Someone sniggered. Again.
If it had been the first time, Jack might have written it off as a trick of the ear — with the Florrie butting her clumsy way up to windward and every block and line aloft vibrating with the strain, the usual creaks and groans of the shop’s timbers had taken on a wider range than ever, and the steady sluicing of the seas against her bow sent showers of spray across her deck with the brisk rhythm of a scullion’s brush. But it was the third time he’d heard it, faint but quite distinct; the mark of someone else’s covert amusement at his expense. Captain Jack Sparrow thrust the crumpled roll of papers and their tarnished gilt fastener back into the boy’s hands as if they had burned him, and glared openly round the deck. Even a hint of suspicious industry would have been enough.
But working the Folly day after day against a constant easterly breeze had given all-too-ample evidence of the accuracy of her nickname, and those fortunate enough to have a few free moments had better things to do than watch — or pretend not to watch — their captain losing the struggle with long-winded lawyers’ Latin that crabbed across the page. If the signs had been there, Jack would have seized upon them. But they were not.
And then the snigger came for a fourth time, clear as a bell, followed by the sound of water pouring into a ewer and the loud ringing of a dinner gong, and truth dawned in the moment that he caught sight of the tell-tale shape of black wings barred with white. The mynah flapped again, briefly, for balance, opened its beak, and bestowed upon him an excellent imitation of a creaky door, accompanied by a series of conversational squawks. One of these days, Jack decided for the umpteenth time, someone was undoubtedly going to have to wring that creature’s neck.
Captain Jack Sparrow had done a number of regrettable things when he was drunk, not to mention a great many more that he had never subsequently regretted in the slightest. This, however, was the first time he had ever made the mistake of embarking aboard ship a bird with a gift for mimicry.
The mynah put its head on one side and stared at him as though it could read his mind — just the way it had done back in Havana market, with the fussy little lawyer and his bundle of precious papers — and then, apparently reassured, shuffled sideways along its perch on the bulwarks and began to preen. Black neck-feathers caught the light with a shimmer of green and blue, and the strong orange beak smoothed through one wing with a hint of self-satisfaction. A cluster of bright yellow feathers behind the eye flickered amid glossy black, like a glimpse of swinging gold. Unconsciously, Jack stroked his own beard.
The laugh from behind him this time was real enough. Jack cocked an inquisitive dark eye in that direction even as the bird did likewise, and the boy struggled to suppress his resulting mirth.
“Can’t think how I ever managed to miss the likeness,” he managed at last, between gasps. “And there’s no denying our mynah friend has a rascal’s taste for all that glitters...”
As if to prove his words, the bird made a dextrous grab at the gilt clip that fastened the documents in his hand, and history almost repeated itself. But young Fortescue, unlike the lawyer, was forewarned. Nor was he engaged in trying to shake off the persistence of a certain Captain Jack Sparrow...
Orgonez was an ill man to cross. As much could be said — and truly — of any grandee of New Spain where dealings with the upstart English were concerned, and in Havana it would have given rise to no remark. As much could be said of many great men, Spanish, English or Dutch, by the servants and shopkeepers, craftsmen and indigent creditors, who had to minister to their whims on the instant and await payment in arrears, or not at all. But men of his own race and class looked askance at Count Orgonez, with his deadly duels — some against mere striplings young enough to have been sons of his own — and his name for implacable, unyielding revenge.
He had inherited a feud with two other great families, one in Valencia, the other here in Cuba itself. The root cause of the enmity, some three generations back, had been all but forgotten amid years of jostling and insult, incursions onto rival estates, plundered peasants and snubs at Court. The affair, as such things did, had taken on a tenuous tradition of its own.
There were conventions in these matters, unwritten but nonetheless understood. Felipe Alonso de Sacalde y Estacia, Conde d’Orgonez — already cold-eyed and silent at twenty years of age — had taken up his inheritance without regard to such niceties. Five years later, there was no more rivalry, and no more rivals. The last scion of one hereditary enemy, dispossessed, was reduced to hawking his skills around the courts of Europe as a fencing-master. The sole remaining heiress of the other branch, bridled and docile, was pent on his Spanish estate behind walls as massive and faceless as those of the convent that had given unavailing refuge to her mother and younger siblings, with Felipe’s ring upon her finger, her lands in his pocket, and his son securely sired upon her shrinking loins.
