When Rowena heard that her employer-slash-best friend had fallen into the ocean after an all too expected proposal from Commodore Norrington, was then saved by a pirate and then threatened by said pirate, she knew that it was a tea-in-bed kind of night. She had the tea already brewed and hot when Elizabeth Swann came trudging into her room, still soaking wet.
"Look what the cat dragged in," Rowena teased with a smile, walking over to her friend to help her undress. "I've got some tea prepared, a fire ready, the bed warmer is already heated, and, lucky for you, your warmest nightgown has already been cleaned."
Elizabeth smiled, her eyelids heavy. Rowena handed Elizabeth her dry clothes as she disposed of the wet ones in the laundry bin. As Elizabeth crawled into her bed, a book in hand, Rowena put the copper bed warmer by her feet.
"You've had quite the exciting day, haven't you Elizabeth," Rowena said, sitting on the other side of the bed. Elizabeth sighed, opening her book.
"Norrington's proposal didn't come exactly as a surprise," she said, looking at the words but not truly reading them. Her hand was on a medallion that always hung about her neck. Rowena never had the guts to ask what it was.
"I meant you falling 2oo feet to your near death then getting threatened by a pirate, but I guess you could say an unexpected proposal is just as bad." Elizabeth scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You know, marrying Norrington isn't a bad idea, Lizzy."
"I know, I know, Rowena, but-"
"But," Elizabeth's loud mouth friend interjected, "you've got your eye on a certain, strapping blacksmith."
"Shut up!" Elizabeth hissed, hitting her friend with one of her pillows.
"You're right, it's not my place to tell you that my brother would make a great husband," Rowena sighed, taking hold of the pillow and snuggling it into her chest.
"And what about you, Ro? Where's your handsome lad?" Elizabeth mocked, shutting her book and giving her friend one of her best smiles. Rowena scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"I'm not in the market for one. I'm fine on my own, thank you very much," she retorted, scrunching up her nose.
"You'll bite your tongue one of these days, Rowena Turner, you really will," Elizabeth told her, returning to her book.
"Well, Ms. Swann, I should take out your wet clothes and get into my own bed. Drink your tea." Rowena rolled out of the enormous bed and did just as she had said she would. After putting the wet clothes outside to dry, she returned inside the house. She had just entered her small room adjacent to Elizabeth's, when she heard canon fire and screams from outside her room. She ran to the window and saw a large, black ship floating out in the water, shooting canon after canon at the city of Port Royal. Even at the top of the hill she could hear the screams. Looking down she saw men running up to the house. Fear struck her heart. Only one thought ran through her head: protect Elizabeth.
She burst through the door that connected her room to Elizabeth's to see that her friend had left to room to tell the butler not to open the door. Rowena was by her side when the door was opened.
"Hello chum," said the pirate at the door and shot the butler point blank in the chest. Elizabeth screamed as Rowena gasped, horrified at the sight of the blood spattering on the carpet. All she could think of was how hard it would be to clean. She and Elizabeth ran back to her room and locked the door. Inside was Estrella, one of Elizabeth's other maids.
"Miss Swann, they've come to kidnap you," Estrella whispered, tears in her eyes, as Rowena locked the door.
"What?" Elizabeth breathed.
"You're the governor's daughter."
Elizabeth took a second to process this.
"They haven't seen you," she told Estrella, "Hide, and the first chance you get, run to the fort."
Estrella nodded and hid behind the changing curtain. Rowena took hold of one of the fire pokers, unsure of what she might do with it. Elizabeth grabbed the bed warmer as the door burst opened. She swung it with all of her night and smacked one of the two pirate's in the face with it. Estrella screamed and ran out the door as the second pirate blocked Elizabeth's swing by grabbed the warmer by the pole.
"Gotcha!" He exclaimed, but neither Elizabeth nor Rowena was having any of his mockery. As Rowena jabbed him in the side with the hot poker, Elizabeth pulled the finger latch that opened the bed warmer, and hot coals came pouring down on the pirate's head. Rowena took Elizabeth's hand and they ran down the stairs, the first pirate right behind them. They screamed in unison as the other pirate jumped from the very top of the staircase to the bottom. His long legs should have broken, or her should have at least fallen over, but he stood steady.
A cannonball burst through the wall and hit one of the many other pirates looting Elizabeth's treasures and, as they were distracted, Elizabeth and Rowena ran to a room across the lobby. Before the any of the pirates could catch them, a falling chandelier got in their way.
