There was a crash, colored gla.s.s splintered, robes flapped and tore on shards of gla.s.s, then they fell once more, this time into the church. I dashed across the courtyard to a gate, pulling on it and seeing them inside.

"Arno," I called. He stood and shook his head as though to try and clear it, spraying bits of broken gla.s.s on the stone floor of the church. Of Bellec there was no sign.

"I'm fine," he called to me, hearing me rattle the gate as I tested it once more, trying to reach him. "Stay there."

And before I could protest he took off and I strained my ears to hear as he ventured deep into the darkness of the church.

Next came the sound of Bellec's voice coming from . . . where, I couldn't see. But somewhere close.

"I should have left you to rot in the Bastille." His voice was a whisper echoed by the damp stone. "Tell me, did you ever really believe in the Creed or were you a Templar-loving traitor from the start?"

He was taunting Arno. Taunting him from the shadows.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Bellec," shouted Arno, looking around, squinting into the dark alcoves and recesses.

The reply came, and once more it was difficult to locate from where. The voice seemed to emanate from the church stone itself.

"You're the one who's making it so. If you just see sense, we could take the Brotherhood to a height we've not seen in two hundred years."

Arno shook his head, voice dripping with irony. "Yes, killing everyone who disagrees with you is a brilliant way to start your rise from the ashes."

I heard a noise ahead of me and saw Bellec a second before Arno did.

"Look out," I cried as the older a.s.sa.s.sin came lunging from the shadows with his hidden blade extended.

Arno turned, saw him and flipped to the side. He came to his feet ready to meet an attack and for a moment or so the two warriors stood facing each other. They were both bloodied and bruised from the battle, their robes tattered, almost shredded in places, but still full of fight. Each was determined that this should end here and it should end now.

From where he was, Bellec could see me at the gate and I felt his eyes on me before his gaze returned to Arno.

"So," he began, his voice full of derision, ripe with scorn, "now we see the heart of it. It's not Mirabeau who's poisoned you. It's her."

Bellec had formed a bond with Arno but he had no idea of the bond that already existed between me and his pupil, and it was because of that that I didn't doubt Arno.

"Bellec . . ." warned Arno.

"Mirabeau is dead. She is the last piece of this lunacy. You'll thank me for this one day."

Did he mean to kill me? Or kill Arno? Or kill us both?

I didn't know. All I knew was that the church rang to the sound of steel meeting steel as their hidden blades clashed once more and they danced around one another. What Mr. Weatherall had told me all those years ago was true: most sword fights are decided in the first few seconds of engagement. But these two combatants were not "most sword fighters." They were trained a.s.sa.s.sins. Master and pupil. And the fight continued, steel meeting steel, their robes swinging as they attacked and defended, slashed and parried, ducked and whirled; the fight carrying on until they were round-shouldered with exhaustion and Arno was able to summon hidden reserves of strength and prevail, defeating his foe with a cry of defiance and a final thrust of his hidden blade into his mentor's stomach.

And Bellec at last sank to the stone of the church floor, his hands at his belly. His eyes went to Arno.

"Do it," he implored, close to death now. "If you've got an ounce of conviction and aren't just a love-addled milksop, you'll kill me now. Because I won't stop. I will kill her. To save the Brotherhood I'd see Paris burn."

"I know," said Arno, and delivered the coup de grace.

ix Arno told me later what he had seen. He had seen something in a vision, he'd said, with a sideways look, as though to check I was taking him seriously.

In the vision Arno had seen two men, one in a.s.sa.s.sin robes, the other a Templar thug, who were scuffling in the street. The Templar seemed to be triumphant but then a second a.s.sa.s.sin entered the fray and killed the Templar.

The first a.s.sa.s.sin was Charles Dorian, Arno's father. The second was Bellec.

Bellec had saved his father's life. From that incident Bellec had recognized the pocket watch and then, when in the Bastille, realized exactly who Arno was.

Another thing Arno had seen, a second vision: this one showing Mirabeau and Bellec talking, Mirabeau telling Bellec, "Elise de la Serre will be Grand Master one day. Having her in our debt would be a great boon."

Bellec in reply saying, "Be a greater one to kill her before she is a real threat."

"Your protege vouches for her," Mirabeau had said. "Don't you trust him?"

"With my life," Bellec had replied. "It's the girl I don't trust. Nothing I can say to convince you?"

"I'm afraid not."

Bellec-reluctantly, Arno had said, seeing that his mentor had taken no Machiavellian satisfaction in slaying the Grand Master and had considered it a necessary evil-dropped poison into one of the gla.s.ses and handed it to Mirabeau. "Cheers."

Ironic that they should drink to each other's health. Just moments later Mirabeau was dead and Bellec was planting the Templar pin and leaving. And not long after that, of course, I had come on the scene.

