Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (13 page)

“I must wait for Miko,” called Lucio.

I gambled that Miko was his Assassin bodyguard. “He’s otherwise engaged. He asked me, a fellow member of the Brotherhood, to take care of you.”

“Are you sure?”

“A good Assassin questions everything,” I said. “Miko has taught you well. But now is not the time for lessons in the tenets of our creed. We must go.”

He shook his head. “Tell me the code phrase,” he said firmly.

“‘We work in the dark to serve the light.’”

And at last I seemed to have established enough trust to persuade Lucio to come with me, and we began to make our way down the hillside; me, gleeful, thanking God that at last I had him; him, not so sure. Suddenly, he stopped.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t do it—I can’t leave Miko.”

Great,
I thought.

“He said to go,” I replied, “and to meet him at the bottom of the ravine, where our horses are tethered.”

Behind us at the farmyard, the fires raged on and I could hear the remnants of the battle. The Genoese soldiers were clearing up the last of the rebels. Not far away was the sound of a clattering stone, and I saw other figures in the darkness: a pair of rebels escaping. Lucio saw them, too, and went to call to them, but I clamped a hand over his mouth.

“No, Lucio,” I whispered. “The soldiers will be after them.”

His eyes were wide. “These are my comrades. They are my friends. I need to be with them. We need to ensure that Miko is safe.”

From high above us drifted the sound of pleading and screaming, and Lucio’s eyes darted as though trying to deal with the conflict in his head: did he help his friends above or join those escaping? Either way, I could see he had decided that he didn’t want to be with me.

“Stranger . . .” he began, and I thought,
“Stranger,” now, eh?

“I thank you for all that you have done to help me and I hope that we can meet again in happier circumstances—perhaps when I can express my gratitude even more thoroughly—but at the moment I’m needed with my people.”

He stood up to go. With a hand on his shoulder I brought him down to my level again. He pulled away with his jaw set. “Now, Lucio,” I said, “listen. I’ve been sent by your mother to take you to her.”

At this he reared back. “Oh no,” he said. “No, no, no.”

Which wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting.

I had to scramble across rock to catch him up. But he began to fight me off. “No, no,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, just leave me alone.”

“Oh, for the love of God,” I said, and silently admitted defeat as I grabbed him in a sleeper hold, ignoring his struggles and applying pressure, restricting the flow to his carotid artery; not enough to cause him permanent damage but enough to render him unconscious.

And as I threw him over my shoulder—a tiny slip of a thing, he was—and carried him down the hill, careful to avoid the last pockets of rebels fleeing the Genoese attack, I wondered why I hadn’t simply knocked him out in the first place.

iii

I stopped at the ravine edge and lowered Lucio to the floor, then found my rope, secured it and lowered it into the darkness below. Next I used Lucio’s belt to tie his hands, looped the other end under his thighs and tied it so that his limp body was slung across my back. Then I began the slow climb down.

About halfway down, the weight became unbearable, but it was an eventuality I’d prepared for, and I managed to hang on until I reached an opening in the cliff face that led into a dark cave. I scrambled in and pulled Lucio off my back, feeling my muscles relax gratefully.

From ahead of me, in the cave, came a noise. A movement at first, like a shifting sound, and then a click.

The sound an Assassin’s hidden blade makes when it is engaged.

“I knew you’d come here,” said a voice—a voice that belonged to Miko, the Assassin. “I knew you’d come here because that’s what I would have done.”

And then he struck, came shooting forward from within the cave, using my shock and surprise against me. I was already drawing my short sword and had it out as we clashed, his blade slicing at me like a claw and meeting my sword with such force that it was knocked out of my hand, sent skittering to the lip of the cave, and into the blackness below.

My sword. My father’s sword.

But there was no time to mourn it, for the Assassin was coming at me a second time and he was good, very good. In a confined space, with no weapon, I had no chance. All I had, in fact, was . . .

Luck.

And luck is all it was, that, as I pressed myself against the cave wall, he had miscalculated slightly, enough to overbalance a fraction. In any other circumstances, against any other opponent, he would have recovered immediately and finished his kill—but this wasn’t any other circumstances and I wasn’t any other opponent, and I made him pay for his tiny error. I leaned into him, grabbed his arm, twisted and helped him on his way, so that he, too, sailed out into the blackness. But he held on, pulled me with him, dragged me to the edge of the cave so that I was screaming in pain as I tried to stop myself being dragged out into open space. Lying flat on my belly, I looked out and saw him, one arm grabbing mine, the other trying to reach for the rope. I could feel the brace of his hidden blade, brought my other hand forward and began fumbling with the fastenings. Too late he realized what I was doing and abandoned trying to catch hold of the rope, instead focusing his efforts on trying to stop me from unfastening the brace. For some moments our hands flapped at each other for possession of the blade, which, as I opened the first catch, suddenly slipped further up his wrist and sent him lurching to one side, his position even more precarious than before, his other arm pinwheeling. It was all I needed, and with a final shout of effort I unclipped the last fastening, wrenched the brace free and at the same time bit into the hand that gripped my wrist. A combination of pain and lack of traction was enough to dislodge him at last.

