“Sparrow, you squid-slippery bastard! What’s your part in all of this?” Anne Bonny bellowed with red hair flying and clothes covered in blood. Kate thought a better picture of a Fury you could not paint, and she imagined sailors surrendering and praying for deliverance at the very sight of her.

“And what the hell were you doing just sitting there when we were getting our heads handed to us?” came a voice that spoke of anger and frustration and outrage all in one. Compared to Anne, this one had a more human face, it seemed to Kate.

“You can see where these two might give a man pause, eh?” Jack showed an exasperated grimace to Kate but was all solicitousness when he turned around. Pick off the easier one first and save the devil for last. “Now Mary Read, you are too fine a sailor to ask that question. What good would the Pearl be to you with 13 holes in her from the Valliant’s guns?” Kate could see the question had an immediate effect when the woman’s face changed, but the relief was short-lived as Anne snarled again.

“What are you doing here, Sparrow? I’ll see the Chamada on the bottom before I let you have her.”

Jack’s jaw clenched but he knew the same feeling all too well. A wide berth was what this one needed now, but he knew it was already too late to change course when he saw righteous indignation light a fire under Kate. “You ungrateful bitch! Jack and I have saved both your necks twice between us now and this is what we get? With manners like that, you might as well be men!”

 Rosie watched the proceedings with growing interest and Mary’s arm in a decidedly proprietary fashion over her shoulder, whether it was meant to give comfort in light of the fact that they were both alive, relatively unharmed, and their ship about to be boarded by any number of men without a fight or whether it was meant as a flag of sorts that willing pleasure was not on offer whatever else the men were after, in any case it stopped Rosie from shaking. She frowned at the woman who spoke; one didn’t just insult Anne Bonny and expect no reprisals, which on past evidence involved considerable pain and, if they were lucky, a thin thread with which to hang onto life. This Captain Sparrow seemed to be of the same opinion as his heavily ringed hand hovered on the sword at his belt.

 Anne cocked her head like a falcon observing lunch and took her first look at the woman at Jack’s side. To all those standing hushed on the deck it was unclear whether she was deciding the precise way this woman was going to die or whether to laugh out loud at her audacity. “You might want to be careful who you call names like that, missy. And if I may enquire as to yours?” Kate recognized it immediately, and Anne knew it too. This was the opening shot of an exchange that would determine how the rest would follow.

 “Katherine Archer.”

If a roar could be muffled and made whisper quiet then that was what went through the women of Anne’s ship close enough to hear, an occasional clear word emerging from the muttering like “governor” and “that one.”

 “That one, indeed,” Anne repeated quietly and seemed to stare even harder at the curiosity before her, a woman who dressed the part of a pirate but preferred to fight without a sword in her hand. “Well, if you expected us to fall at your feet weeping our thanks, then you were much mistaken.”

 Kate exhaled as she settled squarely back into herself. “I didn’t do it for you, did I? I don’t even know you. I did it because it was what should be done, and I was the one who could do it. I did it to make a point, and most particularly, I did it to ram that point up the Governor’s fat arse. Nonetheless, I believe the outcome was quite satisfactory.”

 Even Captain Anne Bonny couldn’t keep the touch of a smile from her lips as she admitted “Indeed” and gave a barely perceptible nod. Mary had long given up hiding her amusement at watching this unlikely scene unfold.

“Quite the fortuitous departure from your usual, Jack,” she said, meeting his eye for the first time as if suddenly remembering that they weren’t in fact enemies. “Come aboard then, and let’s get this fucking mess sorted.”

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

It was way past time for London gin and Indian tonic when an accord of sorts was reached and they climbed across the gangplank back to the Pearl. The heat of Anne’s fire was finally seeping away with the adrenaline of battle and now the woman was plain tired. “You’ll drop us at Croton Bay and then take Rosie on with you to Tortuga to find us some more crew.”

“No trouble at all,” Jack smiled and opened the door to his cabin. Jack knew it was sinking in now, he could see it in the slump of her shoulders, and the best remedy was to get her truly and spectacularly drunk. Come to think of it, he could do with a drink himself. He handed one bottle to Anne whose fingers tightened around the cork but then stopped, seemingly lost in thought again.

“If anyone lays a finger on her, Sparrow…”

“He’ll have permission first, and you bloody well know it.” One of the most pregnant of pauses Kate had ever observed seemed to pass between the three of them until there was a soft “aye” and Anne uncorked the bottle.

“And I’d appreciate it,” Jack uncorked another and handed it to Kate, “if you’d leave off insulting me whilst at the same time accepting my hospitality and my assistance. It’s time you remembered who your friends are, Annie.” He helped himself to a drink and added, “Hell you haven’t got that many, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.” Anne gave a bit of a strangled laugh—undeniably true really—and Kate shook her head a little, thinking for the thousandth time that Jack could charm a lobster in and out of a pot of boiling water and get it to do a swan dive into melted butter as an encore.

