Song: Courthouse - Iwan Rheon
For as stuffy as the Assassins could be, the initiation party they threw Edward had knocked him flat on his ass.
He woke to a beam of light breaking through the trees. The sun hung in the sky at just the right angle to draw long across his eyeline, rousing him from the depths of his drunken slumber. Pulled somewhere near what could be called consciousness, his eyelids fluttered open, drowsy, and his gaze fell on the pink and orange sky, brimmed by the jungle canopy. He admired how easily their colors faded into one another, how he couldn't quite identify where one ended and the other began, or what the shade between the two might be called. It occurred to him, blearily, that he had slept through most of the day. It was justified, he supposed, given that they had celebrated through most of the night, but he still felt like a tad of a slob in his sauce for it.
He sat up slowly. His head span and his mouth was as dry as the soft earth beneath his fingers. At his feet were the charred remains of a bonfire, each of the coals blackened and free of any lingering warmth. Around the perimeter, he was able to identify the sleeping forms of a number of his friends. To his left, he found Mary asleep on her stomach. Rhona was stretched out perpendicularly on her other side, using the small of her back as a pillow. He smiled warmly. He knew them to be old friends, bonded from their Novice days, but they scarcely saw each other anymore. Rhona headed the Havana bureau those days and Mary seemingly sailed back and forth across every island but Cuba. It warmed his heart to watch them reconnect whenever their paths did cross.
His eyes fell to Mary's left hand, resting gently in front of her face. He could almost imagine her two shortened fingers whole again, the tips hiding in the patchy grass. He reached over and brushed the calloused skin along her knuckles lovingly, cherishing the moment of silent closeness. Stretching out his fingers, he laid them softly between hers. His brand stung, still fresh from the previous night's ceremony but slowly beginning the healing process. It was mirrored on her own ring finger, an inch below the severed tip. The finger held two burn scars in total, one much rougher and older than the other. Her brand was pink and weathered, somewhat jagged around the edges. The Observatory had been surgical in its amputation, but the skin that had healed over the third knuckle was much darker, almost black in the low light of dusk. He was grateful that her Assassin's mark had been spared in the accident.
The first sign of Mary's waking came from her fingers as he studied them. They reached and twisted back to lock with his. Her eyes fluttered open slowly and the muscles along her arm trembled as she stretched her shoulders and back, likely tight from the night's rough accommodations. The motion roused Rhona.
"Blimey," the latter woman complained as she pressed her palm to the side of her head. "How much did you lot let me drink last night?" She wobbled a bit as she pulled slowly into a seated position, supporting herself with her free hand against the dirt.
Edward chuckled and gestured at the spread of empty bottles around their perimeter. Several sat near minute divots in the dirt, as though they'd been thrown down with some force. A few were shattered, leaving behind a brilliant mosaic of brown and green. They'd have to clean those up later, lest Jenny or one of her friends found the shiny shards. "There wasn't much stopping you, mate. And I was in no condition to try, neither."
Mary groaned. "I'm going to hope I didn't drink my full share of those. Not that I can remember enough of the night to be sure." She and Edward laughed together at that, both knowing she had probably, in fact, put the rest of them under the table. He kissed her sweaty brow and she reached out to pull free the sloppy knot of hair at the nape of his neck. She shook it loose with her fingers, knocking out the caked-in clods of earth.
The sound of their voices stirred their sleeping friends at the other end of the ashy fire pit. Adéwalé sat against a tree with his chin to his chest and hands folded across his lap, looking somehow more stately than slovenly. As he stirred, he pushed his drawn hood back and rubbed the sweat off his bare scalp. To his side, Ikal and his partner, Glenna, were curled up together, slowly disentangling from each other's embrace.
"You smell that?" Rhona asked as Edward scrounged through their assortment of bottles in search of some leftover Hair of the Dog.
"Aye," Adé agreed around a yawn, somehow in a perkier state than the rest. "Smells like my supper!" Edward's old quartermaster wasn't often found in his cups and didn't lust for rum as most pirates did, but Kenway suspected that was in part because he didn't feel its effects so strongly as most did.
