Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Read online

  But you’re Duncan Walpole, I told myself, and met his eye as I shook his hand firmly. Not a pirate, oh no. Perish the thought. An equal. Here at the invitation of the governor.

  The thought, comforting as it had been, faded in my mind as I realized that he’d fixed me with a curious gaze. At the same time he wore a quizzical half smile, as though he’d had a thought and wasn’t sure whether to let it go free.

  “I must say, my wife has a terrible eye for description,” he said, evidently letting his curiosity get the better of him.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My wife. You met her some years ago at the Percys’ masquerade ball.”

  “Ah, quite . . .”

  “She called you ‘devilishly handsome.’ Obviously a lie to stoke my jealousy.”

  I laughed as though in on the joke. Should I be offended he didn’t think me devilishly handsome? Or just pleased the conversation had moved on?

  With my eyes on his gun, I plumped for the latter.

  Now I was being introduced to the second man, a dark Frenchman with a guarded look called Julien DuCasse, who was calling me the “guest of honour” and talking about some “order” I was supposed to join. Again I was referred to as an “assassin.” Again it was with an odd emphasis I couldn’t quite decode.

  Asesino—assassin—Assassin.

  He was querying the honesty of my “conversion” to the “order,” and my mind returned the wording of Walpole’s letter: “Your support for our secret and most noble cause is warming.”

  What “secret and noble cause” would that be, then? I wondered.

  “I have not come to disappoint,” I said uncertainly. Tell the truth I didn’t have the foggiest what he was on about. What I wanted was to give the pouch with one hand and receive a bulging pouch of gold with the other.

  Failing that, I wanted to move on, because just then I felt as though my deception was apt to crumble at any second. In the end it was a relief when Woodes Rogers’s face broke into a grin—the same grin he no doubt had at the thought of pirates’ heads in hangmen’s nooses—clapped me on the back and insisted I take part in shooting.

  Happy to oblige. Anything to take their minds off me, I engaged them in conversation at the same time. “How is your wife these days, Captain Rogers? Is she here in Havana?”

  I held my breath, steeling myself against his next words, “Yes! Here she is right now! Darling, you remember Duncan Walpole, don’t you?”

  Instead, he said, “Oh, no. No, we’ve been separated these two years past.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said, thinking what excellent news it was.

  “I trust she is well,” he went on, a touch of wistfulness in his voice that sparked a brief thought of my own lost love, “but . . . I wouldn’t know. I have been in Madagascar some fourteen months, hunting pirates.”

  So I had heard. “You mean Libertalia, the pirate town?”

  That was Libertalia in Madagascar. According to legend, Captain William Kidd had stopped there in 1697 and ended up leaving with only half his crew, the rest of them seduced by the lifestyle of a pirate utopia where the motto was “for God and liberty,” with the emphasis on liberty. Where they spared the lives of prisoners, kept killing to a minimum, shared all the spoils fairly, no matter your rank or standing.

  It sounded too good to be true, and there were plenty who thought it was a mythical place, but I’d been assured it existed.

  Rogers was laughing. “What I saw in Madagascar was little more than the aftermath of a sad orgy. A ruffians’ squat. Even the feral dogs seemed ashamed of its condition. As for the twenty or thirty men living there, I cannot say they were ragged, since most wore no clothes at all.”

  I thought of Nassau, where such low standards wouldn’t be tolerated—not before nightfall at least.

  “And how did you deal with their kind?” I asked, the picture of innocence.

  “Very simply. Most pirates are as ignorant as apes. I merely offered them a choice . . . Take a pardon and return to England penniless but free men, or be hanged by the neck until dead. It took some work to dislodge the criminals there, but we managed it. In future, I hope to use the same tactics throughout the West Indies.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I imagine Nassau would be your next target.”

  “Very astute, Duncan. Indeed. Point of fact . . . The moment I return to England, I intend to petition King George with the hope of becoming his emissary in the Bahamas. As governor, no less.”

