Perhaps I never gave enough thought to the effect that all of this might have on Caroline’s relationship with my mother and father, but looking back now, it is ludicrous to me to have expected her simply to remain at the farm.
One night, I returned home, to find her dressed up.
“Where are you going?” I slurred, having spent most of the evening in a tavern.
She was unable to meet my gaze. By her feet was a bedsheet tied into a bulging parcel, somehow at odds with her attire, which, as I focused on her, I realized was more smart than usual.
“I . . .” Finally her eyes met mine. “My parents have asked me to go and live with them. And I’d like to.”
“What do you mean, ‘live with them’? You live here. With me.”
She told me that I shouldn’t have given up work with Father. It was a decent wage and I should have been happy with what I had.
I should have been happy with her.
Through a fog of ale I tried to tell her that I was happy with her. That everything I was doing, I was doing for her. She had been talking to her parents while she was away, of course, and while I had expected her father to begin poisoning her against me, that muckworm, I hadn’t expected him to start quite so soon.
“Decent wage?” I raged. “That job was near to robbery. You want to be married to a peasant the whole of your life?”
I had spoken too loudly. A look passed between us and I cringed to think of my father hearing. And then she was leaving, and I was calling after her, still trying to persuade her to stay.
To no avail, and the next morning, when I’d sobered up and recalled the events of the night before, Mother and Father were brooding, staring at me with recriminatory looks. They liked—I’d go as far as saying loved—Caroline. Not only was she a help around the farm, but Mother had lost a daughter many years ago, so to her Caroline was the daughter she never had.
Apart from being well-liked and help on the farm, she’d also been helping my mother and myself with our numbers and letters.
Now she was gone—gone because I had not been content with my lot. Gone because I wanted adventure. Because the drink was no longer doing anything to stave off boredom.
Why couldn’t I be happy with her? she’d asked. I was happy with her. Why couldn’t I be happy with my life? she’d asked. No, I wasn’t happy with my life.
I went to see her, to try and persuade her to change her mind. As far as I was concerned she was still my wife, I was still her husband, and what I was doing was for the good of the marriage, for the good of both of us, not just me.
(I think I kidded myself that that was true. Maybe to some small degree it was true. But I knew, and probably she knew too, that while I wanted to provide for her, I also wanted to see the world outside of Bristol.)
It did no good. She told me she was worried about my being hurt. I replied that I would be careful; that I would return with coin or send for her. I told her I needed her faith but my appeals fell on deaf ears.
It was the day I was due to leave, and I went home and packed my bags, slung them over my horse and left, with those very same recriminatory looks boring into my back, stabbing at me like arrows. As evening fell I rode to the dock with a heavy heart, and there found the Emperor. But instead of the expected industry, I found it near deserted. The only people present were a group of six men who I took to be deck-hands, who sat gambling with leather flasks of rum close at hand, casks for chairs, a crate for a dice table.
I looked from them to the Emperor. A refitted merchant ship, she was riding high in the water. The decks were empty, none of the lamps were lit, and the railings shone in the moonlight. A sleeping giant, she was, and despite feeling perplexed at the lack of activity I was still in awe of her size and stature. On those decks I would serve. On hammocks in quarters below decks I would sleep. The masts I would climb. I was looking at my new home.
One of the men eyed me carefully.
“Now, what can I do for you?” he said.
I swallowed, suddenly feeling very young and inexperienced and suddenly, tragically wondering if everything they said about me—Caroline’s father, the drinkers in the taverns, even Caroline herself—might be true. That, actually, I might not be cut out for life at sea.
“I’m here to join up,” I said, “sent here by Dylan Wallace.”
A snicker ran through the group of four and each of them looked at me with an even greater interest. “Dylan Wallace, the recruitment man, eh?” said the first. “He’s sent one or two to us before. What is it you can do, boy?”
“Mr. Wallace thought I would be material enough to serve,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident and able than I felt.
“How’s your eyesight?” said one.
“My eyesight is fine.”
“Do you have a head for heights?”
I finally knew what they meant, as they pointed up to the highest point of the Emperor’s rigging, the crow’s nest, home to the lookout.
“Mr. Wallace had me more in mind as deck-hand, I think.”
Officer material was what he’d actually said, but I wasn’t about to tell this lot. I was young and nervous. Not stupid.
“Well, can you sew, lad?” came the reply.
They were mocking me, surely. “What does sewing have to do with privateering, then?” I asked, feeling a little impudent despite the circumstances.
“The deck-hand needs to be able to sew, boy,” said one of the other men. Like all the others he had a tarred pigtail and tattoos that crept from the sleeves and neck of his shirt. “Needs to be good with knots too. Are you good with knots, boy?”
“These are things I can learn,” I replied.
I stared at the ship with its furled sails, rigging hanging in tidy loops from the masts and the hull studded with brass barrels peeking from its gun-deck. I saw myself like the men who sat on the casks before me, their faces leathery and tanned from their time at sea, eyes that gleamed with menace and adventure. Custodians of the ship.
“You have to get used to a lot else as well besides,” said one man, “scraping barnacles off the hull, caulking the boat with tar.”
