‘I would think it was part of the story. But just part.’
‘You would be right, Jayadeep. For the truth is that I saw in your eyes something I have seen in the eyes of men I killed; men whose very own lack of heart in combat was a weakness I recognized and exploited in order to plunge my blade into them.’
‘And you thought you saw it in me?’
‘I did. And I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘We thought you were wrong. Father believed I could be instilled with the mettle needed to be a killer. He set about showing me the way. We practised and rehearsed with live subjects.’
‘Putting an animal to the sword is very different to –’
‘I know that now.’ The words came out sharply. A little of the old master–pupil interaction returned and Jayadeep lowered fearful eyes in apology. ‘I know that now, master, and believe me I regret it.’
‘But you and Arbaaz felt that you were ready to take the life of one of your own species, to take from a man everything he ever was and everything he ever will be, to leave his family grieving, to begin a wave of sadness and sorrow and possible revenge and recrimination that might ripple throughout the ages? You and your father felt you were ready for that?’
‘Please, master, don’t make this more difficult for me. Yes, you are right, in the face of what you say, our preparations might seem dreadfully feeble, but then again, what Assassin can claim differently? Everything is theory until it is put into practice. And my turn came to put theory into practice. For my blooding I was to kill an Indian Templar by the name of Tjinder Dani. A man we believed was making plans to establish a Templar outpost in the city.’
‘And what was to be the method of his execution?’
‘The garrotte.’
Inwardly Ethan cursed. A garrotte. Of all things. You didn’t need a huge amount of skill to use a garrotte, but you needed resolve, and what Jayadeep had was plenty of skill but not so much resolve. What the hell had Arbaaz been thinking?
Jayadeep continued. ‘Under cover of darkness, myself and Father rode out to the street where Dani kept his lodgings. One of our agents had bribed a nightwatchman for the key, and in the street we took possession of it, thanked and paid the man and sent him on his way.’
A witness, thought Ethan. It gets better.
‘I know what you’re thinking. I could have picked the lock.’
‘You are an excellent lock-pick.’
‘The information given to us by the agent was that the Templar Dani was expecting an attack and thus was accompanied by bodyguards during the day. Our enemies were relying on the fact that a daytime attempt on his life would have resulted in a public confrontation. A street skirmish involving multiple Assassins and Templars was to be avoided at all costs. For that reason it was decided to make a night-time incursion, and for that reason we assembled as much information as possible regarding the target’s nocturnal activities.’
‘And it was you who did this, was it?’
‘Yes, and I learnt that Dani barred his door and laid traps at night, that an invasion either by the door or the window would result in alarms being activated. So, you see, the key given to us was not to the door of Dani’s room, not even to his lodgings, but to the warehouse next door, where I was able to make an unobtrusive entrance. There were three men stationed in the street, looking for all the world as though they were providing security for the warehouse, but I knew them to be Templar guards, and their job was to see to it that no Assassin scaled the walls of either the lodging house or the warehouse. It was clever. They had the outside of the buildings covered while inside Dani had his room secure. It would take a measure of stealth and guile to get inside. I have both.
‘I waited in the shadows, taking strength and reassurance from the knowledge that not far away my father waited with our horses, ready for our escape. At the same time I measured the movements of the guards as they carried out their patrol.
‘I had been there on previous nights, of course, timing just as I was on this occasion, and what I’d learnt was that the guards coordinated their movements to prevent anyone having the opportunity to scale the walls. Under their robes they carried crossbows and throwing knives; they kept a safe distance from one another so as to prevent a quick double-kill, so taking out one of them would alert the others. I had no reason to suspect that they were anything but supremely competent. That is why I had the key, Ethan.’
‘The key was to the warehouse?’
‘Yes. I had greased the keyhole myself that very morning, and now I counted, I timed, and I made my move when the moment was right. I streaked across the apron behind the warehouse and to the rear door, where I thrust the key into the lock. The sound was muffled, a well-oiled click that, even though it sounded to my ears like a gunshot, was in reality just another indistinguishable night noise, and then I was inside. I locked the warehouse door behind me but took the key. This was to be my escape route also.
‘Or so I thought at the time. But of course I was wrong about that.’
The boy’s head dropped once more to his lap and he wrung his hands, tortured by the pain of the wretched memory.
‘The warehouse was empty. All I saw on the stone floor was a long slatted table and some chairs. Possibly it was to have been used by the Templars for some reason. In either case the idea of it needing an exterior guard was laughable. Of course they hadn’t bothered to post a guard inside, but even so I stayed silent as I made my way up steps and then ladders to the roof of the building. Once outside, I stayed in the shadows and took my neckerchief from round my neck. You ask about my Assassin’s robes, but, in fact, I never wore them. I was wearing then what I’m wearing now. If by some chance I’d been discovered by the warehouse guards, they would have taken me for a street boy of no consequence, given me a slap and sent me on my way. Had they investigated more thoroughly they would have known that I differed from a street urchin in only one respect – that I had in my pocket a coin.’
