Change in the House of Flies

::Change in the House of Flies::

 

 

 

*~Chapter One~*

 

 

A Passage of Five Years:

 

 

 

Through the smoky, alcohol-filled haze of the tavern vaguely
human shapes jostle and stumble about like pieces in some heathen’s game board.
Whores dressed in patched taffeta skirts and tight bodices flit about in the
manner of cannibalistic butterflies. At a shadowed t pus pushed back from the
noisy and noisome rabble, one of many such tables, a favorite rumor is making
the rounds.

 

“I ‘eard they cut off ‘is ‘ead and sent it in a barrel of
good red wine,” says one of the disreputable men at the table. The gauntlet is
thrown and the others must reveal a rumor of the governor’s son-in-law’s demise
to top that.

 

“Well, that may be,” retorts another, stroking his salt and
pepper beard. “But I be havin’ it on good, solid evidence that they sent his
peeled and pickled skin back in a clay pot.” The first man scoffs but the
others applaud. The man with the beard leans back in his chair. He looks
supremely confident.

 

“My sister knows a maid workin’ in th’ guvnor’s house,” a
ginger-haired sailor announces grandly. “She says th’ pirates cut off a part of
th’ lad and sent it every time th’ money wussunt paid. Th’ fingers and th’ toes
and so on ‘till they’d sent the ‘tire body over, piece by piece.” The sailor
grins and accepts a tankard passed his way. The first two tale-tellers mutter
about the improbability of the upstart’s account.

 

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, you all have it wrong.” A thin,
waspish man shoves his way into the throng of revelers. “The pirates did
something far worse.” Eager for the macabre, the men angle towards the man like
blighted flowers to the sun. “They cut of the boy’s—” Here he clears his throat
and stares pointedly at the first man’s lap. The men sitting about the rickety
table pale noticeably and shift to hide their endowments from imagined
attackers.

 

“Ridiculous!” the redhead blusters. The other men take up
the chorus of incredulity and drive the stranger from their midst. Feeling like
true men, they settle back down to drink and tale.

 

Only later, when it comes time to pay the bill for this
night’s depravity, will they realize that their loads have been lightened by
the loss of their coin purses.

 

*~*~*~*

 

While the Black Pearl is careened[1] under the
capable management of the carpenter, Captain Jack Sparrow takes a moment to
borrow a nearby fishing boat—it’s owners having decided to make a jaunt
inland—and investigate the trading possibilities at a nearby harbor town. His
main goal, though, is the appropriation of a new cutlass, his other having gone
the way of a certain English monarch: beheaded, as it were. The blade and hilt
had a disagreement during a flurry of blows and decided to seek their fortunes
separately. This was all well and good for them, but Jack had been left in a
tight spot, which had only been remedied by the sudden and fortuitous pitching
of the merchant sloop’s deck. He hates it when the prize fights back.

 

He lands and strands the boat on a sandbar to the southeast
of the town. Humming a jaunty tune where the nonsensical words ‘yo-ho-ho’ play
a key part, he wades to shore. Wet but confidant he promenades into town.

 

The harbor town, with its jutting wharves, is no great point
in the traffic of goods. There are no warships standing guard, no fort
battlements bristling with canons and red-coated men, and no appointed
governor. A loose affiliate of prominent traders maintains a volunteer militia
to keep watch over the transient population of seafarers. Jack learns all of
this from the varied and various denizens he manages to charm with his casual
and carefree friendliness.

 

His rolling, seemingly inebriated stride leads him
faithfully among the dirt/mud streets and loose plank buildings. Every once and
a while he pauses, still swaying and fluttering his elegant hands, to ask some
innocent person the location of the local blacksmith to which he adjusts his
course accordingly. In such a manner he finds himself before a building
smelling of smoke and metal.

 

For a moment he is transported to years previous and to a
similar shop under dissimilar circumstances. Perhaps, if he closes his dark
eyes, the matched stomp of soldiers’ feet and hysterical cries of confused
townsfolk will fill the air; and if he slips inside, hands now manacled, he
will only have to wait a little while till a young man with honest hazel eyes
enters. Then he could play his hand differently.

 

Or maybe not.

 

Young Will Turner had been a right stick at that particular
encounter, and for several more after that.

 

“Bloody stupid idiot,” Jack murmurs fondly. The sign above
the door says “Gow” and not “Brown.” There will be no righteous young Turner
awaiting a duel inside.

 

“So you know Mister Gow as well?” The pirate whirls around,
brandishing the broken sword. He finds himself threatening a small, balding man
of firm build and only the slightest hint of having let himself go. “You won’t
be fighting too well with that, son,” the man informs him serenely.

 

“I’m here”—Jack nods at the blacksmith’s door—“to remedy
that.”