Together, they all got to their unsteady feet and followed the tempting aroma toward the beach. The enticing odor of the evening's dinner on the fire wafted across the air more strongly when they reached the sandy ship cove, whipped up by gentle coastal winds. Edward's stomach turned unsteadily. He was starving, but at the same time he couldn't imagine keeping anything down for the next week.
They found Jenny sitting opposite Bell, both rolling a wooden ball back and forth between themselves, carving a marginally deeper path in the fine sand with each pass. Massey tended to a pot over a fresh bonfire. The young pair of friends had graciously offered to babysit for the night and day as an initiation present to their captain. It was true, he and Mary made a formidable working team, but their relationship was undeniably colored by their separate and shared responsibilities, both to their crew and to their order. What moments they could find for themselves were more valuable now than any treasure in the Jackdaw's hold. Bell and Massey seemed to understand this. Ever since the duo had begun their Assassin training, they'd become trusted insiders on their crew, among the few to know Mary's true identity. Kenway looked out for his men and it had certainly won him the loyalty of these two.
"What are you drawing up for us tonight?" Mary called out as they approached. She had pulled up her own hair, granting the breeze leave to cool her neck. The evening was a pinch too humid for her liking, Edward knew. He was tempted by the thought of a swim.
"A fine pork stew for the captain!" Massey announced. The lad had always had a taste and talent for the finer aspects of cooking. Their supper was sure to satisfy.
"Jaysus, you all look a right mess!" Bell greeted their group. "I didn't think such a stoic clan had it in them!" He laughed, surely pondering embarrassing events from the night before that none of them would be able to recall.
Mary laughed weakly. "We're not saints, lad, no more so than yourself, and even the Pope likes his wine now and again." She toasted this with a swig from a bottle of grog she had lifted from Massey's cooking equipment.
The salty air whipped up around them with a gentle gust, swirling the smell of the pig all around. Edward pulled Mary tight to his side as they settled onto the sea-bleached logs surrounding the fire. In spite of the pounding in his head, he was bright in spirit. Surrounded by his dearest friends, his family, he was home.
Edward's head broke through the surf. Salt water dripped off his lips as they parted to breathe, some reaching his tongue. The taste, which he used to find unpleasantly intense, he now almost enjoyed. He felt he could finally understand the appeal of the salt licks they used to give the barn animals back in Bristol.
Kicking hard against the current, he pushed back toward his partner. Mary sat in the shallows where the tide rose and gently fell but never fully receded. After their pork feast, the temptation of a twilight swim had been too great to resist. Mary had led him down the beach, leaving their friends behind to tell stories of the night before. They had wandered for some time before coming to the isolated cove where she had spent many days training him when he'd first come to Tulum to stay. Those days seemed a world away now, their reunion in the graveyard and weeks getting reacquainted, preparing for the most ambitious contracts of, hopefully, their lives.
Free from the water's grip, he crouched at her side and pressed a large shard of an opulent shell into her hand. "What about this one?"
Mary grinned at the specimen in her palm. "Might want to dull the edges a bit, but I think it'll make a fine add." She stood, stirring up the sand beneath her and making the water murky. Together, they trudged back to where they had left their bulkier clothes. Mary knelt to add the shard to a small pile of shells and pretty stones they had gathered along their walk to include in Jenny's collection.
Edward collapsed in the sand, exhausted from his dive. The last lights of the setting sun had vanished beyond the world's end, and stars were beginning to pattern the sky in full force. Mary stretched out alongside him, and he inched over to lay his head in the nook between her collarbone and breast. She lifted her hand, pointing at the hazy constellations. "That cluster of five over there..." She gestured at a collection of particularly bright dots. "What do you think the astronomers call them?"
Edward pondered that for a moment. They were arranged a bit like a house, or a square with a pointy hat. "Well that's plainly Turtle Major," he asserted. "You see those trails off the back? The flippers, those are, certainly."
Mary snorted in her laughter. "Aye, I see it."
