Sum of Memories: Chapter 10.

Chapter 10: Recollections.

“What is a man but the sum of his memories?

August 6, 1715.

“C’è afa.” Rhian Yates sighed as her brother, Cadell Yates, came to lean against the gunwale to her right. “Non mi piace.”

Cadell chuckled. Rhian did not know if he was amused by her statement or her low, gravelly “boy” voice. It took him a moment to reply; Rhian could see him making the mental switch from English to Italian.

“Non è malo, sì?” he countered. “C’è il sole, non fa più caldo, e non piove.”

Rhian shifted restlessly, glancing around at her unofficial watcher. Gregson, though his leg had been removed four days previous, was sitting on the deck, a loaded pistol across his lap, still-sharp eyes fixed upon the Yates siblings where they stood at the gunwale. Sighing, she turned her gaze back out to the rolling sea. There was a sinking feeling in her gut that she simply could not shake.

“Mi dispiace,” she admitted. “Sento colpevole. Io sono colpevole.”

“Non sei colpevole, sorella mia,” Cadell intoned softly. “Non era la tua colpa. Non era la tua colpa completamente.”

Rhian sighed. “Sì, tutto era la mia colpa.” She swallowed. “Oggigiorno, Connor e Edward mi detestano.”

Cadell nudged her with a frown of slight distress. “Ehi. Ehi, non ti detestano.”

“Sì, mi detestano.” She shook her head. “Ho tradito la loro fiducia.” She glanced miserably down at the gunwale. “Erano i miei soli amici, e ho tradito la loro amicizia.”

Cadell took a moment to observe his sister. Then he shook his head and put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her arm gently, comfortingly.

“Tutto sarà giusto,” he murmured as Rhian unconsciously leaned into him. “Vedrai. Tutto sarà giusto.”

“Spero sì.”

Rhian allowed her brother’s solid warmth to soothe her aching heart, even if it was only for the moment. They were silent for a while, each lost in their own thoughts as they gazed upon the rolling sea, felt the damp wind and warm sunlight on their faces, and smelled the salt on the air. Resting her head on her brother’s strong shoulder, Rhian finally closed her eyes, irresistibly drawn into her memories of her youth.

She chuckled quietly as she recalled something.

“C’è?” Cadell inquired, and she felt him nudge her with his chin. She shook her head. Sighing, she made the easy switch back to English.

“I just remembered the day you took me riding for the first time,” she murmured, grinning as she straightened up again. Opening her eyes, Rhian looked over at Cadell. “It was unbearably hot, and you fetched me from the stables right out from under Derwydd’s nose, and we took Gwyn out of town and let her run as fast as she wanted.” Her grin softened to a wistful smile, and she turned her gaze back out to the sea. “I remember that I must have been naught but five or six. It was muggy just like this, but I remember the feel of the wind in my hair, the smell of the grass, and the feeling of utter freedom that came with riding like that.” She paused, and then laughed. “Oh, but Derwydd was furious, do you remember? He tanned my hide, and just about tanned yours, also!”

Cadell barked a laugh. “You remember that? I thought he was going to kill me, regardless of the fact that I was his employer’s son!”

“Why?” Surprised, Rhian and Cadell jumped in unison and turned to face Connor, who had come up behind them without their noticing. Rhian calmed her heartbeat again in less than a second, and warily eyed her former friend.

“’Why’ what?” she inquired, low voice husky from talking so much. Connor did not blink, tawny gaze even as he stared at them.

“Why was Drystan beaten, but you were not?” Connor inquired, shifting his gaze to Cadell. “I was under the impression that the two of you are siblings.”

Cadell glanced at Rhian, who looked at him before shifting uncomfortably. Rhian licked her lips.

“We are,” she replied lightly. “Cadell is my brother, senior to me by three years.”

“Then why were you beaten, and he was not, if you are both the children of the stable-hand’s employer?” Connor challenged her. Rhian sucked in a breath.

“It’s because I was stupid and small and needed to be taught a lesson,” she snapped irritably, and, pulling away from Cadell, she walked off down towards the weather deck, intent on escaping from Connor and Gregson’s watchful gaze.

Cadell trailed after her. Unfortunately, so did Connor. As Rhian glanced back at him with annoyance, Connor frowned at her.