I saw him swallowed up by the dark and prayed he wouldn’t hit my horse when he landed. But nothing came. No sound of a landing, nothing. The next thing I saw was the rope, taut and quivering, and I craned my neck, strained my eyes to search the darkness and was rewarded by the sight of Miko, some distance below, very much alive, and beginning to climb up towards me.

I pulled his blade to me and held it to the rope.

“If you climb much higher the fall will kill you when I cut the rope,” I called. He was already close enough so that I could look into his eyes when he stared up at me, and I could see the indecision in them. “You shouldn’t suffer such a death, friend,” I added. “Start your descent and live to fight another day.”

I began to saw slowly at the rope, and he stopped, looked down into the dark, where the bottom of the ravine was not in sight.

“You have my blade,” he said.

“To the victor the spoils.” I shrugged.

“Perhaps we will meet again,” he said, “and I can reclaim it.”

“I sense that only one of us will survive a second meeting,” I said.

He nodded. “Perhaps,” he said, and soon had shimmied down into the night.

The fact that I now had to climb back up, and had been forced to surrender my horse, was awkward. But rather that than face the Assassin again.

And for now we are resting. Well, I am resting; poor Lucio remains unconscious. Later, I will hand him over to associates of Reginald, who will take him in a covered wagon, make the passage across the Mediterranean to the south of France and then to the chateau, where Lucio will be reunited with his mother, the decypherer.

Then I’ll charter a ship to Italy, being sure to be seen doing it, referring to my “young companion” once or twice. If and when the Assassins come looking for Lucio, that’s where they’ll concentrate their efforts.

Reginald says I’m no longer needed after that. I am to melt away in Italy, leave no trace, no trail to follow.

12 A
UGUST
1753

i

I began the day in France, having doubled back from Italy. No small undertaking; it’s all very well writing it down, but one doesn’t simply “double back” from Italy to France. My reason for being in Italy was to misdirect the Assassins when they came looking for Lucio. So, by returning to France, to the very place where we were holding Lucio and his mother, I was endangering not just my recently accomplished mission but everything Reginald had been working for these past years. It was risky. It was so risky, in fact, that if I thought about it, the risk took my breath away. It made me wonder, was I stupid? What kind of fool would take such a risk?

And the answer was, a fool with doubt in his heart.

ii

One hundred yards or so from the gate, I came upon a lone patrol, a guard dressed as a peasant, with a musket slung across his back, who looked sleepy, but was alert and watchful. As we drew up to him our eyes met for a moment. His flickered briefly as he recognized me, and he jerked his head slightly to let me know I was free to pass. There would be another patrol, I knew, on the other side of the chateau. We came out of the forest and followed the tall perimeter wall until we came to a large, arched wooden gate inset with a smaller wicket gate, where a guard stood, a man I recognized from my years spent at the chateau.

“Well, well,” he said, “if it isn’t Master Haytham, all grown-up.” He grinned and took the reins of my horses as I dismounted, before opening the wicket gate, which I stepped through, blinking in the sudden sunlight after the comparative gloom of the forest.

Ahead of me stretched the chateau lawn, and walking across it I felt a strange crawling sensation in my belly that I knew to be nostalgia for the time I had spent at this chateau in my youth, when Reginald had . . .

. . . continued my father’s teachings? He’d said so. But of course I now know he’d been misleading me about that. In the ways of combat and stealth, perhaps, he had done so, but Reginald had raised me in the ways of the Templar Order, and taught me that the way of the Templar was the
only
way; and that those who believed in another way were at best misguided, at worst evil.

But I’d since learnt that Father was one of those misguided, evil people, and who’s to say what he would have taught me as I grew up. Who’s to say?

The grass was unkempt and overgrown, despite the presence of two gardeners, both of whom wore short swords at their waists, hands going to the hilts as I made my way towards the front door of the chateau. I came close to one of them, who, when he saw who I was, nodded. “An honour finally to meet you, Master Kenway,” he said. “I trust your mission was successful?”

“It was, thank you, yes,” I replied to the guard—or gardener, whatever he was. To him I was a Knight, one of the most celebrated in the Order. Could I really hate Reginald when his stewardship had brought me such acclaim? And, after all, had I ever doubted his teachings? The answer was no. Had I been
forced
to follow them? Again, no. I’d always had the option to choose my own path but had stayed with the Order because I believed in the code.

Even so, he has lied to me.

No, not lied to me. How had Holden put it? “Withheld the truth.”

Why?

And, more immediately, why had Lucio reacted that way when I told him he was to see his mother?

At the mention of my name, the second gardener looked at me more sharply, then he too was genuflecting as I made my way past, acknowledging him with a nod, feeling taller all of a sudden and all but puffing out my chest as I approached the front door that I knew so well. I turned before I knocked, to look back across the lawn, where the two guards stood watching me. I had trained on that lawn, spent countless hours honing my sword skills.

I knocked, and the door was opened by yet another similarly attired man who also wore a short sword at his waist. The chateau had never been this fully staffed when I had lived here, but then again, when I lived here, we never had a guest as important as the decypherer.

