Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Page 18

  I dropped the empty pistol, pivoted, snatched a new pistol from my belt and uncrossed my arms at the same time. Two new targets, and this time the blade’s backswipe sliced open a man’s chest, while I shot a fourth man in the mouth. I met a sword blow with a parry from the blade, a soldier who came forward with bared teeth giving me no time to snatch my third pistol. For a moment we traded blows, and he was better than I had expected because all the while I wasted precious seconds besting him, his comrade was looking along the barrel of his musket at me, ready to pull the trigger. I dropped to one knee, jabbed upwards with the blade and sliced into the swordsman’s side.

  Dirty trick. Nasty trick.

  There was even something of the outraged English sense of honour in his agonized yell of anguish and pain as his legs gave way beneath him and he came thumping to the ground, his sword swinging uselessly and not enough to prevent my blade punching up underneath his jaw and through the roof of his mouth.

  A dirty, nasty trick. And a stupid one. Now I was on the ground (never go down in a fight) with my blade wedged in my opponent. A sitting duck. My left hand scrabbled to find my third pistol but unless the other soldier’s musket misfired because the powder was wet, I was dead.

  I looked over to him, saw him do the about-to-fire face.

  And a blade appeared from his chest as Adewalé ran him through.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as he helped me up, knowing I’d been close—this close—to death.

  “Thank you, Ade.”

  He smiled, waved my thanks away, and together our gaze went to the soldier. His body rose and fell with his last breaths, and one hand twitched before it went still, and we wondered what might have been.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Not long after, the men were free, and James and I stood on the beach on Tulum—a Tulum once again in the hands of natives, rather than soldiers or slavers—looking out to sea. With a curse he handed me his spyglass.

  “Who’s out there?” I asked. A huge galley cruised along the horizon, getting more and more distance with each passing second. On it I could just about make out men on deck, one in particular who seemed to be ordering the others around.

  “See that mangy old codger?” he said. “He’s a Dutch slaver called Laurens Prins. Living now like a king in Jamaica. Bastard’s been a target for years. Bloody hell, we nearly had him!”

  Kidd was right. This slave trader had been on land in Tulum but now was well on his way to safety. He considered his mission a failure, no doubt. But at least he’d escaped with his liberty.

  Another Assassin none too pleased was Ah Tabai, who joined us wearing a face so serious I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “By God, you Assassins are a cheery bunch, eh? All frowns and furrowed brows.”

  He glared at me. “Captain Kenway. You have remarkable skill.”

  “Ah, thanks, mate. It comes natural.”

  He pursed his lips. “But you are churlish and arrogant, prancing around in a uniform that you have not earned.”

  “Everything is permitted.” I laughed “Isn’t that your motto?”

  The native man might have been old but his body was sinewy and he moved like a man much younger. His face could have been carved from wood, and in his eyes was something truly dark, something both ancient and ageless. I found myself unnerved as he gave me the full benefit of his stare, and for a moment I thought he might say nothing, simply make me wilt in the heat of his contempt.

  Until at last he broke the ghastly silence. “I absolve you of your errors in Havana and elsewhere,” he said, “but you are not welcome here.”

  With that, he left, and in his wake James shot me a look.

  “Sorry, mate, wish it were otherwise,” he said, then left me alone to ponder.

  Bloody Assassins, I thought. They were just as bad as the other lot. The self-righteous sanctimonious attitude they had. We’re this, we’re that. Like the priests back home who used to wait outside taverns and curse you for being a sinner and called on you to repent. Who wanted you to feel bad all the time.

  But the Assassins didn’t burn your father’s farm, did they? I thought. It was the Templars who did that.

  And it’s the Assassins who showed you how to use the sense.

  With a sigh, I decided I wanted to smooth things over with Kidd. So I wasn’t interested in the path he wanted me to take. But being asked, being considered suitable, there was something to be said for that.