“Edward wanted to speak with you,” he informed her, and Rhian blinked, pausing for a step before she stalked onward.

“Well, I don’t want to speak with him, so he can just go bugger himself,” she groused, and made her way to the ladder so that she could go below. A hand on her shoulder held her back easily; she quickly found her way blocked by her brother’s bulky frame. Glaring up at Cadell, Rhian clenched her fists at her sides, fighting not to plant them on her hips in a very feminine display of indignation.

“Move,” she growled. “I need to go see what I can salvage of my violin.”

“No.” Cadell shook his head. “Your splinters and strings can wait. The captain can’t.” When she continued to glower at him, Cadell sighed. Lowering his voice and switching to Welsh, he said, “Rhian, you need to see Edward. I know you, sister. You need to speak with him, and with Connor, and clear the air a bit."

Rhian growled something unflattering. Then she jerked her arm from her brother's grip and darted around him, descending into the darkness of the lower deck before he could catch her again. As she fled from them, Rhian tried to quell the angry, guilty roiling of her stomach, and hastened to the gun deck, where she had had her violin stowed before the attack. Rounding a post, she glanced around to where she had formerly kept her hammock.

This was the part of the Jackdaw that had not been cleaned by their British captors. Though the holes in the hull and the support beams had all been repaired, splinters and other debris still littered the deck; two of the guns lay decimated against the far side of the ship, now little more than useless heaps of scrap. One other gun was listing to one side, missing a wheel, though it and the remaining guns were all serviceable. And there, in a corner against the near wall, lay a heap of canvas that she recognized. Heart sinking, Rhian went over and knelt beside it, reaching out with hesitant fingertips to gently touch the shapeless form.

The canvas pulled away.

Rhian took a sharp breath as she beheld the remains of her precious violin. The case had been forced open by some impact or another; through it, she could see splintered wood and broken strings, horsehair limp and tangled around pegs that were missing entire chips out of them. Swallowing, she withdrew the case from the canvas sack that held it, and pried the black-lacquered wood box open. The hinges gave a whine of protest, but she managed to gently bully it open.

The violin was unsalvageable. The neck had broken off entirely, the strings had mostly popped, and the body was in several pieces. The bridge was nowhere to be found. Even the fingerboard was cracked and bent at such an angle that it was only barely still a single piece of wood. It was possible that she might be able to use one or two of the pegs, still, but that did her little good without a full violin with which to utilize them. Even the bow was gone, snapped completely in half so that one end, still attached by the bow hairs, had wrapped around the remains of the neck like some kind of noose.

As Rhian swallowed and trailed her fingers across the most intact portion of the body, she took in the familiar flamed pattern of the lacquered wood, now marred by the splintering along the edges. It had been the part of the back where her adoptive parents, Derwydd and Branwyn, had inscribed a message to her after she had informed them that she was going to sea.

Boed i Dduw fendithio eich trafodaethau yn y misoedd a ddaw, Rhian Yates. Derwydd a Branwyn Blevins. 30 Gorffennaf 1708. Be safe-

Part of the inscription had been snapped away. Rhian felt her throat close up as she ran the tips of her fingers over the familiar letters, recalling the look on Branwyn’s face as she had hugged Rhian close before the younger woman had gone down to the docks for the last time.

“You be safe, now. I don’t want to hear from some condolence letter that you’ve gotten yourself killed or drowned at sea. Understand?”

“Yes, mum.”

“And work on that voice of yours. You sound too much like the girl you are. Become a boy.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Better. And make sure that you take good care of yourself. Disease kills sailors just as often as wounds, drowning, and poor nutrition do.”

“Yes, mum.”

“What name have you decided to use?”

“Drystan. Drystan Yates.”

“All right. Be safe, beloved.”

“I will, mum.”

A hand landed upon Rhian’s shoulder. She blinked herself out of her reverie to find that her cheeks had become damp; sniffling slightly, she reached up and dragged the cuff of her sleeve across her face, drying the skin. Then she tossed the rest of her violin into its case, got to her feet, and turned to face Cadell.

“It was Derwydd’s,” she murmured mournfully, eyes glued to the inscribed piece sitting in her palm. “And it was his father’s before him, and belonged to his father’s father before that. He entrusted it to me as though I was his own child, and now it’s gone.”

