I heard him crashing through the jungle ahead of me so, heedless of the branches whipping my face and dancing over roots underfoot, I gave chase. I reached out to prevent myself being slapped in the face by a thick green leaf the size of a banjo and saw a bloody handprint on it. Good. I was on the right track. From further ahead came the sound of disturbed birds crashing through the canopy of trees, and I reflected that I hardly needed to worry about losing him – the whole jungle shook to the sound of his clumsy progress. His grace, it seemed, was no more, lost in the blundering fight for survival.
‘Follow me, and I’ll kill you,’ I heard from ahead.
I doubted that. As far as I could see, his killing days were over.
And so it proved. I reached a clearing where he stood, bent over with the pain of his stomach wound. He’d been trying to decide which route to take but at the sound of me crashing out of the undergrowth turned to face me. A slow, painful turn, like an old man crippled with bellyache.
Something of his old pride returned, and a little fight crept into his eyes as there was a sliding noise and from his right sleeve sprouted the blade, which gleamed in the duskiness of the clearing.
It struck me that the blade must have inspired fear in his enemies, and that to inspire fear in your enemy was half the battle won. Make someone frightened of you, that was the key. Unfortunately, just as his killing days were over, so too was his ability to inspire dread in his foes. Exhausted and hunched over with pain as he was, his robes, hood and even the blade looked like the trinkets they were. I took no pleasure in killing him, and possibly he didn’t even deserve to die. Our captain had been a cruel, ruthless man, fond of a flogging. So fond, in fact, that he was apt to let the cat out of the bag and administer them himself. And he’d enjoyed doing what he called ‘making a man a governor of his own island’, which in other words was marooning him. Nobody but his own mother was going to mourn our captain’s passing. To all intents and purposes, the man with the robes had done us a favour.
But the man with the robes had been about to kill me as well. And the first lesson was that if you set out to kill someone you’d better finish the job.
He knew that, I’m sure, as he died.
Afterwards I rifled through his things. And yes, the body was still warm. And no, I’m not proud of it, but please don’t forget, I was – I am – a pirate. So I rifled through his things. From inside his robes I retrieved a satchel.
Hmm, I thought. Hidden treasure.
But when I upended it on to the ground so the sun could dry the contents what I saw was … well, not treasure. An odd cube made of crystal, with an opening on one side – an ornament, perhaps? (Later I’d find out what it was, of course, then I’d laugh at myself for ever thinking it a mere ornament.) And some maps I laid to one side, as well as a letter with a broken seal that as I began reading I realized held the key to everything I wanted from this mysterious killer …
Señor Duncan Walpole,
I accept your most generous offer, and await your arrival with eagerness.
If you truly possess the information we desire, we have the means to reward you handsomely.
Though I do not know your face by sight, I believe I can recognize the costume made infamous by your secret order.
Therefore, come to Havana in haste. And trust that you shall be welcomed as a brother. It will be a great honour to meet you at last, señor; to put a face to your name and shake your hand as I call you friend. Your support for our secret and most noble cause is warming.
Your most humble servant,
Governor Laureano Torres y Ayala
I read the letter twice. Then a third time for good measure.
Governor Torres of Havana, eh? I thought.
‘Reward you handsomely’, eh?
A plan had begun to form.
I buried Señor Duncan Walpole. I owed him that much at least. He went out of this world the way he’d arrived – naked – because I needed his clothes in order to begin my deception and, though I do say so myself, they were a perfect fit. I looked good in his robes. I looked the part.
Acting the part, though, would be another matter entirely. The man I was impersonating? Well, I’ve already told you of the aura that seemed to surround him. When I secured his hidden blade to my own forearm and tried to eject it as he had, well – it just wasn’t happening. I cast my mind back to seeing him do it and tried imitating him. A flick of the wrist. Something special, obviously, to stop the blade engaging by accident. I flicked my wrist. I twisted my arm. I wriggled my fingers. All to no avail. The blade sat stubbornly in its housing. It looked both beautiful and fearsome but if it wouldn’t engage it was no good to man nor beast.
