Apprentice To The Sorcerer

It was past curfew when Mokulu and I stumbled into our slings. We’d sat on deck with the night crew, making them wish they were off duty as well. I felt hammered, well past my limit. Groaning, I flopped into my hammock and stared straight up into Jack’s face. “Taking the fresh night air?” he enquired softly.

“Yes, sir,” I said quickly. “We lost track of time, I’m sorry.”

“As long as you didn’t smoke or have a lamp,” Jack said mildly.

“No, no light. Mokulu and I merely sat with a bottle.” I answered.

“Looks like a bottle sat on you, mate,” Jack said. “I thought you well adapted to rum.”

“It was two bottles,” I corrected myself. “One for me, one for Mokulu.”

“Your entire ration and his too?” Jack’s lips twitched.

“Mostly,” I confessed. “We won a bottle from Lonny.”

Jack smiled. “Go to sleep lad,” he said. “You’re going to meet morning soon enough.”

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My success in treating Miss Bishop left me infuriated. All I’d done was release her from the cabin, setting her loose on Jack. All day she hovered close to him, asking him questions and talking up a storm. And Jack didn’t seem to mind a bit.

“She be shameless,” Mokulu commented. “Any woman treat her body like service be unclean.” He picked my bandage free as he spoke. We stared down at the perfect symbol together, both of us pleased. The brand in the middle represented a snake. Because it had been burned as well as blackened by ash, the skin was raised both on the symbol and the circle.

“I like it,” I said. “You never told me what the snake meant.”

“Snake is my family,” Mokulu said proudly, puffing out his massive chest. “Our totem, our animal. Snake is sly, clever, and deadly, going where no other may go. Any from my country know you have snake brother. You be respected.”

Indeed, I found the truth of that when Mokulu and I next made our rounds to the slaves. As soon as my forearm came into sight, the men would look me in the eyes. Before, they had avoided my gaze. They sat very still for me and didn’t make the slightest move even as I approached. They did respect the mark.

We were washing up when I got a summons from Jack. I found him in his cabin. Thankfully, Miss Bishop wasn’t with him. “Ah, Lei,” Jack said, motioning me in. “I think my stitches are ready to come out. Will you have a look-see?”

Certainly I would have a look. While I was at it I’d look for nail marks on his back.

No sooner did Jack have his upper body bared, Miss Bishop came in. She took one look at us and gasped, averting her eyes. “My apologies,” she said, inching backward for the hatch.

“We’re not having sex,” I muttered under my breath. “Shrinking violet.”

Jack apparently didn’t hear me, to my gratitude. “What can I do for ye Miss Bishop?” He asked. “I’m about to have stitches removed, but it won’t take long.”

Miss Bishop pretended to reluctantly make eye contact with Jack, but her eyes told the lie of it. She greedily examined his upper body, her gaze lingering on the two black spots on Jack’s upper right breastbone. “You’ve been injured!” she exclaimed. “Who has done this to you?”

“Our occupation is hazardous,” Jack said easily. “We don’ know the names of those we fight, usually.”

“Such a dangerous thing, to be a pirate,” Miss Bishop murmured, moving closer to Jack. I snipped through the threads on his side, wanting to stab on through my handiwork. But the scar wouldn’t be as bad as I thought, even after what Will had done. I put the clamps to the threads and gently began to pull them out, dropping the bits in a pan.

“Have you ever thought of becoming a privateer, or of taking a land occupation?” Miss Bishop went on. “You might live longer.” She was close enough now that I could smell her violet perfume. It made me faintly nauseated. Ever since my bath in Madagascar and the subsequent alcoholic stupor, my stomach twinged upon the scent of violets.

“England welcomes reformed pirates, don’t you know? It’s only out here on the ocean that your head has a price.” Miss Bishop batted her eyelashes at Jack.

Jack laughed quietly. “Would you sponsor me, Miss Bishop?” he asked. “Would you vouch for my change of character?”

“Most certainly,” Miss Bishop breathed, moving even closer to Jack. She blocked my light now, and I just couldn’t stand the smell of her. I imagined every stitch I cut and pulled to be her eyes. “My father knows the worth of a seafaring man, and so do I.”

“I’m sure,” Jack murmured. “But I don’t think I’m ready to change vocations just yet. Still a lot o’ sea to sail.”

I pulled the last bit of thread out and fetched the ointment. If his injury wasn’t kept supple for awhile it could break open. Newly healed cuts as deep as this were somewhat fragile. Smearing a bit on my finger, I lightly rubbed inside the tracks of the wound. The smell of arnica made my nose twinge.

“But Captain Sparrow,” Miss Bishop murmured, taking yet another step closer to Jack. “The sea is a cruel mistress. Wouldn’t you rather have a kind, gentle mistress?”

I stood up so quick I overbalanced Miss Bishop. She stumbled back from me, her face darkening with a scowl of displeasure. “Instead of these uncouth boys and rough men,” she went on, using me as an example. “They are not a safe harbor, after all.”

“You’d be surprised how safe a harbor they can be,” I interrupted. “Please hold your arm out just a little bit, Captain, so I can see how these stitches want to pull.”

