Haytham Kenway stepped out of his carriage and was greeted by the mild New Orleans winter. Though he had been dressed heavily when he left his estate in Virginia, here, in these southern Spanish colonies, the weather was that much warmer, and unlike the dryness of Spain, humid. Though the buildings in the street were Parisian, it was Spanish conversation that first reached his ears. Within moments, though, a sharply-dressed servant made his way to the carriage, bowed and addressed him.
"Bonjour. You are Monsieur Kenway, I presume? Here to see the Madame De L'Isle."
"Oui, naturellement," he answered back, in practised French. It was nowhere near as flawless as his Spanish, but had seen plenty of use, regardless. "May the Father of Understanding guide us."
The servant glanced down to his ring finger to confirm his status, then turned to lead him on a trail through the streets, weaving through back alleys and complicated, circular routes, to throw off any pursuers. A standard tactic in any city with known Assassin presence. Yet the servant did not take him to De L'Isle's mansion as Haytham had expected, but to a more modest, unassuming looking safehouse. Haytham had questions, and no small amount of doubts, but he obliged to be taken inside and up a group of rickety, unkept stairs. Two slaves were attending the double doors on the landing, which they opened to admit Haytham within.
Sitting at a small table and taking tea was who could only be the Madame De L'Isle – De Grandpré ought to have been a more accurate moniker, she being a married woman and then widow – but it was not a name she preferred in her letters. Nor did she wear a dress, but a brass-buttoned overcoat and tricorne, laced through which was an elegant pink flower. Foxglove: he knew it on sight.
"Good day to you, Master Kenway," she said in French. She did not stand or curtsey, nor offer him her ring finger. Instead she simply gestured at the plush armchair opposite her own, where another teacup was set. "Sit. I know how the English love their tea parties, and so I have taken pains to prepare one."
He gave her a long, flat look, to which she smiled sweetly in return. Surely she must have been following news in the thirteen colonies as closely as she would monitor her own affairs, and had heard what had occurred in Boston a few years prior… Biting down any hasty response, however, he sat. "Very kind of you, Madeleine."
She laughed, a high, false and clearly performed note. "Oh, you English and your manners." She poured him tea from an ornate teapot.
Discomfited, he cast his gaze around. There was a pleasant view of the square from the windows, and a few maps and paintings adorned the walls. "This is quite the elaborate establishment for what had, outwardly, seemed a modest safehouse."
"It is a modest safehouse. But I had at least brought a few luxuries with me for our meeting. I hope you do not find issue with the lack of anything more… refined." She finished pouring, and he took his tea, inclining his head in thanks.
"Not at all. Though I was under the impression you were in possession of a villa in the city, from your correspondence."
"So I am. My husband's, and now mine. But we could not meet there: for all intents and purposes, I am a widow in mourning. Unfamiliar men would arouse suspicion."
"And your family's estates?"
"They know nothing of my affiliations to the Order. It is best kept that way. They would only stifle me."
"I see," Haytham said carefully, sipping his tea. This was all quite different from the privacy and freedom his Virginian plantation allowed him. New Orleans suddenly seemed as enclosed and claustrophobic as its barricading city walls would suggest, if even a Templar Master needs must go through such pains to remain in secrecy.
"Your visit comes at a convenient time, Haytham. My daughter is absent from the city, ensuring our cover."
"Your daughter…" he echoed. "The Assassin?"
"Oui. My stepdaughter, Aveline de Grandpré. She has gone to New York to meet with an Assassin there, no doubt in pursuit of any leads she has on me…" She pursed her lips. "Your Assassin, in fact. Is there any information you have on him?"
"Only that he's been a thorn in the side of my branch of the Order for too long now," Haytham lied. "His kind was supposed to have been rooted out of the Thirteen Colonies years ago."
"Which was why I advised you to do away with the Master Assassin while you had the chance. Now a new Assassin has taken his place."
Haytham set his teacup down with more force than necessary. "The old man is a cripple. His will was broken. I do not kill the old and the lame…"
Her expression was severe, any attempt at pleasantries now an echo of the feigned smile around her painted mouth. "You lack ruthlessness."