The first familiar face I saw belonged to John Harrison, who looked at me then did a double take. “Haytham,” he blustered, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“Hello, John,” I said equably, “is Reginald here?”

“Well, yes, Haytham, but Reginald is
supposed
to be here. What are
you
doing here?”

“I came to check on Lucio.”

“You what?” Harrison was becoming somewhat red-faced. “You ‘came to check on Lucio’?” He was having trouble finding his words now. “What? Why? What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“John,” I said gently, “please calm yourself. I was not followed from Italy. Nobody knows I’m here.”

“Well, I should bloody well hope not.”

“Where’s Reginald?”

“Below stairs, with the prisoners.”

“Oh? Prisoners?”

“Monica and Lucio.”

“I see. I had no idea they were considered prisoners.”

But a door had opened beneath the stairs, and Reginald appeared. I knew that door; it led down to the cellar, which, when I lived there, was a dank, low-ceilinged room, with mouldering, mainly empty wine racks along one side and a dark, damp wall along the other.

“Hello, Haytham,” said Reginald, curtly. “You were not expected.”

Not far away lingered one of the guards, and now he was joined by another. I looked from them back to Reginald and John, who stood like a pair of concerned clergymen. Neither was armed, but even if they had been, I thought I could probably take all four. If it came to it.

“Indeed,” I said, “John was just telling me how surprised he was by my visit.”

“Well, quite. You’ve been very reckless, Haytham . . .”

“Perhaps, but I wanted to see that Lucio was being looked after. Now I’m told he is a prisoner here, so perhaps I have my answer.”

Reginald chortled. “Well, what did you expect?”

“What I was told. That the mission was to reunite mother and son; that the decypherer had agreed to work on Vedomir’s journal if we were able to rescue her son from the rebels.”

“I told you no lies, Haytham. Indeed, Monica has been working on decoding the journal since being reunited with Lucio.”

“Just not on the basis I imagined.”

“The carrot doesn’t work, we use the stick,” said Reginald, his eyes cold. “I’m sorry if you had formed the impression that there was more carrot than stick involved.”

“Let’s see her,” I said, and with a short nod, Reginald agreed. He turned and led us through the door, which opened on to a flight of stone steps leading down. Light danced on the walls.

“Regarding the journal, we’re close now, Haytham,” he said, as we descended. “So far, we’ve been able to establish that there exists an amulet. Somehow it fits with the storehouse. If we can get hold of the amulet . . .”

At the bottom of the steps, iron cressets on poles had been set out to light the way to a door, where a guard stood. He moved to one side and opened the door for us to pass through. Inside, the cellar was as I remembered it, lit by the flickering light of torches. At one end was a desk. It was bolted to the floor and Lucio was manacled to it, and beside him was his mother, who was an incongruous sight. She sat on a chair that looked as though it had been brought into the cellar from upstairs especially for the purpose. She was wearing long skirts and a buttoned-up overgarment and would have looked like a churchgoer were it not for the rusting iron restraints around her wrists and the arms of the chair, and especially the scold’s bridle around her head.

Lucio swivelled in his seat, saw me and his eyes burned with hatred, then he turned back to his work.

I had stopped in the middle of the floor, halfway between the door and the decypherers. “Reginald, what is the meaning of this?” I said, pointing at Lucio’s mother, who regarded me balefully from within the scold’s bridle.

“The branks is temporary, Haytham. Monica has been somewhat vocal in her condemnation of our tactics this morning. Hence we have moved them here for the day.” He raised his voice to address the mother and son. “I’m sure they can return to their usual residence tomorrow, when they have recovered their manners.”

“This is not right, Reginald.”

“Their usual quarters are much more pleasant, Haytham,” he assured me testily.

“Even so, they should not be treated this way.”

“Neither should the poor child in the Black Forest have been scared half to death with your blade at his throat,” snapped Reginald.

I started, my mouth working but lost for words. “That was . . . That was . . .”

“Different? Because it involved your quest to find your father’s killers? Haytham . . .” He took my elbow and led me out of the cellar and back out into the corridor, and we began to climb the steps again. “This is even more important than that. You may not think so, but it is. It involves the entire future of the Order.”

I wasn’t sure any more. I wasn’t sure what was more important but said nothing.

“And what happens when the decoding is over?” I asked, as we reached the entrance hall once again.

He looked at me.

“Oh no,” I said, understanding. “Neither is to be harmed.”

“Haytham, I don’t much care for your giving me orders . . .”

“Then don’t think of it as an order,” I hissed. “Think of it as a threat. Keep them here when their work is over if you must, but if they are harmed then you will have me to answer to.”

He looked at me long and hard. I realized that my heart was hammering and hoped to God it wasn’t somehow visible. Had I ever gone against him like this? With such force? I didn’t think so.

“Very well,” he said, after a moment, “they will not be harmed.”

We spent dinner in near silence, and the offer of a bed for the night was made reluctantly. I leave in the morning; Reginald promises to be in touch with news concerning the journal. The warmth between us, though, is gone. In me, he sees insubordination; in him, I see lies.