Apprentice To The Sorcerer

Morning came. Jack rolled out of his hammock as the sky lightened. He threw open his hatch, commanded that Mokulu and Cotton take his guests out on deck. Casting me an enigmatic glance, he helped hustle Brighton out of his bed and promptly stripped the top cover off. “Bloody, ruddy swab on my blanket,” he swore. “I’ll have to hang it to get his smell off.”

I grinned into my elbow.

“What are you smiling at?” Jack asked, sounding irritated, but his eyes held a merry gleam. “Go on, get into bed.” He motioned me into his bed with an impatient gesture. “You can sleep in here and you deserve it. You took that leg off like a real doctor, grown men falling to pieces around you.”

Arguing didn’t much come to mind. I kicked off my boots and crawled into his bed. Jack plucked the pistol from my fingers. He hesitated at taking my hat. “You sleep with this on?” he asked gruffly.

“Shields my eyes,” I explained sleepily.

“Right,” he replied. “See you a few hours, lad.”

Grateful he hadn’t just swept away half my disguise, I shut my eyes. The bed didn’t smell like Brighton at all. It smelled like Jack.


I awoke to the hatch opening. Jack strode in, guiding my father and Brighton inside. “Until it’s over,” he said, throwing me a pistol. “Slaver. Be ready to work, Lei.”

I sat up and trained the pistol on Brighton. “This would be easier if I had manacles,” I said, just a little grumpy.

Jack halted dead, one foot poised outside the hatch. His head tilted. Slowly, he straightened his shoulders. “No manacles on the Pearl,” he said. In another moment he vanished. Walled up with one irritation and my dearest father, I barked a command for them to sit at the table.

I didn’t allow myself to dwell on thinking of manacles. Instead, I got my medicine chest ready to take out to the main deck. Fearful my father would recognize me, I kept my head down as well as I could while watching them carefully.

“Sparrow means to take slaves?” Brighton asked scornfully.

“He’ll make pirates of the slaves,” I replied. “The rest I don’t know about.”

“What kind of pirates are made from negros?” Brighton flung back at me.

“Same as pirates made from any other,” I said hatefully. “If you sympathize with people who deal in slavery I advise you to keep your mouth shut. The crew of the Black Pearl won’t deal in human chattel.”

“For God’s sake, Brighton, do be silent,” my father said tightly. “The boy doesn’t like you anyway and you don’t know when to quit.”

The cannons soon made conversation impossible anyway. I hated to sweat out a battle here in safety, not able to see Jack or the crew. Brighton began to drink heavily from Jack’s bottle and passed out within twenty minutes. My father stared at the barrier of wood separating us from the fighting. He looked afraid, but fairly confident.

I had no doubts about the Pearl. Already I could hear the sound of water gapping at a very large hole in the enemy ship. The tell-tale glug-glug-glug of a boat smashed just over the waterline. The hand to hand fighting began not long after. At the fall of relative quiet, Pintel came in and escorted us all out onto the deck. He took watch over my father and the drunken Brighton. I dragged my medical supplies over to the knot of dark men gathered under the primary mast.

As I tended to these poor, weakened and badly treated men, Jack lined up the slaver’s crew. His face made my stomach clench in fear. Stonily, he walked down the line, looking each man in the eye. Every so often he would stop, tap a man on the shoulder, and the man would find himself pulled away from his mates by Mokulu.

“Is there no man here who wishes to tell his story?” Jack asked. The men he’d separated out cowered together. I thought they were only slightly older than myself. Jack had these younger men dragged down to the brig. The remaining fifteen men looked at each other worriedly.

“To the depths,” Jack said softly. Hands laced behind his back, he watched impassively as men were thrown over the side.

“It’s just like the song,” Ragetti said in excitement. “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.”

“I don’t like that one,” Jack said. “Sing the bad egg song.”

I treated slaves while pirates sang a song of my childhood all around me. Sharks were eating slavers and Jack, frightening, magnificent Jack, merely watched. The surrealistic environment made me giddy.

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

Jack allowed me to sleep again. At nightfall I awoke to him escorting our guests back into his cabin. He covered his bed with the blanket the very moment I abandoned it, and gave me the pistol. “Tired, bucko,” he rumbled. “You?”

“Ready for the night,” I replied. “Shall I stay here again?”

“You did such a good job I’m giving you two pistols,” Jack confirmed. “A ball for each of them should Brighton cause trouble.”

“You think a lot of a one-legged man,” Brighton jeered.

