Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (21 page)

17 S
EPTEMBER
1757 (T
WO
Y
EARS
L
ATER
)

i

As the sun set, painting Damascus a golden brown colour, I walked with my friend and companion Jim Holden in the shadow of the walls of Qasr al-Azm.

And I thought about the four words that had brought me here.

“I have found her.”

They were the only words on the letter, but they told me everything I needed to know and were enough to transport me from America to England, where, before anything else could happen, I’d met with Reginald at White’s to fill him in on events in Boston. He knew much of what had happened, of course, from letters, but, even so I’d expected him to show an interest in the work of the Order, particularly where it concerned his old friend Edward Braddock.

I was wrong. All he cared about was the precursor site, and when I told him I had new details regarding the location of the temple and that they were to be found within the Ottoman Empire, he sighed and gave a beatific smile, like a laudanum addict savouring his syrup.

Moments later, he was asking, “Where is the book?” with a fidgety sound in his voice.

“William Johnson has made a copy,” I said, and reached to my bag in order to return the original, which I slid across the table towards him. It was wrapped in cloth, tied with twine, and he looked at me gratefully before reaching to untie the bow and flip open the covering to gaze upon his beloved tome: the aged brown leather cover, the stamp of the Assassin on its front.

“Are they conducting a thorough search of the chamber?” he asked as he wrapped up the book, retied the bow then slipped it away covetously. “I should very much like to see this chamber for myself.”

“Indeed,” I lied. “The men are to establish a camp there but face daily attacks from the natives. It would be very hazardous for you, Reginald. You are Grand Master of the British Rite. Your time is best spent here.”

“I see,” he nodded. “I see.”

I watched him carefully. For him to have insisted on visiting the chamber would have been an admission of neglect of his Grand Master duties, and, obsessed as he was, Reginald wasn’t ready to do that yet.

“And the amulet?” he said.

“I have it,” I replied.

We talked some more, but there was little warmth and, when we parted, I left wondering what lay in his heart and what lay in mine. I had begun to think of myself not so much as a Templar but a man with Assassin roots and Templar beliefs, whose heart had briefly been lost to a Mohawk woman. A man with a unique perspective, in other words.

Accordingly, I had been less preoccupied with finding the temple and using its contents to establish Templar supremacy, and more with bringing together the two disciplines, Assassin and Templar. I’d reflected on how my father’s teachings had often dovetailed with those of Reginald, and I’d begun seeing the similarities between the two factions rather than the differences.

But first—first there was the unfinished business that had occupied my mind for so many years. Was it finding my father’s killers or finding Jenny that was more important now? Either way, I wanted freedom from this long, dark shadow that had loomed over me for so long.

ii

And so it was that with those words—“I have found her”—Holden began another odyssey, one that took us into the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where, for years, he and I had tracked Jenny.

She was alive—that was his discovery. Alive and in the hands of slavers. As the world fought the Seven Years War, we came close to discovering her exact location, but the slavers had moved on before we were able to start out after them. After that, we spent several months trying to find her then discovered she’d been passed to the Ottoman court as a concubine at Topkapı Palace and made our way there. Again we were too late; she’d been moved to Damascus, and to the great palace built by the Ottoman governor in charge, As’ad Pasha al-Azm.

And so we came to Damascus, where I wore the outfit of a wealthy tradesman, a kaftan and a turban, as well as voluminous salwar trousers, feeling not a little self-conscious, truth be told, while beside me Holden wore simple robes. As we made our way through the gates of the city and into its narrow, winding streets towards the palace, we noticed more guards than usual, and Holden, having done his homework, filled me in as we ambled slowly in the dust and heat.

“The governor’s nervous, sir,” he explained. “Reckons the Grand Vizier Raghib Pasha in Istanbul has it in for him.”

“I see. And is he right? Does the grand vizier have it in for him?”

“The grand vizier called him the ‘peasant son of a peasant.’”

“Sounds like he has got it in for him then.”

Holden chuckled. “That’s right. So the governor fears being deposed and, as a result, he’s increased security all over the city, and especially at the palace. You see all these people?” He indicated a clamour of citizens not far away, hurrying across our path.