Twenty years of dutiful marriage had brought her four further sons to continue the line of Orgonez, grey hairs amid the raven’s-wing black, and swollen eyes from long praying. For his part, Felipe made scant effort to conceal the fact that he could scarcely abide the sight of her.
Few now in Cuba had ever set eyes on Countess Orgonez. But there was seldom a hostess lacking in the great house in Havana; and if the women who came and went to preside over the banquets on the arm of the Count were seldom the same from one half-year to the next, and all too often veiled and weeping when no guests were there to see, no man questioned Orgonez’ right to entertainment at bed and board. Men had duelled — and died — for less.
Gossip in the back-streets, however, had no such compunction. Of English prisoners worked to death there was naturally no remark; of confiscated cargoes and ships trapped in port, only a faint murmur in the merchant quarter. But in the course of a few hours’ unhurried enquiry, drifting from one establishment to the next, Captain Jack Sparrow overheard more than enough rumours of ruthless anger, casual cruelty and revenge to raise an eyebrow or two on the face of a saint — let alone a wary girl with plans to pass herself off at some nobleman’s expense.
No doubt about it, Jack had concluded, dutifully admiring the marks on the back of his fourth flogged former footman of the day and helping himself absently to the man’s glass the while, Miss Lilias had slipped up with Orgonez. Met her match... and more.
What she’d thought she was doing was beyond his powers to guess. What she’d done — by all he could find out — had been to take up with the Count more or less on the dockside itself, in the character of a dancer between engagements, and inveigle herself into his household without an hour’s being lost.
Everything else was wild rumour; and a casual, weaving stroll past the high, windowless walls of the outer courtyard had been enough to convince him why. He’d listened, with interest, to the version that had the girl in his lordship’s chamber with a carving-knife, and the one that claimed, on the contrary, to have discovered her tucked up in the stable with the pot-boy, the Count’s own pistols and a sackful of the kitchen silver, and contributed a highly-embroidered account of his own in which a Cardinal’s emissary, a bunch of coconuts, and secret papers stitched into the skirts of a side-saddle featured prominently. Two hours later he’d met the same story coming back the other way, on the lips of a drunken ostler who swore he’d witnessed the whole with his own eyes, and winked to recognise his own fabrication gain currency amongst the rest.
But whatever the truth of the matter, one thing was beyond a doubt, and that was that Lilias’ mask hadn’t lasted even one day beneath Orgonez’ steely eye. Somehow, by greed or haste or simple fear, she’d given herself away or betrayed her true intent. And in place of committing her to the mercies of Spanish justice, the Count had simply shrugged cold shoulders and carried her off.
Overstatement, perhaps, Jack had conceded privately, though it had a fine ring to it. No secret that Orgonez had been on the verge of sailing, that past week; no other errand could have taken him into the bustle of the common wharf, and across little Lily’s ill-omened path. He’d boarded ship two nights before, with all the pomp and luxury of household befitting his estate... and in his train, by some whim of amusement, had been the girl who’d sought to make a fool of him in the eyes of all Havana. In the unwilling character and costume — most unwilling, by the scandal of her language at the dockside — of the lowliest of cook-maids, hands and hair all greasy from hard work.
It was a spectacle Jack was, to be frank, most sincerely sorry to have missed. Almost enough to put all true-born Englishmen back in charity with the Count... or at least those who were still smarting from the memory of a certain inglorious afternoon in St Kitts, long days and miles behind. He’d savoured that image of Lily, stripped of her airs and graces, for the rest of the day.
There was, of course, just one small snag. It stood nearly six feet tall in its heeled and buckled shoes, was slender in proportion, and wore its own carefully-curled hair. Its name was Johnny Fortescue.
Jack had consoled himself for the boy’s obstinacy in the bottom of a glass or two — or three, or perhaps four; things had been a little hazy by that point — raised a toast to Lily in coarse kirtle and cap, and laid a somewhat unsteady course for the best source of information he knew: the market.
