Assassin’s Creed®

by Oliver Bowden

  ‘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 and then, satisfied, took a swig.

  ‘Then let us find the Observatory,’ I offered, ‘if it does what these Templars claim, we’ll be unbeatable.’

  Edward 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 Adewalé 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. ‘And 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.

  34

  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?’ Edward 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 blackjack 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, cheerful 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.

  Whatever cards Kidd 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.

  Edward 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.’

  ‘And 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 Edward looked at me and felt proud of his young protégé, 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 shall 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 the men joined in, and 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 then 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 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 Edward 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, my 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 a conversation from within the canvas of a lean-to. One voice I recognized in particular: Julien DuCasse.

  I already knew DuCasse kept a manor house on the island, where he no doubt liked to relax after returning from his endeavours to control the world. The fact that he wasn’t returning there now meant that this was but a fleeting visit to collect supplies.

  Now just one problem. Inside the lean-to my former Templar associate was surrounded by guards. They were truculent, probably uncooperative guards, who were hacked off at having to collect stocks for the ship, not to mention feeling the sharp edge of Julien DuCasse’s tongue. But they were guards all the same. I looked around at the encampment. On the opposite side was a fire that had burned down almost to the embers. Close to me were crates and barrels, and looking from them to the fire I could see that they had been placed there deliberately. Sure enough, when I crabbed over and had a better look what I saw were kegs of gunpowder. I reached behind my neck, where I’d stowed my pistol to keep it dry. My powder was wet, of course, but access to powder was no longer a problem.

  In the middle of the encampment stood three soldiers. On guard, supposedly, but in actual fact mumbling something I couldn’t hear. Cursing DuCasse probably. Other troops were coming and going and adding to the pile of supplies: firewood mainly, kindling, as well as scuttlebuts that slopped with water drawn from a watering hole nearby. Not exactly the feast of wild boar and fresh spring water DuCasse was hoping for I’d wager.

  Staying in the shadows, and with one eye on the movement of the troops, I crept close to the kegs and gouged a hol
e in the bottom one, big enough to fill my hands with gunpowder and create a little trail as I crept round the edge of the compound until I was as close to the fire as I dared. My line of gunpowder led in a half-circle from where I crouched back to the kegs. At the other side of that circle was the lean-to where Julien DuCasse sat, drinking and dreaming of grand Templar plans to take over the world – and shouting abuse at his recalcitrant men.

  Right. I had fire. I had a trail of gunpowder leading from the fire through the undergrowth and to the kegs. I had men waiting to be blown up and I had Julien DuCasse awaiting our moment of reckoning. Now all I needed to do was time things so that none of the clodhopping troops would see my makeshift fuse before it could detonate the powder.

  Crouching I moved to the fire then flicked a glowing ember on to the tail of the gunpowder fuse. I steeled myself for the sound it made – it seemed so loud in the night – and thanked God the soldiers were making so much noise. And then, as the fuse fizzed away from me, I hoped I hadn’t inadvertently broken the line of the fuse; hoped I hadn’t accidentally trickled the gunpowder into anything wet; hoped none of the soldiers would arrive back just at the very instant that …

  And then one did. He carried a bowl full of something. Fruit, perhaps. But either the smell or the noise alerted him and he stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked down at his boots just as the sizzle-burn of gunpowder trail ran past his feet.

  He looked up and his mouth formed an O to shout for help as I snatched a dagger out of my belt, pulled my arm back and threw it. I was grateful once again for those wasted afternoons vandalizing trees back home at Bristol and thanked God as the knife hit him somewhere just above the collarbone – not an especially accurate shot, but it did the job. So instead of shouting the alarm he made a muted, strangulated sound and slumped forward to his knees, with his hands scrabbling at his neck.

  The men in the clearing heard the noise of his body falling, his bowl of fruit tumbling, the fruit rolling, and turned to see its source. All of a sudden they were alert, but it didn’t matter, because even as they pulled their muskets from their shoulders and a shout went up they had no idea what was about to happen.

  I don’t suppose they knew what hit them. I’d turned my back, put my hands over my ears and curled up into a ball as the explosion tore across the clearing. Something hit my back. Something that was soft and wet, which I didn’t particularly want to think about. From further away I heard shouts and knew there would be more men arriving at any moment, so I turned and ran into the clearing, past blown-up bodies of soldiers in various states of mutilation and dismemberment, most of them dead, one of them pleading for death, and through thick black smoke that filled the clearing, embers floating in the air.

  DuCasse emerged from the tent, swearing in French, shouting for someone, anyone, to put out the fire. Coughing, spluttering, he waved his hand in front of his face to clear smoke and choking particles of flaming soot and peered into the fog.

  And standing in front of him he saw me.

  And I know that he recognized me because he said so. ‘You’ was the only word he said before I drove my blade into him.

  My blade hadn’t made a sound.

  ‘You remember the gift you gave me?’ It made a slight sucking noise as I pulled it from his chest. ‘Well, it answers just fine.’

  ‘You son of a whore.’ He coughed and blood speckled his face. Around us rained the flaming shot like satanic snow.

  ‘As bold as a musket ball, and still half as sharp,’ he managed as the life drained from him.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, mate. But I can’t risk you telling your Templar friends about me still kicking around.’

  ‘I pity you, buccaneer. After all you have seen, after all we showed you of our Order, still you embrace the life of an ignorant and aimless rogue.’

