A few days later, we arrived at Shipwreck Cove and were heading to where the meeting was going to take place.
"Look alive, and keep a weather eye!" Gibbs shouted to the crew, "Not for naught it's called Shipwreck Island, where lies Shipwreck Cove and the town of Shipwreck."
"You heard him. Step lively!" Pintel said.
"For all that pirates are clever cobs," Jack said, as we walked, "we are an unimaginative lot when it comes to naming things."
"Aye," Gibbs agreed.
"I once sailed with a geezer lost both of his arms and part of his eye."
"And what'd you call him?" I asked.
"Larry." I laughed and Gibbs walked away.
"You're not naming our kids," I told Jack, "if we do have any." He kissed me.
"How's your backside?" he asked.
"Still sore," I replied, leaning over the railing, "we're never doing it on the deck again. I'm surprised I didn't get a splinter." He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, as we saw the other pirates' ships.
"Look at them all!" Pintel said.
"There's not been a gatherin' like this in our lifetime," Barbossa added.
"And I owe them all money," Jack whispered. I rolled my eyes, and we made our way into the courtroom, "Stay by my side," he whispered, "I don't want anyone to use you as leverage against me." I nodded and linked my arm in his.
Barbossa banged a cannonball on the table, before speaking, "As he who issued summons, I convene this, the fourth Brethren Court. To confirm your lordship and right to be heard, present now your pieces of eight, my fellow cap'ns." The Pirate Lords, put their pieces of eight in a bowl, although they weren't pieces of eight, just random objects.
"Those aren't pieces of eight," said Pintel, "they're just pieces of junk."
"Aye," Gibbs explained, "the original plan was to use nine pieces of eight to bind Calypso, but when the first court met, the brethren were to a one, skint broke."
"So change the name."
"To what? 'Nine Pieces of Whatever We Happened to Have in Our Pockets at the Time'? Oh yes, that sounds very piratey."
"Mr. Ragetti," Barbossa said, "if you will."
"I kept it safe for you, just like you said when you gave it to me."
"Aye, ya have, but now I need it back." He whacked the back of Ragetti's head, his wooden eye popping out into the bowl.
"Sparrow!" Jack reached up and touched the piece of eight on his bandanna.
"Might I point out that we are still short one pirate lord, and I'm content as a cucumber to wait until Sao Feng joins us."
"Sao Feng is dead," I heard Elizabeth say, "He fell to the Flying Dutchman." I looked over to see her put her sword in the globe.
"And made you captain?" Jack asked, "They're just giving the bloody title away now."
"Listen. Our location has been betrayed," Elizabeth said, "Jones is under the command of Lord Beckett, they're on their way here."
"Who is this betrayer?"
"Not likely anyone among us," answered Barbossa.
"Where's Will?" asked Elizabeth.
"Not among us," Jack replied.
"And it matters not how they found us. The question is, what will we do now that they have?"
"We fight!"
"Shipwreck Cove is a fortress, a well-supplied fortress. There is no need to fight if they cannot get to us."
"There is a third course. In another age, at this very spot, the first court captured the sea goddess and bound her in her bones. That was a mistake. Oh, we tamed the seas for ourselves, aye, but opened the door to Beckett and his ilk. Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures but from the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone. Y'all know this to be true. Gentlemen, ladies. We must free Calypso."
"Shoot him!"
"Cut out his tongue!"
"Shoot him and cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue. And trim that scraggly beard."
"Sao Feng would have agreed with Barbossa."
"Calypso was our enemy then, she will be our enemy now."
"And it's not likely her mood's improved."
"I would still agree with Sao Feng, we release Calypso!"
"You threaten me?"
"I silence you!" They started fighting and I gripped onto Jack's arm. He wrapped his arm around me rubbing my shoulder.
"This is madness," Elizabeth said.
"This is politics."
"Meanwhile our enemies are bearing down upon us."
"If they not be here already." Barbossa stood on the table and fired his gun to silence everyone. "It was the first court what imprisoned Calypso, and we will be the ones to set her free, and in her gratitude, she will see fit to grant us boons."
"Whose boons? Your boons?" Jack asked, "Utterly deceptive twaddle speak, says I."
"If you have a better alternative, please, share." Jack started making his way around the table me in tow.
"Cuttlefish. Let us not, dear friends, forget our dear friends the cuttlefish. Flippant glorious little sausages. Pen 'em up together and they'll devour each other without a second thought. Human nature, isn't it?...or....or fish nature. So yes, we could hole up here well provisioned and well armed and half of us would be dead within the month, which seems grim to me any way you slice it. Or, as my learned colleague so naively suggests, we could release Calypso, and we can pray that she will be merciful. I rather doubt it. Can we, in fact, pretend that she is anything other than a woman scorned, like which fury hell hath no? We cannot. Res ipso loquitur tabula in naufragio*, we are left with but one option. I agree with, and I cannot believe the words are comin' out of me mouth, Captain Swann. We must fight."
"You've only ever run from a fight," Barbossa told Jack.
"I have not!"
"You have too!"
"Have not!"
"You have too!"
"Have not!"
"Would you both shut up!" I yelled, "You sound like children."
"You have too, and you know it!"
"Have not, slander and calumny! I have only ever embraced that oldest and noblest of pirate traditions. I submit here and now, that is what we all must do, we must fight... to run away."
"Aye!"
"As per the code, an act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be declared by the pirate king."
"You made that up."
"Did I now? I call on Captain Teague, keeper of the code."
"SeSumbhajee proclaims this all to be folly! Hang the code! Who cares..." SeSubhajee's assistant got shot, and I jumped. Jack froze and I looked up at him.
"Code is the law." The man who spoke walked up behind us, "You're in my way, boy," he said to Jack. Jack moved out of the way pulling me with him. Two pirates carried up a large book, that I assumed was the code, setting it on the table. The man whistled and the dog from the prison came with the key.
"How..."
"Sea turtles." He looked at the book, "Barbossa is right."
"Hang on a minute," Jack said, reading the thing, "It shall be the duty of the king to declare war, parlay with said adversaries... fancy that."
"There's not been a king since the first court, and that's not likely to change."
"Not likely."
"Why not?"
"Because the king is elected by popular vote."
"And each pirate only ever votes for hisself."
"I call for a vote," Jack said. Everyone voted for themselves until it got to Jack. "Elizabeth Swann," he said.
"What?" she asked.
"I know, curious isn't it?" Everyone started arguing again. "Am I to understand that you lot will not be keeping to the code, then?" A guitar string broke and the room went silent.
"Very well, what say you Captain Swann, king of the Brethren Court?"
"Prepare every vessel that floats. At dawn, we're at war."
"And so, we shall go to war," SeSumbhajee said, in a high pitched voice. I looked at him, surprised, biting my tongue.
Jack turned to Captain Teague. "What?" he asked, "You've seen it all, done it all, you survived. That's the trick, isn't it? To survive."
"It's not just about living forever, Jackie," he replied, "The trick is, living with yourself, forever."
"Did he just call you Jackie?" I asked.
"Amandah, it's about time you met my father."
"Oh," I said. I looked at both of them and nodded.
"My wife," Jack explained, looking back at Captain Teague. "How's mum?" He held up a shrunken head, my eyes widened. "She looks great."