"It"s a trap."
iii Arno and I exchanged a glance and drew our swords as four grim-faced men filed through the door, took up position to bar our exit, and gazed balefully at us. With their battered hats and scruffy boots, they"d taken care to look like fearsome revolutionaries, unlikely to be challenged in the street, but they had more on their minds than freedom, liberty or . . .
Well, they had death on their minds. They sectioned off, two each for me and Arno. One of the men facing me fixed me with a look, his eyes sunken deep into a high forehead, a red neckscarf tied at his throat. With a knife in one hand he drew a sword from behind his back, twirled it in a brief, dramatic figure-of-eight formation, then held me on point. His companion did similar, offering me the back of his hand raised slightly higher than the flat of his sword. Had they really been revolutionaries, keen to rob or otherwise a.s.sault me, then they would have been laughing right now, busy underestimating me in the few brief moments before their swift demise. But they weren"t. They were Templar killers. And word had reached their ears that Elise de la Serre was no easy prey; that she would give them a battle.
The one who held his sword high moved forward first, swinging it in a tactical zigzag toward my midriff at the same time as he shifted his weight onto a leading foot.
The steel rang as I parried his blade to the side and danced a little to my left, correctly antic.i.p.ating that Red-Scarf would time his own attack simultaneously.
He did, and I was able to meet his sword with a downward sweep of my own, keeping both of the men at bay for at least one moment more, giving them pause for thought, letting them know that what they had been told was right: I was trained; I had been trained by the best. And I was stronger than I had ever been.
From my right I heard the swords of Arno and his two opponents ring out, followed by a scream that wasn"t Arno.
Now Flat-Sword made his first mistake, his eyes swiveling to see what fate had befallen his companion, and though it was a momentary lapse of concentration, a half second that his attention was not focused on me, I made him pay for it.
I had him on point, danced forward beneath his guard and struck upward, opening his throat with a flick of the wrist.
Red-Scarf was good. He knew his companion"s death gave him a chance and he lurched forward, his sword in a flat, offensive swing that if he"d made contact would have sent me off balance at the very least.
But he didn"t. He was just a little too hasty, a little too desperate to take advantage of what he thought was an opening and I had expected his attack from that side, had dropped to one knee and brought my own blade to bear, still sparkling with the fresh blood of Flat-Sword and now embedded beneath Red-Scarf"s armpit, between two layers of thick leather armor.
At the same time there came a second squeal from my left and I heard a thud as the fourth body hit the floor and the battle was over, Arno and I the only two left standing.
We caught our breath, shoulders heaving as the final gurgles of our would-be killers dwindled to dry death rasps.
We looked at the corpses, looked back at one another, then mutually decided to resume searching the workshop.
iv "There"s nothing here," I said, after a while.
"He must have known his bluff wouldn"t hold up," said Arno.
"So we"ve lost again."
"Maybe not. Let"s keep looking."
He tried a door that wouldn"t open and seemed about to leave it before I gave him a grin and kicked it down. What greeted us was another, slightly smaller chamber, this one full of symbols I recognized: Templar crosses wrought in silver, beautifully crafted goblets and carafes.
No doubt about it, this was a Templar meeting place. On a raised dais at one end of the room was an ornate, intricately carved chair where the Grand Master would sit. On either side were chairs for his lieutenants.
In the center of the room was a plinth, inset with crosses, and lying on it was a set of doc.u.ments that I went to now, s.n.a.t.c.hing them up, the feel of them familiar to me but also strange, as though they were out of place here in a chamber adjacent to a silversmith"s workshop and not in the chteau of the de la Serre family.
One of them was a set of orders. I had seen similar orders before, of course, signed by my father, but this one-this one was signed by Germain. Sealed with a red wax Templar cross.
"It"s him. Germain is Grand Master now. How did this happen?"
Arno shook his head, walking toward the window as he spoke. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h. We must tell Mirabeau. As soon as . . ."
