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But of course by the time they make port, both Jack Sparrow and the relevant part of the map have vanished without a trace. The men, who had been quick enough to side with him when he suggested they appropriate the ship and get down to some real pirating, are starting to look at Captain Barbossa askance, and to mutter amongst themselves about bad leadership and cursed gold. Even Jack The Monkey is avoiding his eye. So Hector Barbossa stomps around Tortuga with his hand on his pistol and a murderous glint in his eye, and asks people, very politely, when they last saw Jack Sparrow, until finally his feet carry him to 'The Golden Apple', a house with a certain reputation. There he questions a pair of doxies who are more than happy to confirm that 'Captain' Jack Sparrow was last seen putting out to sea alone in that scabby little dinghy, with a makeshift pirate flag fluttering pathetically atop its little mast. And, yes, he did have something rolled up beneath his arm; and, yes, it could perhaps have been some kind of foreign map.
Hector Barbossa grinds his teeth. The men who have accompanied him to The Golden Apple look at one another in consternation, and at last Mister Pintell steps forward, shoved by his friend. "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but seein' as how we're already here, we was wondering if maybe the men might have a few hours of shore leave while you plans our next move?" He glances around at the general merriment, in which the crew of The Black Pearl have, as yet, been too nervous to participate. The girls at The Golden Apple are handsome enough, and the grog is no worse than anywhere else. With some difficulty, Barbossa stifles the impulse to shoot something, and nods instead. Unlike Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa understands that a captain only remains a captain as long as he retains the confidence of his men; he knows that he needs to throw the scurvy dogs an occasional bone between beatings.
"Aye," he says, finding a smile from somewhere. "Why not enjoy ourselves, eh, lads? We'll have Jack Sparrow and the charts back soon enough. Go to it, boys."
Truth to tell, he's a little surprised they managed to restrain themselves so long – but then, he has been in a foul mood ever since he found the great gaping hole in the middle of his chart, and nobody much relishes the thought of being his scapegoat. Hector takes a seat in a corner by the fire, and the gentlemen who were enjoying that location a moment earlier take one look at his face and vacate the spot entirely. He leans back, props his feet up on the other chair, and watches the room with a sour expression on his face, thinking of Jack Sparrow. The man is a poor excuse for a pirate, with no real stomach for bloodshed and all the sword-fighting abilities of a cabbage. He's a milksop, a dandy, a prancing fool who treats everything like it's some kind of game. He deserves to be mutinied upon a dozen times over.
But the fact remains that Jack Sparrow has the devil's own luck, and while Hector counts himself fairly blessed by fortune (having survived a heathen curse and death-by-bullet, not to mention the wrath of the Sea Goddess Herself), still Jack Sparrow seems to stumble from one narrow escape to the next and always, always, always come out smiling. It's enough to drive an honest pirate to distraction.
He knew he should have just shot the man while he lay sleeping, rather than sail off and leave him a-port. This, Hector tells himself grimly, is what comes of giving in to merciful impulses. Let it be a lesson to him.
"Buy a poor girl a drink, lovey?" He looks up into a sea of cleavage fast escaping from a disarrayed dress, and then looks further up still into a painted face that might have been lovely ten years earlier. He shakes his head. The trollop's crimson smile twists into a snarl. "Suit yerself," she spits, and flounces off to find a better mark.
After Tia Dalma brought him back from the grave, Hector had spent a long week revelling in his restored senses. He had gorged himself on food, drink and women of easy affections, and he had promised himself never to take small pleasures and satisfactions for granted. Every plain-faced hussy was an Aphrodite in his eyes for those first few days, every swallow of rum was nectar, and every mouthful of fish, flesh or fruit was the sweetest ambrosia of the gods.
For a week or so.
But time passes, and things change, and now Hector Barbossa finds he has no taste for the cheap grog, burnt pork or tired whores that The Golden Apple has to offer. He craves something – wondrous. He would rather be sailing right now, with a good wind and a clear heading and the prospect of eternal life only a sip away, than wasting his time with cheap drink and cheaper company.
"Buy a girl a drink?" The voice, sweet and rich and smoky, cuts through his reverie and stiffens his spine. And other things. Hector looks up from his unsatisfactory rum and finds himself faced with the single most ravishing creature he has ever beheld or imagined in his life. Her hair is cropped boyishly short, framing a face that is nothing so soft as pretty, something beyond even beauty. Stunning. She is clad simply, in a man's white shirt and close-fitting breeches, with a scarlet sash at her waist. Her feet, incongruously, are bare, and the shirt hangs tantalisingly half-open, revealing the pale curve of her breasts. She is dressed like a man and surrounded by the lowest, cheapest grog-sucking scum to stumble in out of the darkness, but there is something about her that is positively regal: a diamond in a dunghill. Hector is on his feet before he knows that he is moving, pulling back a chair in a gesture of unselfconscious chivalry and dusting the seat off with a scrap of stolen lace kerchief. His mouth is dry. His heart is pounding. He feels like the greenest of youths, and he knows in his very marrow that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, he would not do for this woman. He would rather look upon her than swive any number of willing wenches. He would rather hear her curse him than listen to compliments or music from anyone else.
