The Heart of a Woman

The ship sliced through the waters with a fast speed. It’s dark hull bobbed up and down in the murky waters, the inlaid words “William’s Revenge” dipping in and out of sight. Men worked on the ship, checking, and rechecking, ever busy. Gray storm clouds made told the crew that they weren’t so far away from home and making good progress to their beloved England. However, some of the crew weren’t happy despite the light drizzle. Josephine rapped her knuckles on the rail of the quarterdeck; her air of annoyance quickly intensifying into anger. The captain was at the wheel chatting with the boatswain, Archimedes. Jason climbed the steps to stand next to Josephine, leaning his forearms against the rail.

“You know he won’t change his mind,” he said, looking out to sea. Josephine’s knuckles whitened, and Jason didn’t have to look at her to know that she spoke with a snarl.

“I’m not a damn child, Jason. I’m not a little girl who is playing pirate. When I bloody say going home is a bad idea, I bloody well mean it,” she said, her voice low and angry. Jason nodded his head.

“I know. Jack knows t-”

“No Jason.” she said interrupting him. She grasped his forearm, making him turn to look at her. Anger, confusion and frustration mixed unpleasantly across on her face. “Jason, there is a difference between my relationship with Jack and yours. He’s your friend. Almost your blood-brother. He made it his job, his bloody mission, to be known to you when he was an ickle cabin boy,” she spat. “He tried to prove himself over and over again to you, to show you his worth. He wanted you to be his ally, and he set out to do it. He won. He felt that he needed your respect-”

“Josie, he’s your friend too.”

“No Jason. I’m not his friend. I’m his navigator,” she said. The hard look in her eyes made Jason more than a little nervous. Losing Josephine would not only mean losing a trusted navigator, a truly talented one at that, it would jeopardize the crew.

“I thought the job in Marseilles changed everything.”

“Yeah so did I. It’s just…” she trailed off and looked toward Jack. Catherine had come to join Archimedes and Jack, and apparently something amusing had passed between them. They laughed heartily and grinned for a long time after that.

“Josephine,” Jason said tenderly, wrapping his arm around her waist. She stiffened under his touch but he didn’t let go.

“Josephine, how could you think you could be replaced?” he asked.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” she hissed under her breath. She spun out of his arms, pressed herself against the railing and shook her knife out of her sleeve. She grabbed Jason‘s loose cravat and pulled him close so that her knife barley touched his lower abdomen.

“You are just like the rest of them,” she seethed. “You coddle me, you don’t respect me. The one time I give in to my romantic side, the one time, it seems like I have done it all my life.” she pulled his cravat bringing his face closer to hers.. He kept his face passive, but for a small flicker of fear. “You think that I’m jealous of Catherine? Ha! I could run circles around her. No I’m angry at how she dotes on you people. She acts like a bloody girl. Did she not realize this is a bloody, godforsaken pirate ship when she came aboard? Does she not realize, Daddy’s not here to save her when things get rough? Does she-”

“Oy! ‘As anyone found me lucky hat yet?” Jack shouted to the crew on the lower deck.

Josephine swept her eyes past Jason’s head and glared at her captain. She let go of Jason and pushed her way past him. Muttering angrily about her captain being to clever for his own good, she shoved her knife in-between her tight shirt and purple sash. She murmured something to Archimedes and took the wheel.

“Something goin’ on between you two? I would ‘ate to ‘ave a lover‘s spat dividing the crew. Call for mutiny, that will,” Jack said as he slide beside Jason on the quarterdeck.

“It isn’t between me ‘n her. The problem is between you and her,” Jason said as he turned and looked out to sea.

“What the blimey are ye talking ‘bout?” Jack said as he stared at the ever-grumpy Josephine. Her face was slowly relaxing as the familiar feel of the ship calmed her.

“You don’t even realize what you’ve done,” Jason sighed turning toward Jason. He stood a good six inches above his Captain, but rarely ever used it to intimidate him. This, however, was a time that he needed to take advantage of his God given stature.

“Josephine was- and still is- fragile.”

“But-” Jason cut him off by covering his mouth with his hand.

“She doesn’t want us to see. She doesn’t want to be coddled. But she is a woman. She wants both the respect and the love. We gave her the respect. Pierre, the little blighter he may be, gave her the love and the affection. Quinn, before that too.” Jack took this opportune moment to lick Jason’s hand. Jason wheeled backwards and furiously wiped his hand on his black shirt. There was no way of knowing where that mouth had been.

“I forgot what I was going to say,” Jack said, feigning innocence. He tapped his chin with his fore-finger for added affect.

“Must have been bloody important to lick my hand.”

“Oh yes, I remember now,” Jack sneered has he grabbed Jason’s cravat and brought him down so that Jack was speaking to his ear. Some small, wandering part of his brain made a memo to tie that cravat tighter. However, the rest of Jason’s attention was on the words his captain was hissing to him.

“Josephine is not fragile. What you said right there, that was coddling her. She doesn’t need love.”

“I disagree,” Jason hissed back with equal vehemence. “She needs us now for the love. She went from the West Indies to France and half way back with some doting fop! She now seeks us for that affection. And you, the insufferable fool you are, bring on another woman!”

“Your point, quartermaster?” Jason ignored the slight reminder of Jack’s ultimate control over the situation.

“My point is, Josie won’t let us see how hurt she is. She cried to you, Jack. She bleeding, cried. She poured her heart out to you about Pierre, and he were there for her. She is feeling betrayed because you don’t have the balls to tell why in God’s name we’re going back to see your ridiculous fiancé,” Jason finished with a huff.

“The conversation has diverged from it’s original path. I would advise you to do whatever you do, quartermaster.” Jack said with a hint of a refined British accent. Jason realized, that somewhere in there argument, Jack had reverted back to his aristocratic roots. Interesting.