Firstborn
He is born William James Turner, but with Will away – perhaps forever – it somehow occurs that he is known as James. When he is old enough to speak, he says Jamie.
And he is.
---
Elizabeth Turner does not know her child.
Within two months of his birth, the Brethren Court is once again called to defend itself from dire enemies, and she must lead them. She kisses William James Turner goodbye, and leaves him in the care of a hard-come-by nurse. She does not return for nearly a year, and, when she does, she can barely stand another month ashore before going to sea again. And so the first five years of Jamie's life passes, in the vanishing shadow of his Mama.
When Jamie is five, there is a stretch of peace and prosperity among the Court, and Elizabeth, in the past five years having been home less than six months, finally comes to know her solitary boy. He is an eager thing, if somewhat quiet. Gibbs tells her Jamie already knows the parts of a ship, stem to stern, and the pirates who dock in the harbor often complain of a small boy running through the rigging of their ships without fear or reservation. Jamie follows Barbossa about, trying to learn the rudiments of navigation and begging to be taught swordplay, and no book is safe if placed within his reach.
But there are other things about her Jamie.
He is quiet – reserved, even – almost unheard of for a boy of five. Above that, he is solemn and serious; even though he runs in the streets and clambers through the rigging, it is education, not enjoyment. He carries his head high and holds his back straight; for a small boy, he is incredibly measured and precise. Whether through childish bravado or earnest duty, he once challenged a drunken, cutlass-wielding man who accosted his nurse in the streets of Shipwreck.
It is not a little unsettling, she admits, that though he is the spitting image of Will, she swears she can hear James Norrington when Jamie speaks.
---
The peace dies, and she is again at arms, leaving Jamie behind, although he begs to be taken with her. Elizabeth is no fool. She knows Death plays dice with one and all, and takes particular delight in cheating the young. She will not lose him – Jamie is all she has of Will, of innocence, of love, and, she is painfully aware, James.
---
While Elizabeth is away, a blessing in disguise sails into Shipwreck Cove two years after the broken peace. The ship, Clotho's Wheel, is, heavily damaged, but has three prizes under her lee – a Spanish galleon and two Dutch East Indiamen. With such fortune, the Captain – one Andrew Gillette, quickly becomes the talk of town.
Jamie, who roams the island at will, being a very mature and capable six, overhears snippets as he wanders – but those that captivate him are not the reports of fabulous treasure, but the rumors about Gillette's past. An officer of the Royal Navy – some say he was washed overboard during a terrible hurricane. Others say that he was expelled for his half-French heritage.
Being the determined boy that he is, Jamie manages to meet Captain Gillette within a week, and the two are fast friends. To Jamie's surprise, Gillette treats him as an equal, and, when Elizabeth comes home, it is to Jamie captivated by the familiar tale of the Interceptor and the Tortuga Star.
When Jamie goes to bed, Elizabeth and Gillette talk, of Jamie and of James.
---
In those long ago days of Port Royal, Gillette and Elizabeth were never friends, and, in truth, Gillette continues to blame her for what happened to James. Elizabeth willingly accepts the guilt, knowing she never said she was sorry, nor did James ever forgive her. She deserves no better.
They are united by their common past, by James and by disgrace.
---
"Does the boy know?"
Elizabeth and Gillette are both drinking, but the question is direct and sober.
"What?"
Gillette is clearly pained; Elizabeth knows that Jamie is all Gillette has of his former friend and Captain. He needs to drink another half a bottle before he says, "James."
"No."
She hates herself, but she cannot bring herself to tell her son, for fear she should lose him.
"Let me tell him, please!"
"No!"
"Mon Dieu, Turner!" – Gillette always addresses her in that terse epithet, almost to remind her of her choices – "Look at him! Look at Jamie! He is James!"
"He looks like Will," she mutters, surly and sullen.
"I do not question his paternity! William Turner may be his damned father, but he is James Norrington's boy! The boy that should have been his!"
He throws the bottle across the room, letting the smash accentuate his point, his obvious admonishment. Elizabeth turns away, ashamed.
"Do you know what he said to me, today?"
His tone is a little calmer now; she shakes her head.
"So it would seem. That's what Jamie said. And he does not know who James Norrington was."
"He'll despise me if he knew," she whispers.
Gillette shrugs. "Perhaps you've earned it."
"Wait until he's older. Let me wait."
---
Jamie spends every moment he can trailing Captain Gillette, now that he is eight and can be taken to sea as a sailor or servant. He desperately wants to go with Gillette when he leaves Shipwreck Cove, but Elizabeth will not allow it.
Jamie and Gillette part ways one September morning on the North Quay, with Elizabeth standing in the shadows, watching like a hawk.
"God speed, Captain Gillette," Jamie says stoically.
