Assassin's Creed: Heresy

by Christie Golden

  “Do… do you think her Voices have stopped talking to her?” Fleur said in a voice barely above a whisper, lifting wide blue eyes to his.

  Gabriel stayed silent. He was too afraid to ask Joan himself. “It doesn’t matter to me what she does, or where she goes,” he said. “I’ll be there with her.”

  “I will, too. Forever,” Fleur said, her eyes filling with tears. “But I just want her to stop hurting. What the king is doing to her is so wrong!”

  “The king does what he must, and so do I,” came Joan’s voice behind them. “As do you, my Shadow and my Flower. We all do God’s will.”

  Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from weeping, but were dry now. “I would speak to you both,” she said, taking Fleur aside first. Gabriel looked away, given them privacy, his own heart heavy. He soon felt a feather-light brush on his arm.

  As he turned to her, for the first time, he realized how small Joan was. So much about her had been so big: her light, her spirit, her warmth, her animated features. Now he saw her as a simple human woman, somber and still.

  “My witness,” she said, and he felt a chill. He was both that and her shadow, but he wondered why she had chosen this nickname for him at this moment. “Do you recall what you said to me, when I first told you about my Voices?”

  His blood turned to water in his veins. He couldn’t say the words, but he nodded. Don’t tell me to leave your side. Ever.

  “I said I couldn’t promise we would never be parted,” she continued.

  “‘Only let me share your journey for as long as you can,’” he quoted, his voice thick.

  “You will bear witness, for as long as you may. But that time is coming to an end. I need you to promise… when I tell you to go, you will obey. No matter what happens.”

  “I can’t abandon you, Jeanne! Please, don’t ask that of me!” His voice cracked, and he was unashamed. He took her hands and clung to them, feeling the bones through the skin, how terribly fragile she was, in the end, despite her inner radiance.

  “I did not say ‘abandon me.’ I said obey. If I ask it, it is not I, but God. Swear, Gabriel, or else you will follow me not one step further.”

  He couldn’t let her see his pain. She knew how great it was; and she herself struggled with some burden he couldn’t possibly comprehend. Instead, he nodded. “I swear,” he said, and added, silently, by the depth of the love I bear for you.

  Simon was deeply grateful for the mists that started rolling in. He could not bear Gabriel’s pain for a moment longer.

  Simon, what… what happened? Do we know?

  “We know,” he said, heavily. “During her trial, she testified that Saints Catherine and Margaret told her that she would be captured before Saint John’s day—June 24. She—” Simon cleared his throat. “She and a few of her men, including Pierre and her steward Jean d’Aulon, were taken prisoner at Compiègne on May 23. The Burgundian troops lured her too far away from the city, then cut off her escape route as soon as she tried to retreat. The governor of Compiègne was forced to close the gates, or else risk having the enemy actually enter the city.”

  And Gabriel wasn’t captured, because Joan ordered him to retreat before the ambush, Victoria said.

  I have but a year, little more, Joan had predicted on 21 April, 1429.

  She had been right.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  DAY 6

  Simon knew, in great, ugly detail, the horrors that awaited Joan before her death: ridicule, false accusations, beatings, terror, and the constant fear of rape. His brain had seized on them, plaguing his sleep. Even now his stomach turned at the thought as he entered the Abstergo building, nodding good morning to the security guards on duty. Gabriel was the witness, not he. Surely he did not need to endure all this. But he couldn’t help but wonder, if Consus’s spirit could appear to go forward into the future to connect with people like Joan, perhaps it knew about people like Gabriel… and Simon.

  They still had the rest of today and tomorrow, technically. The burner phone vibrated in his pocket as he entered the lift. Simon tensed slightly, casually turning away from the lift camera to read the text. He felt the blood drain from his face as he forwarded it to the burner phone Victoria had picked up last night, after their conversation in the book shop.

  He stepped into his office just long enough to check e-mails, then called Victoria on her company-issued phone.

