Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (29 page)

It
had
to be that night.

“Are you Edward Kenway?” she’d said to me.

My landlady—Edith was her name—had knocked on the door to my room and stood on the threshold, unwilling to venture further. Her face was bloodless, her voice shook and her fingers worried at the hem of her pinafore.

“Edward Kenway?” I smiled. “Now, why would you say a thing like that, Edith?”

She cleared her throat. “They say that a man arrived on a boat. A man dressed much like you are now, sir. And they say the man is Edward Kenway, who once called Bristol his home.”

The colour had come back into her cheeks now, and she reddened, continuing, “There are others who say that Edward Kenway has returned home to settle scores, and that those against whom he bears his grudge have gone into hiding, but being powerful men have called resources against you—I mean,
him
.”

“I see,” I said carefully, “and what manner of resources might these be?”

“A troop of soldiers headed for Bristol, sir, expected to arrive this very evening.”

“I see. And no doubt heading straight for wherever this Edward Kenway has his lodgings, whereupon Edward Kenway would be forced to defend himself, and there would surely be a bloody battle, with many lives lost and much damage caused?”

She swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, you can rest assured, Edith, that no such unpleasantness will occur
here
tonight. For I’m sure Edward Kenway will make certain of it. Know this of him, Edith. It’s true he was a pirate once and that he did his fair share of despicable things, but he’s chosen a different path now. He knows that to see differently we must think differently and he has changed his thinking.”

She looked at me blankly. “Very good, sir.”

“Now I shall take my leave,” I told her. “Doubtless never to return.”

“Very good, sir.”

On the bed was a bundle of my things that I picked up and slung over one shoulder, then thought better of it; instead I picked out what I needed: the skull and a small pouch of coins that I opened, pressing gold into Edith’s hand.

“Oh, sir, that’s more than generous.”

“You’ve been very kind, Edith,” I said.

She stood to one side. “There’s a back-door, sir,” she said.

 • • • 

I went via a tavern where I knew to find the
Jackdaw
’s coxswain, awaiting my orders.

“Birtwistle.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring the
Jackdaw
to the harbour tonight. We’re leaving.”

“Yes, sir.”

I went on to the warehouse district and used the back streets and rooftops. I stayed low and in the shadows.

I thought
, Oh, Mary, if you could only see me now.

Scott’s warehouse was one of many near the ports, the masts of berthed ships visible over the roofs. Most of the warehouses were deserted, shut up for the night. Only his had signs of life: flaming tressets that painted a small loading area a shade of flickering orange; empty carts nearby, and standing by the closed door a pair of guards. Not soldiers, at least—had they arrived in the city yet?—but local scarfaces slapping clubs into their palms, who probably thought this was an easy job; who were probably looking forward to a taste of ale later.

I stayed where I was, a shadow in the darkness, watching the door. Was he already in there? I was still debating when to make my move when Rose arrived. She wore the same headscarf as earlier and her basket bulged with clothes for her hated lord and master, Emmett Scott.

The two strong arms at the door shared a lascivious look as they stepped forward to intercept her. Sticking to the side of the adjacent warehouse I crept within earshot.

“Is Mr. Scott here?” she asked.

“Ah,” said a grinning scarface with a heavy West Country accent. “Well that all depends on who’s asking, don’t it, m’dear?”

“I have clothes for him.”

“You’d be the maid, would you?”

“That’s right.”

“Well he’s here, so you better go in.”

I was close enough to see her roll her eyes as they stepped aside and let her in.

Right. So Scott was in there.

In the dark I tested the action of my blade. Mustn’t be too hasty, I thought. Mustn’t kill him. Scott had some talking to do before he died.

I moved around the edge of the warehouse wall, so that the two strong arms were just a few feet away from me. It was just a question of waiting for the right moment to str—

From inside came a scream. Rose. It was no longer a question of waiting for the right time. I’d sprung from the dark, covered the distance between myself and the sentries, engaged the blade and slashed the throat of the first one before Rose’s scream had even died down. The second one cursed and swung his club but I caught his flailing arm, jammed him up against the warehouse wall and finished him with the blade in his back. He slid down the wall even as I crouched at the wicket door of the warehouse, raised a hand and pushed it open.

A musket ball zinged over my head as I rolled into the entranceway, getting a quick impression of a warehouse stacked with tea-chests, and a gantry with offices on it at one end.

There were three figures on the gantry, one of them standing on the rail as though about to jump the twenty feet or so to the ground.

