‘There’s no need for this. You know I’m as good as my word.’
Around us the jungle was silent. Bartholomew Roberts seemed to be thinking. It was odd, I mused. Neither of us really had the measure of the other. Neither of us really knew what the other one wanted. I knew what I wanted from him, of course. But what about him? What did he want? I sensed that whatever it was, it would be more dark and more mysterious than I could possibly imagine. All I knew for sure was that death followed Bart Roberts and I wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
He spoke. ‘Our Captain Howell was killed today in a Portuguese ambush. Headstrong fool. I warned him not to come ashore.’
It was to the recently deceased captain that Bartholomew Roberts went now. Evidently deciding I was not a threat as he holstered his pistol.
And of course. The attack. I thought I knew who was behind it.
‘It was orchestrated by the Templars,’ I told him. ‘The same sort who took you to Havana.’
His long hair shook as he nodded, seeming to think at the same time. ‘I see now there is no escaping the Templars’ attention, is there? I suppose it is time to fight back?’
Now you’re talking, I thought.
As we’d been speaking I’d watched him peel off his sailor’s rags and pull on first the breeches of the dead captain and then the shirt. The shirt was bloodstained so he discarded it, put his own back on, then hunched his shoulders into the captain’s coat. He pulled the tie from his hair and shook it free. He popped the captain’s tricorne on his head and its feather wafted as he turned to face me. This was a different Bartholomew Roberts. His time aboard ship had put health back in his cheeks. His dark, curly locks shone in the sun and he stood resplendent in a red jacket and breeches, white stockings, with a hat to match. He looked every inch the buccaneer. He looked every inch the pirate captain.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘we must go before Portuguese reinforcements arrive. We must get back to the Rover. I have an announcement to make there, that I’d like you to witness.’
I thought I knew what it was, and I was surprised in one way – he was but a lowly deckhand, after all – but unsurprised also, because this was Roberts. The Sage. And the tricks up his sleeve were never-ending. (Watch yourself, Kenway. He’s dangerous.) And sure enough when we arrived at the Rover, where the men waited nervously for news of the expedition, he leapt up to a crate to command their attention. They goggled at him up there: the lowly deckhand, a new arrival on board to boot, now resplendent in the captain’s clothes.
‘In honest service there are thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. Yet as gentlemen of fortune we enjoy plenty and satisfaction, pleasure and ease, liberty and power … so what man with a sensible mind would choose the former life, when the only hazard we pirates run is a sour look from those without strength or splendour.
‘Now, I have been among you six weeks, and in that time have adopted your outlook as my own, and with so fierce a conviction, that it may frighten you to see your passions reflected from me in so stark a light. But … if it’s a captain you see in me now, aye then … I’ll be your bloody captain!’
You had to hand it to him, it was a rousing speech. In a few short sentences proclaiming his kinship, he had these men eating out of the palm of his hand. As the meeting broke up I approached, deciding now was the time to make my play.
‘I’m looking for the Observatory,’ I told him. ‘Folks say you’re the only man that can find it.’
‘Folks are correct.’
He looked me up and down as if to confirm his impressions. ‘Despite my distaste for your eagerness, I see in you a touch of untested genius.’ He held out his hand to shake. ‘I’m Bartholomew Roberts.’
‘Edward.’
‘I’ve no secrets to share with you now,’ he told me.
I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. He was going to make me wait.
51
September, 1719
Damn the man. Damn Roberts.
He wanted me to wait two months. Two whole months. Then meet him west of the Leeward islands, east of Puerto Rico. With only his word to take for that, I sailed the Jackdaw back to San Inagua. There I rested the crew for a while, and we took prizes when we could, and my coffers swelled, and it was during that period, I think, that I cut off the nose of the ship’s cook.
And when we weren’t taking prizes and when I wasn’t slicing off noses, I brooded at my homestead. I wrote letters to Caroline in which I assured her I would soon be returning as a man of wealth, and I fretted over the Observatory, only too aware that with it lay all my hopes of a fortune. And it was built on nothing more than a promise from Bartholomew Roberts.
