Chapter XX - The Last Calm Before the Storm
 
 

    Someday, Delphine knew, people would remark upon the strangeness of the journey. While the rest of the world was preoccupied with going west, the Black Pearl and her crew had been desperately sailing east for all these months. A part of her --the small, whimsical part she discouraged from getting out and about much-- thought that it was like racing backwards through time, against the current, toward the center of everything, the origin of the world. Well, by the maps Jack had she knew that China was hardly the center of anything except itself, but that didn't change her sentiments. This was the story of Rheingold, a reckoning with the gods. This was the Titans rising from their ocean prison to challenge Olympus. This was...
    ...nonsense akin to the ilk Will spouts, she thought decidedly. And she resigned herself to minding the helm.
    It was dull work that promoted flighty thoughts. There was no high tension in chasing after a dreaded foe with it was in the middle of the night in the second week of not very much happening at all. They hadn't even come across an irate seagull, much less terrors of the dreaded deep. She'd really been looking forward to those.
    Even the wind was so good it was boring. It was one of those strong but not fierce winds that did not so much push but promote a ship across the water, so swift and so without disturbance that it was almost magical. Of course it wasn't, really; the first mate Will had explained the whole business about cold and warm currents to her the other day and though she hadn't gotten it at all, he sounded as if he did, and that was enough for her.
    Clear night. The Pearl was leaving fog in her wake, something she seemed to do randomly with no clear purpose other than to look scarier, but even this dissipated long before the aft horizon. And to the bow, nothing.
    No... not nothing.
    Delphine flexed her left hand. There was a long, nasty cut across the palm, yellow with infection and scabbed over with tar-like dried blood. She didn't know how it had gotten there. But it seemed like it was right to have it.

    "Gracie."
    "Nnm."
    "Gracie, Gracie."
    "Mmm?"
    "Wake up," Jack whispered, close to her ear.
    Slowly, Granuaile stirred, drawing in a large breath of air and prying open unwilling, tired eyes. She blinked a few times in the darkness, puzzled over what she should be looking at, and with some effort turned her head to the side to meet Jack's gaze.
    "Come outside for a moment?"
    He phrased it as a proposal but he may as well have ordered it. The freshly-woken mind is not much different than the unconscious mind in that it's very much open to suggestion if sent on the right frequencies.
    She followed him silently out of the door from the crew quarters where she slept to the outer hall way. As she turned the corner after Jack, she jerked to a stop about an inch from colliding with his fist, which held the chain of a blue gem necklace in its grip.
    "It's not from me," he said quickly, before depositing it into her hands. She examined it under the small sliver of moonlight pouring in from a single window far above their heads. "S'from Lunaseer and his men. They always were sweet on dames."
    "Beautiful," Granuaile murmured, turning the star charm over in her hands to see how it refracted the light. "Spinal sapphire?"
    "Beats me."
    "Is there a mirror nearby?"
    Jack pointed with his thumb back down the hall from whence they had come. "Shaving mirror, near the door." His companion went straight-away, moving at the swiftest pace permissable without causing a racket on the floorboards. He followed after her, the hints of a smile on his face as he watched her put the necklace on.
    "It's very gaudy," Granuaile said, sounding a little disappointed.
    "I don't much think their jewelry's made for everyday wear, no," Jack agreed, but nevertheless a little off-put. He stared at his boots.
    "Mm, well, I suppose we could always just sell it..."
    Jack jerked his head up. "Uh, 'don't think that's such a good idea, lass."
    "Why not?"
    "Well... see... Lunaseer and his type, they don't give out gifts lightly, savvy? And they'd prolly not take well if they found y'again someday and discovered y'd bartered it off."
    Granuaile puzzled over this for a moment or two, but conceded without complaint. She stuffed the necklace under the collar of her tunic. "Then I'll put it in with the chests at home," she said decidedly.
    "You'll be going back after this, then?"
    "Certainly. I'd meant to be on my way already, had I found any among the Brethren willing to grant me passage. Alas, I must settle for you."
    There was a distinct drop in Jack's tone. "So you're... giving up too."
    "We must all learn when a fight is not worth fighting, Jack."
    "You really believe that?" Jack demanded. Granuaile looked back at him over her shoulder. "You really thought that we were just a lost cause, from the very start?"