What was I to do? Carry it around and keep trying? Hope I’d eventually chance upon its secret? Somehow I thought not. I had the feeling there was arcane knowledge attached to this blade. Found upon me, it could betray me.
With a heavy heart I cast it away then addressed the graveside I had prepared for my victim.
‘Mr Walpole …’ I said, ‘let’s collect your reward.’
24
I came upon them at Cape Buena Vista beach the next morning: a schooner anchored in the harbour, boats brought ashore and crates offloaded and dragged on to the beach, where they’d been stacked, either by the dejected-looking men who sat on the sand with their hands bound, or perhaps by the bored English soldiers who stood guard over them. As I arrived a third boat was arriving, more soldiers disembarking and casting their eyes over the prisoners.
Why the men were tied up, I wasn’t sure. They certainly didn’t appear to be pirates. Merchants by the looks of them. Either way, as another rowing boat approached I was about to find out.
‘The commodore’s gone ahead to Kingston,’ announced one of the soldiers. In common with the others he wore a tricorne and waistcoat, carried a musket. ‘We are to commandeer this lubber’s ship and follow.’
So that was it. The English wanted their ship. They were as bad as pirates themselves.
Merchants like to eat almost as much as they like to drink. Thus they tend towards the stout side. One of the captives, however, was even more florid-faced and plump than his companions. This was the ‘lubber’ the English were talking about, the man I came to know as Stede Bonnet, and at the sound of the word ‘Kingston’ he’d seemed to perk up, and he raised his head, which before had been contemplating the sand with the look of a man wondering how he’d got into this position and how he was going to get out.
‘No, no,’ he was saying, ‘our destination is Havana. I’m just a merchant –’
‘Quiet, you bleeding pirate!’ an irate soldier responded by toeing sand into the wretched man’s face.
‘Sir,’ he cringed, ‘my crew and I have merely anchored to water and resupply.’
And then, for some reason known only to them, Stede Bonnet’s companions chose that moment to make their escape. Or try to make their escape. Hands still tied, they scrambled to their feet and began a lurching run towards the tree line where I hid watching the scene. At the same time the soldiers, seeing the escape, raised their muskets.
Shot began zinging into the trees around me and I saw one of the merchants fall in a spray of blood and brain matter. Another went down heavily with a scream. Meanwhile one of the soldiers had placed the muzzle of his rifle at Bonnet’s head.
‘Give me one reason I shouldn’t vent your skull,’ he snarled.
Poor old Bonnet, accused of being a pirate, about to lose his ship, and now seconds away from a steel ball in the brain. He did the only thing a man in his position could do. He stammered. He spluttered. Possibly even wet himself.
‘Um … um …’
And now I drew my cutlass and emerged from the tree line with the sun behind me. The soldier gaped. What I must have looked like as I stepped out of the glare of the sunshine with my robes flowing and cutlass swinging I don’t know, but it was enough to give the rifleman pause. A second in which he hesitated. A second that cost him
his life.
I slashed upwards, opening his waistcoat and spilling his guts to the sand, spinning around in the same movement and dragging my blade across the throat of another soldier who stood nearby. Two men dead in the blink of an eye and a third about to join them as I ran him through with my cutlass and he slid from my blade and died writhing on the beach. I snatched my dagger from my belt with my other hand, jammed it into the eye of a fourth, and he fell back with a shocked yell, blood gushing from the hilt embedded in his face, staining the teeth of his screaming mouth.
The soldiers had all loosed their shot at the escaping merchants, and though they weren’t slow to reload they were still no match for a swordsman. That’s the thing with soldiers of the Crown. They rely too much on their muskets: great for frightening native women, not so effective at close quarters with a scrapper who’d learnt his trade in the taverns of Bristol.
