Assassin's Creed: Forsaken

by Oliver Bowden

  With little else for me to do but write my journal, I had hoped to get up to date with the story of my life so far, but it seems there’s more to say than I’d first thought, and of course there have been other important matters to attend to. Funerals. Edith today.

  “Are you sure, Master Haytham?” Betty had asked earlier, with her forehead creased in concern, her eyes tired. For years—as long as I could remember—she had assisted Edith. She was as bereaved as I was.

  “Yes,” I said, dressed as ever in my suit and, for today, a black tie. Edith had been alone in the world, so it was the surviving Kenways and staff who gathered for a funeral feast below stairs, for ham and ale and cake. When that was over, the men from the funeral company, who were already quite drunk, loaded her body into the hearse for taking to the chapel. Behind it we took our seats in mourning carriages. We only needed two of them. When it was over I retired to my room, to continue with my story . . .

  ii

  A couple of days after I’d spoken to Tom Barrett’s eyeball, what he’d said was still playing on my mind. So one morning when Jenny and I were both alone in the drawing room together, I decided to ask her about it.

  Jenny. I was nearly eight and she was twenty-one, and we had as much in common as I did with the man who delivered the coal. Less, probably, if I thought about it, because at least the man who delivered the coal and I both liked to laugh, whereas I’d rarely seen Jenny smile, let alone laugh.

  She has black hair that shines, and her eyes are dark and . . . well, “sleepy” is what I’d say although I’d heard them described as “brooding,” and at least one admirer went so far as to say she had a “smoky stare,” whatever that is. Jenny’s looks were a popular topic of conversation. She is a great beauty, or so I’m often told.

  Although not to me. She was just Jenny, who’d refused to play with me so often I’d long since given up asking her; who whenever I picture her was sitting in a high-backed chair, head bent over her sewing, or embroidery—whatever it was she did with a needle and thread. And scowling. That smoky stare her admirers said she had? I called it scowling.

  The thing was, despite the fact that we were little more than guests in each other’s lives, like ships sailing around the same small harbour, passing closely but never making contact, we had the same father. And Jenny, being more than a decade older than I, knew more about him than I did. So even though I’d had years of her telling me I was too stupid or too young to understand—or too stupid and too young to understand; and once even too short to understand, whatever that was supposed to mean—I used to try to engage her in conversation. I don’t know why, because, as I say, I always came away none the wiser. To annoy her perhaps. But on this particular occasion, a couple of days or so after my conversation with Tom’s eyeball, it was because I was genuinely curious to find out what Tom had meant.

  So I asked her: “What do people say about us?”

  She sighed theatrically and looked up from her needlework.

  “What do you mean, Squirt?” she asked.

  “Just that—what do people say about us?”

  “Are you talking about gossip?”

  “If you like.”

  “And what would you care about gossip? Aren’t you a bit too—”

  “I care,” I interrupted, before we got on to the subject of my being too young, too stupid or too short.

  “Do you? Why?”

  “Somebody said something, that’s all.”

  She put down her work, tucking it by the chair cushion at the side of her leg, and pursed her lips. “Who? Who said it and what did they say?”

  “A boy at the gate in the grounds. He said our family was strange and that Father was a . . .”

  “What?”

  “I never found out.”

  She smiled and picked up her needlework “And that’s what set you thinking, is it?”

  “Well, wouldn’t it you?”

  “I already know everything I need to know,” she said haughtily, “and I tell you this, I couldn’t give two figs what they say about us in the house next door.”

  “Well, tell me then,” I said. “What did Father do before I was born?”

  Jenny did smile, sometimes. She smiled when she had the upper hand, when she could exert a little power over someone—especially if that someone was me.

  “You’ll find out,” she said.

  “When?”

  “All in good time. After all, you are his male heir.”

  There was a long pause. “How do you mean, ‘male heir’?” I asked. “What’s the difference between that and what you are?”

  She sighed. “Well, at the moment, not much, although you have weapons training, and I don’t.”

