Pirates of the Caribbean: Barbossa and the King's Messenger (Book 1)

Omnia Vincit Amor: Love Conquers All

Chapter Twenty -- Omnia Vincit Amor: Love Conquers All

A/N - Rating Bump: Part of this chapter rated "R" for brief adult content and vulgar language. If you wish, you can count paragraphs, and skip 82 and 83. All other content is rated PG-13.

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Two weeks after my fall, Barbossa stood over me as I sat at his table and worked to adjust the fix I had taken with the quadrant. Having declared me to be in want of companionship, he had made a point of keeping company with me each day, showing a good humour and kindly sharing his knowledge. He had also kept his promise to teach me navigation; but on this particular afternoon I struggled with the unfamiliar corrections and calculations as he peered over my shoulder. Although he intended to offer help, his nearness distracted me and spoilt my concentration. Despite the earliness of the hour, he had also made a point of plying me with rum as my lesson progressed.

"How am I to do this exercise if I am inebriated?" I objected.

"Ye may as well learn t' do it," he replied, helping himself generously to the rum. "Pirates be suspicious of a cap'n who's always sober." I thought that they would certainly not be suspicious of Barbossa in his current condition, although he managed to hold his liquor well. For myself, the sums before me were making less sense each moment. Exasperated by the figures and his insistence upon their intoxicating accompaniment, I pushed the papers away.

"I don't see that I actually need to learn this," I complained. "It isn't as though I have a ship of my own, or ever would." Barbossa reached across me and took up the paper I had been using.

"But ye might," he countered. "Someday ye might have a ship."

I was very surprised; it seemed that Barbossa reckoned my capabilities more highly than I did.

He studied my sums as he emptied his tankard, and then smiled approvingly. "Good work should earn ye a reward," he told me, and led me from the table to the settle, both of us walking with a slight stagger, due to the quantity of rum we had consumed.

He seated me at one end and himself at the other. Then he grasped my ankles and swung my legs up to the seat, as I protested. "I'm touchin' naught but yer feet," he said, laughing loudly.

He pulled my boots off and began to massage the arches of my feet. Once I realised that he did not intend to press his advantage further, I began to enjoy his touch. I was reminded of my first night aboard, when he had searched my hair for pins; and once again, his steady hands and slow movements soothed and calmed me.

As was often the case with Barbossa, however, his actions had more than one purpose. Now that he had more or less pinioned me, he began to ask me questions.

"Have ye always worn boy's clothes?" he enquired in an offhand manner.

I smiled and shook my head. "Often, perhaps; but no, not always," I told him. "I was a venturesome child and boy's attire suited my activities: for example, I've been practising with that scimitar since I was ten," I said, pointing to my sword, which Barbossa still carried on his own belt. "But I have attended dancing parties and other occasions where I was properly dressed. When I became engaged, I little thought I would ever don clothes like these again."

"Dancin' parties, eh? Tell me about 'em," he encouraged, squeezing my feet gently and rubbing the muscles to stretch and relax them.

"Hm . . . well, there were Christmas parties, and a hunt ball one year, and a festive dance at Dock - that was when I met James Norrington, at the Assembly Rooms. I was so very nervous - I was almost sick," I laughed, remembering. "Four of us went with Father in the family coach. I wore a new gown, and there were dances with figures my dancing master never taught me - I was just fifteen, and terrified! I became fascinated with James because . . . well, he was quite the handsomest boy I had ever seen. And he guided me so kindly through it all; he prevented me from falling over my own feet and making a spectacle of myself. I thought marrying an admiral's son was the perfect, fairy-story ending for a little country mouse like me."