“I hate the bloody navy.” Anne’s eyes about closed.

“I’ll drink to that, luv,” followed by the clanking of bottles. “Do you remember that night…?”

 
********************
Rosie found that if she bit her lip, it didn’t quiver hardly at all; not usually given to weeping, this would be far from the ideal time to start. If she was going to have to stay on this bloody ship, she didn’t intend giving the men watching her any sign of weakness. She had learned her lessons well in the port towns, learned not to look like their next lay or victim. What her heart told her was to march into Captain Sparrow’s cabin and demand to know why it was that she had to go to Tortuga when what she wanted was Mary to come soothe her aching muscles and make her forget all that blood, but what she knew she had to do was wait. They had made the injured as comfortable as was possible with bandages and rum, but this was someone else’s ship, someone else’s ropes. There was little to do but face into the wind and watch the sad slow limp of the Chamada do Siren trailing behind the Black Pearl, the temporary repairs holding her together just enough to stop her from slipping down beneath the swells.

“Could be worse, you know. Many a man would give their eyeteeth to sail on the Black Pearl,” a soft voice behind her made Rosie turn to look at the man who let the wheel slip smoothly in his hands with such ease that this might be a pleasure cruise and not a mad dash to escape the next tide of red-coated brutes headed their way.

“Is that so?” The harshness of her reply surprised even herself and she winced, whatever else this man in front of her was, he was far from menacing: strong, lean, controlled in his movements, and, now she thought on it, devastatingly handsome. He was hardly even looking at her, instead his brown eyes covered every angle of the horizon. With something like conciliation Rosie took a breath and licked her lips to speak, “It appears, sir, that many of them have.” A low chuckle shook his chest, and then those eyes were on her face, well mostly, just a quick flicker down, and even he, it seemed, couldn’t quite keep his eyes away from breeches and curves.

His broad smile was interrupted by the cabin door swinging open and the sudden howl of escaped laughter from inside, evidently Anne’s temper was somewhat improved by the drink and the company, but it was followed by a dark and wild Mary, already searching the deck with her eyes. There was the barest flicker of a question in them as she surveyed William Turner one step closer to Rosie than she anticipated. Any other time Rosie might have smiled at the thought but now was not it, comfort and goodbyes and promises to be back was what she needed now. They were together immediately, hands pulling each other away from the direct view of onlookers.

 “It will not be long before we reach Croton Bay by the look of the sky. Promise me you will watch yourself in Tortuga, Rosie.” Mary’s eyebrows frowned as she looked up from the woman in front of her to skim over the ship. “Watch yourself on the Pearl too—too many bloody pirates.” She gave a thin smile, “You know I want to come with you,” her fingers found the soft red of Rosie’s lips, “but Anne needs me,” a soft suck on her thumb and the sky shrunk in an instant.

“I know…I will.” Rosie hadn’t even noticed herself speak, all her thoughts now were about the feel of hair in her hands, the curve of the belly against hers, and the wood hard against her back. Mary left her nowhere to go except to stand firm and let fingers stroke over her ears, down her neck, their mouths just touching. “I will miss you,” every breath was tingling now, caressing the skin of her mouth. “Mary, kiss me,” the curse she heard back was nothing about resistance.

“Right here?” Mary was smiling between gasps. “Those pirates are all watching.”

“Then they will know I am yours.”           

Mary might have held out longer, made Rosie ask some more, except for the hands that were on her ass pulling her in, the brush of burning heat underneath breeches were taking too much of her resolve. Rosie knew it too and stretched to whisper in her ear, “Kiss me.” Rosie loved to submit to Mary, shamelessly tipping her hips in invitation, and with her head back against the wood, she whimpered into the mouth that took hers.

Will looked up from where the coils of rope caught at his feet, immediately turned away, and then like a true pirate let his eyes steal another glance. If they had been naked they would be falling over each other right now, breath and limbs and mouths all mixed up, oblivious to all but their own pleasure, and he felt himself take a sharp breath into his lungs. This was nothing of the “theatre” he had seen in a thousand whorehouses, and the swell of his cock took him by surprise as his body grasped the difference.

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

At some point in the evening Kate had been unable to resist the pull of lying down and had slipped off and left them to it. Not like she couldn’t still hear them, but it was sort of comforting really, listening to the music of stories and laughter. She thought she heard “man down,” which she took to mean herself, and later in the evening a mournful ballad about a sailor whose true love marries another while he’s at sea. She was still sleepy when she felt him lay down beside her, and the feel of his bare skin made her realize she was still dressed. By the time she’d wrestled her way out of now hot and sweaty clothes, she was much more awake, and she thought this was as good a time as any and better than most since he had to be well into his cups.

