and sat on the ground, leaning against the wood broad enough to shield him. Then he took out the paper and unfolded it. Finally he drew a mirror from his coat. He examined the small oval plate framed in filigree brass. He grinned at the sight of his own face, and squinted when the silver-plate glass, tilted, shined as if he held a sliver of the sun’s disc.
Scarlett always claimed that the mirror was a love token from a Burgundian marquis who had happened to visit Tortuga in his adventurous voyages. Her competitors in the trade peddled a less romantic version: Burgundian or not, he was certainly not marquise, but Captain Armand Le Verre, who had been fortunate to encounter a Venetian merchant with a hold full of fragile wealth, and – having relieved the merchant of the worry of such a delicate fortune – soon squandered it. Captain Le Verre couldn’t affirm nor deny either version, since more than a year hence, he had danced for the last time on the end of a Spanish noose. One way or another, the shiny piece from the far and luxurious world was envied in Tortuga by all women of any profession and all wenches of any sex. Scarlett always kept her treasure hidden in her bodice, so ‘borrowing’ it required a method other than searching the room in the owner’s absence. The method more risky, yet definitely more pleasing. Jack smiled dreamily, then looked at the paper and brought the tilted mirror to the end of the first line.
Which turned out to be the beginning, indeed. The mirror showed an intricate tangle of lines, forming a decorative initial. The letters following it were still barely discernible in the ravel of ornaments. One long word made up the first line.
Monseigneur.
Ah, so whoever the author of the mysterious message was, its recipient was French. Moving the mirror, Jack kept reading.
Nous esperons… In hope the letter will find Your Excellency in good health, we send our regards and wishes of good fortune. Allow us to say that we invariably desire to contribute to the latter, expecting the equally invariable favour of Your Excellency, in the spirit of the old truth that the Fortune favours allied, and a shared fortune becomes multiplied, bearing fruit of the mutual profit.
‘Nous’? Who, besides monarchs, said ‘we’ about oneself? Or was the scribe’s hand the tool of a group?
As a sign of our good will and evidence of our word’s weight as well as our powers, we enclose a small gift to these words, reckoning that it will meet Your Excellency’s approbate, as a famous connoisseur in this matter, and possibly, as we dare to suppose, will match expectations.
Jack reflexively looked under the sheet. A gift? Worthy of a monseigneur’s attention? Where it could mislay…
Our reverence assured, we should mention it is dependent on Your Excellency whether this reverence will be lasting like an imperishable castle embed on the rock of unbetrayed trust, or rather volatile like chaff on the wind stirred by inconstancy…
Well, well, carrots ran out, time for a stick. There was as much reverence, Jack thought, as mercy in the last words of a death sentence read at a gallows.
…inconstancy which, however, we are not afraid of. Our certainty is based on three reasons. The person of Your Excellency is the most excellent guarantor for two of them, since we are deeply convinced of Your Excellency’s fine merits, that is the noble reliability, and an unerring flair to catch so profitable opportunity. Therefore, we trust that inconstancy is as implausible for such respectable and reasonable personage as the Governor’s office fitting.
Governor’s? Jack frowned and moved the mirror back, reading once more. No mistake, it said Gouverneur-général.
The third reason we secure by ourselves, its manifold forms at our service, and if the need calls, we will not hesitate in using them. Your Excellency’s enlightened mind undoubtedly realises that where the brute power of metal fails, there a subtle word can prevail, sinking through the mightiest ramparts to reach the one who deemed himself safe.
Not a stick, but more like something sharp or red-hot. Metal… Jack gazed at the sea before him, his skin prickling under the shirt cuff. Words? One letter sometimes is enough.
Thus let our gift, a living evidence of what we are capable to achieve with the jangling metal, become the seal of agreement and a memento which, unable to speech, reminds about the gifters’ power on words, lest this power would have to be unleashed.
Jack was increasingly curious as to whether the recipient had received this highly peculiar letter, and if so, what colours he had turned at reading it.
Circumspection checks our quill, therefore this letter is but our envoy’s credential. However, if a stroke of fate falls upon him on the way, let it be our voice. Hoping that Your Excellency is reading these words as received from the envoy’s own hand, we entrust him further negotiations, looking forward to Your Excellency’s decision.
With wishes of sagacity, we assure about our unchanging respect.
There was no signature. Jack absently turned the mirror, and clenched his eyes when it shot a glare. He pocketed it, wishing the trouble in his other hand could be disposed as easily.
