Marooned, 16

In Which Norrington is Irritated

by

Gloria Mundi

There was little news, and most of it bad. One bright fragment: old Swann, Elizabeth's father, had found himself a post in the Danish government. One report even mentioned his daughter and son-in-law, alive and well in Copenhagen. Norrington chuckled, wondering what the headstrong couple would make of European diplomacy. Not to mention the weather; Elizabeth had always hated the rain.

But when he thought of Elizabeth he thought of Anamaria, though he had stopped telling himself that they were worlds apart: and when he thought of Anamaria, Jack Sparrow would, more often than not, sidle into his mind, all gleam and curve and shine like a counterfeit coin.

Norrington had at once dreaded and hoped for the day when he would bid farewell to Anamaria. It was not that he found their liaison distasteful or unwelcome: on the contrary, it felt as though Anamaria had unlocked some self-imprisoned part of him that had been forgotten for too long. He'd never thought that he would take—'be taken by', he amended the thought, with a wry smile and a renewed surge of lust—a dark-skinned pirate woman for a lover. On board the Maiden's Glory, Norrington had been happy to stop planning and calculating, happy to let life wash over him and bring what it would. He had never been able to live like that before, caught up in a net of Navy rules and regulations: England had expected everything of him and he had given it willingly.

What Anamaria had seemed to expect was quite different, and perhaps it was for that reason that he'd abandoned propriety and politeness and let his baser self guide him. He blushed—actually, it was more the echo of a blush, the way the man he'd been a year ago would have blushed—to think of the things they had done, together, in her bed.

But bidding her farewell was another matter. He had begun to notice changes in himself: a passivity that sprang from being a mere passenger on another captain's ship, running cleanly down to Stabroek with a keen eye on other shipping, and every reason not to be caught. (Anamaria had not told him the nature of her cargo, though he helped haul some of it, sugar and silver, aboard from that French vessel. He had not asked what else was in the Maiden's hold.) That was all very well, in its place, but Norrington was a man of action, and his self-declared war against the French would brook nothing less.

They had made their farewells, in private, the night before the Maiden's Glory docked. It had been less than a week since he'd sat with Anamaria on deck and learnt of Jack Sparrow's fate. Somehow, between the hot looks and the daily business of eluding the enemy, Norrington had found himself thinking—not constantly, but frequently—of Sparrow. Thinking of his unmarked grave. Thinking of how he could make himself believe, for once and for all, that Jack Sparrow (who had somehow come to stand for a great deal more than any one pirate should embody) was dead.

Norrington held on to the idea, like an oyster holding onto a grain of sand. Rather, the idea held onto him. He had set himself the task of finding Jack, if he could be found: for it seemed impossible that someone so notorious would simply disappear in stormy weather, leaving so many stories half-finished. If he was dead, then Norrington would try to prove it: if he was alive, then Norrington would find him. It was a goal, albeit a modest one.

At least that was how it began. He had caught himself turning over epitaphs as he paced the quarterdeck: 'a pirate and a good man'. No, why qualify it? 'A good man'. Or, 'The friend I never knew' (this after an uncommonly bad night, and the burial at sea of a sailor who'd served with him, from ship to ship, for years). Rapidly following that, 'A Bloody Nuisance'.

Eventually he began to realise that he hoped to find Jack alive.

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