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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: NC-17. Bondage.
Pairing: Jack/Norrington.
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
Notes: Title from a William Butler Yeats poem; go to here for the full text. Thank you, commodorified for pointing it out to me.
Summary: The joy of the hunt, and other things.
***
The hood over James’ head was of some coarse, stifling cloth that trapped his breath against his face where it soured. He twisted his wrists, not out of any expectation that the motion would help free him, but because it provided a break in the unending sameness of the tension. The ropes holding his arms to the back of the chair creaked and transmitted the strain to those around his chest and ankles. The frame of the chair itself bent a little, but otherwise showed no sign that it acknowledged his effort.
He could rap his heels against the floor and know that it was wooden planking. The nature of the echoes also had told him that the room was mostly empty. His breathing was quite loud due to the hood, but if he strained his ears he could still detect the respiration of someone in the far corner.
“Do you know why you are here?”
The voice came from an entirely different direction than expected, and was wholly unfamiliar. Surprise made James jerk about the little that his bonds would allow; he badly wrenched his thigh and the long scar there ached with dull heat. The loop around his throat seemed to wrench ever tighter so he choked and covered the inside of the hood with his spit. With an effort, he controlled himself and spoke as best he was able. “Yes.”
He wondered if he was at all intelligible through the hood. His voice was full of odd strictures and muffled twists even to his own ears.
Someone walked across the floor, their boots thudding precisely as a drumbeat. Their last step rattled one of the planks on which James’ chair sat so for a brief moment, he was afraid that he and it were about to tip over. His muscles seized up in preparation for a fall that never came, for the chair was slammed back down. The hood was yanked off his head at the same moment, leaving him gaping stunned and blind into the darkness.
* * *
Several Months Before
They set out the next morning, as James had promised. The warmth of day had gone and come again, and during the chill of night, he’d lost the wistful humor that had briefly taken over him on the ramparts. He could see clearly enough that a woman such as Elizabeth, approaching the altar with less than her full acquiescence, would make for a miserable wife and a miserable home. He could also see that one day had been far too long to give Sparrow. Gallant as James’ gesture might have been, it had released a tempest back into the Caribbean.
The waters were calm now, and perhaps Sparrow was at heart a good man, but he had a strange magnetism for spectacular trouble, and spectacular trouble was something that could not coexist with a peaceful, law-abiding outpost of the British Empire. James had spent his nine years in the Caribbean scouring pirates and Spanish from the sea, and a day ago he could have truthfully said that he had done his duty. Today…
“Another nine years, no doubt,” he muttered. He heard one of his officers approaching and spun about when he judged that they were within a pace of him. “Lieutenant Gillette. How far are we from Tortuga?”
“An hour’s sail. Should I roust an extra watch of men, sir?” Gillette stood correctly and spoke correctly and held himself so his shadow fell correctly, but nevertheless he had an air of wrongness to him. He approved of this. He’d disapproved of James’ former decision about Sparrow. He was watching far too carefully now to see which side won out.
Well, damn him and damn honor for putting James ‘twixt the cannons. But they were clear of the crossfire now and the way ahead was straight as an arrow. “No, not now. From what I hear, Sparrow was barely able to scrape up enough crew to man the Interceptor, and with Tortuga pirates being the least discerning of the lot. Tortuga’s days are waning. We’ll save our strength for the main engagement.”
Curious wording, James thought as he turned from the rail. From one engagement to another. He hoped the second one would prove more successful than the last.
* * *
They scoured Tortuga from end to end, but found no trace of Sparrow. When questioned politely, the locals muttered about the Pearl being too ghostly to mark well; she could float into the harbor and be as likely to turn out a figment of the mist as a thing of solid wood and hemp. When questioned more thoroughly, they cried that the ship had been in before the date of Sparrow’s almost hanging, but not afterward.
It was an interesting result since Tortuga was the only port within easy sail that would receive the Pearl with any warmth, and since Tortuga was also perpetually short of the stock that a ship would need to take on for longer journeys. The city was a boil on the coastline, feeding parasitically off the illegal traders and pirates that stopped there for safe anchor, and its locals had no sense of how to support themselves except by taking the goods of others. Its natural defenses were formidable and it did have a good supply of fresh water, but little else. If the ships ceased to call there, Tortuga would deflate and ooze out its pus within a few months. In his quest to rid the Caribbean of piracy, James had left the port more or less alone for exactly that reason.
But never mind. Sparrow had been at his peculiar excuse for a profession for many years, and he doubtless had gained enough sense to use other resources. He had that kind of animal cunning.
James recalled his men to the ship, intending to set out smartly, but he was forced to delay because roll-call discovered quite a few absences. Inevitably, given that it was Tortuga and any sailor would take the chance and run if he could. He could have kicked himself for not remembering and setting closer watch on the known trouble-makers, but that would have wasted time. He gritted his teeth and ordered officers back ashore to roust the deserters from the taverns.
After a while, he joined them there and sent Gillette back to mind the ship. Good officer that Gillette was, he had little of the common touch that allowed him to fathom the minds of men concerned only with drink and escape and drink. In two hours he’d not turned up a single man, whereas Groves had three times returned with runaways, who’d been promptly clapped into the brig for punishment later.
Hard work turned up the remaining absconders, and James was just stepping on the dock with them when he saw something very curious. Or rather, he saw a very curious nothing: his ship was gone from its moorings.
A quick glance told him it’d merely shifted within the harbor and the reason why, whose side was already spouting black puffs of smoke tinged with white sparks. A Spanish galleon had entered and Gillette sensibly had raised anchor so as not to become a sitting duck. However, he’d stayed to fight, which was less sensible since the galleon dwarfed the Dauntless as the moon did the stars.
