𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐀 banged a cannonball on the large table, silencing the rowdy room of pirates.
"as he who issued summons, i convene this, the fourth brethren court," barbossa announced. "to confirm your lordship and right to be heard, present now your pieces of eight, my fellow sailors."
bella stood beside him. she stared around the room in awe. the people surrounding her were pirating legends. there was chevalle the penniless frenchman; lord of the black sea. mistress ching; lord of the pacific ocean. gentleman jocard; lord of the atlantic ocean. sumbhajee angria; lord of the indian ocean, and eduardo villanueva; lord of the adriatic sea.
ragetti held a small wooden bowl. each of the lords placed their pieces of eight inside.
"those aren't pieces of eight," pintel muttered, observing them. "they're just pieces of junk."
"aye, 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," gibbs replied.
"so change the name," grumbled pintel.
"to what? 'nine pieces of whatever we happened to have in our pockets at the time'?" gibbs rolled his eyes. "oh yes, that sounds very piratey."
"master ragetti, if you will," barbossa turned to the wooden-eyed pirate.
"i kept it safe for you, just like you said when you gave it to me," he squeaked.
"aye, you have, but now i need it back," barbossa responded. he whacked ragetti on the back of the head, and his wooden eye popped out. he placed it in the bowl.
"miss stevens," barbossa gestured to the bowl.
bella raised her eyes to meet his, and pulled out her piece of eight. she gently placed the playing card in the bowl.
"sparrow!" villanueva shouted.
bella turned around to where jack stood. he reached up to touch the coin dangling from his bandana.
"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!" jack smiled, walking up to join them at the table.
"sao feng is dead," rang a female voice from behind them. "he fell to the flying dutchman."
they turned around to see elizabeth stab her sword into the brethren globe. the pirates rose to their feet and broke out into angry chatter.
"the plagued ship!!" exclaimed mistress ching.
"he made you captain?" bella said in shock as elizabeth walked up beside them.
"they're just giving the bloody title away now," added jack.
elizabeth ignored him. "listen to me! listen," she shouted. the pirates settled down. "our location has been betrayed. jones is under the command of lord beckett, they're on their way here."
"who is this betrayer?" gentleman jocard asked loudly.
"not likely anyone among us," barbossa assured him.
elizabeth looked around for a moment. "where's will?" she questioned.
"not among us," jack stated plainly.
"and it matters not how they found us. the question is, what will we do now that they have?" barbossa asked, attempting to provoke the court.
"we fight!" elizabeth said firmly.
bella found herself nodding in agreement, but the other pirates broke into dismissive laughter. jack joined in, and she elbowed him in the side.
"good men have already given their lives to this cause!" bella shouted over them, annoyed that they couldn't see the sense in elizabeth's idea.
"and so what matters the lives of a few bad ones, quips sri sumbhajee," replied one of sumbhajee's men.
"they died in defiance of the company," bella said coldly. "that's my measure of good."
that silenced the pirate's laughter. jack stared at bella thoughtfully, and she glanced at him in silence before mistress ching spoke.
"shipwreck cove is a fortress, a well-supplied fortress!" ching dismissed. "there is no need to fight if they cannot get to us."
"there be a third course," barbossa began. "in another age, at this very spot, the first brethren court captured the sea goddess, and bound her in her bones. that was a mistake," jack and bella exchanged a look of concern and understanding as barbossa continued. "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."
the room became very silent.
then, the pirates broke into screams.
"shoot him!" sumbhajee's man shouted.
"cut out his tongue!" yelled jocard.
"shoot him and cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue!" jack suggested. "and trim that scraggly beard."
"sao feng would have agreed with barbossa," tai huang said angrily.
"calypso was our enemy then, she will be our enemy now," jocard argued.
"and it's unlikely her mood's improved," chevalle added in his heavy french accent.
"i would still agree with sao feng," villanueva asserted. "we release calypso!"