  “You don’t?” But on reflection I already knew that, and I suppose I had wondered why it was that I did swordcraft and she did needlecraft.

  “No, Haytham, I don’t have weapons training. No child has weapons training, Haytham, not in Bloomsbury anyway, and maybe not in all of London. Nobody but you. Haven’t you been told?”

  “Told what?”

  “Not to say anything.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Well, didn’t you ever wonder why—why you’re not supposed to say anything?”

  Maybe I had. Maybe I secretly knew all along. I said nothing.

  “You’ll soon find out what’s in store for you,” she said. “Our lives have been mapped out for us, don’t you worry about that.”

  “Well, then, what’s in store for you?”

  She snorted derisively. “What is in store for me? is the wrong question. Who is in store? would be more accurate.” There was a trace of something in her voice that I wouldn’t quite understand until much later, and I looked at her, knowing better than to enquire further, and risk feeling the sting of that needle. But when I eventually put down the book I had been reading and left the drawing room, I did so knowing that although I had learnt almost nothing about my father or family, I’d learnt something about Jenny: why she never smiled; why she was always so antagonistic towards me.

  It was because she’d seen the future. She’d seen the future and knew it favoured me, for no better reason than I had been born male.

  I might have felt sorry for her. Might have done—if she hadn’t been such a grumbler.

  Knowing what I now knew, though, weapons training the following day had an extra frisson. So: nobody else had weapons training but me. Suddenly it felt as though I were tasting forbidden fruit, and the fact that my father was my tutor only made it more succulent. If Jenny was right, and there was some calling I was being groomed to answer, like other boys are trained for the priesthood, or as blacksmiths, butchers or carpenters, then good. That suited me fine. There was nobody in the world I looked up to more than Father. The thought that he was passing on his knowledge to me was at once comforting and thrilling.

  And, of course, it involved swords. What more could a boy want? Looking back, I know that from that day on I became a more willing and enthusiastic pupil. Every day, either at midday or after evening meal, depending on Father’s diary, we convened in what we called the training room but was actually the games room. And it was there that my sword skills began to improve.

  I haven’t trained since the attack. I haven’t had the heart to pick up a blade at all, but I know that when I do I’ll picture that room, with its dark, oak-panelled walls, bookshelves and the covered billiard table which had been moved aside to make space. And in it my father, his bright eyes, sharp but kindly, and always smiling, always encouraging me: block, parry, footwork, balance, awareness, anticipation. Those words he repeated like a mantra, sometimes saying nothing else for an entire lesson at a time, just barking the commands, nodding when I got it right, shaking his head when I did it wrong, occasionally pausing, scooping his hair out of his face, and going to the back of me to position my arms and legs.

  To me, they are—or were—the sights and sounds of weapons training: the bookshelves, the billiard table,
my father’s mantra and the sound of ringing . . .

  Wood.

  Yes, wood.

  Wooden training swords we used, much to my chagrin. Steel would come later, he’d say, whenever I complained.

  iii

  On the morning of my birthday, Edith was extra specially nice to me and Mother made sure I was given a birthday breakfast of my favourites: sardines with mustard sauce, and fresh bread with cherry jam made from the fruit of the trees in our grounds. I caught Jenny giving me a sneering look as I tucked in but paid it no mind. Since our conversation in the drawing room, whatever power she’d had over me, slim as it had been, had somehow been made less distinct. Before that I might have taken her ridicule to heart, maybe felt a little silly and self-conscious about my birthday breakfast. But not that day. Thinking back, I wonder if my eighth birthday marked the day I began to change from boy to man.

  So no, I didn’t care about the curl of Jenny’s lip, or the pig noises she made surreptitiously. I had eyes only for Mother and Father, who had eyes only for me. I could tell by their expressions, tiny little parental codes I’d picked up over the years, that something else was to come; that my birthday pleasures were set to continue. And so it proved. By the end of the meal my father had announced that tonight we would be going to White’s Chocolate House on Chesterfield Street, where the hot chocolate is made from solid blocks of cocoa imported from Spain.

