Marooned, 8

In Which Norrington Tells the Truth

by

Gloria Mundi

He had been raised to tell the truth, even when the consequences were unpleasant (the image of his mother's favourite porcelain vase, shattered on the drawing-room floor, made him smile to himself) and he had learnt to be as brutally honest with himself as with anyone else. And so it had to be admitted that he'd woken—in a very definite state of arousal—with Anamaria's smile bright in his mind's eye.

And yet he'd been thinking of Elizabeth, too.

A step behind him, clear above the creak of canvas, and Norrington was unpleasantly aware that firstly, he was violating another captain's personal space—for so he would always think of the quarterdeck—and secondly, he was about to be confronted by ... by Anamaria.

"What's got you so worked up, Commodore?" she demanded, gesturing at the invisible line he'd been pacing.

Norrington swallowed, and looked away, because somewhere along the line he'd become a coward; he couldn't tell her.

"Norrington?" said Anamaria, her voice gentler; that was worse.

"I was thinking about my ... my ship," he lied.

"HMS Ariel," said Anamaria.

"Just the Ariel now, I'm afraid," said Norrington, with a quick half-smile.

He saw Anamaria open her mouth, and frown, and pause before she spoke. "However did you keep her, anyway?" she said at last. "I heard all the Navy ships in Port Royal were taken by the Spanish, without hardly a shot fired."

Norrington shrugged. "It was sheer luck. We were cruising east of the Windward Isles, looking to intercept what messengers we could and play havoc with their intelligence. Oh, the war was as good as lost already, but we'd had no news from Europe."

The afternoon sun was warm on his face, and Anamaria was watching him, listening to him, in silence. Around and above (and, no doubt, below) the men of the Maiden's Glory mended, and tended, and sailed their ship. Norrington reminded himself that he was sailing south to his own command, his men, their shared lost cause: sunshine and leisure and pleasant company did not make this a holiday.

"We'd engaged the Apollyon, 60 guns—aye, outgunned and outmanned, but she had the weather-gage—and it was going poorly." (Norrington's mind presented him, unbidden, with the reality behind that euphemism: the deck red and slippery with flesh and blood, ghastly sounds of screaming crashing burning. He pushed the memory away.) "Then her magazine went up—"

"Boom!" Anamaria was grinning. "A terrible thing, aye," she said fiercely to his reproving look, "but you'd never have beaten her else. I'll bet you was all deaf for days!"

"Nearly a week," said Norrington, with a wry smile.

"Oh, I c'n see it now," Anamaria told him, eyes wide. What fine dark eyes she has, he thought, and chided himself for thinking it. "You tryin' to keep order, and none of 'em hearin' a word you said!"

"You speak as though you've lived through such a thing," said Norrington, turning to look at her curiously.

"Nah, not me," said Anamaria. "Heard that Jack Sparrow tell of it once, though."

"Jack Sparrow?" said Norrington, eyebrows raised. "I met—"

"Sailed with him, a few years back," said Anamaria gruffly, swinging round to stare ferociously at ... at the empty horizon ahead of them, as far as Norrington could see. He looked at Anamaria as she stood there at the helm of her ship, tension in every line of her body, and did not speak.

"You never finished your story, Norrington," she said after a long, quiet moment, while the Maiden's Glory sped south before a stiff breeze and the sun sank towards the ocean, off to starboard. "Shipful of deaf men, and I'll bet you din't come through without a few knocks to the Ariel too. Surprised you made it back at all."

And Norrington, recognising the challenge and the distraction both, did as he was bidden, and told her of Stabroek, and van Hoorst, and everything that had happened since.

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