Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (22 page)

Let’s call them brute number one and brute number two. Brute number one was left-handed but wanted me to think he’d lead with his right. Brute number two was not quite as combat proficient. Too relaxed. Thought I’d be easily beaten.

“Now where would you be going?” said number one. “Because my friend and I have been watching you, and you’ll have to forgive me for saying but it looks awfully like you’re following Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hornigold and listening in on their conversation . . .”

The Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hornigold in question were oblivious to the work their guards were doing on their behalf. That was good. What wasn’t quite so good was that they were moving off, and I still had much to learn.

So get rid of these guys.

The advantage I had was my hidden blade. It was strapped to my right hand. My sword hung on that side too so I would reach for it with my left. An experienced swordsman would expect my attack to come from that side and would defend himself accordingly. Big brute number one, he was an experienced swordsman. I could see by the way he’d planted one foot slightly in front of the other and angled his body side-on because big brute number one was expecting my sword to be drawn with my left hand (and yet, when the time came he would quickly switch feet, feinting to take me from a different side—I knew that too). Neither knew I had a hidden blade, which would sprout from my right.

So we stared at one another. Mainly me and big brute number one. I made my move. Right hand outstretched as though in protection, but then—
engage blade, strike
—and brute number two was still reaching for his own sword when it pierced his neck. At the same time I’d snatched my sword from my belt with my left hand and was able to defend big brute number one’s first attack, our swords clashing with the force of first impact.

Big brute number two gurgled and died, the blood pumping through fingers he held to his own throat, and now we were on equal footing. I brandished blades and sword at big brute number one and saw that the look he’d worn, a look of confidence—you might even say arrogance—had been replaced by fear.

He should have run. I probably would have caught him, but he should have run anyway. Should have tried to warn his lords and masters that a man was following them. A dangerous man with the skills of an Assassin.

But he didn’t run. He stood to fight, and though he was a man of skill and fought with more intelligence and more bravery than I was used to, it was that pride he could not bear to sacrifice on the streets of Kingston with a crowd of people looking on that ultimately was his undoing. When the end came, which it did, but only after a hard-fought battle, I made sure that for him the end was swift, his pain kept to a minimum.

The bystanders shrank back as I made my escape, swallowed up by the docks, hoping to catch Rogers and Hornigold. I made it, arriving at a quayside and crouching beside two drunks at the harbour wall as they met another man. Laureano Torres. They greeted each other with nods. Supremely aware of their own importance. I ducked my head—
groan, had too much rum—
as his gaze swept past where I sat, then he delivered his news.

“The
Princess
was taken by pirates six weeks ago,” he said. “Insofar as we know, The Sage, Roberts, was still aboard.”

I cursed to myself. If only the men knew how close they’d been to a short holiday in Kingston. But this meant that we were going to have to hunt pirates.

Then they walked and I stood and joined the crowds, following, invisible. Using the Sense. Hearing everything they said. “What of The Sage’s present location? Do we know?” asked Torres.

“Africa, your Excellency,” said Rogers.

“Africa . . . By God, the winds do not favour that route.”

“I concur, Grand Master. I should have sailed there myself. One of my slave galleys would be more than capable of making a swift journey.”

“Slave galley?” said Torres, not happy. “Captain, I asked you to divest yourself of that sick institution.”

“I fail to see the difference between enslaving some men and all men,” said Rogers. “Our aim is to steer the entire course of civilization, is it not?”

“A body enslaved inspires the mind to revolt,” said Torres curtly, “but enslave a man’s mind and his body will trot along naturally.”

Rogers conceded. “A fair point, Grand Master.”

Now they had reached the perimeter of the docks, where they stopped at the entrance to a dilapidated warehouse, watching the activities inside the open door. Men seemed to be disposing of bodies, either clearing them from the warehouse or putting them to one side, perhaps for loading onto a cart or ship. Or, what was more likely, tipping them straight into the sea.

Torres asked the question I wanted answered myself. “What has happened here?”

Rogers smiled thinly. “These were men who resisted our generous requests for blood. Pirates and privateers mostly.”

Torres nodded. “I see.”

I tightened at the thought, looked at the bodies, crooked arms and crooked legs, unseeing eyes. Men no different than me.

“I have been using my King’s Pardon as an excuse to collect samples from as many men as possible,” said Rogers. “When they refuse, I hang them. All within the boundaries of my mandate, of course.”

“Good. For if we cannot keep watch on all the world’s scoundrels, then the seas should be rid of them entirely.”

Now they moved on, heading towards the gang-board of a ship moored nearby. I followed, darting behind a stack of crates to listen.

“Remind me,” said Torres. “Where in Africa are we looking?”

“Principé, sir. A small island,” said Hornigold.

Torres and Rogers strode up the gang-board but Hornigold hung back. Why? Why was he hanging back? And now I saw. With squinted eyes, the practised look of a seafarer, he scanned the horizon and studied the ships anchored like sentinels in the glittering ocean, and his eyes alighted on one ship in particular. And then with a lurch of shock, I realized where we were—within sight of the
Jackdaw
.