  Round his neck I saw something I hadn’t seen before. A key on a chain. I yanked it and it came away easily in my fingers.

  ‘Is petty larceny the extent of your ambition?’ he mocked. ‘Have you no mind to comprehend the scope of ours? All the empires on earth, abolished! A free and opened world, without parasites like you.’

  He closed his eyes, dying. His last words were, ‘May the hell you find be of your own making.’

  Behind me I heard men crashing into the clearing and knew it was time to leave. In the distance I could hear more shouts and the sounds of battle and knew that my shipmates had arrived and that the cove and galleon would soon be ours and that the night’s work would soon be over. And as I disappeared into the undergrowth I thought about DuCasse’s final words: May the hell you find be of your own making.

  We would see about that, I thought. We would see.

  Part Three

  * * *

  35

  May, 1716

  It was two months later, and I was in Tulum on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. My reason for being there? The ever-mysterious James Kidd, and what he had showed me in San Inagua Island.

  He had been waiting, I now realize. Waiting for his moment to get me alone. After the death of DuCasse, the theft of his galleon and the … well, let’s just say ‘disposal’ of the rest of the Frenchman’s men, an operation that boiled down to either ‘join us and become a pirate’ or ‘enjoy your swim’, Thatch had sailed for Nassau with the Spanish galleon, taking most of the men with him.

  Myself, Adewalé and Kidd had remained behind with some vague idea of how we might utilize the cove. What I had in mind, of course, was relaxing on its beaches and drinking until the supplies of rum were dry, and then returning to Nassau. Oh, you constructed the fortified harbour without me. What a shame I missed the opportunity to help. Something like that.

  What Kidd had in mind – well, who could tell? At least until he approached me that day, told me he had something to show me, led me to the Mayan stones.

  ‘Odd-looking things, aren’t they?’ he said.

  He wasn’t wrong. From a distance they’d looked like a collection of rubble, but up close were actually a carefully arranged formation of strangely carved blocks.

  ‘Is this what they call Mayan?’ I asked him, staring at the rock closely. ‘Or is it Aztec?’

  He looked at me. He wore that same penetrating, quizzical look he always seemed to when we spoke. It made me feel uncomfortable, if I’m honest. Why did I always get the feeling he had something to say, something to tell me? Those cards he held close to his chest, there were times I wanted to wrench his hands away and look at them for myself.

  Some instinct, though, had told me that I’d find out in good time. That instinct would be proved right, it would turn out.

  ‘Are you good with riddles, Edward?’ he asked me. ‘Puzzles and ponderings and the like?’

  ‘I’m no worse than the next man,’ I said carefully. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think you have a natural gift for it. I’ve sensed it for some time, in the way you work and think. The way you understand the world.’

  Now we were getting to it. ‘I’m not so sure about that. You’re talking in riddles now, and I don’t understand a word.’

  He nodded. Whatever he had to tell me it wasn’t going to appear all at once. ‘Clamber on top of this thing here, will you? Help me solve something.’

  Together we scrambled to the top of the rocks where we crouched. When James put a hand to my leg I looked down at it, just as tanned, weathered and worn as that of any pirate, with the same latticework of tiny cuts and scars earned at sea. But smaller, the fingers slightly tapered, and I wondered what it was doing there. If … But no. Surely not.

  And now he was speaking, and he sounded more serious than before, like a holy man in contemplation.

  ‘Concentrate and focus all your senses. Look past shadow and sound, deep into matter, until you see and hear a kind of shimmering.’

  What was he going on about? His hand gripped my leg harder. He urged me to concentrate, to focus. His grip, in fact, his whole manner, brooked no disbelief, banishing my
reluctance, my resistance …

  And then – then I saw it. No, I didn’t see it. How can I explain this? I felt it – felt it with my eyes.

  ‘Shimmering,’ I said quietly. It was in the air around me – all around me – a more vivid version of something I had experienced before, sitting in the farmyard at home in Hatherton, late at night when, in a dream, my mind roaming free, it was as if the world had suddenly become that bit brighter and more clear. I had been able to hear things with extra clarity, see things ahead I hadn’t been able to see before, and here was the funny thing: as though there was contained within me a huge bank, a huge vault of knowledge awaiting my access, and all I needed to open it was the key.

  And that was it, sitting there, with Kidd’s hand gripping my leg.

  It was as though I had found the key.

  I knew why I’d felt different all those years ago.

  ‘You understand?’ hissed Kidd.

  ‘I think so. I’ve seen its like before. Glowing, like moonlight on the ocean. It’s like using every sense at once to see sounds and hear shapes. Quite a combination.’

  ‘Every man and woman on earth has in them a kind of intuition hidden away,’ Kidd was saying as I gazed about myself, like a man suddenly transported to another world. A blind man who could suddenly see.

  ‘I’ve had this sense most of my life,’ I told him, ‘only I thought it related in some way to my dreaming, or the like.’

  ‘Most never find it,’ said Kidd, ‘others it takes years to tease out. But for a rare few it comes as natural as breathing. What you feel is the light of life. Of living things past and present. The residue of vitality come and gone. Practice. Intuition. Any man’s senses can be tuned well past what he is born with. If he tries.’

  After that, we’d parted, with arrangements to meet in Tulum, which is why I found myself standing in the baking heat trying to talk to a native woman who stood by what looked like a pigeon coop and who squinted up at me when I arrived.