  “I’ve decided to take you up on your offer. Perhaps it is time I started getting used to the dark swill you are so fond of. I made some notes I’d like to share before we get started today. Now would be the perfect time to introduce me to that coffee shop you mentioned.”

  They met in the lobby, where Victoria happily and audibly extolled the virtues of her fictitious coffee shop. Once they were out of the building and had walked a block, Victoria checked her phone.

  Anaya’s message was brief and to the point. A is compromised. Waterloo.

  “I do hope by that she means the Tube station,” Victoria said.

  “So do I,” Simon replied.

  They found Anaya at Waterloo Station, purchasing a muffin approximately the size of Simon’s fist from one of the snack vans. Victoria got a latte, and Simon got tea. They all pretended it was a coincidence that they’d met up here, accepted a segment of muffin from Anaya, and walked through the crowds below the great arch at the station.

  “You were right,” Anaya said. “Someone’s hacked into the Animus server. Well, someone other than me. And they’ve been using computers in my department to do it.”

  Simon swore. “Your little American friend.”

  “I think so,” Anaya said, adding bitterly, “I should have known something was up when I got the job so fast.”

  “Well, I didn’t think anything of it, other than that Abstergo Entertainment knew something good when they saw it,” Simon said. “It made perfect sense they’d jump when they saw your resumé. Don’t take this on yourself.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “The point is, I’m supposedly training the man who’s spying on you.”

  “That might turn out to be a good thing. Can you misdirect him?” asked Victoria. “And find out where he’s sending the information?”

  Anaya nodded. “Yes to both.”

  “You can stop if you want, Anaya, I mean it.” Simon took her hand in his and squeezed it, causing her to look up and meet his gaze. “I—well, I’d… I don’t want any harm to come to you.”

  She raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. “Ah, so you do care,” she teased.

  He went red. “Well, of course,” he said lightly, “Abstergo’s invested a great deal of time training you.”

  “That’s my Simon,” she said, her smile broadening. He’d lifted her spirits, and he was glad. “But yes, I can do this, and I should do this, because after all—we don’t know that this is Templar-sanctioned. And my job is to be on the lookout for just such things.”

  That was something that Simon hadn’t considered. What if she were right? What if Rikkin’s annoyance with how long Simon was taking had nothing to do with anything else that was going on? At the very least, he was suddenly grateful that Anaya had a plausible reason for her activity.

  “All right.” Anaya squared her shoulders. “Whatever the two of you are doing with Joan of Arc that’s arousing so much interest, hurry it up. The longer I’m poking around, the sooner someone will spot me. I’m good, but everyone gets caught, eventually.”

  “Really?” Victoria said.

  “It’s the whole premise of my job,” Anaya replied. “Be quick, all right? And be smart.”

  And then, to Simon’s astonishment, she gave him a swift kiss, her lips warm against his cheek, and melted into the crowd.

  He stared after her for a moment, startled, then turned to Victoria. “We need to go straight back to Abstergo. I think Gabriel has something to say to some Assassins.”

  FRIDAY, 7 JULY, 1430

  VAUCOULEURS

  “There
you are.” Gabriel’s voice was low and cold as he spoke into Jean de Metz’s ear, sliding beside him on the bench in the dimly-lit tavern.

  Either he had failed to surprise the knight, or else, more likely, de Metz hid his shock well. “Laxart,” he said. “I wondered when you would show up.”

  The man’s casualness was infuriating. “We talk outside,” Gabriel stated, rising. De Metz obligingly drained his ale and rose. The summer evening was only now growing dark. The heat was stifling as they walked down the street, nodding to passersby until they had entered a merchant area that was closed for the night.

  “I’m sorry about Jeanne,” de Metz said.

  “If you were sorry—if any of you Assassins were sorry—she wouldn’t be in the tender care of Philip’s man Luxembourg,” Gabriel snapped. “She almost escaped. Did you know that? She only got caught because she tried to free her brother and d’Aulon as well. Because she cared about what happened to them. If they’d had any kind of outside aid from the Assassins—”

  “You don’t know anything, Laxart,” said de Metz. It wasn’t an angry accusation, it was an exhausted one. “You have no idea what we have or haven’t been doing—and why or why not.”

