Elanor found her visitor some basic clothing then adjourned to consult with Ariadne before delivering it.
“Still no sat link?” she asked with no real hope.
“No, nor radio link.”
Elanor gnawed at her lip,
“What the hell is going on Ariadne?”
“Insufficient information is available for analysis.”
“No I suppose not,” she sighed.
Nor had she got any real information out of her guest, something she must see to correcting, which reminded her of one reason for being here,
“Jack Sparrow, Captain, or so he says. See what you can find out about him Ariadne. Check the maritime and criminal databases first, then try the press databases. He certainly seemed worried that I might have heard of him, so he must have had some access to communications, which is a bit odd given that he seemed to have no knowledge of who I was, or of the Chaser for that matter.”
“Very well.”

She crossed to the chart,
“Where did he come from?” she mused half to herself, “There’s no port near enough for him to have reached where we found him in that boat, not unless he was more than usually fortunate in the weather and seas. At least not if we are where we should be.”
“Do you want me to search for possibilities?” Ariadne asked, startling Elanor who hadn’t really intended to ask the question.
She gave that a moment or two of thought.
“Yes.” Another thought occurred, “and run a local area scan, nearest coastline, fix our position relative to the nearest large town, and then see if you can find some temporary settlement, a shanty town or refugee camp, which might fit as his point of departure. Whoever he is he has been living pretty rough recently by the state of him, and not off the fat of the land either.”
Which reminded her that she needed to put the necessary items into the washroom before she returned to him, fleas she could live without.
She frowned,
“That might explain it I suppose, a storm refugee,” she muttered to herself, “maybe lost his ship that way too.”
A nice comforting thought, and far from impossible, so why didn’t she believe it?

Elanor stared at the chart for a moment longer, but even if he were that still wouldn’t explain those strange weapons or the ancient chart, 'unless they were some form of family heirloom carried for their value' she thought. If that was the case then they might represent his only remaining possessions, which cast a different light on his concern about their loss perhaps. She felt a surge of sympathy, if that was true then she couldn’t blame him for his anxiety, to lose everything in such a way would be more terrible than she could imagine.

Yet he didn’t have the appearance of a refugee from a storm or anything else. He didn’t have the air of shock that seemed to hand around for such a long time afterwards. No, he had been as in control of himself as it had been possible for someone in his situation to be, and his sudden switches from submission to challenge and back suggested that both were strategies that he used interchangeably to meet events rather than anything that represented the full truth of the man beneath. That man remained as shadowy as he had been when he was asleep.

She thought back to their conversation, judging by his vocabulary he was literate, even educated, which ruled out a number of the possibilities that had occurred to her. But the roughened hands and feet, and the tar and varnish that stained them both, suggested that he had been used to sailing small and primitive ships, and probably not as a hobby. Certainly no ship of the Chaser’s size would require the use of tar or anything like it

Elanor sighed and picked up the small pile of clothing, refolding them absently while she though. Maybe he would feel more communicative once he been given a chance to clean up and been fed. Food, she would see about that when he was safely ensconced in the washroom. She turned for the door,
“Ariadne, extend those scans, check the status of all settlements in a three hundred mile radius, then see if there have been any storm damage or similar events recently. Hold results at the main console until I return.”
“Very well.”
“Oh, and Ariadne, close all hatches and lock all doors for the moment. I don’t want our visitor wandering around while I’m in the galley.”
“Doors locked.”

***

Fatigue had finally won and Barbossa had thrown himself down on the bed in the great cabin to sleep, driven by the sheer weight of his exhaustion from the deck. Not that he had expected to sleep when he had closed the doors on the crew outside, but hours of pouring over charts in candle light had sowed splinters in his eyes and an ache in his head and a numbing weariness in his bones, and when he laid down he found that sleep was waiting for him for the first time since they had returned from the locker.

