Chapter 2 - Leaving Marseille

“Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good you have done and will do hereafter, and let my gratitude rest in the shade with your kindness.”
He stepped from the small shallop that bobbed in the water like a cork alongside the ladder that ascended the side to the deck of the Yacht, upon to which he sprung with that vitality so common and recognisable to that of a sailor. Striding along the boards of the deck, he made his way along the taffrail to the rear of his Yacht, as the bowlines were loosed, recovered and stowed. The main sails and stay-sails were set as the boat gracefully lifted under foot like a bird taking to wing as the wind filled her sails. Gliding out of the harbour.
He watched, leaning on the taffrail, as Marseille blurred into the purple haze of the stormy sunset that pursued them. He had given the order for the Yacht and Jacopo’s new vessel to put to sea, with a heavy heart and still his final words rang in his ears “Farewell kindness, humanity and gratitude! Farewell to all feelings that expand upon the heart! I have been heaven’s substitute to recompense the good - now the God of Vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!” He meditated upon his future.
The striking silhouette, posed by that of a figure deep in contemplation at the quarter deck rail, looked disheartened and dejected. Brow furrowed, plunging the eyes into deep shadow, appearing to an on-looker as though they were deep pools; ominous like those of the discarded skull spoken to by Hamlet; Starkly contrasted that of the pale, white skin of the man who had for so long been removed from the graces of the sun. At his back could be seen, arrayed like the horde of a conquering army on the edge of a decisive victory, a writhing tempest of storm clouds poised to consume. Swelling at the edge of the consciousness, they reflected the shift in the figures countenance.
At his face, lashed by the wind, could be seen the dwindling daylight fading and colouring as it moved through the shades of oranges, reds and into deep blues and purples; highlighting the furrows of his scowl. Even the elements seemed to reflect the sullen brooding mood of this man who at his own whim was to set the world alight and change the lives of many.
*   * *
Spray flecked up from the rolling roilling sea, churned to surf it breached on the side of the yacht and filled the view of those pupils that stared intently out to sea...

I stand here atop a hill,
I ponder on what was,
What will and what might be ... and wonder.
Wonder upon what more there is to come.
I cover life’s mysteries, life’s fatalities, life's virtues with a veil
…and a thought is born.
What lays in store for me?
It is a mystery, but the seeds are sown and they are growing, distending amid infiltrating enemies,
they manipulate their very environment.
Where will I meet my end?
What’s thought of, … has passed.

What will my next adventure be?
Will it be as great as the last!
I’m feeling lucky, but I feel… divorced.
...Life...
It pools off of me like sullen rain.
People deserve life more than I,
I have wasted so much in a cage.
All children are snatched away.
But no child deserves to die… not yet anyway.
And no parent should have to experience the loss.
I wish our children never had to suffer.
No child to suffer illness
No child to sound the cry of unhappiness
They all would be our little princes.
But I have none to keep.

A memory, only fleeting passes into thought... my father, an old soldier, one of Napoleans pair of boots, my inspiration for going to sea. A memory stands out from the grey dysentery of memory.
The voice coming through, over riding it all. Deep, sullen and heavy with recollection of memories of it's own. The voice of an old man clearly worn out, but not finished or
lost in doubt. It's resolution and perserverence move a kin to a judge passing a slow and painful sentence, he described to me.... he described it to me....

"We were in a little room...I’m sitting here...he’s sitting there..." I remembered the way he flicked his finger pointing it at the empty leather backed chair that sat opposite him.
"She had him. She had him tortured. Rung out his bones to ribbons. She had even slammed a bullet into his hand. He had given her his heart."
My father held up his hand as though inspecting the hole made, as though it stood there gaping.
"No fingernails. He had chewed them bare. It’s incredibly hot. I’m very tired and all I want to do is get this over with and get back home to my bed. Things weren’t going well with my own affairs."
I remember flinching, just a little, he didn't seem to notice, lost how he was in the past.
"I give him the usual pitch... 'Come on now she won't give you a comfortable life. After what's happened you can catch your next boat and fly home and be shot, like Buvoir, Leclair,
Muran... you know what they think of traitors."
