Connor: On the Trail 2

Connor lowered the body to the shaving-strewn floor of the warehouse. I sighed, pushing my exasperation down hard. Three weeks of sailing and nothing to show for it at the end. Three weeks of cold winds and dodging the British men of war. Three weeks to get to Quebec only to find that it had all been pointless. Our man had been a decoy. The supplies had long been gone across the Atlantic. Charles Lee had disappeared without a trace, gone to ground – like a mouse that knew that the cat was coming.

And now the ‘servant’ we’d chased was dead.

“What a waste!” I muttered, wanting nothing more than to jump up and down in fury and rip my hair out. I had never liked dead ends. In the present company, least of all.

I walked to the small dirty window and looked out at the snow that was falling down. Christmas was approaching, the world was freezing. The few people on the street were hurrying by without sparing the empty shut warehouse a second glance. Which was what had made it the ideal interrogation spot: chance visitors were unlikely.

Behind me Connor was going through the dead man’s pockets. A grunt of satisfaction announced that he’d found something. I did not turn. I felt low, without hope. Nothing except getting drunk would help me now. The nearest tavern was across the snowy city. Too far. My legs, my mind, my spirit – all felt weary of the fruitless search. Which only made me angry, bringing a hard lump to my throat. Yes, several bottles of rum would do nicely about now.

“I have found something that might interest you,” came the Mohawk Assassin’s quiet voice. It still surprised me: how simply his voice could capture one’s full attention. A hand appeared in my peripheral vision, his presence close to me – I had not heard him move. He was holding something: a little round ring with the Templar insignia of a red cross. I whistled taking it from him.

“Well well, I wonder what he was doing with that.”

Connor shrugged, gazing out of the stained window. “A token of passage I think. Of admittance.”

“Hmm, interesting indeed,” I murmured aloud studying the battered looking piece of silver. There were numerous scratch marks as if whoever had worn it had not taken very good care of it. There was no pattern to the scratches so there was no way to tell if it was a secret message. I snorted, told myself to stop seeing things where there were none. Too much training. Too much a spy.

“Can’t sell this,” I thought out loud, turning the ring this way and that in the fading daylight. “This town is awash with Templar agents. They’d sniff this out sooner or later.”
“What do you propose we do?”

“Get the hell out of here,” I said, morose. “Back south – where it’s warmer and I can stay sober.” My smile was wry. Connor shook his head.

“Giving up after so long…”

“I know,” I replied pocketing the ring. “We’ll keep this ring, see if something might not turn up. For now I suggest we return to the inn. I will speak with my associates tomorrow – find out what they know. I want Charles Lee,” I finished vehemently, emotion suddenly swamping me, my self control slipping. I felt Connor’s sudden regard: I had not let him see much of my frustration at the delays and the obstacles we’d encountered. I had bottled it all up. Now the emotions were seeping through the cracks. Not good. The Spy Master would be alarmed and ashamed of me. I wiped my hands down my face. I needed sleep – a good long bath, a bottle or two of rum and sleep. In that order.

“Your associates?” Connor inquired, non committal as we walked back in the crunching snow, our cloaks pulled tight around us. I could not see his face. His voice conveyed enough to me. He too was disappointed: he just hid it better than I did. He was a very intense man who yet possessed the uncanny ability of self control. For one so young, it was incredible.
“Aye,” I said heavily, realizing again that he was single mindedly determined to find out about me and my real identity. “My friends. My cohorts,” I said with some sarcasm, my lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I cannot risk telling you more, so stop fishing.”

I felt his withdrawal like a physical sensation. I had pushed him away on the subject of who I really was. The less he knew, the less tempted he would be. I did not want another Haytham Kenway, a man who knew too much and so could really hurt the Brotherhood by his revelations.

I stopped in front of an old abandoned house. The porch was snowed under and unswept, the windows dark and shuttered. The building exuded cold – loneliness. I shut my eyes gathering my scattering emotions and thoughts back together. I was getting sick, I thought. For sure. Such loss of self control was unlikely for me in the best of times.

“I apologize,” I said. “I am tired. My manners have a bad tendency to go out the window then.”

Connor waved that away, his own face pinched and drawn in the shade of his hood. “No need. I think we both need rest.” He cleared his throat. “This winter – ‘tis cold, harsh. Worse than at home.”

“Your village?” I asked glad that he’d changed the subject. As I have said before, the Assassin was perceptive. “You never speak of it – bad memories?”

I resumed walking, and Connor fell in step beside me. He was long in answering, choosing what to say and how to say it.

