Assassin's creed : Black flag - Bowden Oliver (библиотека книг .txt) 📗

When I had him down I pummelled him, then I caught myself and stopped. I stood, breathing heavily, with blood dripping from my fists. Below me on the ground, Charles Vane. This unkempt, hermit-looking man—and, of course, I stank myself, but I wasn’t as bad as him. I could smell the shit I saw dried on his thighs as he half-rolled on the ground and spat out a tooth on a thin string of saliva, chuckling to himself. Chuckling to himself like a madman.

“You Nancy boy,” he said, “you’ve only done half the job.”

I shook my head. “Is this my reward for believing the best about men? For thinking a bilge rat like you could muster up some sense once in a while? Maybe Hornigold was right. Maybe the world does need men of ambition, to stop the likes of you from messing it all up.”

Charles laughed. “Or maybe you just don’t have the stones to live with no regrets.”

I spat. “Don’t save me a spot in hell, shanker. I ain’t coming soon.”

I left him there and later, when I was able to help myself to a fisherman’s boat, I wondered whether to go and fetch him, but decided against.

God forgive me, but I’d had just about all I could take of Charles bloody Vane.

FORTY-EIGHT

MAY 1719

I arrived home to Inagua after months away, thankful to be alive and glad to see my crew. Even more when I saw how pleased they were to see me. He is alive! The cap’n is alive! They celebrated for days, drank the bay dry, and it gladdened the heart to see.

Mary was there too, but dressed as James Kidd, so I banished all thoughts of her bosoms, called her James when others were present, even Adewale, who rarely left my side when I first returned, as though not wanting to let me out of his sight.

Meanwhile Mary had news of my confederates: Stede Bonnet had been hung at White Point.

Poor old Stede. My merchant friend who evidently changed his mind where pirates were concerned—so much so he’d taken up the life himself. “The gentleman pirate,” they had called him. He’d worn a dressing-gown and worked the routes further north for a while, before meeting Blackbeard on his travels. The pair had teamed up, but because Bonnet was as bad a pirate captain as he was a sailor, which is to say a very bad pirate captain, his crew had mutinied and joined Blackbeard. For Bonnet the final insult was that he had to remain as a “guest” on Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Well, not the “final insult” obviously. The final insult was being caught and hung.

Meanwhile on Nassau—poor, ailing Nassau—James Bonny was spying for Woodes Rogers, bringing more shame upon Anne than her roving eye ever had upon him, while Rogers had struck a mortal blow to the pirates. In a show of strength he’d ordered eight of them be hung on Nassau harbour, and since then his opposition had crumbled. Even a plot to kill him had been half-hearted and easily overthrown.

And—joy of joys—Calico Jack had been captured and the Jackdaw recovered. Turned out the liquor had got the better of Jack. Privateers commissioned by Jamaica’s governor had caught up with him south of Cuba. Jack and his men had gone ashore and were sleeping off the booze under tents when the privateers arrived, so they fled into the jungle and the Jackdaw was recovered. Since then the scurvy dog had crawled back to Nassau where he’d persuaded Rogers to give him a pardon and was hanging around the taverns selling stolen watches and stockings.

“So what now?” said Mary, having delivered her news. “Still chasing your elusive fortune?”

“Aye, and I’m close. I’ve heard The Sage is sailing out of Kingston on a ship called the Princess.”

Mary had stood and was beginning to walk away, headed for the port. “Put your ambition to better use, Kenway. Find The Sage with us.”

The Assassins she meant, of course. There was silence when I thought about them.

“I’ve no stomach for you and your mystics . . . Mary. I want a taste of the good life. An easy life.”

She shook her head and began to walk away. Over her shoulder she said, “No one honest has an easy life, Edward. It’s aching for one that causes the most pain.”

 • • •

If the Princess was sailing out of Kingston, then that was where I needed to be.

And my God, Kingston was beautiful. It had grown from a refugee camp into the largest town in Jamaica, which isn’t to say it was an especially large town, just the largest in Jamaica, the buildings new yet rickety-looking, overlooked by hills populated by beautiful greenery and caressed by a cool sea-breeze that rolled off Port Royal and took some of the sting out of a blistering sun—just some of it, mind. I loved it. In Kingston, I’d look around and wonder if Nassau could have been this way, if we’d stuck at it. If we hadn’t allowed ourselves to be so easily corrupted.

The sea was the clearest blue and it seemed to glitter and hold aloft the ships that were anchored in the bay. For a moment, as I gasped at the beauty of the sea and was reminded of the treasures it held, I thought of Bristol. How I’d stood on the harbour there and looked out to the ocean, dreaming of riches and adventure. The adventure I’d found. The riches? Well, the Jackdaw hadn’t lain completely dormant during my time on Providencia. They’d taken some prizes. Added to what I already had in my coffers, I wasn’t rich, exactly, but neither was I poor. Perhaps I was finally a man of means.

But if I could just find The Observatory.

(Greed, you see, my sweet, is the undoing of many a man.)

Tethered at the quay were row-boats, dandies and yawls, but it wasn’t those I was interested in. I stopped and held a spyglass to my eye, scanning the horizon for signs of a slaver—the Princess—stopping to relish the glorious sight of the Jackdaw, then continued. Citizens and traders bustled past, all wares for sale. Soldiers too. Spaniards, with their blue tunics and tricorns, muskets over their shoulders. A pair of them passed, looking bored and gossiping.

“What’s all this fuss about here? Everyone’s got sticks shoved well up their arse today.”

“Aye, we’re on alert because of some visiting Spaniard. Toreador or Torres or something.”

So he was here. Him and Rogers. Did they know about The Sage on the Princess too?

Then something struck me as very interesting indeed, when I overheard a soldier say, “Do you know what I heard? Governor Rogers and Captain Hornigold are part of a secret society. A secret order made up of Frenchies and Spaniards and Italians and even some Turks.”

Templars, I was thinking, even as I caught sight of Ade beckoning to me. He stood with a sweaty, nervous-looking sailor, who was introduced as working for the Royal Africa Company. A jack-tar persuaded to talk with a surreptitious dagger in his ribs.

“Tell him what you told me,” said Ade.

The sailor looked uncomfortable. As you would, I suppose. “I haven’t seen the Princess for eight weeks or more,” he said. “Meaning she may soon be back.”

We let him go and I mulled over the news. The Princess wasn’t here . . . yet. We could stay, I decided. Bring the men ashore, make sure they behaved themselves, try not to attract too much attention . . .

Adewale pulled me to one side. “I grow tired of chasing these fantasies of yours, Edward. As does the crew.”

That’s all I need. Unrest in the bloody crew.

“Hang in there, man,” I reassured him, “we’re getting close.”

Meanwhile, I had an idea. Find Rogers and Benjamin . . .

 • • •

By sticking close to the harbour I found them, and began tailing them, remembering what I’d been taught by Mary. Staying out of sight and using the Sense to listen to their conversation.