Among them all was Caroline who, with a bow in her bonnet and a parasol over one shoulder, with Rose a respectful few feet behind her, looked every inch the lady. And yet, I noticed – I kept my own distance for the time being, needing to choose my moment – she didn’t look down her nose at the activity around her as she so easily could have done. From her demeanour I could tell that she, like me, enjoyed seeing life in all its forms. I wondered did she also, like me, ever look out to a sea that glittered with treasure, masts of ships tilting gently, gulls flying towards where the world began, and wonder what stories the horizons had to tell?
I am a romantic man, it’s true, but not a romantic fool, and there had been moments since that day outside the tavern when I’d wondered if my growing affections for Caroline were not partly an invention of my mind. She had been my saviour, after all. But now, as I walked along the harbour, I fell for her anew.
Did I expect to speak to Caroline in my sheep-farmer’s clothes? Of course not. So I’d taken the precaution of changing. Trading my dirty boots for a pair of silver-buckled shoes, neat white stockings and dark breeches, a freshly laundered waistcoat over my shirt and a matching three-cornered hat instead of my trusty brown one. I looked quite the gentleman, if I do say so myself: I was young, good-looking and full of confidence, the son of a well-respected tradesman in the area. A Kenway. The name had something at least (despite my attempts otherwise), and I also had with me a young scallywag by the name of Albert, who I had bribed to do a job for me. It doesn’t take much grey matter to guess the nature of the job: he was to help me impress the fair Caroline. One transaction with a flower girl later and I had the means to do it, too.
‘Right, you remember the plan,’ I told Albert, who looked up at me from beneath the brim of his hat with eyes that were so much older than his years and a bored heard-it-all-before look on his face.
‘Right, mate, you’re to give this spray of flowers to that fine-looking lady over there. She will stop. She will say to you, “Ah, young fellow, for what reason are you presenting me with these flowers?” And you will point over here.’ I indicated to where I would be standing, proud as a peacock. Caroline would either recognize me from the other day, or at the very least wish to thank her mysterious admirer, and instruct Albert to invite me over, at which point the charm offensive would begin.
‘And what’s in it for me?’ asked Albert.
‘What’s in it for you? How about counting yourself lucky I don’t give you a thick ear?’
He curled a lip. ‘How about you taking a running jump off the side of the harbour?’
‘All right,’ I said, knowing when I was beaten, ‘there’s half a penny in it for you.’
‘Half a penny? Is that the best you can do?’
‘As a matter of fact, Sonny Jim, it is the best I can bloody do, and for walking across the harbour and presenting a flower to a beautiful woman it’s also the easiest half-penny’s work there ever was.’
‘Ain’t she got a suitor with her?’ Albert craned his neck to look.
And, of course, it would soon become apparent exactly why Albert wanted to know whether Caroline had an escort. But at that particular moment I took his interest for nothing more than curiosity. A bit of chit-chat. Some idle conversation. So I told him that, no, she had no suitor, and I gave him the spray of flowers and his half-penny and sent him on his way.
It was as he sauntered over that something he was holding in his other hand caught my eye, and I realized what a mistake I’d made.
It was a tiny blade. And his eyes were fixed on her arm, where her purse hung on a ribbon.
Oh God. A cutpurse. Young Albert was a cutpurse.
‘You little bastard,’ I said under my breath, and immediately set off across the harbour after him.
By now he was halfway between us, but being small was able to slip between the seething crowds more quickly. I saw Caroline, oblivious to the approaching danger – danger that I had inadvertently sent into her path.
The next thing I saw were three men, who were also making their way towards Caroline. Three men I recognized: Matthew Hague, his skinny writing companion and his minder, Wilson. Inwardly I cringed. Even more so when I saw Wilson’s eyes flick from Caroline to Albert and then back again. He was good, you could tell. In a heartbeat he had seen what was about to happen.
I stopped. For a second I was totally flummoxed. Didn’t know what to do next.
‘Oi,’ shouted Wilson, his gruff tones cutting across the endless squawking, chatting, hawking of the day.
