Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (22 page)

I stepped forward, blade flashing, and now it was his turn to edge back, defending well and steadily but no longer with the upper hand. At one point, he even grunted, his lips pulled back from his teeth, and I saw the beginnings of a sweat glow dully on his forehead. My blade moved quickly. And now that I had him retreating, I began to think afresh about keeping his robes free of blood. The battle had turned; it was mine now, and he was swinging wildly with his sword, his attacks becoming more disorganized until I saw my chance, dropped almost to my knees and thrust upwards with the blade, punching up into his jaw.

His body spasmed and his arms stretched out as though crucified. His sword dropped, and when his lips stretched wide in a silent scream I saw the silver of my impaling blade inside his mouth. Then his body dropped.

I’d driven him all the way back to the foot of the steps and the hatch was open. Any moment now, another eunuch would be along to wonder where the jug of water had got to. Sure enough, I heard footsteps from above us and a shadow passed across the hatch. I ducked back, grabbed at the ankles of the dead man and dragged him with me, snatching off his hat and jamming it on my own head.

The next thing I saw was the bare feet of a eunuch as he descended the steps and angled his head to peer down into the pool chamber. The sight of me in the white hat was enough to disorientate him for one precious second, and I lunged, grabbed his robes in my fists and yanked him down the steps towards me, slamming my forehead into the bridge of his nose before he could scream. The bones crunched and broke, and I held his head up to stop blood leaking to his robes as his eyes rolled up and he slouched, dazed, against the wall. In moments he’d recover his senses and shout for help, and I couldn’t allow that. So I rammed the flat of my hand hard into his mashed nose, driving splinters of broken bone into his brain and killing him instantly.

Seconds later I’d scampered up the steps and, very carefully, very gently, closed the hatch, giving us at least a few moments of concealment before reinforcements arrived. Somewhere, presumably, a concubine was expecting a jug of water to be delivered.

We said nothing, just slipped into the eunuchs’ robes and pulled on our
kalpaks
. How glad I was to get rid of those blasted sandals. And then we looked at one another. Holden had spots of blood on the front of his gown, from where I had smashed the nose of the robe’s previous wearer. I scratched at it with a nail but, instead of it flaking off as I’d hoped, it was still wet and smeared a little. In the end, using a complicated series of pained facial expressions and furious nods, we decided by mutual consent to leave the bloodstain and risk it. Next, I carefully opened the hatch and let myself out into the room above, which was empty. It was a dark, cool room, tiled in marble that seemed luminescent, thanks to a pool that covered most of the floor space, its surface smooth, silent yet somehow alive.

With the coast clear I turned and motioned to Holden, who followed me through the hatch into the room. We stood there for a moment or so taking in our surroundings, giving each other cautiously triumphant looks before moving to the door, opening it and letting ourselves out into the courtyard beyond.

iv

Not knowing what lay on the other side, I’d been flexing my fingers, ready to release my blade at a moment’s notice, while Holden had no doubt been set to reach for his sword, both of us poised to fight should we be greeted by a squad of snarling eunuchs, a huddle of howling concubines.

Instead what we saw was a scene straight out of heaven, an afterlife filled with peace and serenity and beautiful women. It was a large courtyard paved in black-and-white stone, with a trickling fountain at its centre and a surround of ornate columned porticos shaded by overhanging vines and trees. A restful place, devoted to beauty, serenity, tranquillity and thought. The trickle and burble of the fountain was the only sound, despite all the people there. Concubines in flowing white silk either sat on stone benches, meditative or doing needlework, or crossed the courtyard, bare feet padding silently on the stone, impossibly proud and erect, nodding courteously to one another as they passed; while among them moved servant girls, dressed similarly but easy to spot because they were younger or older, or not as beautiful as the women they served.

There was an equal number of men, most of whom stood around the edges of the courtyard, watchful and waiting to be called forward to serve: the eunuchs. None looked our way, I was relieved to see; the rules around eye contact were as elaborate as the mosaics. And as two unfamiliar-looking eunuchs trying to negotiate our way around a strange place, that suited us down to the ground.

We stayed by the door of the baths, which was partly obscured by the columns and vines of the portico, and I unconsciously adopted the same pose as the other guards—back straight, my hands held together in front of me—as my gaze swept the courtyard in search of Jenny.

