Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
Part of the Assassin’s Creed.
Walpole didn’t react, but his pulse quickened. So—Randall had been right. He had been sniffed out.
Most of the time, Duncan was a hothead, and he had never denied it. But sometimes, he went cold, as if that hot head had been plunged into an icy pool, and he knew that aspect of his personality was even more frightening.
The cold settled into him now as he regarded Spencer and he gave the Templar a pleasant grin.
“Good thing too, eh? I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Of course not,” Spencer said, “We’re gentlemen and employees of Britain’s finest company. I’m certain we’ll both take any indiscretions we observe to the grave.”
Oh, how right you are.
“Well, in that case, I highly recommend Rose of England. Ask for Jessamine.”
They talked idly of the price of silk and tea, and whether it would ever become quite as popular as coffee. “Perhaps,” Spencer said. “Although I rather hope it may remain the preferred beverage of gentlemen. Let the riffraff continue to swill the vile concoction.”
It was ludicrous, but that was that offhand comment which cemented Henry Spencer’s fate in Duncan’s eyes.
Spencer would die tonight.
Walpole bided his time, playing cards and drinking, until Spencer got up to leave. His eyes on his cards, Duncan heard the Templar declining the offer of a carriage ride home, saying his lodgings were not far and it was a pleasant night.
Duncan gave him enough of a head start so that the bastard wouldn’t suspect, then cashed in his cards and followed.
Although it had been ten years since Michael Cole’s patented globular lights had been first lit outside of St. James’s Coffeehouse, the lamps were still not widely implemented, and the London streets were dark. But the half-full moon provided more than enough illumination for Duncan to observe Spencer trundling up ahead along the street, lantern in hand. Walpole followed on the street for a bit, then ducked into an alley, shinnied easily up the stone side of another tavern, and leapt lightly on the slate roof to continue the pursuit from above.
His quarry was enveloped in a faint scarlet nimbus, and Duncan grinned. Why had he not done this before? It was far too easy. He ran lightly along the roof, springing from one to the next as chimneys from the taverns, gaming houses, and whorehouses sent black smoke up into the air.
Then he paused.
Far too easy. Damn it.
Was he walking into a trap? For a moment, he thought about abandoning his pursuit of the pudgy, solitary figure huffing purposefully along. Perhaps he should go back to Randall and accept the mission. It might not be that bad.
But of course it would be that bad. A long, difficult, unpleasant sea voyage, with nothing but jungle, ruined temples, and lots and lots of “training.”
No. He would not go slinking back to Randall like a dog with its tail between his legs. Grimly, he continued on.
Spencer turned a corner and vanished into an alleyway. Unless the fellow was about to unbutton and take a piss, this really was a bad idea for a wealthy gentleman.
Which, of course, meant that this really was a trap. Duncan wasn’t sure how, as the man was alone. But if he knew it was a trap, then it ceased to be one. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, flicked his wrists to activate his hidden blades, and sprang.
Ordinarily, Walpole would have impaled the man’s throat upon contact. But not this time, especially as he realized that Henry Spencer, Esquire, was standing, trousers quite properly buttoned, looking up expectantly and making no move to escape as the Assassin sprang upon him.
Such confidence was impressive, and as he landed squarely upon the fleshy Templar, Duncan merely pressed the blade to the man’s throat.
“You knew I’d follow you,” he said.
“I certainly hoped you would,” Spencer answered.
Duncan blinked. Keeping his blades to the man’s throat, he looked about. They were completely alone. Intrigued, he said, “You don’t strike me as one eager to die.”
“Oh, no indeed.”
“And yet, I am going to kill you, Templar,”
Spencer smiled. “Not quite yet, I think. You’re a smart fellow, Walpole. I’m offering you a proposition that might interest you.”
Abruptly, Walpole laughed. “I’m not moving my blades,” he said, “but I’ll let you speak before I cut your throat.”