Gone was the rôle of the swaggering sailor-man, freshly discharged, free with a tall tale or two and ever ready with an eye for a pretty wench. New concerns called for a new part to play: and Jacopo the Galician, with the aid of a close cap about his beaded braids, a purloined coat and hat and a most suffocating unseasonable muffler, vanished in favour of the meek and humble clerk Papeda, with a weak head for drink and an obstinate enquiry as to the holdings of His Excellency Felipe de Sacalde, Count Orgonez.
For it was all very well to ask after the Count’s destination and be told that he had sailed for the Bahamas; the half-witted lackey who guarded the gates of the great mansion in Havana had no more notion of his master’s possessions there than could the footman at the town house of John Fortescue the elder, M.P., have placed the estate in the Indies to which the son of the house had been dispatched. The Crown of Spain held no remit over those reef-ridden cays save what law her warships could enforce, and any man with a private army — or retainers enough to serve as such — and a fancy for an island of his own could take a claim to do exactly as he pleased. Jack, who had lain at anchor more times than one amid that same maze of reefs, had not the slightest intent of sailing at random to seek out an unknown island, for the price of any promise his young patron might offer.
Market-day in Havana was the same loud bustle as anywhere else. Rusty black and brilliant cloth mingled without restraint as gay-scarved girls, wrinkled grandmothers, brawny young hawkers and long-faced clerics all thrust their way through the crowd, or cried their wares. Pretty faces were hidden behind veils, creamy demure ovals merely hinting at temptations to come, or exposed boldly to the sunlight beneath gaudy combs or a loosely-knotted scarf. Ragged children were everywhere, darting behind stall-holders’ backs or between the crowd in quest of a slack purse or unguarded goods. A great screeching and scolding from one corner of the square proclaimed an overset basket of eggs. Jack recognised old Teresa’s unmistakable accents amid the hubbub and had to suppress a grin.
He’d kept his head down, hands folded placatorily in his sleeves, a little inoffensive, scuttling figure. It was all in the walk and the words, he’d learned long ago, cultivating his own flamboyance; and few of those who thought themselves acquainted with Captain Jack Sparrow would have credited his occasional talent for passing as a nonentity.
It had been chance that took Orgonez’ lawyer through the square at that precise hour, although Jack’s version of the tale preferred to assign it to his own resource and sagacity. And it had definitely been chance that brought them face to face amid the stacked cages of the bird-seller, with a medley of chirps and bright plumage all around, and the wicked beady eye of the black-feathered mynah in its great gilded turret overlooking them all, like an avaricious priest surveying his flock.
“You have been looking for me, I believe?”
The lawyer’s voice was a ridiculous blend of pomposity and would-be aristocratic intonation, and Jack — whose Spanish was fluent enough but betrayed the Creole tang of those amongst whom he’d acquired it — had kept his eyes carefully lowered to hide the devil of merriment that had sprung up there. He bobbed assent, agile mind already wondering how best to turn this unsought encounter to his advantage. When he’d been asking after Doctor Mouravez through the market, it had been as an opening gambit on the assumption that the man was safely out of reach...
He broached the subject, delicately, and with about as much success as he’d anticipated. The lawyer Mouravez was as circumspect as all his kind, and not in the least disposed to divulge his client’s affairs without a great deal more information on the supposed clerk’s employer and antecedents than Jack had any intention of supplying. Jack had fallen back on stupidity and persistence, hiccoughing a little to lead aside suspicion — it was amazing, he’d long since discovered, what an intoxicated man could get away with — and reflecting ruefully the while that maybe the last few rounds of liquor had been a mistake after all.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t hold his drink. Just that his head was swimming a little in the hot sun, and if he’d been as quick off the mark as he was accustomed he’d have found a way at the start to get a look at those papers Mouravez was carrying; the ones he’d clutched so possessively at the mere mention of Orgonez’ island terrain... And it was at this point, with an unseemly inward leap of glee, that Jack had espied the beak reaching out over the good doctor’s shoulder for the glimmer of gilt at the top of that cradled pile, and observed a sheaf of the parchments in question vanish between the bars into the mynah’s tall cage.
