Head on one side, he gave me sad eyes. "It is for the greater good."
I bristled. "But I am a Templar."
He pulled a face. "Well, not quite yet, of course, but I understand your meaning and admit that does affect matters. Just not quite enough. The simple fact is that things must stay as they are. Don"t you remember that from when we first met?"
My eyes shifted to May Carroll. Her purse dangling from her gloved fingers, she watched us as though enjoying a night at the theater.
"Oh, I remember our first meeting very well," I told Mr. Carroll. "I remember my mother giving you very short shrift."
"Indeed," he said. "Your mother had progressive tendencies not in line with our own."
"One might almost think you would want her dead," I said.
Mr. Carroll looked confused. "I beg your pardon."
"Perhaps you wanted her dead enough to hire a man to do the job. A disenfranchised a.s.sa.s.sin, perhaps?"
He clapped his hands with understanding. "Oh. I see. You mean the recently departed Mr. Ruddock?"
"Exactly."
"And you think we were the ones who hired him? You think we were the ones behind the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination? And that, presumably, is why you have just helped Mr. Ruddock escape?"
I felt myself color, realizing I had given myself away as Mr. Carroll clapped his hands together.
"Well, weren"t you?"
"Much as I hate to disappoint you, my dear, but that particular action was nothing to do with us."
Silently I cursed. If he was telling the truth, then I"d made a mistake letting Ruddock go. They had no reason to kill him.
"So you see our problem, Elise," Mr. Carroll was saying. "For now you are just a young girl with fanciful notions. But you will one day be Grand Master and you have not one but two key principles in opposition to our own. Letting you leave England is out of the question, I"m afraid."
His hand went to the hilt of his sword. I tensed, trying to get a sense of the odds: me and Mr. Weatherall versus three Carroll fighters as well as the three Carrolls themselves.
They were terrible odds.
"May," Mr. Carroll was saying, "would you like to do the honors? You can be blooded at last."
She smiled obsequiously at her father, and I realized that she was the same as me: she"d been trained in swordplay but had yet to kill. I was to be her first. What an honor.
From behind her, Mrs. Carroll proffered a sword, a short sword like my own, custom-built for her size and weight. The light gleamed from an ornate, curved handguard, the sword handed to her as though it were some kind of religious artifact, and she turned in order to take it. "Are you ready for this, smell-bag?" she said as she turned.
Oh yes, I was ready. Mr. Weatherall and my mother had always told me that all sword fights begin in the mind and most end with the first blow. It was all about who made the first move.
So I made the first move. I danced forward and rammed the point of my sword through the back of May Carroll"s neck and out through her mouth.
First blood was to me. Not exactly the most honorable killing, but at that very moment in time, honor was the last thing on my mind. I was more interested in staying alive.
ix It was the last thing they expected, to see their daughter impaled on my sword. I saw Mrs. Carroll"s eyes widen in disbelief in the half second before she screamed in shock and anguish.
Meanwhile I"d used my forward motion to shoulder-charge Mr. Carroll, yanking my sword from May Carroll"s neck and hitting him with such force that he pinwheeled back off balance and splayed into the doorway. May Carroll had sunk, dead before she hit the floor, painting it with her blood; Mrs. Carroll was rooting in her purse but I ignored her. Finding my feet, I crouched and spun in antic.i.p.ation of an attack from behind.
It came. The swordsman lumbering toward me had a look of startled disbelief plastered across his face, unable to believe the sudden turn of events. I stayed low and met his sword with my blade, fending off his attack and pivoting at the same time, taking his feet from him with an outflung leg so that he crashed to the floor.
There was no time to finish him. By the window Mr. Weatherall was battling but he was struggling. I saw it in his face, a look of impending defeat and confusion, as though he couldn"t understand why his two opponents were still standing. Like this had never happened before.
I ran one of his a.s.sailants through. The second man pulled away in surprise, finding he suddenly had two opponents rather than one, but with the first swordsman pulling himself to his feet, Mr. Carroll up and reaching for his sword, and Mrs. Carroll at last freeing something from her purse that turned out to be a tiny, three-barrel turnover pistol, I decided I"d pushed my luck far enough.
It was time to go the same way as my friend Mr. Ruddock.
"The window," I shouted, and Mr. Weatherall threw me a look that said, "You must be joking," before I put two hands to his chest and pushed so that he tumbled bottom first out the window and onto the sloped roof outside.
Just as I did there was a crack, the sound of a ball making contact with something soft, and in the window a soft spray of blood, like a red lace sheet suddenly drawn across it, and even as I wondered whether the sound I had heard was the ball hitting me, or if the haze of blood in the window was mine, I hurled myself through the opening, smacked onto the tiles on the other side and slid on my stomach to Mr. Weatherall, who had come to a halt on the lip of the roof.