“Oh, dear God,” Groves said, gasping open-mouthed next to James. “Oh—God! There goes the foremast!”
The ships were so far out that without a spyglass—and James didn’t think he could bear to miss a dreadful second by taking out his—the masts were thin smoky lines. One on the Dauntless teetered, then slowly toppled among the low rolling booms of cannonfire. Its snap wasn’t audible, but a breaking in James’ chest provided a replacement.
He took a step forward, then tried to whirl about without taking his eyes off the ship. “The longboat! Where is it? We’ve got to get—”
“Look! There’s another one!” someone shouted.
James scanned the horizon without any hope; he knew where all his ships were and none of the others had any right to be here. In all probability, it was another Spanish ship. The Spanish never liked to travel singly.
In all probability, what he was seeing was not the Black Pearl. His heart stuck in his throat.
And yet black sails and black timber were as unmistakable as the strange hybrid—mongrel, his uncharitable side suggested—lines of Sparrow’s ship. It was indeed sailing straight for the battle, and any questions about its reality were soundly put to rest by its roaring broadside, which sent the Spanish ship reeling.
In close quarters, cannonfire was uniformly deafening, but at some distance, it sometimes had the queer effect of sharpening one’s hearing to minor sounds. The noise of Groves swallowing hard seemed to loom up beside James. “Sir. Is—Is Sparrow helping us?”
“It…would appear so,” was all James said. For the time being, he was preoccupied with following the action before him. Every shot sent into his ship thudded against his bones, and every one returned was a thrill of liquid fire in his blood.
Together the Pearl and the Dauntless barely equaled the tonnage of the Spanish ship, but the Dauntless had a good gun crew and the Pearl had a captain as daring as his ship was nimble. In surprisingly short order, the Pearl was driving a well and truly beaten Spaniard up towards the beach. Very close. So close that in a matter of minutes, James could pick out the spots on the Spanish ship’s figurehead where the gilt and paint had been flaked away.
“Sir—”
“Retreat! Back to the docks!” James shouted, already half-turning himself. He and his men took to their heels just as the wash before the Spaniard began to crash over the pier.
One of Tortuga’s natural advantages was a deep harbor that began to shallow mere yards from the actual land. Ships could tuck themselves very close to land without fear of beaching themselves. That, however, did not seem to be much on Sparrow’s mind.
Groves and the men stopped as soon as they were on high ground, but James continued running down the first street he came to. He barged in the door, swiveled about till he spotted a ladder, and brushed off the tavern-owner who came angrily forward. A trice and he was up on the roof, chest heaving and heels burning inside his tall boots, just in time to see Jack heel the Pearl about as neatly as a huntsman would his pack.
The galleon was more slow to respond due to its great mass. Its momentum carried it inexorably forward into the pier, which splintered up against the bow, throwing off pieces as if they were matchsticks. One length of lumber went soaring towards the staring mass of men at the edge of the dock and barely missed taking Groves.
James drew a shaky breath and turned his attention to the decks of the Pearl, whereupon his breath crammed hotly into the top of his throat. The crew of that ship was dressed colorfully, but the most colorful figure of them all handled the wheel with an unmistakable jauntiness.
“Commodore!” Sparrow called out. He waved madly. They were too far apart for James to pick out too many details, but James still was certain that the other man was smiling. “A little extra incentive for you! Maybe next time you’ll be quicker about it! Man could grow old waiting for you.”
With that, Sparrow turned his ship completely around and made for the harbor entrance. By now the galleon had ground to a stop. It hadn’t quite made it to land, but it had made a valiant attempt that, from the looks of its decks, hadn’t entirely incapacitated its crew. One officer had already dragged himself to the railing and was flailing with his sword over his head and screaming. James knew little Spanish, but he didn’t need to in order to understand the officer’s state of mind. Sparrow had simultaneously saved James’ ship and wrecked his pride: he’d won again. The blood in James’ veins was boiling and it needed to vent.
James put his hand to his hilt. “Groves! Get the men under cover!”
“Sir!” Good man—Groves had already ordered the marines on the docks to ready their guns.
The Dauntless was wheeling towards the shore, but slowly; she was severely hampered by the damage she’d taken during the skirmish. It would be tight for a little while. But it would not, James vowed, keep him from chasing after Sparrow and dealing properly with the damned pirate.
* * *
Occasionally James’ duties required him to visit the other British colonies and hobnob with the administrators of them. He found much of it to be pointless frippery, but he understood the necessity of standing on good terms with his fellow colonists. With London months of sailing away, the other British governors could act more or less autonomously, if they so wished, and they were essential allies for whatever plans James had.
This reasoning made the dinners and formal receptions somewhat more bearable, but only just. As soon as he could, James helped himself to a glass of punch and made an escape to the gardens.
He was in slightly worse a temper than usual thanks to his fruitless search for Sparrow. They turned up plenty of clues, but it seemed as if they were always one step behind the other man…and as James suspected that was deliberate, every clue gained only increased his ire.
“Ah, Commodore Norrington.” A heavy, slightly slurred tread walked up the path behind James.
It was hard not to wince. Governor-General Rogers was an excellent administrator, but he made it patently clear that he wished he had more than that. He wanted a great naval command and he was prone to pushing the boundaries of his jurisdiction in pursuing the matter. “Governor,” James said.
“I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Back to the old drudgery in the morning, eh? Though I’d bet a treasure fleet that your drudgery’s far more interesting than mine.” The Governor whisked a lacy handkerchief to his mouth just in time to stifle his belch. The wine in his glass sloshed alarmingly.
