Apprentice To The Sorcerer

“All hands on deck!”

We spilled out of our hammocks at the call, raced to the main while still putting on belts and weapons. Jack stood at the helm, his hair blowing back in the wind and a big grin on his face. “We’re gathering barnacles me buckos,” he said. “It’s time to beach the Pearl and scrape her hull.”

We were close to a suitable cay, I saw. Ragetti was leading Miss Bishop into a boat. She would go ashore rather than stay aboard. I applauded Jack’s hesitation to attempt a careen with her on board. With the kind of luck she attracted, we’d no doubt spark the gunpowder somehow and blow us to bits.

I’d never experienced a careening before. My anticipation grew as we came nearer and nearer the cay at a decent speed. The water grew shallow. I copied the motions of other men, bracing myself against rail. When we ran aground it seemed quite alien to me. Ships were meant for water, not land.

We dropped down and began the process of flipping the Pearl onto one side. There were enough of us that it wasn’t too difficult, but the ship still made her protests known. All the boards that were slack on water suddenly flew up tight, flush to each other. The Pearl groaned and creaked as we settled her into a stable position.

“Where are we?” I quickly asked Gibbs as we grabbed knives. Parasites had to be scraped off of the wood as fast as possible so that wood could be mended and pitch applied. We were sitting ducks like this, beached with no recourse should we come under attack.

“Just passed Luanda, now coming up on the edge of the Congo,” Gibbs said, attacking a crusty formation with vigor. We were swarming over the side of the Pearl like vermin now, every man working as fast as possible. “Captain wanted us to do this in Madagascar, but the situation there made that impossible.”

“What situation?” I stepped aside as Langley and Hobbs hoisted Ragetti on their shoulders, putting him up higher so he could scrape a spot over their heads.

“The trouble you and the captain had weren’t isolated,” Gibbs replied. “We lost two of our crew to slavers and there weren’t a damn thing we could do about it!” He scraped vigorously now, his mouth drawn into a thin line of displeasure. “Too many blackbirders gathered there. Our men got taken. The captain feels right bad about it.”

“He would,” I answered, sighing. “The captain’s fair and decent.”

“Don’t be spreading that around or we’ll have a crew of all-adrift swabs,” Gibbs muttered.

“These are good men,” I defended.

“Aye, that they are, but they’ll not want to be hearin’ that,” Gibbs replied. “The words ‘good’ and ‘pirate’ don’t go together real well.”

As soon as we finished one side, we flipped the ship to the other side and started again. The pitch crew moved in as we moved away. Feeling more nasty than usual, I dove into the water. I fancied I could hear my skin hiss as the ocean took the sun’s heat away. When I surfaced, I saw Jack waving to me from the shore.

“With me, Lei,” he said, bringing out his compass. “You lads get the ship back out and wait. Watch Miss Bishop. If Lei and I aren’t back by sundown, stick to the code.” He called this out while aligning his body with the needle of the compass. “Lei, take my pistols,” he instructed me.

I took his brace.

“Follow me and don’t lag behind,” he said.

Sober, Jack moved on dry land like a drunk. There was an odd grace to his reeling pitch that put me in mind of the two black men my Father had sheltered for several months from a Portuguese man. They had practiced a strange, dance-like exercise on the grounds each morning.

We walked for nearly an hour before Jack took us up a hilly path. “Both pistols out and cocked,” Jack commanded. “One eye on the shrub, one eye on the canopy.” His compass needle showed we were going exactly where it pointed. More than a little bit disturbed, I tried to watch the sides of our path and the trees overhead while not walking into Jack’s back. It wasn’t as if he made such a thing easy, what with his listing stagger and sudden direction changes. By the time he stopped us I felt a nervous wreck.

I heard a soft, mewling noise from the underbrush. Jack motioned me to keep the pistol aimed. Gently, he parted a bit of the branches and leaves of a larger scrub. A large ball of black looked at us and hissed.

“Now, that’s no way to greet me,” Jack said, scruffing the kitten with a light hand. “After I came all this way to find you, too.” He stood, cradling the beast’s hindquarters with his other hand. “But I like spirit.”

The kitten chewed on his finger.