She seats herself with fluid grace, looks at his expression, and laughs. The sound causes him such pleasure that he closes his eyes involuntarily and bites his lower lip. When he opens his eyes again, he sees that she is lifting an apple to her lips. He watches her perfect mouth part to reveal teeth smoother and whiter than pearls, and a sweet pink tongue. She bites into the green skin of the apple, and juice runs down her chin. Hector is mesmerised.
Human women are not made like this, not even the rich ones with blue blood in their veins and ice between their legs. She is something so unsullied, so smooth and pristine and exquisite, that he knows it must be witchcraft or the ineffable at work. Her skin is the palest ivory, warmed to a gentle glow by the firelight, and her eyes are a startling golden colour, glinting with shades of amber and straw like the finest white wine. Human women do not have eyes like that, thinks Hector, drinking in her loveliness like a man dying of thirst. Her jawline is almost masculine, stronger and broader than he would ever expect to fancy in a woman, and her shoulders are surprisingly wide, their lines sharp rather than sloping – but it only adds to her beauty. She takes his breath away, with her narrow, boyish hips and her elegant wrists. "Are you an angel?" he asks at last. The words hang in the air, trite as any mooncalf's fumbling attempt to flatter his lady love, but the question is perfectly sincere. He would be wholly unsurprised to see feathers unfurl at her back – and equally unsurprised to find horns sprouting out from her forehead.
"Hardly," she purrs. He has never heard a voice like it. When she leans forward his eyes dart down to the violet shadows between her breasts, then back to her face. "Virtue has never been one of my vices, Hector."
He starts. "You know my name."
"Oh, there's no end to the things I know, my precious." There is a faint scent that lingers around her, something sweet and clean and wholesome that he can't quite identify. Something like apricots or peaches, perhaps. It makes his mouth water. "I know you very well, Hector Barbossa." She licks her lips. He cannot take his eyes off her mouth. "Very well indeed. I miss you." She pouts. He has no idea what she is talking about, and in case perhaps it matters he tries to pay attention but he's having trouble making his brain function, now that all the blood in his body seems to have migrated south.
"You don't have to miss me," he says, his voice unsteady. He feels like he has known her forever, like she has looked into his blemished soul and found it wonderful. He would give everything that he has, or ever hoped to have, in exchange for one night with this woman. One hour. One minute. He knows that there is nothing she would not do, nothing too shameful or shocking, nothing too rough or crude for her. He can imagine her smooth limbs wrapped around him, her body bending, her mouth soft and wet and warm and sinful. He can imagine her features in repose, the sound of her sleeping. It shocks him a little to realise how badly he wants to have her beside him on the Pearl, looking out at the sunrise with him. He wants this face to be the first thing he sees when he wakes, the last thing he sees as he slips into sleep. He would write sonnets to her beauty, slay dragons, climb mountains, join a monastery, give up the sea, put out his own eyes. Anything. Anything at all. She has only to name it.
"Ten years you spent wracked with cravings that could never be satisfied," she says, her voice pitched low and intimate, every word a caress. "Ten years of hopeless lust, of hunger and thirst that could never be slaked. It was intoxicating. But now – now you are just another one of the crowd, Hector. Eating. Drinking. Fucking. Satiating your appetites as easily as the next man." Her expression grows distant, her voice aloof, dismissive. "Now you are nothing to me. But – I miss you. So I have come to you this once, to show you what your life still lacks. To show you what you really want, what you can never have. So that you can spend the rest of your days trying to find me again. Pining. So that every beauty your eyes behold will be so much dust in the wind, every mouthful of sweetness will taste like ashes. Because nothing can ever hold a candle to me." She reaches out to him. Hector stretches out his own hand to meet hers, but she does not touch him after all; instead she drops something into his palm. He looks down at a small stone, round and rosie and warm from her touch. He is shivering. He had honestly thought she would touch him, and the mere thought of this undoes him. "This stone comes from the island you're seeking. The place where the fountain of youth can be found. The closer you get, the warmer the stone will grow. But be careful when you reach the island – it is perilous."
"Why?" he asks, his tongue stumbling. "My lady – why?"
"I would have you wracked with unquenchable yearning until the end of time," she says simply, smiling, and she leans forward and kisses his brow, chaste as any mother with her child. The scent of her overwhelms him. "It amuses me," she adds, her voice whisper-soft and utterly heartless.
When he opens his eyes, he is alone; but the pebble remains in his hand. For a long moment he finds he cannot speak. A terrible hunger is upon him, something already edged with despair at her absence. He realises that he does not even know her name. Hector rises to his feet, his legs trembling, and shouts for his men.
"The Pearl is setting sail right now, with you or without you," he bellows, not caring to look to see whether they hear. His skin still burns from the brush of her lips, and the scent of sun-warmed peaches clings to his clothes.
She will relent, he tells himself, as he shoves his way out through the door. Once he reaches the street, he breaks into a stumbling run, caring nothing for who sees him. He is still achingly hard, and there is an emptiness in his belly that has nothing to do with food or drink or any heathen curse. He has never felt so terribly alone in his life.
Behind him his crewmen spill out into the street, fumbling with their clothes and pressing coin on pouting wenches. He can hear their shouted questions, their complaints and exclamations, but they mean less than nothing to him. He runs like the devil himself were at his heels.
He will find her again, he tells himself, rubbing the pebble with a desperate urgency as he runs. He must. He must. And when he tastes the water and makes himself immortal, surely then she will relent.