“How far do you plan on taking us?”
We had been on the road for three days on a cart we purchased in Trottingham. Two horses were expensive to feed, but Glen Green’s coin pouch was surprisingly hefty for a monk. At every town and roadside inn we happened across, he made sure the horses were well fed and prepared.
“The Templars will know you are running,” I told him after the second day. “We should take the horses as far as they can and run.” The frequent stops to feed and water the horses began to drive me mad. Back in Trottingham, when we first took Glen captive, the Templars followed and flushed us from our bureau within hours. They plotted and schemed, but they could move quickly when they wanted. And I hated the idea of waiting around for some knights or soldiers to surround us.
“That will get us away quicker and faster,” was his answer to my complaints once we paused along the bank of a pond. “But not further. We head for Southampton. Merchants constantly sail from there to Francia.”
“A long journey,” I said. “They’ll catch us before then.”
“So do what you’ve been thinking,” he said. “Steal a horse away in the night and leave me. I wonder where you’ll go, though. Anglia isn’t Francia or Gustavale. I should think you don’t have many bureaus left in this kingdom.”
“We have plenty. And none at all.”
His guess was right, I had considered running and finding the nearest bureau. We were still enemies, sleeping with one eye open in case the other decided to put our war before ourselves. But neither of us would fare better alone.
Anglia was not my country. The people would recognize my Francian accent immediately. And I could not be sure where the Templars were. Fleeing to the wrong bureau at the wrong time could only lead more Templars to the Brotherhood.
Equally, Green could not risk being rid of me. A Templar Grandmaster was dead, a fact that the Order would not want the Assassins to know. If we were to separate, he knew I would have no choice to take the risk and return to my brothers. I guessed that he considered killing me since he could no longer hope to get information on the Assassins, however, that option was only available until I had eaten and treated my wounds.
So we continued our tentative truce. At our pace, we had another four or five days of travelling before we would reach Anglia’s southern coast. Riding by cart was slow, but it offered the advantage of some comfort. The jostling of a horse at full gallop would have made a problem for the healing cuts on my back. Whenever the horses stopped to rest, I would also have to find a creek or pond to wash the wounds and clean off the rags that bound them. Though smaller wounds had formed their scabs, the deepest threatened to resume their bleeding if I was not careful. It could have been possible to find a tailor or barber-surgeon in Trottingham, someone with a steady hand at the needle and thread, but in our haste, there was no time for sutures.
“You are spending too much on the horses. Space on a merchant’s ship is not cheap. How do you plan on boarding a ship with an empty pocket?” I asked as the market town of Market Haverberg came into view.
He lifted the cloth of his sleeve. “You’re fortunate to be travelling with a monk. Merchants will not turn one away. God’s punishment can be bad for business.”
“L’habit ne fait pas le moine, Sir Green,” I told him. “The robes do not make the monk. I wonder if anyone will ask why a monk is covered in scars from war.”
“They might, and then I would tell them the truth. I fought for the Crown before I devoted myself fully to God.”
“Mhm.”
I let him believe what he wanted and turned my attention to the forest around Haverberg. It was summer, and Anglia’s countryside was a breathtaking view, at least.
The narrow path wound around a forest so deep and fearsomely wild that even the sun’s light was scarce beneath the boughs. High hills waited astride the fields, covered in the hoar woods I spied beneath huge aged oaks and the hazel and hawthorn, huddled and tangled with rough ragged moss around them trailing. The rooks and jays and magpies and doves, on the bare twigs they sat, waiting and singing and home-making from the moss and leaves.
Haverberg was smaller than Trottingham, but it was no less populated. Criers, mostly children, called out to passers-by to visit blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and fresh produce stalls. We passed large tofts, buildings of brick, stone, or timber, that sheltered precious goods. From there, young men of large stature moved boxes of crafts and fresh food into the town’s square. Business weighed the air itself as people bartered and traded. Some buyers had coin to pay, however, many other farmers exchanged bags of grain or their livestock.
I must have had a look on my face that matched my awe because Sir Green took one look at me and chuckled. “Haverberg has had markets every Tuesday since before I was born. The highway that connects the villages brings a lot of travel between Ledecester and Northampton.”