    She turned around fully to face him. "No. It was when you were a scant few seconds from death that I saw. How long can you cheat the inevitable, Jack? How long until you realize that if man could reach the Moon he'd've already gotten there?"
    "Gracie..."
    The Irishwoman shook her head. "Gracie... is a child's name, Jack. You called me that when I was a tot that could sit in your lap. And now... now I'm older than you are, and I'm past the trappings of childhood. Why not you?" She gripped his shirt and stared up into his eyes. "How in God's name were you able to stay a boy forever?"
    He pushed her away, trying to be gentle about it. "That's my concern." He took a breath, debating whether to leave it at that and depart then and there, but he couldn't stop himself. He plunged onward, "And it seems everything else I undertake is, too. Far be it from anyone else that they care what happens to their bloody world."
    "...That isn't fair."
    "Don't mean to interrupt," said the Jackal, her head hanging down from the stairwell above. She was upside-down, her dark hair hanging down all around her. "But there's somethin' up 'ere I think you should see."

    About half an hour later the entire ship was awake and coming up on deck to see what the commotion was about. The first impression was that they'd been boarded. Another ship, smaller than theirs and built not unakin to a Chinese junk, had hooked grapnels to the Pearl's port railing, and several occupants of the smaller vessel were still climbing up onto deck.
    There was a crowd near the bow of the ship, surrounding Jack Sparrow and a couple of other officers.
    "This is Fezzik, the first mate, and Will Turner, the, ehr, other first mate," Jack said to the pirates standing opposite them. These two, dark-skinned men in garments that mostly consisted of fishing nets and leather, bowed respectfully, so illustriously that the addressed first mates found themselves returning the courtesy.
    "Two first mates for two captains," one of them, the taller one with his hair pulled black in a long ponytail, and a black tilak in the center of his forehead, remarked appreciatively. "Truly you are running the very model of bipartisanship here."
    "It all sort of came about on accident, actually," Inigo said.
    "And the young lady we met earlier...?" asked the shorter one, with no hair to speak of.
    Jack felt the implications of the man's tone and cringed. "I'll bite. What'd she do?"
    "Oh, nothing," the bald man said at once.
    "Just slew two of our men," the tall one added. "And they were good ones, too. Those don't come cheap."
    "DELPHINE!" Jack roared.
    "Whaaaat?" came the response, somewhere in the crowd.
    "Given the situation," said the ponytailed man, trying to stop his ears ringing, "I sense we can permit ourselves to put off recompense until a better time. You'll be wanting to get on your way as soon as possible, am I right to presume?"
    "Not much sense in sticking round here," Jack agreed.
    Anamaria, who had been one of the last to wake up and was only now making her way through the crowd, pushed and clamoured over to Baron Munchausen and grabbed his arm to gain his attention.
    "'Scuse me," she said impatiently, "just who are these people?"
    The baron chuckled a serene, old man's laugh, and removed the pipe from his mouth. He used it to point in the direction of the newcomers. "These men? That's Kanhoji Angria there," he said, indicating to the ponytailed man, "big man of East India, and that is Kuo Hsing Yeh," this toward the shorter, bald man, "top pirate of the South China Sea, madam." Hearing their names, the two pirates bowed their heads in turn to Anamaria.
    "Travelling together?"
    "Far be it from our personal choice," Yeh told her, but then resumed addressing Jack. "I imagine it's a circumstance quite similar to yours and Mister Montoya. You see, I can tell you that you are close on the Captain Kidd's trail," he said, placing a hand over his chest, "because he attacked me. More accurately he attacked my dear ship, left her in shattered ruins, along with her crew. How fortunate it was that I was... as it were... out of my territory."
    "And in mine," Angria finished.
    "God damn it, he's still on about it, isn't he?" Jack asked furiously, to no one in particular. "You'd think Bombay blowing up in 'is face would be enough to tell him to give it up."
    "Bombay?" Angria said quickly. "What about Bombay?"
    "Too long to explain. Where is Kidd now?"
    Yeh shrugged. "Given his rate of speed and your own, you could catch up with him in about... a week's time."
    "Anamaria?" Jack called to his quartermaster.
    She fumbled with her trouser pockets and produced a small calendar book, and began flipping through it quickly. "No good. Half moon."
    "We can make do. Two ships to one significantly increases our odds, I'd say."
    "Us?" the Indian pirate queried.
