I managed to distinguish myself in the shooting and was feeling pretty pleased with myself all told. So once again my thoughts returned to the reward. As soon as I had my money I could return to Nassau, and once there warn Edward and Benjamin that the infamous Woodes Rogers had a Bahamas-shaped bee in his bonnet for our little pirate republic. That he was coming for us.
And then a box was opened, and I heard Rogers say, ‘Wonderful. You’re a crack shot, Duncan. As good with a pistol as with your wrist blade, I imagine.’
Wrist blade, I thought distantly. Wrist blade?
‘If only he had one,’ DuCasse was saying as I peered at several sets of hidden blades displayed in the box – blades like the one I had reluctantly discarded on the beach at Cape Buena Vista. ‘Duncan, where is your wrist blade? I have never seen an Assassin so ill-equipped.’
Again: assassin. As in: Assassin.
‘Ah, damaged, sadly, beyond repair,’ I replied.
DuCasse indicated the selection in the box. ‘Then have your choice,’ he purred. And was it his thick French accent or did he mean to make it sound more like a threat than an offer?
I wondered where the blades were from. Other assassins, of course. (But assassins or Assassins?) Walpole had been one, but had been meaning to convert. A traitor? But what was this ‘order’ which he’d been planning to join?
‘These are souvenirs,’ Julien was saying.
Dead men’s blades. I reached into the box and drew one out. The blade shone and its fixings trailed against my arm. At which point it dawned on me. They wanted me to use it. They wanted to see me in action. Whether as a test or for sport it didn’t matter. Either way they wanted a display of proficiency in a weapon I’d never used before.
Immediately I went up from congratulating myself on having discarded the bloody thing (it would have given me away!) to cursing myself for not having kept it (I could have practised and been competent with it by now!).
I squared my shoulders in Duncan Walpole’s robes. An impostor. Now I had to be him. I had to really be him.
They watched as I strapped on the blade. A weak joke about being out of practice elicited polite but humourless chuckles. With it on I let my sleeve drop down over my hand and as we walked began to flex my fingers, adjusting my wrist and feeling for the tell-tale catch of the blade engaging.
Walpole’s blade had been wet that day we fought. Who knows – perhaps it really had been damaged. This one, greased and shined, would surely be more cooperative?
I prayed it would be. Imagined the looks on their faces if I simply failed to make it work.
‘Are you sure you are who you say you are?’
‘Guards!’
Instinctively I found myself seeking out the nearest escape route. And not only that, but wishing I’d just left the bloody satchel of documents where I’d found it, wishing I’d left Walpole well alone. What was wrong with life as Edward Kenway anyway? I was poor but at least I was alive. I could have been back in Nassau right now, planning raids with Edward and eyeing up Anne Bonny at the Old Avery.
Edward had warned me not to join Captain Bramah. From the moment I’d suggested it he’d told me Bramah was bad news. Why didn’t I bloody listen?
The voice of Julien DuCasse interrupted my thoughts.
‘Duncan –’ he pronounced it dern-kern – ‘would you indulge us with a demonstration of your techniques?’
I was being tested. Every question, every challenge they threw my way – it was all an attempt to force me to prove my mettle. So far I’d passed. Not with flying colours, but I’d passed.
But now we’d stepped outside the confines of the courtyard and I was greeted with what looked like a newly constructed practice area, tall palms lining either side of a grassed avenue, with targets at one end and just beyond that what looked like an ornamental lake, shimmering like a plateful of blue sunshine.
Behind the tree line, shadows moved among the scaly trunks of the palm trees. More guards, in case I made a break for it.
‘We put together a small training course in anticipation of your arrival,’ said Rogers.
I swallowed.
My hosts stood to one side: expectant. Rogers still carried the pistol, held loosely in one hand, but his finger was on the trigger, and Julien rested his right palm on the hilt of his sword. Behind the trees the figures of the guards stood motionless, waiting. Even the chirruping of insects and birds seemed to drop away.
