Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (4 page)

Well, I always dreamed of taking to the high seas, and with the sound of laughter ringing in my ears I pulled myself to the nearest rope ladder and began to climb out. Caroline, Rose, Hague and his two men had already gone; I saw a hand reach to help me up.

“Here, mate, let me help you with that,” said a voice. I looked up gratefully, about to clasp the hand of my Samaritan, only to see the leering face of Tom Cobleigh peering over the harbour’s edge at me.

“Well, the things you see when you’re out without your musket,” he said and there was nothing I could do to prevent his fist smashing into my face, sending me off the rope ladder and back into the water.

Tom Cobleigh had made himself scarce, but Wilson must have doubled back. Chances are, he saw to it that Hague and Caroline were okay then made haste back to the harbour and found me sitting on a set of steps licking my wounds. He passed across my light and I looked up to see him, heart sinking.

“If you’ve come back to try that again,” I said, “I won’t make it quite so easy for you this time.”

“I have no doubt,” he replied without so much as flinching, “but I’m not here to pitch you back in the sea, Kenway.”

At that I looked sharply at him.

“That’s right, boy, I have my spies, and my spies tell me that a young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway has been asking questions about Caroline Scott. This same young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway was involved in a fight outside the Auld Shillelagh on the road to Hatherton last week. That same day Miss Scott was also on the road to Hatherton because her maidservant had absconded and that you and Miss Scott had cause to speak following your altercation.”

He came so close I could smell the stale coffee on his breath. Proof, if proof were needed, that he wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated—not by me nor by my fearsome reputation.

“Am I on the right lines so far, Master Kenway?”

“You might be.”

He nodded. “I thought so. How old are you, boy? What? Seventeen? About the same age as Miss Scott. Me thinks you’re nurturing a bit of a passion for her, am I right?”

“You might be.”

“I think I am. Now, I’m going to say this once and once only, but Miss Scott is promised to Mr. Hague. This union has the blessing of the parents . . .” He hauled me to my feet, pinning my arms to my sides. Too wet, too bedraggled, too exhausted to resist, I knew what was coming anyway.

“Now, if I see you hanging around her again, or trying any more stupid stunts to try and get her attention, then it’ll be more than a dip in the sea you get, do I make myself clear?”

I nodded. “And what about the knee in the goolies you’re about to give me?”

He smiled grimly.

“Oh, that? That’s personal.”

He came good on his word, and it was some time before I was able to get to my feet and make my way back to my cart. It wasn’t just my tackle that was injured—my pride had taken a beating too.

That night I lay in bed, cursing my luck. I had blown my chances with Caroline. She was lost to me, all thanks to that greedy urchin Albert, not to mention Hague and company. I had suffered once more at the hands of Tom Cobleigh, and Father had looked at me askance when I’d arrived home, a little later than usual and, even though I had a change of clothing, a little more bedraggled.

“You’ve not been in those taverns again?” He said, darkly, “So help me God, if I hear you’ve been dragging our good name . . .”

“No, Father, nothing like that.”

He was wrong, I’d not been to the tavern on my way home. In fact I’d not gone within sniffing distance of an ale-house since the fight outside the Auld Shillelagh. I’d been telling myself that meeting Caroline had had an effect on me. Quite literally a
sobering
effect.

Now, though, I didn’t know. I began to wonder—perhaps my life was there, in the beer suds, around the sloppy grins of easy women with hardly any teeth and even fewer morals, and by the time of my thirtieth summer hauling wool to Bristol market I’d be numbed to it; I’d have forgotten whatever hopes I had of one day seeing the world.

Then two things happened that changed everything. The first came in the shape of a gentleman who took his place next to me at the bar of the George and Dragon in Bristol one sunny afternoon. A smartly dressed gentleman with flamboyant cuffs and a colourful necktie, who removed his hat, placed it to the bar and indicated my drink.

“Can I get you another, sir?” he asked me.

It made a change from “son,” “lad” or “boy.” All of which I had to endure on a daily if not hourly basis.

“And who do I have to thank for my drink? And what might he want in return?” I asked guardedly.

“Perhaps just the chance to talk, friend,” beamed the man. He proffered his hand to shake. “The name is Dylan Wallace, pleased to make your acquaintance Mr. . . . Kenway, isn’t it?”

For the second time in a matter of days I was presented with someone who knew my name though I had no idea why.

“Oh yes,” he said, beaming. (He was at least of a more friendly nature than Wilson, I reflected.) “I know your name. Edward Kenway. Quite the reputation you have around these parts. Indeed, I’ve seen you in action for myself.”