“You got your sea legs, son?” asked another. They were laughing at me by then. “Can you keep your stomach when she’s lashed with waves and hurricane winds?”
“I reckon I can,” I replied, adding with a surge of impetuous anger, “Either way, that’s not why Mr. Wallace thought I might make a good crewmate.”
A look passed between them. The atmosphere changed a little.
“Oh yes?” said one of them, swinging his legs round. He wore dirty canvas trousers. “Why is it that the recruiting officer thought you might make a good crewmate, then?”
“Having seen me in action, he thought I might be useful in a battle.”
He stood. “A fighter, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, you have ample opportunity to prove your abilities in that area, boy, starting tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll put myself down for a bout, shall I?”
“What do you mean, ‘tomorrow’?” I asked.
He had sat down, returning his attention to the game. “Tomorrow, when we sail.”
“I was told we sailed tonight.”
“Sail tomorrow, lad. Captain isn’t even here yet. We sail first thing.”
I left them, knowing I might well have made my first enemies on ship; still, I had some time—time to put things right. I retrieved my horse and headed for home.
THIRTEEN
I galloped towards Hatherton, towards home. Why was I going back? Perhaps to tell them I was sorry. Perhaps to explain what was going through my mind. After all, I was their son. Maybe Father would recognize in me some vestige of himself and maybe if he did, he would forgive me.
As I travelled back along the highway, what I realized more than anything was that I wanted him to forgive me. Both of them.
Is it any wonder that I was distracted and my guard was down?
I was near to home, wher
e the trees formed a narrow avenue, when I sensed a movement in the hedgerow. I drew to a halt and listened. When you live in the countryside you sense the changes and something was different. From above came a sharp whistle that could only have been a warning whistle and at the same time I saw more movement ahead of me, except this was in the yard of our farmhouse.
My heart hammered as I spurred my horse and galloped towards the yard. At the same time I saw the unmistakable flare of a torch. Not a lamp, but a torch. The kind of torch you might use if you were intending to set something ablaze. At the same time I saw running figures and in the glare of torchlight saw that they wore hoods.
“Hey,” I shouted, as much to try and wake Mother and Father as to frighten off our attackers.
“Hey,” I yelled again.
A torch arced through the air, twirling end over end, leaving an orange trail in the night sky before landing in a shower of sparks on the thatch of our home. It was dry—tinder dry. We tried to keep it doused in the summer because the risk of fire was so great, but there was always something more important to do and at a guess it hadn’t been done for a week because it went up with a whoompf.
I saw more figures, three, perhaps four. Just as I came into the yard and pulled up, a shape flew at me from the side, hands grabbed my tunic and I was dragged from the back of my horse.
The breath was driven from me as I thumped hard to the ground. Nearby were rocks for a stone wall. Weapons. Then above me loomed a figure that blocked out the moon, hooded, like the others. Before I could react he stooped and I caught a brief impression of the hood fabric pulsing at his mouth as he breathed hard; and then his fist smashed into my face. I twisted and his second blow landed on my neck. Beside him appeared another figure, and I saw a glint of steel, knew I was powerless to do anything and prepared to die. But the first man stopped the new arrival with a simple barked, “No,” and I was saved from the blade at least, but not from the beating, and a boot in my midriff doubled me up.
That boot—I recognized that boot.
Again it came, again, until at last it stopped and my attacker spat and ran off. My hands went to my wounded belly and I rolled onto my front and coughed, the blackness threatening to engulf me. Maybe I’d let it. The idea of sinking into oblivion seemed tempting. Let unconsciousness take the pain. Deliver me into the future.
The sound of running feet as my attackers escaped. Some indistinct shouting. The cries of the disturbed ewes.
But no. I was still alive, wasn’t I? About to kiss steel I’d been given a second chance and that was too good a chance to pass up. I had my parents to save and even then I knew that I was going to make these people pay. The owner of those boots would regret not killing me when he had the chance. Of that I was sure.
I pulled myself up. Smoke drifted across the yard like a bank of incoming fog. One of the barns was already alight. The house too. I needed to wake them, needed to wake my mother and father.
The dirt around me was bathed in the orange glow of the fire. As I stood I was aware of horses’ hooves and swung about to see several riders retreating—riding away from the farmhouse, their job done, the place well alight by then. I snatched up a rock and considered hurling it at one of the riders, but there were more important matters to worry about, and with a grunt that was part effort and part pain, I launched the rock at the top window of the farmhouse.
My aim was true and I prayed it would be enough to rouse my parents. The smoke was thick in the yard, the roar of the flames like an escaped hell. Ewes were screaming in the barns as they burned alive.
At the door they appeared: Father battling his way out of the flames with Mother in his arms. His face was set, his eyes blank. All he could think about was making sure she was safe. After he’d taken Mother out of the reach of the flames and laid her carefully down in the yard near where I stood, he straightened and like me gaped helplessly at the burning building. We hurried over to the barn, where the screams of the ewes had died down, our livestock, Father’s livelihood, gone. Then, his face hot and glowing in the light of the flames, my father did something I’d never seen. He began to cry.