Cadell gave her an even, understanding look, and squeezed her shoulder. “He’ll just be grateful that it was the violin and not you that got blown to splinters, chwaer. Just as I am.”

Rhian nodded sadly. Already, her fingers itched to dance along fine catgut, her ears longed to listen to the uplifting sounds of the music that she was so fond of playing, her eyes ached to watch the sailors dance and sing and make merry to the sounds that her skilled hands produced. Again, Cadell squeezed her shoulder.

“Are you ready to stop fighting us and go see the captain, now?” he inquired softly, a note of teasing humor in his warm voice. Rhian gave him a small, half-hearted smile.

“I suppose,” she murmured. Cadell nodded, and let the way back up to the weather deck. Rhian trailed silently after him, tucking the inscribed piece of wood into her pocket as she went. Connor was waiting for them back up top, and when he saw the depressed slump to Rhian’s shoulders and the disappointment on her features, his own annoyed frown softened.

“Were you able to salvage anything?” he questioned quietly. Rhian shook her head.

“I might be able to use the pegs, still, but no,” she replied. “It’s in pieces. There’s nothing to be done.” Sighing, she rounded Connor and Cadell, and led the way to the captain’s cabin. “Let’s get this conversation over with.”

Exchanging a glance, the two men trailed after her. Rhian tapped twice on the door. Then she let herself inside.

Edward was sitting in the chair at his desk, which would have been normal, but for the fact that he had the chair turned backwards so that he was straddling it. His chest was braced against the chair back, and he was shirtless, exposing to sight the heavy bandaging around his chest and shoulders. He glanced up as Rhian entered, and she saw that he had been sketching something on a scrap of paper in a shaky hand. Edward’s features lightened from his scowl of concentration when he saw that it was Rhian who had entered. He tucked the paper and charcoal away as she approached him. Behind her, she heard Connor enter, heard Cadell saying that he would await them on the quarterdeck. The door closed.

“Glad to see you finally decided to talk to me,” Edward observed dryly, leaning back a bit so that he could brace his forearms across the back of the chair. Rhian caught his wince at the movement.

“How’s the back?” she asked coolly, crossing her arms over her chest as she came to stand in front of the desk. Edward gave her a look.

“Sore,” he admitted, and then nodded to the cot. “Mind taking a seat so’s I don’t have to look up at you?”

Rhian did as she had been told. Once she had seated herself gingerly on the edge of the cot, she turned her stare back to him, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“What d’you want?” she demanded. “I’m sure Gregson’s missing his entertainment, and I hate to deprive him.”

Edward gave her a slight scowl for her impertinence. “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what?” She got to her feet, agitated, and paced towards the door. Connor crossed his arms over his chest and planted himself in front of it. Rhian scowled. She would not be escaping this conversation, it seemed. She turned her glare on Edward, furious with how they had cornered her.

“How about why the cach you betrayed us!” Edward had dropped all pretense of pleasantness, now, and Rhian swallowed painfully as he glared up at her. The volume of his voice rose and his Welsh accent thickened in accordance with his frustration. “And how about we talk about how you let them keelhaul me, too! And about why you even bothered to help us mutiny! Cach, feinir, I just don’t understand it all!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Her shout startled even her into silence. For a long moment, she and Edward simply stared at each other, stunned. For that short eternity, everything else faded away: Connor went unnoticed in the background, the rocking of the ship on the waves seemed to still, and even the cabin seemed to dim. All Rhian could focus on were Edward’s blue, blue eyes, and the shocked-hurt-disbelieving expression on his rugged features.

Rhian swallowed and turned away, pacing over to the windows at the stern and hugging herself uncertainly as she stared out through the glass that distorted the view of the outside. How could she explain herself properly without either of them trying to kill her, or deciding to maroon her somewhere? Where did she even start?

“What was Cadell referring to when he said that you were beaten as a child but he was not?” Connor’s voice snapped Rhian out of her deliberations, and she stiffened. “I have a feeling that you could probably begin there, if you must.”

Rhian licked her lips. The pace of her breathing picked up, and she glanced around for something with which to distract herself, or with which to distract them. She dimly heard Edward ask for clarification, heard Connor explain what it was that he had overheard between her and Cadell, but she could do nothing to combat the rush of anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her.

