"Sparrow, yer drunk agin." Gibbs shook his head, then hoisted him up by the hair. "Laddie, yer never gonna get yeself out o' this pisspot like that."

"Shurrup an' have a dram."

Josh sighed and helped himself to a good bit more than a dram. "Jack, listen t'me. Yer a fine seaman. Dammit man, ya know these waters blindfolded. Why're ya so intent on shootin' yerself in the foot?"

"Bugger off, Gibbsy. Ain't leavin'. Came inta a bit o'luck an' I intend to enjoy every blessed minute of it."

Pickpocketing again. Gibbs sat down with a sigh.

Funny bastard, Sparrow was and no mistake. In the weeks of their acquaintance, he could go from the blackest of moods to crowing like a rooster with a barnful of hens. Now, Joshamee didn't mind a bit of carousing at all. 'Twas a man's pleasure and prerogative, 'specially a fine-lookin' young man like Jack. They'd shipped out for a fortnight with a small crew towards Hispaniola under some French chappie, and he'd seen Sparrow in action on deck. No question the man knew his ropes. A small but successful venture that Jack had celebrated by promptly drinking and whoring away every last copper in his pocket within days, once back in Tortuga.

Now he seemed content to resort to petty thieving and swilling himself insensible. Gibbs watched the dark eyes cast a cloudy look over the tavern.

Late the hour, and it was quiet when the newest of the serving girls, a little bit of thing barely fourteen, settled herself on a stool, a rough dulcimer on her lap, idly strumming and humming to herself, glad to be off her aching feet. She fiddled a bit with the pegs, plucking one string, then another in a wordless song.

"Out o'tune," Jack muttered into his tankard. His mood had been dark since their venture, and though he never explained it, Gibbs knew it was memory that was eating the pirate alive. He'd seen it shipboard; the black eyes gone soft and distant, watching the horizon with a strange look of hopeful misery, or hard and sneering when he corrected the course from the helm. All in all, it had not been a happy journey for Sparrow. Perhaps it reminded him too much of what he'd lost. Whate're the case, he'd been damnably difficult ashore ever since. Gibbs had almost lost sight of the sparkling apparition he remembered from their first meeting: all gold and silver and gleaming like a bright bit of silk in a pile of rags.

"Cap'n?" Gibbs slurped down the rum and poured another. No sense bein' sober with a companion who was all sheets t'the wind.

"Wot?" Jack was fumbling with the tankard and Josh heaved a great sigh and refilled it. Sparrow looked tarnished, his gilded skin dull in the lanternlight, black eyes dim and shuttered under their lashes.

The girl started playing, hesitantly, as if struggling to remember the notes. Her voice was wavering and sweet, a high child's cry singing of a love she had yet to understand.

Jack's head tilted to one side, his mop of hair chiming in harmony to the halting song. Abruptly, he pushed himself away from the table with both hands, swaying for a moment.

Gibbs watched him walk towards her, his whole body moving side to side as though buffeted by waves that existed only in his addled mind. He sidled his way to the girl and stood, looking down at her for a long moment, then bent forward, his mad mane spilling over his face and her's. Gibbs was taken aback. He couldn't be goin' after one so young.

Whatever Sparrow had whispered must have pleased her, for she shifted herself to a chair and handed him the instrument.

Josh took a long swill. This would be interesting, if nothin' more.

Jack's tar-black fingers played over the strings, tightening a peg here, loosening one there until he splayed both hands and plucked out a single note, nodding at the girl.

Then, just as suddenly, he began to play, his left hand plucking out a low bass line, the right moving in a rolling, chiming combination of melody and harmony that made Gibbs stop mid-swallow. Now who'd have guessed such as thing from that mad heathen bastard?

Gibbs wobbled to his feet and crept forward until he was sitting directly across from Jack, hypnotised by the long fingers dancing across the strings; fingers he'd seen hauling ropes as thick as those supple wrists, clenched in fists or wrapped round a cutlass with deadly skill.

The girl sang of the cuckoo, her voice mimicking its sweet notes and Joshamee suddenly could almost smell the green English spring, rain-dewed and heavy with promise, the dark earth stirring to life after winter snows. The childish, piping voice whistled of the roving men who left at spring to ne'er return, mourning for a lost love in a world of flowering abundance. Jack's hands stilled with her voice and the silence 'minded Gibbs of the quiet in a stone church amid green hills.

Then the strings spoke again, softly, his fingers flying over them to coax a swirling chasm of sound from the old instrument, a whirlpool of tones that slid to harmony and moved as endlessly as the sea.

The girl began to sing once more, confident now, her voice like a clear bell, rising above the strings in high, sweet tones like a lark winging close to the shore.

"Once I had a sweetheart and now I have none." She caroled and Jack nodded, then bent his head, black hair brushing against his moving hands.

