Bound by Law
****
The prisoners in the cells stirred restlessly as the sound of footsteps rattled in the corridor. A dawn appointment with the gallows awaited them after a long sleepless night of torment.
There were few spectators, the courtyard quiet except for the steady beat of drums. The soldiers ringed the area, their faces expressionless, long ago immunized to the casualness of death in the colonies. Since Lord Beckett had arrived, the hangman had been steadily employed, as order was duly restored to this unruly outpost of the Empire.
Admiral Norrington watched from his place of privilege, impassive, his face a mask of stone. He had sworn to uphold the laws, this was the life he had chosen, had gone to hell and back to return to. It was not his decision who swung; his responsibility was to see that justice, as dealt by others, was swiftly carried out.
His mind elsewhere, Norrington was slow to recognize what was taking place on the gallows. The object of the disturbance was a young lad of not but twelve, one of the suspected pirates that had been arrested earlier that week. The boy stood defiantly on the platform, his voice ringing out as he began to sing, “The king and his men stole the queen from her bed…”
The other prisoners began to sing as well, raising their voices to sound throughout the courtyard as if a call for a battle, the unexpected change in their postures, switching from beaten to dignified, spoke of trouble.
Alarmed, Norrington quickly gave the signal to the executioner, watching in relief as the boy, along with the others, was promptly and efficiently silenced, his body left to sway in the golden light of morning for several minutes before being cut down and hauled away.
Later that evening, after the heat of the day had dissipated, Norrington found his mind troubled, drifting back to that young man so bravely facing his fate. His face haunted his dreams, the words resounding over and over.
“Never shall we die.”
****
“You said we would destroy pirates, not adolescent boys.”
Beckett looked up from the document he was reading, into the angry eyes of his Admiral, and repeated patiently, yet pointedly, what he’d already explained. “Without the cooperation of the townsfolk and merchants, the pirates will have nowhere to dispose of their ill-gotten gains. One must weed out evil at the root, if one is to destroy it entirely. I thought I had made that clear.”
Norrington shook his head. “But this was just a lad, what harm could he had done?”
“Tell me Admiral,” Beckett voice was cool but his eyes hard. “Did you not have cabin boys on the Dauntless? And powder monkeys? All boys, yet capable of making their way in the world. The boy chose his own fate when he signed on a pirate ship.” He straightened the documents on his desk and rose in all his authority. “Now, if you are quite finished, I suggest you resume to your duties, since at least Governor Swann has not been remiss in his.” The thinly veiled scolding stabbed needles through Norrington’s neck, causing him to adjust his stance accordingly.
Beckett nodded minutely to acknowledge that they had come to an understanding, and held out the sheaf of papers. “Here are your latest execution orders.”
Norrington glanced over at the side table, where the Governor was busy signing a steady stack of orders. They locked eyes briefly, before Swann ducked guilt-ridden eyes back to the task at hand. It seemed James was not the only one with a price they were willing to pay.
Swann had begged him to find his daughter, trusting him to do the right thing. If hanging half the town would flush out Sparrow, and crush the pirates once and for all, then that was what would be done. An eye for an eye, atonement for all the souls lost on the Dauntless.
Capturing Sparrow, watching him die, as Andrew had, was all that mattered now. Absolution at the hands of the executioner.
“Sir.” James took the offered papers without a blink, not flinching even when he recognized the first name in the long list at first glimpse; Estrella Brown.
****