Apprentice To The Sorcerer

Several times I awoke to pain, and each time I struggled to consciousness someone dosed me with opium and wine. I heard soft, masculine voices talking around me, felt the unmistakable touch of Mokulu’s hands changing my clothes. He sliced through my breast bandages, freeing me in a way I hadn’t felt in so long. “Dere,” he said soothingly. “Now dat dey all know, is no reason to hurt yourself.”

“Umbu,” I said. “Brother.”

"Ndimi," he said softly. "Utapumzika. Itakuwa barabara."

I drifted again, feeling his hand on my forehead.

I first knew I was awake because of the pitching roll of the Pearl. My mouth felt like sandpaper and I wanted a drink very badly. My face, hands, arms and leg hurt. I felt the presence of a hundred tiny cuts. My wrists felt like they might have been tied at some point. A moan escaped my chapped lips, birthed from the feeling flooding back into my body. Every place Will had struck me felt shattered.

A gentle hand lifted my head slightly. A cool cup touched my lips. The grog tasted better than anything I’d ever had. I drank greedily, but the cup fell away from my mouth before I could get my fill. “Slowly, luv,” Jack’s voice soothed.

I opened my eyes to stare directly into his. I couldn’t get my voice to work.

“Don’t get fussed,” Jack admonished lightly. “You’ll be fine. You caught a fever. You’ve been out for three days.” He eased me back down. The brief scent that wafted up from his bed made me feel slightly calmer. I had nothing but good memories of sleeping in Jack’s bed.

A cool, wet cloth coated the pain in my head. Again I moaned, almost delirious with the sensation. I felt hot and cold at the same time and writhed against the sheets covering me. “It’s just the end of the fever,” Jack assured me. “Mokulu will bring your medicine in very soon. Try to hold out, Lizzie, you can’t depend on the opium.”

I found Jack’s hand and squeezed it. My nerves burned. “The wound,” I gasped out. “Is it inflamed?”

“No.” Jack covered my hand with his other. “You caught this fever in the water, I believe. I’ve seen it many times. As long as yer healthy it isn’t deadly.” He let go of me to rinse the cloth out, I heard him swishing it around in a bowl. Soon the blessed coolness returned. “Makes ye wish ye were dead though,” he added. “Here, take more grog while ye’re still with me.”

I drank again.

“Mokulu has a message for me to relate to you,” Jack went on. “He said to tell you he’s never seen a bigger dhakari.”

I laughed weakly despite how rotten I felt. So Mokulu had tended to my most embarrassing areas. Since he was the only other person on the ship trying to practice medicine, it made sense. I wondered what he’d done with my penis after the shock had worn off.

“He wouldn’t show it to me,” Jack complained. “Am I to understand you were better endowed than most men?”

“It got in the way,” I confessed breathlessly.

“They frequently do, Lizzie,” Jack answered. His hand moved the hair out of my face. “Lizzie, why did you let William do this to you?”

“I don’t know.” I felt tears leaking out of my eyes. “I’m so tired Jack, so bloody tired.”

“I know.” Jack placed my hands back on my stomach. “Go back to sleep now.”

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“She look like bruised, broken angel,” Mokulu said. I could feel the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair, and a set of strong legs under my bottom. My nose was full of salt sea, rum, and Jack. My head rested on strong, sculpted shoulders. “But she Kali, if anything,” he went on. “If she wake up in your lap, she be hell-cat monster.”

“She isn’t due to wake up,” Jack replied mildly. His voice reverberated in his chest pleasingly.

“Tukutu-hakimu,” Mokulu said in a harsh tone. “My Hodari not herself for weeks before dis. She weak now. You take advantage and I kill you, captain or not.”

Jack’s arms wrapped around me. “You worry too much,” he said deflecting Mokulu’s threat. “Why would I take advantage of Lizzie now when I could have been for six months, eh?”

“You knew.” Mokulu said flatly.

“I knew.” Jack’s grip tightened around me, but not tight enough to hurt. “She wanted to be Lei. I didn’t see anything wrong with letting her broaden her horizons.” I heard the slosh of a bottle and felt the motion of his arm bringing the rum to his mouth. When he swallowed, I felt it against my cheek. “None of us are what we were, are we?”

Mokulu was silent a moment. Finally, he agreed with Jack in a grudging tone. “De men, dey are hoping you let her sail same as she did. Dey miss her.”

“Certainly she’ll sail,” Jack said. “She’ll be back with them as soon as I’m convinced she’s well. In the meantime, try not to ruin this for me.”

Mokulu growled. “Ruin what? You just be sittin’ on de deck wi’ her. She not even know you bring her out for de sun. She not wake up two more days now that you dose her.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Jack said mildly, but warning edged his deep voice. “She rests the same whether I have her here or in my cabin. At least on deck she’s warm, or were you not cautioning me to make sure she didn’t catch a chill?”

Mokulu backed off. “I not question you because I enjoy it, captain,” he relented. “I take her into my family and she precious like gold to me. She my Hodari, my jamaa. For me to forget her now is unworthy.”

“I’m not going to hurt Lizzie,” Jack said softly. “But I want it known to everyone she belongs to me, savvy?”

“Yes, captain,” Mokulu said.

“Good. Go tell Gibbs we’re changing course. We sail for Isla Cruz.”

When we were alone, Jack slid a hand under my hair. He felt the texture of it slowly, wrapping strands around and around his fingers. “You’ve charmed a ship full of pirates, Lizzie me girl,” he said softly. “You didn’t have to hide among them, but I suppose you wouldn’t know that.”

“Ah, you should have been looking to Gibbs and Ragetti and Pintel when you unveiled,” Jack went on. “You hoodwinked them all, twice. Poor Mr. Gibbs feels the fool. He prides himself on knowing everything I need to know.”

Jack took another drink. “You need your other side sunned,” he commented. I heard the bottle touch the deck and then Jack lifted me and placed my limp body across him again, facing the other direction. Carefully, he brought my head to his shoulder. “Don’t give up on me Lizzie,” he said gently. “We still have to have some fights and hopefully more. I want to see the spark in your eyes.”

I fell asleep listening to him humming the song I’d taught him so long ago.