Assassin's Creed: Heresy

by Christie Golden

  “Let us compromise,” said Alençon. “We will begin by clearing the suburbs. We will give them the option of yielding to us. And once we are settled in, then we can attack the city.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  The mists formed the walls of Jargeau, looking dramatically different from how they had appeared the day before. Hours of French bombardment had done damage, and an entire tower had slid completely off.

  They had finally started to make way in the assault. A single particularly large English soldier, utilizing what seemed like a veritable armory of weapons, had made it hell for the attackers by repeatedly knocking over ladders—and the French soldiers on them—or dropping heavy balls of iron down upon them. When he had been taken out with a precise shot from one of the culverins from Orléans, the French were finally able to press the attack and gain ground.

  Shouting incoherently, Gabriel charged the nearest soldier, bringing his sword up in front of him to block the other’s blow, using his momentum to get his enemy off-balance and down on the ground. The soldier had caught Gabriel’s sword with his own, though, and was pushing back strongly even as he struck the earth. For a moment his left arm was raised, exposing the unarmored juncture of arm and torso. Gabriel reached for the dagger at his waist, pulled it out, and jabbed it down.

  Blood spurted as he tugged it free. Panting, he got to his feet and looked for Joan. She was in the middle of it, as always, never asking her soldiers to face danger she herself would not. His heart lifted when he saw her, riding among the men, her standard billowing. She drew the sword, and suddenly Gabriel’s breathing came easier, and his arms felt stronger. We cannot be defeated, not when we have her and the sword.

  Suddenly she paused, pulling her horse up to a full stop, and looked around until she found Gabriel. “Gabriel!” she cried. “Move away from there! Hurry, or that machine will kill you!” She pointed up, at a soldier firing a small bombard from atop the wall. The man was focusing his attack elsewhere, Gabriel turned and ran as fast as he could go away from the wall, to where Joan sat astride her impatient charger. She reached down to touch him, as if to make sure he was still well and whole, and she smiled in relief. Then she was gone, cantering off, toward another section of the wall. Gabriel ran after her, and at that moment, he heard a loud boom.

  It was but one of many desperately awful sounds of the battle, but this one made him look back to where he had been standing.

  Another French soldier had not heard Joan’s warning, and now lay in the ditch. Where his head had once been was a puddle of crimson mud.

  Gabriel stumbled backward, trembling, crossed himself, then took off after Joan.

  She had reached the wall now, and was already halfway up a scaling ladder propped against it. As he watched, he saw her pause. Her right hand went to her left hip, reaching for her sword. She turned around, not drawing it yet, to speak to the attacking Frenchmen, but he was too far away and could not hear her over the cacophony. Movement caught his eye, and Gabriel froze.

  One of the English atop the wall grasped a large stone in both hands. As Gabriel watched, unable to tear his eyes from the scene, the soldier lifted the stone—

  —and hurled it down upon an unsuspecting Joan.

  “Jeanne!”

  Gabriel still could not move, still could not stop it, and her words thundered through his head: I have but a year, little more—

  The sword came free of the scabbard and all but exploded with light. The stone stuck Joan’s helmet at that precise instant. Squinting against the unearthly radiance, Gabriel could barely make out the image of the helmet cracking in a precise, perfect line; the two halves tumbling to the ground, along with the stone, along with Joan, along with the sword that fell from her hands as she toppled from the ladder.

  They had caught her as she fell, and had carried her away from the immediate area of combat. Gabriel shoved his way through to her, shouting her name. “Oh, thank God,” he half-sobbed as he looked down at her and saw her eyes open. She blinked, slightly dazed, and smiled.

  “I am all right,” she told them, and they helped her to her feet, cheering wildly. Indeed, with each moment that passed she seemed to recover more. “My sword,” she cried, and one of the soldiers brought it to her. It did nothing in his grasp, but as soon as Joan curled her fingers around it, it sparked to life. She lifted it, looking around at the faces of the men who would follow her into the valley of death, should she ask them.