“Yes.”

“Off to an execution. A palace spy, apparently. As’ad Pasha al-Azm is seeing them everywhere.”

In a small square thronged with people we watched a man beheaded. He died with dignity, and the crowd roared its approval as his severed head rolled to the blood-blackened boards of the scaffold. Above the square the governor’s platform was empty. He was staying at the palace, according to gossip, and didn’t dare show his face.

When it was over, Holden and I turned and strolled away, heading towards the palace, where we paced the walls, noting the four sentries at the main gate and the others positioned by arched side gates.

“What’s it like inside?” I asked.

“Two main wings: the
haramlik
and the
salamlik
. In the
salamlik
is where you got your halls, reception areas and entertainment courtyards, but the
haramlik
, that’s where we’ll find Miss Jenny.”

“
If
she’s in there.”

“Oh, she’s in there, sir.”

“You’re sure?”

“As God is my witness.”

“Why was she moved from Topkapı Palace? Do you know?”

He looked at me and pulled an awkward face. “Well, her age, sir. She would have been highly prized at first, of course, when she was younger; it’s against Islamic law to imprison other Muslims, see, so the majority of the concubines are Christians—caught in the Balkans, most of them—and if Miss Jenny was as comely as you say, well, then I’m sure she’d have been quite a catch. Trouble is, it’s not like there’s a shortage of them, and Miss Kenway—well, she’s in her mid-forties, sir. Been a long time since she had concubine duties; she’s little more than a servant. I suppose you might say that she’s been demoted, sir.”

I thought about that, finding it difficult to believe that the Jenny I’d once known—beautiful, imperious Jenny—had such lowly standing. Somehow I’d imagined her perfectly preserved and cutting a commanding figure at the Ottoman court, perhaps having already risen to the position of Queen Mother. Instead, here she was in Damascus, at the home of an unpopular governor who was himself about to be deposed. What did they do to the servants and concubines of a deposed governor? I wondered. Possibly, they met the same fate as the poor soul we’d seen beheaded earlier.

“What about the guards inside?” I asked. “I didn’t think they allowed men in the harem.”

He shook his head. “All the guards in the harem are eunuchs. The operation to make them eunuchs—bloody hell, sir, you don’t want to know about it.”

“But you’re going to tell me anyway?”

“Well, yeah, don’t see why I should have to carry that burden all by myself. They hack the poor bleeder’s genitals off then bury the bloke in sand up to his neck for ten days. Only ten percent of the poor buggers even survive the process, and those guys are the toughest of the tough.”

“Right,” I said.

“One other thing: the
haramlik
, where the concubines live, the baths are in there.”

“The baths are in there?”

“Yes.”

“And why are you telling me that?”

He stopped. He looked from left to right, squinting in the sun. Satisfied the coast was clear, he stooped, grasped an iron ring I hadn’t even seen, so well was it covered by the sand below our feet, and yanked it upwards, opening a trapdoor and revealing stone steps descending into the dark.

“Quick, sir”—he grinned—“before a sentry comes round.”

iii

Once at the bottom of the steps, we took stock of our surroundings. It was dark, almost too dark to see, but from the left of us came the trickle of a stream, while ahead stretched what looked like a walkway used either for deliveries or maintenance of the running-water channels; probably a mixture of both.

We said nothing. Holden delved into a leather knapsack to extract a taper and a tinderbox. He lit the taper then placed it into his mouth and pulled a short torch from the knapsack, which he lit and held above his head, casting a soft orange glow all around us. Sure enough, to our left was an aqueduct, while the uneven path dissolved into blackness.

“It’ll take us right under the palace, and underneath the baths,” said Holden in a whisper. “If I’m right, we’ll come up into a room with a freshwater pool, right beneath the main baths.”

Impressed, I said, “You kept this quiet.”

“I like to have the odd trick up my sleeve, sir.” He beamed. “I’ll lead the way, shall I?”