“We are near Ledecester?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he gave me an odd look. “We camped near it just last night. Are you telling me you didn’t know where we were?”
“Would you know your way around Francia?” I snapped back at him. That wasn’t my concern, however. Even if I wasn’t Anglian, I had heard of Ledecester. More aptly, I had heard of its earl. “Simon de Montfort, he is the Earl of Ledecester.”
“Indeed, though he’d be with the king by now, discussing his campaign in Gustavale.”
“But the Templars have been supporting him, making Ledecester a Templar stronghold as well. Why have we been passing through Templar lands?”
Green scoffed. “As long as we are in Anglia, we are on Templar lands. You’re right about Ledecester, and that’s why I drove the horses away from the city. But while we make good accounts of the trade that passes along these roads, the Templars have no reason to place agents out in a market village. Its inhabitants are loyal Anglians, and commerce flows smoothly here. We won’t be found.”
I crossed my arms. “They’re searching for us. If Haverberg is a place for travellers, then they’d be fools not to place watchers out here.”
“I would know if I were among my people. Until I see Templars suspicious of me, we continue as planned. Don’t make trouble where there is none.” Green pulled on the reins until the horses stopped near the stables outside an inn. “We can load the cart with all the supplies we’ll need for the journey. Assassins are good at keeping quiet. Do that, and our time here can be quick since you’re so fraught with worry.”
Besides the many bags of feed the horses would need, Glen purchased a surplus of bread, dried meat, gooseberries, cabbages and carrots, plus a heavy casket of wine. I watched for an hour as each item was loaded onto the cart.
Despite Sir Green’s overconfidence, I was restless in my waiting. I could not lean back and rest my back against the seat of the cart, so I sat upright and watched every person who made more than a passing glance at our cart. And I was thankful for my vigilance.
Anglia was host to a many number of birds. The forest boasted finches and jays aplenty, and the skies held the recognizable white-tailed eagle on its high winds, whose white tail feathers were a popular symbol among the Anglian Assassins. But I was not Anglian. And neither was the eagle I saw.
On the roof of a distant tree, a crestless hawk-eagle eyed me. Though it was far, I could see it well enough by the light feathers that distinguished its chest. It was no brown-feathered eagle of Anglia. I swivelled my head around, watching the crowd more keenly. Even I lived too far north in Francia to see the hawk-eagle regularly. The birds preferred the climates Espania and Italia, only showing themselves in the southernmost end of Francia. It could not have been in Anglia by accident.
All my senses worked to search the crowd. Whether it was a talent or skill, I could not say, but I had acquired some strange sense of intuition over years of training. A way of seeing the world as only an Assassin could. The figure I found in the crowd stood out by his gait and posture. The way he walked and moved about the bustle of the town square was deliberate but aimless. He walked about as if he were going somewhere, but arriving at nowhere.
Glen Green was occupied within the inn, arranging his purchases and whatever else he believed he needed. Without word or noise, I left the cart to the young men loading it and crossed the town square to the waiting figure.
The familiarity almost struck me like a bolt of lightning, and I cursed myself for not noticing sooner. Perhaps I was not used to seeing Brighton without his robes, but it was still shameful I had found him sooner.
“You took long enough,” he said the moment I walked within earshot of his whispers. “I’ve been waiting here all day.”
“Have you?” I asked as I walked beside him. “I’m glad to see you in good health. I was worried after the attack.”
“I was fortunate to have left for the stables when I did,” he said. “When you did not show up, I assumed the worst and moved on to warn the other bureaus.”
“How many did we lose in the attack?”
“It has hardly been more than a week,” he answered. “Let’s just say we are still picking through the ashes. The Templars used Green’s kidnapping to paint us as heretics, but they lost control of some zealots among the crowd. A small mob gathered outside the Trottingham bureau and burned it to the ground. How about those who were captured, did they escape as well?”
“They are dead,” I said somberly. “The Templars tortured them to death seeking information we would not tell them.”
“They died protecting our Creed. Let’s make sure it was worth it.” He looked back to the cart. “Glen Green. He does not seem like a prisoner now.”
