But no. There was a ball of hate in my gut and I needed to get rid of it.
“I will,” I told Helene. “Thank you, Helene. You know . . . You know I think so much of you.”
“I do.” She smiled, and I turned and left.
ii
What I felt as I rode away from the lodge wasn’t happiness, exactly. It was the exhilaration of action and sense of purpose as I spurred Scratch on to Châteaufort.
First, I had a job to do, and arriving in the early hours, I found board and a tavern that was still open, and in there I told anyone who was curious enough to ask that my name was Élise de la Serre, and that I had been living in Versailles but was now bound for Paris.
The next morning I left, and came to Paris, crossing the Pont Marie to the Île Saint-Louis and going . . . home? Sort of. My villa, at least.
What would it look like? I couldn’t even recall whether I’d been a diligent caretaker the last time I was there. Arriving, I had my answer. No, I hadn’t been a diligent caretaker, just a thirsty one, judging by the many wine bottles lying about the place. I suppressed a shiver, thinking of the dark hours I had spent in this house.
I left the remnants of the past as they were. Next I wrote to Monsieur Lafrenière, a letter in which I asked him to meet at L’Hôtel Voysin in two days’ time. When I’d hand-delivered it to the address he’d given me, I returned to the Île Saint-Louis, where I set trip wires, just in case they came to look for me here, and settled in the housekeeper’s study to wait.
29 MARCH 1791
i
I made my way to L’Hôtel Voysin in Le Marais, where I had asked to meet Lafrenière. Who would turn up? That was the question. Lafrenière the friend, Lafrenière the traitor? Or somebody else altogether? And if this was a trap, had I walked into it? Or had I done the only possible thing I could if I wanted to avoid a lifetime of hiding from men who wanted me dead?
The courtyard of the L’Hôtel Voysin was dusky gray. The building rose on every side and had once been grand, in looks as aristocratic as those who frequented it, but just as the aristocrats had been laid low by the Revolution—and each day were stripped of further entitlements by the Assembly—so Voysin, too, seemed cowed by the events of the last two years: the windows in which lights would have burned were blacked out, some broken and boarded up. The grounds, which once would have been clipped and tended to by cap-doffing gardeners, had been deserted and left to go to ruin so that ivy climbed the walls unchecked, tendrils of it feeling their way toward the blank first-floor windows. Meanwhile, weeds grew between the cobbles and flagstones of the deserted courtyard, which as I entered echoed to the sound of my boots on stone.
I fought a sense of disquiet, seeing all of those darkened windows looking down on this once-bustling courtyard. Any one of them could have provided a hiding place for an assailant.
“Hello?” I called. “Hello, Monsieur Lafrenière?”
I held my breath, thinking, This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. Thinking that I was an idiot to arrange to meet here, and that wondering if it might be a trap was hardly the same as being prepared to meet one.
Mr. Weatherall was right. Of course he was, and I’d known it all along myself.
It was a trap.
From behind me I heard a sound and turned to see a man emerge from the shadows.
I squinted, flexing my fingers, ready.
“Who are you?” I called.
He darted forward, and I realized it wasn’t Lafrenière at the same time as I saw moonlight flash along a blade he brought from his waist.
And maybe I would have cleared my sheath in time. After all, I was fast.
And maybe I wouldn’t have cleared my sheath in time. After all, he was fast too.
Either way, it didn’t matter. The question was decided by the blade of a third party, a figure who seemingly came from nowhere. I saw what I knew was a hidden blade cut across the darkness and my would-be killer fell, and standing behind him was Arno.
For a second, I could only stand and gawk, because this wasn’t Arno as I’d ever seen him before. Not only was he wearing Assassins’ robes and a hidden blade, but the boy was gone. In his place, a man.
It took me a moment to recover, and then, just as it struck me that they would never send a lone killer for me, that there would be others, I saw the man looming behind Arno, and all those months of target practice at the lodge counted as I snapped off a shot over his shoulder, gave the killer a third eye and sent him crashing dead to the stone of the courtyard.
ii
Reloading, I said, “What’s going on? Where is Monsieur Lafrenière?”
“He’s dead,” said Arno.
He said it in a tone of voice I didn’t quite care for, as though there was a lot more to that story than he was letting on, and I looked sharply at him. “What?”
But before Arno could answer there was the sound of a ricochet and a musket ball slapped into a wall nearby, showering us in stone chips. There were snipers in the windows above us.
Arno reached for me, and the part of me that still hated him wanted to wrench away from him, tell him I could manage by myself, thanks, but the words of Mr. Weatherall flashed through my head, the knowledge that whatever else, Arno was here for me, which after all was all that really mattered. And I let him take me.
“I’ll explain later,” he was calling. “Go!”
And as another volley of musket fire rained down upon us from the windows above, we made a dash for the courtyard gates and hurried out into the grounds.
Ahead of us was the maze, overgrown and untended, but still very much a maze. Arno’s robes spread as he ran, his hood dropped back and I gazed upon handsome features, transported back to happier times, before the secrets had threatened to overwhelm us.
“Do you remember that summer at Versailles when we were ten?” I called as we ran.