And then what? To my one-track mind, the Observatory was a place of enormous potential wealth. But even if I found it – even if Bart Roberts came good on his word – it remained a source of potential wealth. Wasn’t it Edward who had scoffed at the very idea? Gold doubloons was what we wanted, he’d said. Perhaps he was right. Even if I found this amazing machine, how the bloody hell was I going to convert it into the wealth I hoped to acquire? After all, if there were riches to be made, then why hadn’t Roberts made them?
Because he has some other purpose.
And I thought of my parents. My mind went back to the burning of our farmhouse and I thought anew of striking a blow at the Templars, this secret society who used their influence and power to grind down anyone who displeased them; to exercise a grudge. I still had no idea exactly who was behind the burning of my farmhouse. Or why. Was it a grudge against me for marrying Caroline and humiliating Matthew Hague? Or against my father, mere business rivalry? Probably both, was my suspicion. Perhaps the Kenways, these arrivals from Wales, who had shamed them so, simply deserved to be taken down a peg or two.
I would find out for sure, I decided. I would return to Bristol one day, and exact my revenge.
And on that I brooded, too. Until the day came in September when I gathered the crew and we readied the Jackdaw, newly caulked, its masts and rigging repaired, its shrouds ready, its galley stocked and the munitions at capacity, and we set sail for our appointment with Bartholomew Roberts.
As I say, I don’t think I ever truly knew what was on his mind. He had his own agenda, and wasn’t about to share it with me. What he did like to do, however, was keep me guessing. Keep me hanging on. When we’d parted he’d told me he had business to attend to, which I later found out involved taking his own crew back to Principé and exacting his revenge for the death of Captain Howell Davis on the people of the island.
They’d attacked at night, put to the sword as many men as they could, and made off, not only with as much treasure as they could carry but the beginnings of Black Bart’s fearsome reputation: unknowable, brave and ruthless, and apt to carry off daring raids. The one we were about to carry out, for example. The one that began with Roberts insisting the Jackdaw join him on a jaunt around the coast of Brazil to the Todos os Santos Bay.
We didn’t have long to find out the reason why. A fleet of no fewer than forty-two Portuguese merchant ships. What’s more with no navy escorts. Roberts lost no time in capturing one of the outlying vessels to ‘hold talks’ with the captain. It wasn’t something I got involved with, but from the bruised Portuguese naval officer he’d learnt that the flagship had on it a chest, a coffer that, he told me, contained ‘crystal vials filled with blood. You may remember.’
Vials of blood. How could I forget?
We anchored the Jackdaw and I took Adewalé and a skeleton crew to join Roberts on his purloined Portuguese vessel. Up to now we’d remained at the fringes of the fleet, but now it seemed to split up, and we saw our chance. The flagship was testing her guns.
Anchored some distance away we watched, and Bartholomew looked at me.
‘Are you stealthy, Edward Kenway?’
‘That I am,’ I said.
He looked over to the Portuguese galleon. It was anchored not far away from land with most of the crew on the gun dec
k firing inland, carrying out exercises. Never was there a better time to steal aboard, so at a nod from Bart Roberts I dived overboard and swam to the galleon, on a mission of death.
Shinning up a Jacob’s ladder I found myself on deck, where I moved quietly along the planks to the first man, engaged my blade, swept it quickly across his throat then helped him to the deck and held my hand over his mouth while he died.
All the time I kept my eyes on the lookouts and crow’s-nest above.
I disposed of a second sentry the same way then began scaling the rigging to the crow’s-nest. There a lookout scanned the horizon, his spyglass moving from left to right, past Roberts’s ship and then back again.
He focused on Roberts’s vessel, his gaze lingered on it, and I wondered if his suspicions were churning. Perhaps so. Perhaps he was wondering why the men on board didn’t look like Portuguese merchants. He seemed to decide. He lowered the spyglass and I could see his chest inflate as though he were about to call out, just as I sprang into the lookout position, grabbed his arm and slid my blade into his armpit.
