Francis led a rather successful life if he dared say so himself. Once he was finally allowed to leave the confines of the school house in Boston, he and his brother both travelled back to New France to find the homestead their parents had built so many years ago. Although they held hope that their sisters would still be managing their farm, they were not surprised to find the house and barn abandoned and decrepit, the roof caving into their home and one side of the barn slanting unsteadily, threatening to fall over. In desperate need of money, the boys couldn't afford the time it would take to rebuild their old homestead and pushing through their grief over their sisters, abandoned it as well, choosing to start a new life the only other way their father taught them.
For years, Francis and Mathieu lived together, hunted together, and travelled across the vast forests of New France together, always coming back to sell the pelts they gathered by the Hudson's Bay or the St. Lawrence, trading them for things they needed like new ammunition or clothes, steady boots, or just a good enough beer to get them through the night.
But Francis grew bored of their life and every time he traded at the Hudson's Bay, he grew more bitter, angrier at the injustices he and his family endured at the hands of the English. As much as he wanted to do something about it, he didn't know what he could do without also jeopardizing his brother's livelihood. If anything happened to his last remaining family, Francis would never forgive himself.
So he kept his bitterness to himself, quietly plotting any possible way he could single-handedly take down the British Empire, until Mathieu never came back one night after he went out to gather firewood. Francis had fallen asleep, expecting to wake up when Mathieu returned but when he woke up in the dead of night and realized that the fire had gone cold, a chilling dread filled Francis. He lit a lantern with what little oil they had left and had spent the rest of the night tracking his brother's trail. By dawn, he had finally found him with his entrails gutted and devoured, blood melting the snow around him and creating a messy, mushy puddle. Bloody tracks lead away from him.
A starving fisher had gotten to him and Francis had failed to protect him as he promised to do so many years ago.
Francis spent that day digging a grave into the cold ground to bury his brother, digging deep into the clay crust of the earth and patting it down tight so no animals could desecrate him any further. He placed a makeshift mound of rocks so he could find him again and give him a proper burial in the spring.
By the time spring came and Francis had finally given Mathieu a proper catholic funeral, he had come up with his plan to get his revenge on the English. After all, hunting year-round wasn't practical-he needed something to make money and kill time in the summers.
And what better way to do so than on the open seas? On one hot May day, Francis was wandering along the St Lawrence, burning what little savings he had made in the winter on wine, ale, and whores. He preferred to sit in the quieter taverns so he could properly savour his drunken state and a delightful conversation with the girl he bought, so when a gruff voice down the counter started retelling about his most recent encounter with pirates, Francis' ears perked. Pirates had become something of a pest in the Caribbean waters, he heard, and the English had become desperate to eradicate them. But anytime they would cut down one unlawful fleet, another would spring in its place to mark their territory.
With a pat on her ass, Francis sent his whore off to fetch her fortune elsewhere to walk over to the sailors.
"Are their any of these pirates close by?" he asked, pretending to be worried for their safeties.
"You bet there are, and they're not hard to find," gruffed the older man. "They're always dirty, stinky, and they have a special gait to them from spending too much time at sea. If the man looks like his teeth have rotted out of his head, you betcha he's a pirate with fucking scurvy."
"But what if they're just merchants?" he then asked.
"If you can't tell the difference between an honest man and a murderer, then I think you have bigger problems than a pirate," laughed the man mockingly, turning back to his drinking buddies to continue his story.
"Right. My apologies," slurred Francis, bitterness creeping into his voice from being ridiculed. His night now tainted by the conversation, he walked out of the tavern to find another quiet place to stew in his misery.
As he walked past one ship after another, he kept his eyes open, watching the sailors carefully. He had never thought twice about them; they've always been in the background of the scenery in his life, blending in with the merchants and the people. He never had any particular need to notice them before.
He truly could not tell if these men were merchants or pirates, but his eyes were open to the possibilities now.
He saw those massive ships the British kept docked in James' Bay. He knew they would fetch a nice fortune among pirates. All he would need to do is gather a band of Frenchmen like himself that wanted to stick it to the English as much as he did, and he knew there were plenty of those around these parts; certainly enough to man a battleship. And when you ask in the right places-such as a warm tavern along the St Lawrence-it was easy to find the right skilled labour for the job.
