Apprentice To The Sorcerer

I was getting used to waking up with something on my chest. This time I opened my eyes to find a heavy book lying on me. Dissertationes Medicae, the title read, by Archibald Pitcairne. Translated into English in 1715, the book barely had time to travel from England to this continent.

A slip of paper fell out as I opened to the first page.

For your studies.
Jack

His handwriting took my breath away. It looked like nothing a pirate should employ. Neat, elegant and sharp, his letters nonetheless curved and arced beautifully. The handwriting of a scholar and a dreamer…

Why had he signed it Jack instead of Captain Jack?

Since no one had come to awaken me, I assumed we were not yet ready to make land. I found out why upon I gaining the deck. A ship aggressively approached us at full sail, showing a blackjack. We were not yet anchored and the men were awaiting orders. Jack fetched me with the crook of his finger, smiling. “You must have a weather eye, Lei,” he said. “Yon Madeline gives me a bad feeling.”

“Aye, I don’t like the cut of her jib,” Gibbs said. “We better be ready for a fight.”

Jack nodded, raised his spyglass. “Not part of the brotherhood,” he murmured. “All cimaroon’s to readiness,” he suddenly bellowed out to the crew. Mokulu was among those dark men who stood attentive, his cutlass out and his white teeth shining like ivory. Jack grinned at them all. “I got me a feelin’,” he slurred. “These mates be your kind of prey. Fair ye should get first shot.”

“Cimaroon’s?” I whispered to Gibbs.

“Aye, Jack took twenty men from a palenque,” Gibbs said softly. “We have all but two now, lost a pair in Madagascar.” Gibbs swigged from his flask, looking slightly worried. “Escaped slaves don’t take kindly to slavers,” he added. “Looks like we got something going on here that we shouldn’t.”

“It’s a conundrum,” Ragetti said sadly. “Pirates don’ normally run slaves. Those that do must have hidden agendas.”

“I don’ know a quarter what you say anymore,” Pintel complained. “Stop usin’ them stupid words.”

“Now Mr. Pintel,” Jack said, his gravely voice half soothing and half admonishing. “Mr. Ragetti is only trying to broaden his horizons. We should all approach learning with his enthusiasm and philosophical slant.” He raised his glass again. “Yes, she means trouble,” he said, speaking of the approaching ship.

Seconds later, a cannonball went into the sea barely five meters from our position.

“Lads,” Jack barked, lowering the spyglass. “No quarter. Take their prisoners without pain and their plunder without principles.” His face looked carved from rock.

Another cannonball fell just short of us. “No decent shot,” Gibbs muttered, but he already had the men working the lines while Jack guided the Black Pearl to port. Our cannons fired a volley that immediately took out the enemy vessel’s main mast and tore a line of destruction through the deck.

“That’s it buckos,” Jack shouted. “Hammer the waterline now, smartly!”

The return fire smashed off a significant portion of our top forcastle. They still weren’t firing straight.

Our canons ripped into the ship’s belly. The Black Pearl came alongside the Madeleine and we began to board. “With me, Lei,” Jack said firmly, putting me at his left. “This be a good time for a bit of instruction.”

I killed same as we all did. I didn’t have time for moral dilemmas or mercy. Men, angry men with nothing to lose swarmed us, and we cut them down as fast as they came.

Jack killed four men before I even engaged in combat, and wounded four more while I fought. We guarded each other, though neither of us spoke to arrange it as such. I felt blood and sweat trickling down my neck, raising a sting between my shoulder blades. My heart raced. My palms sweated. The screams of dying men deafened me.

I had never felt so alive.

Quiet descended as we overtook the crew of the Madeline. We had been outnumbered four to one, at least, but we had triumphed.

“The Captain?” Jack asked coldly of Gibbs.

“Alive. Layin’ under the guns ‘e was, the coward,” Gibbs spat.

“Strap him to one,” Jack replied. “Strap his second right beside him.” His attention lay at his hands, where he tightened and adjusted the wraps that covered his palms. “All other survivors save cargo, line up.”

Jack said nothing as I cleaned and covered a cut on his arm. I almost felt as if he didn’t know I tended to him. His rust colored eyes drifted over the forcibly assembled men, showing not a shred of emotion. I had never seen him like this. He seemed a remote and merciless adjudicator, untouched by human feelings. It frightened me to see him so, yet also I felt attracted to his power. He had the unenviable duty of dealing justice, of pleasing his more bloodthirsty men while drawing an ephemeral line in the sand for the sake of his gentler crew. He had to simultaneously balance fiend and friend, pirate and protector, beast and man. He did it all very well and I admired him for it.

Once the captain of the Madeline and his second in command were hauled forward, they began to thrash and scream. The death in Jack’s eyes told them all they needed to know. This was not a ruse to frighten them for a cut in profit. The captain twisted to face Jack even as he got dragged to one of his own cannons. “You don’t know what you’re doing!” he shouted, voice cracking in desperation. “There will be hell to pay for this, mark me! I am-.”

“I don’ need to know yer name,” Jack uttered, voice dark and smooth. As he spoke he handed me his pistols and began to take off his sash. “But I wouldn’t mind others knowing mine,” he added. “Especially your kind.” So saying, he tore the sash in half and stuffed one end into the Captain’s mouth. The first mate received the other end of the sash, also between the lips.

