Background Story: Aidan Connor
by Billy Wood
Aidan quickly learned to dislike dirt as a lad. Born in land-locked Laois County, Ireland to a drunken crofter, at the age of 12 he found he had had his fill of plowing fields and getting drunken beatings from his father and three older brothers. So in a cool spring night in 1571, he filled a sack full of bread and cheese and made his way for Dublin to be a sailor.
Well used to hard work and short commons, Aidan Connor soon adapted to the sailor’s life. He worked on English caravels on short runs across the Channel and down into the Mediterranean. Although not very big, standing 5’4” and weighing a mere 9 stone, Aidan made up for his size by being quick and mean. Being a rather pretty lad, Aidan had to fight off quite a few lecherous buggers. A natural with daggers and his fists, the young man soon gained a reputation among his crewmates as a vicious fighter.
In 1577, at the age of 18, Aidan was an experienced foremast jack looking for a new challenge, new thrills and the big payoff. Tired of creeping along the coasts of Europe, and enflamed by rumors of Spanish galleons busting with pieces of eight, he was one of the first to sign up with the famous Captain Drake on his privateering expedition to the Pacific coast of South America.
They sacked settlement after settlement up and down the coast of South America. Aidan was a ruthless, merciless fighter, earning the name Akward Aidan among his fellow Golden Hinde crewmates. As the victories and booty piled up, his life became a continuous loop of killing, raping, plundering and drinking.
After three years, the Golden Hinde made its way back to Merry Olde England in 1580. Now rich beyond his dreams, Aidan was paid off and set ashore, directionless. The next five years, Aidan practically lived in the whorehouses of London, living it up, trying to block out the screams of his many victims with cunny and rum. His first sober moment in five years came as he was thrown out of a pub into a wet pile of pig dung in Cheapside, penniless.
As he washed the feces off in a horse trough, his long blocked memories came roaring back. He was a bad man, a cruel man. He made his way to a small church near the docks, walked inside and fell to his knees. Aidan knew he deserved hellfire for the life he’d led. He’d the Devil to pay and no pitch hot. An old half-blind priest peered down from the altar with his weak, watery eyes as he quickly mumbled his way through mass in the otherwise empty church.
“What do ye want, scoundrel? Yer stinkin’ up me church, ye foul thing!”
Aidan looked up, “I’m lookin’ fer salvation father. It’s been sixteen years since my last confession.”
“An Irishman eh? There ain’t no savin’ an Irishman. Yer all born with an extra helping of sin, and I’m too old to hear sixteen years worth of yer foul deeds, so be off with ye!”
The old priest gave Aidan a dismissive wave and hobbled passed him towards the door. Desperate and confused, the young man grabbed the old man’s vestments as he walked by.
“Please, father, grant me absolution! Take away my sins, I beg you! I’ll do anything!”
The old man snatched his vestments out of Aidan’s hand and gave him a hard look. Then he laughed.
“Save me, save me!” The old priest mocked. “Oh save me from the hellfire father, I don’t want the Devil’s pitchfork up me arse!”
The old man leaned in close to Aidan still kneeling on the dirt floor and looked him straight in the eyes. “You want a penance? You think a few Hail Mary’s or maybe a pilgrimage will make you square with the Lord? I can see by your pigtail yer a sailorman. Oh aye, I know what ye done, it’s written on your face. Rapin’, killin’, drinkin’, thievin’, it ain’t a puzzle figurin’ out the likes of you. Well here’s your penance, boy. Go out into the world and help save as many lives as ye’ve help destroy. Then come back here and I’ll give you your absolution.” The priest walked out without another word, leaving Aidan on the floor, stunned. He stayed there on the floor lost in thought until dusk, when he slowly made his way outside.
In a daze, Aidan wandered the streets of London and for the first time in his life, paid attention to what he saw around him. Filthy children begged on the street corners and fought with mangy dogs over scraps of refuse dumped into the streets from the townhouses. Prostitutes, some as young as 13, stood outside, offering a quick time in the alley for two pence. All round him, the poor, sick and weary were struggling to survive. He felt their pain as his own and made a silent oath to himself.
He went back to work in the only trade he knew, but this time with a purpose. Over four years, Aidan worked and saved. With no family to support and abstaining from drink, he slowly saved up a small fortune. With his savings, he bought himself a small, used caravel set himself up as a merchant trading up and down the coast. With re-established old contacts and a hardnosed, fierce style of bargaining, Aidan became well-to-do.
Captain Connor gained a fearful reputation among slavers and pirates. Unlike most merchant captains, he was not content to run away from trouble and those in trouble. Once, on the trip back to England from a spice run from Alexandria, Captain Connor came across a fellow merchant attacked by Arab pirates in a large dhow. Connor rammed the ship with his strengthed ship ram and boarded the dhow. He and his experienced crew subdued the pirates and in the process secured a wealth of spices.
While three days out from the port of Istanbul, Captain Connor captured a known slaver that kidnapped European women to sell to rich Turks, freeing 25 slaves and escorting them to England where he saw them all returned to their homelands.
Later on in his career Captain Connor started his own private orphanage in Cheapside. He had since promoted others to take over sailing his tradeships and stayed ashore to concentrate on his good works while managing business affairs. Connor took in young beggers and prostitutes, assigning the older, responsible ones to watch the younger ones. He fed and clothed them and hired a poor scholar to teach them manners and to read and write. He used his connections to get his charges apprenticeships, or set up in business and provided small dowries for the young women when they wed.
After a few years, Connor started earning a bad reputation with pimps, beggar masters, publicans and whorehouses around Cheapside. Without the young to exploit and sell, their profits began to decline. A few decided it was time to do something about their problem. At first they sent ruffians to try and scare off Captain Connor, but these thugs were made short work of by the battle-hardened sea dog and got their faces broken for their troubles. Then they went after the children. Aidan was checking over a shipping manifest in his study when one of his older boys burst into the room.
“The house is on fire, master!”
He ran with the boy to the orphanage house a mile away. The building was ablaze, but Aidan was horrified when he counted only 5 children outside, coughing and burned. He realized the rest were still inside and without a moment’s hesitation leapt into the inferno. Holding a rag to his face, he made his way up the staircase. The second floor was not yet on fire, but was filled with thick, choking smoke. There he found the remaining four children passed out from smoke inhalation. They were all five or six and small, so Aidan picked them up two in each strong arm and fought his way blindly back down the stairs.
Embers set his hair on fire as he reached the bottom. Ten feet from the entrance he heard a terrible creak. He looked up and saw a burning beam dropping down. He had no time to move and covered the four children with his body as the heavy oaken beam landed on his back, breaking his spine. The youth who had came to alert him quickly ran in with another and pulled the children from under his body just as the building collapsed. Aidan’s last moments were of unbridled terror and pain. He couldn’t move a muscle as laid under a mountain of fire and burned. In his last moments, he believed that he had not escaped the hellfire after all, as he’d never gotten his promised absolution. Then seeing the children safe, watching him through a chink in the burning rubble, he smiled and found he no longer cared, closing his eyes to be engulfed by oblivion.
Aidan awoke to a deep black void. He could not feel anything, including himself and could not mark the passage of time. Eventually, he saw a pinprick of light that seemed to be rushing towards him. He held up his arms to shield himself as he was engulfed in blinding white light.