Here be Dragons! - The Diary of a Buccaneer (Part Five)

  • Edward Maltravers was the son of the local magistrate. He was handsome, athletic and charming and he knew it. He was also privileged, arrogant and prejudiced, as occasionally defines such young gentleman, who wear their flaws like badges of honour and seem to lack the simple humility that God gives to many of similar station. Wealth, nobility and privilege can breed greatness: both in action and demeanour. From time to time however, they also produce men like Edward Maltravers, men without honour or compassion, despite their upbringing.

    For the most part the villagers and Edward had little contact. He spent a great deal of his early life closeted away in the Manor House with a string of nannies to tend to his needs. This was followed by boarding schools and, eventually, a commission in the army which saw him stationed many miles to the south of his father's estates. This is not to say that the villagers and Edward Maltravers were strangers.

    The long summer holidays out of boarding school were perhaps the worst. Edward was in the habit of throwing elaborate balls for his school friends; sometimes more than one over the eight weeks between mid July and late September. These balls would often last for days and his guests might stay a few days, a few weeks or the whole summer. They say that birds of a feather flock together and Edward's friends were no more noble or decent than he was.

    They seemed to take the most unnatural delight in belittling those less fortunate than themselves and never missed an opportunity to amuse themselves at another's expense. I myself had felt the cruel sting of their venomous disapproval. In my pride I had responded to their taunts, but soon regretted my decision. A good beating with a riding crop is something you don't easily forget. Being unable to complain about it hurts even more.

    Edward and his friends were, it is fair to say, universally disliked and yet, due to their station in life were never the subject of complaint or criticism to the magistrate himself who, unlike his son, was a decent man and treated everyone with courtesy and respect. It was just a pity that he seemed blind to his son's flaws.

    You can perhaps imagine my horror therefore upon discovering that Edward and my beloved Bessie were to be married.

    Day Eleven: January 5 - The more I sail these waters the more wonders are revealed to me. I have seen islands entirely populated by skeletons, seas that roil with the tentacles of kraken; rising from the depths to swallow ships whole. I have witnessed leviathans that smash vessels to tinder and ghostly ships which emerge from dark waters to harry unsuspecting crews floundering amidst the violence of a terrible tempest.

    Still, my adventures continue to bring great profit and, the odd death aside, I am rising quickly in the esteem of the various factions. I find, in fact, that a life on these waters is greatly rewarding. And it offers opportunities which I can ill afford to miss. You see there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea am I now afloat. And I must take the current when it serves, or lose my ventures.

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