And there she was. I didn’t recognize her at first; my eyes almost went past her. But when I looked again, to where a concubine sat relaxing with her back to the fountain, having her feet massaged by her serving-woman, I realized that the serving-woman was my sister.

Time had taken its toll on those looks, and though there was still a glimmer of the beauty she’d once been, her dark hair was flecked with grey, her face was drawn and lined and her skin had sagged a little, revealing dark hollows beneath her eyes: tired eyes. What an irony it was that I should recognize the look on the face of the girl she tended to: the vain and disdainful way she gazed down her nose. I’d grown up seeing it on my sister’s face. Not that I took any pleasure in the irony, but I couldn’t ignore it.

As I stared, Jenny looked across the courtyard at me. For a second her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and I wondered if, after all these years, she’d recognize me. But no. I was too far away. I was disguised as a eunuch. The jug—it had been meant for her. And maybe she was wondering why two eunuchs had walked into the baths and two different ones had walked out.

Still wearing a confused expression, she stood, genuflected to the concubine she served then began to move over, weaving through silken-clothed concubines as she crossed the courtyard towards us. I slipped behind Holden just as she ducked her head to avoid the vines dangling from the portico and was standing a foot or so away from us.

She said nothing, of course—talking was forbidden—but then again she didn’t need to. Lurking behind Holden’s right shoulder, I risked a look at her face and watched as her eyes slid from him to the bath-chamber door, her meaning clear to see:
where is my water?
On her face, as she exerted what little authority she had, I could see a reminder of the girl Jenny had been, a ghost of the haughtiness that had once been so familiar to me.

Meanwhile, Holden, reacting to the furious gaze he received from Jenny, bowed his head and was about to turn towards the bath chamber. I prayed he’d had the same flash of inspiration as I, and that he had realized, if he could somehow lure Jenny inside, then we could make our escape with hardly a ruffle caused. Sure enough, he was spreading his hands to indicate there’d been a problem, then gesturing at the door to the bath chamber, as though to say he needed assistance. But Jenny, far from being prepared to offer it, had instead noticed something about Holden’s attire and, rather than accompanying him into the bath house, stopped him with an upraised finger, which she first crooked at him and then turned to indicate something on his chest. A bloodstain.

Her eyes widened and again I looked, this time to see her eyes move from the bloodstain on Holden’s robes to his face, and what she saw there was the face of an imposter.

Her mouth dropped open. She took a step back then another until she bumped into one of the columns and the impact jogged her out of her sudden, shocked daze and, as she opened her mouth, about to break the sacred rule and call for help, I slipped from behind Holden’s shoulder, hissing, “Jenny, it’s me. It’s Haytham.”

As I said it I glanced nervously out into the courtyard, where everyone continued as before, oblivious to what was happening beneath the portico, and then I looked back to see Jenny staring at me, her eyes growing wider, already misting up with tears as the years fell away and she recognized me.

“Haytham,” she whispered, “you’ve come for me.”

“Yes, Jenny, yes,” I replied in a hush, feeling a strange mix of emotions, at least one of which was guilt.

“I knew you’d come,” she said. “I knew you’d come.”

Her voice was rising, and I began to worry, casting another panicky look out into the courtyard. Then she reached forward and grasped my two hands in both of hers and brushed past Holden to look imploringly into my eyes. “Tell me he’s dead. Tell me you killed him.”

Torn between wanting her to keep quiet and wanting to know what she meant, I hissed, “Who? Tell you who’s dead?”

“Birch,” she spat, and this time her voice was too loud. Past her shoulder I saw a concubine. Gliding towards us beneath the portico, perhaps on her way to the bath chamber, she’d seemed lost in thought, but at the sound of a voice she looked up, and her expression of calm serenity was replaced by one of panic—and she leaned out into the courtyard and called the one word we had all been fearing.

“Guards!”

v

The first guard to come rushing over didn’t realize I was armed, and I’d engaged the blade and plunged it into his abdomen before he even knew what was happening. His eyes went wide and he grunted flecks of blood into my face. With a yell of effort, I wrenched my arm round and pulled him with me, ramming his still-writhing corpse into a second man who came rushing towards us, and sent them both tumbling back to the black-and-white tiles of the courtyard. More arrived, and the fight was on. From the corner of my eye I saw the flash of a blade and turned just in time to avoid its being embedded into my neck. Twisting, I grabbed the assailant’s sword arm, broke it and slid my blade up into his skull. I went into a crouch, pivoted and kicked to take away the legs of a fourth man then scrambled to my feet, stamped on his face and heard his skull crunch.

