Apprentice To The Sorcerer

Come morning I wished someone would cave my head in with an axe. It certainly couldn’t have felt any worse than the stabbing pain behind my eyes. I dragged myself over to the grog barrel and drank four cups of it in a row, desperate to get the nasty, dried film from my mouth. “Hurry up Lei,” Landry urged. “I’m dying fer a drink.”

I gave up hogging the barrel and went back to my area. I didn’t feel like putting boots on, so I didn’t. I couldn’t imagine pulling on my aching scalp with tying back my hair, so I didn’t. I finger combed the knots out and made my way up to see Jack. The hatch was open. I peered inside.

“Come for your remedy?” Jack met me at the threshold with a tiny bottle. “Drink it all in one swallow,” he advised. “I don’t want you pokin’ around in me mouth with a throbbing skull. Yer just evil enough to wander about.”

It tasted like nothing I’d ever known. I froze up in revulsion, holding the dose in my mouth, eyes bulging in shock. Jack reached over and pinched my nostrils shut. I swallowed to breathe and the oily, noxious slime oozed down my throat. My instinct was to back away and gag it all up, but Jack clamped one hand down on my shoulder and one hand down on my mouth. We tussled a moment as I insisted upon my freedom and he insisted upon my compliance. “Like trying to give a garlic clove to a cat,” Jack muttered. “If yer were any kind of spiteful, ye’d have bitten me.”

“And get more filth in my mouth?” I rasped, bending over. “You haven’t washed your hands since your bath.”

“Untrue.” Jack posed with his hip cocked. “How do you feel?”

“I-.” I stopped and “felt” myself. “Well, much better,” I admitted. “What is that foul concoction?”

“You don’t want to know,” Jack smirked. “Now, have a look in me mouth and let’s get the day underway.” He opened his mouth and wagged his eyebrows as if to say hurry up. I leaned in and had a look. I noticed his pleasurable scent as much as I noticed his injury.

“It needs re-packing,” I observed. “Just takes a minute.” I dug around in my bag, cleaned a pair of tweezers, and unrolled a small square of linen. “You still have vodka?”

“Table,” Jack answered.

“Swish and spit,” I commanded. “Get the old linen out that way.”

Jack filled his mouth with vodka, sloshed it around in there for a minute, and spit into his bucket.

“If this feels like it’s getting dry, tend to it,” I told him while I packed the small hole in his gums. “A dry mouth won’t let the gums heal up.” I finished, told him to bite down and secure the cloth. “When it stops draining we can try to stitch the hole shut, if you want. I’m unsure of the wisdom of it. We don’t want anything to get in that hole but it’ll never close with linen in it.”

“And you don’t want to sew inside a mouth,” Jack guessed correctly. “Well, I don’t want you to either. I’ll get a gold tooth put in.”

“Out here?”

“Certainly.” Jack combed through a small box that I’d seen in his wardrobe. After a moment he produced a gold tooth very similar to the size and shape of the one I’d yanked. “Just wire it to the others.”

“Oh, you want me to do it?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not sure I can do it.”

“I have faith in you,” Jack said. He put the tooth on the table and straightened. “Time to make beach,” he announced. “You still goin’ to help Blood’s crew?”

“All of us that aren’t manning the ship are going to help,” I answered, lagging slightly behind to close the hatch to Jack’s cabin. “Get it done quicker that way, as Gibbs says.”

Jack stopped so suddenly I ran into his back. I discovered he posed a solid barrier despite his odd, ephemeral way of walking. He leaned down slightly, cocking his head at me with a smile on his lips. “How much to you love me?” he asked, “because you owe me something for showing you just how much you love this life.”

“I owe you for tainting me?” I curled my lip at him. “That’s what you called it, remember?”

“Oh, I remember, Lizzie,” he answered, putting his chest directly up against me. I started to tingle all over at the contact. “But I haven’t even really begun to taint you yet.”

“You’re like a rabbit,” I accused quietly, mindful of our audience.

“Fortunately for you, Lizzie, I’m not as quick as one,” he answered, still smiling. He still hadn’t moved away from me and I couldn’t; the rain barrel was in my way.

“You make me sick,” I replied.

Jack’s eyes lowered, skimmed over my neckline in a gaze so brief and hot that I felt it in my womb. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it Lizzie?” he whispered. “I’m like some exotic animal you can’t quit looking at. You stare at me through cage bars, horribly attracted and unwilling to face that about yourself.” He leaned in, poising his mouth at my temple, breathing hotly down my neck. “You’ve learned quite a bit through your keen powers of observation, haven’t you? But you’re going to have to get inside the cage with me to learn more.”