The locker, even the name sent a freezing terror through him. Whatever Jones had conjured for Jack Sparrow there it would be nothing to what waited for himself if he didn’t find a way to hold onto life. Nor would Calypso make any attempt to save him, for though he had honoured his vow he hadn’t truly kept faith with her, and they both knew it. He had sought to profit above their agreement, just as he had once with Jack, and the sea goddess was like to be a mite less forgiving about it. Another painful lesson to be re-learned if ever death claimed him. Though he could no longer be sure that he wouldn’t be alearning it in the here and now, not the way the crew were staring to look at him.

So sleep, sudden, deep and heavy had not been expected; yet like his death it found him anyways. Not that there was anything restful about it, broken as it was by periods of sudden wakefulness quickly swallowed back into drowsy meandering and then a rapid slide down into darkness. But as with his death the initial oblivion did not persist, for, as with his death, the dreams were many and varied, and each more unpleasant than the one before. Then he would wake again to find little Jack peering into his face as if concerned and his shirt plastered to his back by the cold sweat. But not for long, for he found he was too tired to rise and the darkness would soon encroach again, sending him back into dreams of the world of the dead. Yet few of those dreams made any sense, and many were populated by monsters and devils and ghosts that he could only half recall when he woke shouting and with his hand reaching for his sword or pistol.

Not that he wanted to recall them, he could hazard too many a guess what they were about.

He was surprised at the number that included Jack Sparrow, but as the light of morning strengthened beyond the windows he lay in a dozing dread and reflected that maybe it shouldn’t be. From the first day they first met, when Jack had been so very young and buoyant but with a shadow of darkness already in his eyes and the brand red and painful looking on his wrist, to the day when the man he had become had used the Flying Dutchman itself to pull victory from what had seemed to be certain defeat, Jack Sparrow had been the joker in the pack of Hector Barbossa’s life cards.

That first meeting of was often in his thoughts now, both waking and sleeping, and the memory was especially bitter, for without it the course of his life would have been different.

He had been sailing on pirates for nigh on twenty year before they had met, and he had made a name for himself amongst those searching for crew as a rare man with a blade and pistol. But he had never come close to being named captain before that day, he was known as a fine first mate, and a good sailor, but he had lacked flair, a fact that set him at a disadvantage with more experienced pirates. But in the boy that he had met that first day he had seen his chance, particularly given the crew Jack was gathering and the ship he had at his command.

None of the pirate vessels Barbossa had sailed on had come close to equalling the glorious lines of the Black Pearl, nor her promise of speed and manoeuvrability. The word in the taverns of Tortuga was that Jack owned her, had built her and maybe had a hand in her design; that talk was enough to pull the whores to him like moths to a candle and to fire himself with a dislike of the lad even before he knew him. Jack Sparrow had set himself up as the architect of his crew’s fall that day, with his talk of adventure and wealth and Aztec gold. Despite his youth it was clear that he had already seen his share of the horrors men were capable of and that he didn’t lack flair, or nerve if the truth be told; but there had been a strange generosity in him that had allowed events to overtake them all. Aye, Sparrow had been a lad who should have known the temptations that he and treasure and his fine, fast, ship presented to one such as Hector Barbossa.

Even the discovery of his parentage, though an unwelcome complication, had not been enough to outweigh it; though if Jack had carried the name of Teague that first day on the dockside they would all have thought twice about sailing with him.

If he had been different, more like his father, then maybe they would have honoured the code and satisfied themselves with their share of the loot. But that unpredictable streak had been visible even then, though he had to admit that he had misread it. He would have sworn that for all the bragging claims the lad lacked both the necessary resources to survive and the steel to follow through on it when they met again.

Ten years, Sparrow had waited ten years, but he had won through in the end. Maybe he had read the lad awry from the beginning. That misreading had cost him his life and set him at Calypso’s mercy.

Even the locker had not been enough to finish Sparrow, though in those first few days after their meeting on its shores it had seemed that it might. Then he had been sure that his mastery over Jack was restored and that the Pearl would once again be his; so sure that even a flash of the old Jack, the only thing that had saved them and brought them home, had not concerned him. Confused, weary and uncertain the man they had brought back had not been the one who killed his mutinous mate at Isle de Muerta, even Miss Swann had seen that, though she had gone to some lengths to avoid having to. Whoever it was that had returned with them it was not the legendary Captain Sparrow, he was dead and a mad man inhabited his corpse. Barbossa had felt it only fitting.