"you threaten me?!" chevalle exclaimed.
"i silence you!" villanueva answered.
immediately, all hell broke loose.
from the end of the table, jack, bella, elizabeth, and barbossa watched in astonishment.
"this is madness," elizabeth spoke, looking dazed.
"this is politics," jack told her.
"meanwhile, our enemies are bearing down upon us," bella sighed.
barbossa narrowed his eyes. "if they not be here already." he climbed up onto the table and fired his gun above his head. the pirates finally quieted down. "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."
jack leaned over to bella. "follow my lead, love," he whispered.
she nodded.
"whose boons? your boons?" jack responded to barbossa. "utterly deceptive twaddlespeak, says i."
barbossa rolled his eyes and stepped down from the table. "if you have a better alternative, please, share!" he welcomed.
jack stared at the court for a moment. "cuttlefish. eh?" he said, moving around the edge of the table. bella started walking around the other side of the table in order to meet him at the end.
"let us not, dear friends, forget our dear friends, the cuttlefish. flippant glorious little sausages. pen 'em up together and they will devour each other without a second thought."
"human nature, isn't it?" bella replied matter-of-factly, across from him.
"or. . . fish nature," jack shrugged. "so, yes, we could hole up here, well-provisioned and well-armed, and half of us will be dead within the month."
"and half of the other half dead the month after that," bella added.
jack nodded towards her in agreement. "which seems quite grim to me any way you slice it," he continued. "or, as my learned colleague so naively suggests, we can release calypso. and we can pray that she will be merciful."
"i rather doubt it!" commented bella.
jack again nodded in her direction. "can we in fact pretend that she is anything other than a woman scorned, like which fury hell hath no?"
"no," she answered. "we cannot." they now stood beside each other at the end of the table, opposite barbossa and elizabeth.
"res ipso loquitur tabula in naufragio . . . we are left with but one option. i agree with —and i cannot believe the words that are comin' out of me mouth— captain swann and lord stevens. we must fight," jack concluded, placing his hand on bella's arm.
elizabeth smiled at them from across the table.
"you've always run away from a fight!" barbossa frowned.
"have not!" jack denied innocently.
"you have so!"
"have not!"
"you have so!"
"have not!"
"you have so, and you know it!" barbossa snarled.
"have not, slander and calumny!" jack replied. "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."
the court stared at jack and bella for a moment, before bursting into agreement.
a chorus of "aye!" rang across the room.
barbossa shook his head smugly. "as per the code, an act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be declared by the pirate king."
jack frowned. "you made that up!" he declared.
"did i, now?" barbossa responded. "i call on captain teague, keeper of the code."
jack's bright face immediately dimmed.
"sri sumbhajee proclaims this all to be folly!" one of sumbhajee's men exclaimed. "hang the code! who cares—"
a loud gunshot echoed throughout the room and hit him in the chest. he dropped to the ground.
bella turned around to see captain teague emerge. he blew the smoke off of his pistol. "the code is the law," he said solemnly. the pirate lords all slowly sunk into their seats.
teague leisurely strolled up behind them.
"you're in my way, boy," he told jack, who appeared rattled.
bella yanked jack over to the side, then looked back at teague. his eyes met hers, and he smiled charmingly. those eyes were familiar, and so was that grin.
she couldn't help but give him a small smile in return.
two old men carried a large bound book up to the table and plopped it down.
"the code," ragetti observed.
"as set forth by morgan and bartholomew," said pintel.
still holding jack's arm, bella looked at the code in awe.
teague whistled, and a dog came running over to him with a key.
"that can't . . . how did . . . ?" ragetti looked at the dog in shock and recognition.
"sea turtles, mate," teague shrugged. he unlocked and heaved open the code and read through it. "ah, barbossa is right."
"hang on a minute," jack said, letting go of bella to check for himself. ". . . it shall be the duty of the king to declare war, parlay with said adversaries . . ." he murmured, skimming through the code. "fancy that."