  So that was it. Nassau was the next step. A place I had come to think of as my spiritual home was under threat—from the carriage-gun, the musket ball or maybe just the scratch of a quill. But under threat all the same.

  I managed to distinguish myself in the shooting and was feeling pretty pleased with myself all told. Once again my thoughts returned to the reward. As soon as I had my money I could return to Nassau, and once there warn Edward and Benjamin that the infamous Woodes Rogers had a Bahamas-shaped bee in his bonnet for our little pirate republic. That he was coming for us.

  Then a box was opened, and I heard Rogers say, “Wonderful. You’re a crack shot, Duncan. As good with a pistol as with your wrist blade, I imagine.”

  Wrist blade, I thought, distantly. Wrist blade?

  “If only he had one,” DuCasse was saying as I peered at several sets of hidden blades displayed in the box—blades the same as those I had reluctantly discarded on the beach at Cape Buena Vista. “Duncan, where are your wrist blades? I have never seen an Assassin so ill-equipped.”

  Again: assassin. As in, Assassin.

  “Ah, damaged, sadly, beyond repair,” I replied.

  DuCasse indicated the selection in the box. “Then have your choice,” he purred. Was it his thick French accent or did he mean to make it sound more like a threat than an offer?

  I wondered where the blades were from. Other assassins, of course. (But assassins or Assassins?) Walpole had been one, but had been meaning to convert. A traitor? But what was this “order” which he’d been planning to join?

  “These are souvenirs,” Julien was saying.

  Dead men’s blades. I reached into the box and drew one out. The blade shone and its fixings trailed against my arm. At which point it dawned on me. They wanted me to use it, to see me in action. Whether as a test or for sport, it didn’t matter. Either way they wanted a display of proficiency in a weapon I’d never used before.

  Straight away I went from congratulating myself on having thrown the bloody thing away (it would have given me away!) to cursing myself for not having kept it (I could have practised and been competent with it by then).

  I squared my shoulders in Duncan Walpole’s robes. An imposter. All of a sudden, I had to be him. I had to really be him.

  They watched as I strapped on the blade. A weak joke about being out of practice elicited polite but humourless chuckles. With it on I let my sleeve drop down over my hand and as we walked began to flex my fingers, adjusting my wrist and feeling for the tell-tale catch of the blade engaging.

  Walpole’s blade had been wet that day we fought. Who knows—perhaps it really had been damaged. This one, greased and shined, would surely be more cooperative?

  I prayed it would be. Imagined the looks on their faces if I simply failed to make it work.

  “Are you sure you are who you say you are?”

  “Guards!”

  Instinctively I found myself seeking out the nearest escape route and not only that, but wishing I’d just left the bloody pouch of documents where I’d found it; wishing I’d left Walpole well alone. What was wrong with life as Edward Kenway anyway? I was poor but at least I was alive. I could have been back in Nassau at that moment, planning raids with Edward and eyeing up Anne Bonny at The Old Avery.

  Edward had warned me not to join Captain Bramah. From the moment I’d suggested it, he told me Bramah was bad news. Why hadn’t I bloody listened?

  The voice of Julien DuCasse interrupted my thoughts.

  “Duncan,” he pr
onounced it Dern-kern, “would you indulge us with a demonstration of your techniques?”

  I was being tested. Every question, every challenge they threw my way—it was all an attempt to force me to prove my mettle. So far I’d passed. Not with flying colours, but I’d passed.

  But we’d stepped outside the confines of the courtyard and I was greeted with what looked like a newly constructed practice area, tall palms lining either side of a grassed avenue, with targets at one end and just beyond that what looked like an ornamental lake, shimmering like a plateful of blue sunshine.

  Behind the tree line, shadows moved among the scaly trunks of the palm trees. More guards, in case I made a break for it.

  “We put together a small training course in the anticipation of your arrival,” said Rogers.

  I swallowed.