“I got me arse kicked by a one armed man in London,” Jack said, smiling, but his smile radiated a chill. “Don’t be such an infant. You ‘ad a leg removed, not your head, or worse, your privates.”

I couldn’t choke back a laugh. Only Jack would think it worse to lose your willy than your head.

“It isn’t amusing,” Brighton exploded, squaring on me.

“Neither are you,” I replied, cocking a pistol. “Shut your damned trap and behave.”

“We need to get you into a hobby, Lei,” Jack stage-whispered. “You have anger issues.”

“Bloody, self-righteous, git,” I spat. I despised a man who whined. “He thinks he’s so much better than us.”

“Maybe he is,” Jack posed, pretending to think about it. “But no, he couldn’t be.”

“I am better than you,” Brighton hissed. “What kind of man throws people to sharks?”

Jack stood straight. His eyes met Brighton’s. “Slavers aren’t people, exactly,” he said lowly. “The more of them I send to judgment, the sooner slavery stops being profitable.”

“So, the ones you took prisoner are for what purpose?” My father asked.

“I’m putting them off in Port Royal, with you,” Jack answered easily.

“What made you give them clemency?” My father said, looking very closely at Jack’s face.

“I didn’t know them.” Jack picked up a bottle and shook it. “They were young.” He tossed the empty to the side and picked up another. This one had rum in it. He drank deeply, smacked his lips, and looked at my father. “I’d warned the others once before. I don’t give second chances.”

Warning taken, my father and Colonel Brighton retreated within themselves. Jack sauntered over to me, pulled out a chair, and faced me. “I don’ need to ask how you feel about it, do I?” he asked.

“I agreed with it even though it made me ill,” I answered. A sudden connection between what Jack had said, and the way he’d looked at every man he’d pardoned, came to me. Every man he’d let go, he’d remember. He also knew the face of every man he’d executed. I shrugged, trying to smile at him while keeping my hat brim down a bit. “But I’m not the captain; I don’t have to feel about it any certain way, do I?”

A smile drifted over Jack’s lips. “A good lesson about piracy, that,” he said. “Pirates do things because they must be done, no matter how painful.”

“Spare us your mentoring of the lad,” Brighton growled. “God only knows he’ll be hung for a pirate anyway.”

“Which puts your way of doing things and my way of doing things in a whole new light, doesn’t it, Colonel,” Jack replied, still looking at me. “You could hang Lei yourself tomorrow if given power enough, and feel justified even while knowing he saved your life.” He turned his head to pin the man with his dark eyes. “No honor in that, mate, no honor at all.”

Water filled my eyes. I blinked it away furiously, determined to be manly. Many standards learned and Jack could still redefine my definitions. In my heart I had an accord with his morals, mostly, but hearing the reasoning out loud made all the difference. Jack had so many shades of grey in his black and white no one could ever hope to paint it all. Life wasn’t black and white and so neither was he. People like Brighton hid behind rules and codes, absolved from taking a stand between good and evil by strict adherence to duty. But men like Jack made their own minds and took their punishment or reward with equal relish.

Honest fence-straddlers.

I didn’t believe in absolutes anymore, not since the moment I fainted and plunged into the harbor. Expecting my savior to be James or perhaps a brave soldier, I expelled seawater from my lungs before meeting the gaze of a brigand. Captain Jack Sparrow, lean and dark and soaking wet, had saved my life. My heart had swelled upon meeting a legend of my childhood, of seeing the hero inside of the pirate. Then he’d used me to escape capture, crushing my newly opened heart.

Again and again Jack had raised me up and dropped me back down. It hurt and it drove me mad, but I persisted in talking to him. I could not resist him. How could I have firm resolve when I in fact knew absolutely nothing about life, his life? He promised to teach me things other people wouldn’t, the true things that get buried under propriety, society and order. Raised under the public eye and always controlled by respectability, I found no temptation greater than the man who chaos worshipped.

“What’s the boy crying for?” Brighton asked, jolting me free of introspection. “I can’t very well hang him today.”

Cold rage filled me. “Do let me know when you get your peg-leg, Colonel Brighton,” I said, wiping my face roughly with my sleeve. “I’ll pay you a visit and give you ample opportunity to hang me.”

“I thought your Hippocratic Oath prevented such behavior,” Brighton sneered. “But oh, I forgot, you’re a pirate.”

“I never took an oath,” I enlightened him. “I’m not really a doctor.”