Gillette kneels to level with Jamie, rough hand on his shoulder.
"Your day will come, my boy," Gillette wisely mutters, pulling Jamie into an awkward embrace, "You are named for a great man."
He stands and is gone; Jamie is left to ponder his words.
---
Time proves Elizabeth prudent.
In retribution for another's actions, the Clotho's Wheel is taken by the Grand Moghul of India, along with Gillette and his entire crew. The Moghul threatens that, unless Captain Jaspar of the Silent Siren returns the treasure stolen, the men and officers of the Clotho's Wheel will be executed by torture.
Captain Jaspar, the coward, runs for Shipwreck Cove, and leaves his brothers to their merciless fate. Jaspar acts the hero, but one man of Gillette's crew has preceded him – a man, so twisted in limbs and horrible in appearance – and reveals Jaspar's treachery.
---
Jamie does not know of Gillette's horrible death; he is sitting in his room, staring at the ships in the Cove. Norrie's Seamanship is open before him; scraps of charts are pinned and pasted onto his wall.
Elizabeth herself is still reeling from the news – that her friend Gillette has died; that the men she is King of are capable of such treachery; she approaches quietly and carefully.
"Who am I named for, Mama?"
The question takes Elizabeth entirely by surprise, she struggles to even say, "Your father."
"No. I know that. My middle name – who?"
She does not answer. The business she has come on is painful enough; she will not relive her mistakes.
"I will tell you when you're older."
He pouts, but Elizabeth goes on. "Jamie, I have news of Captain Gillette."
In an instant, his face lights up, and he bounds from his desk toward her.
"How fares he? How does he do? Has he remembered me?"
"He is dead."
Even if Elizabeth had had the heart to tell him of the manner of Gillette's death, she could not of, not when her boy slumps, biting his lip to keep tears from coming and clenching his hands to keep them from shaking.
"How?" He asks, finally.
"Executed."
She manages to stutter out the tale, omitting the tortures put to Gillette and his men, watching Jamie's face grow white with grief and rage. His eyes are flashing, limbs shaking, but his face is stoic and controlled. Elizabeth knows Jamie will never be the same boy again.
---
Elizabeth convenes a trial court on the eve of Jamie's ninth birthday, but Jaspar's fate was decided long ago. The mercy he is shown is the same the Grand Moghul showed Gillette.
For Elizabeth, no vengeance, no screams of agony can erase the fact that Gillette – stupid, half-French, dandified Gillette – is gone, and another piece of James Norrington along with him. For Jamie, his closest friend and his cryptic tales have vanished, but his dislike of his mother's profession quickly solidifies into a harsh and unyielding hatred.
---
When Jamie is almost ten, his father comes home – Jamie had pinned all his hopes on an honest sailor – and he walks away from his father, gravely disappointed.
Will Turner is a pirate. Elizabeth Turner is a pirate. Jamie Turner is nothing yet, but he knows he will not – cannot be a pirate. Despite his mother's tales, and the revelation that his father is, in fact, a good man, piracy rankles with him. It rubs his heart raw, like the rough ropes flay his young hands.
Still, with Father home, Jamie is taken to sea aboard the Caged Lion, and sails as a full sailor alongside his parents. He kills a man before he is ten.
---
Jamie is sullen, and his parents cannot help him. He is tall with a spurt of early growth, now that he is twelve, now, quick-witted and strong with his few years at sea. He looks like Will, but he is most emphatically not.
Elizabeth and Will both look at Jamie and they see the son of another man.
James, Elizabeth whispers to Will one night, voice cold with regret. She thinks this is some sort of punishment for her horrible treatment of her first fiancé, as if watching him die had not been enough. She is heavy with her second child, and it is now that the Turners begin to quarrel.
Jamie listens to these exchanges, and hears this mysterious 'James' spoken of for the first time. Many other things are mentioned – Jamie can make little sense of it, and they often lower their voices beyond his reach, but he catches snippets about sacrifices and the Dutchman.
After one evening, Elizabeth takes refuge on the bowsprit, and Jamie follows. He sees his mother's red-rimmed eyes, shaking limbs, and a tiny miniature of an unknown, uniformed man.
"You're just like him," she whispers.
---
Things come to a head not long after that night. Jamie's temper explodes, as he frees a crew of Navymen from the brig. He will not countenance this 'do or be damned' attitude of the pirates any longer – he will not be a pirate.
He tears the gold ring from his ear and casts it into the sea, and spits at his Father's feet, daring him to keelhaul him for the escape. His Father may wish to let him off unharmed, but the crew will not hold with a blood-traitor, and while he escapes serious punishment, the cat is left to maul his back.
Jamie is thirteen, but in his adolescent rage he has forced himself into adulthood. When he recovers, he tells the Captains Turner he is leaving.