  My hosts stood to one side: expectant. Rogers still carried the pistol, held loosely in one hand, but his finger was on the trigger and Julien rested his right palm on the hilt of his sword. Behind the trees the figures of the guards stood motionless, waiting. Even the chirruping of insects and birds seemed to drop away.

  “It would be a shame to leave here without seeing you in action.”

  Woodes Rogers smiled but his eyes were cold.

  And just my luck, the only weapon I had I couldn’t bloody use.

  Doesn’t matter. I can take them anyway.

  To the old Bristolian scrapper in me, they were just another pair of lairy twats outside a tavern. I thought of how I’d watched Walpole fight, with perfect awareness of his surroundings. How I could lay these two out, then be upon the nearest guards before they had a chance to even raise their muskets. Yes, I could do that, catch them unawares . . .

  Now was the time, I thought. Now.

  I braced and drew back my arm to throw the first punch.

  And the blade engaged.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Oh well done, Duncan.” Rogers clapped. I looked from him and DuCasse to my shadow cast on the grass. I had struck quite a pose, the blade engaged. What’s more, I thought I knew how I had done it. A tensing of muscle that came as much from the upper arm as the forearm . . .

  “Very impressive,” said DuCasse. He stepped forward, held my arm with one hand that he used to release a catch, then, very carefully, used the flat of his other palm to ease the blade back into its housing.

  “Now, let’s see you do it again.”

  Without taking my eyes off him, I took a step back then assumed the same position. This time there was no luck involved, and even though I didn’t know quite what I was doing I had perfect confidence it would work. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did. Sure enough: Snick. The blade sprang from the support and glinted evilly in the afternoon sun.

  “A little noisy,” I smiled, getting cocky now. “Ideally, you’d not hear a thing. Otherwise, they’re fine.”

  Their challenges were interminable but by the end I felt I was performing for their pleasure rather than their reassurance. Any tests were over. The guards had drifted away, and even DuCasse, who wore his wariness like a favoured old coat, seemed to have dropped his guard. By the time we left the makeshift training area, he was talking to me like an old friend.

  “The Assassins have trained you well, Duncan,” he said.

  The Assassins, I thought. So that’s what this group were called. Walpole had been a member but intended to betray his brothers, low-down scum-sucker he obviously was.

  Betray them for what? is the question.

  “You chose the perfect time to leave them behind.”

  “At great risk,” enthused Rogers. “Betraying the Assassins is never good for one’s health.”

  “Well,” I said, somewhat pompously, “neither is drinking liquor, but I am drawn to its dangers all the same.”

  He chuckled as I turned my attention to DuCasse.

  “What is your business here, sir? Are you an associate of the governor’s? Or a pending acquaintance like me?”

  “Ah, I am . . . How do you say? Weapons dealer. I deal in pilfered guns and armaments.”

  “A smuggler of sorts,” piped up Rogers.

  “Guns, blades, grenadoes. Anything that might kill a man, I am happy to provide,” clarified the Frenchman.

  By now we had reached the terrace, where I finally clapped eyes on Governor Torres.

  He was about seventy years old, but not fat, the way rich men get. Apart from a clipped beard, his face was brown and lined and topped with brushed-forward thinning white hair, and with one hand on the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe, he peered through round spectacles at correspondence he held in his other hand.

  He didn’t look up, not at first. All the looking was taken care of by the big, bearded man who stood patiently at his right shoulder, his arms folded, as still as one of the courtyard statues and ten times as stony.

  I recognized him at once, of course. The previous day I’d seen him send three pirates to his death; why, that very morning I’d pretended to procure prostitutes in his name. It was the Spaniard, El Tiburón, and although by then I should have been accustomed to intense examination by my hosts, his eyes seemed to drill right through me. For a while, as his stare bored into me, I was absolutely certain that not only had he spoken to the guards at the Castillo but that they had given him a detailed description, and that any second he would raise a trembling finger, point at me, and demand to know why I’d been at the fortress.

