Going Price (clicking "Return" will take you right back to where you left off)
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A boy approaches him, a boy who looks conspicuously like the man screaming out prices on the block. The boy manages a slight bow. "My lord." Jack arches an unimpressed eyebrow. "I'm looking for a slave." "We have many, my lord." "Yes," Jack sneers, forcing a disdain that is about something else entirely into the word, "but these aren't the type I'm looking for." The boy is careful not to look at him. "Something special?" Jack twists his mouth cruelly, "I like mine pale." The boy pales himself. "We don't sell anything like that, my lord." Jack notices the flutter of the boy's stomach though, the way his hands fly behind his back. "How unfortunate. I come with a considerable amount of money." Jack almost feels sorry for the boy, whose indecision is leaking out of him at the twists of his ankles. One glance back at the man still shouting numbers decides him. "We might have something. Although, he's been here a while. We haven't got him well trained, my lord." Jack fights the urge to close his eyes in something that might be a prayer. Might be if he was into the whole believing phase other people seemed to spend their lives following. He grins his best predatorial grin. "Precisely what I want." [Return] |
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Jack makes a small clucking noise. "He's nearly dead." The boy shifts on his feet, looking nervously at the hands that Jack has casually wrapped around the bars. Jack wonders if the good Commodore has found the multitude of uses for his teeth. The thought almost makes him smile. That is, until the boy says, "He refused to eat." Jack seriously doubts it. Norrington isn't the type. At least, not the type who starves himself. Then again, if they're giving him substandard fare, which Jack has no question that they are, it's entirely possible that for a long while the man refused to eat something that he saw as lowering his dignity. Daft bugger. "I won't pay much for a slave who's almost dead. I'm going to have to put a lot of money into him now." Also, Jack knows they’ve got to want this little trinket off their hands. White slaves aren't meant to stay in a traders cage for a long time, too risky. Jack wonders what exactly Norrington has done up to now to keep potentially interested buyers away. The man is sleeping so soundly Jack's not even sure he'll be able to wake him for the trip back to the boat. Then again, the boy is still eyeing Jack's hands. Jack doesn't unwrap them. "Thirty pounds," the boy says. Jack doesn't even deign to respond. He does begin to unwind his hands. "Twenty five. There are expenses, my lord." Jack can only imagine. Mush at least once a day and the hay that's in that cage must have been fresh at one time or another. "Fifteen." He feels he's being generous. "Twenty." "Fifteen." "Seventeen?" The boy's voice rises on a note of hope and Jack can't help noticing the fact that he's not in the best of condition himself. Jack has to wonder if he even has permission to be brokering this deal or if this is his way of ridding himself and his father of a problem that his father has yet to handle properly. Obviously. Besides, it's not like it's Jack's money. "Sixteen." Kindly, Jack ignores the sigh of relief from the boy, who says, "There are no papers." "I would hope not," Jack says dryly. The boy hands Jack a set of keys. "He's yours." Jack fits the first key into the lock. If only things were that easy. [Return] |
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Only the madam is charmed by Jack's flirting—as well she should be—and gives him what he wants, "Something with a little spirit, yes madam?" [Return] |
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When Jack is finally able to steer the matter around to his missing slave, the cabin boy he paid dear for back on the continent who ran away roughly three months hence, the señora confirms his suspicions about the state of her underclothes by clicking her fan open and waving around air that has no interest in being waved. "He is of great value to you?" "Well, he knows my ship." Jack thinks for a second or two about playing the sly, "and other things, also" card, but decides against it. He's pretty sure she's reading that into the situation as well. "I know of the boy that you want. He is a good slave." If Jack knows anything about Will he sincerely doubts it. He manages not to roll his eyes. "Well then, you can understand why I want him." "He was expensive, I don't know-" "Twenty pesetas." Jack stays low, since the bargaining is only going to go up, but it will hardly do to insult her. He can tell it's a close thing, the way her mouth curves. "Eighty, nothing less." "Forty." "Sixty." Jack thinks that's a little unfair of her, him going up two notches and she only going one. Especially when he can read through the lies, knows that they're itching to get rid of their problem worker. "Forty-five." "Fifty." She snaps her fan shut. Jack smiles graciously. "Fifty." She frowns, keeps frowning even as he hands over the money. She snaps at a servant to fetch, "The lazy pup," which, amazingly leads to him being brought Will. Jack files that away for possible taunting material later. The possibility is somewhat squashed by the infuriated burn of Will's eyes, the long red weals and cuts marking his back, the flagrant protuberance of his ribs. [Return] |