A hand landed on her shoulder. Rhian came back to herself to find that she was breathing much too quickly; she was beginning to feel dizzy.

“Drystan!” Connor’s voice calling her name made her focus on him, drove away some of the panic that had nearly overtaken her. “Drystan, breathe.”

Rhian took a deep breath, and then another. The reintroduction of air into her starved lungs made her head rush and left her exhausted; she would have swooned if not for Connor’s strong grip on her shoulders. As it was, he gently guided her back over to sit upon Edward’s cot, and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his own and holding her eyes with his.

“Whatever reason there was for the way in which you were raised, neither Edward nor I will judge you,” Connor told her lowly, but firmly. “That much, I can promise you. We will not judge you for the circumstances of your origins.”

Rhian stared at him in disbelief for a long moment. Then she barked out a bitter laugh and pulled her hands out of his. She finally noticed that she had clenched them into fists; as she gingerly unfolded them, she found that her fingernails had punched straight through the skin of her palms, and were now crusted with drying blood. Oh, well. What were a few more scars to add to her ever-growing collection?

“You will judge me,” she informed him bitterly. “You’ll judge me, just like everyone else has.”

Connor stared at her levelly, but Rhian could not meet his eyes. The shame of the situation nearly overwhelmed her again, and she fought to keep her composure.

“You can tell me,” he told her quietly, and reached up, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, to make her meet his gaze. “I promise you, I will not judge you. Whatever the circumstances, I swear to you by the Creator’s name that I will not judge you.”

Rhian swallowed. Somehow, some way, she believed him. Connor had never been anything but honest with her, and even though she had deceived him and Edward both, she had not done it out of any malicious desire to see them harmed.

Connor, she trusted.

“My father is Berwyn Yates,” she began slowly, keeping her gaze locked with Connor’s tawny eyes. “He’s a merchant, rather successful, too, unless things have gone downhill since the last time we saw each other seven years ago. His wife is Deryn Yates, Cadell’s mother.”

She paused, and allowed that statement to sink in, watching as realization dawned on Edward’s fair features across the room. Rhian nodded slowly, lowering her eyes as the shame washed over her once again.

“My mother, Aderyn Rice, was a servant in my father’s household,” she continued softly. “He took a liking to her at some point. I was born on the first of October in 1691, and my mother died that same day. I was, and always will be, a bastard. Illegitimate. Whichever way you spin it, whatever you want to call it, it makes no difference. My father was an adulterer, and I’m the product of his sins.”

There was a moment of utter silence in the cabin. Rhian felt her cheeks heat as the red wash of shame colored her skin, and tears welled in her eyes before she blinked them back and turned to look out the windows again, hiding her face from them so that they could not see her cry. When she next spoke, her voice was strangled, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue.

“My father was kind enough to acknowledge me as his and give me his name,” she said, but it was with disdain. “And then he gave me to his stable hand, Derwydd, and his wife, Branwen, to raise because Deryn couldn’t stand to look at me and be reminded of her husband’s infidelity.”

Oh, yes. Berwyn Yates had acknowledged her as his daughter. However, that had only ostracized her more. Thanks to Berwyn Yates’s acknowledgement, the community in which she had grown up had known that she had been born as the child of an adulterer, and they had labeled her accordingly. Her ears still rang with the taunts, the names, the scoffs of bastard and worthless and whore and she’ll probably be just like her father, who had no self-control.

“I grew up being called bastard, and whore, and worthless,” she spat bitterly, the words tumbling from her lips like so many stones. “Children would throw rocks at me in the streets because their parents would not stop them from hurting an illegitimate child. I was shooed or kicked away from stands in the marketplace because they thought I would steal their goods. And despite the fact that Derwydd and Branwyn loved me as their own, I was always made very, very aware that I would never be accepted, and that other, more upstanding people would never help a child of sin.”

She pushed Connor away, then, and got to her feet so that she could stalk back over to the stern windows, taking a deep, shaking breath as she leaned against the sill and allowed her forehead to rest against the foggy panes of glass. The tears trickled, hot and shameful, down her cheeks, and she took a steadying breath to hide the fact that she was actually crying.

God, but Rhian hated crying.

