v
I made it back of course. Once I’d got to the bank, heaved myself out of the river and used the confusion of the king’s journey to Paris to “liberate” a horse, I took the debris-littered road in the opposite direction of the crowds, out of Paris and to Versailles, and as I rode I tried to keep as still as possible, mindful of my broken ribs.
My clothes were soaked and my teeth were chattering by the time I got back and slid out of the saddle and onto the doorstep of the groundskeeper’s lodge, but whatever the poor shape I was in, all I could think was that I’d let him down. I’d let my father down.
EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ARNO DORIAN
12 SEPTEMBER 1794
Reading, I find myself catching my breath, not just in admiration for her audacity and courage, but because when I follow her journey I realize that I am seeing a mirror image of my own. Mr. Weatherall was right (and thank you, thank you, Mr. Weatherall, for helping her to see that) because we were so much the same, Élise and I.
The difference was, of course, that she got there first. It was Élise who first trained in the ways of her . . . ah, I was going to write her “chosen” Order, but of course there was nothing “chosen” about it, not for Élise. She was born to be a Templar. Groomed for leadership, and if at first she had embraced her destiny, as she surely did, because it gave her a way to escape the life of gossip and fan-wafting she saw at Versailles, then she had come to distrust it as well; she had grown to question the eternal conflict of Assassin and Templar; she had come to ask herself if it was all worth it—if all this killing had achieved anything, or ever would.
As she knew, the man she’d seen me with was Bellec, and I suppose you’d have to say that I fell in with him; that he turned my head, made me aware of certain gifts that were within my grasp. In other words, it was Bellec who made me an Assassin. It was he who had mentored me through my induction into the Assassins, he who set me on a course of hunting down my surrogate father’s killer.
Ah yes, Élise. You were not the only one who mourned François de la Serre. You were not the only one who investigated his death. And in that enterprise I had certain advantages: the knowledge of my Order, the “gifts” I had been able to develop under Bellec’s tuition, and the fact that I had been there the night François de la Serre had died.
Perhaps I should have waited and allowed you the honor. Perhaps I was as impulsive as you are. Perhaps.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ÉLISE DE LA SERRE
25 APRIL 1790
i
It is six months since I last wrote in my journal. Six months since I took a dive off the Pont Marie on a freezing October night.
For a while of, course, I was bedbound, suffering a fever that came on a few days after my dunk in the Seine and trying to mend a broken rib at the same time. My poor, weakened body was having difficulty doing both those things simultaneously, and for a while, according to Helene anyway, it was a close thing.
I’d had to take her word for it. I’d been absent in mind if not in body, feverish and hallucinating, gabbling strange things in the night, crying out, my emaciated body drenched in freezing sweat.
My memory of that time was waking up one morning and seeing their concerned faces above my bed: Helene, Jacques and Mr. Weatherall, with Helene saying, “The fever’s broken,” and a look of relief that passed across them like a wave.
ii
It was some days later when Mr. Weatherall came to my bedchamber and perched himself on the end of my bed. We tended not to stand on ceremony at the lodge. It was one of the reasons I liked it. It made the fact that I had to be there, hiding from my enemies, that bit more bearable.
For some time he just sat, and we were silent, the way old friends can be, when silence is not to be feared. From outside drifted the sounds of Helene and Jacques teasing one another, footsteps scampering past the window, Helene laughing and breathless, and we caught each other’s eye and shared a knowing smile before Mr. Weatherall’s chin dropped back to his chest and he continued picking at his beard, something he had a habit of doing these days.
And then, after a while I said, “What would my father have done, Mr. Weatherall?”
Unexpectedly, he chuckled. “He would have called for help from overseas, child. From England, probably. Tell me, what is the state of your relationship with the English Templars?”
I shot him a withering look. “What else?”
“Well, he would have tried to rally support. And before you say anything, yes, what else do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been in here screaming the place up and sweating for France? I’ve been trying to rally support.”
“And?”
He sighed. “Not much to report. My network is slowly falling silent.”
I hugged my knees and felt a twinge of pain from my ribs, still not fully healed. “What do you mean, ‘slowly falling silent’?”
“I mean that after months of sending letters and receiving evasive replies, no one wants to know, do they? Nobody will speak to me—to us—not even in secret. They say there’s a new Grand Master now; that the de la Serre era has come to an end. My correspondents no longer sign their letters. They implore me to burn them once I’ve read them. Whoever this new leader is, he’s got them scared.”
“‘The de la Serre era has come to an end.’ That’s what they say?”
“That’s what they say, child, yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
I gave a short, dry laugh. “You know, Mr. Weatherall, I don’t know whether to be offended or grateful when people underestimate me. The de la Serre era has not come to an end. Tell them that. Tell them that the de la Serre era never comes to an end while I still have breath in my lungs. These conspirators think they’re going to get away with it—with killing my father, deposing my family from the Order. Really? Then they deserve to die just for their stupidity.”
He bristled. “You know what that is? That’s revenge talk.”
