His Heart's Desire Chapter 2 middle
Ten years earlier:
The eldest son of an impoverished Earl, the Midshipman should have been a promising young man. He would have been, were it not for his laziness, profligacy, and above all, his resentment of his younger brother. Alexander was known to grumble behind his brother’s back, drinking more rum than the Commodore would have allowed had he known about it, and murmuring under his breath until the wee hours.
He wandered the ship after his watch, stealing gold - and anything else small enough to be slipped into his pocket - from his shipmates. He was the eldest; he should have gotten the better commission, the larger inheritance. Oh he had gotten the crumbling Priory, the ratty carpets, the threadbare curtains; anything entailed on the eldest son. But what money there was, his father had made a gift of - thereby slipping through a loophole in the entailment - to his younger son. The same younger son who was the sole survivor of his mother’s labour. She had died just minutes after the birth, along with his brother’s twin. For this reason, and because his tastes were so like their mother’s, James had always been his father’s favorite; the one Father always sat in the library reading with, instead of hunting with Alexander; the one Father always went riding with, instead of having a drink with his eldest son.
“Well, Father, I’m certainly getting my share of the drinking now!” He groused drunkenly to himself. Leaning over the snoring form of a fellow drunken sailor, Alexander pocketed a gold watch from the man’s clasped hand.
“Alex! What do you think you’re doing?” James’s voice boomed like a canon, waking the sleeping sailor and his bunkmates.
Quickly, Alexander tried to cover himself. Affecting a slur more suited to a level of drunkenness that he had not yet attained, he said,
“Lookin for mah ‘ammock o’ course! Wot’sit look loik I’ma doin?!”
He could see James didn’t believe him, but being “the honourable, patient son” he refused to out his brother in front of his underlings, preferring rather to wait until they were alone.
“Alex, I can not keep hiding your profligate ways from your superiors. You must stop this at once. You will be court-martialed or even hung if you continue these activities!” James’s eyes pled with the older brother he had always loved and wanted to look up to. He hadn’t agreed to his father’s gifting him with essentially their last farthing, but Father would not be swayed. In the end his father became so upset that the veins in his neck started to pulse and James capitulated, not willing to bring on another stroke and possibly hasten the demise of his weakened parent. He tried to give half the money to Alex, but as usual Alex was drunk and belligerent, refusing to have any part of it since Father had seen fit to refuse him.
Alex sneered. “My superiors?! They would not be my superiors if you were in your rightful place, little brother!” With that, he strode away.
James looked after him with weary, grief-filled eyes…….
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
Commodore William Fitzgerald looked out his window, purveying the ships under his command. The Intrepid, his flagship, the Valiant, and the Gallant were among the newest ships in the fleet.
Feeling rather proud of himself, the Commodore flipped his large feathered hat onto its stand and plopped his immense body down on his featherbed. He had attained his position on the strength of his deeds done in his youth, his father’s money, and his charm. It seems the Admiralty admired courage as much as flattery and William Fitzgerald had excelled at both at one time or another. He was happy where he was and did not care for an Admiral’s epaulets, growing fat and contented with his own three ships of the line.
One minute he was lost in thought and the next there was the sound of battle outside and a pistol beside his ear.
“Who goes there? What do you want?”
“Only what’s mine, me dear Commodore.”
“Norrington?! What the devil do you think you’re doing man?”
“I believe it’s called mutiny, sir.”
Fitzgerald heard only the click of the pistol being primed before there was a great explosion from the doorway. Midshipman Norrington’s pistol had been shot from his hand by Third Lieutenant Norrington.
The two brothers faced each other, one angry, the other grieved. There was no hope for it now; the two brothers would be separated, one hung, the other promoted…
OOOOOOOOOOOO
Commodore Fitzgerald plodded out of his cabin and waddled to the railing. Noticing a lone figure staring out towards the horizon, he laid a comforting hand on the shoulder of Second Lieutenant Norrington.
“The promotion ceremony was not to your liking, I think.”
“Oh, no sir! I am…truly grateful for such an honour….”
“But, your brother…am I correct?”
“I would wish things were different, sir.”
“So would I. So would I.”
OOOOOOOOOOO
Alexander picked the lock on his cell. As quickly and as quietly as possible, he and his compatriots slipped into the night, throwing barrels into the sea and swimming to the island they had spotted off the port bow half a day earlier.
OOOOOOOOOO
Snake hissed through his teeth; that island had been his salvation and his damnation. That was the island Sparrow had found them on; the island Barbossa marooned Sparrow on. Unlike the Intrepid, the Pearl was easy to take. Pirates had much more comfortable codes of right and wrong.
Now was his chance. Now he could destroy his one time brother, break the curse that lay upon them, and gain Barbossa’s favour all in one fell swoop.
He moved.
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