“With any luck, I’ll soon have fulfilled my mandate.” James smiled politely and drank rather more deeply of his punch than he’d be thankful for in the morning.
Rogers’ eyes twinkled over the rim of his glass. He probably didn’t intend for there to be a hint of jealousy in them, but it was there nonetheless. “I hear you’ve just the one pirate captain left. But what a send-off that would be! The famous Jack Sparrow, no less.”
Having nothing socially acceptable to say, James simply sipped his punch and pretended to admire the garden. Several others were also taking the air, some of them couples slipping into the darker areas for more privacy. While James didn’t remember the receiving line with much clarity, he was fairly certain that the lady in the yellow dress was some relation of the Governor’s, and her companion seemed rather…shifty.
James blinked, cursed the punch, and looked more closely.
“…a jewel in any governor’s prison. They say it’s not wise for brother colonies to compete, but I have to confess, I’m not entirely certain I could restrain myself from going after the black ship.” The Governor laughed to soften his words, but his good humor didn’t reach his eyes.
Quite frankly, James couldn’t currently bring himself to care. He glanced again at the couple across the clearing, taking careful note of the man. It was too dark for clothing or faces to be of any use, but the man was about the right height. He seemed bulkier, but that could be due to the more cumbersome formal garments he wore.
His hand lifted in the air, illustrating some point for the giggling maiden, and its fingers made a distinctive lazy swoop before scooping down to just miss grazing the lady’s shoulder.
“…do you say, Commodore?”
Years of training stepped in to keep James from noticeably startling. He did, however, note that his grip on the glass was in danger of snapping the stem. “I—”
Across the way, the man raised his head. His eyes met James’, which took care of the last of James’ doubts. Sparrow stiffened slightly, but recovered within the second and casually twisted his hand so gold flashed between his fingers. For the girl, it was a delightful magic trick. For James, it was a taunting reminder of a debt of honor: Spanish gold.
James paused. It was very short, but still long enough for Sparrow to glance worriedly towards the edge of the garden. Some slight salve to James’ pride, at least—Sparrow had better know that James had considered the other option first. “I think, Governor, that whoever finally lays hands on that scoundrel is a man to be thanked with relief. Sparrow’s far more dangerous than most people seem to understand, and his end will be a favorable result for all loyal subjects of the Crown.”
“Ah…hmm.” The Governor was less taken aback than taken wary, considering James with sharp eyes.
James smiled politely once again, and set his back teeth together so they wouldn’t grind at the flicker at the edge of his vision. When he looked a second time, Sparrow had disappeared and the girl was moving slowly back to the house with a dreamy expression. Foolish woman. It was a slow-creeping nightmare, without any pleasantness to it.
* * *
After the incident at Nassau, Sparrow had laid low for a month and a half. Then he’d emerged in spectacular fashion, ransacking two rich towns with, if James was to believe the official representatives from each, nothing more than a flock of chickens and a cannonshot that had done no physical damage except to knock off a corner of a church steeple.
“And then he dismissed his ship, and went into the woods,” said a red-faced, white-bearded guild-master.
“How long ago was this?” Until now James had been more preoccupied with running through all the nearest centers of black-market trade, but now he pricked up his ears.
Another tradesman pushed forward and nodded at the dark, lush jungle ringing the town. “Early in the morning, sir. If you were to follow him, it’s likely you might catch up with the man. You see, it’s rumored there’s a spring—”
“Stuff and nonsense!” snorted the first man.
James gazed about till they’d all subsided. Then he resettled his sword at his hip and glanced at the woods, judging need for supplies and effort of men to travel through it. “Sparrow’s known to be a superstitious man. What local legend do you speak of?”
A healing spring. It was a humble tale compared to Ponce de Léon’s Fountain of Youth, but devilish as Sparrow was, he was still a mortal man and he grew old like anyone else. Or he had been wounded, or had taken ill with some slow sickness. None of the three possibilities was particularly cheering to James except that they would ensure Sparrow would tarry till James’ men could catch up with him. He wanted the pirate caught and brought to justice, and not to be forced into acting as coffin-carrier for Sparrow.
The town was quiet and God-fearing, so James felt no qualms about leaving most of his crew and his ship in Gillette’s hands. He and Groves split up the remainder into two groups and, after hiring local guides, set off separately on the two likeliest routes to the spring. One was well-traveled but winding and the other was little more than a faint impression of crushed foliage in the thick woods, but far quicker. James chose to pursue the faster path.
They arrived at the spring just as dusk was falling and set up a temporary camp. Sentries were posted with orders to look sharp both for Sparrow and for Groves, who was a little late in making the rendezvous. Then James went off alone for a look at the spring in question.
It was nestled into the top of a cliff, little more than an upwelling of water in a shallow depression in the rock. The water was quite warm to touch and smelled faintly mineral, so James supposed its source had to go down near the fires at the center of the earth.
He flicked the water droplets off his fingers and got back on his feet to examine the perimeter of the spring. Under one bush he found a half-rotted shirt, and in a rock crevice he spotted part of a man’s pipe; the foliage apparently was regularly pruned back to a distance of four yards from the spring, but otherwise there were no signs of recent human usage.
James wanted to take this as an encouraging discovery, for it hinted that he’d managed to arrive ahead of Sparrow, but he was chary of being taken in once more. For all his outward flamboyance, Sparrow was capable of leaving no trail when it pleased him. And, James thought with frustration, this all seemed to be at Sparrow’s pleasure.
The day’s heat still lingered in the air, occasionally drawing a damp, clinging hand across James’ brow. Sweat soaked into his hat, cooled, and then dropped clammy and repellant on his face a few minutes later. He brushed his fingers over his face, then finally removed his hat and set it on a nearby stone. In doing so, he spotted what appeared to be a small side-trail that led towards the edge of the cliff.