    "Absolutely."
    "We can't do that," Yeh said at once.
    "Why not?"
    "This isn't our feud."
    The officers of the Black Pearl exchanged glances that went: is it even worth the bother?
    "Well," Inigo said, sounding somewhat deflated, "can you offer us any assistance?"
    "Oh, certainly," said Yeh.
    "For a price," added Angria.
    "Naturally."
    Yeh rubbed his chin thoughtfully "You're planning a sneak attack? It'd do no good to strike that man's ship straight on."
    "With all due respect," said Israel Hands, "it's my ship. But yes, that was our idea, right, Jack?"
    "Compound surprise with confusion, a dash of fear and a pinch of terror and... that sort of thing?"
    "It won't work," Westley said moodily.
    "It might," Yeh said brightly. "We have something that could very well be of use to you. It was the only thing to survive the attack on my ship, as a matter of fact." The Chinese pirate laughed heartily. "If that's not divine providence I don't know what is."

    Once Westley saw just what it was that Yeh had salvaged from the wreckage, it seemed to the others that he was slowly changing his mind. He tried to be discreet about it. Once you had a stance on something it came to no good end to just retract it when you ended up being wrong.
    But he did start to plan.
    Preparations between the two ships lasted until well after dawn, and finally started to wrap up when the sun was nearly overhead. It wasn't just Yeh's supplies that were bartered, it was everything; this for that, that for this. Pirate ships were always in need of something. Food, water, cloth, sewing needles, pleasurable company in an isolated cabin somewhere...
    The last load of Yeh's "gift" was being lowered into the hold as the ships parted ways. The last of the crates were set down --with some difficulty, because after the resupply the Pearl's hold had found itself very full-- by the captain of the ship and his quartermaster, finding themselves alone after all the other movers had departed.
    They smiled at each other, awkwardly. Jack and Anamaria hadn't had a lot of time one-on-one with each other in recent weeks. Not very much at all since the incident in Freetown, as it happened. If the fault in this lay in either of them, neither was going to fess up to it.
    Seeing her now by the hold's lantern light, Jack thought she looked pale and sickly, or at least moreso than was usual for a pirate to be pale and sickly. In all physical ways she had recovered from her injuries inflicted at Madagascar, but nevertheless there was a frailness there that Jack had never seen in her before. She hardly spoke, and when she did it was with a sort of forced hardiness and fervor that she had once obtained without effort.
    "Well," he said, in a sort of cough, breaking the silence, "this must all be very well for you."
    "What?" she said distractedly.
    "Getting restocked an' all. Y'never did like going into the markets for this junk."
    She didn't answer, only tucked her chin in on her chest. She had found a piece of brown string in one of her pockets and was twirling it with her fingers absently.
    "I saw some mandarin oranges in a crate over there," Jack carried on in desperation. "Not even a lot of green on 'em..."
    "What will you do after this is all over?" Anamaria said suddenly, not looking up from her piece of string.
    "Dunno. Keep going at it, I guess." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "What about you?"
    "I think I might go open up a jam store. Jam sounds like a really good idea now."
    Jack laughed, and then stopped when he saw how serious Anamaria's face was.
    "Well, ehr, if y'need money gettin' started--"
    "I'd prefer to make me own way, thanks."
    "Right. Just thought I'd offer."
    Anamaria remained fixated on her bit of string, while biting her lip, and made no indication of wanting to continue the conversation. Conscious of this, Jack moved to change the subject, opening his mouth to say the first word on the subject of comparing her to a summer's day and so on, when she said abruptly:
    "You know that saying, like how life's like a sparrow flying through a lit house?"
    Jack was aware of his thought processes all slamming to a halt and causing a multi-car pile-up. He began restructuring from the beginning. "No..."
    "Everyone's heard it," Anamaria said matter-of-factly, no longer staring at the string but at some distant, invisible bit of space. "It's like, imagine a sparrow flying through a pitch-black forest, and then straight through a brightly-lit house, and then out into the dark again, and that couple of seconds of brightness in that house bein' that small bit of life y'get between not bein' born and bein' dead. Just this short flash an' you're all confused and blind an' before you know it comes the dark again, an' all you've got to hold with you is that short little memory of light."
    Jack tried digesting this. Anamaria wasn't the greatest storyteller at the best of times, but this one, he had to admit, was awfully bad even by her standards. "Does... the house have any windows?"
