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The smell of leather from the newly opened chests always stirred something in his chest, as if an invisible hand were patting his heart, reminding him why on earth he had become a pirate. Not for the poetry of the horizon, nor for the ballads about freedom—tavern nonsense—but for the metallic sound of gold falling, for the measurable weight of ambition in his hand. Hector Barbossa did not fool himself with verses: he coveted. And he did so methodically.
The assault on the bank in the small coastal village had been clean, bold and profitable. Too profitable for his liking: when the booty is very good, everyone believes they deserve more than their fair share. Even so, he let the crew shout, drink and run around the deck with candlesticks held high as if they were trophies of war. Let them celebrate. Euphoria breeds loyalty—for a while. Then he would count the loot himself and discreetly “balance” it, as required by the unwritten rules of a forward-thinking captain.
It wasn't that he didn't care about the gold. He cared so much that he preferred to manage it coldly. Experience had taught him that those who embrace hot chests burn their fingers and lose. So, when the commotion on deck reached a fever pitch, Barbossa retired to his cabin with the excuse of studying routes, but in reality with his mind divided into columns: Spanish coinage (two chests), old silver (excess, will have to be melted down), jewels (to be evaluated later, lest they be Venetian glass), immediate distribution (just enough to keep mouths happy), royal reserve (his, well his: the one he would hide where no one looks or asks questions).
The monkey—Jack, ironically—nibbled on a nut on the shelf, watching everything with the brazenness of a creature that fears no knives because it does not understand accounts. Hector took out a small notebook, made coded marks, reviewed currents and ports, all while part of his brain reviewed hiding places: the false bottom under the maps, a small box embedded behind the moulding, the hollow behind the vinegar barrel that no one touches. He allowed himself a dry smile. Yes, he was a greedy bastard. And in this world, that honesty with himself was a better compass than any priest's morals.
The Pearl, however, added a capricious variable to his equation: Jack Sparrow. Jack did not sail for accumulated wealth, but for stories that would later tell themselves; and yet, from chasing myths so much, treasures fell by the wayside. With Jack, one did not fill coffers, one filled legends. And Hector—who was ambitious, but not foolish—had learned to like having both: singing the ballad and collecting the entrance fee.
He leaned over the navigation chart. He plotted a diagonal route, calculating winds and the probability of encountering a corvette belonging to some pompous governor. The monkey jumped onto the table, leaving walnut crumbs on the map. Hector growled and blew the crumbs away. For a second, he felt the primal urge to reach into the chests and sink his fingers knuckle-deep into the coins, but he forced himself to remain still. He had learned to confuse his own greed with patience. Gold doesn't run away if you watch it from the doorway; it runs away when you let it cloud your judgement.
That's when the door opened without permission—as always—and Jack Sparrow walked in with his pendulum-like gait and that crooked smile that, on him, was the equivalent of, "Either congratulate me now or in five minutes I'll get you into a different kind of trouble."
“I’m not bringing any trouble,” he announced, raising one hand theatrically while hiding something behind his back with the other.
Barbossa raised an eyebrow.
"That's a lie."
"Fine, if we're going to start with technicalities," Jack leaned to one side, sparkling with salt and triumph. "I don't just bring trouble."
The monkey let out an interested squeak and hung from the curtain. Hector, without getting up, leaned back in his chair. He studied the other man's shadows as if evaluating merchandise at a market.
"What are you hiding, Sparrow?" He dragged out the words with poisonous laziness. "A trinket that winked at you, or the bleeding heart of some myth that will now haunt us until the end of time?"
"You'd be surprised how many myths don't bleed when you bite their pocket." Jack smiled, his teeth gleaming. "But today, curiously, I come bearing a gift."
He finally took out what he had been hiding. The oil lamp cast a red glare across the cabin. It was a ring: a ruby the size of a ripe grape, set in gold, with two blue sapphires on either side. The piece was indecent in its ostentation; vulgar, a marquis would say; precious, corrected Hector's greed, licking his lips inside.