I remember how he stared at that chair... as if expecting an answer, I remember finding myself turning to the
chair for a response. It's yawning emptyness, seemed filled with anothers presence.
"What did he say?" I muttered after a pause of moments,
My father didn’t answer - he just continued to stare at the chair - Oh how I remember how the silence stretched - it all became very surreal. like two enemies at a stand off. Waiting for the other to make the first move.
Then, to the chair, my father said, "Think of your wife. You have a wife, don’t you? Here I brought you some tobacco, by the way." My father mimed placing the pouch he had drawn from his coat pocket on an invisible table, between him and the chair. "Here, use my pipe. Fill it as you will." He mimed placing the ivory pipe on the table beside the pouch. "We could arrange for her to join you, we have a lot of friends to, with debts to trade. If you go back, she’ll be ostracised and then murdered. Think of her. Think about how much she...”
He breaks off in sudden impatience with himself. I remember how he pursed his coarse lips, and the stubble of the days growth, was pinched in those lines of age that form about the lips.
"I kept harping on about the damn wife!  Telling him more about me, than... Should have walked out, of course, but for some reason... it seemed important... I didn't realise the futility..." Specticles flash in the light of the candles "So I go on. I knew he was a heavy-smoker," my father gestures from the table to his compatriot "help yourself," a worn weathered finger traces the edge of his lips, so dry, like sand paper... "We’re not so very different you and I..."
I watch my father intently as he makes a vague “Etcetera” gesture, staring deeply now into the depths of the empty chair ... there was something very unsettling about it, as if somehow it acquired a ghost.
I sit quite still, clearly forgotten, my father rallies against the chair "Look, we’ve both spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another. Prising and exploiting where we can. Don’t you think it’s time to recognise
there is as little worth on your side as there is on mine?" Silence. My father sat back, dropping the game that had been playing out before me. "Never ... said ... a word. Not one word. Next morning he got back on his
boat, gave the pouch of tobacco back to me, untouched - and this mind was a heavy-smoker - and sailed off to what he presumed would be his death. He kept my ivory pipe though. It was a gift - "To
Edward, from Anne. All my love." My mother.
I remember still staring at the chair, a little awe-struck. How suddenly close the story felt. "That was .....?"
"Yes"
"...and he went back to die rather than give in?"
"Yes. And that’s how I know he can be beaten ... Because he’s a sentalmentalist. The sentalmentalist is always concealing a secret doubt."
"What did he look like?"
"That’s the thing. I can’t remember." His spade like hand rubbed at his forhead removing the cold sweat brought on by the memory, and recalling it with it's consequences that followed. Hindsight is a cruel thing. I could see how it weighed upon him as he stood up, crossed the room to the side board, embarrassed by what he had recalled. His back to me.
"After today, Edmond. After what you now know. you have to assume your mother is lost. If there’s anything you need to ask, ask it now before my memories are locked up ... now’s the time.
I never asked, I only sat in silence. He waited. Then I heard the chink of ceramic on glass. The slosh and gurgle of liquid. The aroma filling the room as he poured himself wine and proceeded to get drunk.

So, I lived life looking for the next thrill!
I forgot my mother. And so I became a sailor, whilst my enemeis a tailor, soldier and money maker.
My life so far ... It’s not even really about me,
Or where I’ve ever stood
There’s just so many things,
I would change if I could.
Mothers would never have to
Bury their children because of me,
no child would see such cruelty or ever be in pain
no child would ever cry a tear for me
nor see their friends slain.
Not having friends makes the murder easier
everyone would be happy if I were not here.
But revenge has over taken me.
There would be no such trends, no melancholy
but I guess I’m thinking idyllic dystopian fantasy.
and it has deluded me by infecting my thought.
Just to think …
… that this could ever of happened
we'd never have lost our innocence as children,
gone as it so easily is, in a blink!
We grow up and we are labelled, categorised on our decisions
but that’s the way it is.
The way it has been
And the way it will forever be.
life is, on whole, pain, heart-ache and suffering.