    "That isn't the point! What I'm sayin' is--"
    "Only," Jack said, in a small, quiet sort of voice, "I could really do with one."
    "...You an' me both."
    He looked over at Anamaria in surprise, and met her dark gaze.
    "...Ana..."
    She drew a breath at the onset of saying something, but stopped as she, and then Jack, became aware of a growing sound descending from upstairs:

    They looked up in time to see the shiny black boots of Baron Munchausen descend the wooden steps, followed by the rest of him, as he continued to sing the second verse. As his head cleared the ceiling (something of a feat in the first place, given his height) and saw Jack and Anamaria, he stopped abruptly.
    "Ah, my apologies, I didn't know someone was here to listen..." Munchausen said, embarrassed.
    "Is that a child's song?" Jack asked. "I understood most of it."
    "A drinking song, in fact."
    "Y'know, it figures. It really does."
    "As it happens, I was asked of by Montoya to seek you and Lady Anamaria out and bring you on deck, but it's a duty I'd intended to neglect. What am I," the old man chuckled, drawing out his tobacco pipe, "one of your men?"
    "In effect," Jack told him, as the baron proceeded to light his pipe with a match.
    Munchausen sputtered and pulled the pipe from his lips. "In effect? Who is it that you take me for? I am Baron Munchausen! Munchausen does not serve others!"
    "Consider it for the benefit of mankind," Jack said, unphased. "Where are your servants these days anyway?"
    "Oh, all over the place, m'boy. Two I lost track of at sea, one of them's on the Moon..."
    This piqued Jack's interest. "The Moon?"
    Great, Anamaria thought, here we go again...
    "Oh, absolutely. Lovely place, the Moon. Have you ever been there?"
    "You've been to the Moon."
    "Certainly, my boy!"
    "That's not fair. That's not fair that you got to the Moon before me--"
    "Jack," Anamaria implored, "just let it go."
    Munchausen, unbothered by Jack's turn of temper, stopped mid-puff on his pipe only with the emergence of a voice with vaguely female harmonics.
    A moment later he was sidling up next to Anamaria, rose at the ready. "Beeeeautiful lady..."
    "Stuff it, Munchausen," Jack said.
    "Have I ever told you that you so remind me of Catherine the Great--"
    "Who?" Anamaria asked.
    Munchausen faltered.

    The days that followed were surprisingly relaxed. As has been established, it served no purpose to be on edge in anticipation of a battle for weeks leading up to the event, but even given that the average observer would still have puzzled over the pirates' calm demeanor.
    And the little-known fact of all this is that pirates are always at ease in the face of battle. It's when they have nothing to do and nowhere to go that they get truly dangerous with themselves and others. It's the idle pirate that will really start being amoral, dropping captives off planks and so on.
    Six days passed in this manner, and on the eve of the sixth day, retiring early from supper while the rest of the crew continued to dine down belowdeck, the two captains of the Black Pearl resigned themselves to their shared cabin, lit a few lanterns, and watched the sea.
    "If the scouts are right," Jack said, referring to Cottons Four and Twelve that had recently returned from reconnaissance, "this'll all be over tomorrow night."
    "Not all over. Kidd's just one man. What will you do to stop the amnesty program? Take over the throne of England?" Inigo said, straightfaced.
    Jack scratched his beard reflectively. "Whoever 'eard of a king named Jack?"
    "I heard a myth from the colonies once," Inigo said, "up in rural New York. There's a story that on Halloween--"
    "What's that?"
    "Some harvest festival, I think."
    "Ah."
    "Well, every Halloween they say a man rises from the grave and terrorizes the people of the small towns up there. Skellington Jack, they call him. The Pumpkin King."
    "Pumpkin King."
    "Yeah."
    "King of Pumpkins."
    "Look, I'm only reporting here." Inigo leaned back further in his seat. "But no, overall, I'd say it isn't a good name for a king."
    "Aye."
    "I've heard the Grim Reaper's named Jack."
    "That's a tremendous comfort."
    "What will you do after this is over tomorrow?"
    Jack, who felt like he had answered this question enough in recent days, shrugged. "We'll have to see."
    "I think I'm going to keep on sailing-- on my own ship, that is."
    "Oh," Jack said brightly, "y'found one y'liked?"