‘It would be a shame to leave here without seeing you in action.’
Woodes Rogers smiled but his eyes were cold.
And just my luck, the only weapon I had I couldn’t bloody use.
Doesn’t matter. I can take them anyway.
To the old Bristolian scrapper in me they were just another pair of lairy twats outside a tavern. I thought of how I’d watched Walpole fight, with perfect awareness of his surroundings. How he could lay these two out, and then be upon the nearest guards before they had a chance to even raise their muskets. Yes, I could do that, catch them unawares …
Now was the time, I thought. Now.
I braced and drew back my arm to throw the first punch.
And the blade engaged.
28
‘Oh well done, Duncan,’ said Rogers, clapping, and I looked from him and DuCasse to my shadow cast on the grass. I had struck quite a pose with the blade engaged. What’s more, I thought I knew how I had done it. A tensing of muscle that came as much from the upper arm as the forearm …
‘Very impressive,’ said DuCasse. He stepped forward, held my arm with one hand that he used to release a catch, and then, very carefully, used the flat of his other palm to ease the blade back into its housing.
‘Now, let’s see you do it again.’
Without taking my eyes off him, I took a step back and assumed the same position. This time there was no luck involved, and even though I didn’t know quite what I was doing I had perfect confidence it would work. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did. Sure enough: snick. The blade sprang from the support and glinted evilly in the afternoon sun.
‘A little noisy,’ I smiled, getting cocky now. ‘Ideally, you’d not hear a thing. Otherwise it’s fine.’
Their challenges were interminable but by the end I felt I was performing for the pleasure rather than their reassurance. Any tests were over. The guards had drifted away, and even DuCasse, who wore his wariness like a favoured old frock coat, seemed to have relaxed. By the time we left the makeshift training area he was talking to me like an old friend.
‘The Assassins have trained you well, Duncan,’ he said.
The Assassins, I thought. So that’s what this group were called. Walpole had been a member but intended to betray his brothers, lowdown scum-sucker that he obviously was.
Betray them for what? is the question.
‘You chose the perfect time to leave them behind.’
‘At great risk,’ enthused Rogers. ‘Betraying the Assassins is never good for one’s health.’
‘Well,’ I said, somewhat pompously, ‘neither is drinking liquor, but I am drawn to its dangers all the same.’
He chuckled as I turned my attention to DuCasse. ‘And what is your business here, sir? Are you an associate of the governor’s? Or an impending acquaintance like me?’
‘Ah, I am … How do you say? Weapons dealer. I deal in pilfered guns and armaments.’
‘A smuggler of sorts,’ piped up Rogers.
‘Guns, blades, grenadoes. Anything that may kill a man, I am happy to provide,’ clarified the Frenchman.
By now we had reached the terrace, where I first clapped eyes on Governor Torres.
He was about seventy years old, but not fat the way rich men get. Apart from a clipped goatee beard his face was brown and lined and topped with brushed-forward thinning white hair, and with one hand on the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe he peered through round spectacles at correspondence he held in his other hand.
He didn’t look up, not at first. All the looking w
as taken care of by the big bearded man who stood patiently at his right shoulder, his arms folded, as still as one of the courtyard statues and ten times as stony.
I recognized him at once, of course. The previous day I’d seen him send three pirates to their death. Why, that very morning I’d pretended to procure prostitutes in his name. It was the Spaniard, El Tiburón, and although by now I should have been accustomed to intense examination by my hosts, his eyes seemed to drill right through me. For a while, as his stare bore into me, I was absolutely certain that not only had he spoken to the guards at the castillo but that they had given him my detailed description, and that any second now he would raise a trembling finger, point at me and demand to know why I’d been at the fortress.
‘Grand Master Torres.’
It was Rogers who broke the silence.
‘Mr Duncan Walpole has arrived.’