“You’ll shut the door behind me,” I accused, using his own metaphor against him.

Jack nudged my cheek with his, sending shivers up and down my spine. “You’re damn right I will, Lizzie.”

He stepped away. “Happy scraping,” he bade, sauntering away.

I inhaled sharply, as much to get Jack’s tantalizing scent out of my nose as to prevent a swoon. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a group of my mates. Pintel, who leaned up against the mast, fanned himself. Behind him, Ragetti looked dazed. Mokulu had a conflicted look. Gibbs drank deeply from his flask.

They’d all been waiting on me and had seen everything.

They converged upon me as soon as we left the ship.

“Cor, that made me weak,” Ragetti confessed, nudging my shoulder. Mokulu brushed him off and lifted me to the sand as easily as I might pick up a piece of paper. Undaunted, Ragetti dogged my heels. “Why ain’t choo all swoony?” he asked.

“Because the captain doesn’t smell bad today,” I said flippantly. “That’s usually why women swoon when they stand in front of him.”

“God, yer a hard woman,” Pintel said, his voice full of admiration.

“Honestly lass, we didn’t mean to spy on the two of ye,” Gibbs said. “But since we did see, I gots to be askin same as everyone else. When you goin’ to put him out o his misery?”

“Misery my arse,” I retorted. In the near distance I could see Peter. A distraction was just what I needed. “I’m going to talk shop with Peter. What are the rest of you doing before the barnacle scraping?”

“I’m separatin’ the stones for our masons,” Gibbs answered.

“I’m helpin’ wi’ the clearing,” Pintel said.

“I’m carryin’ supplies down from the mountain cave,” Ragetti said.

“And I go where you go, Hodari,” Mokulu answered. “De captain allow it when I ask.”

“Good.” I thumped him on the shoulder. “You need to hear the things Blood has to say anyway.”

We separated.

Peter seemed genuinely glad to see me. When he and my brother stood together I had the mind they were very similar. They stood about the same height, with Blood slightly taller. Mokulu had more muscle definition, though not by much. They were white and black sides to a coin.

“Where’s your captain?” Peter asked. “I need to talk to him.”

“De captain went hunting,” Mokulu said. “I know direction if you want to go.”

We didn’t walk far into the thicket before spying Jack. He had no gun, only a bag. He motioned us to join him, but quietly. We walked as softly as we were able, joined him underneath a large palm. “What?” he asked simply, his eyes scanning the brush.

“Two ships came during the night,” Peter said without preamble. “One carried captives from London, if you can believe it. The other moored far away from the rest of us. I sent a few men out. They came back with a letter for you.” Peter gave Jack a grimy looking piece of paper.

Jack unfolded the piece of paper. His eyes scanned it. For a moment I thought he would throw it down, but he instead tucked it inside his vest. “Barbossa,” he said, looking at me.

“You know him?” Peter eyed him closely.

“Very well,” Jack admitted. “What about this other ship, the one carrying captives?”

“Captained by a man named Ignacio Figueroa,” Peter answered. “He’s offered to hand his captives over for a piece of our island.”

Jack’s lips thinned. His brown eyes narrowed to slits. “Absolutely not,” he muttered. “Figueroa is a wastrel and a troublemaker. Not a bit of decent pirate in him. He’s a privateer for his country, a sell-out.”

Peter accepted this. “What about his captives?”

“We take them as payment for docking,” Jack said. “Gather your lads and shoot him if he complains. Shoot his whole crew if they so much as twitch to help him. We don’t need his kind on our island.” The low solemnity of his voice impressed us all; I could see it. Again I reflected on how different Jack was from the Jack I used to know. The old Jack wouldn’t have suggested summary executions.

“And Barbossa?” Peter enquired.

“Let him do as he pleases. I’ll send someone over to talk to him later. If I know him he’s taking advantage of this new pirate port to sleep off a good run.”

“Captain,” Mokulu said. “I apologize to interrupt, but how you hunt wi’ no musket?”

Jack grinned. Bending down, he picked up a rock. A flick of his arm sent it sailing into a thicket fifty feet away or more. A covey of birds erupted from the brush instantly. Scorby leaped from a concealed location and caught five in one jump. “Like that,” Jack answered. “Thwanes can jump ten feet, didn’t you know?”