  Later that day I stood with Edith and Betty fussing around me, dressing me in my smartest suit. Then the four of us were stepping into a carriage at the kerb outside, where I sneaked a look up at the windows of our neighbours and wondered if the faces of the Dawson girls were pressed to the glass, or Tom and his brothers. I hoped so. I hoped they could see me now. See us all and think, “There go the Kenway family, out for the evening, just like a normal family.”

  iv

  The area around Chesterfield Street was busy. We were able to draw up directly outside White’s and, once there, our door was opened and we were helped quickly across the crowded thoroughfare, and inside.

  Even so, during that short walk between the carriage and the sanctuary of the chocolate house, I looked to my left and right and saw a little of London: the body of a dog lying in the gutter, a derelict retching against some railings, flower sellers, beggars, drunkards, urchins splashing in a river of mud that seemed to seethe on the street.

  And then we were inside, greeted by the thick scent of smoke, ale, perfume and of course chocolate, as well as a hubbub of piano and raised voices. People, all of whom were shouting, leaned over gaming tables. Men drank from huge tankards of ale; women, too. I saw some with hot chocolate and cake. Everybody, it seemed, was in a state of high excitement.

  I looked at Father, who had stopped short, and sensed his discomfort. For a moment I was concerned he’d simply turn and leave, before a gentleman holding his cane aloft caught my eye. Younger than Father, with an easy smile and a twinkle that was visible even across the room, he was waggling the cane at us. Until with a grateful wave, Father acknowledged him and began to lead us across the room, squeezing between tables, stepping over dogs and even one or two children, who scrabbled at the feet of revellers, presumably hoping for whatever might fall off the gaming tables: pieces of cake, maybe coins.

  We reached the gentleman with the cane. Unlike Father, whose hair was unkempt and barely tied back with a bow, he wore a white powdered wig, the back of it secured in a black silk bag, and a frock coat in a deep, rich red colour. With a nod, he greeted Father then turned his attention to me and made an exaggerated bow. “Good evening, Master Haytham, I believe that many happy returns of the day are in order. Remind me please of your age, sir? I can see from your bearing that you are a child of great maturity. Eleven? Twelve, perhaps?”

  As he said this he glanced over my shoulder with a twinkly smile and my mother and father chuckled appreciatively.

  “I am eight, sir,” I said, and puffed up proudly, as my father completed the introductions. The gentleman was Reginald Birch, one of his senior property managers, and Mr. Birch said he was delighted to make my acquaintance then greeted my mother with a long bow, kissing the back of her hand.

  His attention went to Jenny next, and he took her hand, bent his head and pressed his lips to it. I knew enough to realize that what he was doing was courtship, and I glanced quickly over to Father, expecting him to step in.

  Instead what I saw was he and Mother looking thrilled, though Jenny was stone-faced, and stayed that way as we were led to a private back room of the chocolate house and seated, she and Mr. Birch side by side, as the White’s staff began to busy themselves around us.

  I could have stayed there all night, having my fill of hot chocolate and cake, copious amounts of which were delivered to the table. Both Father and Mr. Birch seemed to enjoy the ale. So in the end it was Mother who insisted we leave—before I was sick, or they were—and we stepped out into the night, which if anything had become even busier in the intervening hours.

  For a moment or so I found myself disorientated by the noise and the stench of the street. Jenny wrinkled her nose, and I saw a flicker of concern pass across my mother’s face. Instinctively, Father moved closer towards us all, as if to try and ward off the clamour.

  A filthy hand was thrust in front of my face and I looked up to see a beggar silently appealing for money with wide, beseeching eyes, bright white in contrast to the dirt of his face and hair; a flower seller tried to bustle past Father to reach Jenny, and gave an outraged “Oi” when Mr. Birch used his cane to block her path. I felt myself being jostled, saw two urchins trying to reach us with their palms out.

  Then suddenly my mother gave a cry as a man burst from within the crowd, clothes ragged and dirty, teeth bared and his hand outstretched, about to snatch my mother’s necklace.