We are all just here for the ride, even though
We try to soothe it often to the detriment of others.
We are all ridding that one big long train,
Soon it will be my time to get off
And an old friend will great me on the platform.
In shuffling shoes, I will be.
Wrapping me in his cloak, and showing me the next door.
I guess things are just sad sometimes
and without struggle we’d never experience what is hidden within.
what is really happening to me?
What daemon is hiding underneath my skin?!
*   * *
Jacopo shivered with fear as he looked on at this visage of a former man he had known before this change in temperament. A man who now showed his true nature and physical presence to be empty of love. Jacopo feared the idea of what might crowed that brain, for they surely were actions of vengeance, anger and hatred; as this showed, it seemed his very soul had left him, to search the heavens for answers, whilst the body was sold to the devil. He feared what this man had become, would become, threatened to do, was going to do. He knew that at that very man’s gratitude and kindness, which was given with one hand and had found him humanity and loyalty in Jacopo; he was going to take from others with the other. Meaning great experiences of hardships and difficulties untold were still ahead. If he was to achieve his cruel, diabolical, vengeful aims his current attitude hinted to, he Jacopo would follow him into hell and would do anything asked of him. He bit his lip and tasted that metallic tang so natural to blood. But now, right now. Jacopo feared him, the individual who stood before him and whom he called friend, physically made him shudder with angst.
Many a hour passed and Dante did not leave the spot where he stood.
As France diminished and descended below the horizon in the far off distance. Setting like the sun and appearing to be pounced upon and devoured by the very tempest with which Dantès had summoned with his melancholic mind. Its death tainted the night’s sky and bloodied the waters like a murderer’s successful kill. His past, everything he knew and had known, his life, had disappeared into the mists of the forgotten mind. Disappeared as though it were the river bank belonging to the living world by the side of the river Styx, vanishing and as if it were the last viewing by the mortal man, of the very world he had been born into. Now as his soul proceeded with the boatman across the waters into the unknown, the mortal world vanished in sight and sound.
“I might just have found her. I might just have...” his brow, stained by his thoughts as tea stains the cup. It furrowed and wrinkled. The visit to the registrar of Marseille to find his fathers birth and death certificate had enlightened him more than he could have known.
Apollo chased the sun from the heavens, passing his torch from his chariot to the awaiting hand of Shalim, goddess of dusk, described in the bible as a deity of the caananite religion of the ancient Levant, who, in turn, passed the failing torch to Nyx. Whom, with great subtlety and care snuffed the light out and replaced it with her blanket studded with stars to light the darkness of the night.
Dantè was again alone in the world. He would pass the whole night sat astride the bulwark staring up at the moon which hung above amongst the stars as though it were truly just a spherical object like that of an orange that could be plucked from the tree. For it appeared so close. But was truly so far. Yet it’s appearance, for the most part, was blacker than the night though lit in a way that I’m sure most are familiure with, making it so definably and softly visible. For below it the remainder was lit in a crescent, so synonymously lit like its counterpart, but burnished in hues of oranges that tingled at the senses, looking as though it were made of the sands of the Namib desert, so rich in iron ore giving it reds, pinks and orange hues of colour. But what was so striking about this crescent was that it lay cradled upon its back as though by a lover in great lamentation. Laid low by a deep concern or worry pondered over obsessively, conceivably over a lover, who’s apparition still lingered, watching, protecting over their most beloved. It was as if the whole universe was whispering to Dantè, so softly that it played at the edge of hearing, so that if years of solitude had not sharpened the hearing and perceptions of one, so acutely, he would not have heard it. The name, nay, person that so crowded and consumed his thoughts and who had given him such hope when he had thought all lost. His spirit and sustenance whilst in prison. Had driven his will and desire to live. Whom had now been stolen from him by the most deceitful enemies. Was whispered on the breeze that now filled his ears and breathed life into his lungs with each breath of the sea air and whose salt touched upon his parched lips adding to his unquenchable thirst for vengeance, so that, hearing it would drive he, Dantès, mad.
Mercédès.
He presented to the world the look of a broken man.
If he is to succeed, he must leave her behind.