"there's not been a king since the first court, and that's not likely to change," chevalle announced.
"not likely," captain teague muttered to jack.
"why not?" elizabeth asked.
"because the king is elected by popular vote," explained gibbs.
"and each pirate only ever votes for hisself," barbossa finished complacently.
"i call for a vote!" jack stated.
"capitaine chevalle, the penniless french man!" voted chevalle, standing up.
"sri sumbhajee votes for sri sumbhajee," another man said.
"mistress ching!"
"gentleman jocard."
"elizabeth swann."
bella hesitantly decided to repeat what the other lords were doing. "bella stevens," she voted, unsure what the outcome would be.
"barbossa."
"villanueva!"
"bella stevens," jack said, a glow in his eyes.
bella was sure she had misheard him. "what?" she said, turning to look at him nervously.
"i know, curious, isn't it?" jack replied, taking her hand in his.
the court broke into a state of disarray and argument.
"why didn't you vote for me?" jocard shouted.
"blatant partisanship!" chevalle yelled.
"she's his lover!" villanueva pointed at bella holding jack's hand. she glanced down at their intertwined hands and pulled hers away quickly.
"noooo!!!!" mistress ching screamed.
"am i to understand that you lot will not be keeping to the code, then?" jack inquired loudly. bella looked at him in surprise.
behind them, teague broke a guitar string.
the room went silent.
"very well," mistress ching nodded, turning to bella. "what say you, lord stevens, king of the brethren court?"
jack glanced at bella with a nod.
she stared back at the court confidently.
"prepare each and every vessel that floats," she commanded. "come sunrise, we're at war."
sri sumbhajee himself stood up. "and so, we shall go to war!" he said, revealing his true voice to be very high-pitched.
the pirates all shouted and screamed in agreement, clapping each other on the backs. they started filing out of the room to prepare their ships.
bella looked at jack gratefully.
he smiled, turned around, and took her hand back into his.
gibbs hurried up next to them, seeming perturbed. "there's more beneath the watermark here than meets the eye, hmm?"
jack glanced at gibbs blankly, then stared at the ground.
gibbs shook his head. "you used to have a honest streak, let a man know where he stood with you," he grumbled. "but i can't figure this at all!"
jack looked at gibbs. "where did that honest streak end me up? dead," he replied, glancing to bella on that last word. "i'll never be that again, mate."
"jack—"
"mr. gibbs," bella interrupted. she stared at him strictly. "you have a ship to ready for battle, do you not?"
gibbs was taken aback at first, but he regained his composure. "aye-aye," he nodded, then turned around and went.
jack and bella stood in silence for a second. finally, jack turned to captain teague, who had watched their conversation.
"what?" jack said, approaching him. "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," teague set his guitar aside and stood up. "the trick is, living with yourself forever." he stepped towards them.
jack furrowed his brows, taking this into account. eventually, he broke away from his thoughts and looked at bella.
"meet my father, love," he spoke.
she turned to captain teague in astonishment. it made sense — those eyes had seemed way too familiar.
"and this lovely lass?" teague inquired, gesturing to bella. "the famed daughter of captain michael stevens?"
"bella," she smiled. "my pleasure." close up, she could easily spot their genetic similarities.
"what have you done with jackie, dear?" teague asked with a twinkle in his eye. "he swore he'd never fall in love."
"did he?" bella said, turning back to jack in surprise.
"it's safe to say my sentiments have changed," jack responded.
". . . she's rare, son," teague told jack, after a second. "be good to her."
bella glanced at jack, who nodded understandingly. "how's mum?"
teague held up a shrunken grey head.
"she looks great," jack lied.
a/n
hi please don't hate me for stealing elizabeth's moment
i wrote this in may and rereading it now is VERY messy . . . i promise, it's like night & day compared with what i've been writing now!
anyway, hope you like this chapter regardless.
love you,
sarah