We had managed to find the culprit and so prevent me from being accused of the crime. Had I done enough to ingratiate myself with them? I didn't think so.

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ARNO DORIAN.

12 SEPTEMBER 1794.

i I knew what had happened next, although it wasn't in her journal.

I leafed forward but no; instead there were pages missing, torn out at some later date, perhaps, in a fit of . . . what? Regret? Anger? Something else?

The moment I told her the truth-she had torn it from her diary.

I knew it would be difficult, of course, because I knew Elise as well as I knew myself. In many ways, she was my mirror, and I knew how I would have felt had the shoe been on the other foot. You can't blame me for putting it off and putting it off, then waiting until one evening when we had eaten well, and there was an almost empty bottle of wine on the table between us.

"I know who killed your father," I told her.

"You do? How?"

"The visions."

I gave her a sideways look to check she was taking me seriously. As before she looked bemused, not quite believing, not quite disbelieving.

"And the name you came up with is the King of Beggars?" she said.

I looked at her, realizing that she had been conducting her own investigations. Of course she had. "So you were being serious when you said you would avenge him," I said.

"If you ever thought otherwise, then you don't know me as well as you think you do."

I nodded thoughtfully. "And what did you learn?"

"That the King of Beggars was behind the attempt on my mother in '75; that the King of Beggars was inducted into the Order after the death of my family, all of which makes me think that he was inducted as a way of rewarding him for successfully killing my father."

"Do you know why?"

"It was a coup, Arno. The man who has declared himself Grand Master arranged for my father's killing because he wanted to take his position. No doubt he used my father's attempts to truce with the a.s.sa.s.sins as leverage. Perhaps it was the final piece to the puzzle. Perhaps it finally tipped the balance in his favor. No doubt the King of Beggars was acting on his orders."

"Not just the King of Beggars. There was someone else there, too."

She nodded with an odd, gratified smile. "That makes me happy, Arno. That it took two of them to kill Father. I expect he fought like a tiger."

"A man named Sivert."

She closed her eyes. "That makes sense," she said, after a while. "They are all in on it, no doubt, the Crows."

"The who?" I'd said, because of course I had no idea whom she meant by that.

"It's a name I call my father's advisers."

"This Sivert-he was one of your father's advisers."

"Oh yes."

"Francois took his eye out before he died."

She chuckled. "Well done, Father."

"Sivert is dead now."

A shadow crossed her face. "I see. I would have hoped to have done the deed myself."

"The King of Beggars too," I added, swallowing.

And now she turned to me.

"Arno, what are you saying?"

I reached for her. "I loved him, Elise, as though he were my own father," but she was pulling away, standing and pulling her arms across her chest. Her cheeks colored red.

"You killed them?"

"Yes-and I make no apology for it, Elise."

Again I reached for her and again she stepped nimbly away, unfolding her arms to ward me off at the same time. For a second-just a second-I thought she was going to reach for her sword but if so she thought better of it. She gained a hold on her temper.

"You killed them."

"I had to," I said, without going into the matter although she wasn't interested in why, whirling around for a moment as though not quite sure what to do with herself.

"You took my revenge from me."

"They were mere lackeys anyway, Elise. The real culprit is out there."

Furious, she rounded on me. "Tell me you made them suffer," she spat.

"Please, Elise, this isn't you."

"Arno, I have been orphaned, beaten, deceived and betrayed-and I will have my revenge at whatever cost."

Her shoulders rose and fell. Her color was high.

"Well, no, they didn't suffer. That is not the a.s.sa.s.sin way. We take no pleasure from killing."

"Oh? Really? So now you're an a.s.sa.s.sin you feel qualified to lecture me on ethics, do you? Well, make no mistake, Arno, I take no pleasure from killing. I take pleasure from justice."

"So that is what I did. I brought these men to justice. I had a shot. I took it."

That appeared to calm her, and she nodded thoughtfully.

"You leave Germain to me, though," she said, not a request, a command.

"I can't promise that, Elise. If I get a shot, then . . ."

She looked at me with a half smile.

"Then you'll have me to answer to," she said.

ii After, we did not see each other for a while though we wrote, and when at last I had some information for her, I was able to tempt her away from le Saint-Louis and we went in search of Madame Levesque, who fell beneath my blade. It was an adventure that continued with an unexpected and unscheduled ride on Monsieur Montgolfier's hot-air balloon, though gallantry forbids I should reveal what took place during the flight.

Suffice it to say, at the conclusion of our journey, Elise and I were closer than ever.

But not close enough for me to notice what was happening to her; that the deaths of her father's advisers were a mere diversion for her. That what was concerning, maybe even eventually consuming her, was getting to Germain.

EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ELISE DE LA SERRE.