“This is trifle uncomfortable, but as you wish. I wasn’t the only Templar in that tavern. We know you’re an Assassin. And we have for some time. You may kill me right here and now, but you wouldn’t get far.”
“Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, are the Templars, now?”
“No, but we do have eyes everywhere. And you’d never dare approach anyone in the Company again. Quite the loss.”
Duncan scowled. “Go on.”
“We’ve been watching you for some time. I don’t know how the Assassins treat you, but I know that you’ve been passed over for promotion within the Company. And if you were truly content with the Brotherhood, you’d never have hesitated to kill me just now—suspected trap or no.”
Damn the man’s eyes, he was right.
Duncan made a decision. He swung himself off the man, getting to his feet and extending his hand to help Spencer to his. The man’s grip was strong, though his hands were soft and damp.
I can easily take him if I don’t like what he says, Duncan reasoned. “Are you offering me a… position?”
“At the East India Company? No. You’ll fare better and rise higher if you join the Templars. Pride in one’s work and recognition and advancement for it are not flaws in one’s character, to our way of thinking.”
The wording took Duncan aback. He realized that the Assassins did, indeed, look upon his ambition as a flaw, and the revelation was surprisingly painful. He said nothing for a moment. Spencer held his tongue, not pressing him.
At last, Duncan Walpole said quietly, “The Mentor of the Caribbean Brotherhood has heard rumors of a Sage.”
Spencer inhaled quickly. “That information is indeed… extraordinarily helpful.”
Walpole took the next step. “That could be just the beginning.”
Duncan looked up at the coffeehouse’s sign: a golden pot of the beverage against a red background, with two long-stemmed clay pipes crossing one another on below it. He gazed down the street; the day was clear enough that he could see the Tower of London which gave the cobbled street its name.
He peered through the wavy glass of Lloyd’s Coffee House. Randall was inside, as was his wont at this hour, listening to the news brought by the executives of shipping companies, their sailors, and the merchants who sold the goods they brought.
For a moment, Walpole stood outside, hesitating. His head hurt, and the coffee would help it, and it was time to finish what he’d begun last night.
Time to stick a different kind of hidden blade into the Mentor’s heart—one the man would, if Duncan Walpole played his cards right, never feel until it was far too late.
Randall looked up as he entered, one gray eyebrow quirking in mild surprise. “Good morrow, Duncan,” he said. “You look sober.”
“I am,” he said, “but I am in want of coffee. I’ve thought about what you said, and you’re right. One should never settle for being ‘good enough.’ One should strive to become the best, and if I can learn from Ah Tabai and help the Brotherhood… then I should do so.”
Something that looked like real affection flickered across Phillip Randall’s aquiline features.
“I know how difficult it is for you to swallow your pride, Duncan,” he said, almost kindly. He waved down a server, who brought an extra cup, and filled the empty receptacle with the steamy hot, thick black liquid.
As he accepted the beverage, the traitor to the Creed said to his Mentor, smiling, “It goes down easier with coffee.”
SUBJECT:
* * *
REGRESSION: CONSTANTINOPLE, 1475
Yusuf Tazim, eight years old, stared out at the port of Constantinople, his eyes as big as two full moons and his mouth a perfect circle of astonishment.
It had already been a journey bursting with wonders, traveling from Bursa, where he had been born, to this ferry, and then over a vast expanse of water. He had never been more than a mile from home before in his life.
His mother, Nalan, stood beside him, smiling as she placed a hand on her son’s narrow shoulder.
“Do you see? I told you that Constantinople had something Bursa didn’t have.”
She had come into their rooms three nights ago, her slender, strong body awkward with tension as she told him they needed travel to Constantinople, right away. It was odd, and frightening, and he had not wanted to leave.
It had been just the two of them all Yusuf’s young life. He had never known his father, and all the asking in the world about what had happened to him served the boy little, save for the reassurance that his father had not wanted to leave his wife or his son and was, more than likely, not going to be able to return to them.