---
"Who is James?"
It is unforgivably early, before sunrise, even, and Elizabeth Turner, King of the Pirates, sits on a sturdy sea-chest with Midshipman Jamie Turner, soon to be of the HMS Melpomne as she rides at anchor in Nassau Port. The two opposites – mother and child – have shared their last friendly moments together, and are soon to part, enemies.
Elizabeth freezes, and does not respond. Jamie – all of thirteen, and not quite versed in the ways of the adult world – thinks she has not heard him, and repeats the question, this time catching his mother's involuntary sob-like hiccough.
"His name was James Norrington," she begins, haltingly, searching for the right words. "But I think not above a dozen knew his Christian name. He is remembered as the Scourge by our kind."
Jamie looks darkly at her, straightening the cuffs on his dark-blue uniform, and Elizabeth quickly corrects herself, "My kind, of course – you are no pirate."
She looks at her son, and his fine uniform. Though he is the spitting image of Will, she can't help but remember how Jamie's sturdy morals, ramrod-straight spine, and indefatigable sense of justice have seemingly come straight from his namesake, and have led him down that same path to the Navy and the sea.
"The Scourge?"
Jamie's eyes widen with insatiable curiosity.
"The Scourge," she nods, "He was known to the Brethren as The Scourge. I very much doubt any of the men he had hanged or arrested knew him as anything but that, or, at most, as Captain Norrington, or Commodore Norrington, the Pride of the Royal Navy."
Understandably, Jamie is more than a little confused (but pleased, nonetheless) that the Pirate King named her son for a feared pirate hunter, and says so.
"Funny, isn't it?"
She gives him a half-hearted smile by way of irony. Her life truly is confused.
"I wasn't always the Pirate King, my son. Just as you were born to be a pirate… I was born to be a lady. I was a subject of King George, once, the well-bred daughter of a well-respected and wealthy man."
"What was he to you?"
"My fiancé."
"You were going to marry him?"
A shaky, shaky sigh – "Yes."
"What about Father?"
"I loved Father all along," she admits, and she is sorry for it.
Fortunately, Jamie does not want to delve into the complexities of love, and changes the subject, though still wondering why his mother is Elizabeth Turner when she gave her word to be Elizabeth Norrington.
"What was he like?"
A million words come to mind, spilling, bubbling over each other – Elizabeth sorts through them, wondering what to tell her son. Does she tell Jamie of James's disgrace, of his rise? Of his untold depths? Of his sacrifice? It is paramount for Jamie to love his namesake, Elizabeth thinks desperately.
So she tells him, spinning a tale of far-off Port Royal. She tells a delighted Jamie how James was a man of surpassing honor, loyalty and duty, of his ramrod-straight sense of right and wrong. She paints, in brocade and cream and blue, the portrait of the straight-laced officer, the silent hero, the champion of the Navy and of the Empire. Jamie is spellbound as he hears tales of daring and triumph, of scars and gunpowder, of adventure of a different sort. And while she smiles to see her son so, she knows that is not all.
And her tale moves to Tortuga and the disgrace, of the coat he could not let go of and the foreign bitterness behind his brilliant green eyes. A hurricane, a shipwreck, his resignation from his post – all fall upon Jamie, poor, confused Jamie. She tells him of the trick, and doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, of the Admiral and the East India Trading Company. It is a clean confession; she spares him no detail, but leaves for him the judgment.
"A man," she whispers, "A true man of undying selflessness, of faith and loyalty."
"I'd like to meet him," Jamie says earnestly.
She shakes her head again, no.
"He's dead. He sacrificed himself to save me from the noose."
"Were you a pirate?"
"Yes."
Jamie considers this point carefully.
"Why?"
"Because he thought the law which would have hanged me was wrong, and he still loved me after all I had done to him. I wouldn't be alive if it were not for him."
"Was James Norrington a good man?"
Elizabeth believes so, and wants to tell him, but Jamie's thoughts are his own. She says nothing.
A bell rings in the hallway – it is nearly sunrise. Elizabeth remembers the last thing she means to say to her son, before they part ways for good. She fetches something from her room and returns, presenting it to Jamie.
"What's this?"
"James Norrington's sword. You are named for a great man, Jamie."
Pride swells in her boy's eyes as she kisses his forehead, and whispers, "Rise, my son, and never fall."
---
With Elizabeth in the shadows, Jamie introduces himself to Captain Theo Groves – a weather-beaten sea-dog, balancing quite naturally on a peg-leg and regarding him severely through his one good eye.
"Jamie Turner, eh? Who are you named for, boy?"
"A good man."
Jamie looks back at Elizabeth this last time, and smiles.
Groves follows Jamie's gaze, and recognizes the woman in the shadow. They nod, imperceptibly. He has seen James Norrington's sword.