Torres looked up and regarded me over the top of his spectacles. He nodded, then handed his letter to El Tiburón, and thank God he did, for it meant that at last El Tiburón tore his eyes away from me.
‘You were expected one week ago,’ said Torres, but without much irritation.
‘Apologies, governor,’ I replied. ‘My ship was set upon by pirates and we were scuttled. I arrived only yesterday.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Unfortunate. But were you able to salvage from these pirates the items you promised me?’
I nodded, thinking, One hand to give you the satchel, the other hand to take the money, and from my robes I took the bag and dropped it on a low table by Torres’s knees. He puffed on his pipe then opened the satchel and took out the maps. I’d seen the maps before, of course, and they didn’t mean anything to me. Nor did the crystal for that matter. But they meant something to Torres all right. No doubt about it.
‘Incredible,’ he said in tones of wonderment, ‘the Assassins have more resources than I had imagined …’
And now he reached for the crystal, squinting at it through his spectacles and turning it over in his fingers. This ornament or whatever it was … well – to him it was no ornament.
He placed the papers and crystal back into the satchel and crooked a hand for El Tiburón who stepped forward and took the satchel. With that, Torres reached for my hand to shake, pumping it vigorously as he spoke. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Duncan,’ he said. ‘You are most welcome. Come, gentlemen.’ He motioned to the others. ‘We have much to discuss. Come …’
We began to move away from the terrace, all friends together.
Still no word about the bloody reward. Shit. I was getting deeper and deeper into something I wanted no part of.
29
We stood around a large table in a private room inside the main building: me, Torres, El Tiburón, DuCasse and Rogers.
El Tiburón, who remained at his master’s shoulder, held a long, thin box, like a cigar box. Did I imagine it, though, or were his eyes constantly on me? Had he somehow seen through me, or been alerted? ‘Sir, a strange man in robes was looking for you at the fortress earlier.’
I didn’t think so, though. Apart from him, everybody else in the room seemed relaxed, accepting drinks from Torres and chatting amiably while he made his own. Like any good host, he’d ensured his guests were holding full glasses first, but I wondered why he didn’t have staff to serve them, and then thought I knew the answer: it was the nature of our business in this room. The atmosphere might well have been relaxed – at least it was for the time being – but Torres had been sure to post a sentry then close the door with a gesture that seemed to say Anything said in this room is for our ears only, the kind of gesture that was making me feel less reassured with each passing moment, wishing I’d taken note of the line in the letter about my support for their ‘secret and most noble cause’.
I must remember that next time I’m considering becoming an impostor, I thought, give noble causes a wide berth. Especially if they’re secret noble causes.
But now we all had our drinks so a toast was raised, Torres saying, ‘Convened at last. And in such continental company … England, France, Spain … Citizens of sad and corrupted empires.’
At a wave from Torres El Tiburón moved across, opened the box he held and placed it on the table. I saw red-velvet lining and the gleam of metal from inside. Whatever it was, it looked significant and indeed it proved as Torres, his smile fading, the natural gleam of his eyes replaced by something altogether more serious, began what was obviously a ceremony of some importance.
‘But you are Templars now,’ he was saying, ‘the secret and true legislators of the world. Please hold out your hands.’
The convivial atmosphere was suddenly solemn. Drinks were set down. I shuffled quickly to my side, seeing that the others had placed themselves at intervals around the table. Next I did as I was asked and proffered my hand, thinking, Templars – so that’s what they were.
And it seems odd to say now, but I relaxed – I relaxed in the belief that they were nothing more sinister than a secret society. A silly club like any other silly club, full of deluded, pompous fools, whose grandiose aims (‘the secret and true legislators of the world’ no less!) were hot air, just an excuse for bickering about meaningless titles and trinkets.
What were their petty concerns? I wondered. And found I didn’t care. After all, why would I? As a pirate I’d renounced all law but pirate law. My freedom absolute. I was governed by rules, of course I was, but they were the rules of the sea and adhering to them was a matter of need, for survival, rather than the acquisition of status and the peacocking of sashes and baubles. What were their squabbles with the Assassins, I wondered, and found I couldn’t give a fig about that either.
