And more than all of that I want my mother back. My mother, my teacher, my mentor. I don't just want her, I need her. Every moment of every day I wonder what life would be like without her and have no idea, no conception of life without her.

I want her to get better.

ii.

And then, later that year, I met Arno.

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ARNO DORIAN.

12 SEPTEMBER 1794.

Our relationship was forged in the fire of death-my father's death.

For how long did we have a normal, conventional relationship? Half an hour? I was at the Palace of Versailles with my father, who had business there. He'd asked me to wait as he attended to what he had to do, and while I sat with my legs dangling, watching the highborn members of the court pa.s.s to and fro, who should appear but Elise de la Serre.

Her smile I would come to love later, her red hair nothing special to me then, and the beauty over which my adult eyes would later linger was invisible to my young eyes. After all, I was only eight, and eight-year-old boys, well, they don't have much time for eight-year-old girls, not unless that eight-year-old girl is something very special. And so it was with Elise. There was something different about her. She was a girl. But even in the first seconds of meeting her I knew she wasn't like any other girl I'd met before.

Chase me. Her favorite game. How many times did we play it as children and as adults? In a way we never stopped.

On the mirrored surfaces of the palace's marble floors we ran-through legs, along corridors, past columns and pillars. Even to me now the palace is huge, its ceilings impossibly tall, its halls stretching almost as far as the eye can see, huge arched windows looking out to the stone steps and sweeping grounds beyond.

But to me then? To me then it was impossibly vast. And yet, even though it was this vast, strange place, and even though with each step I took I went farther away from my father's instructions, I still couldn't resist the lure of my new playmate. The girls I had met weren't like this. They stood with their heels together and their lips pursed in disdain at all things boylike; they walked a few steps behind like Russian-doll versions of their mothers; they didn't run giggling through the halls of the Palace of Versailles ignoring any protests that came their way, just running for the joy of running and the love of play. I wonder, had I already fallen in love?

And then, just as I started to worry that I would never find my way back to Father, my concerns became irrelevant. A shout had gone up. There was the sound of rushing feet. I saw soldiers with muskets and, quite by chance, came upon the spot where he had met his killer and I knelt to him as he breathed his last.

When at last I looked up from his lifeless body it was to see my savior, my new guardian: Francois de la Serre.

EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ELISE DE LA SERRE.

14 APRIL 1778.

i.

He came to see me today.

"Elise, your father is here," said Ruth. Like everyone else her demeanor changed when my father was around, and she curtsied and withdrew, leaving us alone.

"h.e.l.lo, Elise," he said stiffly from the door. I remembered that evening years ago when Mother and I had returned from Paris, survivors of a terrible attack in an alleyway, and how he had been unable to stop taking us in his arms. He'd embraced me so much that by the end of the night I'd been wriggling away from him just to get some air. Now, as he stood there looking more like a governor than a father, I would have given anything for one of those embraces.

He turned and paced, hands clasped behind his back. He stopped, gazing from the window but not really seeing the lawns beyond, and I watched his blurred face in the reflection of the gla.s.s as without turning, he said, "I wanted to see how you were."

"I'm fine, thank you, Papa."

There was a pause. My fingers worked at the fabric of my smock. He cleared his throat. "You do a fine job of disguising your feelings, Elise; it is qualities such as these that you will one day call upon as Grand Master. Just as your strength comforts our household it will one day be of benefit to the Order."

"Yes, Father."

Again he cleared his throat. "Even so, I want you to know that in private or when you and I should find ourselves alone, that . . . that it's okay not to be fine."

"Then I will admit I am suffering, Father."

His head dropped. His eyes were dark circles in the reflection of the gla.s.s. I knew why he found it difficult to look at me. It was because I reminded him of her. I reminded him of his dying wife.

"I, too, am suffering, Elise. Your mother means the world to us both."

And if there was a moment in which he might have turned from the window, crossed the room, gathered me in his arms and allowed us to share our pain, then that was it.

But he didn't.

And if there was a moment when I might have asked him why, if he knew my pain, did he spend so much of his time with Arno and not with me, then that was it.

But I didn't.

Little else was said before he left. Sometime later I heard that he left to go hunting-with Arno.

The physician arrives soon. He never brings good news.

ii.

In my mind's eye I revisit another meeting, two years before, when I was summoned to Father's study for an audience with him and Mother, who unusually for her wore a look of concern. I knew that there were serious matters they wanted to discuss when Olivier was asked to withdraw, the door closed and Father bade me take a seat.

"Your mother tells me that your training is progressing well, Elise," he said.

I nodded enthusiastically, looking from one to the other. "Yes, Father. Mr. Weatherall says I'm going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y good sword fighter."

Father looked taken aback. "I see. One of Weatherall's British expressions, no doubt. Well, I'm pleased to hear it. Obviously you take after your mother."

"You're no slouch with a blade yourself, Francois," said Mother, with a hint of a smile.

"You've reminded me it's a while since we dueled."

"I'll take that as a challenge, shall I?"

He looked at her and for a moment the serious business was forgotten. I was forgotten. For a second it was just Mother and Father in the room, being playful and flirting with one another.

And then, just as quickly as the moment had begun, it ended and the attention returned to me.

"You are well on your way to becoming a Templar, Elise."

"When shall I be inducted, Papa?" I asked him.

"Your schooling will be finished at the Maison Royale in Saint-Cyr, then you will become a fully fledged member of the Order and you will train to take my place."