Rowena locked the door as Elizabeth ran to grab the two swords mounted on the wall above a fireplace.
"We know you're 'ere, Poppet," one of the pirates said as Elizabeth tried to shake the swords free.
"They're not coming loose," she whispered in panic. Rowena put her hand on her friend's back and pointed to the closet. The two friends ran for the closet and closed themselves in, just as the door burst down.
"Poppet. We know you're in here," the first, rounder pirate said, trying to make his voice smooth and happy. Both girls breathed deeply, trying to hide their fear. Rowena clung to Elizabeth's hand, sweat beading down her forehead.
"Come out and we promise we won't hurt you." There was a brief pause. "We will find you, Poppet. You've got something of ours, and it calls to us." Rowena watched Elizabeth's other hand go to the medallion on her neck. Rowena sent her a quizzical look, but Elizabeth wasn't paying attention. She knew that medallion, now that she got a good look at it. It was her brother's. "The gold calls to us."
Elizabeth and Rowena examined the face of the medallion with the light shining through the crack in the door, but it was suddenly covered in darkness. Both girls looked up and gasped at the sight of the pirate's face.
"'Ello, Poppet." Her threw the door open, both pirates raising their swords to strike. Elizabeth tucked the medallion back in her dress instantly.
"Parley!" Both Elizabeth and Rowena yelled simultaneously.
"Wot?" The taller pirate asked.
"Parley. We invoke the right of Parley," Rowena repeated.
"According to the code of the brethren set down by pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take us to your captain," Elizabeth added in a flurry.
"I know the code," growled the short one.
"If an adversary demands parley you can do them no harm until the parley is complete," Elizabeth continued, as if reciting directly from the code itself.
"To blazes with the code!" The tall one yelled, raising his sword again.
"They want to be taken to the captain," seethed the short one to the tall one, "And they'll go without a fuss. We must honor the code."
He wore a terribly awful grin that made Rowena sick to her stomach, but she allowed the short one to drag Elizabeth from the closet. She tensed as the taller one grabbed her wrist roughly and dragged her from her hiding place.
Grinding her teeth as they went, Rowena resisted the urge to fight back. Now surrounded by more pirates, the two were pushed through the city. Rowena looked on in horror at the chaos the pirates ensued on her home.
Buildings were burning. Men and women lay dead in the street. Children screamed as people cried over their lost loved ones. She could smell the smoke from the fire and she could almost taste the metallic scent of the blood. Her heart pounded in her chest as the grip of the pirates tightened on her wrists. She needed to keep moving. If she stopped and resisted, she didn't know what they'd do to Elizabeth.
As they were marched through town, she saw William, her brother. He had obviously been fighting, she didn't expect any different. When he noticed them, fear filled his eyes.
"Elizabeth," his lips read. Rowena's heart stopped.
"Will," the name barely made it past Elizabeth's lips. Will's eyes shifted over towards Rowena. She knit her eyebrows together and nodded her head, promising to look after her. Will took a step forward, but a pirate walked up behind him and hit him over the head with the butt of his sword.
"Will!" Rowena cried out. She pulled against the pirates as Will fell, unconscious, to the ground, but they wouldn't let her go.
Elizabeth and Rowena were thrown mercilessly into a small boat and rowed towards the ship.
"What's your plan?" Rowena whispered to Elizabeth as they went.
"A trade," she whispered back. Rowena breathed heavily, her dark eyes reflecting the flames that ate her city. Tears filled her eyes, thinking about all those who had died. She couldn't get her mind off of Will, unsure whether he was alive or not.
The two girls were taken aboard the blackened ship. As she stepped on board, Rowena felt something strangely familiar, yet so unsettlingly unfamiliar, pass through her body. She looked about the ship, at its black hull and it's ragged crew. She knew this ship.
Memories of a terrible day passed through her mind. Thoughts of a ship with black sails and fire that burned so hot, she sometimes still felt it in her nightmares. The recollection of watching her brother drift away on a piece of wood as she lay, near death, on a still burning ship caused a piercing pain to shoot through her head. She tried so very hard to forget her younger days, that day specifically.
"I didn't know we was takin' on captives," a large, black pirate sneered at the others who had boarded.
"They've invoked the right of parley with Captain Barbossa," the short pirate, who's name Rowena discovered was Pintel, said, almost timidly. Elizabeth stepped forward.
"I am here to negotiate-" the black man backhanded her across the face so hard, Rowena was unsure how Elizabeth was still standing. Rowena lunged forward, ready to fight the man with everything she had, but the other pirates held her back, their hands roaming and touching places she wished they wouldn't.