And with that he moved off, lapsing into silence as we made our way along the pathway. When the torches had burned out, we dropped them and lit two new ones from the taper in Holden’s mouth then walked some more. At last the area ahead of us widened out into a shimmering chamber, where the first thing we saw was a pool, its walls lined with marble tiles, the water so clear that it seemed to glow in the meagre light offered by an open trapdoor at the top of some nearby steps.

The second thing we saw was a eunuch, who knelt with his back to us, filling an earthenware jug from the pool. He wore a tall white
kalpak
on his head, and flowing robes. Holden looked at me with his finger to his lips then began to creep forward, a dagger already in his fist, but I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. We wanted the eunuch’s clothes, and that meant avoiding bloodstains. This was a man who served the concubines at an Ottoman palace, not a common redcoat in Boston, and I had the feeling that blood on his clothing wouldn’t be so easily explained away. So I inched past Holden on the walkway, unconsciously flexing my fingers and in my mind locating the carotid artery on the eunuch, coming closer as he finished filling the jug and straightened to leave.

But then my sandal scuffed the pathway. The noise was tiny but nevertheless sounded like a volcano erupting in the enclosed space, and the eunuch flinched.

I froze and inwardly cursed my sandals as his head tilted to look up to the trapdoor, trying to locate the source of the noise. When he saw nothing, he seemed to go very still, as though he’d realized that, if the sound hadn’t come from above, then it must have come from . . .

He span round.

There’d been something about his clothes, his bearing, the way he knelt to fill his jug: none of it had prepared me for the speed of his reaction. Nor the skill. For as he swivelled he crouched, and from the corner of my eye I saw the jug in his fist whip up towards me, so fast it would have knocked me down if I hadn’t shown a turn of equal speed and ducked.

I had evaded him, but only just. As I scuttled back to avoid another blow from the jug, his eyes flitted over my shoulder and saw Holden. Next, he turned to cast a quick look at the stone steps, his only exit. He was assessing his options: run or stand and fight. And he settled on stand and fight.

Which made him, just as Holden had said, one—
very
—tough eunuch.

He took a few steps back, reached beneath his robes and produced a sword, simultaneously punching the earthenware jug against the wall to give himself a second weapon. Then, sword in one hand, jagged jug in another, he advanced.

The walkway was too narrow. Only one of us could face him at any one time, and I was the nearer. The time to worry about blood on robes was over, and I released my blade, stepping back a little myself and taking a stance ready to meet him. Implacably, he advanced, all the time holding my gaze. There was something fearsome about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on at first, but then I realized what it was: he did something no opponent had ever done: as my old nursemaid Edith would have said, he gave me the creeps. It was knowing what he’d been through, the procedure to make him a eunuch. Living through that, nothing held any fear for him, least of all me, a clumsy oaf who couldn’t even sneak up on him successfully.

He knew it, too. He knew he gave me the creeps and he used it. It was all there in his eyes, which didn’t register an emotion as the sword in his right hand slashed towards me. I was forced to block with the blade and only just twisted to avoid the following move, which came from his left as he tried and almost succeeded in shoving the broken jug into my face.

He gave me no time to rest, perhaps realizing that the only way to beat both me and Holden was to keep driving us back along the narrow walkway. Again the sword flashed, this time underarm, and again I defended with the blade, grimacing with pain as I used my forearm to stop a secondary strike from the jug then replying with an offensive move of my own, jogging slightly to my right and driving my blade towards his sternum. He used the jug as a shield, and my blade smashed into it, sprinkling earthenware to the stone beneath us, splish-splashing into the pool. My blade was going to need sharpening after this.

If
I got out of this.

And damn the man. He was the first eunuch we’d met and already we were struggling. I motioned Holden to stand back and keep from under my feet as I retreated, trying to give myself some space and reorganize myself internally at the same time.

The eunuch was beating me—not just with skill, but because I feared him. And fear is what a warrior fears most.

I crouched low, brought the blades to bear and met his eye. For a moment we stood motionless, engaged in a silent but ferocious battle of will. A battle I won. Somehow his hold over me broke, and all it took was a flicker of his eyes to tell me that he knew it, too, that the psychological victory was no longer his.