“Have you?” I looked at him, eyes narrowed.

“Why yes indeed,” he said. “I hear from the people I’ve spoken to that you’re no stranger to a bit of a scuffle, but even so, you can’t have forgotten your fight at the Auld Shillelagh the other day.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be allowed to forget it.” I sighed.

“When I tell you what, sir, I’m just going to come straight out with it, because you look like a young man who knows his own mind and is unlikely to be persuaded one way or the other by anything I might have to tell you, so I’m just going to come right out with it. Have you ever thought of going to sea?”

“Well, now that you come to mention it, Mr. Wallace, I had once considered leaving Bristol heading in that direction, you’re right.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

I shook my head. “Now
that
is a very good question.”

“Do you know what a privateer is, Mr. Kenway, sir?”

Before I could answer he was telling me. “They’re buccaneers given letters of marque by the Crown. You see, the Dons and the Portuguese are helping themselves to the treasures of the New World, they’re filling their coffers, and it’s the job of privateers either to stop them or to take what they’re taking. Do you understand?”

“I know what a privateer is, thank you very much, Mr. Wallace. I know that you can’t be put on trial for piracy, so long as you don’t attack ships belonging to your own country, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Oh, that’s it, Mr. Kenway, sir.” Dylan Wallace grinned. “How would it be if I leaned over and was to help myself to a mug of ale? That’d be stealing, wouldn’t it? The barman might try to stop me, but what if I was doing it with impunity. What if my theft had the royal seal of approval? This is what we are talking about, Mr. Kenway. The opportunity to go out on the high seas and help yourself to as much gold and treasure as your captain’s ship will carry. By doing so you will not only be working with the approval of Her Majesty Queen Anne but
helping
her. You’ve heard of Captain Christopher Newport, Francis Drake, Admiral Sir Henry Morgan, privateers all. How about adding the name Edward Kenway to that illustrious list?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying how about becoming a privateer, sir?”

I gave him a studying look. “And if I promise to think about it, what’s in it for you?”

“Why, commission, of course.”

“Don’t you normally press men for this kind of thing?”

“Not men of your calibre, Mr. Kenway. Not men we might consider
officer material
.”

“All because I showed promise in a fight?”

“Because of the way you
conducted
yourself in that fight, Mr. Kenway, in all aspects of it.”

I nodded. “If I promise to think about it, does that mean I don’t need to return the favour of an ale?”

I went to bed that night knowing I had to tell Father that my destiny lay not in sheep-farming but in swashbuckling adventure as a privateer.

He’d be disappointed, of course, but maybe somewhat relieved also. Yes, on one hand I had been an asset, and had developed trading skills, put them to good use for the benefit of the family. But on the other hand there was the drinking, the brawling, and, of course, the rift with the Cobleighs.

Shortly after the two dead carcasses had been deposited in our front yard there’d been another incident where we woke to find the flock had been let out in the night. Father thought the fences had been deliberately damaged. I didn’t tell Father about what had happened at the quayside, but it was obvious Tom Cobleigh still harboured a grudge—a grudge that wasn’t likely to go away any time soon.

I had brought it down on Father’s head and without me in the picture, then perhaps the vendetta would end.

So as I laid my head down that night, my only decision was how to break the news to my father. And how my father might break the news to my mother.

Then I heard something from the window. A tapping.

I looked out with no little trepidation. What did I expect to see? I wasn’t sure, but memories of the Cobleighs were still fresh in my mind. Instead what I saw, sitting astride her horse in the pale moonlight of the yard, as though God himself were shining his lantern upon her beauty, was Caroline Scott.

She was dressed as if for riding school. Her clothes were dark. She wore a tall hat and a white shirt and black jacket. With one hand she held the reins and the other was raised, about to throw a second fistful of gravel at my window.

I myself had been known to use the very same trick to attract the attention of a lady friend, and I remembered well the terror of waking up the whole household. So when I threw stones at a casement window, I usually did it from behind the safety of a stone wall. Not Caroline. That was the difference in our social standing. She had no fears of being run off the property with a boot in her behind and a flea in her ear. She was Caroline Scott of Hawkins Lane in Bristol. She was being courted by the son of a man ranked highly in the East India Company. Clandestine assignation or not—and there was no doubt this was clandestine—hiding behind stone walls was not for her.

“Well . . .” she whispered. I saw her eyes dance in the moonlight. “Are you going to leave me sitting out here all night?”

No. In moments I was in the yard by her side, taking the reins of the horse and walking her away from the property as we spoke.

“Your actions the other day,” she said. “You put yourself in great danger in order to protect that young thief.”

(Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I did feel a little guilt at that.)