I shook my head. “We are prisoners of each other, in a way. We are both running from the Templars. He knows the land, and I couldn’t risk going to the bureaus with our enemies close behind.”
Brighton knit his brows together. “Why would a Templar Master run from his Order?”
“Sir Green is a great many, terrible things,” I explained, “but let it be known that he is a devout man to his core. He killed one of his own, the Sheriff of Trottingham and a Templar Grandmaster.”
Brighton stopped walking and shot me a wide-eyed stare. “A… Grandmaster? You’re sure?”
I nodded. “Trent Tideswell threatened to sodomize me when his methods of torture proved ineffective on our brothers. As a devout Christian, that seemed to be a line Green could not stomach. He killed his Grandmaster by accident in their struggle and then he fled, taking me as the sole witness.”
“The Order will be in disarray for some time,” Brighton whispered, lowering his voice until my trained ears could scarcely hear him. “We must take this information to the Brotherhood at once. With luck, we may return a blow to the Templars that will cripple them for years.”
I pointed up to the bough of the great oak tree, where the hawk-eagle had perched. “Can she carry a message?”
“Gustavette?” He looked up to the eagle. “A gift from Francia. I would not have found you if not for her. She is a good bird, but not a messenger pigeon.”
“Then you will have to deliver the news yourself.”
Brighton looked to the cart, quickly ducking behind two bartering traders when Glen appeared from the inn with a heft casket in his arms. “You want to continue travelling with the Templar?”
“I must,” I said. “We can’t let him walk freely, and if we take him now, all we may accomplish is bringing Templars to another bureau.”
“Then we can kill him once he leaves Haverburg,” Brighton said.
“No, he’s a more valuable tool now that he has no Order to return to,” I grabbed Brighton’s wrist, staying his blade. “He is headed for Southampton. I can be ready to assist if the Brotherhood is able to send agents there.”
“I should think so,” he replied. “There’s no love lost between the Crown and Anglia’s Jews. Years ago, Simon de Montfort exiled the Jews from Ledescester. Since then, they have become indispensable to the Brotherhood, and there are a great number of Jewish merchants who sail out of Southampton.”
“That should surprise him,” I smirked at Green’s expense. “He believes his status as a monk will garner him some favour with the merchants there and plans to sail for Francia.”
Brighton pressed his lips tightly, stifling a laugh. “Then the trap is half set. And you continue to impress me, Grenada of Francia.”
“Go now, quickly,” I answered, turning back to watch Green and the cart.
“We’ll meet in Southampton, then.” He put up his hood and scurried behind the brick walls of some merchant’s toft, running from the market square vanishing into the shadows of Anglia’s idyllic forests.
Her vision went dark for a brief moment as the Animus powered down. Sunset’s head was swirling, trying to find some point of balance as the truck that carried her slowed to a stop. She rubbed her eyes, and Johnick was still there, standing over the controls of the Animus. His brows were nearly touching as they creased together in frustration.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Why’d we stop?”
“Huh?” He looked up from the Animus’ holographic screen. “Oh, everything’s fine, we parked outside one of our bureaus. Right now, I’m just looking through the data you generated from the new memories.”
“Find anything interesting?”
He shook his head. “Nothing you haven’t already seen. It’s just that records from the thirteenth century aren’t fully comprehensive. We’ve had to make some assumptions to give the Animus a contextual environment for the simulation.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Could the memories go wrong if you make the wrong assumptions?”
“Luckily, no. The relic inside the Animus is very sensitive.” Johnick said. “To even get a stable memory our context has to be close enough to get an accurate simulation. Of course, having more reliable information can’t hurt. The Animus automatically fixes wrong assumptions while you’re reading a memory, but that means it has to continually render a new environment in the background. So it’s better to load in all your data now while you’re not using the Animus.”
The truck’s back door grumbled as the door was rolled up. She expected to see Bashir and his imposing stare, but instead, it was Mags who opened the truck.
“You’re okay!” Sunset jumped off the Animus. “I thought we left you behind at the warehouse.”
“You did,” Mags said, “and everything went according to plan. Bashir and Johnick were supposed to drive you around for a few hours before coming here.”
