The crew of the Black Pearl gathered in a grim semi-circle around the mainmast. The usual rowdy jeering was absent, replaced by a heavy, expectant silence.
Norrington was led to the mast. His hands were bound with rough hemp rope and hoisted above his head, forcing him to stand on his tiptoes. Two pirates stepped forward and stripped him of his salt-stained tunic, leaving his torso bare to the biting spray. He looked small against the massive timber of the mast, but his gaze remained fixed on the horizon, his jaw locked in a grimace of absolute defiance.
Jack sauntered into the center of the ring, trailing a heavy, braided whip. He didn’t look like the bumbling rogue now. He looked like a man about to perform a cold, necessary calculation.
“The first twenty, James,” Jack whispered, stepping behind him. “For twenty of your finest. Let’s see how much your honor is worth today.”
The first strike fell.
It was a sudden, jarring shock that radiated through Norrington’s entire frame. He slammed his forehead against the wood of the mast, his eyes snapping shut as his muscles seized. He waited for the familiar, hot sting of broken skin—the wet warmth of blood that always followed a naval flogging.
But it didn’t come.
Two. Three. Four.
The blows were heavy, agonizingly blunt, and delivered with a rhythm that felt designed to shatter his bones rather than tear his flesh. Each strike sent a shudder through his nervous system, a dull, thudding ache that made his breath catch in raw, jagged gasps.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
Norrington’s world narrowed down to the rough texture of the mast’s bark and the rhythmic, bone-deep thuds. His back felt like a sheet of bruised fire, yet, strangely, he felt no moisture running down his ribs. He was being beaten with terrifying force, but he wasn’t being flayed.
Eighteen. Nineteen.
By the twentieth strike, his body simply gave out. His knees buckled, and he hung limply from his wrist bonds, his chest heaving as he fought for air. Black spots danced before his eyes, and a cold sweat broke out across his brow.
“Twenty,” Jack’s voice called out, sounding strangely distant.
As the pirates cut the ropes, Norrington collapsed onto the deck. He lay there for a moment, his cheek pressed against the salt-crusted wood, waiting for the searing pain of salt air hitting open wounds.
It never happened.
His back throbbed with a dull, sickening intensity, and he felt as though he had been trampled by a team of horses, but he was dry. He reached back with a trembling hand, brushing his fingers across his shoulder blades.
Nothing. His skin was intact. Not a single drop of blood stained his hand.
He looked up, his vision swimming, to see Jack standing over him. The pirate was coiled like a spring, his eyes darting between Norrington and the watching crew with a frantic, hidden energy.
Twenty lashes with a heavy whip, Norrington thought, his mind racing through the fog of pain. I should be unrecognizable. I should be bleeding out on these boards.
But he wasn’t. The punishment had been brutal, enough to break his strength and leave him heaving on the deck, yet it was… bloodless. It was a masterpiece of controlled violence that looked devastating to the onlookers but left the man himself suspiciously whole.
“Take him down,” Jack barked at the Bo’sun, his voice sharp and dismissive. “Lock him in the stern cabin. I don’t want the crew’s ‘payment’ catching a chill before the next round.”
As they dragged him away, Norrington stared at Jack, a flicker of profound confusion piercing through his agony. This wasn’t the work of a sadist. This was something else.
Part V: The Shadow of Mercy
The stern cabin was small, dark, and smelled faintly of old parchment and expensive rum. As the pirates tossed him inside and bolted the door, Norrington slumped against the bulkhead, his breath coming in shallow, shuddering gasps.
His back was a landscape of throbbing heat. Every movement felt like a dull blade pressing into his spine. He crawled toward a small basin of water in the corner, his muscles screaming in protest. With trembling fingers, he managed to pull himself up enough to see his reflection in the polished surface of the water, and then, slowly, he turned his torso to inspect the damage in the dim moonlight.
He gasped.
His back was covered in thick, angry welts—deep purple and crimson bruises that traced the path of the whip with agonizing precision. It looked horrific; to any observer, it was the mark of a man who had been thoroughly beaten.
But there was no blood.
Not a single laceration. Not a single tear in the skin.
Norrington sank back onto the floor, his head thumping against the wood. He was a veteran of the sea; he had seen floggings that turned a man’s back into raw meat within ten strokes. Jack had delivered twenty with enough force to make him lose consciousness, yet he had used a technique—perhaps a specific type of weighted, blunt cord—that spared the flesh while maximizing the impact on the nerves and bone.
“He isn’t trying to kill me,” Norrington whispered to the empty room.
The realization hit him harder than the whip. Jack Sparrow was a master of theater. To his crew, he was the ruthless captain extracting a brutal price in bloodless installments. He was maintaining his reputation as a pirate who demanded a pound of flesh.
But to Norrington, he was doing something else entirely. He was fulfilling the letter of their dark “accord” while ensuring the Commodore would actually survive to see the end of it. He was inflicting a punishment that would break Norrington’s body for a time, but leave him whole enough to walk away.
The door creaked open.
A shadow fell across the floor. Jack Sparrow stepped inside, carrying a small tin of salve and a bottle of water. He didn’t have his usual swagger; his movements were quiet, almost hurried. He kicked the door shut behind him and sat on a crate across from Norrington.
“You look terrible, James,” Jack said, his voice devoid of its usual mocking lilt. “Truly. Very much the tragic hero.”
Norrington looked up, his eyes narrowing despite the pain. “You used a blunt whip. No knots. No barbs. Why?”
Jack busied himself with opening the tin, the scent of menthol and herbs filling the cabin. “A dead currency is of no use to me, is it? If I flay you open in the first hundred, you’ll catch the rot and die before we reach Port Royal. Then I’m stuck with a hundred and forty soggy sailors and no payment for my trouble.”
“Don’t lie to me, Jack,” Norrington rasped, his voice cracking. “You could have killed me and the crew would have cheered. You chose this. You chose to make it look like a massacre while sparing my life.”
Jack paused, a finger coated in green salve. He looked at Norrington, and for a fleeting second, the mask of the pirate captain slipped. There was no malice in his eyes, only a weary, flickering spark of something that looked remarkably like respect.
“One hundred and forty men, James,” Jack murmured, leaning forward. “You stood there and asked for it. You didn’t beg. You didn’t bargain. You just offered your back for theirs.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m a pirate, not a butcher. I’ll give the crew their show. I’ll give them the ‘blood’ they think they’re seeing in the shadows. But I’m not going to be the man who kills a fool for having too much honor.”
He tossed the tin to Norrington. “Rub that in. It’ll stop the swelling. We do another twenty tomorrow at dawn. Try to make a bit more noise next time—the crew likes a bit of a moan, gives them something to talk about over their grog.”
As Jack turned to leave, Norrington realized the true nature of the game. He was paying the price, yes—the pain was real enough to make him wish for death—but Jack was sharing the burden of the lie.
“Jack,” Norrington called out softly.
The pirate stopped at the door, his hand on the latch.
“Thank you.”
Jack didn’t turn around. He merely adjusted his hat. “Don’t thank me yet, Commodore. We’ve still got a hundred and twenty to go. And I promise you… the next twenty are going to hurt like the devil.”
The door closed, the lock clicked, and Norrington was left in the dark, clutching a tin of healing salve provided by his executioner.