  “My friends!” she cried, whirling to face the stone walls of the city. “Up! Up! Our Lord has condemned the English! At this hour, they are ours!”

  It was all the soldiers needed to hear. They swarmed up the ladders so thickly that there was no more resisting them. As the mists closed in around him, Simon heard a voice crying out in English, “No! We surrender, do you hear me? We surrender!”

  But Suffolk’s cry was too little, too late, and was lost in the jubilant raw shouts of men who believed that they were doing God’s will, and therefore could not fail.

  Victoria, it seemed, heard it too. Did Alençon accept his surrender?

  “He never heard it,” Simon said, his heart suddenly heavy. “It was lost in the chaos. Some of the English tried to flee, but where could they go? Others were captured, but many were simply killed outright. What’s worse is most of the prisoners were later executed.”

  Joan couldn’t have ordered that!

  “It looks like she never knew about it. We have no sources saying that she did.”

  I’m glad. That would have devastated her.

  It would have, and he was devastated himself, and the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Joan once said that she feared nothing—except treachery.”

  There was a long silence, then: I work with children her age, perhaps a year or two younger. To know what awaits her is difficult. I can only imagine how hard it is for you.

  No, Simon thought, I don’t believe you can.

  This is odd, Victoria said. The Animus doesn’t seem to be getting a clear fix on what to show us next.

  “I suppose it’s possible that the Sword of Eden doesn’t play a major role in the next three battles,” Simon replied. “Meung-sur-Loire, for example, was a single-day affair. Joan’s troops numbered around seven thousand by this point. They completely bypassed the castle and the city and focused on assaulting the bridge fortifications. They conquered it, left a garrison to guard it so it would be of no use to the English, and moved straight on to Beaugency.”

  Battle number four of the Loire campaign, Victoria said.

  “Right. Essentially, the French kept firing artillery at the town’s defenses until they surrendered. During this time, though, Fastolf arrived outside the city, and Joan also had unexpected reinforcements. Which leads us to Patay—the complete mirror of Agincourt, and Joan of Arc’s greatest success. She pushed to chase down Fastolf and Talbot as the English retreated to Patay. She promised Alençon that—oh, what was the phrase he said she used—‘if they were hung in the clouds, we would get them. The king shall have the greatest victory today that he has ever had. My counsel says to me that they are ours.’”

  And they were, I take it.

  “Conservative reports from English primary sources say two thousand men were killed and many others—including Talbot, which must have been very satisfactory to Joan—taken prisoner.”

  What were the French casualties?

  “Three.”

  Three… thousand? Hundred?

  “No. Three soldiers. Un, deux, trois. The whole battle took less than an hour, but Joan likely never even saw most of it. The English had only just begun to set up an ambush, but their position was given away when a stag startled the longbowmen and they apparently gave quite a yelp.”

  You’re joking.

  “Not in the least. Major battles are sometimes decided by the littlest things. In this case, a stag—a commonly recognized symbol of Christ, by the way—was accidentally flushed, the French p
inpointed the exact location of the English, and the rest is, literally, history.”

  A known symbol of Christ, leaping out to warn the French. Unreal.

  “She was unstoppable as long as she had the sword,” Simon said. “And… I think I know where she lost it.”

  You do?

  “I have a fairly good idea. If we go on the theory that she could not be defeated as long as she had the sword, then logic dictates that her first true defeat is where she lost it. But… but I don’t want to go there just yet. I’d like to see her at the coronation.”

  I’d like to see her happy, and proud of herself, Simon thought. Honored and respected as she should be, at least for a little while. Before it all goes to hell for her.

  I would like to see that too, Victoria said. The mists began to clear, revealing the high ceiling and beautiful lines of Reims Cathedral, a masterpiece painted in cool white and bright splashes of color from the stained glass windows.