“To an Assassin bureau,” Sunset said, looking around. They had parked outside a two-story building with white stucco walls on the corner of the road. Piled stones outside the front door gave it the appearance of an old fixture, though on a closer look it was clear they were decorative, fixed onto concrete. The sign hanging over the entrance read “South Cantertown Museum.”
Across the street sat a massive parking lot stretched between supermarkets and burrito restaurants. Lonely street lamps cast wide beams, and the cold night’s fog caught them, giving misty forms to the light.
It was strange, the loss of direction that she felt. They had driven out of Canterlot City completely, and even if the Assassins had a plan, Sunset felt like she was wandering with no idea of what would come next. She thought she should feel scared or worried but it was the opposite, she was completely immersed and focused on the moment. Sunset could see rows of suburban houses up the steady hill behind the bureau, houses with wide front lawns and picket fences, and in a way, it looked as if she had stepped into another world again.
“How far did we go?” she asked.
“About an hour on the freeway,” Johnick said, powering off the Animus and stepping outside to join them. “After another hour of driving around the city, just to be sure.”
“It’s almost midnight,” Mags added. “Are you hungry?”
Sunset almost said no, but her stomach suddenly lurched at the thought of food. “Hrm… I guess I am.”
“I picked up some burgers on the way here,” Mags said. “They’re a little cold now, but there should be a microwave in the bureau. Come on.”
They entered the museum from the back door which opened immediately to a display case of early settlers in the region, explaining how their clothes and homes were built before the age of power and electricity. Sunset realized she recognized almost nothing in the displays, which she thought was somewhat embarrassing for someone who had the power to read through memories of the past. Until now, human history wasn’t a topic that interested her.
Off to the corner of the building, away from the attraction of the exhibits, the Assassins led her into a cleaning supply closet and down through its basement hatch.
“Is this place really an Assassin bureau?” Sunset asked, looking sceptically at shelves of mops and detergents. “I expected more cloaks and daggers.”
“Well, it’s abandoned,” Johnick said. “We use it from time to time, but there aren’t enough of us in the area to keep it maintained.”
“So it’s just a local museum.” Sunset frowned.
Mags flicked on the lights, revealing a simple coffee table and a short, wide sofa. In the corner, plugged into the wall and propped up on a stool, was a small microwave. “Our Brotherhood isn’t the same as it was back then,” Mags said. “At least not here.”
She put two paper bags from Burger Queen on the coffee table. “Take your pick,” she told Sunset, “Johnick and I should help Bashir get the Animus inside and let it charge. Plus, one of us is going to have to ditch the We-Haul for something else to keep the Templars off our track.”
Sunset stared at her. “You’re leaving me here?”
“You’re not gonna run, are you?” Mags smirked. “Trust me, you don’t want to take on Templar mercs alone.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Sunset murmured, twiddling her thumbs. “I just had some questions for you, that’s all.”
“We can talk later,” Mags said, putting a hand on her hip.
“Oh, okay.”
Sunset sat down on the sofa, staring at the burgers. One look from Mags and she couldn’t find her voice. Forget Bashir’s eyes, he looked straight through people. Mags seemed like she judged everything she saw, and Sunset didn’t want to know what Mags saw in her.
“She’s still a kid. Cut her some slack,” Johnnick said, finding his voice. “I can handle the Animus and drop off the truck. Bashir probably wants to hang around and stay on watch, anyway.”
Mags nodded silently, and two Assassins parted to handle their tasks.
“I’ve never actually eaten meat before,” Sunset confessed. That was the first thing she thought she should get out of the way.
“Religious reasons?” Mags asked, placing their burgers in the microwave.
Sunset shook her head. “Eating meat’s not a thing where I come from. Just never thought about trying it.”
“Up to you.” Mags shrugged. “Johnick volunteered to do all the work, so I’m happy to wait if you want to get something else.” When they were read, Mags placed the paper-wrapped burgers on the table.
Sunset sighed and picked up hers. “Whatever. Can’t knock it ‘till I try it.”