I came to rest behind a stack of crates, peeked around the edge and pulled back as another ball smacked into the wood nearby, showering me with wood chips. But my quick look was enough to confirm that, yes, there were three people on the gantry above me. There was Wilson, who stood with a pistol aimed at my hiding place. To one side of him stood Emmett Scott, sweating as with trembling, frantic fingers he tried to reload another pistol to hand to Wilson.

Above them was Rose, who wobbled unsteadily on the railing, terrified. Her mouth bled. The punishment for her warning scream, no doubt. Her hands had been tied and she wore a noose around her neck. All that stopped her from dropping from her makeshift gallows was Wilson, who held her with his other hand.

If he let go, she fell.

“Hold it there, Kenway,” called Wilson as the dust settled. “Or you’ll have the death of the maid on your hands.”

They’d disarm me. They would kill me, then hang Rose for her treachery.

Not if I have anything to do with it.

From my gun belt I pulled a pistol, checked the ball and powder.

“It was you there that night, wasn’t it, Wilson? The leader? You were the one in the hood?”

I had to know. I had to be sure.

“Aye, it was. And if it had been left up to me, you all would have died that night.”

I almost smiled.
You missed your chance.

Up on the rail Rose whimpered but checked herself.

“Now throw out the hidden blade, Kenway. I can’t hold her forever,” warned Wilson.

“And what about you, Emmet?” I called. “Were you there?”

“I was not,” he retorted, flustered and frightened.

“You would have celebrated my death, though?”

“You have been a thorn in my side, Kenway.”

“Your pride has been your undoing, Scott. Your pride has been the undoing of us all.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know that you allowed my beloved to die.”

“I loved her too.”

“No kind of love that I recognize, Scott.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand that your ambition and thirst for power has led to the deaths of many people. I understand that now you will pay.”

From inside my robes I took a throwing knife and weighed it in my palm. It was a bit different from using trees for practising with a target.

I stood and inched towards the edge of the stack, taking deep, slow breaths.

Ready?

Ready
.

“Come on, Kenway,” called Wilson. “We don’t have all n—”

I rolled out from cover and darted forward and found my aim, firing my pistol and using the throwing knife at the same time.

Both met their targets. Emmet Scott span away with a hole in his forehead, the pistol dropping uselessly to the planks of the gantry, while Wilson had returned fire before my knife found his shoulder. Yelling in pain, he staggered back and fell against the office wall with the blade embedded in his shoulder, fountaining blood as he scrabbled in vain for the second pistol.

His ball had found its mark. I felt it thud into my shoulder but couldn’t let it take me down. I couldn’t even let it slow me down because Wilson had let go of Rose and Rose was falling, her mouth wide in a scream I didn’t hear above the echoes of the gunshots and the rushing of pain in my head.

She fell and the rope unspooled behind her. I had an image of failure, where the rope tautened and her body jerked and her neck snapped.

No
.

I hit a crate at full pelt, stepped up in a run and launched myself off it. I twisted, engaged my blade and with a yell of effort sliced the rope, caught Rose around the waist and the pair of us slammed heavily and painfully to the stone floor of the warehouse.

But alive.

From above I heard Wilson cursing. I snatched a second pistol from my belt and squinted through the gaps in the boards above me, seeing the light flicker and squeezing off a shot. There came another scream from the gantry, then a crash as he made his way into the offices.

I dragged myself to my feet. The pain from my wound was intense, and the older wound in my flank flared up too, making me limp as I made it to the steps of the gantry and climbed up in pursuit of Wilson. I came crashing through the office, where I found an open back-door leading to steps, and at the top I caught my breath and leaned on the rail for support as I peered over the warehouses.

No sign. Just the distant clattering of ships at rest and the squawk of the gulls. I concentrated, using the Sense, and I heard something. But not Wilson. What I heard was the sound of marching feet as they approached the port area.

They were coming. The soldiers were coming.

I cursed and limped back inside to check on Rose. She would be okay. Now I ran back to follow a trail of blood left by Wilson.

You were safe in my cabin. Asleep, so I’m told, and you missed what happened next. For that I’m thankful.

I reached the harbour to find that Wilson had died on the way. His body lay at the bottom of the steps. He’d been going to a ship I recognized. One that when I’d last seen it was called the
Caroline
but had since been renamed, in honour of the woman Matthew Hague had gone on to marry. It was called the
Charlotte
.

Hague was in there. A man awaiting death though he didn’t know it yet. I could see poorly defined figures in the grey haze of the evening moving across the stern gunwale. Guards, but it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to stop me getting on board that ship.