* * * As Eos, the goddess who restores to the world her brother Helios, the sun, at dawn. So Jacopo awoke, rose from his slumber and headed up on deck to check over the two crew who were coming to the end of the night shift. “How is he?” inclining his head in the direction of Dantès.
“He hasn’t moved.” Grumbled the second sailor, known to be a theif. Jacopo patted his pockets instinctively. Subconciously checking.
“He’s been there, like that, all night” muttered the first, with that wry smile that singled him out as the joker in the pack. “You know him Jacopo, I think you should speak to him. Change his thoughts to better, healthier musings.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this.” The second sailor cleared his throat from the cold of the night and spoke, “I would not let it stay so Jacopo, otherwise we may never have him back. His depression will consume him. If he is not helped to escape from the deepest mirth that seems to have wrapped itself about him, it will be nigh impossible for rescue if he sinks any deeper.” After checking the two were fine and that no problems had arisen during their time on duty, Jacopo pondered on what to say before he stood at Dantè’s side and waited for his courage to build. Whilst noticing the elegant tapestry of thoughts and emotions that passed through the whole frame of this mans body, it was Dante who surprisingly spoke first. His gaze did not move from the horizon “...it seems we are nearly there.”
“Yes,... we should arrive in a couple of hours ... is something worrying you? You have been acting very strange these past few hours. The crew are concerned... they,”
Dantes gave Jacopo a sidewards glance with a gleam of affection in his eye “they...they worry that you are not well. Can I help in anyway?” Dantès turned to face Jacopo; he could be a scary man at times, imposing & soul possessing at times, but this time only a very kind continents addressed his face and was present in his manner.
Dantes gazed back at his friend, as though weighing a decision in his mind. All Jacopo saw in that face was admiration, care and concern. “Yes, yes my dear friend, you can help me ... whilst I was on shore I made a few visits as you know. I confirmed a few things I already knew, and I learnt a few things more that I didn’t. Three people I thought of as friends I discover have betrayed me, My father is dead ... and my most beloved has been stolen from me.” Jacopo did not know what to say, how do you console a man who seems to have lost everything, but seems to have so much? “That is not all though Jacopo... on the good side of things, I may have just found something I lost a long time ago.”
“But that is good news ... isn’t it? Does it not lift your spirits a little?”
“I have heard of evil that can be done at the hands of men. They killed my father with famine and they hoped to kill the son with despair. Both of those two men were jealous; one from love and the other from ambition. The last, well the last one was a drunk and a coward. They destroyed me with but a letter, one to write the other to post, the third to toast it seems. The last should have stayed their hand and remonstrated such infamy. But he didn’t. He feared the politiks of the time, and claimed to fear for the safety of those who supported me.  So he held his tongue. I am still unsure whether to accurse him or thank him. I believe time will decide what I will make of him. He's an athema to me. But their is another enigma I must solve. On the subject of the drunk man I hope never to see his face again. It seems, in my absence, honest men were turned to misery. Not anymore ... not anymore.”
The tone fuelled the fear that sat in Jacopo’s belly. There was an intensity there that was burning like a fire barely contained, fuelling him. His eyes reflected it, and his heart flared like a burning coal. Hardened, but a-flame.
“One is now a wealthy banker amongst the Parisian elite, fattened with wealth. Before the war with Spain, he was employed as a cashier for a Spanish banker. Commandeered by the French army to work in the commissariat, it seems he made a fortune; then with that money he speculated in the Funds, he trebled or quadrupled his capital; and, having first married his banker’s daughter, who left him a widower, he has married again. I am sure it has meant he has received a large dowry from the wife’s family. It seems to me that these successes have been no coincidence. Stranger still, is the fortune and wealth gained by the other. A mere Catalan fisher-boy, with-out education and resource, he has attained high fortune, he seems truly to be one of the thousand sons of St. Louis. Stranger still is the fortune he returned with after services rendered to one named Ali Pacha, recompense for his services, leaving him a considerable fortune. I know nothing of this man and the events of the Greek's fight for independence from Ottoman rule. The whole affair peaks my interest... I am in a mind to find out more."  
