The Black Pearl was a cacophony of shadows and sharp steel. As the sailors of the Dauntless were herded into the hold, a group of Jack’s most seasoned pirates—Bo’sun, Pintel, and Ragetti among them—blocked the path to the stern. They weren’t looking at the prisoners; they were looking at Jack, their eyes glittering with the expectation of a “pirate’s due.”
“They’re a lot of mouths, Cap’n,” Bo’sun growled, resting a heavy hand on his cutlass. “A lot of risk. We didn’t sign on to be a ferry for the King’s finest without a bit of silver to show for it.”
“And they’ve got no silver, Bo’sun,” Jack chirped, though his eyes were wary. “Unless you’ve hidden some in your boots, James?”
Norrington stood centered in the ring of pirates, his face a mask of pale, frozen dignity. “You know we have nothing but our lives.”
“Then their lives are the currency!” Pintel shouted, and a murmur of agreement rippled through the crew. “A life for a life! Let the Commodore pay the toll for his men!”
Jack looked at the crew, then at Norrington. The air on deck grew thick, the pressure of a potential mutiny or a bloody spectacle hanging in the balance. Jack stepped forward, his movements exaggerated, his voice carrying to the very ends of the rigging.
“Right! Business! I like business,” Jack declared. He turned to Norrington, his head tilting like a curious bird. “The crew wants a price, James. They want to see that the great Commodore Norrington understands the cost of salvation on the Pearl.”
He paused, a slow, wicked glint appearing in his eyes. “One hundred and forty men. I think… one lash for every man I’ve pulled from the drink. One hundred and forty strokes of the cat. That’s a fair exchange, wouldn’t you say, boys?”
A roar of approval went up from the pirates. It was a staggering number—a death sentence wrapped in a bargain.
Norrington didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. He looked at the hatch where his men had just disappeared, then back at Jack. He knew the mathematics of the whip; he knew that no man, no matter how strong, was meant to walk away from such a tally.
“One hundred and forty,” Norrington repeated, his voice cold and steady as iron.
“A heavy price for a heavy soul,” Jack murmured, stepping closer. “Do you accept the terms, Commodore? Or shall we just toss them back into the sea and save ourselves the trouble of the laundry?”
Norrington straightened his back, his shoulders squared as if he were already on the parade ground. He looked past Jack, out at the grey, unforgiving Atlantic that had claimed his ship.
“I accept,” Norrington said, his voice ringing clear across the deck. “On your word that my men are fed, protected, and released at the first neutral port.”
“You have my word,” Jack replied, his grin fading into something sharper, more predatory. “Strip him. Bind him to the mast. Let’s see how much ‘honor’ the King’s navy has to bleed.”
As the pirates surged forward to take his coat, Norrington closed his eyes for a single heartbeat, offering one final silent prayer for the men he was about to buy with his own flesh.