“I learned early on that I had few people to rely on aside from myself,” she continued quietly. “I was blessed with Derwydd and Branwyn, doubly blessed when Cadell decided that he loved me despite the circumstances of my birth, and triply blessed when Berwyn turned a blind eye to the fact that my brother wanted to be my brother and acknowledge me as his sister.” She paused, and choked out a chuckle. “I can’t tell you the number of times Cadell and I came home from the market with black eyes or split lips because I would be picked on, and he would stand up for me and get beaten for it.” Her voice lowered. “He is an amazing brother, even today.”

Breathing steadily, she reached up and swiped her hand across her face. “But I learned my lesson well, the lesson they were trying to teach me. And that was that I had to do whatever I had to do to survive, to be strong enough to rise above the stigma of my birth and survive and thrive. And if that meant that I would have to betray someone who trusted me, then I would betray someone who trusted me.”

Rhian finally turned to look back at Connor and Edward. Connor had seated himself on the side of the cot, and was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face; Edward, likewise, was impassive, though his gaze bored into her in such a way that Rhian felt as though he was staring into her very soul. For a second, she thought she saw his eyes flash golden. Then the moment was gone, and Rhian chalked it up to a trick of the light.

“Survival is what I do for a living,” she murmured, staring pathetically into Edward’s ocean-blue gaze as she referenced the conversation that they had had on the day when the British privateers had attacked and caught them. “The day of the attack, I overheard Javier and Marco talking about a plan of some kind, and I heard Estevan’s voice for a brief moment before they hushed themselves. Shortly thereafter, I found the hammocks dragging behind the ship, cut them loose, and realized that we were missing some barrels of supplies. I had no solid proof of their guilt, however, and as I had sailed with them two years previously, I didn’t want to betray them.”

Edward’s eyes flashed golden again. This time, Rhian was certain that it had not been a trick of the light, and she blinked in surprise.

“So, what?” he demanded, his voice a low growl. “You decided that you were more loyal to them? Is that it?”

“No!” Rhian felt the tears well up again, and hastily turned away, squeezing her eyes shut and dragging her sleeve across her face. “I didn’t want to betray anyone!”

She tried to stem the flow of her tears, but they would not be stopped. They streamed down her face in earnest, and her breathing hitched until she started hiccupping. Ashamed, she yanked the sleeves of her shirt down over her hands, and pressed her palms into her closed eyes, catching the tears as they welled there and overflowed.

“By the time I realized for certain what they’d done, it was already too late,” she choked out. The words caught in her throat, and she coughed to get them clear. “You two had already gone to try to disable the ships, and when they boarded us…” She took a shaking breath. “When they boarded us, I knew that it was either feign treachery and help the British, keep some autonomy, and survive, or resist and be killed. I chose to live.”

She went quiet for a moment, the cabin silent but for her shuddering gasps and the odd hiccup or sniffle as she unsuccessfully tried to fight back the tears. When she finally spoke again, Rhian had more or less calmed her breathing, though the tears were still dampening her shirtsleeves.

“So the British believed that I had betrayed you,” she concluded quietly. “They allowed me to retain some autonomy, and when I could, I brought medical supplies to you for Edward’s wound. I brought Cadell over to my side, and together, we planned how to help the Jackdaws retake the ship. The day you were keelhauled, I was over on the Sophie with Cadell, preparing the diversion.”

“The fire in the rigging,” Connor realized, voice soft. Rhian nodded shakily.

“It was my idea,” she admitted. “I had just fired the pitch and was about to throw it across the deck when Estevan and the others found me. They held a gun on me, and might have killed me had Cadell not come up behind them and knocked two of them out. I disabled the two closest to me, which left Estevan and Javier. Cadell pulled his pistols on them, and they surrendered without much more than some unoriginal cursing.” Rhian took another deep breath, calming slightly. “We bound them into one of the boats and set the rigging alight. Then we rowed over to the Jackdaw. You know the rest.”

She did not look at them, could not bear to see the condemnation in their eyes. Rhian knew that what she had done was unforgiveable; treachery, however it was intended, was a horrible crime to commit against one’s friends, and her betrayal had nearly culminated in Edward’s death. For them to forgive her was too much to ask for; for them to allow her to remain unpunished was inconceivable.

