Assassin's Creed: Unity (11 page)

11 F
EBRUARY
1788

My protector gave me a couple of days to settle in before coming to see me this morning. In the meantime I’ve borrowed clothes from May Carroll, who was at pains to tell me that the dresses lent to me were “old” and “rather out of fashion” and not really the sort of thing she’d be wearing this season—but would be “fine for you, smell-bag.”

“If you call me that one more time, I’ll kill you,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Thank you for the dresses.” And I meant it. Fortunately, I have inherited my mother’s disdain for fashion so although the out-of-fashion dresses were evidently designed to irritate me, they did nothing of the sort.

What irritates me is May Carroll.

Helene, meanwhile, has been braving below-stairs life, finding that the servants are even more snooty than the aristocrats above. And, it has to be said, hasn’t been doing an awfully good job when it’s come to masquerading as my lady’s maid, performing strange, random curtsies while shooting constant, terrified glances my way. We’d have to work on Helene, there was no doubt about that. At least the Carrolls were so arrogant and pleased with themselves that they simply assumed Helene was “very French” and put her naivety down to that.

Then Mr. Weatherall knocked.

“Are you decent?” I heard him say.

“Yes, monsieur, I am decent,” I replied, and the protector entered—and then immediately shielded his eyes.

“Bloody hell, girl, you said you were decent,” he rasped.

“I
am
decent,” I protested.

“What do you mean? You’re wearing a nightdress.”

“Yes, but I am decent.”

He shook his head behind his hand. “No, look, in England, when we say, ‘Are you decent?’ it means ‘Have you got your clothes on?’”

May Carroll’s nightdresses were hardly revealing, but even so I had no wish to scandalize Mr. Weatherall, so he withdrew and some moments later we tried again. In he came, pulling up a chair while I perched on the end of the bed. The last time I’d seen him was the night of our arrival, when he’d gone a shade of beetroot as Helene and I entered the dining room, both of us looking like—what was the expression Madame Carroll had used?—“like something the cat had dragged in” and I had quickly spun a story about having been held up by highwaymen on the road between Dover and London.

I had cast my eyes around the table seeing faces that I had first laid eyes on over a decade ago. Madame Carroll looked no different, the same for her husband. The two of them wearing the usual bemused smile so beloved of the English upper classes. May Carroll, though, had grown—and if anything looked even more tiresomely haughty than she had when we had first met in Versailles.

Mr. Weatherall, meanwhile, was forced to pretend that he was aware of my upcoming arrival, masking his obvious surprise as concern for my well-being. The Carrolls had worn a selection of bemused looks and asked a number of searching questions, but he and I had bluffed with enough confidence to avoid being ejected there and then.

To be honest, I thought we’d made a good team.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?” he said now.

I fixed him with a look. “You know what I’m playing at.”

“For crying out loud, Élise, your father is going to have me killed for this. I’m not exactly his favorite person as it is. I’m going to wake up with a blade at my throat.”

“Everything has been smoothed over with Father,” I told him.

“And Madame Levene?”

I swallowed, not really wanting to think about Madame Levene if I could help it. “That too.”

He cast me a sidelong glance. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“No,” I assured him. “You don’t want to know.”

He frowned. “Well, now you’re here, we have to . . .”

“You can forget any thoughts you have of sending me home.”

“Oh, I’d love to send you home if I could—if I didn’t think that by sending you home, your father would want to know why, and I’d get in even deeper trouble. And if the Carrolls didn’t have plans for you . . .”

I bridled. “
Plans
for me? I’m not their serf. I am Élise de la Serre, daughter of the Grand Master, a future Grand Master myself. They have no authority over
me
.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, get over yourself, child. You’re here in London as their guest. Not only that, you’re hoping to benefit from their contacts in order to find Ruddock. If you didn’t want them to have authority over you, then maybe it would have been best not have placed yourself in this position.” I began to protest, but he held up a hand to stop me. “Look, being a Grand Master isn’t just about swordplay and behaving like Charlie Big Potatoes. It’s about diplomacy and statesmanship. Your mother knew that. Your father knows that and it’s about time you learned it too.”

I sighed. “What then? What do I have to do?”

“They want you to insinuate yourself into a household here in London. You and your maid.”

“They want me to—what?—myself?”