Not far away, Holden had felled three of the eunuchs, but by now the guards had the measure of us and were approaching with more caution, assembling for combat even as we took cover behind the columns and threw worried glances at each other, each wondering if we could make it back to the trapdoor before we were overrun.

Clever boys. Two of them moved forward together. I stood side by side with Holden and we fought back, even as another pair of guards moved in from our right. For a moment it was touch and go, as we stood back-to-back and battled the guards out of the portico until they withdrew, ready to launch their next attack, inching closer all the time, crowding in.

Behind us, Jenny stood by the door to the bath chamber. “Haytham!” she called, a note of panic in her voice. “We’ve got to go.”

What would they do to her if she were captured now? I wondered. What would her punishment be? I dreaded to think.

“You two go, sir,” urged Holden over his shoulder.

“No way,” I called back.

Again came an attack and again we fought. A eunuch fell dying with a groan. Even in death, even with sword steel in their gut, these men didn’t scream. Over the shoulders of the ones in front of us I saw more of them pouring into the courtyard. They were like cockroaches. For every one we killed there were two to take his place.

“Go, sir!”
insisted Holden. “I’ll keep them back then follow you.”

“Don’t be a fool, Holden,” I barked, unable to keep the scoffing sound out of my voice. “There’s no holding them back. They’ll cut you down.”

“I’ve been in tighter spots than this one, sir,” grunted Holden, his sword arm working as he exchanged blows. But I could hear the false bravado in his voice.

“Then you won’t mind if I stay,” I said, at the same time fending off one of the eunuch’s sword strikes and parrying, not with my blade but with a punch to the face that sent him pinwheeling back.

“Go!”
he shrieked.

“We die. We both die,” I replied.

But Holden had decided that the time for courtesy was over. “Listen, mate, either you two make it out of here or none of us do. What’s it going to be?”

At the same time, Jenny was pulling on my hand, the door to the bath chamber open, and more men arriving from our left. But still I hesitated. Until, at last, with a shake of his head, Holden whipped round, yelled, “You’ll have to excuse me sir,” and before I could react had shoved me backwards through the door and slammed it shut.

There was a moment of shocked silence in the bath chamber as I sprawled on the floor and tried to absorb what had happened. From the other side of the door I heard the sounds of battle—a strange, quiet, muted battle it was, too—and a thudding at the door. Next there was a shout—a shout that belonged to Holden, and I pulled myself to my feet, about to haul the door open and rush back out, when Jenny grasped hold of my arm.

“You can’t help him now, Haytham,” she said softly, just as there came another yell from the courtyard, Holden shouting, “You bastards, you bloody prickless bastards.”

I cast one last look back at the door then pulled the bar across to lock it as Jenny dragged me over to the hatch in the floor.

“Is that the best you can do, you bastards?” I heard from above us as we took the steps, Holden’s voice growing fainter now. “Come on, you dickless wonders, let’s see how you fare against one of His Majesty’s men . . .”

The last thing we heard as we ran back along the walkway was the sound of a scream.

21 S
EPTEMBER
1757

i

I had hoped never to take pleasure in killing, but, for the Coptic priest who stood guard close to the Abou Gerbe monastery on Mount Ghebel Eter, I made an exception. I have to admit I enjoyed killing him.

He crumpled to the dirt at the base of a fence that surrounded a small enclosure, his chest heaving and his last breaths coming in jagged bursts as he died. Overhead, a buzzard cawed, and I glanced to where the arches and spires of the sandstone monastery loomed on the horizon. Saw the warm glow of life at the window.

The dying guard gurgled at my feet, and for a second it occurred to me to finish him quickly—but then again, why show him mercy? However slowly he died and however much pain he felt while it happened, it was nothing—
nothing
—compared to the agony inflicted on those poor souls who had suffered within the enclosure.

And one in particular, who was suffering in there now.

I had learnt in the market in Damascus that Holden had not been killed, as I had thought, but captured and transported to Egypt and to the Coptic monastery at Abou Gerbe, where they turned men into eunuchs. So that is where I came, praying I would not be too late but, in my heart of hearts, knowing I would be. And I was.

