Assassin's Creed: Unity (21 page)

I poured us a glass each, pushed one across the table to him. It went without saying that he looked much healthier than he had the last time we met, since he’d been swinging on the end of a rope back then, but even taking that into account, he had recovered a bearing, too. He looked more self-possessed. For the first time since our meeting in ’75, I could imagine Ruddock as an Assassin.

“What did they want, your two friends?” he asked.

“To exact revenge on behalf of a third party.”

“I see. You’ve upset someone, have you?”

“Well, obviously.”

“Yes, quite. I suspect you do your fair share of upsetting people, do you? As I say, it was lucky I arrived in time.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I had it covered,” I said, sipping my wine.

“Well, then I’m very pleased to hear it,” he said. “Only it looked to me as though it could have gone either way, and that my entrance gave you the element of surprise you needed in order to gain the advantage.”

“Don’t push your luck, Ruddock,” I said.

The truth was that I was amazed to see him at all. But whether he’d taken my threat to hunt him down seriously or he was a more honorable man than I’d taken him for, the fact was he had come. Not just that but he’d come with what you might call “news.”

“You’ve found something?”

“Indeed I have.”

“The identity of the man who hired you to kill me and my mother?”

He looked abashed and cleared his throat. “I was only hired to kill your mother, you know. Not you.”

I fought a wave of unreality. Sitting in my family’s wrecked villa sharing wine with a man who openly admitted trying to kill my mother; who, if all had gone to plan, would no doubt have left me alone and crying over her body

I poured more wine, choosing to drink, not think, because if I thought then maybe I might wonder how I got to be so numb that I could drink with this man, that I could think of Arno and feel no emotion, that I could cheat death and feel nothing.

Ruddock continued. “And the fact is I don’t know exactly who it was who hired me, but I do know with whom he was affiliated.”

“And who might that be?”

“Have you ever heard of the King of Beggars?”

“No, I can’t say that I have—but that is the person with whom your man is affiliated?”

“As far as I can tell, it was the King of Beggars who wanted your mother dead.”

That strange wave of unreality again. Hearing it from the man who was hired to carry out the job.

“The question is, why?” I said, taking a gulp of wine.

“Steady on,” he said, and reached to touch a hand to my arm. I stopped, the beaker still held to my lips, glaring at his hand until he took it back, abashed.

“Don’t touch me again,” I said, “
ever
.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. His eyes dropped. “I meant no offense. It’s just that—you seem to be drinking too swiftly, that’s all.”

“Haven’t you heard the rumors? I’m a drunk of some repute. And I can quite handle my wine, thank you.”

“I only want to help, mademoiselle,” he said. “It’s the least I can do. By saving my life you’ve given me a new outlook. I am trying to make something of myself now.”

“I’m pleased for you. But if I thought that saving your life meant you were going to lecture me about the wine I was drinking, then I wouldn’t have bothered.”

He nodded. “Again, I’m sorry.”

I took another gulp of wine, just to spite him. “Now tell me what you know about the King of Beggars.”

“That he is a difficult man to find. The Assassins have tried to kill him in the past.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You were working for a sworn enemy of the Assassins? I take it you’ll be keeping that fact quiet?”

He looked ashamed. “Indeed. Those were different, more desperate days, my lady.”

I waved it away. “So the Assassins have tried to kill him. Why would that be?”

“He is cruel. He rules over the beggars in the city who are forced to pay him a tribute. It is said that if the tribute is insufficient, then the King of Beggars has a man who will amputate their limbs, because the good people of Paris are likely to donate more generously to a beggar deprived in such a way.”

I fought a wave of disgust. “For that reason Assassin and Templar would
both
want him dead, surely? He is friend to no one.” I curled my lip at him. “Or are you saying that only the good-hearted Assassins wanted him dead, while we black-hearted Templars turned a blind eye?”

With a studied look of sadness he said, “Would I be in any position to make moral judgments, my lady? But the fact is that if the Templars do turn a blind eye to his activities, it is because he is one of them.”

