Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

by A. C. Crispin

  Then he froze, his heartbeat resounding in his ears.

  Greatly daring, he reached over to her, saying, “Excuse me, darlin’. I need to see…”

  Ignoring Ayisha’s cry of protest, her attempt to jerk away, Jack took her hand, holding it up so he could see her wristlet. The seemingly random threads suddenly coalesced into a design. I was right. The head of a lion…

  Jack’s fingers must have tightened on her wrist, because she cried out again, this time with an edge of pain in her protest. Carefully, he loosened his grip, but still didn’t let her go.

  “Where did you get that?” he demanded.

  “It’s mine,” she said. “It’s nothing, you can see that. Just a scrap of weaving.”

  “It belongs to you?” Jack held her gaze with his own. He saw that her eyes were not dark, as he’d expected, but an arresting color, brown, with a hint of gold. Like bronze.

  “Yes,” she said, through clenched teeth. “It is mine. Let go of me.”

  Jack obeyed. She sat back, rubbing her wrist, staring at him warily.

  Slowly, formally, Jack doffed his hat and leaned forward, inclining his head to her, in what passed for a bow when one was sitting cross-legged. “My apologies, Your Highness,” he said. “I didn’t know.” He hesitated. “I’m having trouble recalling your name. Princess…Amenrah? No. Ah, I remember. Princess Amenirdis. Welcome to my humble vessel, Your Highness.”

  Ayisha stared at him. She could not have looked more shocked if Jack had conjured Neptune’s trident and waved it at her. It was a full minute before she could find her voice. “How…how do…how could you…” She broke off, shaking her head.

  Jack sighed, and looked down at his hat, which he held in his lap. “I’m very sorry, Your Highness. I know because five years ago, I encountered your father, and he told me your name. And your brother’s name.”

  “You met my father?” She put a hand to her cheek, and swallowed, taking in his sad expression. “He spoke to you? About me, and Shabako? How? Where?”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, he spoke to me.”

  Slowly he looked back up. “I met Pharaoh Taharka on the deck of a sinking ship. It was going down in flames. He was mortally injured, alas. He died in my arms, Your Highness.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Pirates and Rogues

  JACK WATCHED THE PRINCESS’S EYES well with tears as she realized her father was dead. After a moment, Ayisha swallowed painfully, then dashed them away on the sleeve of her dress. “I knew that,” she said, finally. “He left five years ago. I knew he wouldn’t have stayed away so long unless…unless…”

  She looked at Jack. “He left to find a cure for my little brother, Aniba. He was sick.”

  “I know,” Jack said, as gently as he could. “He told me that. He told me he’d found the cure, too. He was on his way home to Kerma with it.”

  Ayisha nodded. “Yes. He promised to come home with it.”

  Jack hesitated, then said, “What happened…?” He let the question trail off.

  She sighed. “Aniba died three months and a few days after my father left.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said.

  She nodded, and cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

  They sat there cross-legged on the deck in silence for a little while, both of them taking in these new developments. Finally, Jack gave the princess an appraising glance. “How do you feel now? I mean, physically? Still sick?”

  Ayisha thought for a moment, then looked faintly surprised. “I feel…better.” Her eyes widened slightly. “I actually feel a bit hungry.”

  He smiled. “That’s good. Means you’re getting your sea legs. Your Highness—”

  She was already shaking her head. “Don’t, please. No one must know.”

  “Very well. Miss Ayisha—”

  She was shaking her head again, and this time, smiled faintly. “I think we might dispense with formality at this point, Captain Sparrow. You may call me Ayisha.”

  “I’m Jack,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He extended his hand, and, solemnly, they shook. He looked around the little canvas enclosure, thinking how its flimsy “walls” would make it easy for someone to overhear them. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t take this wrong. Clearly, we need to talk more. You need my part of the story, and then we have to make plans. Plans that include, if at all possible, finding your brother. But this place”—he indicated their surroundings—“is not ideal for a private talk.”

  Ayisha looked around, and nodded. “I see what you mean…Jack.”