He didn"t finish his sentence. There was the sound of gunshots from outside, then gla.s.s shattering as musket b.a.l.l.s zipped through the windows, slapped into the ceiling above us, showering us with plaster stone chippings. We took cover, Arno by the window, me near the door, just as there came another volley of shots.
"Go," he called over. "Get to Mirabeau estate. I"ll deal with this."
I nodded, and left, heading to see the a.s.sa.s.sin Grand Master, Mirabeau.
v It was getting dark by the time I reached Mirabeau"s villa. Getting there, the first thing to strike me was that scarcity of staff. The house had an odd, silent feel-a feel it took me a moment or so to recognize as how my own house had felt in the wake of Mother"s death.
The second thing to strike me-and of course I now know that the two were connected-was the strange behavior of Mirabeau"s butler. He had worn an odd expression, as though his features hadn"t quite settled on his face; that, and the fact that he didn"t accompany me to Mirabeau"s bedchamber. I thought back to my arrival at the Boars Head Inn on Fleet Street and realized that it would hardly be the first time someone had mistaken me for a lady of the night, but I didn"t think that even the sloppy-faced butler was that stupid.
No, there was something amiss. I drew my sword, came silently into the bedchamber. It was in darkness, the curtains drawn. Candles in a candelabra were close to guttering, a fire burned weakly in the grate; on a table was laid out the remnants of what looked like supper, and in the bed was what appeared to be a sleeping Mirabeau.
"Monsieur?" I said.
There was no reply, no response at all from Mirabeau, whose ample chest, which should have been rising and falling with his breathing, remained still.
I went over.
Of course. He was dead.
"Elise, what is this?" Arno"s voice from the door startled me, and I whirled around.
A sudden feeling of misplaced guilt welled up within me. "I found him like this. I don"t . . ."
He looked at me for a second longer than necessary. "Of course not. But I must report this to the Council. They"ll know . . ."
"No," I snapped. "They don"t trust me as it is. I"ll be their suspect, first and last."
"You"re right," he said, nodding. "Of course you"re right."
"What are we going to do?"
"We find out what happened," he said decisively. He turned, studying the wood surround of the entryway just behind him.
"Doesn"t look like the door was forced," he said.
"So the killer was expected?"
"A guest, perhaps? Or a servant?"
My mind went to the butler. But if the butler did it, then why was he still here? My guess was that the butler was working in a state of willful ignorance.
Something caught Arno"s eye, and he picked it up holding it close to inspect it. At first I took it to be a decorative pin, but he was holding it out, his face serious, something significant about it.
"What is that?" I said, but I knew what it was, of course. I"d been given one at my initiation.
vi He handed it to me. "It"s . . . the weapon that killed your father."
I took it to study, seeing the familiar insignia in the center of the design, then scrutinizing the pin itself. On it was a tiny gutter so that the poison would flow inside the blade, then exit from two tiny openings farther down. Ingenious. Deadly.
And of Templar design. Anybody finding it-one of Mirabeau"s a.s.sa.s.sin compatriots, for example-would have a.s.sumed that the Grand Master had been murdered by a Templar.
Perhaps he would have even a.s.sumed that Mirabeau had been murdered by me.
"That"s a Templar badge of office," I confirmed to Arno.
He nodded. "You saw no one else when you arrived?"
"Just the butler. He let me in, but he never came upstairs."
He was searching the room now, his gaze moving across the bedchamber as though he was systematically studying each area. With a small exclamation he darted to a cabinet, knelt and reached beneath it, retrieving a winegla.s.s flecked with dried dregs of wine inside.
He sniffed it. "Poison." He recoiled.
"Let me see that," I said, and held it to my nose.
Next I turned my attention to Mirabeau"s body, fingertips prying open his eyes to check the pupils, opening his mouth to inspect his tongue, pressing down on the skin.
"Aconite," I said. "Hard to detect, unless you know what you"re looking for."