Hornigold tensed, his hand went to the hilt of his sword and he turned around slowly. He was looking for me, I knew, guessing that wherever the
Jackdaw
was, I wouldn’t be far away.

“Edward Kenway,” he called out, as his gaze passed around the docks. “Imagine my surprise at seeing your
Jackdaw
anchored here. Have you heard all you came to hear? Will you now go and rescue the poor Sage from our clutching hands?”

In retrospect it was a bit rash, what I did next. But I was unable to think of anything but the fact that Benjamin had been one of us. One of my mentors, a friend of Edward Thatch. Now he worked to try and destroy us. All of that bubbled to the surface in a rage as I emerged from behind the crates to face him.

“A pox on you, traitor. You’ve betrayed us!”

“Because I found a better path,” said Hornigold. Instead of drawing his weapon he signalled with his hand. From the warehouse behind I heard the sound of swords being drawn.

Hornigold continued. “The Templars know order, discipline, structure. But you never could fathom these subtleties. Good-bye, old friend! You were a soldier once! When you fought for something real. Something beyond yourself!”

He left, almost breaking into a run. From the warehouse came his reinforcements and the men closed in behind him, forming a crescent around me.

Taking them by surprise, I started quickly forward, grabbed a sailor who waved his sword to no particular effect and span him, using him as a shield and pushing him forward so that his boots skidded on the harbour stone.

At the same time there was the crack of a pistol and my human shield took a musket ball that was meant for me before I shoved him into the line of men and with my left hand snatched out my first pistol. I shot a heavy in the mouth, holstered it and snatched my second at the same time as I engaged the blade and sliced open a third man’s chest. Discharged the pistol. A wayward shot, it nevertheless did the job and stopped a man bearing a cutlass and sent him falling to the ground with his hands at his stomach.

I crouched and whirled, taking the legs from beneath the next man, finished him with a quick and ruthless blade-punch to the chest. Then I was on my feet, scattering the last two men, their faces portraits in terror, not wishing to join their comrades dead or bleeding on the harbour floor, and ran for my row-boat to get back to the
Jackdaw
.

As I worked the oars back to where my ship was moored I could imagine the conversation with my quartermaster; how he’d remind me that the men didn’t approve of my quest.

They’d approve, though, once we found The Observatory. Once we found The Sage.

And it took me a month, but I did.

JULY 1719

I found him on Principé, one afternoon, in a camp full of corpses.

Now, here’s what I’d learnt about The Sage, whose full name I learned was Bartholomew Roberts, some of which was later told to me by him, some by others.

What I learnt was that we had something in common: we were both Welsh, me from Swansea, him from Casnewydd Bach, and that he had changed his name from John to Bartholomew. That he had gone to sea when he was just thirteen, as a carpenter, before finding himself an object of interest for this secret society known as the Templars.

At the beginning of 1719, with the Templars
and
the Assassins on his tail, The Sage had found himself serving as a third mate on the
Princess
, just as I’d been told, serving under Captain Abraham Plumb.

As I’d learnt in Kingston, in early June the
Princess
had been attacked by pirates in the
Royal Rover
and the
Royal James
, led by Captain Howell Davis. Somehow, Roberts, wily operator that he was, had inveigled himself in with Captain Howell Davis. He’d convinced the pirate captain, also a Welshman, as it happens, that he was a superb navigator, which he might well have been, but he was also able to talk to Captain Davis in Welsh, which created a further bond between the two men.

It was said that Bart Roberts was not keen on becoming a pirate at first. But as you’ll see, he took to his new job like he was born to it.

They landed on Principé. The
Royal Rover
, this was, what with the
Royal James
having to be abandoned with worm damage. So, the
Royal Rover
headed for Principé, and by hoisting British colours, was allowed to dock, where the crew played the part of visiting English sailors.

Now, according to what I heard, Captain Davis came up with a plan to invite the governor of Principé on board the
Rover
on the pretext of giving him lunch, and then as soon as he was aboard take him hostage and demand a huge ransom for his release.

Perfect. Couldn’t fail.

But when Davis took men to meet the governor, they were ambushed along the way.

Which was where I came in.

I crept into the camp, into the deserted scene of the ambush, where the fire had burned down to red embers and scattered around it, one man actually lying in the dying red embers of the fire, his corpse slowly cooking. Scattered around were more bodies. Some were soldiers, some were pirates.

“Captain Kenway?” came a voice, and I span around to see him there: The Sage. Perhaps I would have been pleased to see him; perhaps I would have thought my journey was at an end. If he hadn’t been pointing a gun at me.

At the insistence of his gun barrel I put my hands in the air.

“Another dire situation, Roberts. We must stop meeting like this.”

He smiled grimly.
Does he bear me any ill
will
? I wondered. He had no idea of my plans, after all. A crazy part of me realized that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could read minds.

“Stop following me and your wish would come true,” he said.

“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’s thoughts went now. Evidently deciding I was not a threat, 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 sailors rags and pull on first the breeches of the dead captain, then move to take the shirt as well. The shirt was blood-stained 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 tricorn 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 deck-hand, after all—but unsurprised also, because this was Roberts. The Sage. The tricks up his sleeve were never-ending. 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 deck-hand, 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 labor. 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.