"A bargain is in its very essence a hostile transaction do not all men try to abate the price of all they buy? I contend that a bargain even between brethren is a declaration of war." ~Lord Byron

"Did you like it?" Cutler asked, placing a languorously possessive hand on James' naked shoulder. Looking askance at the other man, Norrington had no inkling of what he was asking. Obviously James did not like what he had just done, but looking up at Beckett he saw genuine inquisitiveness instead of impressive cruelty.

"What do you mean?" James asked. Cutler moved his hand from Norrington's shoulder, his fingers drifting softly over neck, jaw, and cheek. Beckett slid his thumb across James' slick lips, limp and bruised from being stretched, and answered, "Your sword."

"Oh. No," James spoke without thinking. When he gripped the hilt of his old sword, the one he had relinquished, he was filled with anger. It was not the old anger that put blood in his mouth, fire in his belly, and steel in his spine; it was an anger born of regret and spite at an impending sense of doom.

Beckett's eyes shuttered themselves against Norrington's stare and he asked harshly, "Why ever not?" James began with a sigh and then, "I did not earn it." And there was Cutler's cruel smile cutting across his face, his thumb pressing against Norington's swollen lower lip, "Oh, believe me, James; you earned it."