"Doesn't sound much different from intimidation to me."
John shook his head and placed a hand on Edward's shoulder. "Trust me," he said, his eyes serious, "I know."
This first kind hand, after so many seeking to trip Edward up or to stab him in the back, served as a calm wind to his sails, a buoyant driftwood in a treacherous ocean on all sides.
The elation he felt turned to bile in his mouth. How many times must his father's minions betray Edward until he learned his lesson? This John may look nothing like the John that had been his crewmate and confidant for years, but Edward could trust this one no more than he should have trusted the first.
Nigel didn't strike Edward as bright, but it didn't take a bright man to recognize that a gentle hand can lure one closer to a hidden knife. It is especially so when the gentle hand comes after so many harsh ones. John might be in league with Nigel in secret.
He could no more trust John than he could Nigel, or any of the crew aboard the Black Blood. Edward decided he would always have to keep one hand near a blade and sleep with one eye open. Thankfully for him, Edward thought as he eyed Herbert on the quarterdeck, he had a second pair he could rely on.
…
"That was foolish," Herbert said from behind Edward as he did his best to close the stab wound in Edward's back.
Edward winced as the needle passed through his skin for the third time. After so much pain over so many years, the pain of the needle came to him like an old friend whispering jibes and slapping him on the back. If he were mad, he might even say he enjoyed the delicate pain the needle provided, but he wasn't mad, and he jerked as the needle pierced his skin again.
"We're here, aren't we?" Edward said, peering over his shoulder at Herbert's face buried in the task of sewing him up.
Edward was sitting on a box in the hold of the Black Blood, surrounded by shoulder-high stacks of watertight barrels and other boxes of pungent spices. On the side of every barrel and box, Edward noticed the label of a shipping company that operated in the West Indies. He wasn't sure exactly which company it belonged to, but he knew it was one of the larger ones. It spoke to how prolific Calico Jack and the crew aboard this ship were, given the audacity to target one of the companies able to defend against pirates.
"Sit still," Herbert ordered, his tone harsh. As soon as Edward readjusted and complied, he finished the stitch in his back and covered it with a cloth before wrapping a strip around it. "It won't be nearly as good as Alexandre would have done, but it'll hold if you keep the weight off."
"My thanks," Edward said, trying to crane his neck to see the wound and stitching.
"You're lucky it had healed a bit before that incident. It could have been worse. If I didn't know any better, I'd say your father knew what he was doing. The wound was meant to bleed you, and the cut was clean and precise."
Edward spat. "If he wanted to kill me, he could have, easily. That's the point. I think he means for me, for us, to bleed." Edward shook his head. "He had so many chances to make things so bad for us we couldn't recover. When he attacked Bodden Town, he could have stayed behind and attacked again after we anchored. In the tavern, everyone was under his control, but they let us go."
Herbert's mouth was a line, as straight as the horizon at dusk, betraying no curve of emotion. "Any ideas as to why?"
"None," Edward replied.
For a moment, the two sat in silence as Edward donned his blood-stained shirt and coat. He thought it over, recalling everything that they knew about his father.
With his recent remembrance that John had been part of the plot, it wasn't unreasonable to think that John had been sending letters to his father. He'd had the means. He had been the person in charge of selling cargo; he could easily have sent a letter here or there. From there, it was reasonable to think that his father knew his pirate name of Blackbeard and more.
It made sense now why Calico Jack had never retaliated for the killing of one of his commanders, Gregory Dunn, until Edward had finished the task of unlocking the ship. His father was the one who'd given him the ship, and had wanted him to face those trials first.
The thoughts and the rumination itched Edward to the point that he needed to move. He couldn't sit still for a moment longer. He rose to his feet but had to remain bent slightly due to the low ceiling of the hold.
Edward kept his voice low despite being in the hold farthest from where crewmates in the deck above would most likely be. "My father gave me the ship as Benjamin Hornigold with the intent to go about unlocking pieces of it. If I survive, then I become stronger as the ship itself becomes mine. Once that happens, why attack and provoke us? Would he have done it even if we hadn't killed Gregory Dunn? I don't see the purpose."
Herbert shrugged and gestured towards Edward. "Perhaps this is the final test then? Perhaps this would have happened regardless of us attacking Gregory Dunn. I loathe to take advice from him, but Alexandre once said to me, 'People always tell more than they wish to. You need but to listen.'" Herbert tried a French accent but butchered it in the best way possible.
Edward laughed at Herbert for a moment before addressing the quote. "And what am I to listen to, exactly?"
"What did your father say to