“Father . . .” I reached for him, and he pulled his shoulder away with an angry shrug, and when he turned to me, his face blackened with smoke and streaked by tears he shook with restrained violence, as though it was taking every ounce of his self-control to stop himself from lashing out. From lashing out at me.
“Poison. That’s what you are,” he said through clenched teeth, “poison. The ruin of our lives.”
“Father . . .”
“Get out of here,” he spat. “Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”
Mother stirred as though she was about to protest, and rather than face more upset—rather than be the cause of more upset—I mounted my horse and left.
FOURTEEN
I flew through the night with heartbreak and fury my companions, riding the highway into town and stopping at the Auld Shillelagh, where all this had begun. I staggered inside, one arm still clutching my hurt chest, face throbbing from the beating.
Conversation in the tavern died down. I had their attention.
“I’m looking for Tom Cobleigh and his weasel son,” I managed, breathing hard, glaring at them from beneath my brow. “Have they been in here?”
Backs were turned to me. Shoulders hunched.
“We’ll not have any trouble in here,” said Jack, the landlord, from behind the bar. “We’ve had enough trouble from you to last us a lifetime, thank you very much, Edward Kenway.” He pronounced “thank you very much” as though it were all one word. Thankyouverymuch.
“You know the full meaning of trouble if you’re sheltering the Cobleighs,” I warned, and I strode to the bar, where he reached for something I knew to be there, a sword that hung on a nail out of sight. I got there first, stretched with a movement that sent the pain in my stomach off, but grabbed it and snatched it from its scabbard in one swift movement.
It all happened too quickly for Jack to react. One second he’d been considering reaching for the sword, the next instant that very same sword was being held to his throat, thankyouverymuch.
The light in the inn was low. A fire flickered in the grate, dark shadows pranced on the walls and drinkers regarded me with narrowed, watchful eyes.
“Now tell me,” I said, angling the sword at Jack’s throat, making him wince, “have the Cobleighs been in here tonight?”
“Weren’t you supposed to be leaving on the Emperor tonight?”
It wasn’t Jack; it was somebody else who spoke. Someone I couldn’t see in the gloom. I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Aye, well my plans changed and it’s lucky they did; otherwise, my mother and father would have burned in their beds.” My voice rose. “Is that what you wanted, all of you? Because that’s what would have happened. Did you know about this?”
You could have heard a pin drop in that tavern. From the darkness they regarded me: the eyes of men I’d drunk and fought with, women I’d taken to bed. They kept their secrets. They would continue to keep them.
From outside came the rattle and clank of a cart arriving. Everybody else heard it too. The tension in the tavern seemed to change. It could be the Cobleighs. Here to establish their alibi, perhaps. Still with the sword to his throat, I dragged Jack from behind the bar and to the door of the inn.
“Nobody say a word,” I warned, “nobody say a bloody word and Jack’s throat stays closed. The only person who needs be hurt here tonight is he who took a torch to my father’s farm.”
Voices from outside then. I heard Tom Cobleigh. I positioned myself behind the door just as it opened, with Jack held as shield, the point of the sword digging into his neck. The silence was deathly and instantly noticeable to three men who were a fraction too slow to realize that something was wrong.
What I heard as they came in was Cobleigh’s throaty chuckle dying on his lips, and what I saw was a pair of boots I recognized, boots that belonged to Juli
an. So I stepped out from behind the door and ran him through with the sword.
You should have killed me when you had the chance. I’ll have it on my gravestone.
Arrested in the frame of the door, Julian simply stood and gawped, his eyes wide as he stared, first down at the sword embedded in his chest, then into my eyes. His final sight was of his killer. His final insult to cough gobbets of blood into my face as he died. Not the last man I ever killed. Not by any means. But the first.
“Tom! It’s Kenway!” came a shout from within the tavern, but it was hardly necessary, even for someone as stupid as Tom Cobleigh.
Julian’s eyes went glassy and the light went out of them as he slid off my sword and slumped into the doorway like a bloodied drunk. Behind him stood Tom Cobleigh and his son Seth, mouths agape like men seeing a ghost. All thoughts of a refreshing tankard and a satisfying boast about the night’s entertainment were forgotten as they turned tail and ran.
Julian’s body was in the way and they gained precious seconds as I clambered over him, emerging into the dark on the highway. Seth had tripped and was just picking himself up from the dirt while Tom, not stopping to help his son, had hared across the highway heading for the farmhouse opposite. In a moment I was upon Seth, the blood-streaked sword still in my hand, and it crossed my mind to make him the second man I ever killed. My blood was up and after all, they say the first is hardest. Wouldn’t I be doing the world a favour, ridding it of Seth Cobleigh?
But no. There was mercy. And as well as mercy there was doubt. The chance—slim, but still a chance—that Seth hadn’t been there.
Instead as I passed I brought the hilt of the sword down hard on the back of his head and was rewarded with an outraged, pained scream and the sound of him sprawling, hopefully unconscious, back to the dirt as I dashed past him, arms and legs pumping as I crossed the road in pursuit of Tom.
I know what you’re thinking. I had no proof Tom had been there either. But I just knew. I just knew.
Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Page 6