The next man was still bringing his musket to bear when I despatched him with two decisive strokes. The last of the soldiers was the first to get a second shot off. I heard it part the air by my nose and reacted with shock, hacking at his arm wildly until his musket dropped and he fell to his knees, pleading for his life with a raised hand until I silenced him with the point of my cutlass into his throat. He dropped with a gurgle, his blood flooded the sand around him, and I stood over his body with my shoulders heaving as I caught my breath, hot in my robes but knowing I had handled myself well. And when Bonnet thanked me, saying, ‘By God’s grace, sir, you saved me. A profusion of thanks!’ it wasn’t Edward Kenway the farmboy from Bristol he was thanking. I had started again. I was Duncan Walpole.
Stede Bonnet, it turned out, had not only lost his crew but had no skill for sailing. I had saved him from having his ship commandeered by the English, but to all intents and purposes I had commandeered it myself. We had one thing in common. We were both heading for Havana, and his ship was fast and he was talkative but good company, so we sailed together in what was a mutually beneficial partnership – for the time being at least.
As I steered I asked him about himself. What I found was a rich but fretful man, evidently attracted to more, shall we say, questionable ways of making money. For one thing, he constantly asked about pirates.
‘Most hunt the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola,’ I told him, suppressing a smile as I steered his schooner.
He added, ‘I shouldn’t worry about being waylaid by pirates, truth be told. My ship is small and I have nothing of immense value. Sugar cane and its yields. Molasses, rum, that sort of thing.’
I laughed, thinking of my own crew. ‘There’s not a pirate living who’d turn his back on a keg of rum.’
Havana was a low port surrounded by forest and tall palm trees, their fronds a lush green that wafted gently in the breeze, waving us in as our schooner sailed into dock. In the busy town white stone buildings with red-slate roofs looked dilapidated and weather-beaten, bleached by the sun and blasted by the wind.
We moored and Bonnet set about his business, the business being helping to maintain amicable links with our former enemies the Spanish, and doing it using that age-old diplomacy technique – selling them things.
He seemed to know the city, so rather than strike out alone I waited for his diplomacy mission to end then agreed to accompany him to an inn. As we made our way there it occurred to me that the old me, the Edward Kenway me, would have been looking forward to reaching the tavern. He’d have been getting thirsty right now.
But I had no urge to drink – and I mulled that over as we made our way through Havana, weaving through townsfolk who hurried along the sun-drenched streets, and watched by suspicious old folk who squinted at us from doorways. All I’d done was assume a different name and clothes, but it was as though I had been given a second chance at becoming … well … a man. As if Edward Kenway was a rehearsal from which I could learn my mistakes. But Duncan Walpole would be the man I’d always wanted to be.
We reached the inn, and where the taverns of Edward past’s had been dark places with low ceilings and shadows that leapt and danced on the walls; where men hunched over tankards and spoke from the sides of their mouths, here, beneath the Cuban sun, twinkled an outdoor tavern crowded with sailors who were leathery-faced and sinewy from months at sea, as well as portly merchants – friends of Bonnet, of course – and locals: men and children with handfuls of fruit for sale, women trying to sell themselves.
A dirty, drunken deckhand gave me the evil eye as I took a seat while Bonnet disappeared to meet his contact. Perhaps this sailor didn’t like the look of me – after the Blaney business I was used to that kind of thing – or maybe he was a righteous man and didn’t approve of the fact that I had swiped the ale of a sleeping drunk.
‘Can I help you, friend?’ I said over the lip of my newly acquired beaker.
The jack tar made a smacking sound with his mouth. ‘Fancy meeting a Taffy deep in Dago country,’ he slurred, ‘I’m English meself, biding me time till the next war calls me to service.’
I curled my lip. ‘Lucky old King George, eh? Having a pisspot like you flying his flag.’
That made him spit. ‘Oi, skulk,’ he said. The saliva gleamed on his lips as he leaned forward and huffed the sour smell of week-old booze over me. ‘I’ve seen your face before, haven’t I? You’s mates with those pirates down in Nassau, ain’t yer?’
