Assassin's Creed: Unity

by Oliver Bowden

  “You haven’t seen what I have. I’ve seen Templars put entire villages to the sword, just for the chance of killing one Assassin. Tell me, boy, in your vast experience—what have you seen?”

  “I’ve seen the Grand Master of the Templar Order take in a frightened orphan and raise him as his own son.”

  “I had hopes for you,” screamed Bellec, seething now. “I thought you could think for yourself.”

  “I can, Bellec. I just don’t think like you.”

  The two of them, still grappling, were framed by a vast stained-glass window of the church. Lashed by the rain, lit and colored from behind, they scuffled for a second, as though teetering on some precipice, as though they might fall one way, off the balcony and down to the slick stone of the church courtyard below, or the other way and into the church itself.

  Just a question of which way they were going to fall.

  There was a crash, colored glass splintered, robes flapped and tore on shards of glass, then they fell once more, this time into the church. I dashed across the courtyard to a gate, pulling on it and seeing them inside.

  “Arno,” I called. He stood and shook his head as though to try and clear it, spraying bits of broken glass on the stone floor of the church. Of Bellec there was no sign.

  “I’m fine,” he called to me, hearing me rattle the gate as I tested it once more, trying to reach him. “Stay there.”

  And before I could protest he took off and I strained my ears to hear as he ventured deep into the darkness of the church.

  Next came the sound of Bellec’s voice coming from . . . where, I couldn’t see. But somewhere close.

  “I should have left you to rot in the Bastille.” His voice was a whisper echoed by the damp stone. “Tell me, did you ever really believe in the Creed or were you a Templar-loving traitor from the start?”

  He was taunting Arno. Taunting him from the shadows.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, Bellec,” shouted Arno, looking around, squinting into the dark alcoves and recesses.

  The reply came, and once more it was difficult to locate from where. The voice seemed to emanate from the church stone itself.

  “You’re the one who’s making it so. If you just see sense, we could take the Brotherhood to a height we’ve not seen in two hundred years.”

  Arno shook his head, voice dripping with irony. “Yes, killing everyone who disagrees with you is a brilliant way to start your rise from the ashes.”

  I heard a noise ahead of me and saw Bellec a second before Arno did.

  “Look out,” I cried as the older Assassin came lunging from the shadows with his hidden blade extended.

  Arno turned, saw him and flipped to the side. He came to his feet ready to meet an attack and for a moment or so the two warriors stood facing each other. They were both bloodied and bruised from the battle, their robes tattered, almost shredded in places, but still full of fight. Each was determined that this should end here and it should end now.

  From where he was, Bellec could see me at the gate and I felt his eyes on me before his gaze returned to Arno.

  “So,” he began, his voice full of derision, ripe with scorn, “now we see the heart of it. It’s not Mirabeau who’s poisoned you. It’s her.”

  Bellec had formed a bond with Arno but he had no idea of the bond that already existed between me and his pupil, and it was because of that that I didn’t doubt Arno.

  “Bellec . . .” warned Arno.

  “Mirabeau is dead. She is the last piece of this lunacy. You’ll thank me for this one day.”

  Did he mean to kill me? Or kill Arno? Or kill us both?

  I didn’t know. All I knew was that the church rang to the sound of steel meeting steel as their hidden blades clashed once more and they danced around one another. What Mr. Weatherall had told me all those years ago was true: most sword fights are decided in the first few seconds of engagement. But these two combatants were not “most sword fighters.” They were trained Assassins. Master and pupil. And the fight continued, steel meeting steel, their robes swinging as they attacked and defended, slashed and parried, ducked and whirled; the fight carrying on until they were round-shouldered with exhaustion and Arno was able to summon hidden reserves of strength and prevail, defeating his foe with a cry of defiance and a final thrust of his hidden blade into his mentor’s stomach.

  And Bellec at last sank to the stone of the church floor, his hands at his belly. His eyes went to Arno.

  “Do it,” he implored, close to death now. “If you’ve got an ounce of conviction and aren’t just a love-addled milksop, you’ll kill me now. Because I won’t stop. I will kill her. To save the Brotherhood I’d see Paris burn.”

  “I know,” said Arno, and delivered the coup de grace.

  ix

  Arno told me later what he had seen. He had seen something in a vision, he’d said, with a sideways look, as though to check I was taking him seriously.

  In the vision Arno had seen two men, one in Assassin robes, the other a Templar thug, who were scuffling in the street. The Templar seemed to be triumphant but then a second Assassin entered the fray and killed the Templar.

  The first Assassin was Charles Dorian, Arno’s father. The second was Bellec.

  Bellec had saved his father’s life. From that incident Bellec had recognized the pocket watch and then, when in the Bastille, realized exactly who Arno was.

  Another thing Arno had seen, a second vision: this one showing Mirabeau and Bellec talking, Mirabeau telling Bellec, “Élise de la Serre will be Grand Master one day. Having her in our debt would be a great boon.”

  Bellec in reply saying, “Be a greater one to kill her before she is a real threat.”

  “Your protégé vouches for her,” Mirabeau had said. “Don’t you trust him?”