“... but the information you found out? This enigma you have uncovered... It is a chance, a chance to ... Why are you so scarred of it?”
“Because of what it means ... could mean ... what I might find. There is a man out there looking for information concerning my origins. I spoke with the Abbot at the Abby of St. Victor. He confirms a Man called Abbe Boudet was doing research into my family. But of what the man found, the Abbot does not know. Only that what he did find, ended the mans search and he returned to Italy. He said he had come from a small place called Perusa, and he passed onto me a note.”
The pair stood talking at the taffrail as the hours slipped past, the sea which was laid out before them, filled with possibilities.
“I think it is time you should know what I really am Jacopo.” Dantes passed him the two pieces of paper, the first, the Letter denouncing him, the second a slip of paper with the stamp of the Abbe from St. Victor.
Jacopo read it quickly, looking up shocked at its content. Before Dantes ushered him to read the Second bit of paper.
“What on Earth happened when you were ashore?”

"That is a long story for another day. The Question you should be asking me, is what am I going to do about it?" Jacopo returned a nod, "the first, I will have my vengeance, the second I will begin my search as soon as possible.
But before I do there's one thing I want to talk about with you, it involves you. And I will need an answer from you. I want to set you up in business."
Jacopo returned a startled look, first this man had bought him his own ship, now he was proposing this! This had been all planned quite skillfully and now it seemed that the plan was revealing itself.
"I want to set you up in business so that I maysecure an income as your investor. I was thinking of starting with a small holding at Leghorn, initially. There is a great little warehouse not far from the harbour, off of the Via del’ Oglio but well hidden to meet our needs as an inconspicious base to operate from. If this goes well, then there is a possibility of something bigger. I had in mind a warehouse in Triest, after you have become familiar with the running of the business and its co-ordination. You can pick and choose the staff as you like. I will be there to help and support you."
"I have one question though, why do we need a loction so hidden. Surely we want somewhere more visible to attract our public."
"Not with what we will be trading. The majority of things we will move will be honest, but I intend to make full use of clients we already know and I expect a number of them will become our employees & customers in the near future. Your Job will be to connect and network with them. You know many of them, more of them than I do already. Also, I think you should offer our little venture to the Captain of the Ameilia, after the kindness he has paid me.."
"Paid us both" retorted Jacopo "He is also a very good captain."
"Yes, although with this current squeeze that I seem to be hearing roomers about onshore by this foreign company, we will have to be careful."
Jacopo was again speachless and struggled for words ... he ended gabling something in his mother tongue as his brain fired with the over whelming chance that had been laid before him. Dantes grinned "Good, I will take that as a yes. And that tongue of yours Jacoppo will come in useful also. The languges you know will be useful, but you may have to learn just one more. Arabic. I hear that that's what they speak on the shores of Africa"
"Africa?"
"Yes, the Gendarms and Customs officers can't get us there, and I hear the 'Bey' of Tunis is very open to new products. He is an admirer of exotic ware's and will pay a high price for them."
"How exotic?"
"The Symrna, Italy, Middle east, India, materials from the silk road, England and of course France..." Jacopo bulked at this. He had quite a job ahead of him if he was to obtain such connections to retrieve and trade in such items "...of course I expect to make a loss for the first few months, such a venture only really comes into profit after the first year. It is the connections I need and fluidity of trade not granted to traders of a 'legal', fine reputable standing .., all though on that note I hear the Duke of Tuscany might be quite an interesting character to win over. When we reach leghorn this is your first task, begin preparations to open the warehouse. Employ some staff and have them congregate at this address." He handed Jacopo a peice of paper with an address written on it. "I want to meet with them personally. I have a number of deliveries I need to make, returned favours if you will. That will make me your first customer."
Dantes shot Jacopo a sly grin. The poor man's head was swimming, but was returning the smirk. "You'll be fine." his gaze returned to the horizon "Oh, look at that, we are just raising Leghorn off the port bow sprit. we'll be there in a couple of hours or so." Dantes' mood had certainly lifted, but it seemed that those stormy thoughts were never far from his mind. It told in his intense look.