  I found him by the same pigeon coop where I’d met the native woman earlier. There he stood, tinkering with his hidden blade.

  “Cheery bunch of mates you’ve got,” I offered.

  Though he frowned, a light in his eyes betrayed the fact that he was pleased to see me.

  Nevertheless, he said, “You deserve scorn, Edward, prancing about like one of us, bringing shame to our cause.”

  “What’s that, your cause?”

  He tested his blade—in and out, in and out—and then turned his eyes on me.

  “To be blunt . . . we kill people. Templars and their associates. Folks who’d like to control all the empires on earth . . . Claiming they do it in the name of peace and order.”

  Yes, I’d heard that somewhere before. These people who wanted jurisdiction of everyone on Earth—I had broken bread with them.

  “Sounds like DuCasse’s dying words,” I said.

  “You see? It’s about power really. About lording it over people. Robbing us of liberty.”

  That—liberty—was something I held very, very dear indeed.

  “How long have you been one of these Assassins?” I asked him.

  “A couple of years now. I met Ah Tabai in Spanish Town and there was something about him I trusted, a sort of wisdom.”

  “Is all of this his idea? This clan?”

  Kidd chuckled. “Oh no, the Assassins and Templars have been at war for thousands of years, all over the world. The natives of this new world had similar philosophies for as long as they’ve been here. When Europeans arrived, our group sort of . . . matched up. Cultures and religions and languages keep folks divided . . . But there’s something in the Assassin’s Creed that crosses all boundaries. A fondness for life and liberty.”

  “Sounds a bit like Nassau, don’t it?”

  “Close. But not quite.”

  I knew when we parted that I’d not seen the last of Kidd.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  JULY 1716

  As the pirates of Nassau finished their rout of Porto Guarico’s guards, I stepped into the fort’s treasure room and the sound of clashing swords, the crackle of musket fire and the screams of the dying faded behind me.

  I shook blood from my blade and stepped into the treasure room, enjoying the look of surprise my presence brought to the face of its only occupant.

  Its only occupant was governor Laureano Torres.

  He was just as I remembered him: spectacles perched on his nose. Neatly clipped beard and twinkling, intelligent eyes that recovered easily from the shock of seeing me.

  And behind him, the money. Just as had been promised by Charles Vane . . .

  • • •

  The plan had been hatched two days ago. I’d been at The Old Avery. There were other taverns in Nassau, of course, and other brothels too, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t avail myself of both, but it was to The Old Avery that I returned, where Anne Bonny the barmaid would serve drinks (and there was no one prettier who ever bent to a bunghole with a tankard in her hand than Anne Bonny), where I’d spent so many happy hours in appreciation of that fine posterior, roaring with laughter with Edward Thatch and Benjamin, where for the hours we spent drinking there it was as though the world could not touch us and where, since returning to Nassau from Tulum, I found I’d rediscovered my thirst.

  Oh yes. Just like those old days back in Bristol, the more dissatisfied I was, the thirstier I became. Not that I realized it at the time, of course, not being as prone to putting two and two together as I should have been. No, instead I jus
t drank to quench that thirst and work up an even bigger one, brooding on The Observatory and how it figured in my plans to get rich and strike at the Templars; brooding on James Kidd and Caroline. I must have looked as though I was deep in a brown study that particular day, for the first thing that the pirate known as Calico Jack Rackham said to me was, “Oi, you, why the long look? Are you falling in love?”

  I looked at him with bleary eyes. I was drunk enough to want to fight him; too drunk to do anything about it. Anyway, Calico Jack stood by the side of Charles Vane, the two of them having just arrived on Nassau, and their reputation preceded them. It came on the lips of every pirate who passed through Nassau. Charles Vane was captain of the Ranger, and Calico Jack his quartermaster. Jack was English but had been brought up in Cuba, so he had a hint of the swarthy South American about him. As well as the bright calico gear that had given him his nickname, he wore big hoop earrings and a headscarf that seemed to emphasize his long brow. It might sound like the pot calling the kettle black, but he drank constantly. His breath was always foul with it, his dark eyes heavy and sleepy with it.