Yet somehow Jack found his way through and had made it back to himself. A fact that had fuelled the fury that coloured these dreams, for if Sparrow could come back and survive, why then couldn’t he?

***

Jack was surprised when Captain Elanor returned not a half hour later. Somehow he had expected that, having assessed him for herself, she would now delegate his care, if that were the proper word, to her crew. He couldn’t decide if her return in person indicated that she was intent on segregating him from that crew and if that segregation bore some sinister motive, but it made him uneasy all the same.

What, too, was he to make of her earlier comments about this Ariadne, why would not be able to speak to her? Was this ship crewed by mutes? Nasty things could be deuced about it if that was the case and Jack found he had to speak to himself strongly to avoid dwelling on them; instead debating with himself the possible position of the Pearl and the likelihood of Barbossa finding them and coming to liberate his chart in the near future.

Assuming that Barbossa could make the connection between his disappearence and the arrival of this ship that was. Jack was not confident that he would, but then he wasn’t sure that Barbossa was capable of making connections of the less than physical kind at all. If he had been he would have known that releasing Tia Dalma, Calypso, on her terms alone was bound to bring grief.

No, Barbossa had been a good first mate but as a captain he lacked a number of things, of which seeing past the obvious was not the only one that could prove fatal. Without the protection of the curse his life would not be long if he returned to pirating, certainly not given the gradually increasing terror and confusion that were to be seen in him. Which meant that the Pearl’s days were probably numbered too if they didn’t find himself soon.

Jack cursed his miscalculation of the crew’s mood again before he returned to the problems of the present.

Captain Cavendish seemed disinclined to harm him for the moment but that could change, while he knew so little about her he could not be certain about neither her intentions nor her inclinations. A woman of some quality, and as self contained as it was possible to be and still breathe, she was a package of contradictions, and one that he was not sure he would be granted the opportunity to unwrap. Though the unwrapping might be a pleasurable experience, and, if taken slowly and carefully with due regard to interests on both side, might even be survived. Jack grinned to himself at the memory of those beautiful, shrewd, eyes and the thought of what might lie behind the expensive wrapping.

Then the smile died and he frowned.

He also needed to know more about the ship and its crew if he was to survive this encounter. How was it armed, for example, and where was it heading? It would unfortunate if she was sailing into the arms of the East India company, or even if she intended to put into a port where they or the British Navy had a presence. Norrington was not the only naval officer who could recognise a tattoo.

If he could just find some clothes then he could venture up on deck and see what kind of boats this ship was carried, maybe he could liberate one and be over the side and away before the fair captain noticed he was gone. A shame not to renew their acquaintance maybe, but staying alive took precedence.

As good a plan as any he decided, and at the moment any plan was an improvement on lying here wondering what was being planned as his fate. He slid to the floor and crossed to the door in a single movement. That door however refused to move in any direction, and with a sinking feeling he realised that he was locked in. Not good.

He returned slowly to the bunk and lay down again, propping his hands behind his head and wincing as the movement stretched the bruised skin across his ribs. His head was aching again and it took an effort to recall all that he could of their earlier conversation. What had he done or said to set her on her guard? His name had appeared to mean nothing to her, but then nor had hers to him, though looking back there were indications that she had been surprised by that. Was she a pirate then? Unlikely, if she had been at the convention at Shipwreck cove he was sure he would have both noticed and remembered her. But a pirate ship like this could only belong to a pirate lord, and she had not been amongst those, or amongst the officers of those who were. So who was she and where was she bound?

When the door slid aside again he roused himself from his apparent study of the bulkhead and swung himself up to sit on the edge of the bunk smiling up at her as he did so. The smile had no apparent effect other than to cause her to hand him a strange soft garment. She looked at him friendly enough though,
"It occurred to me that you might want to use the washroom. Bathing in salt water wouldn't be my choice and I suspect it isn't yours either."
She crossed to the table and placed a small pile of what he could only assume was clothing on its glossy surface.
“I found you these, they should just about fit and will be warmer than waiting for your own things to be ready.”