  “Then tell me!”

  “You’re not a member of the Brotherhood. You’re not even a formal apprentice, not yet. And I don’t think you ever will be one of us.”

  “Why? Because I’m not good enough? Because the Assassins abandoned me when it became inconvenient?”

  Again, de Metz seemed more regretful than angry. “No. Because for you, it’s not about the cause, or the Brotherhood. It’s not about the war against the Templars for humanity’s destiny. It’s just about Jeanne.”

  “That’s enough for me,” Gabriel said. “And it should have been enough for you. For Yolande. You once told me Jeanne was not just important politically. You said you cared about what happened to her. I believed you. I thought that was the difference between the Assassins and the Templars—that you were the ones that cared about the individual. And she is no ordinary person, Jean, you know that!”

  “I do,” de Metz agreed. “We do. But Burgundy’s already talked to Jeanne at least once. Ah,” he added at Gabriel’s surprised expression, “you see, you don’t know everything. More things are in play at the moment than you can possibly imagine. We can’t just rush in and grab her. The political strategies—”

  “Mean nothing to me! She means everything!”

  De Metz’s eyes were sad. “You’re too volatile to involve, Gabriel. I’m sorry. But… the truth of the matter is that without the sword, Jeanne isn’t the undefeatable angel she was. She lost at Paris.”

  “Because Charles ordered her to retreat! The king was being duped by Burgundy, even he admits to seeing it now!”

  “She’s been captured. She’s not infallible.”

  “Her Voices told her she would be taken,” Gabriel said, desperately. “And I believe she hears them. Do you?”

  De Metz was silent.

  Gabriel took a step back. “By Christ’s blood, you don’t, do you? You’re as fickle as Charles! I went to him, begged him to ransom her, but he wouldn’t lift a finger. The instant she is of no use to you, you abandon her. Is that the Assassin’s Creed? ‘Find people, use them up, toss them away when they need you?’ Good God, you’re no different from the Templars!”

  The Hidden Blade was at his throat before he’d finished uttering the last word. De Metz had seized Gabriel’s tunic and his face was only an inch away from the youth’s as he hissed, “For the sake of the friendship that was once between us, I won’t end your angry little life right here and now.”

  The blade disappeared. De Metz released his grip and shoved Gabriel away, disgusted. “You want to think that? Go right ahead. It tells me that you understand nothing.”

  Gabriel’s hand went to his neck, and he touched something warm and wet. The blade was so sharp, it had nicked him without his even feeling it. “I know that you abandoned an eighteen-year-old girl who did everything she ever promised. Whose will was stronger than yours, or mine, or even your precious Mentor’s. If you loved her only for the sword, then I think she may be better served by those guarding her now, rather than those who guarded her on her way to Chinon. At least they aren’t pretending to be her friends.”

  In the dim light, despite his protestations, de Metz winced. “Go. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

  “What about staying your blade from the flesh of the innocent?”

  “You’re no innocent, Laxart. You’re in this up to your ears. And if you don’t see that, you’re more of a fool than I thought.”

  “I will do everything I can to free her,” Gabriel warned.

  “Then you may doom her. Do you understand?”

  Gabriel turned on his heel. He had no angels telling him what he should do, and when he prayed, God never answered. He didn’t have the Assassins, or Alençon, or anyone, now.

  He and Fleur were on their own.

  Simon hated seeing Gabriel like this, knowing, unlike his ancestor, that Joan was not going to be rescued, that everything Gabriel was struggling to prevent would come to pass. “De Metz was right about one thing,” he said as he and Gabriel waited in the Memory Corridor. “There was a great deal at play. This war didn’t last a hundred and sixteen years because it was simple.”

  Did Charles really do nothing to help Joan?