 

“Splendid!”

 

“Indeed, mate.” He sheathes his blade and turns to enter
said shop of armaments. However, the curious and knowing gaze of the stout,
little man stalls him. He spins back to find the man regarding him in the
manner of a person in possession of a critical piece of intelligence but does
not know if he should share it.

 

Jack decides to haste the deliberation.

 

“You look like a man who knows something that maybe I should
be wanting to know as well.”

 

“Are you, then, a man who might find great need of a reliable
and trustworthy blade?” The pirate flashes a gold-toothed grin.

 

“Aye, that be me.”

 

The little man nods and makes a noise of apparent
satisfaction. “Then I doubt Mister Gow’s offerings would please you. To be
fair, he is an excellent smith of common goods, but his blades are merely
serviceable.”

 

“Then I suspect you know of a place, mate, where I might
find an edge more than ‘serviceable’?” Jack enjoys the dance of words as much
as that of combat or sex. He might have added rum to the list, but he finds,
more often than not, rum is the cause of dance and not a dance in itself.

 

“True, but a man who does disservice to his weapon”—pointed
look at Jack’s—“only needs a serviceable one.” Jack nods solemnly.

 

“But you see, sir, this sword has served me faithfully since
I first lifted it as a whelp, and only now has it gone to seek its eternal
reward.” He winks gamely and performs a little bow. The little man smiles ever
so slightly.

 

“Excellent. Follow me.” With an amused grin and a quick
glance around, Jack does what he is told for the second or third time in his
life. He matches the man’s choppy gait with his own rolling stride.

 

As they wend their way up through the maze of streets and
dingy buildings, a sudden thought strikes the cheerful rogue. “You wouldn’t
happen to be a rival blacksmith, now would you? Perhaps pilfering a bit of
business?” He highly doubts this, taking in the lack of grime and forge residue
on the man’s clothing, but he is curious.

 

“Goodness, no,” the man laughs. “I make my trade as a chirurgeon[2],
physician and dentist hereabouts.”

 

“A sort of jack-of-all-trades, only less trades and more
medicine orientated, then?”

 

“Yes, but I prefer being a chirurgeon.” Jack gives his
companion a strange look, which goes unnoticed as the little man is puffing
along quite contentedly.

 

“So what be your name, goodly butcher?” The stout, little
man quirks an eyebrow at Jack and smiles genially.

 

“Smith.” The pirate blinks twice in mild surprise but never
loses his stride.

 

“‘Smith’?”

 

“Aye, Arthur J. Smith.”

 

“Fancy that,” Jack drawls as he curls one end of his
moustache. “I be a Smith here, too.” The little man’s smile broadens into a
smile of indulgent amusement.

 

“Many here are Smiths, but I was born to my last name.”

 

“Interesting.”

 

As if to emphasize this statement, a sudden gust of mephitic
harbor wind runs past them. Loose cloth flaps as the scents of low tide, salt
and human and animal refuse swirl up and then recede. These smells, fragrances
to Jack, all speak of familiarity. No matter where he anchors, whether it be in
the sultry Caribbean or the boreal waters up north, these towns, perched
precariously upon curvatures of land and washed in the amniotic fluids of the
Earth, are the same. People might wear different coifs and speak languages
unfamiliar, but they all smell the same. Jack likes that.

 

Soon the loose-board houses of the common rabble give way to
the brick and plaster of the well-to-do traders and men of greater means. Mr.
Smith lives upon the threshold, or, perhaps, the cusp, of these two walks of
life. A neatly painted sign proclaims the little man’s collective practices
from atop an especially tall fence post of pale wood. The house itself possesses
many airy windows to catch the redolent ocean breezes and two stories. Behind
the house a tracery of smoke rises into the cloudless sky and vigorous
hammering of metal against metal abuses the air.

 

“So you weren’t lying. You are what you say. And I do
believe that be the sound of a blacksmith.” The man’s gives a halcyon smile, neither
smug nor aggrieved at the pirate’s apparent lack of confidence.

 

“I have a young man in my employ (how he came to be that is
quite a tale, though for another day) and he crafts—or perhaps I should say
‘gives birth to’—weapons of most extraordinary quy. Ay. All edges are custom
and seem to more of an extension of the hand, than some strange implement or
tool.”

 

“Apart from extolling this pup’s virtues, have you any
experience with blade?” Jack asks wryly. He doesn’t say so, but he knows—or
rather knew—one of the greatest swordsmiths of the Caribbean. The
techniques of young Turner know no equal in the pirate’s eyes. Everyone else
will always find second ranking in his mind.

 

“I cut people open, sir. My swords might not be as long as
some, but they are far more accurate.” The layers of innuendo permeating the
chirurgeon’s words are enough to asphyxiate a man. The pirate settles on a
feral smirk and a noncommittal noise.