"Popular with Templars, is it?"
"With anyone who wants to get away with murder," I told him, ignoring the insinuation. "It"s almost impossible to detect, and the scent and the symptoms resemble natural causes. Useful when you need to get rid of someone without monitoring them."
"And how would one go about acquiring it?"
"It grows easily enough in a garden, but for the symptoms to have come on so suddenly, it must have been processed."
"Or purchased through an apothecary."
"Templar poison, Templar pin . . . It looks d.a.m.ning."
He shot me a significant look that earned him a frown in return. "Bravo, you figured it out," I said witheringly. "My cunning plan was to murder the only a.s.sa.s.sin who doesn"t want to see me dead, then stand about waiting to be discovered."
"Not the only a.s.sa.s.sin."
"You"re right. I"m sorry. But you know this wasn"t my doing."
"I believe you. The rest of the Brotherhood, though . . ."
"Then let"s find the real killer before they get wind of this."
vii A curious turn of events. Arno had learned from an apothecary that the poison had been acquired by a man who wore a.s.sa.s.sins" robes. From there was a trail that Arno followed, and it had led us here, to Sainte-Chappelle on the le de la Cite.
A storm was brewing by the time we reached the great church, in more ways than one. I could see that Arno was shaken by the idea that there might be a traitor within the a.s.sa.s.sin ranks.
Better get used to it, I thought.
"The trail ends here," he said thoughtfully.
"Are you sure?"
He was looking up to where high in the turrets of the great church stood a dark figure. Silhouetted against the skyline, his cloak fluttered in the wind as he gazed down upon us.
"Yes, unfortunately," he said ruefully. I readied myself to go into battle with him once again, but with a hand on mine Arno stopped me.
"No," he said, "I must do this myself."
I rounded on him. "Don"t be ridiculous, I"m not letting you do this alone."
"Elise, please. After your father died, the a.s.sa.s.sins . . . They gave me a purpose. Something to believe in. To see that betrayed . . . I need to make it right myself. I need to know why."
I could understand. Better than anyone I could understand, and with a kiss I let him go.
"Come back to me," I told him.
viii I craned my neck to look up to the roof of the church, but saw just stone and the angry sky beyond. The figure had gone. Still I watched, until a few moments later when I saw two figures tussling on a ledge.
My hand went to my mouth. A cry for Arno, which would have been useless anyway, dried in my mouth. In the next instant the two figures were tumbling from the church, hurtling down the front of the building, almost shaded out by the driving rain.
For half a second I thought they were going to hit the ground and die there in front of me but their fall was stopped by an overhang farther down.
From my position below I heard their bodies make impact and their cries of pain. I wondered whether either of them would have survived the fall, then got my answer as they gathered themselves slowly and painfully and continued to fight, slow at first but with increasing ferocity, their hidden blades flashing like lightning strikes in the dark.
Now I could hear them shouting at one another, Arno crying, "For G.o.d"s sake, Bellec, the new age is upon us. Haven"t we grown past this endless conflict?"
Of course, it was Bellec, the a.s.sa.s.sins" second-in-command. So-he was the man behind Mirabeau"s killing.
"Did everything I teach you bounce off that armor-plated skull?" roared Bellec. "We are fighting for the freedom of the human soul. Leading the revolution against Templar tyranny."
"Funny how short the road is from revolution against tyranny to indiscriminate murder, isn"t it?" roared Arno back.
"Bah. Stubborn little f.u.c.k, aren"t you?"
"Ask anyone," retorted Arno, and he leapt forward, his blade making a figure of eight.
Bellec danced back. "Open your eyes," he shouted. "If the Templars want peace, it"s only so they can get close enough to put the knife to your throat."
"You"re wrong," countered Arno.
"You haven"t seen what I have. I"ve seen Templars put entire villages to the sword, just for the chance of killing one a.s.sa.s.sin. 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-gla.s.s 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.