I swept my other arm across his neck to silence any cries as blood gushed from beneath his arm and he breathed his last as I let him fold to the well of the crow’s-nest.
Now Bart’s ship came alongside, and as I descended the ratlines the two ships bumped and his men began pouring over the sides.
A hatch in the quarterdeck opened and the Portuguese appeared, but they stood no chance. Their throats were cut, their bodies thrown overboard. And in a matter of a few bloody moments the galleon was controlled by Bart Roberts’s men. Fat lot of good their gun training had done.
Everything that could be pillaged was pillaged. A deckhand who dragged the coffer on deck and grinned at his captain, hoping for some words of praise got none, Roberts ignoring him and indicating for the chest to be loaded on his stolen ship.
Then, suddenly, came a shout from the lookouts, ‘Sail ho!’ and in the next instant we were piling back to the stolen ship, some of the slow men even falling to the sea as Roberts’s ship pulled away from the flagship and we set sail, two Portuguese naval warships bearing down upon us.
There was the pop of muskets but they were too far away to do any damage. Thank God we were in a stolen Portuguese ship; they had no desire to fire their carriage guns at us. Not yet. Probably they hadn’t worked it out yet. Probably they were still wondering what the bloody hell was going on.
We came around the bay, sails pregnant with wind, men dashing below decks to man the guns. Ahead of us was anchored the Jackdaw, and I prayed that Adewalé had ordered lookouts. I thanked God my quartermaster was an Adewalé and not a Calico Jack, and so would have made sure the lookouts were posted. And I prayed that those lookouts would at this very moment be relaying the news that Roberts’s vessel was speeding towards them with the Portuguese navy in pursuit and that they would be manning their positions and weighing anchor.
They were.
Even though we were being pursued I still had time to admire what to my eyes is one of the most beautiful sights of the sea. The Jackdaw, men on its rigging, its sails unfurling gracefully, being secured, then blooming with a noise I could hear even from my vantage point far away.
Still, our speed meant we caught them smartly, just as the Jackdaw was gaining speed herself, and after exchanging quick words with Roberts I stood on the poop deck and my mind returned to the sight of Duncan Walpole, he who had begun this whole journey, as I leapt from the poop of Roberts’s ship back on to the Jackdaw.
‘Ah, there’s nothing like the hot winds of hell blowing in your face!’ I heard Roberts cry as I crouched and watched as our two vessels peeled apart. I gave orders to man the stern guns below. The Portuguese reluctance to open fire was over, but their hesitancy had cost them dear, for it was the Jackdaw who took first blood.
I heard our stern guns boom then spin back across the deck below. I saw hot metal speed over the face of the ocean and slam into the leading ship, saw splinters fly from jagged holes in the bow and along the hull, men and bits of men joining the debris already littering the sea. The bow gained wings of foam as it dipped and I could imagine the scene below decks, men at the pumps, but the vessel already shipping too much water and soon …
She turned in the water, listing, her sails flattening. A cheer went up from my men but from around her came the second ship, and that was when Bartholomew Roberts decided to test his own guns.
His shot found its mark, just as mine had, and once more we were treated to the sight of the Portuguese vessel ploughing on, even as the bowstring dipped and the bows sunk, her hull looking as though they had been the victim of a giant shark attack.
Soon both ships were seriously floundering, the second one more badly damaged than the first and boats were being launched, men were jumping over the side and the Portuguese navy had, for the time being at least, forgotten about us.
We sailed, celebrating for some hours until Roberts commanded both vessels drop anchor and I stood alert on the quarterdeck wondering, What now?
I’d primed my pistols and my blade was at the ready, and via Adewalé I’d told the crew that if there were any signs of a double-cross they were to fight to save themselves, don’t surrender to Roberts, no matter what. I’d seen how he treated those he considered his enemy. I’d seen how he treated his prisoners.