James climbed up on a rock to gauge the trail’s length: it wound about a large outcropping and then dipped into a little leafy hollow only yards away. If he ran into any difficulties, his yell would bring the others to him within minutes.
He hesitated a moment longer, then clambered off the rock and started on the path. After the first few steps, he was forced to unhook his sword from his belt and use it to push aside the branches, but the trail itself remained clear enough. It dipped rather more steeply than it had seemed to from his perch, and several times the heels of his boots skidded on wet leaves or uneven rock so that he received a view of the cliffside that was rather closer than he preferred.
The trail was also surprisingly winding, though he judged it never ventured too far from the spring. James made a preliminary guess that the path might have been formed by visitors seeking a little privacy for undressing, or possibly answering the call of nature. Then he rounded the latest turn and promptly had to revise his theory.
The spring above was merely an offshoot; the main spring bubbled out of an opening in the cliff into a basin that was barely able to contain it. The waters here steamed and collected froth at the edges, and sometimes they lapped over the far rim so the foliage around it was especially luscious. Great flared flowers of red and orange and striking shades of pink scrambled around the whole area. The beauty of the area momentarily struck James speechless. He blinked, rubbed at his eyes and then looked again, absently putting his hand out for balance.
As gorgeous as the blooms were, the vines that held them aloft were slick and snarling as nets. One tendril snagged round James’ finger and tried to force its way beneath his nail, and when he attempted to jerk his hand free, his hand slipped off entirely. He teetered backwards, then flung himself forward, suddenly all too aware of the steep fall near him. But he went too far and the unmistakable sound of boot-heels cracking heedlessly over slippery ground filled his ears.
His feet slid backwards, throwing his whole body into tension as he grabbed onto the frail vines. His boots continued over the rock till they mired themselves in soft soil and stopped, at which point James took a shaky breath of relief.
The dirt loosened, then completely fell away. All of his weight suddenly hung from his desperate hold on the vines, but their roots were not curled firmly into the rock. The whole mass came down as he abruptly, shockingly resumed his fall. Rich dark leaves obscured his sight and got in his mouth as he tried to shout; heavy fragrance stole the air from his lungs. A long hard thing banged against his shoulder, then fell away: his sword.
His heels seemed to kick in air for one numb second. Then he dropped. James frantically grappled with the vines, trying to force his arm through them. His fingers grazed something softer than the woody stems, then stiffened as a hold of iron suddenly clamped around his wrist. The paralyzing sensation of falling abruptly gave way to a sharp, painful reminder of weight.
His arm spasmed and went numb at the hard jerk, then slowly regained feeling in the form of fierce aches. James gasped through a mouthful of leaves and swung slowly in the air, his boot-tips occasionally grazing something firmer through the mat of vines, which had to be the cliff-face. Reason returned in a rush: he reached up and ripped the vines away so he could see and speak, and he kicked his feet into the cliff so his savior wouldn’t be burdened with all of his weight.
James clawed his other hand into the cliff, ripping one of his nails to the quick. He bit down against the surprisingly sharp pain and looked up. “Thank you—”
“You’re welcome, I suppose,” Sparrow said. He smiled so the whiteness of his teeth cut like sharks’ fins through the waves. A few of the flowers had fallen to deck him out like a May queen, but their softness only emphasized the black of his eyes. “It’s a funny way for us to be shaking hands again.”
“Sparrow—” A push got James a few inches up the cliff, but then one of his toeholds gave out. He had to scramble to find new purchase on the rock, and even then he was forced to put more of his weight on Sparrow’s hold. “Alone is a funny way for a pirate to greet a commodore of the Royal Navy—where’s your crew?”
“You wouldn’t be thinking of calling for help, would you?” Sparrow deliberately rippled his fingers around James’ wrist. His grip didn’t truly loosen, but the way it shifted about momentarily gave James the heart-stopping illusion that it had. Which had been the point, or so said Sparrow’s wise look. “When you’ve already got some?”
James groped about the cliff, but could find no holds for his hands and feet that would bear all his weight in the absence of Sparrow’s…hand. He didn’t notice he’d caught a bit of his tongue in his grinding teeth till he tasted the blood. “Help from you isn’t truly help. You pirates exact prices for everything.”
“Ah, but that’s only if we’ve buyers. The compass needle turns two ways, Commodore,” Jack softly chuckled. The strain on him must have been considerable, and his build was slight, but so far he’d shown no sign of discomfort. I can do this forever, his manner seemed to say. “Would you be refusing this?”
“We were even, you miserable dog. Neither of us owe the other anything now, and I’ll have you know that Governor Swann isn’t inclined to any more astonishing acts of clemency.” The crevice into which barely a quarter of James’ left foot was jammed was beginning to crumble. The rock here was too soft—weakened by the water. His right arm was beginning to shake, weakened as well by the stress.
Sparrow’s eyes flashed hotly, briefly, before cooling to a shrewdness that was strangely menacing, for all the other man’s harmless demeanor. “No name-calling, if you please. Piracy’s a trade with a longer pedigree than your Navy—dates all the way back to sea-wolves from the North.”
“Am I to respect you solely due to your age?” Strictly speaking, it was foolish to antagonize the other man, but the soreness of James’ pride would not let him stop up his mouth. He had Sparrow—had him by the hand, no less, and the situation was such that he’d be no less able to keep hold of Sparrow than he had been the last time.
“You know, I’m not one to let a brave man like yourself die without a sword in his hand, but you’re testing me.” The fingers around James’ wrist flexed hard, digging pain out of benumbed flesh. “Now, are you coming up, or are you insisting on doing the right honorable thing?”