  Gabriel stood at attention, in his armor, but not with his fellow soldiers. Today he stood with his family instead. Durand Laxart had made the trek all the way from Domrémy for the occasion, when Gabriel had sent word of the army’s march toward Reims, and nearly all of Joan’s family had come as well. Her father, Jacques, who had so feared his little Jeannette would “run away with soldiers,” stood with his wife Isabelle. They seemed at first glance an unusual couple—Isabelle’s warmth and friendly demeanor contrasted with her husband’s large, imposing presence and shock of jet-black hair. But Gabriel, who had gotten to know them, knew Jacques was intelligent and big-hearted, and Isabelle could match him in both qualities. Her brothers stood here too; the only one missing was Catherine, who was too frail to make the journey.

  The doors of the cathedral slammed open and the crowd cheered as four armor-clad knights, mounted on horseback, clattered in. These were the Guardians of the Holy Oil of Clovis, with which all kings of France from the year 496 on had been anointed. Legend had it that the oil had been brought to the cathedral by four angels of God. Gabriel had been told that all the other traditional regalia had been stolen by the English occupiers of the city, many of whom had fled the night before. One of them was even a holy man, the former rector of the University of Paris, Pierre Cauchon. The regalia might be gone, but the enemy could not take the cathedral, nor, it seemed, the Oil of Clovis.

  Gabriel tried not to smile as he caught Gilles de Rais’s eye. The young, slightly wild nobleman had been named one of the Guardians; it was amusing to think of him in the role of an angelic stand-in.

  Then the chanting reached a crescendo as the Dauphin entered.

  And beside him, in a place of highest honor, was La Pucelle, the Maid of Orléans.

  “Jeanne,” Gabriel whispered, his heart filled to bursting with joy and pride. She held her standard and stood straight and tall, struggling not to smile. And her face, oh, her face, alight with ecstasy and the sense of a divine purpose fulfilled—her face shone brighter than the light coming through the windows, brighter than the candles, brighter than anything Gabriel could ever imagine, but he could not look away. He would never be able to look away from her, he realized; if he lived to be a hundred years old, he would always hold her here, this moment forever fixed in his mind’s eye and embedded in his heart, with her sapphire eyes ablaze with incandescent, wild peace.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Anaya had to admit, she was having fun helping Ben learn his way around the department. He was actually not that much younger than she; she was reminded, yet again, that Americans just seemed younger to her. And once she got over his overeagerness, she found him to be startlingly intelligent and very, very quick. Too quick, almost. She sent him off with some coding, thinking that would keep him occupied for at least a few hours while she finished up some of her own work. He was done by the time she returned with a latte.

  “You’re going to have to be careful with this lot, they’re going to go mad with jealousy,” she warned him.

  “What? You’re not saying he’s better than you, are you, Ny?” said Andrew. He put his hand to his chest and looked horrified.

  “Nonsense,” she replied, “or else he’d be heading off to Montreal at the end of the year instead of me.”

  Ben didn’t quite squirm like a puppy, but the tips of his ears turned pink. Adorable, she thought, smiling as she sat next to him and went through his work.

  She was doing her best to focus, but thoughts of Simon kept creeping into her head. They’d agreed to keep their conversations to a minimum, but she had asked Simon to report anything else he learned. And she, of course, would do the same.

  Simon was a brilliant, if coolly detached, man. She knew he was trained in self-defense techniques. She knew he understood some of the darker machinations of the Order. But to the best of her knowledge, he’d never had to use those techniques, or deal with those machinations. Anaya had, and she could do it again if need be. Simon could, too. But she didn’t know what having to fight, or kill, or make cruel choices would do to him, and she realized she didn’t want to find out.

  Anaya redirected her attention to Ben’s code. “Aha, prodigy,” she said, “I’ve finally caught you in a mistake.”

  Incredulous, he scooted his chair over. “Huh,” he said. “I could have sworn I didn’t do that.” Anaya pointed to the error and raised an eyebrow. He laughed. “I know, I know, I must have if it’s there. It didn’t make a mistake all by itself.”

  “Take it from the top,” Anaya said, and the boy groaned.