  Vane, meanwhile, was the sharper of the two, in mind and in tongue, if not in appearance. His hair was long and unkempt and he wore a beard and looked haggard. Both were armed with pistols on belts across their chests, and cutlasses, and were smelly from months at sea. Neither was the type you’d hurry to trust: Calico Jack, as dippy as he was tipsy; Vane on a knife’s edge, like you were always one slip of the tongue away from sudden violence, and he was not averse to ripping off his own crew, either.

  Still, they were pirates, both of them. Our kind.

  “You’re welcome to Nassau, gents,” I told them. “Everyone is who does his fair share.”

  Now, one thing you’d have to say about Nassau, specifically about the upkeep of Nassau, was that as housekeepers we made good pirates.

  After all, you have enough of that when you’re at sea, when having your ship spick and span is a question of immediate survival. They don’t call it ship-shape for nothing. So on dry land, when it’s not really a question of survival—not immediate survival, anyway—but more the sort of thing you feel you should do, a few duties would slip.

  What I’m saying is, the place was a pit: our grand Nassau Fort crumbled, great cracks along its walls; our shanty houses were falling down; our stocks and stores were badly kept and in disarray, and as for our privies—well, I know I’ve not exactly spared you the gory details of my life so far, but that’s where I draw the line.

  By far the worst of it was the smell. No, not from the privies, though that was bad enough, let me tell you, but the smell that hung over the whole place, emanating from the stacks of rotting animal hides pirates had left on the shore. When the wind was blowing the right way—oh my days.

  So you can hardly blame Charles Vane when he looked around himself, and though it was rich coming from someone who stank like a man who’d spent the last month at sea, he said, “So this is the new Libertalia? Stinks the same as every squat I’ve robbed in the past year.”

  It’s one thing being rude about your own hovel, it’s a different kettle of fish when someone else does it. You suddenly feel defensive of the old place. Even so, I let it ride.

  “We was led to believe Nassau was a place where men did as they please,” snorted Calico Jack. But before I could answer, salvation arrived in the form of Edward Thatch, who, with a bellow that might have been a greeting but could just as well have been a war-cry, appeared at the top of the steps and burst onto the terrace, as though The Old Avery were a prize and he was about to pillage it.

  A very different-looking Edward Thatch it was too, because to his already impressive head of hair he had added a huge black beard.

  Ever the showman, he stood before us with his hands spread. Behold. Then tipped me a wink and moved into the centre of the terrace, taking command without even trying. (Which is funny, when you think on it, because for all our talk of being a republic, a place of ultimate freedom, we did still conform to our own forms of hierarchy, and with Blackbeard around there was never any doubt who was in charge.)

  Vane grinned. Away with his scowl went the tension on the terrace. “Captain Thatch, as I live and breathe. And what is this magnificent muzzle you’ve cultivated?”

  He rubbed a hand over his own growth as Blackbeard preened.

  “Why fly a black flag when a black beard will do?” laughed Thatch.

  That was the moment, in fact, that his legend was born. The moment he took the name Blackbeard. He’d go on to plait his face fuzz. When he boarded ships he inserted lit fuses into it, striking terror in all who saw him. It helped make him the most infamous pirate, not just in the Bahamas but in the whole wide world.

  He was never a cruel man, Thatch, though he had a fearsome reputation. But like Assassins, with their robes and vicious blades springing from secret places; like Templars and their sinister symbols and their constant insinuations about powerful forces, Edward Thatch, Blackbeard as he came to be known, knew full well the value of making your enemies shit their breeches.

  It turned out that the ale, the sanctuary and the good company wasn’t the only reason we’d been graced with the presence of Charles Vane and Calico Jack.