“Insinuate. Infiltrate.”

“They want me to spy?”

He scratched his snow-white beard uncomfortably. “In a manner of speaking. They want you to pose as someone else in order to gain entry into the household.”

“Which is spying.”

“Well . . . yeah.”

I thought, and decided that despite everything, I quite liked the idea of it. “Is it dangerous?”

“You’d like that, would you?”

“It’s better than the Maison Royale. When am I to find out the details of my mission?”

“Knowing this lot, when they’re good and ready. In the meantime I suggest you spend some time licking that so-called lady’s maid of yours into shape. At this moment in time she’s neither useful nor ornamental.” He looked at me. “Quite what you did to inspire such loyalty I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.”

“Perhaps best you don’t know,” I told him.

“Which reminds me. Something else while on the subject.”

“What is that, monsieur?”

He cleared his throat, stared at his shoes, worked at his fingernails. “Well, it’s the crossing. This captain you found to bring you across.”

I felt myself redden. “Yes?”

“What nationality was he?”

“English, monsieur, like you.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Right.” He cleared his throat again, took a deep breath and raised his head to look me in the eye. “The crossing from Calais to Dover takes nothing like two days, Élise. It’s more like a couple of hours if you’re lucky—nine, ten at the outside if you’re not. Why do you think he kept you out there for two days?”

“I’m quite sure I couldn’t possibly say, monsieur,” I said primly.

He nodded. “You’re a beautiful girl, Élise. God knows you’re as beautiful as your mother ever was and let me tell you that every head turned when she walked into the room. You’re going to meet more than your fair share of rogues.”

“I’m aware of that, monsieur.”

“Arno awaits your return, no doubt, in Versailles.”

“Exactly, monsieur.”

I hoped so.

He stood to go. “So exactly what did you do for two days on the English Channel, Élise?”

“Swordplay, monsieur,” I said. “We practiced our swordplay.”

20 M
ARCH
1788

The Carrolls—that little cabal of Monsieur, Madame and May—have promised to help find Ruddock, and, according to Mr. Weatherall, this puts a network of spies and informants at our disposal. “If he remains in London, then he’ll be found, Élise, you can be sure of that.” But, of course, they want me to accomplish this task.

Of course I should be nervous about the assignment ahead, but poor Mr. Weatherall was nervous enough, constantly fretting at his whiskers and worrying aloud at every turn. There wasn’t enough anxiety for us both.

And anyway, he was right to assume I found the idea exciting. There’s no point in denying it, I do. And after all, can you blame me? Ten years of the drab and hateful school. Ten years of wanting to reach out and take a destiny that remained just inches away from my fingertips. Ten years, in other words, of frustration and longing. I was ready.

Over a month has passed, of course. I had to write a letter which was then sent to Carroll associates in France, who sealed it and forwarded it to an address here in London. While we waited for a reply, I helped Helene with her reading and taught her English, and in doing so, polished my own skills.

“Will this be dangerous?” Helene asked me one afternoon, using English as we took a turn around the grounds.

“It will, Helene. You should remain here until I return, maybe try to find employment at another house.”

She switched to French, saying shyly, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, mademoiselle.”

“It’s not that I want to get rid of you, Helene. You’re wonderful company and who wouldn’t want a friend who is so warm and generous of spirit. It’s just that I feel the debt is paid. I have no need of a maid nor want the responsibility of one.”

“What about a friend, mademoiselle? Perhaps I can be your friend?”

Helene was the opposite of me. Where I let my mouth get me into trouble she was more reticent and days would pass when she’d barely say more than a word or two; while I was demonstrative, as quick to laughter as I was to temper, she kept her own counsel and rarely betrayed her emotions. And I know what you’re thinking. The same as Mr. Weatherall was thinking. That I could learn a thing or two from Helene. Perhaps that’s why I relented, just as I had when I first met her, and on several occasions since. I allowed her to stay with me and wondered why God has seen fit to favor me with this angel.

As well as spending time with Helene, not to mention avoiding either of the conceited Carroll ladies, I have been spending my time by practicing sparring with Mr. Weatherall, who . . .