“Jack?”

“Sorry I woke you, luv. Thought I’d just close me eyes for a few hours till we make port.”

“Jack, what are we doing here, really?”

“Well nothing just at the moment, though I might be persuaded otherwise…”

She grabbed his hand before he could derail her. “No, I mean why did we come racing over to warn them? Seems hardly in keeping…And what was all that earlier when no one spoke for the longest time? What is all this about?”

“I owed them a favor, and I repay my debts.”

“But wh-?”

“It’s not a good story. Go to sleep…” Minutes slipped by before he spoke again, “Are you going to keep staring at me?”

“You have your eyes closed. How do you know I’m staring?”

A long sigh, “Fine. There was a girl.” Something in his voice held her tongue this once, and she was soon glad of it. “She was the daughter of a friend and she used to listen to us tell stories, me and her father sitting on their porch. She probably wasn’t but 12 or so when I first ran into him again after many years of sailing in different directions, so I’d stop by whenever I could. I never realized it at the time, but it seems I’d given her dreams of being a pirate one day.”

“And being with a pirate one day? This pirate?”

“Mmph, well apparently, though I was too much of a fool to realize it at the time. When she was about 17 she did what you did, after a fashion, found some clothes so she wouldn’t attract attention at the docks, looked a ‘proper pirate,’ and amazingly managed to get herself on the Pearl without anybody noticing. We were two days out of Old Town before she was discovered.”

There was a long pause Kate did not like the feel of at all.

“You remember me telling you about the time we lost five crew after taking that ship near Martinique? Well we’d picked up a few replacements to see if they’d fit and, not to put too fine a point on it, it was two of them that found her stowed away and made the most of their find. Jean Claude discovered the bastards with her in the armoury, and if they hadn’t been surrounded by powder, he’d probably have just shot them on the spot. Anyway, Melissa was torn apart. She wouldn’t go home and she couldn’t stay on the Pearl even after those vile dogs were gone. It was Anne and Mary I took her to. They let her sail with them and get herself back. She’s not with them anymore, but I know they saw her right.”

Kate squeezed his hand and stayed quiet a while longer, but then she had to ask. “What happened to the men that did it? Did you put them off the ship?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

 ********************  

There was just a streak of palest yellow across the sky when at last the sails came into view of Croton Bay, still far too early for anyone but the seagulls to ask questions, but for buccaneer ships there was no such thing as a safe port even for repairs. The quiet command of Will Turner standing at the wheel carried the silent procession along the sweeping lines where blue met white and green. On the deck Rosie uncurled her body from Mary’s, the last taste of a farewell kiss still on her lips, and with a grimace as she stood, her slightly unsteady limbs carried her to the rail of the ship where she pulled the cloth tight around her shoulders to watch the details of trees and land come into focus, blurs of colour becoming foliage and branches and flashes of red that, with a sudden startled flap, broke through the leaves.

Along the coast a little way from a still sleepy town, a tree-lined estuary looked to take a bite for breakfast and swallowed the two ships whole. Had the eyeglass of an over-enthusiastic redcoat spotted their approach, he might well have shaken his head and blamed it on the bad grog in the tavern—they simply vanished into the green.

Upstream, a well-used shallow showed traces of numerous vessels hauled onto the sandy bank for careening the hull that ensured both speed and smooth getaways, staying in front of the navy always being the best defense. The bank was spattered with a mixture of tallow, oil, and brimstone used to seal the planks and stood testament to a grudging comradeship of sorts—the shared blocks, ropes, and sawn tree trunks with which to smooth the passage of ships from sea to shore. The dead weight of the Chamada do Siren was finally delivered from the water, the rents in her hull exposed to view, and there was something like a collective sucking of air, “It’s a bloody wonder she was still afloat,” withering under the glare of Anne as she surveyed her ship. This was going to take some time and the considerable skills of her carpenter.

“Look on it this way, luv, she’ll be right as rain and twice as fast once you’ve given her an overhaul, eh?” a slight wince even as he said it at Anne’s attempt not to bite back, nevertheless words escaped from between her clenched teeth.

“I thank you, Jack, for your hospitality and your assistance. I consider our debts settled, and the return of my Second Mate and some able-bodied crew being the final seal. Agreed?” A nod from him brought a clipped smile for “goodbye.” Not even the tongue of Jack Sparrow was going to make this seem anything less than it was, so with his crew now including Rosie and some poor souls needing healing, he bid adieu.

The Black Pearl just made the back of the retreating tide and, with a gentle push of fresh water, emerged out into the blue Caribbean sea, full sails set for Tortuga.

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