If the guards had seen or heard Wilson fall, they probably thought he was a drunk. If they saw me squatting by his body, then they probably thought I was a drunk too. They didn’t care. Not yet.

I counted four of them as I raced along the harbour wall until I reached where the
Jackdaw
had not long docked. In between the two ships was a smaller sail-boat held by a line that I unwound and let go, giving the stern of the craft a shove to set it off before dashing back to my ship.

“Hanley,” I addressed the quartermaster.

“Yes, sir.”

“Prepare the guns.”

He’d been sitting with his feet up on the navigation table but dragged them off. “What? Why, sir? And bloody hell, sir, what’s up with you?”

“Musket ball in the shoulder.”

“Did you get the men you wanted?”

“Two of them.”

“I’ll fetch the doc . . .”

“Leave it, Hanley,” I growled. “It can wait. Look, there’s a vessel to our starboard, name of
Charlotte
. On it is the third man I seek. Ready the starboard guns and if my plans fail, blast her out of the water.”

I ran to the cabin door then stopped, screwing up my face in pain as I turned to him. “And, Hanley?”

“Yes, sir?” He had stood, his face a picture of worry.

“You’d better prepare the stern guns as well. Make sure the crew is armed. There are soldiers on the way.”

“Sir?”

I gave him an apologetic look.

“Just look sharp, Hanley. If all goes well, we’ll be out of this in moments.”

He didn’t look reassured. He looked even more worried. I gave him what I hoped was a confident smile, then swept a wedge from beneath the cabin door as I left.

The sail-boat had begun its drift out to sea. I heard a shout from the deck of the
Charlotte
as they spotted it. The laughter.
Fools
. They saw the joke, not the danger. I leapt overboard from the
Jackdaw
, planting my feet on the stone of the harbour, then raced the few yards to the stern of the
Charlotte
.

“It’s Wilson,” I shouted in my best approximation of the dead enforcer as I clambered up the ladder. A face appeared over the gunwale to greet me and I planted my fist in it, dragged him over the rail and hurled him to the stone below. His screams alerted a second man who came running to what he assumed was the scene of an accident—until he saw me, and the blade, which gleamed in the moonlight before I swept it back-handed across his throat.

Ignoring the last two sentries, I ran up the deck towards the captain’s cabin, peered through the window and was treated to the sight of Matthew Hague, an older and worried Matthew Hague by the looks of things, standing away from a table. With him was his draughtsman.

With a glance to see the two sentries lumbering up the deck towards me, I dragged open the door of the cabin.

“You,”
I said to the draughtsman.

Hague dropped a goblet he’d been holding. They both goggled at me.

I risked another glance back at the sentries. I cursed, slammed the cabin door shut, wedged it and turned to meet the two guards.

They could have escaped, I told myself as they died. It was their choice to fight me. To my port the hatches of the
Jackdaw’s
gun-deck were opening and the muzzles of guns appeared.
Good lads.
I saw men on deck brandishing muskets and swords. Somebody shouted, “You need a hand, Cap’n?”

No, I didn’t. I turned back to the cabin door, pulled the wedge free and snatched open the door. “Right, last chance,” I ordered the draughtsman, who practically threw himself at me.

“Archer,” wailed Hague, but neither of us were listening as I hauled Archer out of the cabin and jammed it shut behind him, Hague imprisoned now.

“Get off the ship,” I barked at Archer, who needed no further invitation, scrabbling for the stern.

Now I could hear the marching feet of soldiers as they approached the harbour wall.

“Tar!” I appealed to my crew on the other deck. “Barrels of tar and quick about it.”

One was tossed to me from the
Jackdaw
and I attacked it, opened it, spread it by the door of the cabin.

“Please . . .” I could hear Hague from inside. He was thumping on the wedged-shut door. “Please . . .”

I was deaf to him. The marching was closer now And I heard the clatter of horse hooves, the rumble of cart wheels. I glanced to the harbour wall, expecting to see the tops of their bayonets as I emptied a second barrel of tar on the deck.

Would it be enough? It would have to do.

Now I saw them. The muskets of the soldiers as they appeared silhouetted along the top of the harbour wall. At the same time they saw me, pulled the muskets from their shoulders and took aim. By my side the crew of the
Jackdaw
did the same as I snatched up a torch and leapt to the rat-lines, climbing to a point where I could let go of the torch, dive off the rigging and escape the flames.

If the muskets didn’t get me first, that was.

Then came the command.

“Hold your fire!”