Mouravez, snapping out answers to persistent enquiries, had been quite oblivious. Jack’s eyes began to dance. He’d glanced around casually, marking out potential routes of retreat, and manœuvred the man backwards between himself and the bird-seller’s anxiously hovering son. Moments later, with the pride of the merchant’s stock clutched to his shabby vest and the disbelieving hue-and-cry just beginning to rise, the supposed Señor Papeda was in full flight through Havana market, leaving a trail of devastation in his cannoning wake. And ten minutes after that, the cart of a grumbling Teresa, still lamenting her broken eggs, could have been seen leaving the city at a lumbering gallop, bearing with it an indignant cage-bird beneath the sacks and a tatterdemalion figure, braids flying free: Captain Jack Sparrow, in a state of high intoxication and satisfaction with his own clever self.
Opening up the lock to retrieve the ragged papers from the base of the big cage had been the work of a minute. But the mynah, far from appreciating its liberty, had shown a distinct and embarrassing preference for human company. Taking the bird on board ship with them had, for some reason that now escaped Jack’s jaundiced understanding entirely, seemed a highly entertaining idea at the time.
He directed his glare equally between the bird and his laughing companion, took the documents back from the boy with an ungracious hand, and spread the pages out on the capstan-head, frowning at the cramped lettering with a scowl. The Folly was pitching briskly across the waves, and he had to shield the papers from a fresh shower of spray.
The Latin swam before his eyes in the bright sunlight, leaping with the motion of the ship in a wild dance that betrayed just what heavy weather the brig was making of it, despite the long habit that kept him on his feet almost without thinking. He could make out his ABCs as well as any clerk — had had the Latin poets beaten into him as unwillingly as any other lad, before he’d abandoned education in the Ancients for lessons in the shifting feel of the wind and the press of the differing sails on the hull, a schooling as complex and unspoken as that of women’s ways. He’d had the quickness and wit to be a fair scholar, once.
But those years were rusted and weed-ridden beyond recall... and this was no Epic or Ode, but a close-knit gabble of contractions and abbreviations that resembled nothing so much as a tatting-pattern. If it hadn’t been for the boy, he’d have thrown the whole thing in scraps to the sea and washed his hands of it.
But a land-holder’s son, it seemed, had other talents beyond sheer obstinacy. He’d been taught to scrutinise deeds, and expand legal documents.
Jack Sparrow set his jaw and stared down at the flickering words for the tenth successive day, running a finger slowly down the side of the passage on the inner page that was already marked by the wear of innumerable such porings. If there was one thing that fretted more than he could abide, it was to be dependent on another man for his bearings.
Somewhere behind him, the mynah bird let out a fluent snatch of flute-like music. He ignored it.
A looming presence at his shoulder was the boy, contrite now and suitably straight-faced. Jack glanced up. “And you’re certain that in all this there’s no other hint as to the island’s whereabouts?”
“You’ve had me through the whole thing more times than I can count.” The boy winced as another gust caught them and loose hair whipped across his eyes. “This isn’t a treasure-map, Captain Sparrow, it’s a survey of revenues and land! If you want figures for acreage of cane in the south of Cuba, I could give them to you; but not Master Secretary Pepys himself could have pulled a latitude and longitude out of a couple of clauses and a margin notation...”
“It’s not your word I’m doubting,” Jack said patiently, bending once more to the page and trying to call up an image of the mental chart he carried. “Now, if you’ll just climb down from that high horse of yours, see, and parse me this line one more time — lying westward where the isle to the north gives shelter, I make it—”
The fair head of the other came down close to his own, frowning likewise as he stooped to puzzle out the close text. “The sheltered west, I make it: lying in the sheltered west of the isle.” His face cleared. “That was it: the ‘north’ belongs here, with the next part. Not to the north but of the north — the north wind.”
“Aye, that was it,” Jack agreed, cheerfully, appropriating credit for the whole. “Wind and no manner of land to the north; that would be the island I had in mind. And the rest fits snug as a lady’s glove, down to the very reef that shields the bay.”