 

“The door is around back. It’s likely Black, that’s the
youth’s name, won’t hear you, so just shout or something when you enter.”

 

Jack tips and imaginary hat and sashays through the gate and
makes his swaying way to the back of the house. The banging, previously
shielded by the bulk of the house, becomes more pronounced and quite annoyingly
repetitive. Bang. Bang. Bang.

 

This is why Jack loathes the land. On the ocean the sounds
are lyrical and full of subtle melodies and chords. The land rips harmony away
in bloody tears and leaves behind discordant and flat tones. Water moves in
unbounded beauty. Earth squats in its own rigidity. Unfortunately for Jack,
most people cannot seem to realize or see this and spend altogether too much
time and effort on land. In his mind he imagines huge floating communities held
together by the melodic call of waves, no more permanently placed than flotsam.
Everything one now finds on land, blacksmiths, kingdoms, et cetera,
would bob up and down upon oceans and currents. Jack fully subscribes to the
idea of the possession of land being the origination of all inequality and
unhappiness; though, he concedes, without all those fools beholden to bits of
dirt, there wouldn’t be much in the way of piracy as he knows it. Gold and
other bits of shiny metals that cause men to bloody their hands in their
neighbor’s intestines wouldn’t hold value.

 

Shaking his head, careful of not setting the ornaments in
his hair to pendulous movements, he dismisses the rather bad Natural
Philosopher in his soul and approaches the source of such obstreperous
ejaculations. The forge proves to be of expensive red brick of decent
proportions. Jack is put in mind of a large oven designed by overenthusiastic
cannibals. Yet the banging continues unremittingly, so one must safely assume
that there is no baking of persons taking place inside—at least not the kind
intended for Titus Andronicus.

 

Jack soon revises his previous revision of the forge not
being an oven upon opening the door. The air outside is hot and sticky in a way
only places of this latitude can be; the inside of the forge is a furnace of
boiling air and metallic fumes. For a moment the pirate feels as if his skin is
issuing one prolonged shriek, then he adjusts and steps inside.

 

The noise is that much louder; the heat that much hotter. The
smell of fire, sweat and metal burns his nose and settles thickly in the back
of his throat. The progenitor of all this hammers busily and obliviously away
in front of a contained inferno while one foot works steadfastly and
rhythmically upon a cleverly constructed bellows to keep the flame intensity. Taking
the little man’s advice in mind he issues a bellow that only one accustomed to
such vocalizations can make. The consistent banging ends in an odd note and
then stops. The foot ceases its motions and the blacksmith, Black (how quaint,
Jack thinks silently), turns around as he wipes his hands upon leather apron.

 

Fire at his back and only the dimmest slices of light
wheedling their way in through the ceiling, this paragon of smiths (not Smiths)
is in sharp shadow. However (and there is always one of those in Jack’s
fluttering existence), he knows this person standing before him, asking him his
business. The words ‘have I held you up before?’ are on the tip of his tongue
like a rehashed line in a bad whorehouse comedy—or mayhaps a tragedy.

 

The light is on his face. He knows it must be casting his
charcoaned ned eyes into demonic shadows and giving him a right villainous
appearance; otherwise, why would the young smith tense so. Unless…

 

“What do you want here, pirate?”

 

 

 

*&*&*&*&*&*

 

 

[1] To careen a ship is to beach it, tip it over and then
scrap off all the accumulated barnacles, seaweed, etc. on the hull. All ships
sailing the seas did this, as all the e org organic matter slowed the vessel
down. As one can imagine, speed was very important to pirates and so careening
was also very important.

 

[2] ‘Chirurgeon’ is an archaic form of the world ‘surgeon’.

 

 

Notes: I am unrepentant about the sudden ending of
this chapter. It hit the sixth page, and I needed a break. I’m sure you all
know who the smith is, so this isn’t some puerile ploy at clever guesswork. The
inspiration fount needs recharging. I hope this, thouruncruncated as it may
seem, meets with approval and perhaps approbation.

 

*

 

I would like to extend my hand in most gracious appreciation
to those kind readers who felt that my story warranted a review—and such
wonderfully encouraging reviews at that!

So Thanks to Reviewers:

ElvenEyes, Jaimi, Arnettra, Cashiel, Desertrain, Cassandra Selene,
Lydia NightShade, NEWENIT, gact, Naur, Emily: I sincerely hope that I shall
continue to merit such wonderful and heartwarming compliments in the
future. You most kind encouragement gives me the necessary fuel to continue
with this endeavor.

JediGurrl and falcon: You have quite delightfully spotted the foundation upon
which the true angst of this story rests. I congratulate you and am desirous
of your continued support and wonderful insights.