"Last night in sweet slumber I dreamed I did see, my own darlin' jewel sat smiling by me."

His voice joined hers in low harmony, barely a whisper of a sound, growing stronger as they warmed to the song; a rich voice, deep as an undertow, tugging at her high notes and pulling them into a sea of sound.

"My life I'll venture on the watery main."

"I'll set sail of silver and steer toward the sun."

"After I'm, after I'm, after I'm gone."

Jack's fingers slowed, then stopped, his head bowed. She leaned over to talk and he lifted it slowly, looking at her as though wakened from a dream.

He whispered a curse, glanced at the girl and flipped her a coin, and, carefully placing the dulcimer on the table, was out of the door before Gibbs could say a word.

Joshamee shook his head apologetically at the surprised child and patted her hand. "Never mind Cap'n. He's in 'is cups and takes t' strange moods. No harm in 'im, he just be a bit sudden." She smiled and nodded, turning the coin over in her fingers with bright eyes as Gibbs lumbered after his wandering Sparrow.

He found Jack leaning against a wall, staring down at the dock with eyes that swallowed the night sky.

"Wot's in yer head, Cap'n?"

He laid a hand against Sparrow's arm and felt it trembling, quivering like the strings his fingers had plucked with unimagined skill.

"Jack? Wot ails ye?"

"Gibbsy, y'ever been in love?"

"Oh aye, laddie. Many's the time."

Jack produced another bottle from his bottomless pocket, took a long pull and handed it to Gibbs, his eyes never leaving the darkened sea.

" 'Tis a foul thing, love."

"Whys'at, Jack?

"One way or t'other, makes ya run mad. Mad with longin', mad with needin', mad with..."

"Jealousy?"

"Aye, that too."

Gibbs gulped down a swallow and tugged at Jack's sleeve. "C'mon, let's find ourselves a place t'sleep." He expected a fight, but Sparrow simply turned and followed him down to the barn they'd commandeered, money bein' a bit short of late an' rooms so expensive.

Jack took off his coat and laid it down on the straw, tossing himself atop it and continued to drink in silence. Most strange indeed.

"Love you was talkin' bout, Jack?"

"Worse n' a squall south o' Bermuda," he growled.

"Well, laddie, 'tis bound t'be like that fer you. Yer a young man. Got t'spect a lot o'fire when love finds a young man like yerself. Who ye be pinin' fer, Jack?"

"Don't matter now. Long time past, Gibbsy. Long time."

Gibbs took the bottle from his hand before it spilled into the straw. "Got away from ya, did she? 'Tis a pity, but y'know how 'tis with seafearin' men."

Jack's eyes slid sideways at him, pitch drowned in midnight. "Aye. Somethin' like that." There was a low, ominous tone in his voice.

Josh raised an eyebrow. Youthful folly? A love affair gone wrong? "Tha' why ya went t'sea?"

"No."

"Then what, laddie? An' why..." Gibbs stopped and remembered the fingers on the strings, the girl's sweet voice, the shared song. "Ah, ya left her?"

"No, Joshamee. I didn't leave 'er."

Suddenly, it was like walking through a pit of snakes. Jack's outrageous stories usually had some kernel of truth in them somewhere, though God knew Gibbs couldn't tell which or where. When he failed to rise to the challenge of spinning a good yarn, Gibbs knew he was dealing with Truth, unadorned and naked. It hadn't happened since that first night he'd met Jack Sparrow.

"Ya don't wanna know, Gibbsy. Ya really don't."

"An' Bill?" Josh ventured quietly.

"Ah, that. Another tale."

Sparrow was staring at the wall blankly, blind eyes turned inward and not liking what they saw. His face was angled and shadowed in sharp relief of the single lantern swinging overhead.

"Jack?"

"Three times, Gibbs. Loved three times and lost 'em all."

Three? Joshamee glanced at him and took another drink. The Pearl? The biggest hole in a Sparrow's heart, gaping and black as powder burns 'round a pistol shot. Bill? He ne'er mentioned more than the name.

"Ye can't be livin' in th' past, Jack."

"Shouldn't be livin' at all."

Josh pressed the bottle into his hand and watched the rum gurgle and spill, the amber column of Jack's throat working as he swallowed.

"Cap'n, 'tis bad luck t'talk so." Gibbs made a sign with his fingers to ward off ill-fortune.

Sparrow's eyes followed his hands and he smiled grimly. "By all rights, shoulda been long gone. Y'think there's such a thing as fate?"

Fate? What in blazes was Jack on about? He knew the bugger was soused, yet his voice was sober as a judge's.

"Dunno, Jack."

"That if ya 'scape yer proper punishment, ya pay fer it later?"

"Stop talkin' in riddles. Yer makin' me head ache."

Jack was silent for a long while, drinking and staring in a way that unnerved Gibbs.

