october 2006
http://cakehole.org/zedpm
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James Norrington knows a little of loyalty and of justice, the virtues drilled into him through years of schooling and practice and the sea. He considers himself an honourable man; he has never broken a vow nor gone back on a promise, and when asked his superiors would single him out as a man of example: Commodore Norrington, Pride of His Majesty's Royal Navy.
In England he was never taught ambition; he learned on his own the kind of grandeur that keeps a man awake at night and torments his every waking hour. He knows rather too much of pride, as well: the pride that keeps a man's knees off the ground, that keeps his head held high, that has condemned whole navies and saved nary a one. It is the pride he sees in Turner's eyes, and Sparrow's, and Elizabeth's—and the pride he feels in his own bones, filling him from stem to stern.
It may well be ten days' head start: there is nothing James cannot overcome.
"You know, mate," Jack says conversationally, rank boots resting on a barrel from which James will have to take pains not to drink, "I'm much disappointed in you. Ending up in Tortuga drunk as a middie in a tavern—quite unlike the James Norrington I know."
"Don't presume to know me, Sparrow." James feels no pressing need to be civil, but he knows by now how slim his chances are of escaping conversation with this particular pirate; better to humor him now than risk retaliation in the dead of night. "I had no choice in the matter."
Jack's hands flutter carelessly in the dank air of the cabin. "A shame on the Royal Navy, then—and I believe you owe me a 'Captain' in there somewhere, being as how the Pearl is my ship and you're a member of my crew and it is only by my infinitely good graces that you have not been thrown overboard to become dinner for whatever manner of wicked creature may await you down below."
"In that case," James replies, injecting as much sarcasm as possible into his voice, "my deepest gratitude, Captain."
His gaze drifts around to anything but the pirate across the table and comes to rest on a curious display of apples on the far wall, wobbling slightly with the constant rocking. Jack follows the movement of his eyes and, grinning, reaches backwards for one and polishes it on his sleeve.
"A bite, James? I reckon you'll be needing to keep up your strength if you're to be trying to seduce the stalwart Miss Swann." He leans forward, sending a malodorous wave in James' direction. "I should warn you, mate, she's terribly gifted at resisting charms, even those of someone as handsome as meself."
"I'm sure," James says, but takes the apple nonetheless. The flesh is crisp between his teeth.
James' wig has caught on a mast; he would give thought to retrieving it were not his breeches and his shoes soaked straight through. His tricorne has long since disappeared into the waves buffetting the Dauntless, the wind lifting his coattails.
When the storm hit his men looked to him for guidance: now, they scramble and scurry like aimless bees, tossing equipment overboard and themselves after. Still James shouts directions into the spray, pull by God, pull; wrests the helm from a lieutenant and tries to steer towards land. He can see nothing but darkness all around, nothing but the cold funereal gloom of the night sky.
When he wakes he is in a strange house in Port Royal, bruised and battered, ache sharp in his chest and dull in his head. A writ lies on the table beside his uniform, and the curtains are drawn.
"Where are my men?" he asks. He receives no answer.
Elizabeth has her back turned: she was always running, from him and the promise she'd made, from the gentle suffocation of Port Royal. A better man would have let her go years ago, but James won't lie to himself. A part of him still wants her: to court her, to win her, to love her. However, he knows full well it is his loneliness and nothing else that keeps him bound thus.
He calls her name and she swivels to face him, rests her elbows on the railing with an easy grace. "James," she says quietly: the greeting has none of Sparrow's flippant spite, but it's neither light nor cheerful. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," James admits. It's been months since he's been out to sea with anything but solid ground beneath his feet, but he's growing used to the thrum of his muscles, the ache of his head. And then: partly because he is, and partly to twist the knife he knows is already halfway to her heart, James says, "I'm sorry about your wedding."
She makes a small, noncommittal sound and turns past him to the sea, its calm swelling and release. James fears he has made her cry; but though he thinks of taking his leave, the silence keeps him pinned there alongside her.
"I had my father send couriers," she begins, turning back to him. Her throat sounds parched, salt-scrubbed: "We could find no news of you. I was afraid that you'd been killed in a duel, or drowned, or alone."
(Elizabeth, with her sunburned face and rough hands; Elizabeth, who is lost at sea.)
"I was right to worry," she says. She looks so, so tired.
James chooses Tortuga because it's the worst place he's ever heard of. This far from civilized society no one knows of ex-Commodore James Norrington, of his faults and failures, his demise. There's a story or two about a hurricane off the coast of Libya, but no mention of his name, of the Dauntless lying splintered at the bottom of the sea.
Everyone, however, knows of Captain Jack Sparrow—of his thrilling exploits, of daring escapes, of mutinies and sea turtles. Though it grates on his spirit to hear the pirate hailed as a hero when his name has been condemned to the depths he is grateful for the anonymity.
He tests his newfound freedom by appearing one day in the uniform he wore to the court-martial; though in full dress no one mistakes him for a man of any power, any worth. So he joins the men at the tavern, sharing in their stories and their grog, swearing and partying until the wavering candlelight is replaced by the dawn.
When the first survivor shows up in his tattered Navy rags, James spares him only a glance from the corner of his eye. The man represents a life he has left behind, an oath he has forsworn, a home to which he can never return, and James says nary a word as he pushes a tankard toward the man's grimy hands.
Still he sleeps with his sword by his side, waiting—for the Pearl to return, as sure as the stories are true.
The title is taken from the W.B. Yeats poem "A Song," published in The Wild Swans at Coole:
I have not lost desire
But the heart that I had,
I thought 'twould burn my body
Laid on the death-bed.
But who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?