Well, there’s no getting round it—he’s slowed down. He is not the swordsman he used to be. He’s not as fast as he used to be. Not as clear-eyed. Was it age? After all, some fourteen years had passed since I first met Mr. Weatherall, so undoubtedly there was that to consider. But also . . . At mealtime I watch him reach for the carafe of wine before the serving staff can get there, which doesn’t go unnoticed by our guests, going by the way May Carroll looks down her nose at him. Their distaste make me feel very protective of him. I tell myself he still mourns Mother.

“Perhaps a little less wine tonight, Mr. Weatherall,” I joked during one session, when he bent to pick his wooden sparring sword from the grass at our feet.

“Oh, it’s not the booze that’s making me look bad. It’s you. You underestimate your own skills, Élise.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

I also spent time writing to Father, reassuring him that my studies were continuing, and that I had “knuckled down.” When it came to writing to Arno I paused guiltily as I found my thoughts returning to my charming smuggler Byron Jackson. For a moment I considered telling Arno—and then reconsidered. It would break his heart. It would change everything. And why do that? Why do that when the upshot of “liaison” with Byron had not, as you might expect, taken my heart away from Arno. Rather it had made my affection for him even stronger, my gut feeling that he is “the one” merely confirmed.

All right, Élise, I decided, take that tryst and keep it secret—keep it to within the pages of this journal and instead of allowing it to be a destructive thing, something that pulls you and Arno apart, make it positive. Make it something that brings you together.

And so, though the letter I wrote to Arno was by necessity not exactly the most honest account of my present situation, there was one major truth among the fabrication and that was that I loved him. Never before had I written a letter of such affection to him. True, though the sentiments were born of infidelity (and that guilt my soul would just have to bear) they were true, and when I signed off by telling Arno I hoped to see him soon—in the next couple of months or so—I had never written words more true in my life.

So what if my reasons for wanting to see him were selfish? That I see him as an escape from my everyday responsibilities, a ray of sunlight in the dark of my destiny? Does it matter when my only desire is to bring him happiness?

I have been called. Helene informs me that a letter has arrived, which means it’s time for me to squeeze into a dress, go downstairs and find out what lies in store for me.

12 S
EPTEMBER
1794

Though I still kept in contact with François de la Serre, who was something of a surrogate father to me, by the time of Élise’s visit to London I had moved away from the de la Serre estate to digs in the village, where I spent my days and nights drinking, playing cards against the likes of Victor and Hugo and . . . yes, entertaining women, too.

So if she were here, I could tell her that I, too, had strayed during the early years of our adulthood. Betrothed though we were, sweethearts in name at least, we were rarely actually together—snatched moments during the holidays was all we had—and she was not alone in wanting, as she put it, “liaisons.”

Like her my infidelities (because, yes, sorry, Élise, there was more than one, the ladies of Versailles village being as accommodating as they were fetching) did nothing to tempt me away from her.

There are those men who think it’s their right to sow their wild oats while their beloved stays virtuous, but I’m not one of those. I’m not a hypocrite. I try not to be, at least.

2 A
PRIL
1788

i

The day began with a panic.

“We don’t think you would have a lady’s maid,” said Monsieur Carroll.

The terrible trio stood in the reception hall of their house in Mayfair, regarding Helene and me as we prepared to leave for our secret mission.

“That’s quite all right with me,” I said, and though I did of course have to still a flutter of nerves at the thought of going alone, I would at least have the advantage of not needing to worry about Helene.

“No,” said Mr. Weatherall, coming forward. He shook his head emphatically. “She can invent a story about the family finding fortune. I don’t want her to go in there alone. It’s bad enough I can’t go with her.”

Madame Carroll looked doubtful. “It’s one more thing she needs to remember. One more thing she needs to deal with.”

“Mrs. Carroll,” growled Mr. Weatherall, “with the greatest respect, that’s a right lot of nonsense. The role of a noble lady is one young Élise has been playing her entire life. She’ll be fine.”

Helene and I stood patiently as our future was decided for us. Different in almost every other way, what she and I had in common was that other people decided our destinies for us. We were used to it.

And when they had finished our belongings were strapped to the roof of a carriage, and a coachman, an associate of the Carrolls we were assured could be trusted, took us across town to Bloomsbury, and an address at Queen Square.

ii

“It used to be called Queen Anne’s Square,” the coachman had told us. “It’s just Queen Square now.”