The moment’s doubt was thrust deep out of sight in the vaunting satisfaction of his guess. “We’re on course right enough for ‘Mistress Lilias Paige’ and whatever Orgonez took from her... unless you’ve an eye to a better bargain.”
Suspicion, and a faint flush. “What do you mean?”
The question hung between them for a moment. Jack rolled the parchments and tucked them back into the breast of his coat, glancing up at the rigging. The sagging canvas above them was braced round as far as it could go, but even so the sails’ curve shivered and threatened to flap with every wave that lifted their bow. They were lying too close to the wind as it was — the southward fluke that had enabled them to hold this course was already swinging back, inexorably, into the east.
Jack sighed. “See, these isles of yours are set two points in the wind’s eye from where we lie.” He turned to lean against the bulwark, settling one foot comfortably against the lowest rail, and met the boy’s wary eyes with a look of injured innocence. “Now that’s a weary long voyage and a hard one...”
“The same for Orgonez as for us, surely?” Fortescue frowned. “I’m no sailor, but surely we just tack up to windward, forward and back, until we get there?”
Jack gave him a look. “If his ship lies but three points closer to the wind than this tub — more than probable — he’ll have no need to tack, see? This Florence of yours was made for fair winds and a full hold; set her head upwind and any craft’ll be the match of her. Could be we’re a day or two behind — could be a week or more, when all’s said and done.”
“Then we’ll just have to do the best we can.” The boy’s chin had gone up, and Jack leaned forward, wheedling.
“Wind’s shifting, mate — can’t hold this course. We’ll have to come about and make a long board down to the s’uth’rd.” He cast a glance round to starboard, where the land lay invisible under the horizon, and raised dark brows invitingly. “Now if so be as we were to fall off a point or two further on that tack, we could be running down across the wind into frequented waters, with Tortuga snug under our lee. Plump Spanish ships a-plenty, an’ a share in the profit for all—”
He broke off. Not, by any means, because words had for once failed him; but because there was a dagger-point pricking at his throat.
“Is that what they’ve been whispering?” The boy’s voice shook in an undertone. “Is that where your heart’s hankering, Sparrow — you and your worthless crew? Piracy on the ships of His Most Catholic Majesty — with whom, may I remind you, we are not presently at war — in place of hard work and a wearisome pursuit!”
He pressed harder, pinning Jack back against the rail. “Is that—”
Jack’s eyes had widened, mesmerised by the enamelled hilt a few inches in front of his face. He held up a hand as if to interrupt, cautiously. Palm outward. “If I could just get in a word here—”
In the moment’s hesitation that followed, he grinned. Dazzling and deliberate; absolute, flashing insincerity that never failed. “Aren’t you forgetting something, son?”
No longer the painted popinjay, at least. Weeks on board ship and the boy’s own sense had taken care of that. Plain coat and shirt, salt-stained. The high heels of Court fashion abandoned to bring him down to the sure-footed level of the rest. Weathering on the pink-and-white complexion. The curls long since fallen out of the fair hair that still fell loose about his shoulders, in one last gesture towards the mode...
The righteous indignation in the boy’s face had been checked by an instant’s confusion. Jack ignored the dagger, his grin widening. “One,” he pointed out, “we had a contract — savvy? Two, your father’s name don’t hold much weight on this deck to back that little blade. Three—”
His eyes narrowed suddenly, tracking unseen movement behind the boy’s shoulder even as his other hand came up. Young Fortescue, his back towards the open deck, began an instinctive — fatal — glance round. There was a stifled cry.
“Three,” Jack continued blithely a heartbeat later, twirling the bright knife-hilt between finger and thumb: “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, see?” And the grin that met the furious blue gaze trapped beneath his own was every bit as unrepentant as the unorthodox grip that pinned the boy prone against the deck.
o~o~o
Not a dignified position, that. Jack gave the lesson a minute or two to sink in and then rocked back on his heels in a crouch, removing the dubiously-placed knee that had held his opponent helpless, and watched the boy struggle to sit up.
A mock-sorrowful shake of the head. “And just how were you planning to deal with the rest of me ‘worthless crew’ then, Master Johnny? One against all and all against one with that pretty toy of yours?”