Jack wondered fleetingly what she meant by that then shook out the garment she had handed handed him. White, with long sleeves, it appeared to be some form of robe, but there the familiarity to anything he had ever seen ended, for it was made of a cloth he had never seen and was soft and fluffy as a newly groomed kitten. He stared at it for a moment before deciding that, whatever its strangeness, it was certainly preferable to his current nakedness; given that she had been right when she said that the night air was becoming chilly. As he got to his feet and shrugged himself into it, tying what he took to be the sash as securely as he could, she led the way out of the little cabin indicating that he should follow her with a wave of her hand.

Beyond the door was a narrow passage that ran in both directions, more of the shiny walls and shiny polished decks but little else. Even so she gave him little chance to study it. Instead she led him to the left and down to a door at the far end, which she pulled open and indicated he should enter. Though he was increasingly uneasily about the strangeness of his surroundings, and the eerie silence that seemed to hang over the whole ship, he could see no other course of action but to do as she so obviously wished.

The room itself, a little larger than the cabin he had left, gave no reassurance. The walls were white like the bulkhead above him and shiny as if highly polished lacquer, and in front of him was a small white bowl with some form of tap attached. The only other thing of note was a drain set into in the floor and Jack felt his stomach tighten as he remembered another drain in another floor, in another room, in another place. He swallowed on his sudden fear and reminded himself that such things were rarely done in such blinding light, and certainly not without the chains that were so obviously missing here. Looking around him more carefully he saw that on the wall behind the bowl there was a cupboard and there was looked to be another on his right hand side, the homeliness of there should have reassured him but his heart was still pounding and it took all his will power to keep the horror from his face.

Not that she seemed to notice anything amiss, she stepped past him to the second cupboard and slid the door open to expose a small enclosure topped by a metal bar covered in a sheet made at the same strange fabric as the robe she had provided for him.
“Put the robe in here with the towels while you shower,” she said calmly, then she indicated the first cupboard with a flick of her hand, "You should find everything you need in there.”
Calmly she reached forward to touch a dial on the wall,
"It works in the usual way so turn it to the right for hot and to the left for cold."
She started to back out of the room,
"I'll bring some food to the cabin, save you coming to the galley. Enjoy your shower it might ease that headache."
With that she closed the door leaving him alone.

Jack stared around the room for a moment wondering what to do next, then he stuck a tentative hand inside the open cupboard, only relaxing when nothing leapt out to bite him. Stepping backwards he inspected the white bowl, it was as clean and shiny as everything else he had seen on this strange ship so far; put the Navy to shame for all their spit and polish, and he wondered what size crew it took to keep it in this state and why he hadn't seen any of them. Or heard them come to that. That was another strange and worrying aspect of the ship, the silence of it. He put out a cautious hand and pulled open the door of the cupboard, it held a single bottle in a clear container marked by a small white label covered in carefully printed words. Slowly he reached in and took it out, turning it around in the bright light coming from another of those little stars in the bulkhead; he could read most of the words on the label yet put together they made no sense.

Frowning he put it on the side of the white bowl then turned around to meet his biggest shock yet, instinctively his hand reached to his belt, cursing as he remembered his lack of weapons. The shock lasted for mere seconds as he realised that he was staring at an image of himself in the largest and most perfect looking glass he had ever seen.

The sight was not reassuring. The bruises on his skin were black and dark blue now and they marked the right side of his face as well as his body. In the bright light of this room his eyes looked huge and dark and he was horrified to see the fatigue and anxiety so clearly written there. The white of the strange robe threw up the glow of his tan but underneath it he could see the telltale whiteness of fatigue and pain and he cursed, no wonder captain Elanor was so accommodating when he hardly looked to be any threat at all. He reached forward and stroked the surface of what had to be a glass, yet it didn’t feel like glass, before drawing a deep and steadying breath and turning back to that thing she had apparently brought him here for. The thing that she said might ease the nagging pain in his head. She had indicated that he should

Jack stretched out a cautious hand, hesitating as his fingertip hovered in front of that dial that so clearly asked to be turned. She had indicated that he should remove the robe first, hadn’t she? And there had been nothing in her attitude to suggest that she expected this to do him any harm so after a moment of thought he shrugged himself out of it and pushed into the little closet, then turned back to face that fascinating, yet strangely threatening, dial. After a moment of further indecision he gripped it gingerly between two fingers and turned.

