Marooned, 6

In Which Norrington Follows Orders

by

Gloria Mundi

"French!" cried the lookout, and Anamaria cursed in a way that would've shocked Norrington even from a hard-bitten tar. The ship was headed east, towards one of the French ports on the south coast of Hispaniola: easy enough, as Norrington tried to show Anamaria on the charts, to hold course and let the enemy ship pass.

It wasn't that he was reluctant to engage—quite the contrary—but the Maiden's Glory was no more than a belligerently overgunned ketch, and surely she stood little chance against a Naval brig.

Besides, she wasn't his to command.

"Just 'cause they're flyin' the French flag," said Anamaria darkly, loading a pistol, "don't mean a thing."

"You think they may be Spanish?" enquired Norrington.

Anamaria shrugged. "No difference any more, is there?"

Norrington turned on his heel and raised the glass to his eye. Even now, even on a pirate ship, he could not be rude to a fellow-captain: but that had bitten deep.

The other ship had noticed their approach now. He could imagine her captain making jokes about lost fishermen. Indeed, with his spy-glass, he could see three or four men on her quarterdeck. They did not seem concerned by the Maiden's approach.

In contrast, Anamaria's crew were quick and businesslike as they made ready the guns. Not Naval discipline, to be sure, but he'd been amazed at first to see common tars taking orders from a woman. And this Anamaria—she'd give him no other name—knew which orders needed giving.

"What do you want me to do?" he called after her as she sprang down to the deck.

"Fight!" she yelled, grinning: as much a command to her crew as an answer to his question.

Norrington did as he was told.

Later, when the Sorciére—he'd been quite close enough, thank you, to read the ornate gilt lettering on her stern—was limping away, scarred by boarding-axes and high in the water without her cargo of sugar and silver, Norrington asked Anamaria why she'd let the ship, and her crew, sail free.

She shrugged. "They were French, right enough. It's the Spanish I hate."

Norrington set his teeth. "You said yourself that there's no difference now. And England's at war—"

"Not any more," said Anamaria, with contempt.

"The battle may be over, but the war remains," said Norrington, staring out over the water rather than let her see how wounding her words had been.

"You think I care what they do, in their pretty gilt throne-rooms in places I've never been?" demanded Anamaria. "The Spanish I hate. They may have whored themselves to the French king, but they're still Spanish in their hearts. The French are prey, no more than that. The Dutch I'd as soon leave."

"The English?" said Norrington. He had bound the shallow cut in his arm, where he'd caught a French lieutenant's blade. The sting of it was a welcome counterweight to the slow realisation that he was growing to respect a woman whose life was framed quite differently to his own.

Anamaria made an ugly noise that might have begun as a laugh. "The English?" she said, one finger on her lip as she pretended to think. "Ah, them. They don't come here no more."

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