I saw now that the ball had hit his lower leg, the blood staining his breeches dark. His boots scrabbled on the tiles, which loosened and fell into the yard, accompanied by the sound of shouts and running feet below. There came a cry from above us and a head appeared at the window. I saw the face of Mrs. Carroll contorted with anguish and fury, her need to kill the woman who killed her daughter overriding everything else in her life-including the need to remove herself from the cas.e.m.e.nt so her men could get through and come after us.
Instead, she waved the turnover pistol at us. With a snarl and bared teeth she aimed it at me and surely couldn"t miss unless she was jostled from behind . . .
Which was exactly what happened. Her shot was as wild as it was wide, spanging harmlessly off the tiles to our side.
Later, as we raced toward Dover in a horse and carriage, Mr. Weatherall would tell me that it was common for a barrel of a turnover pistol to ignite the other barrels, and that "it could be nasty" for whoever it was doing the firing.
That"s precisely what happened to Mrs. Carroll. I heard a fizzing then a popping sound and the pistol came skidding down the roof toward us while up above Mrs. Carroll screamed as her hand, now a shade of red and black, began to bleed.
I took the opportunity to heave Mr. Weatherall"s good leg off the side of the roof. He hung on by his fingertips, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his face up in pain but refusing to scream as I manhandled his other leg over then shouted, "Sorry about this," as I clambered over him and, dangling, jumped to the courtyard below.
It was a short drop, but even so it knocked the wind out of us, sweat popping on Mr. Weatherall"s face as he chewed back the pain of his shot leg. As he stood I commandeered a horse and carriage, and he limped to take his place beside me.
It all happened in a moment. We thundered out of the courtyard and into Fleet Street. I glanced up and saw faces at the window of the guest room. They would be after us soon, I knew, and I drove the horses as hard as I dared, silently promising them a tasty snack when we reached Dover.
In the end, it took us six hours, and I could at least thank G.o.d that there was no sign of the Carrolls behind us on the route. In fact, I didn"t see them until we had pushed off Dover beach in a rowing boat, making our way toward the packet, which, we"d been told, was about to weigh anchor.
Our oarsmen grunted as he pulled us closer to the larger vessel, and I watched as two coaches, both bearing the Carroll crest, arrived on the coast road at the top of the beach. We were drawing away, being swallowed up by the ink black sea, with no light of our own, the oarsmen guided by the light of the packet, so they couldn"t see us from the sh.o.r.e. But we were able to see them, indistinct but illuminated by their swinging lanterns as they scurried about in search of their quarry.
I couldn"t see Mrs. Carroll"s face but could imagine the mix of hatred and grief she wore like a mask. Mr. Weatherall, barely awake, his wounded leg hidden beneath travel blankets, watched. He saw me do a discreet bras d"honneur and nudged me.
"Even if they could see you, they wouldn"t know what you were doing. It"s only rude in France. Here, try this." He stuck up two fingers so I did the same.
The hull of the packet was not far away now. I could feel its bulky presence in the night.
"They"ll come after you, you know," he said, his chin tucked into his chest. "You killed their daughter."
"Not just that. I"ve still got their letters."
"The ones that got burned up were a decoy?"
"Some of my letters to Arno."
"Perhaps they"ll never find out about that. Either way, they"ll come after you."
They had been swallowed up by the night. England was now just a ma.s.s of land, the huge, moon-dappled cliffs rising to our left.
"I know," I told him, "but I"ll be ready for them."
"Just make sure you are."
9 APRIL 1788.
"I need your help."
It was raining. The sort of rain that feels like knives on your skin, that batters your eyelids and pummels at your back. It had plastered my hair to my head and when I spoke the water spouted off my mouth, but at least it disguised the tears and snot as I stood on the steps of the Maison Royale at Saint-Cyr, trying not to fall over from sheer exhaustion, and watched Madame Levene"s face pale from the shock of seeing me, as though I were a ghost appearing on the steps of the school in the dead of night.
And standing there, with the carriage behind me, Mr. Weatherall asleep or unconscious inside, and Helene looking anxiously from the window, gaping through the sluicing rain to where I stood on the steps of the school, I wondered if I was doing the right thing.
And for a second, as Madame Levene took in the sight of me, I thought she might simply tell me to go to h.e.l.l for all the trouble I"d caused and slam the door in my face. And if she did that, then who could blame her?
"I"ve got nowhere else to go," I said. "Please help me."
And she didn"t slam the door in my face. She said, "My dear, of course."
And I dropped into her arms, half-dead with fatigue.
10 APRIL 1788.
Was ever a man more brave than Mr. Weatherall? Not once had he shouted out in pain on the journey to Dover, but by the time we boarded the packet he had lost a lot of blood. I met Helene on the packet, the Dover cliffs shrinking in the distance, my time in London becoming a memory already, and we had laid Mr. Weatherall on a section of the deck where we had a little privacy.
Helene knelt to him, placing cool hands to his forehead.
"You"re an angel," he said, with a smile up at her, then slipped into unconsciousness.
We bandaged him as best we could, and by the time we reached the sh.o.r.es of Calais he had recovered some of his color. But he was still in pain, and as far as we knew, the ball remained inside his leg, and when we changed his dressings, the wound gleamed at us, showing no signs of healing.