The rock beneath James’ right hand suddenly broke off so that he jerked down the few inches he’d gained. His breath inadvertently caught in his mouth and he could not help but glance downwards to watch tufts of ripped up dirt and jagged pebbles fall. He teetered precariously on his toes and by Jack’s grip. “Are you expecting me to let you go a second time?”
“Second? Third by my count.” Something in Jack’s voice—something that was indeed old, but by no means decrepit—made James look back up. Sparrow’s eyes sparked like a struck gun flint.
The muscles in Sparrow’s arm rippled, the only warning of what he was about to do. But it was enough for James to open his mouth in outrage and disbelief, for deep down he had half-believed that Jack was a good man. Too late—James swung in the air, his feet torn free of their feeble independent holds. The pressure on his wrist vanished like morning fog.
He fell, pain flooding back into his hand…and thudded heavily onto solid soil. His back screamed and his hip groaned like an overburdened ship, and all the air was slammed out of him. The first breath he took afterward shook him all over and nearly folded him in half with what it did to his ribs.
Still disbelieving, he slowly rolled over in place so he didn’t fall into the free air he could feel breezing by his back. Then he looked up.
He’d landed to the right and slightly up from where he’d been clinging only a few moments before, which was still marked with scraps of cloth and a few bright buttons that the cliff had torn from his clothing. His cradle was a ledge, long enough to take him full-length but barely broad enough to keep him from rolling off. But it was solid, and showed no tendencies to crumble as long as he stayed clear of the very edge.
Sparrow was gone.
James pulled himself up into as best a sitting position as he could manage and cursed roundly. By the time his shouts would have roused his men to his location, the pirate would have had plenty of time to skirt their camp. And by the time—if he managed to convince them that catching Sparrow was more important than rescuing him right away—they set out after Sparrow, the man would doubtless be well on his way to wherever he’d stashed his ship. Sometimes James wondered whether it was man or devil that he chased.
He glanced up again, then took a second, longer look. The glint at the very edge of the cliff-top above slowly resolved itself into the lines of a sword-hilt. A familiar sword-hilt. His sword-hilt.
“Devil,” James swore.
* * *
If the Governor-General of the Bahamas was a frustrating ally to have, then the various privateers that the Admiralty chose to hire to supplement the fleet were downright infuriating. Perhaps the lack of manpower and ships made them a necessity for larger ventures, but nevertheless James tried to have as little to do with them as possible. As a rule, they were barbaric, ill-disciplined, and did worse for the Crown’s reputation—and consequently the Crown’s ability to rule its far-flung territories—than they helped in winning immediate victories.
Fortunately, this joint undertaking was nearly over. The city’s batteries and garrison had been taken and their Spanish commander sent soundly packing, and all that remained was overseeing a thorough sweep of the place for any last pockets of resistance. Governor-General Rogers would be arriving in the morning to install a temporary administration, at which point James’ involvement ended and he would be free to resume his pursuit of Sparrow.
“Evening, Commodore,” drawled a voice from the doorway. Henry Every apparently believed that a letter of marque gave him enough standing to speak familiarly to whomever he pleased. “Let me say how honored I am to see you checking up on our doings in this part of town.”
“You’re very welcome, I’m sure.” James never let his hand leave his hilt as he gazed about the street, its houses with not a whole window between them and splintered holes in almost every roof. Despite the dilapidated impression, the town could and would be quickly rebuilt; the foundations should still be sound and luck and hard work had kept fire from ravaging the ruins.
The city thus was no longer James’ concern. He nodded stiffly to Every, who lazily flipped a hand in a fashion that instinctively jerked James back around. Eyebrows raised, Every met James’ eyes with a puzzled, vaguely concerned expression.
“Remind you of someone?” Every said.
“Hardly.” James turned on his heel. He could hear his men behind him scrambling to keep up, and by rights he should have slowed down to spare them after the long, hard fight they’d all had, but his temper overrode his sense. “Groves?”
The man in question hurried up to James’ side. “Sir?”
“How soon can we be ready for the open sea again?” The entire concept of a privateer, James irritably thought, was a mere lampshade for the truth: training up the next generation of pirates. Here he was, standing on the brink of scouring that menace from the Caribbean, and his own government was preparing to undo all his work.
“Well, by morning…but sir, we’ve lost a good many spars and we’ve no replacements left in the hold. And the men are exhausted,” Groves tentatively said. “Wouldn’t it be better—”
It would be nicer, was the savage thought that sprang first to the forefront of James’ mind. But they’d had to leave their hunt when on Sparrow’s very heels in order to aid in this engagement. If they stopped to make everything nice and tidy again, then they’d return to a cold trail. A very cold trail, and James’ temper had been burning white-hot since his and Sparrow’s last meeting. “I see. How long?”
Groves did something very odd then: he looked both ways, like a thief in a doorway that was not his own, before stepping quite closely to James. “Sir, with all due respect, Sparrow is one man with one ship,” he hissed. “The Spanish are many, and growing more bold by the day.”
“All the more reason to finish eliminating the one problem before the other overwhelms us, I would think.” They rounded the corner. Down the road appeared to be some kind of commotion, involving both privateers and marines. It completely blocked the road and put James in even fouler humor.