Edward nodded. "That's not to be confused with Ernest the Fish Man, from the Greek myth about the man who was turned into a fish."
"No?" Mary asked, laughing harder. "Where's he then?"
"Over there," Edward gestured to a constellation to the east.
"What, the row of four? That's just a line, not a fish man!"
Edward shrugged. "Oi, I didn't name them! You'll have to ask the astronomers."
Mary huffed in amusement and kissed the crown of his head. "I love our nights like this," she sighed after a moment, running her hand selfishly across the expanse of his bare chest, wiping away lingering droplets from the sea as she went.
"They are far too few and spaced apart," he agreed with a tone of contentment. He reveled in her closeness. It had been roughly two years since their reunion, and nearly one since admitting their love for one another, but their lifestyle didn't lend itself to gratuitous intimacy. Despite that, or perhaps as a fortunate byproduct of it, he still managed to feel giddy in the moments where he could touch all the lines of her form without watching eyes.
However, laying there in a quiet embrace with eyes growing heavy, something became unsettled within Edward's mind. His heart was intertwined inextricably with Mary's and he carried with him a sense of intimacy, of a mutual, complete knowing of the other. Yet, despite this, he felt a small wedge in the center of that embrace; a trace of their one fundamental disagreement.
"Mary," Edward began, interrupting the easy silence. He anchored himself to the steady rise and fall of her breathing. "I think we should talk about yesterday."
Something in his tone seemed to tip her off to the scene he was thinking of. "I suppose we have to." She lifted a hand to gently run her fingers through his hair. "I'm beginning to suspect we have different plans for Jenny. Would you agree?"
He frowned and, with a deep breath, stated simply, "I don't like the idea of her beginning any training. I don't want this life for her."
Mary huffed, but the sound was warm. "I had worked out as much, though I am left wondering why."
Edward had to admit that he struggled with the why of it. He loved this life, the life he and Mary shared. Neither of them was suited to the civilian way. They'd each come to it in their own unique paths that had led them to each other and had both thoroughly enjoyed most of the journey there. What bits had left their hearts heavy, they carried together. Jennifer, though… she had a chance. Perhaps she had it in her to be soft, to be gentle, to live a life free of blood, pain, and death. "It's dangerous," he concluded. She had become a princess to him, his darling girl. "I want her safe."
He felt Mary nod in sincere agreement. "I want that for her too. I want her free from danger." She pulled away, and they both shifted so that they sat facing one another in the sand. Her look was firm, yet open. "But do you know what's dangerous? Being a woman in a man's world. There are so many perils that lay in the road ahead of her that may never even occur to you, Templars be damned. This girl is going to be able to fend for herself. I want her safe, but not living some sterile existence where she's at the mercy of a husband to vanquish any evil or inconvenience that bedevils her, and to not be that evil, himself. Men fail. Men die. I want freedom for her, Edward. I want liberty and opportunity." She leaned forward for emphasis, resting one forearm on her knee. Her fingers were curled passionately into her palm but there was no aggression in the fist they made.
He reached out for her folded hand, brushing his thumb reassuringly over her scarred and scabbed knuckles. "No one can touch her, Mary," he impressed. "All this time, these years that I have chased power and influence, it's all for her now. All that I am, all that I've become is for you and for her. The whole of our Order dotes on her. Our current resources are unmatched. She's untouchable. We can make certain of it."
Mary narrowed her eyes, and her hand didn't grasp his in return. "You and I have cut down far more powerful folk than ourselves, remember. Resources means nothing if someone with conviction is after you. You can't protect her. Neither can I. We lost her for nearly two years already. I won't have her defenseless if something were to happen to us, not when there's clearly a better way."
He shook his head, unconvinced. "Death is inevitable. Don't think that I don't know that. But I don't want her living the whole of her life preparing for an attempt on it that may well never come. When we go to London, things will be different there. The scores that we've settled in the West Indies won't chase us there. We can build a life for her that's worlds apart from what you and I lived through growing up. Her existence will be one of esteem and ease. Any number of powerful families will clamber to secure her hand for their sons! High-class ladies don't have to fuss about anything more taxing than hosting dinner parties and entertaining their husbands' business partners. How can you not want that for her?"