“I remember getting lost in that damn hedge maze for six hours while you ate my share of the dessert,” he replied.
“Then you’d better keep up this time,” I called, and despite everything I couldn’t help but hear the note of joy in my voice. Only Arno could do this to me. Only Arno could bring this light into my life. And I think if ever there was a moment when I truly “forgave” him—in my heart and in my head—then that was it.
iii
By now we had reached the middle of the maze. Our prize was another killer waiting for us. He readied himself, looking nervously from one to another, and I felt happy for him that he would go to the grave thinking that I had joined with the Assassins. He could meet his maker floating on a cloud of righteousness. In my tale he was the bad man. In his, he was the hero.
I stepped back and let Arno face the duel, taking the opportunity to admire his swordplay. All those years I was learning my own skills, his greatest discipline was our governor’s algebra tests. Of the two I was by far the more experienced swordsman.
But he had caught up; he’d caught up fast.
He saw my impressed look and flicked me a smile that would have melted my heart if it needed melting.
We made our way out of the maze and onto the Boulevard, which teemed with people. One thing I’d noticed about the immediate aftermath of the Revolution was that people celebrated more than ever; they lived each day like it was their last.
So it was that the street was alive with actors, tumblers, jugglers and puppeteers all around, and the thoroughfare thick with visitors, some already drunk, some well on their way to being drunk. Most of them with broad smiles plastered across happy faces. I saw plenty of beards and moustaches glistening with ale and wine—men wore them now, to show their support for the Revolution—as well as the distinctive red “liberty caps.”
Which was why the three men coming toward us stuck out like a sore thumb. By my side, Arno felt me tense, about to reach for my sword, but stayed my hand with a gentle grip on my forearm. Anybody else would have lost a finger or two for doing that. Arno I was prepared to forgive.
&
nbsp; “Meet me tomorrow for coffee. I’ll explain everything then.”
30 MARCH 1791
The Place des Vosges, the city’s oldest, grandest square, was not far from where I left Arno, and after a night at home, I returned the next day, a mass of nerves, curiosity and barely contained excitement, brimming with the sense that despite the Lafrenière setback, I was getting somewhere. I was moving forward.
I came into the square beneath one of the huge vaulted arcades that formed part of the red brick buildings around its perimeter. Something brought me up short and I stood puzzled for a moment, wondering what was different. After all, the buildings were the same, the ornate pillar still here. But there was something missing.
And then it hit me. The statue in the middle of the square—the equestrian bronze of Louis XIII. It wasn’t there anymore. I’d heard that the revolutionaries were melting down the statues. Here was the proof.
Arno was there, in his robes. In the cold light of day, I studied him again, trying to work out where it was that the boy had matured into the man: a firmer, more determined set of the jaw, perhaps? His shoulders were more square, his chin held high, his granite eyes at once fierce and beautiful. Arno had always been a handsome boy. The women of Versailles would remark upon it. The younger girls would blush and giggle into their gloves whenever he passed, the simple fact of his good looks overcoming any misgivings they might normally have had about his social standing as merely our ward. I used to love the warm, superior feeling of knowing, “He’s mine.”
But now—now there was something almost heroic about him. I felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if by obscuring the true nature of his parentage we’d somehow prevented him reaching his potential before now.
It was joined by another twinge of guilt, this one for Father. If I’d been less selfish and brought Arno over to the fold as I’d once pledged to do, then perhaps this newly minted man might now be working in service of our cause rather than the opposition.
But then, as we sat with coffee and some semblance of normal Parisian life carrying on around us, it didn’t seem to matter much that I was a Templar and he was an Assassin. If not for the robes of his Creed we might have been two lovers enjoying our morning drink together, and when he smiled it was the smile of the old Arno, the boy I’d grown up and fallen in love with, and for some moments it was tempting to forget it all and bask in that warm bath of nostalgia, let conflict and duty slip away.
“So . . .” I said, at last.
“So.”
“It seems you’ve been busy.”
“Tracking down the man who killed your father, yes,” he said, averting his eyes, so that again I wondered if there was something he wasn’t letting on.
“Best of luck,” I told him. “He’s killed most of my allies and intimidated the rest into silence. He might as well be a phantom.”
“I’ve seen him.”
“What? When?”
“Last night. Just before I found you.” He stood. “Come. I’ll explain.”
As we walked I pressed for more information and Arno related the events of the previous evening. In fact, what he’d seen was a mysterious cloaked figure. There was no name to go with this apparition. Even so, Arno’s ability to get so much had been almost uncanny.
“How the devil did you do it?” I pressed.
“I have unique avenues of investigation open to me,” he said mysteriously.
I cast him a sideways look and remembered what my father had said about Arno’s supposed “gifts.” I’d assumed he meant as in “skills,” but maybe not. Maybe something else—something so unique the Assassins had managed to sniff it out.
“All right, keep your secrets then. Just tell me where to find him.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he protested.
“You don’t trust me?”
“You said it yourself. He hunted down your allies and took over your Order. He wants you dead, Élise.”
I chortled. “And what? You want to protect me? Is that it?”
