On one occasion I tried to remonstrate with him. “Will you talk with me, Vane? Are you fixed on this madness?”

“Madness?” he responded. “Ain’t nothing mad about a man fighting to survive, is there?”

“I mean you no harm, you corker. Let’s work this out like gentlemen.”

“Ah. God I’ve a bloody headache on account of our jabbering. Now stay back and let me live in peace!”

“I would if you’d stop filching the food I gather, and the water I find.”

“I’ll stop nothing till you’ve paid me back in blood. You was the reason we were out looking for slavers. You was the reason Jack Rackham took my ship!”

You see what I had to contend with? He was losing his mind. He blamed me for things that were plainly his own fault. It was he who had suggested we go after The Observatory. It was he who’d caused our current predicament by killing the slaver captain. I had as much reason to hate him as he had to despise me. The difference between us was that I hadn’t lost my mind. At least not yet, anyway. He was doing his best to remedy that, it seemed. He got crazier and crazier.

“You and your fairy tales got us into this mess, Kenway!”

He stayed in the bushes, like a rodent in the darkened undergrowth, curled up in roots, crouched with his arms around the trunks of trees, crouched in his own stink and watching me with craven eyes. It began to occur to me that Vane might try to kill me. I kept my blades clean and though I didn’t wear them—I’d become accustomed to wearing very little—I kept them close at hand.

Before I knew it he graduated from being a madman ranting at me from within the undergrowth to leaving traps for me.

Until one day I decided I’d enough. I had to kill Charles Vane.

• • •

The morning that I set out to do it was with a heavy heart. I wondered whether it was better to have a madman as a companion than no companion at all. But he was a madman who hated me, and who probably wanted to kill me. It was either me or him.

I found him in a water hole, sitting crouched with his hands between his legs trying to make a fire and singing to himself, some nonsense song.

His back was offered to me, an easy kill, and I tried to tell myself I was being humane by putting him out of his misery as I approached stealthily and activated my blades.

But I couldn’t help myself. I hesitated, and in that moment he sprung his trap, flinging out one arm and tossing hot ashes into my face. As I reeled back he jumped to his feet, cutlass in hand, and the battle was on.

Attack. Parry. Attack. I used my blades as a sword, meeting his steel and replying with my own.

I wondered: did he think of me as betraying him? Probably. His hatred gave him strength and for some moment he was no longer the pathetic troglodyte. But weeks spent crouching in the undergrowth and feeding off what he could steal had weakened him and I disarmed him easily. Instead of killing him then I sheathed my blades, unstrapped them and tossed them away, tearing off my shirt at the same time, and we fought with fists, stripped to the waist.

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 Adewalé, 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?”