The paper was the reason Hans had been seeking him. But it wasn’t the solution. It only brought new riddles, solutions of which were more riddles. The flood of eloquence disguised the lack of any concrete information, same as the tangle of ornaments disguised the words. However, once the trick was solved, familiar shapes could be picked out from the embellishments. So, what facts could be picked out from between all this reverence?
The paper was a letter.
The authors had to be French, or at least they handled the language to perfection, and moreover, the same had to apply to the recipient.
There had been a lot of means and work put into the letter to relate the power of… who, actually? Those who hadn’t signed their name. In spite of that, the entire message seemed to be a signature, clear to the aware, and enigmatic for others.
And last but not least, there was a good deal more reverence in letter than spirit. Amid the exquisite calligraphy, under the sublime courtesy of form, there was a hidden threat. Smooth words, paid in gold, veiled sharp steel, sharp enough to take Rusty Hans’ life, even though he had no notion of what the words were. Nevertheless, he had known he had gotten into trouble.
Then how had he come into possession of something that not only couldn’t have belonged to him, but neither would he have stolen it, since it didn’t walk on four hooves? And why had he died before he had learnt what it was? And why the sea doesn’t bring rum bottles to one’s feet, instead of sand and driftwood?
The world shouldn’t be made up of nothing but questions without answers, Jack thought bitterly.
The sea hummed, shimmering in the sunlight, uncaring of human thoughts and wishes. Rum and answers don’t come by themselves. They have to be pursued, and what shows the way is… desire. Jack touched the smooth wood of the box at his belt. He unfastened it and opened the lid.
The disc swayed, turned slowly, and stopped. The arrow pointed at the sea. As always.
Far away, behind the horizon, the Black Pearl cut the waves, the wind in her dark sails, unseizable, free.
For all – a tall story about ghosts. For Jack – an eternal dream, more real than the reality around him.
He always knew where she was. He never knew how to reach her. She always was there, more firm than the land underfoot, more unattainable than the clouds above head.
The compass didn’t fail, yet it didn’t help. As always. Driven by a human desire, it led directly to the goal, oblivious to the obstacles. Its owner asked for the solution to a mystery, but what he desired was the escape from all mysteries, traps, and worries confining him to land. Whatever form a mystery took, for Jack Sparrow, the final answer had always been the same black-sailed shape. The compass had no soul and no mind. It wasn’t able to lie.
Jack stared into the hazy distance, yielding to a sudden weariness, overwhelming him with the weight of years. A mystery without resolution, the sea without a ship, and a desire without the satisfaction, all the same cage…
“Won’t come for you, Captain.”
Jack nearly jumped out of his skin. He snapped the compass shut, turned towards the voice coming from behind, almost knocked his hat off against the wood, and winced when his hair caught on a splinter. At last he half unhooked, half tore himself free, shoved the hat square, and glared a look of the offended dignity.
The glare slid down Anamaria, leaning on the top of the pilling, like water from the impregnated paper. She smirked. “A nonexistent boat can’t sail,” she said with the expert confidence of someone who had spent half a lifetime on the experimental launching of nonexistent boats. “Captain,” she added with a sneer.
“Ship!” Jack growled. “Frigate,” he precised scrupulously. He stole a glance up the gravel beach stretching behind her, wondering how the hell had she managed to sneak up on him, and sail up, before that. No more than ten yards away, the Jolly Mon rested on the shallows, leaning like her owner. Even her planking seemed to curve in a similar sneer. Jack glared at the impudent boat, and then Anamaria. “She exists,” he said firmly, “an’ it’s me who’ll go for her.”
Anmaria snorted, resting her small fists on her hips. “Swimmin’, mebbe! Followin’ what you saw on a bottle’s bottom!” The sneer came back. “Captain.”
Jack huffed, touched to the quick, more than Tortuga’s all wenches en block had ever managed, even the ones most implacable in demanding payment. He leapt to his feet, straightened his hat, took a breath, and… Slowly he lowered his hands. He turned back, sat against the piling, and gazed at the sea. “Someday, you’ll mean that.”