  “Let’s go up to my cabin. We can speak privately there. If you need a duenna or something, we’ll call Tarek to join us.”

  “Duenna?”

  “A chaperone.” When her expression remained puzzled, he amended, “Someone who is present to make sure…propriety…that’s, you know, proper behavior, is observed.”

  “I see.” Again came that faint, elusive smile. Jack found it charming, and wished he could actually see her grin, or laugh out loud. Sternly, he reminded himself to stick to business. “I am not worried about having a…chaperone…Jack. As I told you, I can take care of myself.” She shifted on her straw tick. “I agree. We would be more private and comfortable elsewhere.”

  Jack stood up, then extended a hand. She gave him hers, and he pulled her to her feet. “My shawl,” she said. Quickly he fetched it, then handed it to her.

  The transformation was instantaneous. The moment Ayisha touched the fabric, her entire image shifted, in the blink of an eye. Jack realized that the illusion-Ayisha was half a head shorter than the real woman. When she’d first stood up, she’d been only an inch or two shorter than he was. Extraordinary, he thought. That’s a very useful ability, to be able to cast illusions so convincing.

  Jack offered her his arm to steady her as they made their way across the main deck to the ladder. She climbed the steps slowly, cautiously, with him behind her, ready to steady her should she stumble. When they reached the weather deck, he led her aft, toward his cabin. Seeing Lucius Featherstone hurrying across the deck, Jack stopped him. “Lucius, Miss Ayisha and I will be conferring in my cabin for a while. Go ask cook for some broth for her, and bring it up straightaway.”

  “Aye, Cap’n!”

  When they reached Jack’s cabin, he cleared his charts off the table, then ceremoniously seated Ayisha in his chair. The windows were already open to catch the breeze. “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, looking curiously around the cabin. “Um. The colors…they’re very…bright.”

  “Yes, cheerful, isn’t it?” Jack said, busy in his pantry. He took a battered pewter goblet he kept for visitors, poured water into it, then wine. He had a bit of real bread left, quite stale now, but still easier to chew than biscuit. He haggled off a chunk, then brought the bread and the goblet over to her. Just as he did so, there was a tap on the door, which proved to be Lucius, with a covered bowl and a spoon. Jack took it and carried it over to the table. “There you go. Try dipping the bread in the broth, because it’s a bit tough.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” she said, taking the spoon. “This is the first food that has smelled good to me since we left Calabar.”

  “Just take a little bit,” Jack advised, sitting down opposite her. “Go slowly.”

  “I shall,” she said, and spooned up a sip. Jack was fascinated to realize that she didn’t clank her spoon in the bowl, or slurp. Maybe that was part of being royalty, he thought, wryly. Knowing instinctively how to eat soup quietly. He went and poured himself a goblet of wine, then, after a moment’s thought, watered it down. He needed to keep his wits about him.

  Jack had been thinking busily, ever since he’d discovered Ayisha’s real identity. If he’d been by himself, he’d have been tempted to break into a sailor’s jig. Fancy that, the Princess of Zerzura, sitting here, two feet away from him, serenely eating broth in his cabin aboard his ship! He gazed happily at the scrap of woven cloth circling her wrist that was, in reality,
a beautiful golden bracelet—one of the three necessary to open the labyrinth. One down, two to go, he thought. He’d mentioned blowing open the door to the labyrinth—and the treasure!—to Cutler Beckett, but, really, using black powder to blow holes in things was so bloody noisy. It tended to bring guards down upon one’s ears, and cause all manner of havoc.

  After he’d told her the story of how he’d encountered her father, he’d let her have a go at trying Tia Dalma’s compass, and they’d see whether her desire to find her brother made the compass react. Jack really hoped Prince Shabako was still alive—and still had his bracelet!—and not just because it would make things so much easier for him. He hoped the prince was still alive because it would break his extremely pretty sister’s heart if he wasn’t.

  Watching Ayisha eat, he smiled at her, glad she was getting her sea legs and regaining her strength, because he really needed her to find Shabako. After they had collected her brother, it would be time to go after the third bracelet. And Jack was confident that he knew where it was.