“Some of it.” I sensed his warming smile. Unexpected, that. The man was full of surprises. “And some things – carefree, good times… the trees in the summer. My friends – the games we played, the pranks we’d pull on our elders and each other.” He shook his head, immersed in memory, away from this time and place where all was cold and sere. A different side to him – again the realization hitting me that he was young, in his twenties for all that he appeared a man full grown. Again that innocence, the ability to transcend – yes, that was the word, transcend – the difficulties of the moment, to find something good to grab hold of. I envied him that – I myself had left such things behind, somewhere in time. I did not even remember when I’d stopped being a human being and became fully a spy. Regrets I did not let myself experience. Until this, until meeting Connor.
“And then Charles Lee came,” his voice fell, tinged with a hard anger long held in. “And my mother died.”

”Even though he had nothing to do with it,” I remarked soberly. He stopped just as we were about to cross the sturdy bridge. Our eyes met. For some time we held each other’s gaze.

“Aye,” he said at last, the word a breath of vapour on the cold night air. “Even though. He has to die – for other reasons.” His hand rested on his tomahawk, a weapon that made me shiver in my sleep. I had seen him wield it with a direct brutality that left little doubt in our enemies’ minds about his intentions and determination.

“He is a Templar,” I said coldly. “That is reason enough for me.”

“Ah,” his eyes lit up. “So you are an Assassin – or an ally of the Order.”

I cursed myself under my breath. There, I had let loose again with my damned tongue. I held up a hand. “Not a word, Connor,” I warned him. “Not a breath to anyone – not even Achilles. Especially not Achilles.” I shook my head looking out over the frozen river. “He has had enough grief and secrets to last him the rest of his life.”

“Grief yes,” Connor agreed the sly smile sliding off his face to be replaced by the habitual closed Assassin’s Mask that our militant brethren all seemed to adopt sooner or later. It had to do with the nature of their work: all the pain of death that they had to push away or absorb. Murder was never easy. And that was why I became a spy: I simply could not deal with the idea of killing someone, of taking a life. “That is why he remains at the homestead, away from it all.”

“He is a broken man,” I said bluntly, pacing across the bridge. “Like a turtle he’s withdrawn into his shell. It is comfortable there. Safe.”

“True. Did you know him when he was an active Assassin?” he asked, a simple question that cut me to the quick. He would have made a good spy digging doggedly for information and secrets.

“I did. A little.” I adjusted the heavy cloak across my shoulders to buy myself some time. I would give him a little, not much. Enough to satisfy his curiosity. I would have to tell him more eventually. But I wanted that moment to be of my choosing. There were things he was not prepared to know or understand. Not yet. “He was good. Very good. Those Hidden Blades you wear have seen much service. He was determined, yet cautious. Never killed without need.” I sighed sharply. “Still, his life was not easy. He killed and each time he changed. He grew – I cannot say it better than that. He grew… in reputation, in skill, emotionally too.” I stopped under a lit streetlamp and laid a hand on Connor’s arm. “It hurt him, every time, to kill. He found that talk of murder was easy – yes, what we do is murder in law and morality, no matter our justification. The act itself… you know, Connor. You have done it – Johnson, Pitcairn, Hickey, Church – eventually your father…”

“It is never easy… no…” He blinked and looked away. His jaw was locked I saw. I felt sorry – for my words, for awakening the past in him.

“Come,” I invited with falsely bright bravado. “We are both in need of rest. And a warm bath – warmer company too.” I smiled like a conspirator. He flushed, catching my bawdy suggestion. “You are an innocent – perhaps we need to introduce you to those special mysteries,” I went on warming to my theme, cursing myself for making him uncomfortable.
“Those special mysteries,” he objected stepping away around the corner. “That would leave me ill for the rest of my life. I thank you for the kind offer but no – a hot bath is about all I need.”

I threw up my hands in a mock exasperation. “Moral men – wonders never cease!”

He chuckled, a deep sound that I found surprising. I had no idea he knew how to laugh. Smile yes, laughter did not seem to be in his line. Yet here he was, chuckling, a light-hearted sound that would have stopped any man – or woman, for that matter – in their tracks coming as it did from a man who rarely if at all allowed any sign of frivolity to show.

“You,” I said with an accusing finger in his direction. “You, my young friend, are full of surprises.”

The street widened at this point and the inn lights came into view just then. Happier than I’d been all day, I stepped faster towards the welcoming lights.

“Ah, comfort at last,” I said, happily discarding my cloak in the tap room. Connor loomed beside me, his big shadow dancing on the wall. At nearby tables men fell silent – not the first time that had happened. Connor simply had that effect on entering any room, any space no matter how large or small.

“You go on,” he said moving past me. “I will stay here.”

I gazed at him, frowning. He had changed, in the space of a moment. He must have caught a whiff of something. Enemy or ally? I did not ask. The look he gave me when I did not move to obey his words was eloquent enough. The intensity of a hunter on a barely glimpsed trail. Aye, I thought, best leave him to it. Where we both had failed, perhaps one man alone could find some sign. Imperceptibly I nodded and strolled towards the stairs leading up to the second floor where our rooms were.

I needed rest and quiet. I intended to have both.

And a warm bath.

O aye indeed.