“Nonsense. We would have nothing to do with such a disgusting man. My father wouldn’t have allowed him in the Order.”

Ruddock shrugged and spread his hands. “I’m dreadfully sorry if what I’m telling you comes as a shock, my lady. Perhaps you should not take it as a reflection on your entire Order, rather the rogue elements within it. Speaking as something of a ‘rogue element’ myself . . .”

Rogue elements,
I thought. Rogue elements who plotted against my mother. Were these the same people who killed my father? If so, then I was next.

“You want to rejoin the Assassins, do you?” I said, pouring more wine.

He nodded.

I grinned. “Well, look, I’ve got to say, and you’ll have to pardon my rudeness, but you did attempt to kill me once so I think I’m owed a free shot. But if you’ve got any hopes of rejoining the Assassins, you need to take care of that smell.”

“The smell?”

“Yes, Ruddock, the smell. Your smell. You smelled in London, you smelled in Rouen and you smell now. Perhaps a bath might be in order? Some perfume? Now, is that rude?”

He smiled. “Not at all, mademoiselle. I appreciate your candor.”

“Why you’d want to rejoin the Assassins is beyond me anyway.”

“Begging your pardon, mademoiselle?”

I leaned forward, squinting at him and waggling the beaker of wine at the same time. “I mean I’d think very carefully about that if I were you.”

“What can you mean?”

I waved an airy hand. “I mean that you’re out of it.
Well
out of it. Free of all that . . .” I waved a hand again. “. . .
stuff
. Assassin, Templar. Pah. They’ve got enough dogma for ten thousand churches and twice as much misguided belief. For centuries they’ve done nothing but squabble, and to what end, eh? Mankind carries on regardless. Look at France. My father and his advisers spent years arguing over the ‘best’ direction for the country and in the end the Revolution went ahead and happened without them anyway. Ha! Where was Mirabeau when they stormed the Bastille? Still taking votes on tennis courts? The Assassins and Templars are like two ticks fighting over control of the cat, an exercise in hubris and futility.”

“But, mademoiselle, whatever the eventual outcome, we have to believe we have the capacity to effect change for the better.”

“Only if we’re deluded, Ruddock,” I said. “Only if we’re deluded.”

viii

After I had dismissed Ruddock, I decided I would be ready for them if they came, whoever
they
were: looting revolutionaries, agents of the Carrolls, a traitor from my own Order. I would be ready for them.

Luckily there is more than enough wine in the house to fortify me for the wait.

25 J
ULY
1789

It was daylight outside when they came. They stole into the courtyard, the noise of their footfalls reaching me where I waited in the darkened, boarded-up hall, a pistol at hand.

I, who had waited, was ready for them. And as they climbed the steps to the door that I had deliberately left ajar, just as I did every day, I reached for the pistol, pulled back the hammer and raised it.

The door creaked. A shadow fell into a rectangle of sunlight on the floorboards and lengthened across the floor as a figure crossed the threshold and came into the gloom of my home.

“Élise,” he said, and dimly I realized that it was a long, long time since I had heard another human voice, and how sweet the sound of it was. And what bliss that the voice should belong to him.

Then I remembered that he could have saved my father, and didn’t, and that he had fallen in with the Assassins. And, now I came to think of it, perhaps those two facts were connected? And even if they weren’t . . .

I lit a lamp, still holding the gun on him, pleased to see him jump slightly as the flame blazed into life. For some moments the two of us simply regarded one another, faces conveying nothing, until he nodded, indicating the pistol.

“That’s some welcome.”

I softened a little to see his face. Just a little. “One can’t be too careful. Not after what happened.”

“Élise, I . . .”

“Haven’t you done enough to repay my father’s kindness?” I said sharply.

“Élise, please. You can’t believe I killed Mr. de la Serre. Your father . . . He wasn’t the man you thought he was. Neither of our fathers were.”

Secrets. How I hated the taste of them.
Vérités cachées.
All my life.

“I know exactly who my father was, Arno. And I know who yours was. I suppose it was inevitable. You an Assassin, me a Templar.”