“The men say—sir, I respect you above all men, but it is my sworn duty to keep you abreast of the state of the men. And the men think you’re possessed. They’re one step from declaring you a demon, and you know how superstitious sailors are.” Perhaps belowdecks grumbling had given Groves some courage, but the man still shied from James’ look. “I only mean…”
“I think I take your meaning quite plainly. We’re to catch rats and snip off tales instead of permanently ridding the house of them.” The end of James’ scabbard was banging against his calf. He angrily wrenched it about and stalked forward to deal with the mass of men. “What’s going on? What’s the meaning of—”
The huddle suddenly, thunderingly broke open, like an egg fallen against a rock, and spilled out more than one man with a wound streaming blood. The center had been a house where it seemed they’d treed some miscreant who’d had an explosive surprise with him. A bag of gunpowder, or perhaps a small artillery shell.
“He’s going up to the roof!” someone shouted.
“Goddamn bastard pirate! He was with the Spanish, I’d wager.”
James, who was just regaining his balance, went very still. It couldn’t possibly…
“It’s Sparrow!” shouted Every, running up from behind. His tone was shocked and jubilant all at once. “And with the price on his head, the silly bas—”
The rest went past James in a blur as he plunged through the empty center of the milling horde and into the house, drawing sword as he went. He heard the men shouting, and thought he could discern a few of them yelling his name as well as Sparrow’s, but that only spurred him on. He’d come too far and gone through too much to let anyone else have Sparrow, much less a flea of a man like Every.
It was dark inside of the house, shockingly so in comparison to the light outside, and that blinded James as effectively as a flash of lightning might have. He stumbled about and more by luck than anything else knocked up against the ladder. In a trice he’d whirled about it and gotten himself half-way up.
“Norrington! Move! I can’t shoot!” Every snarled, all frustration.
Well, let him have a taste of it. James kept on going, awkward as it was to climb with sword in hand. Near the top his sword tip stuck in a beam and the fraction of a second it took him to free it nearly cost him his life; a streak of silver drove in for his throat and he wrenched himself aside for it to miss him by hairs.
In the next second he was up on the roof. The tiles were either thin slates of rock or baked clay, for they clattered beneath his feet—unusual, given the small size of the building. Then Jack’s next lunge drove James against the massive, oddly-shaped chimney and the pieces clicked together: it was the garrison smithy. Apparently the commander here was careful enough to want a fireproof roof over that building.
James ducked another slash, then elbowed himself off the chimney and lunged forward. His boot-soles slipped and he had to slew sharply around—a risky maneuver itself—to keep on an even level with Sparrow. His sword-tip bore away a scrap of cloth. “Trading with the Spanish, are you?”
“Tricking them, more like. Pity I wasn’t able to leave in time, but that’s how blockades go. You lot were much sharper on the mark this time.” Sparrow’s voice danced and his feet were even lighter, but his eyes slid constantly from side-to-side. He feinted low in a dive that abruptly turned out to be a true one, as someone below took a shot that came as close to hitting him as it did James. “Wish we had more time to talk, commodore, but I hear the dogs baying.”
They were. They were a pack of bloodthirsty fools screaming as if it were a cockfight and prone to do the foolish thing. They wanted—they wanted this man dead, when to James that was so clearly the least desirable outcome possible. And behind James, the cursing of Every was growing ever louder. The man swore again and again that the moment the damn fool commodore was clear, he’d shoot the prancing bastard Sparrow.
Jack smiled at that, slipping sideways with the sudden grace of a snake. James was hard-put to follow in time to block Every’s shot, though he used his momentum to power another strike at Jack. This time blood flicked onto the roof tiles.
“First blood,” Jack said. His voice had dropped and his eyes were hot coals burning not at the tip of James’ sword, as they should have been, but straight at James.
“You left me bloody enough the last time,” James icily replied. He twisted around and nearly sent Jack off the roof with his next strike.
The other man stumbled, skidded, and then scrambled inelegantly back up just as a red spray bloomed from his left calf. When he stood up again, he was limping.
The fury whirling up against the inside of James’ chest was astounding. He nearly turned and swore at the idiot who’d dared take that shot, who’d tried to kill—
And there he had to stop.
“Norrington,” Jack said, filling in the space. He weaved and bobbed further along the roof till he was nearly to the seawall that abutted the smithy. Occasionally he drove at Norrington so that instincts carried on the fight. And so that those below would not notice any change. “Left you alive, too, if I remember right.”
With that, Jack leaped blindly. By some combination of luck and grace he made it onto the narrow firestep that lined the seawall about two feet below its top. James followed and felt a stray bullet whistle through his coat. His sword-hand slammed down on the wood planks to keep his balance and the jarring impact nearly knocked his blade from him. But anger held the hilt in his hand till he could spring back to his feet.
Jack Sparrow had a list of crimes to his name that was longer than the lineage of Jesus Our Lord Savior. He’d taunted and teased and tormented James all over the Caribbean, letting James just glimpse the natural end of a hunt before he suddenly tricked James into an unnatural staying of the hand. And now, and now he was doing it again.
“You do,” James snarled, and put all his weight behind his last lunge.
His sword took Sparrow in the shoulder, going in till the tip grated and stuck. Sparrow’s eyes went wide, so very wide and black and they sucked James into falling, even though it was Sparrow that toppled over the wall, red spot over his shoulder growing as he shrank with the distance. Red washed over James’ vision, and the muscles in his chest wrung his heart till he thought he would collapse.
“Stop shooting, you morons!” someone shouted furiously. They put an arm beneath James’ elbow and jerked him too roughly for propriety away from the edge. “Sir. Sir!”
“Groves.” James sucked in air over his teeth and slowly leaned back.
“He’ll never survive the drop,” Groves said. Hopefully, if not for the hard desperate edge to his voice. “It’s just as bad as the one in Port Royal.”
The tiny white splash below was overtaken by the surf in an instant, so it resembled a mocking wink.
“No.” Even to James, the word was unrecognizable. He swallowed and repeated in a thick voice: “No.”
* * *
“Sir!”