For a long time, the cabin was silent. Rhian eventually stemmed the flooding of her eyes and was able to brace her hands against the sternside windowsill once more. After a moment, her fingers found the scrap of inscribed wood that was all that she had been able to salvage from her precious violin. Withdrawing it from the folds of her vest, she studied it for a long moment. Then her eyes began to sting once more, and she braced her hand against the sill again, turning her gaze back out to the sea beyond the wavering glass. For their parts, Connor and Edward were quiet, more than likely absorbing the tale she had told them and judging for themselves whether or not she was being truthful. Rhian, herself, knew it to be the honest to God truth. The other two, however, had no such reassurance.

At length, Rhian heard one of them release a long breath, and tensed. Here it came: the judgment, the rancor, the vitriol was about to spew. They would condemn her, she just knew it: whether to a life on shore or to death, it made little difference. If they killed her today, at least it would be quick. If they left her in a port or marooned her, she would die sooner rather than later. If a gang did not decide to murder her, she would probably waste away before long. Rhian had been at sea too long to leave. The ocean was now as much a part of her as her own heart. Just as a person would die without their heart, so would Rhian Yates die without the open sea.

“We’ll drop you in Nassau.” And there it was, ringing like a cannon shot in her ears. Rhian closed her eyes and swallowed, acid roiling in her stomach as the world seemed to rock around her. “Should you decide to go back to the sea, I’m sure there are plenty of ships that’ll take you on. Go gather what’s left of your things. We dock in 20 minutes.”

Rhian swallowed thickly and nodded, turning around and heading for the door in silence. She kept her head down, her shame too strong to allow her to meet their gazes. As she left the cabin and closed the door behind her, she glimpsed Cadell turning towards her from where he was leaning against the bulkhead just outside. As she brushed past him, she heard him take a breath.

“Drystan, what-?”

Rhian said nothing, but descended quickly below, desperate for the darkness and silence of the hold where none of the crew could see her despair.

God in Heaven, but she hated crying.

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“You do not believe her?”

Connor’s question cut through the silence of Edward’s cabin, and the older man sighed silently, feeling the weight of the stone in his gut even more than he already had been. He was sitting on his cot, laboriously pulling on his boots and a shirt; Connor had walked out on him in silence not too long after Drystan had left, and Edward had not had the heart to call back either of them. No, not after the judgment he had just passed not 15 minutes before.

“It’s not a matter of whether I believe her or not,” he said, shoulders slumping after he finally got his arms through his shirtsleeves. A sick feeling sent acid skittering up his throat for a second before he swallowed it back down. “She betrayed us to save her own skin. Whether it was well-intentioned or not doesn’t matter. It’s the fact of her betrayal.”

Connor folded his arms over his chest, frowning thoughtfully down at the captain. Edward wondered what the darker man was seeing.

“Are you certain that you would not rather keep her aboard?” Connor inquired quietly. When Edward just gave him a bleak look, Connor’s lips thinned. “I understand your position, Captain. Trust me, I understand. However, given the current state of crew morale and your own physical and emotional state, I wonder if it would not be wiser to show a little mercy.”

Edward gave a half-hearted little scoff, but his gaze was distant as he contemplated the question.

“I’ve already shown her as much mercy as I can afford to,” he murmured, and the words were ash in his mouth. The hollowness in his chest grew to a tangible ache. “At any rate, I have to go on the account again, so I’m sure she’ll be… be replaced soon enough…”

He took a strangely shaky breath, wondering why it was that his eyes were burning. Perhaps it was because he empathized with her situation to a startling degree, or because despite her betrayal, she was still one of his two best friends in the world. After Connor left, she would be his only best friend in the world, and now Edward had been forced to throw away all of it.

“Edward.” Edward looked up at the soft murmur of his name to find that Connor was staring down at him in sympathy. Edward shook his head and got to his feet with a grunt of effort and pain as his wounds tugged.

“Don’t, lad,” he said. “Don’t make this harder than it’s already going to be.”

But Connor would not be swayed. Maybe he was Edward’s descendant, after all, with all the bull-headedness he displayed. Cach, but he reminded Edward of his mother, sometimes, with that stubborn set of his jaw.

“You need her.” Connor’s statement was sure, as was the determination in his tawny eyes. “You need her, and she needs you. Even I can see that.”