“Ouch.” Jack wiped blood on his breeches. Much as I was beginning to think blood had a natural contaminant in it, I suddenly wanted to lick his finger and taste him.

“This is what we came for?” I asked. “A cat?”

“A thwane,” Jack corrected. “I heard a man of science call them caracals.” He tucked the large kitten inside his coat. Only then did I notice he’d switched back to his old, blue coat. I felt a pang of guilt and quickly suppressed it.

“We have rats, Lei,” I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Jack said, taking the lead back toward the ship. “Keep your pistols ready, I don’t know where the mother to our new ship’s cat might be.”

“She’ll be big enough to worry with?” I swung the pistols side to side, mindful to keep my fingers mostly off the triggers.

“Some of them weigh more than forty pounds.” Jack threw his head backward to grin at me. “But they come out at night. Don’t know why this little one was just sitting out like that.”

“Because you asked for it?” I said, only half joking. Jack had a way of making things happen in his favor.

“I prefer to think of my method as harnessing chaos,” Jack parried.

“So what’s his name?” I asked, almost running in the effort to keep up with an energetic Jack Sparrow. The man had two speeds, stall and bolt.

“Her name is yet to be determined,” Jack said. “She has to show us her name.”

Jack’s unorganized spirituality never ceased to fascinate me.

We got back well in time to make ship. It surprised me how grown men, grown pirate men, reacted to the cat. I had to repress my mirth at the cooing, petting, baby-talking and fawning that went on. The thwane, though obviously confused, perched on Jack’s shoulder and stayed there despite the ruckus. Her mint green eyes and big ears zeroed in on anything that came close very quickly.

“Aye, she’ll take care of the rats,” Gibbs said. “Give her a few weeks and she’ll be big enough to hunt ‘em.”

“Mr. Gibbs,” Jack said, grinning, “Give her a few weeks and she’ll be nearly big enough to hunt us.”

Most of the men backed away at this bit of news. Jack looked around, eyes wide in confusion. “What? Size of a sheepdog, no bigger, I swear.” He patted his new cat on the head. “Besides, we have lots of rats.”

**************************************************************************************

Many of our guests disembarked in Freetown, but twelve of their number stayed with us. This seemed to disturb Miss Bishop, but none of us minded that at all. In fact, we stayed away from the wretched woman as much as possible. I knew the truth of her from Jack, and everyone else had seen enough to know she boded ill. Many of our crew wanted to send her off with the ex-slaves as their slave. Jack calmly reminded his crew of the ransom money he expected to receive, shutting the few dissenters up.

“She’s a valuable captive,” he said, turning at her gasp of shock. “I never said you weren’t, luv,” Jack said almost apologetically. “Fact of the matter is, your papa is where your wealth comes from. Any reward I might receive from you couldn’t compare to what I receive from him. Unless of course, you wish to change my mind by receiving me. I’m receptive to the idea you might succeed, though I doubt it.”

Of course, she slapped him. Will had mentioned Jack’s incredible talent for getting slapped one more than one occasion.

“You, you…you pirate!” she shouted. “As if I would give my virtue to the likes of you anyway!”

Oh honey, I thought. No need for that posturing.

Miss Bishop tore off her fashionable bonnet and stomped it flat. Almost instantly the wind died. It simply died. Our sails sagged. Our momentum became the only thing propelling us around Cape Verde, but it too quickly died. Oblivious to anything but her own temper, Miss Bishop continued to throw a hissy fit right on the poop deck. “I hope you get captured and hung, and inside this year, too!” She picked up her ruined hat and threw it at Jack. It flopped miserably in the air and landed with an inaudible sigh at his bare feet.

I couldn’t stop the snicker that clawed its way out from my mouth. Miss Bishop whirled on me. “And you, you snot-nosed little quack! Discussing my bowel movements with your negro brother, door open, and not a care in the world to your volume! You nearly poisoned me with all that ginger! I couldn’t sleep for having to fart!”

Now the whole ship had to laugh. Miss Bishop turned purple, realizing what she’d said. Her eyes nearly crossed in her head, and her fists balled up. She took two good swings at me, which I blocked with hardly a thought. I caught her flailing arms and pinned them behind her. “Settle down,” I barked. “No one’s hurt you, though we’ve wanted to, you can bet. The captain’s the only reason you haven’t been harmed. On any other ship you’d be in the brig, with the rats, if not keeping the captain warm at night.” I dragged her over to her “sunning chair” and forced her into it.