“You mean you-.” Miss Bishop shivered. “I’ve heard about men preferring each other,” she said, her voice lowering to a stage whisper. “It is true?”

“Not so much on this ship,” Jack said, obeying me. “I have sailed with others who enjoy a man’s bottom rather than a woman’s concha.” Jack winked at her. “I am not one of them.”

“I never thought you could be,” Miss Bishop sighed, batted her eyelashes at Jack. Apparently she didn’t know concha meant cunt. I’d heard the word a thousand times since I started to sail. “This one,” she pointed at me, “I could believe.”

I turned my face toward her and bared my teeth. “One arsehole is the same as another,” I informed her.

“Lei,” Jack said warningly.

“Yes sir, sorry sir,” I answered, not a bit sorry and it showed in my voice. “Please hold still, sir.” I cut his arm stitches and began pulling them out.

“You must be a good captain; your crew listens to you. Captain Reuben’s crew barely listened to anything he said.” Miss Bishop sat in a chair in front of Jack, staring directly at his tight, rippling midsection. “I think it’s a good thing when a captain knows how to give orders.” Her eyes flicked up to his. Very slowly, her pink tongue came out to swipe her upper lip. Her innuendo could not have been more obvious.

Jack, grinning, stared down at Miss Bishop. “You know how to take orders, Miss Bishop?” he asked lazily. “Could you go down in the hold and stay there until I asked you to come?”

I gritted my teeth so hard I heard them creak. Slapping the ointment on his bicep, I then examined the cut on his forearm. It looked fine. Jack and Miss Bishop were looking at each other, silently. I cleaned the area around the cut again, put a dab of spirits to it, and wrapped it in a new bandage.

“I’m very good at going down to the hold,” Miss Bishop murmured warmly.

“You look fine, Captain Sparrow,” I said briskly, stowing my instruments without cleaning them. I would go down myself, to the galley and get away from these two oversexed pigs. No, a pig and one weasel. “Try to be gentle to those larger wounds until the skin around them has toughened up.”

“I can be gentle,” Jack murmured in reply, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Make sure you are, sir,” I answered. “Some things are more delicate than others.” I snapped my bag shut and stood, waiting for my dismissal.

“Thank you Lei,” Jack drawled. “After your shift this afternoon, drop by.”

I nodded and left.

All the way to the galley I fumed, furious at Jack and disgusted with myself for even caring who he bedded. It wasn’t like I ever intended to reveal myself, so why did I care if Jack slaked his natural thirst when he could. Miss Bishop handed herself to him on a silver platter. What pirate could resist?

Emptying the pan of stitches into the fire, I washed it out and put it back in my kit. Mokulu entered, looked at me, and closed the hatch. “I be thinking,” he said. “My bibi talk about live water and dead water when I just a boy. She say live water for hot day in sun and dead water for drinking.”

Despite my preoccupation with Jack and Miss Bishop, I heard him. Intrigued, I stopped digging around in my medical bag and looked at him. “What’s the difference?”

“All I can know is dead water be water that boiled.” Mokulu looked thoughtful. “Could we boil water to kill de unseen t’ing that make people sick?” He scratched his head. “Bibi wash clothes for money, in big vat on fire. She boil water for everyt’ing, to clean home, to clean herself, to drink, to water plants.”

“But why?”

“I know not. She had head problem. She wise woman though.” Mokulu looked thoughtful. “She never sick. We never sick while we live with her.”

“Let’s try it,” I said. “I pulled the captain’s stitches out just now. We can boil the scissors and clamps.”

“Boil it all,” he said, pointing to my scalpels. “You clean dem, I see you, but dey may not be clean now.”

We dumped all my metal instruments in a pot and set it on the stove. Mokulu leaned back on the table and looked down at me. “Hodari,” he said quietly. “You be in love wit’ de captain.”

I didn’t bother to deny it. It would taste a lie. “Long time now,” I admitted. “It won’t get in the way of what I do.”

“I believe you.” Mokulu thought for a moment, his eyes going misty. “But Hodari, why is love a t’ing to be in de way?”

“It’s mean to try and tame a wild animal,” I said. “If you can’t appreciate their beauty where they belong, you don’t deserve to see them.” I busied myself with checking the number of bandages I had left. “He’s a free man, Mokulu, and he’s always wanted this freedom. I can’t take it away from him. I couldn’t bear to see him captured and tamed.”

“You know de captain before I do,” Mokulu observed. “Where you know him from? Why do he not know you the way you know him?”

“He saved my life in Port Royal,” I said, remembering the day with pleasure. My nipples tingled at the image of him crouched over me, dripping wet, his brown eyes staring into mine as he lifted the gold medallion from my breast. “My father is the governor. He had bought me a new dress and a corset for James Norrington’s advancement ceremony, hoping I would find a match with him. My corset had been laced too tight and I fell off the edge of the rampart in a dead faint. Captain Sparrow saw me fall and retrieved me from the bottom of the sea.”

Mokulu’s eyes grew wide. “He save your life.”

“Yes, but I was grateful perhaps for all of four minutes, when he held me hostage to save his own neck,” I said, grinning. “If you want me to tell you more, you’ll have to wait until our shift. Not much chance of being overheard in the rigging.”

“I take you up on it,” Mokulu said seriously.