There were stories, though, that his mother would share with him; tales of his laughter and kindness, and the warmth in his smile. “You are much like him, my child,” Nalan would say, and her eyes would somehow be happy while still haunted by sorrow.
Now, however, there were no shadows in his mother’s eyes. Whatever it was that had caused her to want to depart Bursa so quickly had, it seemed, been left behind in that city.
“Are you glad you came, my little lion?”
Looking out at the approaching harbor and the buildings that crowded behind it, tall and proud and colorful against the blue of the sky, Yusuf considered the question. It was not so far away that he could not return one day should he so desire, his mother had pointed out while she packed their meager belongings.
He did not like to think of how they had left, or wonder why. His usual good nature asserted itself and as the vessel drew closer to port, with the sounds of the ropes slapping against the ship’s hull and the sight of small figures scurrying to greet it and bring it in safely, Yusuf nodded.
“Yes,” he announced. “I am.”
The voice penetrated Emir’s consciousness. It was female, cool, in complete control. Kind, but with no true compassion. But the more he focused on it, the more his head hurt.
“This tells us nothing of import. We know he was a troublemaker as a child, but this seems to be too young to get into much mischief.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” A male voice this time. Clipped, dry, to the point. “Apparently something significant happened within his first year here.”
Emir didn’t want to hear this. Somehow he knew it was dangerous, knew it could lead to—
“Can you narrow it down to a specific date?”
“Yes, hang on. There, that’s got it.”
Bursa was the second largest city in the Ottoman empire, so Constantinople, or Konstantinyye, or Istanbul—a recent, local name for the great port city—did not dazzle the boy quite so much as it might have if he been born in a distant village. He knew his way around street corners, alleyways, tunnels, and areas that he knew his mother would not like to know he visited. But while Bursa had certainly been large and bustling, Istanbul was the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, and offered much more.
It was a hub of commerce and activity, where merchants and sailors and travelers, innkeepers and mercenaries, soldiers and beggars all intersected in a noisy, colorful, fragrant, and vibrant collage. People of all walks of life, of all cultures and religions were welcome—indeed, encouraged—to come to the city.
Yusuf had always felt that his mother prepared the best sweets anyone had ever tasted. In Bursa, where she worked in the market, her kemalpasa—a dessert made with unsalted sheep’s cheese, flour, eggs, and butter rolled into walnut-sized pieces and then cooked in lemon syrup—was unrivaled. So he was not at all surprised that once a local vendor, a jovial, corpulent man named Bekir bin Salih, had tasted it, he hired her after the first bite.
Yusuf’s tasks initially were what they had been in Bursa—to help his mother obtain the ingredients needed to prepare the kemalpasa, to draw customers to the stall, and to deliver cloth-wrapped packages of the delicious treats to customers all over the city. He sometimes took… different routes than most people would, choosing to go over-or under—rather than through the city.
On one such adventure, as he climbed like a monkey onto a rooftop to get an absolutely glorious view of the city, he observed something strange. Certain roofs had poles erected on them. Attached to the poles were ropes that stretched from higher buildings to lower ones. What were these for? Sometimes cords were strung to dry clothing, or to hang banners. But these were thick and solid. They could easily support a man’s weight, and he discovered it certainly supported his as he went, carefully, hand over hand from one rooftop to another. Who had put them up? What were they for? He wondered about them every time he looked up.
But there was a more pressing problem than who had erected the rooftop ropes. As the months stretched on, it became apparent to Yusuf that although his mother was able to feed them, she did not come home with the same amount of coins she had earned in Bursa, and what money she was able to make did not go quite as far. The ingredients for the kemalpasa were more expensive here, and the cheese much harder to find. He had already outgrown the clothing they had brought with them, and he knew that replacing them was an expense they could not afford.