Looking at the fence, I could tell it would be sunk deep into the ground to prevent predatory night-time animals digging beneath it. Within the enclosure was the place where they buried the eunuchs up to their necks in sand and kept them there for ten days. They didn’t want hyenas gnawing away at the faces of the buried men during that time. Absolutely not. No, if those men died, they were to die of slow exposure to the sun or of the wounds inflicted upon them during the castration procedure.

With the guard dead behind me, I crept into the enclosure. It was dark, just the light of the moon to guide me, but I could see that the sand around was bloodstained. How many men, I wondered, had suffered here, mutilated then buried up to their necks? From not far away came a low groan, and I squinted, seeing an irregular shape on the ground at the centre of the enclosure, and I knew straight away that it belonged to Private James Holden.

“Holden,”
I whispered, and a second later was crouching to where his head protruded from the sand, gasping at what I saw. The night was cool, but the days were hot, tortuously so, and the sun had burned him so badly it was as though the very flesh had been seared away from his face. His lips and eyelids were crusted and bleeding, his skin red and peeling. I had a leather flask of water at the ready, uncorked it and held it to his lips.

“Holden?” I repeated.

He stirred. His eyes flickered open and focused on me, milky and full of pain but with recognition, and very slowly the ghost of a smile appeared on his cracked and petrified lips.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone and he was convulsing. Whether he was trying to wrench himself out of the sand or struck by a fit I wasn’t sure, but his head thrashed from side to side, his mouth yawned open, and I leaned forward, taking his face in both of my hands to stop him hurting himself.

“Holden,” I said, keeping my voice down. “Holden, stop. Please . . .”

“Get me out of here, sir,” he rasped, and his eyes gleamed wet in the moonlight. “Get me out.”

“Holden . . .”

“Get me out of here,” he pleaded. “Get me out of here, sir, please, sir, now, sir . . .”

Again his head began jerking painfully left to right. Again I reached out to steady him, needing to stop him before he became hysterical. How long did I have before they posted a new guard? I offered the flask to his lips and let him sip more water then pulled a shovel I had brought from my back and began scooping blood-soaked sand from around his head, talking to him at the same time as I exposed his bare shoulders and chest.

“I’m so sorry, Holden, I’m so sorry. I should never have left you.”

“I told you to, sir,” he managed. “I gave you a push, remember . . .”

As I dug down, the sand was even more black with blood. “Oh God, what have they done to you?”

But I already knew and, anyway, I had my proof moments later, when I reached his waist to find it swathed in bandages—also thick and black and crusted with blood.

“Be careful down there, sir, please,” he said, very, very quietly, and I could see that he was wincing, biting back the pain. Which in the end was too much for him, and he lost consciousness, a blessing that allowed me to uncover him and take him from that accursed place and to our two horses, which were tethered to trees at the bottom of the hill.

ii

I made Holden comfortable then stood and looked up the hill towards the monastery. I checked the mechanism of my blade, strapped a sword to my waist, primed two pistols and pushed them into my belt, then primed two muskets. Next I lit a taper and torch and, taking the muskets, made my way back up the hill, where I lit a second and third torch. I chased the horses out then tossed the first torch into the stables, the hay going up with a satisfying
whoomph
; the second torch I threw into the vestibule of the chapel, and when both that and the stables were nicely ablaze I jogged across to the dormitory, lighting two more torches on the way, smashing rear windows and tossing the torches inside. And then I returned to the front door, where I’d leaned the muskets against a tree. And I waited.

Not for long. In moments, the first priest appeared. I shot him down, tossed the first musket aside, picked up the second and used it on the second priest. More began to pour out, and I emptied the pistols then dashed up to the doorway and began attacking with my blade and sword. Bodies fell around me—ten, eleven or more—as the building burned, until I was slick with priest blood, my hands covered in it, trails of it running from my face. I let the wounded scream in agony as the remaining priests inside cowered—not wanting to burn, too terrified to run out and face death. Some chanced it, of course, and came charging out wielding swords, only to be cut down. Others I heard burning. Maybe some escaped, but I wasn’t in the mood to be thorough. I made sure that most of them died; I heard the screams and smelled the burning flesh of those who hid inside, and then I stepped over the bodies of the dead and dying and left, as the monastery burned behind me.