I shrugged. “You call it revenge. I’ll call it fighting back. Either way it’s not sitting here—as you would say—‘on my arse,’ hiding out in the grounds of a girls’ school, creeping around and hoping that someone will write to our secret drop. I intend to fight back, Mr. Weatherall. Tell that to your contacts.”
But Mr. Weatherall could be persuasive. Plus my skills were rusty, my strength depleted—my ribs still hurt for one thing—so I had stayed on at the lodge while he went about his business, writing his letters, trying to rally support for my cause beneath the cloak of subterfuge.
News reaches me that the last of the staff have left the château in Versailles and I yearn to go there, but of course cannot, because it isn’t safe, and so I must leave my beloved family home at the mercy of looters.
But I promised Mr. Weatherall I would be patient so I’m being patient. For now.
16 NOVEMBER 1790
Seven months of letter writing and we know this much: my allies and friends are now former allies and friends.
The purge is complete. Some turned, some were bribed and the others, the ones who were more resilient and tried to pledge their support, men like Monsieur Le Fanu, well, they were dealt with in other ways. One morning Monsieur Le Fanu was carried feetfirst and naked from a Parisian whorehouse, then left in the street to be gawked at by passersby, and for that dishonor, he was posthumously stripped of his Order status, and his wife and children, who under normal circumstances would have benefited from financial help, left in penury.
Now, Monsieur Le Fanu was a family man, as devoted to his wife, Claire, as a man ever was. Not only would he never have visited a whorehouse, but I doubt he would have known what to do when he got there. Never did a man deserve a fate less than the one bestowed upon Monsieur Le Fanu.
And that was what his loyalty to the name of de la Serre had cost him. It had cost him everything: his life, his reputation and honor, everything.
I knew that any member of the Order who hadn’t come into line was going to do so after that, wh
en they knew the potential ignominy of their end. And sure enough, they had.
“I want the wife and children of Monsieur Le Fanu taken care of,” I’d said to Mr. Weatherall.
“Madame Le Fanu took her own life and that of the children,” Mr. Weatherall told me. “She couldn’t live with the disgrace.”
I closed my eyes, breathing in and out, trying to control a rage that threatened to boil over. More lives to add to the list.
“Who is he, Mr. Weatherall?” I asked. “Who is this man doing all this?”
“We’ll find out, darlin’.” He sighed. “Don’t you worry about that.”
But nothing was done. No doubt my enemies thought that their takeover was complete, that I was no longer dangerous. They were wrong about that.
12 JANUARY 1791
My sword skills are back and sharper than ever before, my marksmanship at its most accurate, and I warned Mr. Weatherall that it would be soon—that I would be leaving soon—because I was achieving nothing here; that each day I spent in hiding was a day of the fight-back wasted, and he reacted by trying to persuade me to stay. There was always a reply he was waiting for. One more avenue to explore.
And when that didn’t work he reacted by threatening me. Just try leaving and I’d know what it felt like to be resoundingly thrashed with the sweaty armpit end of a crutch. Just try it.
I remain (im)patient.
26 MARCH 1791
i
This morning Mr. Weatherall and Jacques arrived home from the drop at Châteaufort hours after they were due—so late that I’d begun to worry.
For a while we’d been talking about moving the drop. Sooner or later someone would come. According to Mr. Weatherall anyway. The issue of whether to move the drop had become another weapon in the war the two of us constantly waged, the push and pull of should I stay (him: yes) or should I go (me: yes). I was strong now, I was back to full fitness and in private moments I’d seethe with the frustration of inaction; I’d picture my faceless enemies gloating with victory and raising ironic toasts in my name.
“This is the old Élise,” Mr. Weatherall had warned. “By which I mean the young Élise. The one who comes sailing over to London and ignites a feud we’ve yet to live down.”
He was right, of course; I wanted to be an older, cooler Élise, a worthy leader. My father never rushed into anything.
But on the other hand, my thoughts would return to the question of doing something. After all, where a wiser head might have waited to finish her education like a proper little poppet, the young Élise had sprung into action, taken a carriage to Calais and her life had begun. The fact was that sitting here doing nothing made me feel agitated and angry. It made me feel even more angry. And I was already a lot angry.
In the end my hand has been forced by what happened this morning, when Mr. Weatherall had aroused my anxiety by arriving home late from his visit to the drop. I dashed out to the yard to greet him as Jacques drew the cart around.
“What happened to you?” I asked, helping him down.
“Tell you something”—he frowned—“it’s bloody lucky that young lad hates the stink of cheese.” He said it with an incline of the head toward Jacques.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Because it was while he was waiting for me outside the fromagerie that something odd happened. Or should I say, he saw something very odd. A young boy hanging around.”
We were halfway back to the lodge, where I planned to make Mr. Weatherall a coffee and let him tell me all about it, but now I stopped.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m telling you, a little rapscallion, just hanging around.”
This rapscallion, it turned out, had indeed been hanging around. Fancy that, I’d said, a young rapscallion hanging around a town square, but Mr. Weatherall had admonished me with a peevish growl.