  “With my life,” Bellec had replied. “It’s the girl I don’t trust. Nothing I can say to convince you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Bellec—reluctantly, Arno had said, seeing that his mentor had taken no Machiavellian satisfaction in slaying the Grand Master and had considered it a necessary evil—dropped poison into one of the glasses and handed it to Mirabeau. “Cheers.”

  Ironic that they should drink to each other’s health. Just moments later Mirabeau was dead and Bellec was planting the Templar pin and leaving. And not long after that, of course, I had come on the scene.

  We had managed to find the culprit and so prevent me from being accused of the crime. Had I done enough to ingratiate myself with them? I didn’t think so.

  EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ARNO DORIAN

  12 SEPTEMBER 1794

  i

  I knew what had happened next, although it wasn’t in her journal.

  I leafed forward but no; instead there were pages missing, torn out at some later date, perhaps, in a fit of . . . what? Regret? Anger? Something else?

  The moment I told her the truth—she had torn it from her diary.

  I knew it would be difficult, of course, because I knew Élise as well as I knew myself. In many ways, she was my mirror, and I knew how I would have felt had the shoe been on the other foot. You can’t blame me for putting it off and putting it off, then waiting until one evening when we had eaten well, and there was an almost empty bottle of wine on the table between us.

  “I know who killed your father,” I told her.

  “You do? How?”

  “The visions.”

  I gave her a sideways look to check she was taking me seriously. As before she looked bemused, not quite believing, not quite disbelieving.

  “And the name you came up with is the King of Beggars?” she said.

  I looked at her, realizing that she had been conducting her own investigations. Of course she had. “So you were being serious when you said you would avenge him,” I said.

  “If you ever thought otherwise, then you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “And what did you learn?” />
  “That the King of Beggars was behind the attempt on my mother in ’75; that the King of Beggars was inducted into the Order after the death of my family, all of which makes me think that he was inducted as a way of rewarding him for successfully killing my father.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “It was a coup, Arno. The man who has declared himself Grand Master arranged for my father’s killing because he wanted to take his position. No doubt he used my father’s attempts to truce with the Assassins as leverage. Perhaps it was the final piece to the puzzle. Perhaps it finally tipped the balance in his favor. No doubt the King of Beggars was acting on his orders.”

  “Not just the King of Beggars. There was someone else there, too.”

  She nodded with an odd, gratified smile. “That makes me happy, Arno. That it took two of them to kill Father. I expect he fought like a tiger.”

  “A man named Sivert.”

  She closed her eyes. “That makes sense,” she said, after a while. “They are all in on it, no doubt, the Crows.”

  “The who?” I’d said, because of course I had no idea whom she meant by that.

  “It’s a name I call my father’s advisers.”

  “This Sivert—he was one of your father’s advisers.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “François took his eye out before he died.”

  She chuckled. “Well done, Father.”

  “Sivert is dead now.”

  A shadow crossed her face. “I see. I would have hoped to have done the deed myself.”

  “The King of Beggars too,” I added, swallowing.

  And now she turned to me.

  “Arno, what are you saying?”

  I reached for her. “I loved him, Élise, as though he were my own father,” but she was pulling away, standing and pulling her arms across her chest. Her cheeks colored red.

  “You killed them?”

  “Yes—and I make no apology for it, Élise.”

  Again I reached for her and again she stepped nimbly away, unfolding her arms to ward me off at the same time. For a second—just a second—I thought she was going to reach for her sword but if so she thought better of it. She gained a hold on her temper.

  “You killed them.”

  “I had to,” I said, without going into the matter although she wasn’t interested in why, whirling around for a moment as though not quite sure what to do with herself.

  “You took my revenge from me.”

  “They were mere lackeys anyway, Élise. The real culprit is out there.”

  Furious, she rounded on me. “Tell me you made them suffer,” she spat.

  “Please, Élise, this isn’t you.”

  “Arno, I have been orphaned, beaten, deceived and betrayed—and I will have my revenge at whatever cost.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell. Her color was high.

  “Well, no, they didn’t suffer. That is not the Assassin way. We take no pleasure from killing.”

  “Oh? Really? So now you’re an Assassin you feel qualified to lecture me on ethics, do you? Well, make no mistake, Arno, I take no pleasure from killing. I take pleasure from justice.”

  “So that is what I did. I brought these men to justice. I had a shot. I took it.”

  That appeared to calm her, and she nodded thoughtfully.

  “You leave Germain to me, though,” she said, not a request, a command.

  “I can’t promise that, Élise. If I get a shot, then . . .”

  She looked at me with a half smile.

  “Then you’ll have me to answer to,” she said.

  ii

  After, we did not see each other for a while though we wrote, and when at last I had some information for her, I was able to tempt her away from Île Saint-Louis and we went in search of Madame Levesque, who fell beneath my blade. It was an adventure that continued with an unexpected and unscheduled ride on Monsieur Montgolfier’s hot-air balloon, though gallantry forbids I should reveal what took place during the flight.

  Suffice it to say, at the conclusion of our journey, Élise and I were closer than ever.