He took it with two fingers, without touching the stone yet, as if it were a strange creature that should be looked at before bringing it close to the nose. He brought it closer to the light, turned it, observed the inclusions, the cut, the shine. To the eye, six or seven carats in the red, perhaps more; the sapphires, fine, surely Ceylon or a good imitation; the gold, high content. A booty within the booty.
"From where, exactly?" he asked without looking up, in that captain's voice that smells lies like others smell gunpowder. "And don't recite poetry to me."
"I rescued it." Jack savoured the word. "It was drowning in the safe of a banker of questionable morals. I, a visionary of beautiful things, took it out for some fresh air."
"Aha." Hector moved his thumb slightly around the ring, weighing it up. "And now breathe into my hand. What a miracle."
Jack nodded, pleased with his own fable: "A miracle that tastes of green apples and aged rum. It suits you well."
The monkey stretched out an arm as if asking to see it. Barbossa instinctively withdrew it, a reaction as old as his hunger: treasures are shown, not lent. And for a second he hated himself for being so transparent. Then he allowed himself the luxury of cynicism: "What is the price of this 'gift'?"
"Oh, Hector." Jack clicked his tongue. "Always so suspicious. Sometimes a gift is a gift... and other times it's a bribe for your particular greed so that—let's say—you don't throw me overboard the next time we happen to be near a certain island in the middle of a storm."
"Ah." Hector smiled without joy. "So, life insurance."
"Let's call it... a high-yield emotional investment." Jack winked with a cheeky smile. "I'm not buying you; I'm feeding your best virtue."
"My virtue?"
"Your civilised greed." Jack opened his hands solemnly. Although his gaze drifted away for a few seconds as if he wanted to add “sometimes” but held back. "The one that keeps the Pearl's sails new and the crew's teeth in their mouths. Your greed takes care of me, Hector. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Or my purse. In your case, they're synonymous."
Hector let out a harsh, brief laugh. It was insolent, and the devil was that it wasn't entirely wrong. He turned back to the lamp, letting the ruby light a red fire in his pupil. He wanted it. Not in the ceremonious manner of a jeweller, but with the cold anxiety of a hoarder who is already imagining where he will hide it so that no one but him will know. The ruby did not sing—it purred ancient promises.
And yet, something about that gesture bothered him: gift. A word without a contract, without a receipt. A gift from Jack is not a coin: it weighs differently. It goes in another drawer, one that Hector preferred to keep empty.
"The only thing you're missing," he growled, finally, without letting go of the ring. "Is asking me to marry you."
Jack smiled as if he had been waiting for exactly that thrust. "Marriage, dear Hector, is a wonderful way to tie yourself to ports that are not entirely reliable with chains that rust when it rains..." He left the sentence hanging in the air, like someone floating a lantern in the night, and added quietly, with malice. "But don't dismiss the idea."
The monkey opened his mouth, perhaps infected by the gesture of surprise that Hector did not want to show. The captain kept his gaze on the stone, and only after a few seconds did he turn his head towards Jack.
"You know how to talk to sell ice in Greenland," he said quietly. "And yet here I am, buying."
"Buying what, exactly?" Jack rested his elbow on the back of the chair in front of Hector, delighted with his game. "The ring? The story? Me?"
Hector placed the ring on the table with a sharp click. Part of him wanted to cover it, to protect it from the air. Another, newer part told him to leave it in plain sight: let Jack see that he accepted the gesture and its soft chains.
"I'll buy you that today I'm not interested in asking how many fingers will cry for this," he murmured. "And that tomorrow, if a knight in armour shows up claiming it, I'll send him away with fewer fingers than he came with."
"A pragmatic approach to romance." Jack approved, without losing his smile. "My favourite."
"Don't use the word romance in here, Sparrow," Hector growled, pointing at the floor with his chin. "It rusts my hinges."