"Shoulda hanged fer it. Knew it then. But..." he murmured, almost to himself.

Joshamee sat up abruptly and took the bottle away from him. Sparrow was a pirate. There had to be more than twenty reasons to hang him.

"But wot?"

"Didn't. Ran. Got clear an' never went back."

"Jack, wot in blazes are ya blatherin' about?"

Jack's head turned, a humourless smile twisting his lips. "Love."

There were times that the circular pattern of Sparrow's logic eluded the most clever of men. Gibbs lost the thread more often than not. He changed the subject.

"Pretty voice that little girlie have."

"Aye, very pretty."

"Minded me of a little lass who used t'tend a tavern back in Bournesmouth. Wonder how she got out here?"

Jack didn't answer. He gazed at the rum bottle as though it had some special meaning.

"Cap'n, why should ye hang?"

"Because, Gibbsy, jus' because."

Pirate? No this was something else. Jack never apologised for that.

The girl's song kept running 'round his head and a sun seemed to break in Gibbs' fractured thoughts.

"Love, eh? How old were ya, lad?"

"Dunno. Sixteen."

Love at sixteen, a boy's head with a man's heart? The Truth hovered over them both and suddenly, Gibbs understood. He sat up, staring at Sparrow, feeling most uncomfortably sober.

Jealousy.

Love.

"Jack, ya..."

Jack faced him, his eyes empty. "I did. Didn't mean to, but I did."

"Jesus, Mary an' Joseph."

Jack poured more rum down his throat, his teeth clamped around the rim of the bottle. When he finally spoke, his voice was very low, faraway as a distant cry over dark waters.

"She were different. Dark an' wild. Couldn't hold her. No one could. Like fog fire, a will o' the wisp. God, I think I really were crazy then. Thought of bolting, of draggin' her away wif me. Anythin'."

"Wot happened, Jack?"

"She were playin' me fer a right fool. Last time we met, " The dark brows drew together painfully. " 'Twasn't pretty. Then, it was over an' she wasn't movin'." He sucked in a deep breath, one hand straying to his throat. "Never felt so cold. Not until the Pearl."

Jack's hand had tightened around the bottle and it cracked, the sound of a pistol shot. Gibbs grabbed for his hand.

"Jesus, Cap'n, stop it. Ye'll do yerself an injury." He swiped at the blood with his sleeve. Jack wrenched his arm away and threw himself down into the straw.

"Leave me be."

Gibbs watched for a long, long time until Jack's breathing had slowed, then gently lifted his hand to make sure it wasn't more than a scratch.

Damnable love. No wonder they wrote songs 'bout it.

The candle in the lantern guttered, tossing fragments of light across Sparrow's face and Gibbs dreamed of silver sails and tar-stained hands around a slender neck, and dark eyes that would never lose their shadows. Silver sails, black sails and salt water that streamed into a starlit sea where ghosts beckoned with smiles and bowsprits and sweet voices sang in harmony with treacherous waves.

From the depths of his restless slumber, Gibbs heard Jack mutter and leaned in close.

"Never again. Never love again."

FIN

____


The songs are both trad. English pieces, dating from the 15-16th centuries, arranged by Pentangle on the album "Basket of Light". The first is 'The Cuckoo", the second is "Once I Had a Sweetheart". Lyrics below. I had hoped to link the actual songs but I will be happy to send the mp3's to anyone who wants to hear them.

Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird
She singeth as she flies
She bringeth good tidings
She telleth no lies
She sucketh white flowers
For to keep her voice clear
And the more she singeth cuckoo
The summer draweth near.

As I was a-walking
And a-talking one day
I met my own true love
As he came that way
Oh to meet him was a pleasure
Though the courting was a woe
For I found him false hearted
He would kiss me and go.

I wish I were a scholar
And could handle the pen
I would write to my lover
And to all roving men
I would tell them of the grief and woe
That attend on their lies
I would wish them have pity
On the flower when it dies.

Once I had a sweetheart and now I have none
Once I had a sweetheart and now I have none
He's gone and left me He's gone and left me
Gone and left me in sorrow to mourn
Last night in sweet slumber I dreamed I did see
Last night in sweet slumber I dreamed I did see
My own darling jewel sat smiling by me
My own darling jewel sat smiling by me
But when I awakened I found it not so
But when I awakened I found it not so
My eyes like some fountain with tears overflowed
Eyes like some fountain with tears overflowed
I'll venture through England, through France and through Spain
I'll venture through England, through France and through Spain
My life I'll venture on watery main
My life I'll venture on watery main
I'll set sail of silver and steer toward the sun
I'll set sail of silver and steer toward the sun
And my false love will weep, my false love will weep
False love will weep for me after I'm gone
After I'm gone, After I'm gone, After I'm gone...