He’d accompanied Helene and me to the top of the steps and pulled the bell. As we waited I glanced around at the square, seeing two neat rows of white mansions, side by side, very English. There were fields to the north and nearby a church. Children played in the highway, darting in front of carts and carriages, the street alive with life.

We heard footsteps, then a great scraping of bolts. I tried to look confident. I tried to look like the person I was supposed to be.

Which was?

“Miss Yvonne Albertine and her lady’s maid, Helene,” announced the coachman to the butler who opened the door, “to see Miss Jennifer Scott.”

In contrast to the life and noise behind us, the house radiated dark and foreboding, and I fought a strong sense of not wanting to go in there.

“Mademoiselle Scott is expecting you, mademoiselle,” said the expressionless butler, motioning to us to enter.

We walked into a large entrance hall, which was dark with wood paneling and closed doors leading to rooms off the hall. The only light came from windows on a landing above and the house was quiet, almost deathly quiet. For a second or so I struggled to think what it was the atmosphere reminded me of, then I remembered: it was like our château in Versailles in the days after Mother had died. That same sense of time standing still, of life carried out in whispers and silent footsteps.

I had been warned it would be like this: that Mademoiselle Jennifer Scott, a spinster in her mid-seventies, was somewhat . . .
odd
. That she had an aversion to people, and not just strangers or any specific type of person, but
people
. She maintained a skeleton staff at her house on Queen Square and for some reason—some reason the Carrolls had yet to reveal to me—she was very important to the English Templars.

Our coachman was excused, then Helene was whisked away, perhaps to go and stand awkwardly in a corner of the kitchen and be gawked at by the staff, the poor thing; and then when it was just the butler and me left, I was led to the drawing room.

We entered a large room with drawn curtains. Tall potted plants had been placed in front of the windows, deliberately, I presumed, to limit people looking in or out. Again, it was dingy and dark in the room. Sitting in front of a bumbling fire was the lady of the house, Mademoiselle Jennifer Scott.

“Miss Albertine to see you, my lady,” he said, and left without getting a reply, closing the door softly behind him, leaving me alone with this strange lady who doesn’t like people.

What else did I know about her? Her father was the pirate Assassin Edward Kenway and her brother the renowned Templar Grand Master Haytham Kenway. I assumed it was their portraits on one wall, two similar-looking gentlemen, one wearing the robes of an Assassin and another in a military uniform that I took to be Haytham. She herself had spent years on the Continent, a victim of the strife between Assassin and Templar. Though no one seemed to know exactly what had happened to her, there was no doubt she had been scarred by her experiences.

The door closed behind me and I was alone in the room with her. I stood there for some moments, watching her as she sat staring into the flames with her chin in her hand, preoccupied. I was just wondering whether I should clear my throat to get her attention or if perhaps I should simply approach and introduce myself, when the fire came to my rescue. It crackled and popped, startling her so that she appeared to realize where she was, lifting her chin slowly from her hand and looking at me over the rims of her spectacles.

I was told that she had once been a beauty and truly the ghost of that beauty lingered around her, in features that remained exquisite and dark hair that was slightly unkempt and streaked with thick gray, like a witch. Her eyes were flinty, intelligent and appraising. I stood obediently and let her study me.

“Come forward, child,” she said at last, and indicated the chair opposite.

I took a seat and again was subject to a long stare.

“Your name is Yvonne Albertine?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle Scott.”

“You may call me Jennifer.”

“Thank you, Mademoiselle Jennifer.”

She pursed her lips. “No, just Jennifer.”

“As you wish.”

“I knew your grandmother and your father,” she said, and waved her hand. “Well, I didn’t really ‘know’ them as such, but I met them once in a château near Troyes in your home country.”

I nodded. The Carrolls had warned me that Jennifer Scott was likely to be suspicious and might try to test me. Here it came, no doubt.

“Your father’s name?” prompted Mademoiselle Scott, as though having trouble recalling it.

“Lucio,” I told her.

She raised a finger. “That’s right. That’s right. And your grandmother?”

“Monica.”

“Of course, of course. Good people. And how are they now?”

“Passed, I am sad to say. Grandmother some years ago; Father in the middle of last year. This visit—the reason I’m here—was one of his final wishes, that I should come to see you.”

“Oh yes?”

“I fear that things ended badly between my father and Mr. Kenway, my lady.”