Mary sighed, visibly weary with his stubborn attitude. "If that's what she wants, I won't begrudge her. But I need her to have options. We can't shield her from everything, though God willing we'll both stay kicking about long enough to try. I don't want her to have to survive as I've had to, but she'll have to know how to fend for herself if the worst comes to pass." She glanced away, gazing out at the dark horizon over the sea.
Edward squeezed her hand. "I'll concede, no woman should be left defenseless. A few of your knife tricks up her sleeve and no common man will dare cross her. I promise you, though. She'll never have to struggle for base survival as you once did."
Mary's eyes broke from the waves and turned back to him. There was a look in them that he hadn't seen in some time, but it set him back on his heels just as quickly as it had in his youth. Sternly, she corrected, "You know as well as I that she won't be up against just common men. She's barely two years hatched, and she's already become collateral damage in a war as old as mankind itself. You can't truly think that an advantageous marriage will save her from her part in it. I know you've seen enough by now to understand the truth. You've come too far. Don't trade one folly for another." Her tone was pointed and left no gaps to expose self-doubt. Her convictions on the matter were clear and certain.
Edward was quiet for a long moment. He didn't have a good response to that argument. Was he, indeed, foolish to think he could separate her from this dark current of history? His view of the conflict was so intimate, he imagined himself part of a privileged few with access to the truth. In his mind, he fantasized of keeping Jenny separate from it all, keeping her a part of the blissfully ignorant many. Perhaps, however, she was born tragically too close to it all. Perhaps it was unavoidable, an inevitability.
With a sigh, he relented. He didn't agree with her, but she was the wind that had always carried him to shore and he couldn't afford to be at odds with her. He knew by now that ignoring her wisdom would leave him adrift. "I've worked on ships since I was just a boy in pursuit of one thing: trying to provide for my family. Whenever I imagined having children with Caroline, I pictured having the ability to drape them in the finest fabrics and pay for the finest tutors just as Caroline's parents had given her. I wanted any daughters I might be given to have the skills necessary to marry well and find someone who would protect them when I no longer can. Never once did I imagine they might learn how to clean blood that wasn't their own from their blouses, or how to sever an artery beyond hope of repair." He laughed darkly. "I wanted so badly to be a proper father, with proper daughters who could fit into society in a way that I have never been able to. I still want that. I want to provide for her and give her the choice of ease that I never had."
Mary sighed, considering his words. "There are many things less easy in this world than the life of an Assassin, Edward. Chiefly among those is a woman without a father or a husband, and it's all too easy to lose those if you have them. I did. If I'd been raised any other more conventional way than how I was, I could very well be working the streets or dead. No amount of money in my father's pocket would have changed that. If you die, Jenny can't inherit a coin of yours. You are right that we live deadly lives, you and I, but that won't change. We've made our oaths. We're in this for life, by choice. Aye, Jenny hasn't chosen this, and I'll be happy enough to give her the option to leave it all behind when she's old enough. Until then, though, I'll be bloody well damned if I'm going to let anyone stop me from giving her every opportunity to make her own way in the world first."
Edward nodded thoughtfully. A choice. A chance. He could live with that. "All right, then. It's settled. We'll raise her as a woman of substance, with every opportunity money can buy. Education, status, all of it. We'll also train her in the ways of the Order. When she comes of age, it'll be up to her to decide what life she wants to lead. Until then, we open every door for her that we can find and close none."
The tension in Mary's fingers relaxed. She nodded slowly, smiling gently. "I think that's a deal I can make."
Edward reached out and brushed her cheek. She raised her eyes to his, and there was peace in them. "I know she's your daughter. She's not my blood, but I see her as my daughter, too. I have every intention of being a father to that girl, and a partner to you. The two of you are my family, and I will always respect your authority when it comes Jenny, but I want to be partners in her rearing. I will take every full responsibility due to the father of a daughter and the husband of a powerful woman."