I froze and my eyes darted to where Bonnet stood with his back to me, then around the rest of the inn. Didn’t look like anybody had heard. I ignored the pisshead next to me.
He leaned forward, insinuating himself even further into my face. ‘It is you, isn’t it? It is …’
His voice had begun to rise. A couple of sailors at a table nearby glanced our way.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’ Almost shouting now.
I stood, grabbed him, writhing from his seat, and slammed him against a wall. ‘Shut your gob before I fill it with shot. You hear me?’
The sailor looked blearily at me. If he’d heard a word I’d said he showed no sign.
Instead he squinted, focused and said, ‘Edward, isn’t it?’
Shit.
The most effective way to silence a blabbermouth jack tar in a Havana tavern is a knife across the throat. Other ways include a knee in the groin and the method I chose. The headbutt.
I slammed my forehead into his face and his next words died on a bed of broken teeth as he slipped to the floor and lay still.
‘You bastard,’ I heard from behind me, and turned to find a second red-faced sailor. I spread out my hands. Hey, I don’t want trouble.
But it wasn’t enough to prevent the right-hander across my face. And next I was trying to peer through a thick crimson curtain of pain shooting across the back of my eyes as two more crewmates arrived. I swung and made contact and it gave me precious seconds to recover. That Edward Kenway side of me, buried so deep? I exhumed him now. Because wherever you go in the world, whether it’s Bristol or Havana, a pub brawl is a pub brawl. They say practice makes perfect and while I’d never claim to be perfect, the fighting skills honed during my misspent youth prevailed and soon the three sailors lay in a groaning heap of arms and legs and broken furniture fit only for kindling.
I was still dusting myself off when the cry went up. ‘Soldiers!’ And in the next moment I found myself doing two things: first, running full pelt through the streets of Havana in order to escape the beetroot-faced men with muskets; second, trying not to get lost.
I managed both and later rejoined Bonnet at the tavern, only to discover that not only had the soldiers taken his sugar but the satchel I’d taken from Duncan Walpole as well. The satchel I was taking to Torres. Shit.
The loss of Bonnet’s sugar I could live with. But not the satchel.
25
Havana’s the kind of place where you can loiter without attracting much attention. And that’s on a normal day. On a day they’re hanging pirates, in the very square the executions are due to take place, then loitering’s not o
nly expected, it’s bloody well encouraged. The alliance between England and Spain may well have been an uneasy one, but there were certain matters on which both countries agreed. One of them being: they both hated pirates. Another one: they both liked to see pirates hanged.
So on the scaffold in front of us three buccaneers stood with their hands tied, staring with wide, frightened eyes through the nooses before them.
Not far away was the Spaniard they called El Tiburón, a big man with a beard and dead eyes. A man who never spoke because he couldn’t: a mute. I looked from him to the condemned men. Then found I couldn’t look at them, thinking, There but for the grace of God go I …
We weren’t here for them anyway. Bonnet and I stood with our backs to a weather-bleached stone wall, looking for all the world as though we were idly watching the world go by and awaiting the execution, and not at all interested in the conversation of the Spanish soldiers gossiping nearby. Oh no, not at all.
‘Are you still keen to look over the cargo we confiscated last night? I hear there were some crates of English sugar.’
‘Aye, taken from the Barbadian merchant.’
‘Duncan,’ said Bonnet from the side of his mouth, ‘they’re talking about my sugar.’
I looked down at him and nodded, grateful for the translation.
The soldiers went on to discuss last evening’s brawl at the tavern. Meanwhile, from the stage a Spanish officer was announcing the execution of the first man, stating his crimes and ending by intoning, ‘You are hereby sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.’
At his signal El Tiburón pulled the lever, the trapdoor opened, the bodies fell and the crowd went, ‘Ooh’.
I forced myself to look at the three swinging corpses, finding that I held my breath just in case what I’d been told about the loose bowels was true. Those bodies would be displayed in gibbets around the city. Bonnet and I had already seen such things on our travels. They had little tolerance for pirates here and wanted the world to know it.
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