Mokulu and Jacoby wrestled the fighting captain over the rail. Pintel lashed the man’s hands to the rings in the deck while Ragetti secured his lower half. As soon as the other man had been treated the same, Jack spoke again.

“The first mate should be first, shouldn’t he?” he mused aloud. “I suppose it would give the captain here a chance to pray.”

At his signal, Langley lit the fuse on the cannon.

Of course, I had never seen anything to compare to the sight of a man being blown in half. I only caught the barest glimpse of bowels before they vaporized under the impact of a ten pound shot. Blood sprayed fast and hard but not far, surprisingly. I caught myself inching up to see the exposed ends of his remaining spine.

The captain of the Madeline screamed but we couldn’t hear him very well, naturally. He was a fat man and so there was more left of him than of the first mate. Pintel cut free the remains of both and let them fall into the sea.

The entire ship inhaled as Jack turned to face what remained of the crew. One man stepped forward. “I was pressed,” he said.

I didn’t believe him and neither did anyone else. He had fought as viciously as his friends, grinning ear to ear all the while.

There came many cries of a similar claim then, a veritable chorus of innocence. Jack turned his back to all of them. “What slaves still live, get them on deck,” he commanded. Mokulu and a few others went down into the ship’s belly. The poor creatures they helped to the light had a difficult time adjusting. My heart squeezed at the way they staggered around, at the sheer enormity of their physical neglect.

Open sores dominated these walking skeletons. They reeked of their own bodily functions. Most of them had old injuries turning septic in the squalid conditions of their transport. They shambled around the deck, supported by men who felt brave enough to do the job. Jack whispered a few words to Mokulu, who in turn addressed the pitiful men. He listened to their varying responses, his dark face even darker for the scowl upon it. “All of dem,” he said to Jack finally. “Dey all be guilty.”

Jack nodded as if he’d expected such. “Take them on board the Pearl,” he said, motioning to the slaves. “The dead go overboard. The most injured, find a place for.” He turned smartly, looking at all of us. “I expect Lei to have plenty of help tending to our guests,” Jack said warningly. “But those of you without the stomach for med’cin can be useful anyhow.” He put his sword in its sheath and straightened his hat, his dark eyes cold and ruthless once more. “Hang ‘em,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the crew of the Madeline.

Being what served as a physician or surgeon, I didn’t have to be part of the hanging committee. I followed Jack and roughly half of our crew back to the Pearl. Once there I set Mr. Cotton and Mr. Gibbs beside of me and set up a place to examine and treat the slaves. “Wash your hands in clean water, with soap,” I said briskly to them both. “Don’t dry off on a dirty rag. Pour some of these spirits in a pan,” I said, showing them the basin and the Tia Dalma’s alcohol. “You think someone needs a bandage, you wipe them off with the liquid here and then throw the dirty cloth overboard.”

Gibbs and Cotton looked mutinous at the idea of washing up, but they did it silently. I felt glad of it. If one couldn’t look around and see the results of cleanliness with wounds, one wasn’t paying attention. No man I treated had an injury go septic.

“And roll up your sleeves first,” I barked at them as they reached for the soap. “What’s the purpose of washing your hands only to get your dirty sleeves in the wound?”

“Aawwwk! Admiral Bossy on deck!” Cotton’s bird squawked. I glowered at Cotton.

We raised our heads at a commotion between ships. Ragetti and Pintel escorted a young woman from the Madeline, each man doing his best to be chivalrous. I almost laughed aloud at their clumsiness, but my duty was just too somber to get it out. As I bandaged men and examined wounds, I caught glimpses of Jack talking to the woman.

She looked too fresh to be out on the sea long. Her milky skin gleamed where her parasol failed to block the sun. She wore a long yellow dress. A large trunk sat at her feet. She looked thrilled to talk to Jack.

I narrowed my eyes, homing in on the pair of them. Jack smiled his usual, charming smile and she nearly swooned into his arms. Rage settled over me like a mantle. I swiftly tended to the man in front of me, darting quick glances up to make sure I didn’t miss something.

“Her name’s Arabella Bishop,” Gibbs said lowly, to me and Cotton. “I recognize her right well enough. She’s the granddaughter of Joshua Maynard Bishop, my old commanding officer.” He tied off a knot while he spoke, stopping just short of tearing the excess off with his teeth by my warning glare. He cleared his throat, looking sheepish. “But anyway,” he went on, “She’s a right troublemaker. Her father’s tried to marry ‘er off nine times.”

“What would she be doing on a slaver?” I wondered aloud.

“Maybe she was to marry the captain of the Madeline?” Gibbs said. “Jack never bothered to know his name and I didn’t know the man.”

“Aawwwk! Cast the grappling hooks!”

The parrot’s phrase made my head shoot up. I looked up just in time to see Arabella Bishop place her delicate, snowy hand on Jack’s shoulder and shove playfully. Jack grinned at her, his head cocked to the side like a weasel’s. Her light, crisp laughter floated over the entire deck. Jack offered her his arm.

“There’s trouble,” Gibbs muttered. “I wouldn’t touch that with someone else’s cock.”

“Aawwwwk! Rats in the barrel, rats in the barrel,” the parrot cried.

Not a rat, I thought hatefully, a weasel.