Brighton paled. He whirled on Jack. “You let some random child saw off my leg?” he demanded.

Jack sighed audibly. “You are a very tiresome man, I mean it.”

“You let your cabin boy take my leg off!” Brighton waved his fist in the air. His purple and red face convinced me I didn’t have to worry about low blood as a factor in his recovery. His indignation burst a bubble of hilarity deep in my throat. I chuckled.

“He isn’t me cabin boy, he’s a rigger,” Jack said, his voice trembling with amusement. “But yes, I let him take your leg off. I can’t give it back, ’m sorry. It’s giving some sea creature indigestion right now, ’m sure.”

My father coughed. I looked just in time to see him try to hide a smile. Jack saw it too. Looking satisfied, picking up a book, he quietly implied a dismissal of all of us.

Brighton stiffly lay upon the bed and my father awkwardly arranged himself in his hammock.

For a few minutes I simply sat and stared into space. It came to me as ironic that I would go to sea to escape everyone only to have the sea bring everyone to me. As I mused upon it, Jack reached into his coat pocket and brought out several scrolls made into one tube. “Found these,” he said, tossing it on the table.

“Stole them, you mean,” Brighton quipped.

“Same difference,” Jack rejoined while I examined the parchment. Written in Sanskrit, it contained many drawings and diagrams that reminded me of Tia Dalma’s notes. “Maybe someday you’ll find someone to translate it,” he continued.

“Thank you,” I answered politely. Promptly, I drew out Tia’s notes and began comparing them to the Vedic drawings.

“S’funny,” Jack said. “The more you know the more you lack knowing.”

“Paraphrasing Socrates now?” Brighton gave a short, derisive laugh. “What a progressive pirate you are.”

“Perhaps he’s not so much progressive as you are backward,” I snapped. “Maybe you’re just a parrot, repeating what you hear without questioning meaning.”

“Gentlemen,” my father said, raising his hands. “Must we spend our entire night at each other’s throats?”

“Well met, Weatherby,” Jack murmured. “Give him a drink, would you Lei?”

I took father my flask and handed it to him. He drank deeply. I decided to let him nurse it and drink from Jack’s bottle.

“What? Nothing for me?” Brighton mocked.

“Brighton,” Jack sighed, not taking his eyes from his reading. “You’ve lost a leg, man, don’t lose your tongue.” He pulled his boot knife out and stuck it into the table. “It’s not a procedure I’ve ever tried, so I’m sure I’d be bad at it, but I’d still rather try something new than listen to your bilge.”

“Whistling psalms to taffrails,” I said mildly.

“Oh, he’s listening, for all his bravado,” Jack countered. “The truth of the matter is Brighton is actually frightened of me. I’m an animal he can’t predict.”

“You’re an animal, this is true,” Brighton groused softly, almost inaudibly. I looked at his pouting lips and felt disgusted.

“What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us not.” Jack quoted, his deep, roughened voice turned melodic.

“What’s that from?” I asked, thinking it sounded familiar.

“The Tempest,” Jack answered. “You should read it sometime.”

“Is that what you’re reading now?” I glanced at his book.

“No, this is Hector Barbossa’s log.” Jack showed me the cover. “He had command of me ship for a good many years.” He shrugged his shoulders. “The man kept detailed notes.”

“It isn’t as if you can navigate far,” Brighton said. “Pirates have to stay near their own kind for safety.”

Jack got to his feet and pulled his knife out of the table all in one motion. He advanced upon Brighton. “Shame about your tongue,” he commented, getting closer.

“Please don’t,” my father said, putting his hands together. He attempted to step in between Jack and Brighton. “His injury could cause massive retaliation.”

“Let them empty the ports and scour the seas,” Jack said in a terrible voice. His dark eyes were like holes in his face. He meant to take Brighton’s tongue.

“My daughter,” my father said, moving in again. “I know you were…friends with Elizabeth. She wouldn’t want you to do this. Warfare is one thing but this is cruelty.”

Jack looked down at my father. For a long minute he held his eyes. “Have you engaged Lizzie to this man?” he asked.

“What? No,” my father protested. “She only met the colonel once.” He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack flinched but didn’t move away. “Please, just ignore him,” he went on. “He’s upset over the loss of his leg and the loss of his ship. We’d not been a-sail four days when the rum runners took us.”

Jack eased off. Barking an order for Brighton to get in a hammock, he then strapped the man firmly in it, shoving a cloth in his mouth afterward. “It comes out in two hours,” he informed the man. “If I need to put it in again it stays in for twelve.”