A hand reached out and grabbed the black pirate's wrist.
"And ye not lay a hand on those under the protection of parley, Bo'sun," the man to whom the hand belonged said, his accent stereotypically pirate-y.
"Aye, sir," Bo'sun said through his teeth.
"My apologies, Miss," the pirate, whom Rowena could only assume was Captain Barbossa by the way all the pirates immediately stopped their crowing and gawking.
"Captain Barbossa," Elizabeth started, "I am here to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Port Royal."
Barbossa laughed, and the other pirates joined in uneasily.
"There are a lot of long words in there, Miss," Barbossa told her, "we are naught humble pirates. What is it that you want?"
Rowena pulled herself away from the pirates holding her and stood beside Elizabeth.
"I want you to leave and never come back," Elizabeth told him, her voice low and demanding. Rowena loved this side of Elizabeth. Even if they were standing amidst a hoard of pirates who looked like they would eat the girls alive, Rowena couldn't help but smile.
"I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request," Barbossa mocked her. When she didn't respond immediately, he leaned forward slightly. "Means 'no'."
Elizabeth stepped back, pulling the medallion over her head.
"Very well." Her voice had lost all demanding tones and simply sounded innocent. "I'll drop it." She dangled the medallion in over the side of the ship by the chain. Rowena watched her with a coy smile on her face. She raised an eyebrow at the other pirates, all of whom were watching the medallion closely.
"Me holds are bursting with swag." Rowena was appalled by the man's grammar, and tried not to correct him. Now was simply not the time. "That bit o' shine matters to us? Why?"
"It's what you've been searching for," Rowena interjected, crossing her arms. "I recognize this ship. You almost killed me with it 8 years ago."
"And I saw it on the crossing to England," Elizabeth added.
"Did ya, now?" Barbossa had a truly ugly grin on his face, and his eyes lit up.
"Fine." Elizabeth set her jaw. "Well, if it is worthless, than there's no point in me keeping it." She let go of the chain just enough so that when the pirates lunged towards it, she still had hold of it. A knowing smile passed her face. Rowena shook her head once in shock, a smile on her face as well. She never knew just how manipulative her friend was.
"Ah." Barbossa chuckled. "Either you lasses have names?"
"Elizabeth-" she paused, remembering what Estrella had said in her room. "Turner."
Rowena's smile faded and her stomach dropped. Everything inside of her screamed 'bad idea'. There was nothing she could do now.
"I'm a maid in the governor's household," she quickly added, giving a quick curtsies.
"Miss Turner?" Barbossa repeated. Rowena's stomach churned as everyone aboard the boat murmured. She even heard Pintel whisper to his friend "Bootstrap". She didn't know what it meant, but she didn't like it.
"And how does a maid come to own a trinket such as that? A family heirloom, perhaps?" Barbossa inquired. The question was too specific for Rowena's liking. She scowled at him, shifting herself between him and Elizabeth.
"I didn't steal it, if that's what you mean," Elizabeth said, pulling the medallion back over her neck.
"And you, missy?" Barbossa turned to Rowena. "Are you, perhaps, her sister?"
"No," Rowena snapped, "not by blood."
"Have you a name?"
"It's none of your dam-" Elizabeth jabbed her friend in the side and coughed, glancing around at the pirates. Rowena faked a smile. "Pardon me, Captain. Rowena, is my name."
"Rowena and Elizabeth." He looked between the two girls with a fire in his eyes that Rowena certainly didn't like one bit. "Very well, hand it over and we'll put your town to our rudder and ne'er return."
Elizabeth put the medallion in his hand. As she leaned over, Rowena whispered "Bad idea," through a smile.
"Our bargain?" Elizabeth demanded as Barbossa turned away.
Bo'sun started shouting orders to the men as Elizabeth and Rowena followed after Barbossa.
"Wait! You have to take us to shore!" Rowena said to him.
"According to the Code of the Order of the Brethren-" Elizabeth started to add when Barbossa whirled around, a crazed look on his face.
"First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl," Barbossa spewed. He waved a hand at two of the pirates to their left and walked away. Rowena's threat tightened and she looked over at Elizabeth. Elizabeth had fear written all over her face. She took Rowena's hand.
"Don't worry, Lizzy," Rowena said, trying to keep her voice calm as the ship began to move. "We'll be alright."
It was clear that Elizabeth didn't entirely believe her.