(But not too much guilt.)

“There is nothing I hate so much as a bully, Miss Scott,” I said. Which did at least have the benefit of being true.

“So I thought. This is twice now I have been most impressed by the gallantry of your actions.”

“Then it is on two occasions that I have been pleased you were there to witness it.”

“You interest me, Mr. Kenway, and your own interest in me has not gone unremarked.”

I stayed silent as we walked for a while. Even though no words were spoken there was a meaning in our silence. As though we were acknowledging our feelings for each other. I felt the closeness of her riding boot. Above the heat and scent of the horse, I thought I could smell the powder she wore. Never before had I been so aware of a person, the nearness of her.

“I expect you have been told that I am betrothed to another,” she said.

We stopped along the lane. There were stone walls on either side of us, the green pastures beyond interrupted by clusters of white sheep. The air was warm and dry around us, not even a breeze to disturb the trees that rose to make the horizon. From somewhere came the cry of an animal, lovelorn or hurt, but certainly feral, and a sudden disturbance in the bushes startled us. We felt like interlopers. Uninvited guests to nature’s household.

“Why, I don’t think . . .”

“Mr. Kenway . . .”

“You can call me Edward, Miss Scott.”

“Well you can continue calling me Miss Scott.”

“Really?”

“Oh go on then, you can call me Caroline.”

“Thank you, Miss Scott.”

She gave me a sideways look, as though to check whether or not I was mocking her.

“Well, Edward,” she continued, “I know full well that you have been making enquiries about me, and though I do not pretend to know exactly what you have been told, I think I know the gist. That Caroline Scott’s betrothed to Matthew Hague, that Matthew Hague bombards her with love poems, that the union has the blessing not only of Caroline Scott’s father, which was beyond doubt, but also of Matthew Hague’s father.”

I admitted I had heard as much.

“Perhaps, in the short dealings we have had together, you might understand how I would feel about this particular arrangement?”

“I wouldn’t like to say.”

“Then I shall spell it out for you. The thought of marriage to Matthew Hague turns my stomach. Do you think I want to live my life in the household of the Hagues? Expected to treat my husband like a king, turn a blind eye to his affairs, run the household, shout at the staff, choose flowers and pick out doilies, go visiting, take tea, trade gossip with other wives?

“Do you think I want to hide myself so deeply beneath an obsession with manners and bury myself so completely beneath the petty concerns of etiquette that I can no longer find myself? At the moment I live between two worlds, Edward, able to see them both. And the world I see on my visits to the harbour is the world that is most real to me, Edward. The one that is most alive. As for Matthew Hague himself, I despise him almost as much as his poetry.

“Do not think me a helpless damsel in distress, Edward, because I am not that. But I’m not here for your help. I have come to help myself.”

“You’ve come to help yourself to
me
?”

“If you wish. The next move is yours to make, but if you make it, do so knowing this: any relationship between you and me would not have the blessing of my father, but it would have mine.”

“Excuse me but it’s not so much your father who concerns me, as his musket.”

“The thought of making an enemy of the Hagues, does that put you off?”

I knew at that moment nothing would put me off. “No, Caroline, it doesn’t.”

“I hoped as much.”

We parted, with arrangements made to meet again, and after that, our relationship began in earnest. We were able to keep it a secret. For some months, in fact. Our meetings were held entirely in secret, snatched moments spent wandering the lanes between Bristol and Hatherton, riding in the pastures.

Until one day she announced that Matthew Hague planned to ask for her hand in marriage the following morning, and my heart stopped.

I was determined not to lose her. Because of my love for her, because I could think of nothing but her, because when we were together I savoured every moment; every word, every gesture that Caroline made was like nectar to me, everything about her, every curve and contour, her scent, her laugh, her refined manners, her intelligence.

All of this ran through my mind as I dropped to one knee and took her hand, because what she was telling me, perhaps it wasn’t an invitation but a farewell, and if it was, well at least my humiliation would not be known far and wide, confined to the birds in the trees and the cows that stood in the fields watching us with sleepy eyes and chewing ruminatively.

“Caroline, will you marry me?” I said.

I held my breath. During our courtship, every meeting we’d had, every stolen kiss we’d shared, I’d been haunted by a feeling of not believing my luck. It was as though a great joke was being played on me—I half expected Tom Cobleigh to come leaping out of the shadows snorting with laughter. And if not that—if not some vengeful, practical joke at my expense—then perhaps I was merely a diversion for Caroline, a final fling, before she applied herself to her true calling, her duty. Surely she would say no.

“Ah, Edward”—she smiled—“I thought you’d never ask.”