“We don’t need each other, lad,” Edward replied, sighing as he walked over to the peg upon which his robes hung. The heavy, blue and white cloth seemed rougher than usual against his skin as he brushed his fingertips across it before taking them down to don the garments. “Drystan’s a strong girl. She don’t need my help to get through the world.”

“Yes, she does!” Connor exclaimed, startling Edward with the forcefulness of it. Connor was all but glaring at Edward as he lowered his voice back down to a reasonable level. “You may not see it, but Drystan has come to rely on you for more than just physical support. You are one of her only friends in the world, just as she is one of yours.”

Edward scowled and opened his mouth to refute it. Then he realized that he could not argue at all, and closed it again, sighing as he thought about it.

Damn it all, but Connor was right. Edward might talk tough and act tough, but in reality, he had so few people that he trusted that he could not afford to lose any of them. When Connor left them to go back to his own time (as unbelievable as that still seemed), Edward would be all but alone in this hemisphere of the world. Sure, he had Edward Teach and Ben Hornigold who he could, to some extent, rely on in a fight, but they were mentors, allies. Not friends. Not like Drystan was, like Connor was.

The weight of the robes hanging from his shoulders seemed all the heavier, in that moment, as Edward finished with his buttons and leathers and absently wandered over to the windows at the stern. Through the cloudy, swirling glass, he could make out the vague shapes of the rolling sea and the other ships that were sailing in to dock; beyond them, he could see the other side of the island where it curved around, and the houses that fronted the water of Nassau’s port.

On the other hand, Edward thought, Drystan had betrayed them when her own life was in peril. Such a thing proved that she cared more about her life than she did for the lives of her Captain, friends, and crewmates. She was a loose cannon, a danger to them all. How could he trust her again? …But she had also orchestrated the distraction that allowed his crew to rebel against their captors and take back their ship. She had risked her life, had indeed nearly lost it in the process of freeing them, and also saved his own life when she had gotten the medicine to Connor and Gibbs to use on Edward. From what Connor had told him, she had breathed for Edward when he had stopped breathing on his own power. She had watched over him for the 10 days it had taken for him to wake after the keelhauling. And if that did not show that she was still his friend, if not his best friend, then he did not know what did.

Better to marry your best friend than to end up like… like me. Me and Caroline, that is.

That was what he had told Connor after the night in Havana when Drystan had been poisoned. Edward did not think he felt such for Drystan, no, but she was still his best friend. He still… still…

God in Heaven, but Edward loved her, in a way.

Still undecided, Edward sighed heavily and leaned against the windowsill, closing his eyes and allowing his forehead to come to rest on the cool panes of glass.

His hand brushed something hard, sharp and uneven. Edward frowned and opened his eyes. It was a piece of dark wood, the flamed pattern of it unmistakable despite the fact that it was no longer part of its larger body. The edges were rough and splintered, the varnish flaking off with every sliver of wood that separated from the rest of the piece. Feeling a little melancholy, Edward picked it up, turning it over in his hands under the weak light filtering in from outside.

Boed i Ddu-

What?

Edward tilted the piece again, so that the light hit it at just the right angle. There was an inscription on the wood, engraved into the piece and then varnished again so that it would not stand out as obvious to the casual observer. Cach, but Edward cursed his inability to read, then. If the letters and the few numbers he was seeing were anything to go by, it had been a personal inscription to the owner of the wood, and in turn, the violin of which it had been a part. Edward glanced up again, heart thudding faster in his chest, and spun away from the window, piece of wood in hand, to finish arming himself.

“Call Cadell in here,” Edward instructed Connor. Connor looked confused for a second, and then he went to do as he had been told. Three of four pistols were loaded and in their holsters before Connor returned, and Edward looked up from ramming the shot into the last one as the younger man entered the cabin. When he saw the frown on Connor’s face, Edward’s heart dropped like a stone into the pit of his stomach.

“They’ve left,” he realized, and then swore, finishing the loading of the pistol and jamming it into the harness across his chest. A moment later, he had sheathed both his cutlasses at either hip, and had crossed the cabin to the niche between his sea chest and the wall, where a black shape rested snugly. Edward painfully leaned down and pulled the item from its resting place.