  But not close enough for me to notice what was happening to her; that the deaths of her father’s advisers were a mere diversion for her. That what was concerning, maybe even eventually consuming her, was getting to Germain.

  EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ÉLISE DE LA SERRE

  20 JANUARY 1793

  i

  In the street in Versailles was a cart I recognized. Harnessed to it a horse I knew. I dismounted, tethered Scratch to the cart, loosened his saddle, gave him water, nuzzled my head to his.

  I took my time making Scratch comfortable, partly because I love Scratch and he deserves all the attention I give him and more, and partly because I was stalling, wanting to put off the moment I faced the inevitable.

  The outside wall showed signs of neglect. I wondered which of our staff had been responsible for it when we all lived here. The gardeners, probably. Without them the walls ran thick with moss and ivy, the tendrils reaching up to the top of the walls like veins on the stone.

  Set into the wall was an arched gate I knew well, yet which seemed unfamiliar. At the mercy of the elements the wood had begun to mottle and pale. Where once the door had looked grand, now it looked merely sad.

  I opened the gate and entered the courtyard of my childhood home.

  Having witnessed the devastation at the villa in Paris, I suppose I was at least mentally prepared. Yet still I found myself stifling a sob to see flower beds choked with spindly weeds, the benches overgrown. On a step by a set of drooping shutters sat Jacques, who brightened on seeing me. Jacques rarely spoke; the most animated I ever saw him was deep in hushed conversation with Helene, and he didn’t need to speak now. Just indicated behind himself, into the house.

  Inside were boards across the windows, the furniture mostly overturned, the same sad story I was seeing so much now, only this time it was even sadder because the house was my childhood home and each smashed pot and splintered chair held a memory for me. As I stepped through my wrecked childhood home I heard the sound of our old upright clock, a noise so familiar and redolent of my childhood that it hit me with all the strength of a slap, and for a second I stood in the empty hallway, where my boots crunched on floors that had once been polished to a high shine, and stifled a sob.

  A sob of regret and nostalgia. Maybe even a little guilt.

  ii

  I came out onto the terrace and gazed out upon the sweeping lawns, once landscaped, now overgrown and unkempt. About two hundred yards away, Mr. Weatherall sat on the slope, his crutches splayed on either side.

  “What are you doing?” I said, coming to join him.

  He’d started a little as I sat but regained his composure and gave me a long, appraising look.

  “I was heading for down the bottom of the south lawn, where we used to train. Trouble is, when I pictured myself being able to make it there and back, I pictured the lawns looking like they used to, but then I arrived and found them like this, and suddenly it’s not so easy.”

  “Well, this is a nice spot.”

  “Depends on the company,” he said with a sardonic smile.

  There was a pause.

  “Sneaking out like that . . .” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I knew you were going to do it, you know. I haven’t known you since you were but a child without learning something about a certain look that comes into your eyes. Well, you’re alive at least. What you been up to?”

  “I went for a ride in a hot-air balloon with Arno.”

  “Oh yes? And how did that go?”

  He saw me blush. “It was very nice, thank you.”

  “So you and him . . .”

  “I would say so.”

  “Well, that’s something, then. Can’t have you being lovelorn. What about”—he spread his hands—“everything else. You learn anything?”

  “Plenty. Many of those who plotted against my father have
already answered for their crimes. Plus I now know the identity of the man who ordered his murder, the new Grand Master.”

  “Pray tell.”

  “The new Grand Master, the architect of the takeover, is François Thomas Germain.”

  Mr. Weatherall made a hissing noise. “Of course.”

  “You said he was cast out of the Order . . .”

  “He was. Our friend Germain was an adherent of Jacques de Molay, first-ever Grand Master. Molay died screaming at the stake in 1314, raining curses down on anyone in the near vicinity. Master de Molay is the sort of bloke nobody can decide on, but that was an argument you had to have in private back then because showing support for his ideas was heresy.

  “And Germain—Germain was a heretic. He was a heretic who had the ear of the Grand Master. To end the dissension he was expelled. Your father had begged Germain to come back into line and his heart was heavy to expel Germain. The Order was told that any man standing by him would be exiled as well. Long afterward his death was announced, but by then he was just a bad memory anyway. Not so, eh? Germain had been rallying support, controlling things behind the scenes, gradually rewriting the manifesto. And now he’s in charge, and the Order scratches its heads and wonders how we moved from unswerving support of the king to wanting him dead, and the answer is that it happened because there was nobody to oppose it. Checkmate.” Mr. Weatherall smiled. “You’ve got to give it to the lad.”

  “I shall give him my sword in his gut.”

  “And how will you do that?”

  “Arno has discovered that Germain intends to be present at the execution of the king tomorrow.”

  Mr. Weatherall looked sharply at me. “The execution of the king? Then the Assembly has reached its verdict already?”

  “Indeed it has. And the verdict is death.”

  Mr. Weatherall shook his head. The execution of the king. How had we arrived here? As journeys go, I suppose the final leg had begun in the summer of last year when twenty thousand Parisians signed a petition calling for a return of rule by the royal family. Where once there had been talk of revolution, now the talk was of counterrevolution.