‘Oi, you!’ and he surged forward. But Albert had reached Caroline and in one almost impossibly fast and fluid gesture his hand snaked out, the ribbon of Caroline’s purse was cut and the tiny silk bag dropped neatly into Albert’s other hand.
Caroline didn’t notice the theft but she couldn’t fail to see the huge figure of Wilson bearing down upon her and she cried out in surprise, even as he lunged past her and grabbed Albert by the shoulders.
‘This young rapscallion has something that belongs to you, miss,’ roared Wilson, shaking Albert so hard that the silk purse dropped to the harbour floor.
Her eyes went to the purse and then to Albert.
‘Is this true?’ she said, though the evidence was in front of her eyes, and, in fact, currently sat in a small pile of horse manure by their feet.
‘Pick it up, pick it up,’ Hague was saying to his skinny companion, having just arrived and already beginning to behave as though it was he who had apprehended the knife-wielding youth and not his six-and-a-half-foot minder.
‘Teach the young ruffian a lesson, Wilson.’ This was Hague waving his hand as though attempting to ward off some especially noxious flatulence.
‘With pleasure, sir.’
There were still several feet between me and them. He was held fast but Albert’s eyes swivelled from looking terrified at Wilson to where I stood in the crowd and as our eyes met, he stared at me beseechingly.
I clenched my teeth. That little bastard, he had been about to ruin all of my plans and now he was looking to me for help. The cheek of him.
But then Wilson, holding him by the scruff of the neck with one hand, drove his fist into Albert’s stomach and that was it for me. That same sense of injustice I had felt at the tavern was reignited and in a second I was shoving through the crowd to Albert’s aid.
‘Hey,’ I shouted. Wilson swung to see me, and though he was bigger than me, and far uglier than me, I’d just seen him hit a child and my blood was up. It’s not an especially gentlemanly way to conduct a fight, but I knew from experience both as giver and receiver that there was no quicker and cleaner way to put a man down, so I did it. I led with the knee. My knee into his bollocks, to be precise. So quick and so hard that where one second Wilson was a huge snarling bully about to meet my attack, the next he was a snivelling mewling heap of a man, his hands grasping at his groin as he landed on the floor.
Heedless of Matthew Hague’s outraged screaming, I grabbed Albert. ‘Say sorry to the lady,’ I ordered him, with a finger in his face.
‘Sorry, miss,’ said Albert obediently.
‘Now hop it,’ I said and pointed him off down the harbour. He needed no second invitation and in a trice was gone, prompting even more protestations from Matthew Hague, and I thanked God that at least Albert was out of the picture and unable to dob me in.
I had saved Albert from getting a worse beating but my victory was short-lived and I certainly didn’t get the time to enjoy it. Wilson was already on his feet and though his bollocks must have been throbbing something rotten, he wasn’t feeling anything at that moment except rage. He was quick, too, and before I had time to react had grabbed me and was holding me firm. I tried to pull away, dipping one shoulder and driving my fist up towards his solar plexus but I didn’t have the momentum and he used his body to block me, grunting as much with satisfaction as with the effort as he dragged me bodily across the harbour, people scattering before him. In a fair fight I would ha
ve had a chance, but he used his superior strength and his sudden rage-fuelled spurt of speed to his advantage, and in the next moment my feet were kicking in thin air as he flung me off the side of the harbour.
Well, I had 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 down 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.
6
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 to 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.
7
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 had a change of clothing, a little more bedraggled into the bargain.
‘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. Gradually the lure of the taverns asserted itself once more.
And 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 on 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 stranger. 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 ruck, 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.
‘Well, 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. Have you ever thought of going to sea?’
‘Well, now that you come to mention it, Mr Wallace, I had once considered leaving Bristol and 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,’ grinned Dylan Wallace. ‘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. And, by doing so, be not only 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-gang 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?’
8
I went to bed that night knowing I had to tell Father 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 the one hand, I had been an asset, and had developed trading skills and 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’d woken to find the flock had been let out in the night. Father thought 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.
That I had brought down on Father’s head. And without me in the picture, then perhaps the vendetta would end.
And 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.
And then I heard something from the window. A tapping.
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