So soon after his seventeenth birthday, Francis had finally gathered a good-sized band of Frenchmen. Some were young and eager like him, others older and more experienced. Armed with their hunting rifles and with pelts to sell, they went to the Prince of Wales' Fort trading post, farthest from the main British settlement, to sell their wares and begin their conquest. A handful of their men made a fuss at the post, the rest of them snuck up to a Man-O-War battleship that had been docked along the edge of the bay for weeks now. They had memorized the changing of the guards and knew when it would be most practical to impose themselves on their unwelcomed pests invading their lands.
At the front of the line, Francis and his men boarded the ship, slaughtering the lot of them with their sabers and daggers, not wanting to alert other Englishmen nearby with tactless gunfire.
Once the ship was secured, the gang dressed in spare and unsoiled uniforms from the soldiers and set sail to dump their bodies in the middle of the Hudson's Bay. From there, they set sail for the open seas, to take down other British vessels they find, making their living off pillaging and piracy-and a handsome living they did make.
Francis found a sickening thrill in the new life he built: it was an altogether different sort of hunt on a much more massive scale then he could ever imagine as a child. When they saw the Union Jack flapping about in the wind, they would let down their own flags, masquerading as a British vessel and all too easily, they would conquer and slaughter another, his fleet increasing month by month and never running short of food or supplies. Like this, Francis convinced his new crew to follow him full-time, to set aside their lives of hardship hunting in the bitter North and instead seek glory in the uncharted waters separating the Old World and the New.
After a year, with some of his men homesick and missing their families, they finally returned home. Francis felt a strange sort of bitterness at the thought, remembering how his family was slaughtered before him, finding their overgrown, empty shell of a home and his brother's mangled corpse. He felt nothing but hatred for New France and her English neighbours-both have taken everything he ever loved and poisoned it.
Still, he had a duty to his men. He would find a lovely young blond with whom to waste the days away until his crew would come back to him to set their sights on new conquests again.
When the boy in the crow's nest announced land a-hoy, Francis gave the order to hoist the flag and for the men to change into their stolen uniforms. Docking in Hudson's Bay under the guise of a British vessel wouldn't be a problem so long as they remained outside James' Bay, the most heavily guarded part of the waterfront. They anchored their ships just shy of Fort Rupert and they took turns heading out to the mainland in dinghies-they had to have at least one fluent English speaker on board their ships at all times, after all. Impersonating English soldiers would come with a heavy price.
Francis was among the last of them to head to the coast. If he could waste away this little excursion with a belly full of wine and a pretty girl (or two) in his bed, then he would be satisfied.
Arthur was just about finishing his rounds at the top of Fort Rupert's watch tower. He was scowling, irritated that his replacement was already late, causing his grumbling stomach to protest more fiercely than he would like. When his replacement finally did come, Arthur scuffed him upside the head before stalking off without a word, the other boy cursing at his back before Arthur slammed the door on him.
With his musket across his back, Arthur crossed the walkway separating the watch tower and the officer's quarters. He intended to cross it to get to the main gate and head to the barracks where he could finally have a bit of stew and get some sleep.
"You," called a old man by the window, in the middle of a small entourage of older officers that Arthur quickly realized were captains in council with the admiral of his fleet.
Arthur slapped himself into attention. "Y-yes, sir!" he said, his stance, he realized, too stiff.
"A ship has anchored in James' Bay and it's crew is disembarking on our coast. Grab some boys and go investigate," he ordered him dismissively.
Arthur wasn't sure he heard right. "I'm sorry, admiral, but there are only English ships in the Bay," he said. He just came from a shift on the watchtower, after all.
"This one has a tattered flag. I want you to go down there and find out why these imbeciles haven't replaced it yet. They might be pirates for all we know," sneered the old man. "And don't ever question my authority again, Kirkland."
Arthur's lip tightened at the implied threat. "Yes, sir," he said with a customary bow, leaving the officer's quarters. Once he was sure the officers were out of earshot, he grumbled to himself and shushed his empty, protesting stomach.
He was watching the same waters and he didn't notice anything off about the ships anchored there. Still, he was able to acknowledge that he didn't have his commander's trained eye for such things. Arthur went down to the barracks he shared with a handful of other soldiers of his rank and told them of their mission, grabbing some dried meats to stuff down his gullet on the way to the coast.
And deep down, Arthur truly did hope that his commander was right about the pirates, if only to break the relentless monotony that his life as a soldier had become.