Jack took a step forward. He lowered his voice—that voice that some would swear he only uses when his mask slips a few centimetres—: "Call it what you like. I just wanted to give you something that doesn't rattle when you walk, but weighs you down when you put it away. And yes, of course...‘ The smile returned like lightning. "I also want it to be a little harder for you to get completely angry with me."
"Coaxing with precious stones." Hector clicked his tongue. "Innovative."
"Innovation is my only vice that I can't afford with loot," Jack replied. "The rest pays for itself."
The monkey, impatient, approached again. Hector, with a patience he rarely showed anyone, pushed the animal away with two fingers and took the ring. He tried the ring on his middle finger—it was tight. On his index finger—too loose. On his ring finger—it fit with such perfect irony that he had to hide the pang that rose in his chest.
Jack, of course, saw it. He always saw more than he said.
"It fits you like in a painting," he whispered. "Like an oath no one forced you to say out loud."
"Don't start." Hector withdrew his hand and put the ring in the inside pocket of his waistcoat, where he hid things that weren't quite money and weren't quite weapons. "If I wear it in public, Ragetti will sell the story before we reach port."
‘Then it will be our little private legend.’ Jack leaned back, satisfied. ‘A myth that doesn't bleed. You know, the kind I like.’
Hector rested his hands on the edge of the desk. He realised that he was tired, yes; that he wanted to tell and hide and mark each jewel with his secret sign; and that, nevertheless, that red stone had warmed something in him that had no exact name. It wasn't soft love—he didn't talk to himself like that—it was something closer to possession, but inverted: the strange and dangerous feeling of being the chest of something else.
"Was this in the distribution?" he asked, as if he didn't want war, just inventory. "Or did you take it 'outside'?"
Jack twisted his mouth.
"Let's just say the bank had a poorly marked donation section."
"Aha."
"And let's also say that..." Jack leaned slightly towards him, mischievously. "I've learned that when your greed is satisfied, the ship sails straighter. It's nautical science."
"It's ambition." Hector let a fang peek out in a smile. "But useful, I admit."
For the first time since the chests had been brought on board, he felt no rush to sink his fingers into coins. The stone in his pocket weighed more than a handful of doubloons, and it weighed differently. That difference irritated and calmed him at the same time.
Jack turned towards the door, ready to go and brag about nothing to everyone.
"By the way," he added, his hand already on the handle. "If it's too much, I can bring another one tomorrow. There was a pearl necklace that—"
"Don't even try," Hector cut him off, without raising his voice. "The crew would start calling me ma'am. And you'd still lose your fingers."
Jack laughed, a light of malice and joy: "See? Chains that rust. Let's avoid them... for now."
"For now," Hector repeated, letting the echo do its work.
Jack bowed slightly—a parody of a courtier—and, before opening the door, dropped one last soft bravado: "But don't dismiss the idea."
The door closed. The monkey climbed onto the back of the chair and looked at the captain, waiting for a command or a nut. Hector, on the other hand, reached into his pocket and touched the ring with his fingertip. He felt the edge, the warm stone, the firm band.
A bribe for my greed. He thought, without deceiving himself. And a key to a chest he had no intention of opening.
He allowed himself, just for himself, a conclusion he would not put in any account book: the gold had brought him here; Jack was forcing him to stay. And between them, that red stone—stolen, of course—would sleep tonight in the hiding place that was not for coins. Tomorrow, he would count it. Tonight, it was enough to know that, for once, he had accepted booty that did not jingle when it fell, but made noise inside. And if one day someone came claiming the ring, well, there are always plenty of fingers in the world.
The monkey squealed, as if asking to see the treasure. Hector shook his head.
"No, little thief," he said, his voice softer than he expected. "This one is not for looking at."
The lamp crackled. Outside, the Perla creaked contentedly. And in the cabin, Hector's greed—that old, loyal compass—rearranged itself, for the first time, around a stone that weighed like a promise. Not an oath. A promise. Which is not the same thing, but it pays interest.