  “Why are we in the Snack Shack and not Temp’s?” Victoria asked. “Not that I mind. You know I love coffee.”

  Because I don’t want to be reminded that for Some Mysterious Reason, Poole’s not around. “Because I’m not looking forward to discussing what remains of Joan’s life,” he said, which was also true.

  “Maybe we should be discussing this over a beer,” Victoria said in an attempt at dark humor.

  “A bottle of scotch might be a better idea,” he muttered. “All right. Here we go.” They were sitting on a sofa, and he placed his tablet down on the coffee table so they both could see. “In brief. Once Charles was crowned, he very quickly wanted to settle things diplomatically, rather than in battle.”

  “Well, honestly, that’s not a bad way to think.”

  “No, it isn’t… unless you have Joan of Arc with a Sword of Eden in your army, and the people you’re negotiating with have no intention of honoring their agreements.” He winced. “I hate that I’m talking about Templars like that, but it’s true. Most of the high-ranking English of this time were either Templars themselves or had Templar support. Philip of Burgundy was most certainly a Templar. Charles was, as you’ve doubtless gathered, a very weak-willed individual, and naturally Templars would use that to their—our advantage. At one point there was a rather unholy trinity of the Duke of Burgundy, Charles’s chamberlain Georges de La Trémoille, and the English regent, John, Duke of Bedford. The three were working together, ostensibly for peace, but somehow it was always the English or Burgundians who came out on top.”

  Shortly after Charles’s coronation, Simon continued, he was approached by the Duke of Burgundy. Philip proposed a two-week truce, during which time Charles would not attack Paris. At the end of the two weeks, Philip would surrender the city to Charles.

  “Of course, Philip never planned to surrender Paris, and used the time to fortify the city against attack instead.”

  “I imagine Joan hated Philip,” Victoria said, sipping her latte.

  “Actually, here’s what she wrote to Philip, on the day of Charles’s coronation.” Simon found the letter on his tablet and read, “‘High and dread prince, Duke of Burgundy, the Maid calls upon you by the King of Heaven to make a firm and lasting peace with the King of France. You two must pardon one another fully, with a sincere heart… it has been three weeks since I had written to you saying you should be at the anointing of the king, to which I have heard no reply. ’”
r />   “That’s… really rather sad.”

  Simon was uncomfortable with how all this was making him feel, and he forced a noncommittal shrug. “Charles had gotten his coronation, and now he wanted to play a diplomat. The Templars were delighted to oblige.”

  “But… Yolande was an Assassin Mentor—and Charles’s mother-in-law.”

  “I’m sure she did her best to keep control of him, but I wouldn’t want to be up against those Templars. From here, Charles either dragged his heels or actively worked against Joan. He never again fully supported Joan, or even supplied her properly. Once she lost the sword, she was done.”

  Victoria was quiet. “I’ve seen both sides of the Assassin/Templar conflict,” she said at last. “In the Animus with the kids at the Aerie, and outside of it as well. In the end, I will always choose order over chaos. But sometimes it does seem that we Templars have been unnecessarily cruel in our methods.”

  “But that is the only way the Templar Order can function,” Simon said, even as he internally raged against what Rikkin and Victoria were secretly doing. In the end, order won out. Whatever the cost.

  “Joan was perceived as a threat,” he continued. “What happened to her was decided by those Templars, with what they knew, in their era. I have no doubt that they believed they had no alternative.”

  “No alternative other than to burn a nineteen-year-old girl at the stake?” Victoria certainly wasn’t sounding like an evil Templar conspirator determined to destroy him; but then again, maybe this was a test.

  “The trial was a sham, of course. But Templars have done such things before when there was great enough need. The end justifies the means. There must be order. Humanity will never be able to ascend to its greatest heights without it. And like everything worth achieving, there are costs. Sometimes bitter ones.” Sometimes the life of a good and pure girl with sapphire eyes who shone with light—a girl who was too brave, too selfless, who fought for the right cause but the wrong man and in the wrong way.