She didn’t realize how hungry she was. The burger wasn’t bad, though she covered a lot of the flavour with packets of ketchup. But food was food, and after such a long night, Sunset realized she would have eaten just about anything.
Afterwards, she laid out all her questions. She asked Mags what had happened since the attack at the warehouse, and how she managed to escape. Mags barely flinched at the question. To her, it was simple. As a consequence of their bipedal height, humans, even trained paramilitaries like the Templars’ mercenaries, rarely checked above themselves for danger. There were many places to hide from view, and all she had needed was to strike down one mercenary and steal away with his weapons. With a rifle from one of the mercs, all she had to do was keep up the firefight for as long as Bashir and Johnick needed.
“We had an emergency car nearby in case something like that happened. Drove here straight away like planned.” Mags smiled and waggled her burger around. “Well, almost straight away.”
Sunset fidgeted with her hands, looking at the bracer strapped around her wrist. Rather than a blade, a canister of pepper spray ran along the length of her forearm. Mags didn’t seem much different from Grenda. Not just because they were women or Assassins, but because they seemed unbeatable.
Sunset stared at her wrist. The pepper spray had stopped the Templars from taking her, but it still seemed fake compared to the real thing.
“What does the Creed mean?”
Mags looked up from her bag of french fries. “You mean our Creed? Do you even know the words to it?”
Sunset nodded and repeated the words she had heard in the Animus. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted. But, that doesn’t sound like a belief. At face value, it’s just an excuse to do whatever you want.”
“That’s what most of us thought when we first learned it.” Mags set her food down and cleaned her hands. She flicked her hand and sprung a hidden from her wrist. “I was born an Assassin. A lot of us are. My family has passed down this hidden blade for generations, ever since we joined the Brotherhood. Nearly a century of killing in the shadows, all for a cause.”
She closed the blade away. “A lot can change in a hundred years. To keep fighting for the same thing through all that time, the Creed has to be a way of living. If nothing is true, then we have to be careful not to act impulsively. Our actions can topple nations and fracture states, so we must consider the consequences instead of accepting what we think is true. Everything is permitted, and that’s why it falls on us to make that decision. Only we can choose our actions. No gods or kings can guide civilization, only humanity.”
Sunset ran her hand along the length of her bracer. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Sorry if it doesn’t make sense,” Mags chuckled. “It’s not like I’ve thought hard about it. That’s just what my dad told me. As Assassins, we’re supposed to think for ourselves, to be wise enough to make the right choice for our greater cause. But these days there’s a lot of other stuff on our minds.”
“Sorry if it was a hard question,” Sunset said. “It’s just that after seeing Grenda’s memories, I feel like I owe it to her to understand what she believed in. Even when the Templars caught her, she put her faith in the Brotherhood.”
“What? The Templars captured her?”
Sunset sat upright, realizing she had lost herself in thought. “Oh, right! Sorry, I forgot her memories are all new to you guys.”
She retold what she saw in the Animus, from Grenda’s capture until she arrived at Haverburg. Telling it gave Sunset a sense of catharsis as if the story hadn’t been real until she put it into words and passed it along. Perhaps that was true of any story. And there was more to the story than just the events. Sunset passed on the thoughts and emotions Grenda felt in that time, the details that people would never be able to commit to history.
Mags listened intently. It almost embarrassed Sunset, recounting Assassin history to an actual Assassin. But, if no one else could do it, what choice was there? She wasn’t one of them, but she at least could pass on the information of their people.
“Did it hurt?” Mags asked once Sunset had finished.
“The memories?” Sunset rubbed her neck. “Well, not exactly. Torture’s not nice to witness, but it’s like getting hurt in a dream, you know. You think it’s all real but when you wake up you barely even remember it. So, it was like it didn’t even hurt in the first place.”
She yawned. Her phone read it was two o’clock in the morning, and even though she was tired, Sunset didn’t feel ready to sleep.
But Mags took her phone and set it aside. “The Animus will charge faster if it’s not being used, and we should have it ready in case we need to move again. Get some rest. You need it.”
“Yeah, I probably do,” Sunset rubbed her eyes. “I’m just not so sure about the dreams I’m going to have.”