“I want to help you.” He was serious now. “The Brotherhood has resources, manpower . . .”
“Pity is not a virtue, Arno,” I said sharply, “and I don’t trust the Assassins.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked searchingly.
I turned away, not really knowing the answer—no, knowing that I wanted to trust Arno, and in fact was desperate to do so, but knowing he was an Assassin now.
“I haven’t changed that much, Élise,” he implored. “I’m the same boy who distracted the cook while you stole the jam . . . The same one who helped you over the wall into that dog-infested orchard . . .”
There was something else, too. Another thing to consider. As Mr. Weatherall had pointed out, I was virtually alone: me against them. But what if I had the backing of the Assassins? I didn’t have to ask what my father would have done. I already knew he’d been prepared to truce with the Assassins.
I nodded, said, “Take me to your Brotherhood. I’ll hear their offer.”
He looked awkward. “Offer might be a bit strong . . .”
31 MARCH 1791
i
The Assassin Council had turned out to be held in a salon on the Île de la Cité in the shadow of Notre Dame.
“You sure this is a good idea?” I said to Arno as we entered a room surrounded by vaulted stone arches. In one corner was a large wooden door with a steel-ring handle, and standing by it a large, bearded Assassin whose eyes gleamed within the dark depths of his cowl. Without a word he had nodded to Arno, who nodded back, and I had to fight a wave of unreality seeing Arno this way: Arno the man, Arno the Assassin.
“We have a common enemy,” said Arno, as the door was opened and we passed through into a corridor lit by burning torches on the walls. “The Council will understand that. Besides, Mirabeau was a friend of your father’s, wasn’t he?”
I nodded. “Not friends exactly but my father trusted him. Lead on.”
First, though, Arno had produced a blindfold from his pocket, insisting I wear it. Just to spite him I counted the steps and the turns, confident I could make my way out of the labyrinth if need be.
When the journey was over I took stock of my new surroundings, sensing I was in a dank underground chamber, similar to the one above, except this one was populated. From around me I heard voices. At first they were difficult to locate and I thought they were coming from galleries above before I realized that the gathered council members were arranged around the walls, their voices rising as though seeping into the stone as they shuffled suspiciously and muttered to themselves.
“Is that . . . ?”
“What’s he doing?”
I sensed a figure in front of us, who spoke with a rough and rasping, French-Mr.-Weatherall sort of voice.
“What the hell have you done this time, pisspot?” he said.
My heart hammered, my breathing heavy. What if this infraction was too much? A step too far? What would I hear? More cries of, “Kill the redheaded bint”? It wouldn’t be the first time and after all, Arno had allowed me to keep my pistol and sword, but what good would they be if I was blindfolded and facing multiple opponents? Multiple Assassin opponents?
But no. Arno had saved me from one trap. He would never deliver me into another. I trusted him. I trusted him as much as I loved him. And when he spoke to address the man who blocked our way, his voice was reassuringly calm and steady, a balm to soothe my nerves.
“The Templars have marked her for death,” he said.
“So you brought her here?” said the commanding voice doubtfully. This was Bellec, surely?
But Arno had no time to answer. There was another new entrant to the council chamber. Another voice that demanded to know, “Well, who have we here?”
“My name is . . .” I began, but the new arrival had interrupted me.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, take that blindfold off. Ridiculous.”
I took it off and faced them, the Assassin Council, who were, jus
t as I’d thought, arranged around the stone walls of this deep and dark inner sanctum, the orange glow of the flames flickering on their robes and their faces unreadable beneath cowls.
My eyes settled on Bellec. Hawk-nosed and suspicious, he stared at me with open contempt, his body language protective of Arno.
The other man I took to be the Grand Master, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau. As a president of the Assembly he’d been a hero of the Revolution, but these days was a moderate voice compared to others clamoring for more radical change.
I’d heard it said he was mocked for his looks, but though he was a portly, round-faced gentleman, with quite spectacularly bad skin, he had kind, trustworthy eyes and I liked him at once.
I threw my shoulders back. “My name is Élise de la Serre,” I told the room. “My father was François de la Serre, Grand Master of the Templar Order. I’ve come to ask for your help.”
Heads were inclined as the council members began to talk quietly among themselves until the new arrival—Mirabeau, surely—silenced them with a raised finger.
“Continue,” he instructed.
Other council members protested—“Must we rehash this debate again?”—but again Mirabeau quietened them.
“We must,” he told them, “and we will. If you cannot see the advantage in being owed a favor by François de la Serre’s daughter, I despair for our future. Continue, mademoiselle.”
“Here we go,” spat the man I presumed to be Bellec.
It was to him I addressed my next comments.
“You are not men with whom I would normally parley, monsieur, but my father is dead, as are my allies within the Order. If I must turn to the Assassins for my revenge, so be it.”
Bellec snorted. “‘Parley,’ my ass. This is a trick to make us lower our guard. We should kill her now and send her head back as a warning.”
“Bellec . . .” warned Arno.
“Enough,” shouted Mirabeau. “Plainly this discussion is better conducted in private. If you will excuse us, Mademoiselle de la Serre?”
Assassin's Creed: Unity Page 23