    "The Queen Anne's Revenge. Would its makers be opposed if I dropped the first two words?" He smiled politely while Jack had a hearty laugh. "What?"
    Captain Sparrow stood up from his chair, and strode closer to the rear window, arms crossed comfortably over his chest. "D'you think it might be a bit much for a man such as y'self?"
    "You don't think I can handle it?"
    "Tell you what. I'll take the Queen Anne, and you take the Black Pearl. After all, she's around the same size as yer last ship, you know your way around, you've got the feel for her..."
    "Nah."
    Jack looked surprised. "No?"
    Inigo smiled again, this time not so politely. "I don't think you can."
    "Can I what?"
    "Give up the Black Pearl. You can't, can you? She's just about the only thing you can't give up." Jack was eyeing him curiously, but he persisted, "How many women have you loved, adored, ravished, gave your heart to and then left without comment? Oh, a few of them come back into your life like Lady O'Malley but she's an exception to the rule, and you know, you don't really seem to mind that your chance with her has come and gone anyway. But the Pearl, you can't let her sail out of your life, can you? Not a second goes by that you don't think of her."
    "It's just that she's the perfect ship," Jack murmured.
    "That's what Westley says about Buttercup. Well, nearly. I don't think he actually calls her a ship... But you know what I mean."
    "It's my understanding that Westley's wife is, in fact, the most beautiful woman in the world."
    "Oh, she was," Inigo said quickly. "A couple years ago. It's some village girl in Kenya now, I hear."
    "Keep up with this, do you?"
    "A little."
    He joined Jack by the window. They'd forced the glass pane open to let in the breeze, which was not the same wind that had carried them out from Indian shores, being a bit headier and more random. It was nearing the end of summer now, and the air drifting in from over the water hovered just above the threshold of actual cold. The two men leaned against the window sill, watching the moon's reflection in the waves.
    "Overall," Inigo said quietly, not shifting his gaze, "it's been rather fun."
    Jack emitted a sound somewhat akin, if put into letters, to "pffft." "Not saying it doesn't have its merits, but on the whole this has been a dull one, as expeditions go."
    "I liked it. Granted, I haven't been sailing as long." He grinned, slinging an arm over Jack's shoulders, connecting so harshly with Jack's neck that it bucked him forward a little. "Hanging around with you has almost been like working alongside a brother. That's what you are, an older, conceited, argumentative brother."
    "Oh, thank you very much," Jack said, or tried to say, about the time Inigo tackled him to the floor.
    "I've never had a brother," Inigo told him, pinning him to the ground in an absent sort of way. "It was just my father and me for the longest time. Do you have any brothers? Sisters?"
    Jack laughed. "How should I remember? They're all dead!"
    "You run out of memory, as you get older?"
    "No, no one runs out of memory. The older stuff just gets pushed farther n' farther back so it's harder to get to. An' there are some things y'try to forget," he added, more to himself. He cracked another grin up at Inigo. "But what's the whole idea, hey? You drunk?"
    "Surprisingly, no."
    "Maybe you're just strange, then."
    "I'm not the one in women's cosmetics."
    "You--!" Jack said, in mock fury. He rose up and pushed Inigo back off to one side, and then rolled over to pin him down instead. "Speak of that again and I'll make you regret it, I will."
    "You're very nonthreatening, you know that?"
    "You'd be the first to say so."
    "Not the first to think it. You're too bloody approachable for a pirate."
    "Too little to be anything else."
    "Dress you up in a suit and a hat with feathers on and you'd be the same as any man," Inigo teased.
    "God forbid!"
    They fell silent, as people often do when they realize the jokes they're making aren't actually funny enough to keep them laughing, and with this silence came the realization of just what kind of position they were in, physically speaking, and the things it could lead to-- also physically speaking.
    Jack swallowed. He was dimly aware of something growing in the back of his mind, less like a thought and more like an instinct, that went against the teachings of practically all organized religions worldwide.
    What made it worse was that his eyes seemed locked on Inigo's, and he saw that the same thing was occuring to him.
    This was terrible. This couldn't happen now. He didn't even want this. Except he did. Didn't. Did. What did it matter? He was too proud to go in for this.
    He forced himself to release his gaze, laughing shortly and humorlessly as he averted his eyes. "No, I--"
 

End Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XIX