Despite the growth spurt, Yusuf was still small for his age and thin as a rail, so he slipped easily among the crowds in the Grand Bazaar and elsewhere. Too many careless people wore their funds either tucked in their sleeves or in small pouches with leather lacings that were the work of a heartbeat to cut and abscond with. Each night, he presented his mother with a handful of coins he had “earned” while supposedly performing acrobatics in the street to draw attention to Bekir’s stall, or had “been given” as tokens of appreciation for particularly fast deliveries.
At first his mother was pleasantly surprised, praising him for earning extra income. But as it happened more and more regularly, she grew concerned. One night, she said to him, “Yusuf, tell me, and do not lie… you have not been hurting anyone to get these, have you?”
Relieved at the phrasing, which enabled Yusuf to deftly sidestep the real issue and answer quite honestly, “I would never hurt anyone for money, Mama!” She seemed to take him at his word, and didn’t press further.
One night, when the Bazaar was lit with torches and several musicians were pounding nagaras and plucking sazes for coins, Yusuf wound his way through the crowd. He stood next to a tall woman dressed in a colorful, well-crafted kaftan and ferace—clearly a woman of means. One hand, soft and clearly unused to physical labor, held tightly to that of a small child of perhaps three or four. In her other arm, she cradled a baby. The older child stared raptly, then giggled and started stamping her feet and jumping up and down. Her mother’s face shone brightly, and she swung her arm along with her daughter’s capering.
Thus distracted, she was the easiest target Yusuf had encountered all day, and he was in and out in the span of a breath. The purse was surprisingly heavy as he stashed it inside his shirt and maneuvered to the edge of the crowd. A quick scamper and he was out of the bustling major thoroughfare into a side street. He took a look around and, satisfied that he was alone, opened the pouch.
It was too dark to see clearly, but Yusuf had taught himself how to recognize the coins by size and feel, and grinned. This would last him for weeks! He had just started to place the purse back in his shirt when a figure launched itself at him.
Instinct caused him to whirl, and he almost struck a blow of his own before his much larger adversary knocked him to the ground. He landed hard with an ooof as the wind rushed out of his lungs.
Yusuf was pinned and couldn’t see his attacker’s face in the d
arkness of the alley, but that didn’t stop him from struggling and flailing and trying to bite. Oh, if I were older…!
“What did you think you were doing out there?”
The voice belonged to a boy, older than he and definitely bigger and heavier, but not yet an adult. Yusuf took the opportunity to attempt to knee the older boy in the groin. The other youth twisted out of the way, swearing, and the fight was on.
Yusuf punched hard on the inside of the other boy’s elbow, forcing it to bend and the boy to lurch even further to the side. He then pounced atop him like a cat on a rat. Yusuf had not done much fighting; his size did not predispose him to it. But he was angry now, and he began to pummel the other boy with clenched fists. He felt one blow crunch the other’s nose and was rewarded with a sharp yelp… before the much larger adversary decided to quit toying with him. One big hand came up, closed around Yusuf’s throat, and squeezed as the boy forced him over on his back.
“You idiot, I’m trying to help you!” the boy said, his voice thick from his bloodied nose. “I’m going to let go of you now, all right?”
He was as good as his word, releasing Yusuf and moving quickly out of striking distance. Surprised curiosity chased away anger as Yusuf sat up, touching his neck experimentally. It didn’t even hurt much.
The two stared at each other in the dim light, panting. “You’re Yusuf Tazim,” the other said at last. “I’m Davud bin Hassan.”
“How—” began Yusuf, but the other interrupted him.
“I’ve been watching you,” Davud said. “That was a lucky blow. Do you have any cloth?”
Yusuf did; it had been used throughout the day to carry deliveries of kemalpasa and smelled faintly of the sweet as he passed it over to Davud, who, he realized, wouldn’t be smelling much of anything anytime soon.
“Well, you attacked me first,” Yusuf said, though he wanted to apologize, and knew as well as Davud did that it was, indeed, a lucky blow.
“I was only trying to pin you.” Davud accepted the cloth and started to gingerly blot his bloody face.
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