Now, though, he called me across, having his men on the rack lines swing me a line so that first I, then Adewalé could cross to his ship. I stood on the deck and faced him, a tension in the air so thick you could almost taste it, because if Roberts did plan to betray us, then now was the time. My hand flexed at my blade mechanism.
Roberts, though, whatever he was planning, and it was safe to say that he was planning something, it wasn’t for now. At a word from him, two of his crewmates came forward with the chest we had liberated from the Portuguese flagship.
‘Here’s my prize,’ said Roberts, with his eyes on me. It was a coffer full of blood. That was what he had promised. Hardly the grand prize I was after. But we would see. We would see.
The two hands set down the chest and opened it. As the crew gathered round to watch us. I was reminded of the day I had fought Blaney on the deck of Edward Thatch’s galleon. They did the same now. They clambered on the mast and in the rigging and stood on the gunwales in order to get a better look as their captain reached into the chest, picked out one of the vials and examined it in the light.
A murmur of disappointment ran around those watching. No gold for you, lads. No silver pieces of eight. Sorry. Just vials that probably to the untrained eye might have been wine but that I knew were blood.
Oblivious to his crew’s disappointment and no doubt uncaring of it anyway, Roberts was examining the vials, one by one.
‘Ah, the Templars have been busy I see …’ he replaced a vial with nimble fingers that danced over the glittering crystals as he picked out another one, held it up to the light and examined it. Around us the men, disconsolate with the turn of events, descended the ratlines, jumped down from the gunwales and returned to their business.
Roberts squinted as he held up yet another crystal.
‘Laurens Prins’s blood,’ he said, then tossed it to me. ‘Useless now.’
I stared carefully at it as Robert cycled quickly through the contents of the coffer, calling out names, ‘Woodes Rogers. Ben Hornigold. Even Torres himself. Small quantities, kept for a special purpose.’
Something to do with the Observatory. But what? The time for taunting me with promises was over. I felt anger beginning to rise. Most of his men had gone back to work, the quartermaster and first mate stood nearby, but I had Adewalé. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to show Bartholomew Roberts how serious I was. Maybe it was time to show him that I was sick and tired of being messed around. Maybe it was time to use my blade to insist he told me what I wanted.
‘You must take me to the Observatory, Roberts,’ I said firmly, ‘I need to know what it is.’
Roberts tw
inkled. ‘To what end, hey? Will you sell it from under my nose? Or work with me and use it to bolster our gains?’
‘Whatever improves my lot in life,’ I said guardedly.
He closed the chest with a snap and placed both hands on the curved lid. ‘How ridiculous. A merry life and a short life that’s my motto. It’s all the optimism I can muster.’
He seemed to consider. I held my breath. Again that thought, What now? And then he looked at me and the mischievous look in his eyes had departed, in its place a blank stare. ‘All right, Captain Kenway. You’ve earned a look.’
I smiled.
At last.
52
‘Can you feel it, Adewalé,’ I said to him, as we followed the Rover around the coast of Brazil. ‘We’re moments away from the grandest prize of all.’
‘I feel nothing but hot wind in my ears, captain,’ he said enigmatically, face in the wind, sipping at the breeze.
I looked at him. Once again I felt almost overpowered with admiration for him. Here was a man who had probably saved my life on hundreds of occasions and definitely saved my life on at least three. Here was the most loyal, committed and talented quartermaster a captain could ever have; who had escaped slavery yet still had to deal with the jibes of common mutineers like Calico Jack, who thought themselves above him because of his colour. Here was a man who had overcome all the bilge life had thrown at him, and it was a lot of bilge, the kind that only a man sold as a slave will ever know. A man who stood by my side on the Jackdaw day after day and demanded no great prizes, no rich-making haul, demanded little but the respect he deserved, enough of the shares to live on, a place to rest his head, and a meal made by a cook without a nose.
And how had I repaid this man?
By going on and on and on about the Observatory.
And still going on about it.
‘Come on, man. When we take this treasure, we’ll be set for life. All of us. Ten times over.’
He nodded. ‘As you wish.’
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