I saw the realization dawn on his face. “You . . . ?”

“Does that shock you? My father always meant for me to follow in his footsteps. Now all I can do is avenge him.”

“I swear to you I had nothing to do with his death.”

“Oh, but you did . . .”

“No. No. By my life, I swear I didn’t . . .”

To hand was the letter. I held it up now.

“Is that . . .” he said, squinting at it.

“A letter intended for my father the day he was murdered. I found it on the floor of his room. Unopened.”

I almost felt sorry for Arno, watching the blood drain from his face as it dawned on him what he’d done. After all, he had loved Father too. Yes, I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.

Arno’s mouth worked up and down. His eyes were wide and staring.

“I didn’t know,” he said at last.

“Neither did my father,” I said simply.

“How could I have known?”

“Just go,” I told him. I hated the sound of the sob in my voice. I hated Arno. “Just go.”

And he did. And I barred the door behind him, and then took the back stairs down to the housekeeper’s study, where I had made my bed. There I opened a bottle of wine. All the better to help me sleep.

20 A
UGUST
1789

i

Shaken awake, I blinked blurry bloodshot eyes and tried to focus on the man who stood above my bed, crutches under his armpits. It looked like Mr. Weatherall but it couldn’t be Mr. Weatherall because my protector was in Versailles and he couldn’t travel, not with his leg the way it was.

And I wasn’t in Versailles, I was in Île Saint-Louis in Paris, waiting—waiting for something.

“Right, you,” he was saying. “I see you’re already dressed. Time to get out of your cot and come with us.”

Behind him stood another, much younger man, who lurked uneasily by the door of the housekeeper’s study. For a second I thought it was Jacques from Maison Royale, but no, another younger man.

And it
was
him—it was Mr. Weatherall. I shot upright, clasped him by the neck and pulled him to me, sobbing gratefully into his neck, holding him tight.

“Hold up,” he said in a strangulated voice. “You’re pulling me off my bloody crutches. Just wait a minute, will you?”

I let him go, pulled myself up to my knees. “But we can’t go,” I said firmly. “I need to be ready, when they come for me.”

“When who comes for you?”

I gripped his collars, looked up at him, into that bearded face creased with concern, and didn’t want to ever let him go. “The Carrolls sent killers, Mr. Weatherall. They sent two men to kill me for what I did to May Carroll.”

His shoulders slumped onto his crutches as he embraced me. “Oh God, child. When?”

“I killed them,” I went on, breathlessly. “I killed them both. I put a wooden stake into one of them.” I giggled.

He pulled away, looking deep into my eyes, frowning. “And then celebrated with a couple of hundred bottles of wine, by the looks of things.”

I shook my head. “No. Only to help me sleep, to help forget that . . . that I’ve lost Arno, and my father, and what I did to May Carroll, and the two men who came to kill me.” I began to sob now, giggling one second, sobbing the next, dimly realizing that this was not normal behavior but unable to stop myself. “I put a stake into one of them.”

“Right,” he said, then turned to the other man. “Help her to the carriage, carry her if need be. She’s not herself.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

“You will be,” he said. “This young man here is Jean Burnel. Like you, he’s a newly inducted Templar, though unlike you, he isn’t Grand Master and he isn’t drunk. However, he is loyal to the de la Serre name, and he can help us. But he can’t do that until you’re on your feet.”

“My trunk,” I said. “I need my trunk . . .”

ii

That was—well, the truth is, I don’t know how long ago that was, and I’m embarrassed to ask. All I know is that since then I’ve been confined to bed in the grounds-keeper’s lodge, perspiring profusely for the first few days, insisting I was going to be okay, getting angry when I was denied a little wine to drink; then after that sleeping a lot, my head clearing enough to understand that I had been in the grip of some dark fugue—a “disorder of the nerves,” Mr. Weatherall had said.

iii

At last I was well enough to get out of bed and dress in clothes that had been freshly laundered by Helene, who was indeed an angel, and had indeed formed a strong relationship with Jacques during my absence. Then Mr. Weatherall and I left the lodge one morning and walked in near silence, both of us knowing we were heading for our usual place, and there we stood in the clearing where the sun fell through the branches like a waterfall, and we bathed in it.