  All the while he’d been having golden fantasies, Ayisha had been slowly spooning up broth, nibbling broth-soaked bread, and, every so often, taking a sip of the watered wine. Finally, she gave him that faint, enigmatic smile again. “I could eat more, but I’ll stop now. Thank you, Cap…Jack, I mean.”

  Jack nodded. “Do you feel up to talking now?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to hear how you encountered my father. Please tell me everything.”

  He took off his hat, then tugged at his neckcloth, loosening it slightly. The breeze was pleasant, but they were still fairly close to the equator. She noticed. “Jack, please be comfortable. It will not offend me if you remove your coat.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said, gratefully, and did so. Then he sat down on the table, because she was occupying the only chair, and because his story was going to take a while.

  Looking down at her, he hesitated. “This won’t be easy telling. Or easy hearing,” he said, finally.

  Ayisha nodded. “I am fairly warned, then.” Leaning forward, she put out a hand to touch the edge of his sleeve. She was clutching her shawl around her, but Jack fancied he could see a trace of the real woman in her expression of unflinching determination. “Jack…I want to know.”

  “All right.” Jack searched for the best place to begin. “Five years ago I was on board a ship,” he said. “Not my ship. It wasn’t my choice to be there. I’d been impressed. Taken aboard by force.”

  “Kidnapped?”

  “Yes. It happens in the maritime world. I love the sea, but anyone can see it’s not an easy life. To get enough men to serve aboard vessels, sometimes they send out gangs to look for some poor lubber—man or even boy—who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, often in his cups—” Seeing her puzzlement, he hastily amended, “Drunk, you know. Then they just grab him and hale him off. Or cosh him over the head and he wakes up fifty miles offshore.”

  Ayisha nodded. “I understand. It is like being made a slave.”

  Jack blinked. “Yes, I suppose so. Except that they don’t actually own you. A press-ganged man can usually leave and go home…eventually.”

  “I see.”

  “My case was a little different than most, in that I knew the gang that ’pressed me.” He rolled his eyes as it all came back, shaking his head, and heard a bitter edge creep into his voice. “I was so young. And stupid. Got myself involved in something bad because I trusted a man I thought was me friend. He betrayed me.”

  Reminiscently, Jack rubbed the spot behind his right ear, feeling the faint ridge there. “But the cracking over the head part and waking up far out to sea was the same. The ship was a brigantine, name of La Vipère.” He shrugged and grimaced. “Means ‘snake’ in French, and the name was appropriate. She was a pirate vessel.”

  Jack took a deep breath. It was strange, talking about this, being honest about his past. She was listening so intently. Most people didn’t listen like this…they wanted to hear a little bit, and then they wanted to talk, too. Usually about themselves. But this woman was so focused; she knew how to listen. And, for someone who had lied so much up until today, there was a straightforward air about her that compelled honesty.

  “La Vipère’s captain was named Christophe. Until the night he and his mates grabbed me, I thought he was my best friend.” He gave her a rueful glance. “There were signs that he was a…snake…but I didn’t see them. Or I didn’t let myself see them,” he amended.

  He paused. This was harder than he’d anticipated. Jack could feel anger rising, simmering, at the memory of his time aboard La Vipère. “People are strange, love, and that’s a fact,” he said, with a breath of a laugh that had no humor about it at all. “Before all this happened, I’d been so restless, so dissatisfied with me life, I wanted nothing more than to get away from everything I’d grown up knowing. But the morning I woke up aboard La Vipère and realized that it was all gone, and I could never go back, I missed it something fierce.” He thought for a moment. “I’d had the most precious thing of all…freedom. And I never knew that until it was gone.”

  Ayisha nodded. “There is an ancient proverb from my homeland. It goes something like, ‘The best way to learn to value what one has is to lose it past all retrieving.’” She gave him that faint smile of hers. “And I, too, learned to value my freedom only when it was lost to me.”