“You can’t treat me like this!” Miss Bishop kicked me in the shin so hard I thought she might have broken it. “I’m the granddaughter of Joshua Bishop!”

I bent down and looked her in the eyes, mere inches from her face. Lowering my voice so that only she could hear me, I addressed her plainly. “You are a cunt to fill, do you hear me? A woman is nearly worthless at sea. Pirates rape their female captives very often, then slit their throats and dump them. Often, when not killed, the captive is dragged home wishing she were dead. After that she waits to see if she’s pregnant. If she is, she might still have to kill herself.”

Miss Bishop’s eyes were large enough to swallow me, but I went on.

“Captain Sparrow has given you privacy, food, comfort, spirits, the means to bathe, and treated you like Cleopatra. He doesn’t have to do this. He doesn’t have to deliver you to your family, safe and sound. He could do as he liked and no one here would raise a hand to stop him.” Better for her to hear the brutal truth about pirates than remain a fool. Perhaps she wouldn’t go home with a colorful, gay tale to tell her socialite friends.

“You’d better be good to him while you’re here, or his protection might run out.” I warned. “Imagine spending the rest of your time on the Pearl as a sex slave, getting handed off from one man to the next until your cunt’s ready to fall out. But don’t worry, when your cunt’s no good there’s always your arsehole, and then your mouth. But your mouth will probably be sore from sucking cock while you get fucked.”

I leaned in even closer, pushing her further back into her chair. “I suggest you make amends, stay silent, remain thankful of your treatment, and keep out of sight. If I were you I’d go home and marry the first soldier father snatches up. Your virtue is non-existent now that you’ve been traded from a slaver to a pirate vessel. When people find out where you’ve been and with whom, they won’t check for your hymen. They’ll just assume your virtue compromised and stamp a big, fat S on your dance card. S stands for slut.”

I’d released all my vitriol. Stepping back, I walked over to the rail to examine my leg. I heard Miss Bishop get up and apologize to Jack with a shaking voice. He accepted her apology and asked that she confine herself to his cabin for several hours. In a few minutes he drifted over to where I stood and gazed down upon the spectacular, bleeding dent in my shin. “Women hit hard,” he commented.

“Do you want me to call the wind, Captain Sparrow?” I asked tightly but also politely. I felt angry with him too. He needn’t have encouraged the odious woman to fawn all over him. Everything was a game to Jack Sparrow. He enjoyed springing Miss Bishop’s real status on her, even threw in a good sexual innuendo on the tail-end of his bewildering vocabulary, just for good measure. He knew she’d hit him. He hadn’t cared. He probably had hide like those armored rodents in Madagascar.

“You’re actually angry with me, aren’t you Lei?” Jack said, no trace of a smile.

I rolled the leg of my breeches down, feeling my shoulders tense. “Not so much,” I confessed, feeling very tired all of a sudden. “I can’t be angry with you for wanting a bit of fun, but you knew she was going to hit you.”

Jack looked out over the horizon. His eyes reflected the reddish light, making him look almost supernatural. “It’s nice to know I ‘ave someone watchin’ out for my int’rests,” he said in a soft slur.

“Not your interests,” I said, tired of dancing around Jack. “I’m concerned for your safety. I don’t want to sail under any other captain and I don’t want to sail on any other ship.”

Jack smiled. “Lad, you’re a young one yet. If you make it to old age in this vocation, it’s rare. You’ll have other ships and other captains if you decide the sea means that much to you.”

“If you die, the Pearl loses five in that minute,” I countered. “Gibbs, Ragetti, Mokulu and Pintel have all said as much. Cotton wouldn’t be far behind. Marty too.”

“Ye’d leave me precious ship to the ones that know her least?” Jack gave me a serious look, one that shook me to my bones. “Make Gibbs yer captain and go on sailing, do you hear me lad?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Jack patted me on the shoulder. “Go on Lei; make us a nice, friendly breeze around the cape.”

I took my pipes up and complied.