  And in the next second I discovered why Father’s cane had that curious rattle, as I saw a blade appear from within as he span to protect Mother. He covered the distance to her in the blink of an eye, but before it cleared its scabbard, he changed his mind, perhaps seeing the thief was unarmed, and replaced it, ramming it home with a thump and making it a cane once again, in the same movement twirling it to knock the ruffian’s hand aside.

  The thief shrieked in pain and surprise and backed straight into Mr. Birch, who hurled him to the street and pounced on him, his knees on the man’s chest and a dagger at his throat. I caught my breath.

  I saw Mother’s eyes widen over Father’s shoulder.

  “Reginald!” called Father. “Stop!”

  “He tried to rob you, Edward,” said Mr. Birch, without turning. The thief snivelled. The tendons on Mr. Birch’s hands stood out, and his knuckles were white on the handle of the dagger.

  “No, Reginald, this is not the way,” said my father calmly. He stood with his arms around Mother, who had buried her face in his chest and was whimpering softly. Jenny stood close by at one side, me at another. Around us a crowd had gathered, the same vagrants and beggars who had been bothering us now keeping a respectful distance. A respectful, frightened distance.

  “I mean it, Reginald,” said Father. “Put the dagger away, let him go.”

  “Don’t make me look foolish like this, Edward,” said Birch. “Not in front of everybody like this, please. We both know this man deserves to pay, if not with his life, then perhaps with a finger or two.”

  I caught my breath.

  “No!” commanded Father. “There will be no bloodshed, Reginald. Any association between us will end if you do not do as I say this very moment.” A hush seemed to fall on everybody around us. I could hear the thief gibbering, saying over and over again, “Please sir, please sir, please sir . . .” His arms were pinned to his sides, his legs kicking and scraping uselessly on the filth-covered cobbles as he lay trapped.

  Until, at last, Mr. Birch seemed to decide, and the dagger withdrew, leaving a small bleeding nick behind. When he stood, he aimed a kick at the thief, who needed no further encouragement to scramble
to his hands and knees and take off into Chesterfield Street, grateful to escape with his life.

  Our carriage driver had recovered his wits and now stood by the door, urging us to hurry to the safety of our carriage.

  Father and Mr. Birch stood facing one another, their eyes locked. As Mother hurried me past, I saw Mr. Birch’s eyes blazing. I saw my father’s gaze meet him equally, and he offered his hand to shake, saying, “Thank you, Reginald. On behalf of all of us, thank you for your quick thinking.”

  I felt my mother’s hand in the small of my back as she tried to shove me into the carriage, and craned my head back to see Father, his hand held out to Mr. Birch, who glared at him, refusing to accept the offer of accord.

  Then, just as I was bundled into the carriage, I saw Mr. Birch reach to grasp Father’s hand and his glare melt away into a smile—a slightly embarrassed, bashful smile, as though he’d just remembered himself. The two shook hands and my father awarded Mr. Birch with the short nod that I knew so well. It meant that everything had been settled. It meant that no more need be said about it.

  v

  At last we returned home to Queen Anne’s Square, where we bolted the door and banished the smell of smoke and manure and horse. I told Mother and Father how much I had enjoyed my evening, thanked them profusely and assured them that the commotion in the street afterwards had done nothing to spoil my evening, while privately thinking that it had been a highlight.

  But it turned out the evening wasn’t over yet, because as I went to climb the stairs, my father beckoned me follow him instead, and led the way to the games room, where he lit an oil lamp.

  “You enjoyed your evening, then, Haytham,” he said.

  “I enjoyed it very much, sir,” I said.

  “What was your impression of Mr. Birch?”

  “I liked him very much, sir.”

  Father chuckled. “Reginald is a man who sets great store by appearance, by manners and etiquette and edict. He is not like some, who wear etiquette and protocol as a badge only when it suits them. He is a man of honour.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, but I must have sounded as doubtful as I felt, because he looked at me sharply.