He leapt backwards with a curse almost immediately as water poured from the disc above him, and he stood leaning against the looking glass as the water dripped down his hair ran down his face and over the bruises on his chest. He cursed again, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge the drops running into his eyes and down his neck. His outrage was such that it was a moment or two before he realised that the water was warm against his cooling skin. Not unpleasant now he came to think about it, not unpleasant at all.

That made him think about what it was that she'd said, right for hot and left for cold, perhaps she had been referring to this water. Seemed unlikely but what else could she have meant? Yet who had heard of such a thing? No such wonder existed, not even in the steam baths of Singapore. Another memory surfaced, she had called this room the washroom, a fact he had given no thought to at the time. But a room dedicated to washing might indeed explain why she was so unusually clean, particularly if the water was warm.

Jack gave that some more thought, it was true that the rich tended to be cleaner than the poor for it was easier to be clean when you have servants to draw heat and bring the water. But a room where the water ran without servants? Well that was something altogether different, and if true then this ship was more strange than he had so far realised. On the Pearl washing, for those so inclined, meant that the rain or the sea; fresh water was far too precious to be wasted in such a way. If that was not the case here then Captain Cavendish was a rich indeed, and more than rich, for not even the British Navy in its might could afford to pour fresh water over its captain's. Much less hot water.

After a moment of thought Jack advanced slowly on the dial again, behind the one that had started the waterfall was a second, marked with arrows one left one right, was this what she had meant when she referred to hot and cold? Jack looked back at the container standing on the white bowl, whatever it was it seemed clear now that she had provided it in a spirit of generosity and so it was probably connected with her assumption of his desire to wash. Jack sighed, in the face of that generosity, and the reality of his powerlessness, she had left him with little choice.

He edged forward and reaching out a reluctant arm he turned the dial that began the deluge. The water resumed its flow and it was indeed warm, warmer than a monsoon rain; it fell over him in a soothing cascade then disappeared into that drain, in its passing it got neither hotter nor cold. With a frown he slid his fingers around the other dial and twisted it to the right, then he swore violently as the water became almost unbearably hot. Hurriedly he twisted the dial back towards the centre, realising with astonishment that as he did so the water temperature dropped back.

Slowly he turned under the cascade feeling the water running like gentle fingers over his tired and somewhat battered body, the force of the spray was soaking his hair while the warmth penetrated his scalp and was easing the nagging pain in his head, just as she had promised. After a moment or two he felt it soak through his hair easing the soreness of his scalp and massaging the tight skin of his neck. Jack smiled in unexpected joy as he realised the sheer sensual pleasure of the water cascading over an around him, taken aback by the thrill of it as it ran down his chest and back and flanks. He turned his face up towards the source, feeling the muscles relax as it washed over his eyes and ears to slip caressingly over his shoulders. If this was what washing meant on this strange ship then no wonder Captain Cavendish was so clean!

He lost track of time simply standing and revelling in the feel of the warmth seeping though him and the prickle of nerve endings as the water washed over his skin. Finally curiosity overcame him and he reached out and picked up the container, inspecting it carefully with raised brows and tilted head, rather as he might regard an unfamiliar and probably loaded cannon. Eventually he tipped a small amount of its contents over his hand.

It ran like lamp oil into his palm and Jack stirred it with an uncertain finger his brows rising as it started to lather. He watched in wide eyed and fascinated surprise as it licked the tar from his skin, and sent the dirt from his fingers in a blackened stream towards the drain. With a frown he looked more closely at the words on the bottle, wondering if they meant what he thought they did.

There was only one way to find out.

chapter 7 - A compass that doesn't point north