I nodded.

"First, though, there is something we have to tell you." He looked at Mother, their faces serious now. "It's about Arno . . ."

iii.

Arno was by then my best friend, and I suppose the person I loved the most after my parents. Poor Ruth. She'd had to abandon any lasting hope she might have had that I would settle down to girlhood and begin taking an interest in those same girly things adored by others my age. With Arno on the estate not only did I have a playmate whenever I wanted one, but a boy playmate. Her dreams lay in ruins.

I suppose, looking back, I had taken advantage of him rather. An orphan, he had come to us adrift in need of direction and I, of course, as much a novice Templar as a selfish little girl, had made him "mine." We were friends, and of the same age, but even so my role was one of older sister and it was a role I had taken to with great gusto. I loved besting him in pretend sword fights. During Mr. Weatherall's training sessions I was a craven novice p.r.o.ne to mistakes and, as he was often pointing out, leading with my heart and not my head, but in play fights with Arno my novice skills made me a dazzling, spinning master. At other games-skipping, hopscotch, shuttlec.o.c.k-we were evenly matched. But I always won at sword fighting.

When the weather was fine we roamed the grounds of the estate, spying on Emanuel and other grounds staff, skimming stones on the lake. When it rained we stayed indoors and played backgammon, marbles or jacks. We spun hoops through the great corridors of the ground floor and roamed the floors above, hiding from housemaids, running giggling when they shooed us away.

And that was how I spent my days: in the morning I was tutored, groomed for my adult life of leading the French Templars; the afternoon was when I let go those responsibilities and instead of being an adult-in-waiting became a child again. Even then, though I never would have articulated it as such, I knew that Arno represented my escape.

And of course n.o.body had failed to notice how close Arno and I had become.

"Well, I've never seen you so happy," said Ruth resignedly.

"You're certainly very fond of your new playmate, aren't you, Elise?" from my mother.

(Now-now as I watch Arno sparring with my father in the yard and hear that they've gone hunting together, I wonder, was my mother just a tiny bit jealous that I had a significant other in my life? Now I know how she might have felt.) Yet it had never occurred to me that my friendship with Arno might be a cause for concern. Not until that very moment when I stood before them in the chamber and they told me they had something to say about him.

iv.

"Arno is of a.s.sa.s.sin descent," said my father.

And a little bit of my world shook.

"But . . ." I began, and tried to reconcile two pictures in my mind: one of Arno in his shiny-buckle shoes, waistcoat and jacket, running through the hallways of the chteau steering his hoop with his stick. The other of the a.s.sa.s.sin doctor in the alleyway, his hat tall in the fog. "a.s.sa.s.sins are our enemy."

Mother and Father shared a glance. "Their aims are opposed to ours, it's true," he said.

My mind was racing. "But . . . But does this mean Arno will want to kill me?"

Mother moved forward to comfort me. "No, my dear, no, it doesn't mean that at all. Arno is still your friend. Though his father, Charles Dorian, was an a.s.sa.s.sin, Arno himself knew nothing of his destiny. No doubt he would have been told, in time, perhaps on his tenth birthday as we were planning to do with you. But as it stands, he entered this house unaware of what the future had in store for him."

"He is not an a.s.sa.s.sin then. Simply the son of an a.s.sa.s.sin."

Again they looked to one another. "He will have certain innate characteristics, Elise. In many ways Arno is, was and always will be an a.s.sa.s.sin. It is just that he doesn't know it."

"But if he doesn't know it, then we shall never be enemies?"

"That is quite correct," said Father. "In fact we believe his nature might be overcome by nurture."

"Francois . . ." said Mother warningly.

"What do you mean, Father?" I asked, my eyes darting from him to her, noting the discomfort in her expression.

"I mean that you have a certain influence over him, do you not?" said Father.

I felt myself coloring. Was it so obvious?

"Perhaps, Father . . ."

"He looks up to you, Elise, and why not? It is gratifying to see. Most encouraging."

"Francois . . ." Mother said again, but he stopped her with an upraised hand. "Please, my darling, leave this to me."

My eyes darted.

"There is no reason why you, as Arno's friend and playmate, can't begin to educate him in our ways."

"Indoctrinate him, Francois?" A flash of anger from my mother.

"Guide him, my dear."

"Guide him in a manner that goes against his nature?"

"How do we know? Perhaps Elise is right that he is not an a.s.sa.s.sin until he's made one. Perhaps we can save him from the clutches of his people."

"The a.s.sa.s.sins don't know he's here?" I asked.

"We don't believe so."

"Then there's no reason he need be found out."

"That's quite right, Elise."

"Then he needn't be . . . anything."

A look of confusion crossed Father's face. "I'm sorry, my dear, I don't quite follow."

What I wanted to say was, Leave him out of this. Let Arno be for me, nothing to do with the way we see the world, the way we want to shape the world. Let the bit of my life I share with Arno be free of all that.

"Quite," agreed Mother.

He pursed his lips, not especially liking this wall of resistance thrown up by his womenfolk. "He is my ward. A child of this house. He will be brought up according to the doctrines of the house. To put it bluntly, Elise, we need to get to him before the a.s.sa.s.sins do."

"We have no reason to fear that the a.s.sa.s.sins will ever discover his existence."

"We cannot be sure. If the a.s.sa.s.sins reach him, they will bring him into the Order. He would not be able to resist."