“Gillette?” James shouted back, stumbling around in a circle. The flames might have been frightening since he had no idea how close they’d gotten to the magazine, but the smoke was simply appalling. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face due to it, and no matter how many folds of his sleeve he pressed over his mouth, the stuff still burned its way into his lungs. “I gave orders to abandon ship!”
Something whooshed and James scrambled away barely in time to miss being taken by a solid sheet of fire that had sprang to life next to him. He coughed, but could get no air and had to drop to the ground.
“Sir!” Gillette’s voice was more hysterical, but was fainter. Hopefully that meant the man was being sensible and leaving, because James had no intention of doing so.
His ship. His carelessness. His responsibility. He should have known to not trust the Spaniards’ assurances of truce and have moored his ship further out, but he’d let down his guard. Trusted the diplomats’ promises and now he was going to lose his ship to sabotage. At least they’d had to have gotten all the men out. He’d seen to it himself, and now that that task was done…
He only realized he’d fallen when his cheek struck the floor. The impact knocked his hand away from his mouth and the smoke instantly swarmed in to choke him, sting bitterly in his nose and throat. James coughed, instinctively tried to push himself back up, but his limbs failed him. He fell again…and did not hit the floor.
“Some fine mess you’ve got here, commodore,” grunted a familiar voice, though it’d been turned rusty as neglected ironwork by the poisoned air.
“Sparrow…” Back up on his feet, James did his best to stumble along with Jack’s support till James remembered. Then he tried to pull loose, but by then they were at the ladder. Every time he attempted to go backwards, Jack slammed him up two steps, and soon James was clawing at the open deck. He couldn’t help but gasp at the sudden influx of fresh air. “Damn it, Sparrow! You were dead! You couldn’t have—thought for hours on it—couldn’t have—not that far a fall—”
James expected a low laugh, but instead he received a kick to the side and a ferocious snarl. “Damn me, but I thought you understood the rules,” Jack muttered.
He caught at James’ wrist and dragged him along, but James dug a heel into the deck and wildly twisted against Jack. “This is your fault! This wasn’t a game!”
“And I never thought it was. Did you?” Jack waited a moment, and in that moment something exploded. The other man’s weight suddenly came down on James. “Did you?” Jack repeated, mouth moist against James’ scorched ear. “Oh, hell. You did.”
“Leave. Me. Be.” This time, James’ bid for freedom was successful. Too successful, for Jack let go of him so quickly that James couldn’t get his laggard arms beneath himself. He crashed to the deck again, but was soon pushing himself up.
And that was when Jack stabbed him. In the thigh, a blistering spot of pain that instantly rippled outward in blinding waves. James gasped.
When he’d finished gasping, he opened his eyes to see Groves’ soot-smudged, ecstatic face above him. Men’s knees were beneath his back and shoulders, and someone was clamping their hands hard around the deadened flesh of his thigh. James threw out a hand and caught the side of the longboat. Groves started to protest, but James angrily pushed him away and sat up.
The Dauntless was a crackling inferno. Then it was nothing but a steady rain of falling, flaming fragments and the dying sound of a splitting heart.
“He—he threw you over and then—he has to be dead now,” Groves stammered.
The sight of a horizon devoid of his ship was sharper than any dagger, but James refused to close his eyes. He could see now, and considering the cost, he should do his best to not forget it. “No.”
* * *
Now
Sight returned slowly to James. He blinked several times till the outlines of the shapes around him properly resolved themselves. Then he blinked one last time, because blind faith in what had been less a promise than a strange dark waver in the air was a fragile, fine-spun thing.
“Thank you very, Rob. Now run along,” Jack said, lightly but clearly dismissive. He casually swung one leg up so his foot rested on the narrow strip of chair between the edge of the seat and James’ left thigh. Then he took hold of the chair back and pulled himself fully onto James.
The second man grunted and walked towards the door. James never found out what he looked like because James didn’t bother to look.
Jack’s eyes moved restlessly around, mostly following the movements of his fingers, which were idly flicking their way down James’ front, but occasionally venturing other places. They lingered on James’ thigh. “Saw you walk in. You’ve got a good surgeon, whomever you see.”
The other man twisted slightly as he spoke, body moving like a slow flame. He wore no jacket, nor crossbelts over his dirty linen shirt, and the shirt itself was too large for his frame so it took little to make it slide off his shoulder. James’ gaze drifted to the knot of scar tissue there. “It aches. Too badly for me to sail till recently.”
“Aye, I know the feeling. Like an itch of hot pokers beneath the skin, isn’t it?” Jack turned one hand around so he could draw his knuckles along the edge of James’ shirt, catching cloth and skin. His knuckles grazed lightly over the bumps of James’ breastbone, fitting little shivers into the dips. “Wasn’t my sword-arm.”
“I know. It wasn’t supposed to be. At least, I know now it wasn’t. I don’t know if then it was.” It was humid in the room, so much so that James could nearly feel the steam condensing on his skin, but his mouth was as dry as bone. He shifted beneath Jack and the ropes bit pointedly into his wrists. The weight of the other man on his thighs stirred uncomfortable sensations in him.
Jack noticed, and deliberately rocked forward so they were pressed together groin to chest. His fingers strayed over the ropes, feathering along the lines of dull red pain that passed beneath each so James’ nerves sparked painfully to life. “Needed a lesson in hunting, did you?”
“This isn’t hunting. Jack.” It was the first time James had ever graced the man with his Christian name—if indeed he was one—and James put all the weight of its significance into the word. He twisted again so little jolts ran up and down his fingers and toes. The heat of their bodies lying against each other was beginning raise trouble between them.
