Assassin's creed : Black flag - Bowden Oliver - Страница 37

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“We fly no colours out here but praise the lack of them,” said Edward Thatch as we looked out towards the Jackdaw, where Adewale stood by the flagpole. “So let the Black Flag signal nothing but your allegiance to man’s natural freedoms. This one is yours. Fly it proud.”

The flag flapped gently in the wind and I was proud—I was proud. I was proud of what it represented and of my part in it. I had helped build something worthwhile, struck a blow for freedom—true freedom. And yet, there was still a hole deep in my heart, where I thought of Caroline and of the wrong that had been done to me. You see, my sweet, I had returned to Nassau a different man. Those passions buried deep? I was waiting for the day to act upon them.

 • • •

In the meantime there were other things to think about, specifically the threat to our way of life. One night found us sitting around a campfire on the beach, our ships moored off shore, the Benjamin and the Jackdaw.

“Here’s to a pirate republic, lads,” said Thatch. “We are prosperous and free, and out of the reach of king’s clergy and debt collectors.”

“Near seven hundred men now pledge their allegiance to the brethren of the coast in Nassau. Not a bad number,” said James Kidd. He cast me a brief sideways glance I pretended not to notice.

“True,” burped Thatch, “yet we lack sturdy defences. If the king were to attack the town, he’d trample us.”

I grasped the bottle of rum he handed to me, held it up to the moonlight to examine it for bits of floating sediment, then, satisfied, took a swig.

“Then let us find The Observatory,” I offered. “If it does what these Templars claim, we’ll be unbeatable.”

Thatch sighed and reached for the bottle. They’d heard this from me a lot. “Not that twaddle again, Kenway. That’s a story for schoolboys. I mean proper defences. Steal a galleon, shift all the guns to one side. It would make a nice ornament for one of our harbours.”

Now Adewale spoke up. “It will not be easy to steal a full Spanish galleon.” His voice was slow, clear, thoughtful. “Have you one in mind?”

“I do, sir,” retorted Thatch drunkenly. “I’ll show you. She’s a fussock, she is. Fat and slow.”

Which was how we came to be launching an attack on the Spanish galleon. Not that I knew it then, of course, but I was about to run into my old friends the Templars again.

THIRTY-FOUR

MARCH 1716

We set course south-east or thereabouts. Edward said he’d seen this particular galleon lurking around the lower reaches of the Bahamas. We took the Jackdaw, and as we sailed we found ourselves talking to James Kidd and quizzing him on his parentage.

“The bastard son of the late William Kidd, eh?” Ed Thatch was most amused to relate. “Is that a true yarn you like spinning?”

The three of us stood on the poop-deck and shared a spyglass like it was a black-jack of rum, trading it in order to peer through a wall of early-evening fog so thick it was like trying to stare through milk.

“So my mother told me,” replied Kidd primly. I’m the result of a night of passion just before William left London . . .”

It was difficult to tell from his voice if he was vexed by the question. He was different like that. Edward Thatch, for example, wore his heart on his sleeve. He’d be angry one second, hearty the next. Didn’t matter whether he was throwing punches or doling out drunken, rib-crushing bear-hugs, you knew what you were getting with Edward.

Kidd was different. Whatever cards he was holding, he kept them close to his chest. I remembered a conversation we’d had a while back. “Did you steal that costume from a dandy in Havana?” he’d asked me.

“No, sir,” I replied. “Found this on a corpse . . . one that was walking about and talking shite to my face only moments before.”

“Ah . . .” he’d said, and a look had crossed his face, impossible to decipher . . .

Still, there was no hiding his enthusiasm when we finally saw the galleon we were looking for.

“That ship’s a monster, look at the size of her,” said Kidd as Edward preened himself as though to say, I told you so.

“Aye,” he warned, “and we cannot last long face-to-face with her. You hear that, Kenway? Keep your distance, and we’ll strike when fortune favours us.”

“Under cover of darkness, most likely,” I said with my eye to the spyglass. Thatch was right. She was a beauty. A fine ornament for our harbour indeed, and an imposing line of defence in its own right.

We let the galleon draw away towards a disruption of horizon in the distance that I took to be an island. Inagua Island, if my memory of the charts was correct, where a cove provided the perfect place for our vessels to moor, and the abundant plant and animal life made it ideal for re-stocking supplies.

Thatch confirmed it. “I know the place. A natural stronghold used by a French captain named DuCasse.”

“Julien DuCasse?” I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. “The Templar?”

“Name’s right,” replied Edward, distracted. “I didn’t know he had a title.”

Grimly I said, “I know the man and if he sees my ship, he’ll know it from his time in Havana. Meaning he may wonder who’s sailing her now. I can’t risk that.”

“I don’t want to lose that galleon,” said Edward. “Let’s think on it and maybe wait till it’s darker before hopping aboard.”

 • • •

Later, I took the opportunity to address the men, climbing the rigging and gazing down upon them gathered on the main deck, Edward Thatch and James Kidd among them. I wondered, as I hung there for a moment, waiting for silence to fall, whether Thatch looked at and felt proud of his young protege, a man he had mentored in the ways of piracy. I hoped so.

“Gentlemen! As is custom among our kind, we do not plunge headlong into folly on the orders of a single madman, but act according to our own collective madness!”

They roared with laughter.

“The object of our attention is a square-rigged galleon, and we want her for the advantage she’ll bring Nassau. So I’ll put it to the vote . . . All those in favour of storming this cove and taking the ship, stomp and shout Aye!”

The men roared their approval, not a single voice of dissent among them and it gladdened the heart to hear it.

“And those who oppose, whimper Nay!”

There was not a nay to be heard.

“Never was the King’s Council this unified!” I roared and men cheered. I looked down at James Kidd, and especially at Edward Thatch, and they beamed their approval.

Shortly after, as we sailed into the cove, I had a thought: I needed to be sure that Julien DuCasse was taken care of. If he saw the Jackdaw, and more to the point, if he saw me and escaped, he could tell his Templar confederates where I was, and I didn’t want that. Not if I still held out hope of locating The Observatory, which, despite what my pals were saying, I still did. I gave the matter some thought, mulling over the various possibilities, and in the end decided to do what had to be done: I jumped overboard.

Well, not straight away, I didn’t. First I told Thatch and James of my plans and then, when my friends had been told that I planned to go on ahead and surprise DuCasse before the main attack started, I jumped overboard.

I swam to shore, where I moved like a wraith in the night, thinking of Duncan Walpole as I did it, mind going back to the evening I’d broken into Torres’s mansion and dearly hoping that tonight didn’t turn out the same way.

I passed clusters of DuCasse’s guards, my limited Spanish picking up snippets of conversation as they moaned about having to hunt down supplies for the boat. Night was falling by the time I came to an encampment and crouched in the undergrowth, where I listened to conversation from within the canvas of a lean-to. One voice in particular I recognized: Julien DuCasse.

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