The school had a nurse but Madame Levene had fetched the doctor from Chteaufort, a man experienced in dealing with war wounds.
"It"s going to have to come off, ain"t it?" Mr. Weatherall had said to him from the bed, five of us crammed into his bedchamber.
The doctor nodded and I felt my tears p.r.i.c.k my eyes.
"Don"t you worry about it," Mr. Weatherall was saying. "I knew the b.l.o.o.d.y thing was going to have to come off, right from the second she got me. Sliding on the b.l.o.o.d.y roof in me own blood, musket ball stuck in me leg, I thought, "That"s it-it"s a goner." Sure enough."
He looked at the doctor and swallowed, a little fear showing on his face at last. "Are you fast?"
The doctor nodded, adding with a slightly proud air, "I can do a leg in forty-four seconds."
Mr. Weatherall looked impressed. "You use a serrated blade?"
"And razor-sharp . . ."
He took a deep, regretful breath. "Then what are we waiting for?" he said. "Let"s get it over with."
Jacques and I held Mr. Weatherall, and the doctor was as good as his word, being fast and thorough, even when Mr. Weatherall pa.s.sed out from the pain. When it was over he wrapped Mr. Weatherall"s leg in brown paper and took it away, and the following day returned with a pair of crutches for him.
2 MAY 1788.
To keep up appearances, I returned to school, where I was very much a mystery to my cla.s.smates, who were told that I had been segregated for disciplinary reasons. For these last few months I would be the most-talked-about pupil at school, subject of more rumors and gossip than I cared to mention: on the grapevine I heard that I had taken up with a gentleman of ill repute (not true), that I had fallen with child (not true) or that I had taken to spending my nights gambling in dockside bars (and, well, yes, I had done that, once or twice).
None of them guessed that I had been trying to track down a man who was once hired to kill me and my mother, that I had returned with an injured Mr. Weatherall and a devoted Helene and that the three of us now lived in the groundskeeper"s lodge with Jacques, the illegitimate son of the headmistress.
No, n.o.body ever guessed that.
I read Haytham Kenway"s letters and then, one day, approached Helene, who was sitting on a low stool by the back door of the lodge, a bowl of steaming water between her feet and a basket full of laundry at one side.
"Do you like it here?" I asked her.
She smiled without taking her eyes off her washing. "I think it is a kind of paradise, mademoiselle."
"I"m glad. I"m so glad, because . . . I"m so sorry about what happened to you in London."
She nodded. "Seems I have to keep reminding you of this, but a lot worse would have happened if you hadn"t saved me in Calais."
"Yes, I know, but . . . even so."
"It"s forgotten, mademoiselle."
Her hands worked a sopping white nightdress, kneading it over and over.
"I was wondering," I said, and cleared my throat. "I"d like to write to Jennifer Scott. There are some things I"d like to discuss with her. But . . . well, I would quite understand if, given what she did to you, you would rather I did not."
When Helene at last took her attention away from her laundry and looked at me, her eyes were shining. "Mademoiselle, I don"t think you quite realize what it means to me, the life I have now. You may do what you like. All I care about is what you have given me. And I could never show enough loyalty to repay you for what you"ve already given me."
"Thank you," I said, and we embraced.
So I did. I wrote to Jennifer Scott. I told her how sorry I was. I "introduced" myself, telling her about my home life, about Arno, my beloved, and how I was supposed to steer him away from the Creed and toward the ways of Templars.
And of course I discussed Haytham"s letters and how his words had moved me. I told her that I would do everything I could to help broker peace between our two kinds because she was right, and Haytham was right: there had been too much killing, and it had to stop.
DECEMBER 1788.
This evening Mr. Weatherall and I took the cart into Chteaufort, and a house there he called his "drop."
"You"re a more agreeable coachman than young Jacques, I must say," he"d said, settling in at my side. "Although I"ll say this, he"s a cracking horseman. Never needs to use the whip and rarely even touches the reins. Just sits there on the shaft with his feet up, whistling through his teeth, like this . . ."
He whistled in an approximation of his usual coachman. Well, I was no Jacques, and my hands froze on the reins but I enjoyed the scenery as we rode. Winter had begun to bite hard and the fields on either side of the track into town were laced with ice that glimmered beneath a low skirt of early-evening fog. It would be another bad winter, that was for certain, and I wondered how the peasants who worked the fields felt, looking from their windows. My privilege allowed me to see the beauty ushered into the landscape. They would see only hardship.
"What"s "a drop"?" I asked him.
"Aha," he laughed, slapping his gloved hands together, his cold breath clouding around his upturned collar. "Ever seen a dispatch arrive at the lodge? No. That"s because they come from here." He pointed up the highway. "A drop is how I can conduct my business without giving away my exact location. The official story is that you"re completing your education and I"m whereabouts unknown. That"s how I want things to remain for the time being. And to do that I have to route my correspondence through a series of contacts."