He flipped the hilt round in his hand again, tossed it, caught it neatly out of the air, blade-downward, and surveyed it with interest before tossing it back to its owner. “Nice pattern, pity about the edge.”
“You—” The boy stared at the weapon, then at Jack’s empty hands. “Wha—”
Of course, if you were to be charitable, Jack considered, you could factor in a protest that young Johnny was still out of breath. Couldn’t help but see the likeness to a fish, though, when his mouth opened and closed like that...
He settled himself more comfortably on the deck as the ship met another wave.
“Now if I was to threaten a man, I wouldn’t be doing it with an eating-knife.” A long dagger was suddenly dangling between his fingers, conjured by a flick of his hand from its hiding-place in his boot. He tilted his head backwards in demonstration, holding the blade in a feather-light caress at his own throat.
Skin caught a moment and parted, almost without pain, beneath the rough silk of the razor edge; and then the trickle of blood, with its sting. The boy’s eyes were riveted in disbelief.
“Got to make your point, see,” Jack explained, still cheerfully holding himself hostage. A wink and a twist of the wrist, and the blade had vanished. One neat movement took him to his feet, balanced against the ship’s sway.
He held out a hand to the boy, hauling him deftly up. The two watched each other for a long moment as the rigging thrummed overhead, Jack with one eyebrow slightly raised, young Fortescue’s mouth white and set.
“You’ve made it plain enough, Captain, that I’m alone here — that my wishes run only until your scruples end—”
“Have I ever held a knife to your throat?”
Jack’s tone was injured, and the boy’s mouth crooked a reluctant smile. “Have you ever needed to?”
True enough. Jack sighed.
“Maybe this is hard for you to grasp, but I’m a man o’ my word.” Ingenuously given, creatively interpreted, yes, but... he’d yet to make a bargain he hadn’t intended to keep. At the time. “Aye, it’s been a long chase. Longer than any of us were counting on. I’ve heard whispers below decks. But the end of it’s for you to choose.”
He coughed hastily. “Within reason, of course, within reason.”
“I’m sure I can rely upon your experience to tell me when I’m becoming unreasonable.” The dry words could have been meant in all innocence; but they knew each other too well now for that.
The boy glanced around, as Jack had done earlier, at the horizon and then up at the sails. “So your suggestion is that in lieu of locating Count Orgonez, Lilias, and her possessions, it is more to our advantage to engage upon a little private warfare with blameless subjects of His Majesty of Spain?”
‘Blameless’, Jack reckoned, was more a matter of opinion. But he saw no profit in arguing the point. “With a man like Orgonez, odds are you’d be wasting your time. Could be he took a fancy to drop the girl overboard two days out from Havana—”
He observed, with interest, the effect this artless sally had on young Fortescue’s colour, and grinned. “Aye, I’d a notion the wind lay in that quarter...”
From pallor to hot scarlet, and a brave try at recovery. “Whatever she may have done, she’s an Englishwoman at least! I wouldn’t leave a dog in the hands of that—”
“No worries, then,” Jack said brightly. He’d a sudden hunch that Orgonez’ island might prove profitable in more ways than one. But he took pity on the boy’s unhappy frown.
“He’ll not drown her, mate. He’s got a fine liking for a dish of revenge served cold, has our Count, and a mort of ingenious ways to serve it up; but while his fancy holds I’ll warrant you he’d sooner have her humbled in full sight than waste his effort over the side. We’ll fetch back Miss Lilias sure enough—”
The mynah, perched swaying on the rail, let out a loud and all too appropriate phrase from old Teresa’s vocabulary, as the wind backed round further and the sails flapped sharply overhead. Time, and more than time, to come about onto the other tack.
“So we’ll be giving Tortuga a miss, then?” One look gave him the answer. “Ah well, there’s other times and other ports of promise...”
An instant’s wistful anticipation. But the appeal of the present, as ever, was too strong to resist.
“Seems to me the mynah’s in the right of it.” Jack winked. “You need to decide if it’s a whipping or a wedding you’ve got in mind, young Johnny...”