The slightest smirk touched her lips. "Oh, a husband?" She crawled forward, into his lap, and wrapped her legs around his waist. With her arms draped over his shoulders and her lips on his cheek, she whispered. "I do think I'd like to be married to you."
Guided only by the light of the moon ahead and the bonfire behind, Edward and Mary waded hand-in-hand behind Adéwalé out into the cove. When they were waist deep, Kenway's old quartermaster turned to face them. "Are you ready?" he asked.
"Are you?" his new quartermaster countered. Adé did look a tad nervous.
"Some of us have never participated in a wedding ceremony before. I can only do my best," he countered. Mary and Edward chuckled. They'd both been married before and had been subconsciously preparing for this for some time. Adé had been thrown into the mix just five minutes earlier.
They had decided not to wait any longer. They'd been joined in spirit for months. All that remained was to make it official. They didn't have a minister present, but they did have a ship's captain and open water readily available. Their witnesses watched excitedly behind them from the shore.
Adé took a deep breath, placed a hand of each of their shoulders, and looked up at the sky. "Almighty God, I have brought these souls before you to unite them as one in your eyes." He dropped his gaze back to the couple. "Edward Kenway. Mary Read. Is it your wish to take the vows of marriage?"
They nodded and, with shared smiles, confirmed, "It is."
Adé turned first to Edward, then shrugged. "Alas, I do not know any vows, so I will ask that you make your own."
Edward pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. His first wedding had been in the village chapel, with a proper priest and a strict script. It had been a rather mindless process, to be frank. As he gazed at Mary, he found himself at a total loss for words. What could he possibly say to do justice to the gift she was giving him? Stifling jealousy for the time he was buying Mary to prepare her own words, he eventually stammered the sentiments he had long held private in his heart. "I, Edward, take you, Mary, to be my wedded wife, my partner, and my guide. I have spent many years battling against your wisdom, all for the ruin of myself and those who dare to get close enough to me. I vow to honor your decision to stand by my side by submitting myself, mind and soul, to your love, to your counsel, and to the service of your happiness. With God as my witness, I make this vow to you."
His view of Mary's warm smile of acceptance was obscured by the gathering mist in his eyes. "I, Mary, take you, Edward, to be my wedded husband, my partner, and dearest friend," she responded. Her voice was steady, but had an edge that hinted she, too, was holding back strong emotion. "You have grown into a man I greatly admire and strongly wish to tie myself to for the rest of my days. I vow to walk with you through all of life's terrors, to come with you on every adventure, and to be with you, always, be it in body or in spirit. With God as my witness, I make this vow to you."
The smile Adé gave them showed mingled pride and warmth. "My friends, your souls have been bound together by the Assassin's Creed, and now I have the greatest pleasure of joining them again in the bonds of marriage." He raised his voice so as to be heard by the small throng of onlookers at the fireside. "I now pronounce you Edward and Mary Kenway, man and wife!" Adé nodded to Edward. "Kiss your bride, breddah!"
With a smirk, Mary threw an arm around Edward's neck and pressed her lips forcefully to his. Snickers and joyous whoops from the beach mingled around them with the soft song of the lapping waves. Kenway's heart soared like a seabird as he wound his arms around her waist and pulled her tight to him, never to let go again.
AN: I live in Seattle, which is one of the hardest-hit areas of the US in terms of COVID-19 infections. Hence, I am on lockdown and have plenty of time for writing. The next chapter will be the last, and I am starting on it today. Our journey together is coming to a close after six very long years.
I have other projects in the works, and I'm excited to explore other worlds outside 1700s Assassin's Creed. This story is my heart, though, and I plan to revisit it soon in the form of a Mary POV prequel someday. I don't think I'll ever write another behemoth like this one until I get around to writing an original novel, but this has really shown me what I'm capable of, given the time.
As always, please leave a review if you feel compelled to do so, and shout out to my lovely Beta Reader!
-Drew