So yes, I relaxed. I didn’t take them seriously.
Torres placed the first ring on DuCasse’s finger. ‘Mark and remember our purpose. To guide all wayward souls till they reach a quiet road.’
A second ring was placed on Rogers’s finger. ‘To guide all wayward desire till impassioned hearts are cooled.’
Hot air, I thought. Nothing but empty, meaningless statements. No purpose other than to award their speaker unearned authority. Look at them all, lapping it up, like it meant something. Silly men so deluded by a sense of their own importance that they were unable to see that it extended no further than the walls of the mansion.
Nobody cares, my friends. Nobody cares about your secret society.
Now Torres was addressing me, and he placed on my finger a third ring, saying ‘To guide all wayward minds to safe and sober thought.’
Sober, I thought. That was a laugh.
And then I looked down at the ring he’d put on my finger and suddenly I was no longer amused. Suddenly I was no longer thinking of these Templars as a silly secret society with no influence outside their own homes, because on my finger was the same ring as worn by the East India Company’s ship captain Benjamin Pritchard; the same ring worn by the man in the hood, the leader of the group who had burned my father’s farmhouse, both of whom had warned me of great and terrible powers at work. And suddenly I was thinking that whatever squabbles these people had with the Assassins, then, well, I was on the side of the Assassins.
For now, I would bide my time.
Torres stood back. ‘By the father of understanding’s light let our work now begin,’ he said. ‘Decades ago the council entrusted me with the task of locating in the West Indies a forgotten place our precursors once called the Observatory. See here …’
On the table before him were spread out the documents from the satchel, placed there by El Tiburón.
‘Look upon these images and commit them to memory,’ added Torres. ‘They tell a very old and important story. For two decades now I have endeavoured to locate this Observatory … The place is rumoured to contain a tool of incredible utility and power. It houses a kind of armillary sphere, if you like. A device that would grant us the power to locate and monitor every man and woman on earth, whatever their location.
‘Only imag
ine what it would mean to have such power. With this device there would be no secrets among men. No lies. No trickery. Only justice. Pure justice. This is the Observatory’s promise. And we must take it for our own.’
So that, then, was when I first learnt of the Observatory.
‘Do we know its whereabouts?’ asked Rogers.
‘We will soon,’ replied Torres, ‘for in our custody is the one man who does. A man named Roberts. Once called a Sage.’
DuCasse gave a small scoffing laugh. ‘It has been forty-five years since anyone has seen an actual Sage. Can you be sure this one is authentic?’
‘We are confident he is,’ replied Torres.
‘The Assassins will come for him,’ said Rogers.
I looked at the documents spread out before us. Drawings of what looked like an ancient race of people building something – the Observatory presumably. Slaves breaking rocks and carrying huge stone blocks. They looked human, but not quite human.
One thing I did know – a plan was beginning to form. This Observatory, which meant so much to the Templars. What would it be worth? More to the point, what would it be worth to a man planning revenge on the people who had helped torch his childhood home?
The small crystal cube was still on the table. I puzzled over it, just as I had on the beach at Cape Buena Vista. Now I watched as Torres reached and picked it up, replying to Rogers at the same time. ‘Indeed, the Assassins will come for us but, thanks to Duncan and the information he has delivered, the Assassins won’t be a problem for much longer. All will be made clear tomorrow, gentlemen, when you meet the Sage for yourselves. Until then … let us drink.’
Our host indicated a drinks table, and while backs were turned I reached to the documents and pocketed a page of manuscript – a picture of the Observatory.
Just in time. Torres turned, handing glasses to the men.
‘Let us find the Observatory together, for with its power kings will fall, clergy will cower, and the hearts and minds of the world will be ours.’
We drank.
We drank together, though I know for sure we drank in honour of very different things indeed.
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