"May I remind you your own daughter is still alive."
"So she is."
"Out of sentiment?"
Madeleine's eyes flickered. "Out of usefulness. She removes parts of my Order that have overstepped their bounds."
The silence stretched out, and within it, Haytham thought of the Assassin plaguing his own Order. The Assassin that had within the space of a few years, eliminated Sir William, John and Thomas. The Assassin that Lee said looked so much like him. Like Ziio. The Assassin he had sentenced to hanging. The Assassin that even now, would be meeting with the stepdaughter of this Templar Master. He was a rational man, not much inclined towards notions of fate or predestination, but the irony of it all was not lost on him.
Perhaps he ought to accept the possibility – or was it the truth? – that the boy, Connor, might just be his son.
Madeleine was watching him carefully, her own expression inscrutable. If she had been trying to read him, he doubted he had given little to betray his thoughts. She continued on her prior musings: "Yes, perhaps there is some motherly affection that inclines me towards her. Many a time I thought of starting my own family, and would have, had it not chained me to an eternity of domestic servitude. I want to mould her into something better than what she is. Now her father is gone—" She touched the flower on her hat, "—I am all she has left."
He understood the implication of the gesture well enough. A surge of cold anger flooded his stomach, and froze there. "So you did away with her Father and will make her your own disciple."
She looked at him inquisitively. "Yes. Exactly that. Do we have some kind of misunderstanding here? You look quite pale."
Haytham was suddenly conscious that his hands clasping the chair had tightened into white knuckles, and his jaw had clenched. He had been in London again, a boy, watching his father die on the blade of Birch's hired thugs. Watched the light fade from his eyes, the jerk of his body when the blade was pulled—No. There was no use in feeling empathy for this Aveline.
He straightened and cleared his throat, trying to push aside that momentary weakness. He had to remind himself he was here on business, and that it would benefit all of the Colonial Orders. This was not the place for emotional outbursts.
"No, it is a clever plan," he said finally, regaining his composure. "And I hope it succeeds. For the greater good of your daughter, and your family."
The Templars were rife with such duplicity, it seemed. His life, this child, Aveline, their lives were dramas repeated again and again throughout the ages, it seemed. Assassins becoming Templars, Templars manipulating Assassins. For orders with such opposing ideals, they truly were not so different in many ways. Perhaps that was what made it so easy for sides to be changed.
They talked for the rest of the evening on other matters: excavations in Mexico that Haytham held little interest in. The Precursors obsessed this woman as much as it had obsessed Birch, and the more they conversed the more his dislike of her intensified. But she had planted the notion in his mind of how he might best deal with this new, unknown factor that was his own son. That perhaps Assassins and Templars could work together, knowingly or otherwise.
After further days spent touring the city and meeting what was left of the Templar Order there, it was time to make himself scarce before he was detected. Like the Assassins, Haytham preferred to keep his presence invisible. Would New Orleans continue to flourish as a Templar outpost? He doubted it. Over and over, since that conversation over tea when she so casually touched the flower on her hat, he had been unable to erase the image in his mind of Madeleine as Birch. Birch being seized by Jenny, and thrown on Haytham's sword. Revenge, finally, for Father's death.
He outstretched a hand for her to shake. "Farewell, Madame de L'Isle. You have given me much to think on."
She, beaming and seeing the visit as a profitable one and little more, shook his hand in a firm grip. "Goodbye, Master Kenway. I will send word when my project with the Prophecy Discs is a success."
Haytham strongly doubted it would be. But he gave her a final nod, climbed into his stagecoach, and turned to aim for the docks.
He was resolved to speak with this child, Connor. Madeleine's methods, though questionable, held promise if employed correctly. Perhaps there was worth in rescuing his son from his misguided ways. But Haytham would do things in his own way. He would not perish on a blade as Birch had, as he envisioned Madeleine would.
The New World required new Templars. He would be their shepherd.