“It is. Just isn’t the kind you want to recognize. Same with honor and debt.” With a slow, effortless motion, Jack lifted himself and undid his belt. His trousers fit him about as well as his shirt did, and without the belt’s restraint, the dark rough cloth slid easily over his lean thighs. The dustings of coarse dark hair that were revealed first quickly led to a thick crop of it nestling about a long, slender prick that was just beginning to blush. “It’s hunting.”
James closed his eyes, opened them, and it made no difference whatsoever to the difficulty he was having in taking a full breath. He flexed his legs, rolling them side-to-side as much as he could in an effort to burn off some of the agitation that was prickling beneath his skin. “This?”
“We all court the way we’re most inclined to. Wolves bring meat. Dolphins sing. I wager you’d prefer showing off the lines of your ship to dancing a quadrille. Or what you’ve been up to these past few months to idle chit-chat,” Jack said. It was surprisingly philosophical for him, but his tone turned the dry words into dusky, slinking things that coiled up beneath James’ skin. He leaned forward with mouth open.
James held perfectly still, but the brutal assault he’d been expecting did not occur. Instead he felt a delicate series of touches on his neck, slightly disconnected as if little fans were touching him. Then Jack moved and James understood it was due to the differences in pressure from Jack’s lips, the sweet mocking curve of them. Teasing. Again.
“I don’t have a ship,” James said bitterly, breathlessly. He moved a third time beneath Jack, ropes and chair straining to hold his knees together. His skin seemed to float to Jack’s fingers, every hair stiffly erect in prediction of the stirring between his legs.
“Oh, you’ll get another one.” Long twisting slide of tongue around the underside of James’ jaw, down the center of his throat so Jack could viscerally feel the bobbing of the apple there. And that was his intention, for he lingered there and when he finally left, the light sting of a circle of fresh teeth marks remained behind. “You’ll have your ship, and love her well, and she’ll be your hound over the sea.”
Jack’s hands dropped to James’ hips, fingers curling round the tops while the thumbs stroked down and forward, following the curve of the bone. They eased away the growing stricture of the trouser-fabric and then came up to pet the prick that rose free.
“But take better care of her, will you? Can’t be hunting the same grounds all the time, keeping an eye out for you.” Perhaps James stiffened, but Jack rose again so the shadows caressed him so closely James’ hands wrenched at his bonds without him telling them to. Jack smiled, and moved his hands over his thighs, stroked behind himself till suddenly the muscle in his jaw tightened, relaxed and he sighed a sound like honey. “Same for you. I’m one man, and the Spanish are beginning to annoy even me.”
“But—” James’ head lolled back, letting the rest of his words slip out and float unheard to the ceiling. He gasped and struggled as Jack settled himself back down on him, flesh clenching close but smooth around James’ prick. Hot indeed, and it sent the blood drumming an ancient invitation that he could not refuse.
Jack’s mouth came down on him again and James let his throat stay bare to it, to the teeth and tongue and lips that worked him so slowly to such a singing fever-pitch. He writhed without knowing the pain now, breath coming in fast animal pants that made his head spin. Once Jack’s hand dropped to graze James’ scarred leg and James jerked so they both gasped hard, so hard that the sound crashed like surf between them. Jack’s nails scored over James’ chest and arms and shoulders again and again, but such small scratches could not give release to the boiling up from James’ core.
He twisted and turned harder, faster, like an animal in the last throes of death, but it was a good death, a fighting death at the end of a long hard run and the final rush of black was a welcome thing. He gave himself up to it and fell back, limp as all the life rushed out of him.
But it crept back in, slower than the tides but steadier. Jack chuckled against him, fingers stroking the ridged scar slashing over James’ thigh, and James bent his head around till his mouth could graze the one on Jack’s shoulder.
“You’ll not be letting the Spanish go, will you? One happens to save your life—that still doesn’t make him a gentleman,” Jack murmured.
“Neither does it you.” James hissed as Jack’s teeth sank into the join of shoulder and neck. “No. I won’t. It’s not the same.”
Jack laughed again. “Not even close. Now, I was thinking of taking these ropes off of you…”
The look on his face as James lifted his arms and brought them round was worth a ship itself, though the stiffness of James’ muscles made him awkward and wincing. James rubbed at his wrists and smiled himself. “I am a sailor, Jack. I know knots. And now I think I know this.”
Jack tipped his head. After a moment, his teeth flashed and he descended, ravenous and frenzied. “I’d ask when, but—”
“That’s not how it goes,” James said, baring his own teeth.
* * *
A Week Later
Governor Swann stood a minute longer at the window, then turned to give James a careful, concerned look. “So you’re sure? You’ve done so much that I don’t quite feel justified in sending you out again unless you are completely ready.”
James nodded thoughtfully and ringed the wrist of one hand with the fingers of the other. He rubbed at the swollen, tender flesh there till it sang for him. “I am, sir. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready in my life.”
* * *
Hound Voice
William Butler Yeats
Because we love bare hills and stunted trees
And were the last to choose the settled ground,
Its boredom of the desk or of the spade, because
So many years companioned by a hound,
Our voices carry; and though slumber-bound,
Some few half wake and half renew their choice,
Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name – ‘hound voice.’
The women that I picked spoke sweet and low
And yet gave tongue. ‘Hound voices’ were they all.
We picked each other from afar and knew
What hour of terror comes to test the soul,
And in that terror’s name obeyed the call,
And understood, what none have understood,
Those images that waken in the blood.
Some day we shall get up before the dawn
And find our ancient hounds before the door,
And wide awake know that the hunt is on;
Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more,
Then stumbling to the kill beside the shore;
Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds,
And chants of victory amid the encircling hounds.
***