  “Grand Master Torres.”

  It was Rogers who broke the silence.

  “Mr. Duncan Walpole has arrived.”

  Torres looked up and regarded me over the top of his spectacles. He nodded, then handed his letter to El Tiburón, and thank God he did, for it meant that at last El Tiburón tore his eyes away from me.

  “You were expected one week ago,” said Torres, but without much irritation.

  “Apologies, Governor,” I replied. “My ship was set upon by the pirates and we were scuttled. I arrived only yesterday.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Unfortunate. But were you able to salvage from these pirates the items you promised me?”

  I nodded, thinking, One hand gives you the pouch, the other hand takes the money, and from my robes took the small hunting satchel, bent and dropped it to a low table by Torres’s knees. He puffed on his pipe, then opened the pouch, took out the maps. I’d seen the maps, of course, and they didn’t mean anything to me. Nor did the crystal for that matter. But they meant something to Torres all right. No doubt about it.

  “Incredible,” he said in tones of wonderment. “The Assassins have more resources than I had imagined . . .”

  He reached for the crystal, squinting at it through his spectacles and turning it over in his fingers. This ornament or whatever it was . . . well, to him it was no ornament.

  He placed the papers and crystal back into the satchel and crooked a hand for El Tiburón, who stepped forward and took the satchel. With that, Torres reached for my hand to shake, pumping it vigorously as he spoke.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Duncan,” he said. “You are most welcome. Come, gentlemen.” He motioned to the others. “We have much to discuss. Come . . .”

  We began to move away from the terrace, all friends together.

  Still no word about the bloody reward. Shit. I was getting deeper—deeper into something I wanted no part of.

  TWENTY-NINE

  We stood around a large table in a private room inside the main building: me, Torres, El Tiburón, DuCasse and Rogers.

  El Tiburón, who remained at his master’s shoulder, held a long, thin box, like a cigar box. Did I imagine it, or were his eyes constantly on me? Had he somehow seen through me, or been alerted? “Sir, a strange man in robes was looking for you at the fortress earlier.”

  I didn’t think so, though. Apart from him, everybody else in the room seemed relaxed, accepting drinks from Torres and chatting amiably while he made his own. Like any good host, he’d ensured his guests were holding full glasses first,
but I wondered why he didn’t have staff to serve them, then thought I knew the answer: it was the nature of our business in this room. The atmosphere might well have been relaxed—at least it was for the time being—but Torres was sure to post a sentry, then close the door with a gesture that seemed to say, Anything said in this room is for our ears only, the kind of gesture that was making me feel less reassured with each passing moment, wishing I’d taken note of the line in the letter about my support for their “secret and most noble cause.”

  I must remember that next time I’m considering becoming an imposter, I thought—give noble causes a wide berth. Especially if they’re secret noble causes

  But we all had our drinks so a toast was raised, Torres saying, “Convened at last and in such Continental company . . . England, France, Spain . . . Citizens of sad and corrupted empires.”

  At a wave from Torres, El Tiburón moved across, opened the box he held and placed it to the table. I saw red-velvet lining and the gleam of metal from inside. Whatever it was, it looked significant and indeed proved to be, as Torres, his smile fading, the natural gleam of his eyes replaced by something altogether more serious, began what was obviously a ceremony of some importance.

  “But you are Templars now,” he was saying. “The secret and true legislators of the world. Please hold out your hands.”

  The convivial atmosphere was suddenly solemn. Drinks were set down. I shuffled quickly to the side, seeing that the others had placed themselves at intervals around the table. Next I did as I was asked and proffered my hand, thinking, Templars—so that’s what they were.

  It seems odd to say now, but I relaxed—I relaxed in the belief that they were nothing more sinister than a secret society. A silly club like any other silly club, full of deluded, pompous fools, whose grandiose aims (“the secret and true legislators of the world” no less!) were hot air, just an excuse for bickering about meaningless titles and trinkets.