I leaned forward. “I don’t want it to be like this, Ma,” I said quietly.
She smirked. “That was always your trouble, wasn’t it, Edward? Never happy with what you got.”
“No . . .” I began, exasperated, “I mean . . .”
“I know what you mean. You mean you made a mess of things, then you left us to clear up your mess, and now you’ve got some finery about you, and a bit of money, you think you can come back and pay me off. You’re no better than Hague and Scott and their cronies.”
“No, no, it’s not like that.”
“I heard you arrived with a little girl in tow. Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
She pursed her lips and nodded, a little sympathy creeping into her eyes. “It was her who told you about Caroline, was it?”
My fists clenched. “She did.”
“She told you Caroline was sick with the pox, and that her father refused her medicine, and that she ended up wasting away at that house on Hawkins Lane. She told you that, did she?”
“She told me that, Ma, yes.”
She scratched at her head and looked away. “I loved that girl. Caroline. Really loved her. Like a daughter she was to me, until she went away.” She shot me a reproachful look. That was your fault. “I visited the funeral, just to pay my respects, just to stand at the gate, but Scott was there, and all his cronies, Matthew Hague and that Wilson fellow. They ran me off the place. Said I wasn’t welcome.”
“They’ll pay for that, Ma,” I said through clenched teeth. “They’ll pay for what they’ve done.”
She looked quickly at me. “Oh yes? How are they going to pay then, Edward? Tell me that. You going to kill them, are you? With your sword? Your pistols? Word is, they’ve gone into hiding, the men you seek.”
“Ma . . .”
“How many men have died at your hand, eh?” she asked.
I looked at her. The answer, of course, was countless.
She was shaking, I noticed. With fury.
“You think that makes you a man, don’t you?” she said, and I knew her words were about to hurt more than any blade. “But do you know how many men your father killed, Edward? None. Not one. And he was twice the man you are.”
I winced. “Don’t be like this. I know I could have done things differently. I wish I’d done things differently. But I’m back now—back to sort out the mess I made.”
She was shaking her head. “No, no, you don’t understand, Edward. There is no mess anymore. The mess needed sorting out when you left. The mess needed sorting out when your father and I cleared up what remained of our home and tried to start again. It put years on him, Edward. Years. The mess needed sorting out when nobody would trade with us. Not a letter from you. Not a word. Your daughter was born, your father died, and not a peep from the great explorer.”
“You don’t understand. They threatened me. They threatened you. They said if I ever returned, they’d hurt you.”
She pointed. “You did more hurting than they ever could, my son. And now you’re here to stir things up again, are you?”
“Things have got to be put right.”
She stood. “Not in my name, they don’t. I’ll have nothing to do with you.”
She raised her voice to address everybody in the tavern. Only a few would hear her, but word would soon spread.
“You hear that?” she said loudly. “I disown him. The great and famous pirate Edward Kenway, he’s nothing to do with me.”
Hands flat on a tabletop, she leaned forward and hissed, “Now get out, no-son-of-mine. Get out before I tell the soldiers where the pirate Edward Kenway is to be found.”
I left, and when, on the journey back to my boarding-house in Bristol, I realized my cheeks were wet, I allowed myself to cry, grateful for one thing at least. Grateful that there was nobody around to see my tears or hear my wails of grief.
SIXTY-NINE
So—they had gone to ground, the guilty men. Yes, there had been others there that night—the Cobleighs among them—but I had no desire to account for them all. There is little taste in taking the lives of men given orders. The men I wanted gave those orders: Hague, Scott and, of course, the man who left the insignia of the Templar on my face all those years ago. Wilson.
Men who hid from me. Whose guilt was confirmed by the fact that they were hiding from me. Good. Let them shake with fear. That night, all being well, Scott, Wilson and Hague would be dead.
But they knew I was coming, so my investigations would have to be conducted a little more discreetly. When I left my boarding-house the next morning I did so knowing I was beneath the gaze of Templar spies. I ducked into a tavern I knew of old—better than my pursuers, no doubt—and thanked my lucky stars it still had the same rear privy it always had.
By the back-door I held my breath against the stink, quickly stripped off my robes and changed into clothes I’d brought with me from the Jackdaw—clothes I’d last worn many, many moons ago: my long, buttoned-up waistcoat, knee breeches, white stockings and, of course, my slightly battered brown tricorn. And thus attired I left the tavern, emerging on a different street a different person. Just another merchant on his way to market.
I found her there, exactly where I expected, and jogged the basket on her arm so she’d know I was behind her, whispering, “I got your message.”
“Good,” said Rose, without turning her head, bending to inspect flowers. With a quick look left and right, she whipped out a headscarf and tied it over her head.
“Follow me.”
A moment later Rose and I loitered near dilapidated stables in a deserted corner of the market. I glanced at the structure, then back again with a jolt of recognition. I’d stabled my own horse there many years ago. It had been new then, and convenient for the market, but the sprawl of stalls had shifted over the intervening years; its entrances had moved, and the stables had fallen into disuse, fit only for loitering nearby, conducting clandestine meetings, as we were doing.
“You’ve met young Jennifer, have you?” she said.
She shifted the basket on her arm. She’d been a young girl when I first encountered her at The Auld Shillelagh. Ten years later she was still young but missing was that spark, that rebellious streak that made her run away in the first place. A decade of drudgery had done that to her.
And yet, like the glowing sparks of a dying fire, there was some of her old nature left because she’d sent me a letter requesting to meet me, and here she was with things to tell me. Among them, I hoped, the whereabouts of her master and his friends.
“I have,” I told her. “I’ve met my daughter. She’s safe on my ship.
“She has your eyes.”
I nodded. “She has her mother’s beauty.”
“She’s a beautiful girl. We were all very fond of her.”
“But wilful?”
Rose smiled. “Oh, yes. She was determined that she should see you when Mistress Caroline passed away last year.”
“I’m surprised Emmett allowed it.”
Rose chortled drily. “He didn’t, sir. It was the mistress of the house who organized it. Her and Miss Jennifer cooked it up between them. The first his nibs knew of it was when he woke up that morning to find Miss Jennifer gone. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all, sir.”
“Meetings, were there?”
She looked at me. “You could say that, sir, yes.”