Anamaria, half disappointed, half delighted, a bit hesitantly straightened her own hat and leaned on the piling above him. “Yeah, an’ what else, I’ll stand at the helm, eh?” she muttered, mostly to have the last word. Nothing could make her confess that the heat in those particular eyes was the most look-worthy thing on this damned island. What bothered her most, was the amused gleam she had noticed sometimes in those eyes, seeming to suggest the confession was unnecessary. Annoyed by that thought and trying to chase it away, she looked around, but saw nothing of interest: clouds, a gull, waves, palms, gravel… a paper? Anamaria frowned, cast a glance at the hat below, still stubbornly directed at the far horizon, then the sheet covered with ink signs, abandoned on the ground next to the knee of the hat’s owner.
There was another confession, hidden so deep that Anamaria was reluctant to admit even to herself. Nothing good came of such thoughts, better to focus on caulking leaks or scaling fish. But if… in a flash of madness… just for a while… if the thought was allowed to whisper a bit louder…
It would say: take whatever you want, just give me the ink magic, show me how to know what paper tells!
Anamaria shook her head, brushing the dream away. She cast another glance downward, but it seemed the hat hadn’t moved from the previous time. She stooped and looked under the brim. The pirate looked as if he had forgotten her presence entirely, or as if he was looking for the most convenient place to drown himself. That was unusual. Unacceptable! The forgetting, of course.
“What, you still haven’t found how to get rid of this stuff?” she asked. “Need to remind you of Mandy’s tips?”
The only reply for the mockery was a weary look. Save your breath, it said, or try something better.
Anamaria rolled her eyes, hiding a shadow of shame. All right, then. “No way Hans could read it on ‘is own. So why did he carry it on ‘im, eh?”
After a moment of silence, Jack picked up the sheet and began to fold it. “Cause no way he could read it on ‘is own,” he said sarcastically.
Anamaria squatted down and pointed a finger at him. “The last who carried it, lost his life, as I know well. Curiosity stirs at why you’re carryin’ it now, though Hans needs no readin’ anymore, eh?”
Jack looked at the finger hovering menacingly before his nose, stowed the paper, and lifted his eyes to the equally menacing face of the finger’s owner. The face went from menacing to a bit confused, and then to more menacing, at the sight of amusement in the pirate’s eyes.
“Curiosity stirs at why your curiosity stirs at why I’m carryin’ it, though the last one whose curiosity stirred lost his life, as you know well, eh?”
Anamaria blinked. “My curiosity’s not your business to be curious!” she spat. “An’ looks like too much of curiosity’s bad for health of late,” she added with satisfaction. “Two burials a week is one over the top—“
“Much obliged for a kind word!” Jack, a hand to his heart, grinned and looked skyward.
“—cause fishes flee from the bay. Keep your nasty doings away from my fishes!”
Now it was Jack’s turn to blink, stunned by this peculiar demand. He looked thoughtfully at the sea. “Away, you say?”
He looked at the Jolly Mon, then turned back to Anamaria and treated her with his most charming grin. “Mademoiselle Capitaine, let’s settle what your unrivaled sense of business is telling you regarding an opportunity in the form of one willing for a trip to the mainland?”
Anamaria frowned suspiciously. The question itself was nothing surprising, since the strait between Tortuga and the ‘mainland’, that is Hispaniola, was crossed often, and fishers were the cheapest ferrymen. But this question was asked by Jack Sparrow. Cheapest doesn’t mean free. She crossed her arms and put her chin forward. “An’ what I’ll have of that?”
Jack tilted his head and slowly widened the grin. “Whatever you want, my beau…”
He broke off at the sight of Anamaria’s likewise slow smirk and narrowing eyes. Something was definitely wrong. According to the normal order of the world, he should be hurriedly ducking a slap, and most probably not manage on time. Yet Anamaria looked like a cat which spotted a mouse. Or a sparrow.
“Whatever, eh?”
Jack sweated a bit. The place under the piling, comfortable so far, suddenly became somewhat confining. “Er, actually…”
A moist bundle of tangled strings, followed by string on a reel, and an awl, landed on his lap.
“Mend my net!”
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If you want to know whether Anamaria will ever let her thought speak, read the delicious Black Magic by
honorat.The next part
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Your thoughts welcomed, as always! :)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-19 19:20 (UTC)Yep, she'd be surprised how many companions in happy-misery she could find. Maybe we should consider setting up a Group of Mutual Support for Victims of the Amber-Eyed Disaster...
Poor Captain Sparrow
But happy Anamaria. ;D
I assume that's not too far off, since it looks like Jack will soon be taking off for Port Royale.
I'm telling nothing. *enigmatic yet innocent look*
Waiting for you later! Thank you for reading and I hope you'll enjoy what comes! :)