The violin case was made of mahogany, and Edward knew the instrument inside to be without an aesthetic equal, now that Drystan’s had been destroyed. It was full-size, the bow was in good condition, and the strings might need replacing, but that was easily done. Edward had not played in at least six months, now. He figured that he would probably not play again anytime soon. Hell, he had picked the damn thing up in a raid back in 1713, soon after the Treaties had made him an outlaw. It had been obvious that it was a fine instrument, but Edward had never had any real skill with it.

Maybe it was time to pass it along to an owner who would use it and love it more than he did.

Edward turned to Connor, finding that the other man had quickly donned his own robes and had pulled his hood up over his head. Connor was armed with his usual ensemble.

“Let’s go see if we can catch them,” Edward said quietly, and headed for the door. A quick word to Gregson and Gibbs later, and the two men were ashore, weaving through the crowds with an expertise known only to errant seafarers like themselves. The docks, of course, were packed full to bursting; the people of Nassau were rowdier than the ones at the Havana docks, being as Nassau was a pirate port. It took the pair a good ten minutes to break through to the streets beyond. They had seen neither of the Yates siblings among the crowds, so Edward surmised that they would have to start by searching the taverns and inns along the waterfront, see if either of the Yateses had gone to find another pirate captain who was on the account.

“You take the inns and taverns on that side of the street,” Edward instructed, pointing to the opposite side from where they were. “I’ll take this side. Ask if anyone of their description has been seen, or has been asking about ships to sign on to. Meet me back here in an hour.”

“Right.” Connor nodded, and vanished to do as he had been told. Edward, for his part, went off to do as he had said he would, feeling every step as a knife in his back and a stone in his gut. Every second that passed was one more second during which Drystan and Cadell Yates could disappear forever, and Edward knew that Cadell, at least, wanted to go back to the British Navy. If he talked Drystan into doing the same, of if she signed on with another pirate ship, Edward knew that his chances of seeing her again were slim to none.

Edward found that he had to fight down a surge of nausea at the thought.

As he entered the first tavern, he asked himself, why do I care so much whether or not I see her again? And as he asked the barkeep if he had seen anyone fitting Drystan and Cadell’s descriptions, Edward found that he had no answer to the question. All he knew was that he could not allow things to end like this; he had made a mistake in sending her away, and he could not bear the thought that they would part so poorly. Upon receiving the barkeep’s negative answer, Edward let it be known that he was on the account, or recruiting, and went on his way. The second tavern turned up similar results, as did the third building, an inn. By the time he got to the fourth, Edward was fighting back the despair that was building in his chest.

How could two people who wanted to be found disappear so quickly?

Drystan and her brother were not in the third tavern, either, and Edward sighed dejectedly before telling the barkeep that he was on the account, and that anybody who wanted to sign on to his crew should go to the first tavern on the street, and that he and his first mate would be there until the morning. Then he left and headed back down the street to where he could see Connor waiting for him. Approaching the darker man, Edward looked half-hopefully to him. Connor just shook his head solemnly.

“They have not been through this street,” he informed Edward. “It might be that they headed down another street somewhere. I doubt that we will find them easily.”

Edward gave a short nod and, beckoning for Connor to follow him, led the way to the first tavern on the street.

“I don’t have the strength to go traipsing all around Nassau,” Edward informed him quietly. “My back just won’t allow it. I also have to stay in one location for the majority of the night so’s anyone who wants to sign on can do so. We have fifty men to replace, after all.”

Connor nodded silently, and slanted a sidelong glance at Edward as they paused in front of the tavern.

“I hear that I am very good at finding people, whether they desire to be found or not,” he hinted. Edward returned the glance.

“It wouldn’t hurt to have an ear to the ground for recent happenings,” he replied. “Go have a look around, if you can. I’ll be here until dawn.”

Connor nodded again, and then he vanished into the darkening street, blending seamlessly with the crowds. Edward just tried to fight down the hollowness in his chest as he entered the tavern and sat down at the bar with the violin case propped up between his feet, ordering a pint of ale to tide him over to the morning.

It would be a very long night. Edward just hoped that Connor would be able to find Drystan and Cadell, if only so that Edward could apologize to his best friend.

God, he hoped that he could see her, one last time… If only…