Ethan was nodding sagely. He knew the weapon. The coin is wrapped in the neckerchief, the neckerchief used as a lumal, a kind of garrotte. The coin chokes the victim’s windpipe, crushing his larynx, hastening death and preventing him from crying out. It is one of the most basic but effective of the Assassin’s tools. Ethan began to understand why Arbaaz had selected it. He even began to understand why Arbaaz had chosen Jayadeep for the job. ‘Continue,’ he said.
‘I made the jump easily. And then, staying in the shadows of the lodging-house roof and wary of the guards who still patrolled below, I crept towards the hatch I knew to be in the ceiling of Dani’s room. I had brought grease with me, a dab of it behind my ear, and I used it on the hatch, which I opened as carefully as possible, before letting myself down into the dark space below.
‘My breath was held and my heart hammered. But as you had always taught me, the presence of a little fear is to be welcomed. Fear makes us careful. Fear keeps us alive. There was nothing so far about my mission to give me cause for worry. Everything was going to plan.
‘Now I was in Dani’s room. I could see the traps he had placed at his door and at the window. A pulley system attached to a ceiling bell that hung not far from the hatch I had just used to make my grand entrance.
‘And there in bed was my target, a man about whom I had learnt a great deal in the weeks leading up to the assignment. My breathing became heavy. My temple seemed to throb as though the vein there was beating in time to my increased heart rate. This was my nerves worsening –’
Ethan stopped him. ‘While you were learning about Dani he was also becoming a h
uman being in your eyes, wasn’t he? You had begun to think of him as a person rather than as a target, hadn’t you?’
‘In retrospect, you’re right. I had.’
‘Who could have seen that coming?’ said Ethan, regretting his inappropriate sarcasm immediately.
‘Perhaps it would have been too late, even if I had. Too late for second thoughts, I mean. There was no going back. I was an Assassin in the room of a slumbering man. My target. I had to act. I had no choice but to go through with the job. The issue of whether or not I was ready had ceased to be relevant. It was not a question of being ready, it was a question of action. Of kill or fail.’
‘And looking around, I think we all know what happened there.’ Again, Ethan regretted his flippancy, remembering that when this conversation was over he would pull himself to his feet, brush the straw from his backside, call for the custodian and leave the boy alone in this dark and damp place. No, this was no time for smart remarks. Instead, he tried to imagine the scene in the room: the darkened lodging house, a man asleep – did a man ever look so innocent as when he was asleep? – and Jayadeep, his breath held, wringing his neckerchief in his hand as he gathered his nerves ready to strike, the coin rolled into the neckerchief, and …
The coin falling from the neckerchief. Striking the floorboards.
‘Your garrotte,’ he said to Jayadeep. ‘Did the coin fall from it?’
‘How did you know? I didn’t tell anybody that.’
‘Visualization, my dear boy. Haven’t I always taught you about it?’
Across the boy’s face came the first hint of a smile since Ethan had entered the room. ‘You did. Of course you did. It’s a technique I use constantly.’
‘But not on this occasion?’
A cloud of sadness stole the smile’s slight beginnings. ‘No, not on this occasion. On this occasion all I heard was the blood rushing in my head. All I could hear was my father’s voice urging me on to do what had to be done. When the coin dropped the noise surprised me and it woke Dani and he was quicker to react than I was.’
‘You should have struck the moment you were in the room,’ said Ethan, and an anger that didn’t really belong with the boy was directed at him anyway. ‘You should have struck the second you had the chance. Your hesitation was your undoing. What did I always tell you? What did your father always advise? You hesitate, you die – it’s as simple as that. An assassination is not a cerebral act. It requires great thought, but all of that thought goes into the planning and preparation, the contemplation and visualization prior to the act itself. That is the time for second, third, fourth thoughts, as many thoughts as you need until you are sure – absolutely certain – that you are ready to do what needs to be done. Because when you are in the moment, when you stand before your target, there is no time for hesitation.’
Jayadeep’s eyes swam with tears as he looked up at his old friend. ‘I know that now.’
Ethan laid a comforting hand on his. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Tell me what happened next.’
‘He was quick, I’ll give him that, and I should credit him with a lot more besides, because he was quick and he was strong, and he sprang from the bed with a speed that surprised me in a man of his age and size and he caught me, by now practically unarmed, and thrust me backwards to the window.
‘We went straight through it, Dani and I. We went straight through the shutters and plummeted to the cobbles below, a fall that was thankfully broken by the canopy beneath. Looking back, perhaps I hoped that my training might return to me, a kind of instinct, if you like. But it failed me. Even as I rolled away from Dani, hurt and stunned and desperately trying to get a hold of my senses, I saw faces appear at the windows on the other side of the street, and heard the sound of the running feet as the guards hastened towards us.
‘I rolled away from Dani, feeling a blinding pain in my head and another in my hip. The next moment he was upon me, his teeth bared, his eyes bright and wide with hatred, his hands fixed round my neck.