  “The word is, the Cuban governor himself is fixing to receive a mess of gold from a nearby fort,” said Vane when we’d availed ourselves of tankards and lit our pipes. “Until then, it’s just sitting there, itching to be took.”

  And that was how we found ourselves laying siege to Porto Guarico . . .

  • • •

  Well, the fight had been bloody, but short. With every man tooled up and our black flags flying, we brought four galleons to the bay and hammered the fortress with shot, just to say we’d arrived.

  Then we dropped anchor, launched yawls, then waded through the shallows, snarling, shouting war cries, our teeth bared. I got my first look at Blackbeard in full flight, and he was indeed a fearsome sight. For battle he dressed entirely in black, and the fuses in his beard coughed and spluttered so that he seemed to be alive with snakes and wreathed in a terrifying fog.

  There are not many soldiers who won’t turn tail and run at the sight of that charging up the beach towards them, which is what a lot of them did. Those brave souls who remained behind to fight or die, they did the latter.

  I took my fair share of lives, my blade on my right hand, as much a part of me as my fingers and thumbs, my pistol blasting in my left. When my pistols were empty I drew my cutlass. There were some of our men who had never seen me in action before, and you’ll forgive me for admitting there was an element of showmanship in my combat as I span from man to man, cutting down guards with one hand, blasting with the other, felling two, sometimes three, at a time; driven, not by ferocity or blood-lust—I was no animal, there was little savagery or cruelty to what I did—but by skill, grace and dexterity. There was a kind of artistry to my killing.

  When the fort was ours I entered the room where Laureano Torres sat smoking his pipe, overseeing the money count, two soldiers as his bodyguards.

  It was the work of a moment for his two soldiers to become two dead soldiers. He gave me a look of scorn and distaste as I stood in my Assassin’s robes—slightly tatty by now but still a sight to see—and my blade clicked back into place beneath my fist while the blood of his guards leaked through the sleeve.

  “Well hello, Your Excellency,” I said. “I had word you might be here.”

  He chuckled. “I know your face, pirate. But your name was borrowed the last time we spoke.”

  Duncan Walpole. I missed him.

  By now Adewalé had joined us in the treasure room, and as his gaze went from the corpses of the soldiers to Torres, his eyes hardened, perhaps as he remembered being shackled in one of the governor’s vessels.

  “So,” I continued, “what’s a Templar Grand Master doing so far from his castillo?”

  Torres assumed a haughty look. “I’d rather not say.”

  “And
I’d rather not cut yer lips off and feed ’em to ya,” I said cheerily.

  It did the trick. He rolled his eyes but some of his smugness had evaporated. “After his escape from Havana we offered a reward for The Sage’s recapture. Today someone claims to have found him. This gold is his ransom.”

  “Who found him?” I asked.

  Torres hesitated. Adewalé put his hand to the hilt of his sword and his eyes burned hatefully at the Templar.

  “A slaver by the name of Laurens Prins.” Torres sighed. “He lives in Kingston.”

  I nodded. “We like this story, Torres, and we want to help you finish it. But we’re going to do it our way using you and your gold.”

  He had no choice, and he knew it. Our next stop was Kingston.

  THIRTY-NINE

  So it was that some days later Adewalé and I found ourselves roasting in the heat of Kingston as we shadowed the governor as he made his way to his meeting with Prins.

  Prins, it was said, had a sugar plantation in Kingston. The Sage had been working for him but Prins had got wind of the bounty and thought he could make the sale.

  Storm the plantation, then? No. Too many guards. Too high a risk of alerting The Sage. Besides, we didn’t even know for certain he was there.

  Instead we wanted to use Torres to buy the man: Torres would meet Prins, give him half the gold and offer the other half in return for the deliverance of The Sage; Adewalé and I would swoop in, take The Sage, whisk him off, then prise out of him the location of The Observatory. Then we would be rich.

  Simple, eh? What could go wrong with such a well-wrought plan?

  The answer, when it came, came in the shape of my old friend James Kidd.