  “You know more about it than I ever will, love,” Jack said. “What happened to you…” He shook his head. “It’s a wonder you didn’t just…go mad. I think I might have, in your place.”

  “No, Jack,” she replied. “You would have figured out a way to escape. As you obviously did.”

  “Yes, well…I didn’t, actually, as things turned out. I thought about it, of course. While I was aboard La Vipère, I just kept me head down and stayed to meself, as much as I could, doing whatever work I was ordered to do aboard ship. My strategy was that I’d wait until we were a mile or two from land, then I’d go over the side, at night. I’m a pretty good swimmer. But after I’d been sailing with those rogues for about three weeks, and we hadn’t gotten a glimpse of land, I was starting to think I’d never get away. Then one morning, the lookout shouted that he saw a sail…”

  When Christophe ordered the helmsman to change course, and the topmen aloft so they could come about, Jack grabbed the ratlines and started up, trying to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t pay to be distracted that high up, while making sail. He worked steadily alongside the rogues, not joining in their banter as they set the royals. He made a point of not looking west. He didn’t want to see the sail that had become La Vipère’s quarry. Jack knew how this chase was likely to end. The brigantine was fast. Their quarry wouldn’t escape.

  While La Vipère pursued the unlucky vessel, Jack worked, readying the ship for battle. He and a youth with curly blond hair that the mate addressed as Robby were ordered to ready the grappling hooks, then they were sent below to the gun deck to assist the gunnery crew.

  Jack and Robby ran back and forth, carrying supplies, bringing powder from the magazine, obeying every order as fast as they could. As he worked, Jack found himself ruminating about the possible danger they might face, should this prize choose to fight rather than surrender. He’d always made it a practice to avoid fights when he could, but when he’d gone into combat with pirate comrades before this, Jack had never been afraid—because taking part in the fray was his choice.

  Pirates tended to be philosophical about the possibility of death, figuring when it was your time, it was your time, and there was nothing to be done about it. Jack wasn’t really afraid that he’d be killed outright today. But the thought of being wounded frankly scared him. He was under no illusion that this rogue crew regarded him as one of them. He hadn’t even been offered the chance to sign the ship’s articles—not that he would have, had they been presented to him.

  Since he wasn’t officially a member of the crew, if he were injured, these
rogues might not raise a finger to help him. Jack figured there was a better than even chance that they’d simply heave him overboard. If they did that, he’d hear Davy Jones call his name, and have to face whatever came after one died. I wonder how often the Pirate Lords summon Jones, he found himself thinking, as he laid out clean swabs for the cannon barrels. Do you suppose he’d give Esmeralda a message from me? Tell her that I miss her? Tell her I’m sorry I didn’t say…more…that night?

  The thought of asking Davy Jones to be his messenger boy was so utterly ridiculous that Jack actually chuckled aloud, albeit bitterly. Stop thinking about her; you’re moping like some kind of mooncalf, Jacky boy, the voice in his head admonished him. She’s probably forgotten you already.

  Jack shook his head. Esmeralda wouldn’t forget me, he insisted, silently.

  Young Robby had looked up inquiringly at the sound of Jack’s choked laugh.

  Noting the young crewman’s inquiring expression, Jack shook his head. “’S nothing,” he said quietly. “Just me thinking too much, lad.”

  “It doesn’t pay to think too much aboard this vessel.” Robby’s reply was equally soft. “Or see too much, either.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack said.

  When Jack came back up on deck, he found that La Vipère was rapidly overhauling the other vessel, and no wonder—she was a Dutch flute, a slow, wide-bottomed cargo vessel that stood as much chance of eluding the brigantine as a sloth had of escaping a jaguar on flat ground. Jack stood there, watching the distance between the two vessels narrow, wondering whether he’d be assigned to the gunnery crew, or the boarding party. If I were Christophe, I wouldn’t allow me unsupervised access to powder or the big guns.…

  “Jacques!” The all-too-familiar hail came from behind him. “Where have you been keeping yourself, mon ami? I’ve barely seen you since you joined us.”