“Thank you,” I said, when at last we sat, Mr. Weatherall on the stump, me on the soft floor of the copse, absentmindedly picking at the ground and squinting up at him.

“Thank you for what?” he said. That growly voice I loved so much.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“Thank you for saving you from yourself, you mean.”

“Saving me from myself is still saving me.” I smiled.

“If you say so. I had my own difficulties when your mother died. Hit the bottle myself.”

I remembered—I remembered the smell of wine on his breath at the Maison Royale.

“There is a traitor within the Order,” I said next.

“We thought as much. Lafrenière’s letter . . .”

“But now I am more sure. His name is the King of Beggars.”

“The King of Beggars?”

“You know him.”

He nodded. “I know
of
him. He isn’t a Templar.”

“That’s what I said. Ruddock insists.”

Mr. Weatherall’s eyes blazed at the mention of Ruddock’s name. “Nonsense. Your father would never have allowed it.”

“That was exactly what I said, but perhaps Father didn’t know.”

“Your father knew everything.”

“Can the King of Beggars have been inducted since?”

“After your father’s murder?”

I nodded. “Perhaps even
because
of my father’s murder—as payment for carrying it out, a reward.”

“You’ve got a point there,” said Mr. Weatherall. “You say Ruddock was hired by the King of Beggars to kill your mother, maybe to curry favor with the Crows?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, he failed, didn’t he? Perhaps he’s been biding his time since, waiting for another opportunity to prove himself. Kills your father, finally gets what he wants—an initiation.”

I considered. “Maybe, but it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to me, and I still can’t understand why the Crows would want Mother dead. If anything, her third way was a bridge between the two sets of ideals.”

“She was too strong for them, Élise. Too much of a threat.”

“A threat to whom, Mr. Weatherall? On whose authority is all this happening?”

We shared a look.

“Listen, Élise,” he said, pointing, “you need to consolidate. You need to call a special meeting and assert your leadership, let the bloody Order know whose hand is on the tiller, root out whoever it is who’s working against you.”

I felt myself go cold. “What you’re saying is, that it’s not just one individual, it’s a faction?”

“Why not? In the last month we’ve seen the reign of a remote and disinterested king overthrown by revolution.”

I frowned at him. “And that’s what you think I am, do you? A ‘remote and disinterested’ ruler?”

“I don’t think that. But maybe there are others who do.”

I agreed. “You’re right. I need to rally my supporters around me. I shall host the gathering at the estate in Versailles, beneath portraits of my mother and father.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, all right. Let’s not run before we can walk, eh? We need to make sure they’ll turn up first. Young Jean Burnel can begin the task of alerting members.”

“I need him to sound out Lafrenière as well. What I’ve learned gives his letter even more credence.”

“Yeah, well, you just watch that one.”

“How did you recruit Jean Burnel?”

Mr. Weatherall colored a little. “Well, you know, I just did.”

“Mr. Weatherall . . .” I pressed.

He shrugged. “All right, well, look, I have my network, as you know, and I happened to know that young Burnel would have jumped at the chance to work closely with the beautiful Élise de la Serre.”

I smiled my way through an uneasy, disloyal feeling. “So he’s sweet on me?”

“It’s the icing on the cake of his loyalty to your family, I’d say, but yes, I suppose he is.”

“I see. Perhaps he would make a good match.”

He guffawed. “Oh who are you kidding, child? You love Arno.”

“Do I?”

“Well, don’t you?”

“There’s been a lot of hurt.”

“Could be that he feels the same way. After all, you kept some pretty big secrets from him. Could be he’s got just as much right as you to be feeling like the injured party.” He leaned forward. “You ought to start thinking of what you have in common rather than what separates you. You might find the one outweighs the other.”

“I don’t know,” I said, turning my face away. “I don’t really know anymore.”