‘He never heard the horse. Neither did I. Earlier we had used strips of blanket to muffle the hooves, Father and I, and he came riding over the stone towards us, silent as a wraith, and the first I saw of him was a robed figure on horseback looming behind Dani, one hand on the reins of the horse, the other held out, crooked at the elbow and flexing, his hidden blade ejecting, moonlight running along the steel. Father wrapped the reins in his hand and wrenched back, forcing his horse to rear up on its hind legs, and for a second I saw him as the fearsome Assassin-warrior of legend. I saw the death-dealing glint in his eye, his intent to kill as strong and true as the weapon he wielded. I saw a man I could never hope to be. Perhaps I knew then that I was lost.
‘And perhaps, also, Dani, my intended victim, knew that death had come from behind. But it was too late, and my father’s blade punched through the top of his skull and into his brain, killing him instantly – an instant in which his eyes widened then rolled back and his mouth dropped open in surprise and a half-second of excruciating agony before his life was extinguished – an instant during which I saw the blood-streaked steel inside his mouth.
‘Father withdrew his blade and droplets of blood flew from it as he swept it back, this time to slice the throat of the first oncoming guard who fell into a mist of arterial spray, his sword not even drawn. Father’s arm swept back the other way, this time across his chest and there was a ring of steel, as sharp and loud in the night as Dani’s warning bell as his blade met the sword of the second guard. His parry sent the attacker staggering back, and in a blink Father was off his horse to claim his advantage, drawing his sword with his other hand and attacking at the same time.
‘It was over in a heartbeat. In a blur of robes and steel, Father attacked with both weapons. Instinctively the guard had straightened his forearm to defend against the sword attack but it left him exposed to a strike from the other side and that’s exactly what Father did, slamming his hidden blade into the guard’s armpit.
‘The man fell, his tunic already crimson, the cobbles gleaming with it. He would bleed out in moments. Either that or choke on his own blood if …’
‘If the blade punctured his lungs. Yes, I taught you that myself.’
‘Whether more guards were simply slow in arriving or had witnessed my father in action and decided that discretion was the better part of valour, I don’t know. Without a word he regained his horse, reached for me and swept me up to ride behind him, and then we were gone, leaving the street in pandemonium behind us.’
There was a long pause. Ethan said nothing, feeling the boy’s trauma almost as if it were his own. So that was it, he thought. Jayadeep’s action had broken the tenets of the creed: he had been forced to surrender hiding in plain sight; worse, he had been forced to compromise the Brotherhood.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Jayadeep at last. ‘You’re thinking I’m a coward.’
‘Well, then you don’t know what I’m thinking, because that’s not what I’m thinking. There’s a world of difference between thought and action, and one thing I know of you, Jayadeep, is that you’re not a coward.’
‘Then why was I unable to deliver the killing blow?’
Ethan rolled his eyes. Had nobody listened to a bloody word he’d said? ‘Because you’re not a killer.’
Again came silence. Sorrow bloomed from the boy and Ethan thought, What a world we live in, when we mourn an inability to kill.
‘What did your father say to you, on the journey home?’
‘Nothing, master. He said nothing, not a word. But of course his silence spoke volum
es, and has continued to do so. He has not been to see me. Nor Mother.’
Ethan fumed. The bloody tyrant, leaving his own son in this hole. ‘The Assassins will have forbidden your mother from coming to see you.’
‘Yes.’
And Ethan could well imagine how Arbaaz had been feeling. He could picture it as he and his son rode home, dropping off Jayadeep, packed off to his quarters in silent disgrace, then riding off to see the mentor, Hamid. The boy went on to tell him that he had been asleep in bed when he was awoken by a black hood over his head, and had been bundled away to The Darkness. Ethan wondered whether Arbaaz was one of the men who had taken Jayadeep into custody. Had his own father led the arrest party?
He stood. ‘I will be doing my best to get you out of here, Jayadeep, of that you may be certain.’
But as he called for Ajay, in English and in Hindi, what stayed with Ethan was the look in the boy’s eyes as he shook his head in sad denial of hope.
Ethan and Ajay made the short journey along the passage and up the stone steps to the meeting room above. There was a second guard, a striking-looking woman who stood with her feet planted slightly apart and her hands on the hilt of a large sword, its point on the flagstone at her feet. She regarded Ethan implacably from beneath her cowl.
‘This is Kulpreet,’ said Ajay by way of introduction. He tilted a stubbled jaw in her direction. ‘She is the best with a sword in the Brotherhood.’
And yet the sword she minded was longer, had a flatter blade …
‘When?’ Ethan asked her.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ she replied.
And Ethan could see from her eyes that he was talking to Jayadeep’s executioner.
15
‘I thank you for seeing me.’
Ethan had every reason to fear that Arbaaz might simply refuse his request for an audience. What had happened wasn’t Ethan’s fault – far from it – but in Arbaaz’s eyes he must have been held at least partly responsible. Then, of course, there was the small matter of the exchange of letters.
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