Her face remained impassive. “Remind me, child.”

“My father wounded your brother.”

“Of course, of course.” She nodded. “He stuck a sword in Haytham, didn’t he? How could I ever forget?”

You didn’t forget.

I smiled sadly. “It was perhaps his biggest regret. He said that shortly before your brother lost consciousness he insisted on leniency for himself and Grandmother.”

She nodded into her chest, hands grasped. “I remember, I remember. Terrible business.”

“My father regretted it, even at the moment of death.”

She smiled. “What a shame he was not able to make the journey to tell me this himself. I would have reassured him that he need have nothing to worry about. Many’s the time I wanted to stab Haytham myself.”

She stared into the jumping flames, her voice drifting as she was claimed by her memories. “Little squirt. I should have killed him when we were kids.”

“You can’t mean that . . .”

She chuckled wryly. “No, I don’t suppose I can. I don’t suppose what happened was Haytham’s fault. Not all of it anyway.” She took a deep breath, fumbled for a walking cane that rested by the arm of her chair and stood.

“Come, you must be tired after your journey from Dover. I shall show you to your room. I’m afraid to say that I am not one for socializing, and especially not when it comes to my evening meal, so you shall have to dine alone, but perhaps tomorrow we can walk the grounds, make each other’s acquaintance?”

I stood and curtsied. “I would like that very much,” I said.

She gave me another look as we left for the bedchambers on the floor above. “You look very much like your father, you know,” she said.

“Thank you, my lady.”

iii

Later when I had eaten, a meal that I took alone, waited upon by Helene, I retired to my bedchamber in order for me to prepare for bed.

The truth was that I hated being fussed over by Helene. I had long ago drawn the line at allowing her to dress and undress me, but she said she had to do something, just to make all those hours she spent listening to boring gossip below stairs worthwhile, so I allowed her to lay out my clothes and fetch me a bowl of warm water for washing. In the evening I let her brush my hair, something I’d come to quite enjoy.

“How’s everything going, my lady?” she asked, doing it now, speaking in French but still in a lowered voice.

“Everything is going well, I think. Did you happen to speak to Mademoiselle Scott at all?”

“No, my lady, I saw her in passing and that was all.”

“Well, you didn’t miss much. She’s certainly an odd character.”

“A fine kettle of fish?”

That was one of Mr. Weatherall’s expressions. We grinned at each other in the mirror.

“Yes,” I said, “she certainly is a fine kettle of fish.”

“Am I allowed to know what it is that Mr. and Mrs. Carroll want with her?”

I sighed. “Even if I knew, it would be best that you don’t.”

“You don’t know?”

“Not yet. Which reminds me, what is the time?”

“Just coming up for ten, Mademoiselle Élise.”

I shot her a look, hissing, “It’s
Mademoiselle Yvonne
.”

She blushed. “I’m sorry, Mademoiselle Yvonne.”

“Just don’t do that again.”

“Sorry, Mademoiselle Yvonne.”

“And now, I must ask you to leave me.”

iv

When she had gone, I went to my trunk stored beneath the bed, pulled it out, knelt and flicked the locks. Helene had emptied it but she wasn’t aware of the false bottom. Beneath a fabric tab was a hidden catch and when I clicked it the panel came away to reveal the contents.

Among them was a spyglass and a small signaling device. I fitted the candle to the signal, took the spyglass and went to the window, where I opened the curtains just wide enough to look out into Queen Square.

He was across the road. Looking for all the world like a cab driver awaiting a fare, Mr. Weatherall sat atop a two-wheeled carriage, the lower half of his face covered with a scarf. I gave the predetermined signal. He used his hand to mask the carriage light, giving his reply, then, with a glance left and right, unwound the headscarf. I brought the spyglass to my eye, so that I was able to see him clearly, and read his lips as he said, “Hello, Élise,” then brought a spyglass to his own eye.

“Hello,” I mouthed in return.

Thus we had our silent conversation.

“How is it going?”

“I am in.”

“Good.”

“Please be careful, Élise,” he said, and if it was possible to inject real concern and emotion into a silent conversation held in the dead of night, Mr. Weatherall managed it then.

“I will be,” I said. Then I withdrew to sleep and to puzzle over my purpose in this strange place.