  “Not one thing.”

  Do you think he had anything to do with her capture?

  “No, but he was probably quietly relieved. There was a traditional way of handling noble prisoners that wasn’t followed in Joan’s case. They were usually treated fairly well, and eventually found their way back home when their family could cough up the ransom or someone needed to make a deal. And it looked at first like Philip was content to keep her. She was technically the prisoner of John of Luxembourg, count of Ligny, who was Philip’s vassal, and by all accounts she was treated well. John’s wife seemed fond of Joan, even asking her husband not to give Joan over to the English.”

  But he did. Or I suppose Philip did. What happened?

  “There was a lot of pressure from the English, who were naturally very hostile to Joan. Many wanted her to burn.” Simon remembered the angry words hurled at Joan when she spoke to the English at Orléans, and felt ill. “Others, the Templars among both Burgundian and English, wanted to discredit her in order to thoroughly discredit Charles. Seven months after her capture, the English purchased her for ten thousand pounds from the John of Luxembourg. She arrived at Rouen on Christmas Eve, 1430. The man responsible for these negotiations was Pierre Cauchon—who would later head the tribunal against her for heresy.”

  Why do I know that name?

  “He was a Burgundian sympathizer, one of the authors of the Treaty of Troyes. Joan had essentially forced him to flee twice—once from Reims, where he was rector of the University of Paris, and once from Beauvais, where he was the bishop. Both times, those cities turned away from Burgundy and accepted Charles. Legally, he shouldn’t have been able to be her judge. Neither her birthplace nor the place where her so-called heresy was committed lay within his jurisdiction. But strings were pulled. By the way, he was angling for the archbishopric of Rouen.”

  He sounds terribly impartial. Victoria’s voice dripped sarcasm. He was a Templar as well?

  “Almost certainly. The instant he heard about Joan’s capture, he began working to get her delivered into ecclesiastical hands instead of secular.”

  So that they could levy a charge of witchcraft or heresy.

  “Much more unsavory than just having her be a prisoner of war. Hence, worse for Charles’s reputation. Who could support a king whose victories had come to him through the devil? The University of Paris had been after that outcome since Orléans. The whole thing was a legal farce, really. So many blatant instances of a complete disregard for inconvenient legalities. Joan was treated as a POW, with leg irons on at all times in her cell, but was supposedly an e
cclesiastical prisoner.”

  I’m confused. What’s the difference between the two?

  “There are pros and cons for the English either way. Or at least there ought to have been. If Joan was an ecclesiastical prisoner, she could be tried for heresy or witchcraft, just as you said. But she would also be lodged with women, and not kept in chains. She’d also be allowed to request the pope’s involvement. They wanted it both ways. They wanted to charge her as an ecclesiastical prisoner, but also wanted to treat her as poorly as if she were a secular prisoner.”

  So they just did whatever they wanted to, to get the desired result.

  “Precisely. Joan was shown instruments of torture, and threatened with them. One of the torturers walked out—said he couldn’t do it. She had men in her cell watching her constantly. They hadn’t even formulated a charge when they brought her to trial, she had no advocate… I could go on, but there’s no point.”

  Indeed, thinking about the injustice—injustices carried out by order of the highest-ranking Templars of the time—was making him feel nauseated. This is the Templar way, he reminded himself. Order must obtained. The Assassin’s puppet Charles had to be brought to heel. Yet the thoughts brought him no comfort.

  I’m not going to urge you to see anything more unless you want to, Victoria said.

  He thought about it for a moment. “I feel that as a historian, I should take advantage of this chance. And I feel that I owe it to her—and Gabriel—to witness something of her fall.”

  Don’t do it for history’s sake, or even Gabriel’s sake or Joan’s. If you’re going to do this, do it for Simon Hathaway.

  “I think if I don’t,” he said, quietly, “I’d never forgive myself.”

  Then in we go.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  WEDNESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY, 1431

  CHAPEL OF BOUVREUIL KEEP, ROUEN