“Not just any rapscallion, but an especially nosy one. He approached young Jacques when Jacques was waiting outside. This boy’s asking him questions, questions like, had he seen a man on crutches enter the fromagerie that morning? Jacques is a good lad and he told the boy he hadn’t seen a man on crutches at all that day but that he’d keep an eye for him.
“Great, says the rascal, I’ll be around, won’t be far. Might even be a little coin in it for you if you tell me something useful. This little squirt’s no older than ten, Jacques reckons. Where do you suppose he’s getting the kind of money he needs to pay an informant?”
I shrugged.
“From whoever is paying him, that’s who. The kid’s working for the same Templars who plotted against us, or my name’s not Freddie Weatherall. They want to find the drop, Élise. They’re looking for you, and if they think they’ve located the drop, they’ll be monitoring it from now on.”
“Did you speak to the boy?”
“Absolutely not. What do you think I am, some kind of bloody idiot? Soon as Jacques came into the shop and told me what happened we left by the back entrance and took the long route home, making sure we weren’t followed.”
“And were you?”
He shook his head. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
“How do you know?” I argued. “There are so many ‘ifs.’ If the rapscallion was working for the Templars and not just looking to rob you or beg for money or just kick one of your crutches away for the fun of it; if he’s seen enough activity to alert their suspicions; if they decide the drop is ours.”
“I think they have,” he said quietly.
“How can you know?”
“Because of this.” He frowned, reached into his jacket and passed me the letter.
ii
Mademoiselle Grand Master,
I remain loyal to you and your father. We must meet in order that I can tell you the truth about the matter of your father’s death and events since. Write to me at once.
Lafrenière
My heart thudded. “I must respond,” I said quickly.
He shook his head in exasperation. “You’ll do no such bloody thing,” he snapped. “It’s a trap. It’s a way of drawing us out. They’ll be waiting for us to reply to this. If this is a letter from Lafrenière, then pigs might fly. It’s a trap. And if we reply we’ll be walking right into it.”
“If we reply from here, yes.”
He shook his head. “You ain’t leaving.”
“I have to know,” I said, waving the letter.
He scratched his head, trying to think. “You’re not going anywhere by yourself.”
I gave a short laugh. “Well, who else can accompany me? You?”
And then stopped myself as his head dropped.
“Oh God,” I said, quietly. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Weatherall. I didn’t mean . . .”
He was shaking his head sadly. “No, no, you’re right, darlin’, you’re right. I’m a protector who can’t protect.”
I came to him, knelt by his chair and put my arms around him.
There was a long pause, silence in the front room of the lodge save for Mr. Weatherall’s occasional snuffles.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said at last.
“I have to,” I replied.
“You can’t fight them, Élise,” he said, pushing tears from his eyes with angry palms. “They’re too strong now, too powerful. You can’t go up against them alone.”
I held him. “I can’t keep running either. You know as well as I do that if they’ve found our drop, then they’ll reason we’re in the vicinity. They’ll draw a circle on a map with the drop at its center and begin to search. And the Maison Royale, where Élise de la Serre finished her education, is as good a place as any to start the search.
“You know as well as I do that we’ll have to leave here, you and I. We have to go somewhere else, where we’ll make fruitless attempts to rally support and wait for our drop to be discovered before we have to move again. Leaving is not a choice.”
He shook his head. “No, Élise. I can think of something. So just you listen
here, I’m your adviser, and I advise you that you stay here while we formulate a response to this latest unwelcome development. How does that sound? Does that sound enough like an adviser to advise the idea right out of your head?”
I hated the taste of the lie on my lips when I promised to stay. I wonder if he knew that while the household slept I would creep away.
Indeed, as soon as the ink is dry on this entry, I’ll put the journal into my satchel and creep out. It will break his heart. For that I’m so sorry, Mr. Weatherall.
27 MARCH 1791
i
As I crossed silently to the front door on my way out of the lodge, a ghost flitted across the hallway.
I cleared my throat and the ghost stopped, turned and put a hand to her mouth. It was Helene, caught in the act of returning from Jacques’s room to her own.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” I whispered.
“Oh, mademoiselle.”
“Is all that creeping around really necessary?”
She colored. “I couldn’t have Mr. Weatherall knowing.”
I opened my mouth to argue but stopped, turned to the door instead. “Well, good-bye for a while.”
“Where are you going, mademoiselle?”
“Paris. There’s something I have to do.”
“And you were leaving in the middle of the night, without saying good-bye?”
“I have to, it’s . . . Mr. Weatherall. He doesn’t want . . .”
She scampered across the boards on her tiptoes, came to me and drew my face to hers, kissing me hard on both cheeks. “Please be careful, Élise. Please come back to us.”
It’s funny. I embark on a journey supposedly to avenge my family but really the lodge is my family. For a second I considered staying. Wasn’t it better to live in exile with those I loved than die in pursuit of revenge?
Assassin's Creed: Unity Page 22