“Thank you,” my father said, dragging himself into the upper hammock with effort. Jack put his arm under my father’s foot and hoisted him the rest of the way. When my flask fell to the floor, he retrieved it and handed it back. “Weatherby,” Jack said softly. “I’m a reasonable man. You don’t have to use your daughter to gain my mercy.”

“Well how am I to know this?” my father said testily. “I thought she’d run off with you, after all.”

“Elizabeth Swann is not on my ship.” Jack smiled at my father. “If she were, you and Lewis would not be in this cabin.”

I blushed as my father stuttered. Hiding behind my hat, I took a healthy swig of rum.

“Granted, I might not be either,” Jack admitted. “But a man can dream.”

“As long as dreams occupy you, I have no worries,” my father retorted. “If you make your dream a reality, then I worry.”

“She’s your girl, you’re going to worry anyway,” Jack countered. He took something from his vest and held it out to him. “Here. I meant to give this to Will, but we aren’t speaking at the moment. You take it.”

My father held the shark’s tooth gently in his palm, eyes smiling at my portrait. “Beautiful,” he murmured. “It looks exactly like my daughter.”

I thought my heart would tear in twain. He looked so happy to see my face. My absence hurt him. Like a coward, I turned my eyes to Jack. He had his right arm crossed over his stomach, his hand over the stitches in his side. He bore wounds to prove my father wasn’t the only one who missed me. Jack tied us all together, or did we all pull Jack into our midst? If so, we had brought him nothing but trouble.

Was it really such a crime for a woman to enjoy life? That father, James, and Will would begrudge me my freedom hurt. But Jack knew me. Jack understood. He had the least claim and the most faith.

I loved him.

It pierced me like a blade.

I loved wicked Jack Sparrow, scourge of the seven seas.

Breathless, I averted my face from the men and searched myself for an answer to this problem. Blindly seeking rum, my fingers found a bottle. Six swallows seemed a fair number. The hair in my nostrils curled. I tasted bile in my throat along with the backwash of liquor.

I’d known the truth in the back of my mind from the day he’d picked me up, I just hadn’t faced it. I hadn’t faced it because I knew he couldn’t love me in return, because I felt Jack could only love the Pearl and the sea. He didn’t have room in his life for a third woman.

I stared dumbly at the bulkhead, barely aware of Jack and my father conversing. My breasts hurt and my false penis pinched my nethers. The padding at my waist itched. I hadn’t bathed in months. The back of my neck had sunburned and now pulled taut and angry.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to go home. I could jump ship when Jack let my father and Colonel Brighton go. He’d wonder where I’d gone but I doubted he’d look for me. I was just a boy he’d taken under his wing.

“Steady there, Lei?” Jack asked, sitting very close to me. The blend of his musk and patchouli made me hot inside. I nodded brusquely, hoping that would suffice.

“Box of trinkets at yer feet lad, if you want something to do,” Jack said lowly.

I practically dove for the diversion. The box yielded a brick of herbal material that stunk, a black, sticky ball wrapped in gold foil, a chess set, and a curious object made of lashed together, hollow reeds. I held it up. Jack took it, seeming to merely twitch in my direction. “It makes music,” he explained, grinning to himself. “Traded a necklace for it. Bloke said it came from the Andes.”

“Do you play?”

“Ah, not too well I’m afraid,” Jack said. “Can’t read music.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t play it,” I said. His brown eyes seemed large enough to swallow me whole. Only barely did I speak that single sentence.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Jack said. “It’s supposed to call wind spirits. Just mucking about with it is bound to be a wee bit dangerous.” He lifted the bottom of the chest, which proved to be a false one. The compartment below had several sheets of vellum, dotted with musical notes. “I don’t suppose you can read music?”

Like any good daughter of a wealthy governor, I had been forced to take lessons on the pianoforte. I did indeed know how to read music. I told him I remembered the scale keys and could figure it all out. “It’s yours then,” he announced. “Better lash it ‘round your neck and tuck it in your shirt.”

I added the instrument to my own chest, promising myself to find a lanyard for it. In that moment I laughed at myself. I wasn’t going back to Port Royal. I’d already started thinking of what magic I might have, of how valuable I could be as a sailor that called the wind.

“Feel like a game of chess, captain?” I asked, feeling almost myself again.

“If you teach me how,” Jack answered, grinning.