Chapter 2: Unexpected Allies

February 1, 1783

As the new year started, my boredom knew no limits; a blind woman on a ship has so little to do. I only take solace in the fact that we should be arriving in Boston soon. I grow eager to finally reach the Colonial Brotherhood, as it was; the English Brotherhood was always pressed for both numbers and support. The Templars are slowly taking London and I imagine that soon, they will have it. So I cannot allow them to simply waltz right into the Colonies and take that too. When I spoke to Captain O'Shea earlier this morning, he said he was hopeful that we would arrive today, and thankfully, he is right. "I see land Captain!"

Despite how far away the man in the crow's nest was from me, I could hear his words just fine; I was finally in the Colonies. I stand near the mast pole, hoping not to get in the way of the sailors preparing to dock. It is not long before I feel the ship stop, "Miss Favell, would you like me to escort you anywhere? To a carriage house perhaps?"

I turn to face where I hear the Captain's voice coming from, "I would be very grateful if you escorted me there; I have never been to this city and therefore, I cannot hope to find my way around."

"Very well my dear, come along," and with that, I grab hold of his arm and let him escort me onto land.

The noises coming from the busy streets astound me, although the streets are not as crowded as the ones in London; the sounds are still rather abundant, but not enough to completely overwhelm my ears. "Oh how I wish I could see all of this."

"It is a beautiful sight indeed, but if what you say is true, and your friend lives outside the city, then I assure you, the sounds of nature are far greater than the views of the city. I am sure you will enjoy yourself out there."

This brings a smile to my face as I think of this; the sounds of nature were what I loved the most. We continue the rest of the walk in silence, the Captain realising I wanted to soak in the sounds and smells of this unfamiliar city. "Ah, here we are my dear. Excuse me good sir, this young lady is hoping to get passage to a location outside the city," he turns to me before continuing. "I must head back to my ship now my dear, I wish you safe travel and perhaps we may see each other again."

"I can never thank you enough Captain, you have done me a great service bringing me all the way here," something he did not have to do but did out of the kindness of his own heart.

"Think nothing of it Miss Favell, now farewell until next time," and with a kiss to his cheek, I wave him off.

"Where is it you wish to travel to miss?" I turn back to face the man who would hopefully take me to the Homestead.

"Ah yes, I was wondering if you travelled to the Davenport Homestead."

I hear him shift nervously before answering, "I am afraid not miss, the only carriages that can come in and out of that place belong to the people there. They have seen many troubles throughout the years and hence, are cautious of unknown carriages that come through. I apologise miss, but I am afraid you are going to have to find another way."

My heart plummeted to the ground; I had no way of knowing where to go, let alone be able to see where I am going. I am just about to respond when a question sounds behind me, the tone is suspicious, "Might I ask what it is you plan on doing at the Homestead?"

I turn to face the voice and instinct guides me to activate my Eagle Vision and rather than red or even grey, the man glows blue; an ally then. Hoping they are what I think they are, I say something I hope they understand, "To visit a brother whom I must visit as soon as possible."

"I see, is it an urgent matter?" Ah, he understands.

"It is indeed, I have news this brother needs to hear," our conversation would mean nothing to anyone listening in, but we understood each other just fine.

"Very well, good sir, I think this miss can very well be escorted to the edge of the Homestead. The people there are not opposed to this, and I am sure the young lady can make her way to the Homestead safely from there," I may have imagined it, but it sounded as if this man had some sort of authority here.

"Oh of course Mister Wilkinson, I shall have the miss safely there," and I could not believe how easily this man had him agree.

"There we go young lady; he will see you safely to where the Frontier and the Homestead meet. The distance from there to the nearest house is not far," and I could not be more grateful.

"Thank you, Mister Wilkinson was it? I am in your debt; I do not know what I would have done otherwise."

"Call me Clipper miss, and when you get to the Homestead, tell the Mentor and the others I said hello," definitely another Assassin indeed.

"I will, thank you again," and with this we say our goodbyes before I turn back to the carriage man.

February 4, 1783

The carriage man insisted on resting the horses as well as resting ourselves often, so in the end it took just over two days to reach the border between the Frontier and the Homestead. As I step down from the carriage, I take in the sounds of the forest around me and I feel relaxed. "Just continue the path in this direction and you will reach the homes on the property."

I turn to face him, "Thank you sir, I will be fine from here."

As I hear him leaving the way we came, I activate my Eagle Vision, knowing that this would come in handy; I would not want to fall off a cliff. I start my trek towards the Homestead and continue to listen to the nature around me; keeping my walk comforting. It is almost fifteen minutes later that I see the vague silhouette of the first house. I walk up to the man I can see milling around; a big man that must be the blacksmith as I could see the forge beside him. "Hello sir."

I must have startled him because he turns abruptly to face me, "Don't sneak up on me like that young lady, now how may I help you?"

"Forgive me for startling you, it was not my intention. I was wondering if you could direct me to the main house here. I have urgent news for your landlord," I was not sure how much the people on the Homestead knew about the Brotherhood, so I figured I would leave that sort of speak out.

"Ah I see, another guest for Connor, been a busy fellow the last few years, but I know he happens to be home right now. Now you will find the manor if you continue on this road, after you cross the bridge, you will see the church and if you stand in front of the church, you can't miss the manor, biggest house on the Homestead," a most detailed set of directions.

"Thank you very much Mister, uhhh."

"Must call me Dave miss, the folk around here do."

"Thank you Dave," and with a farewell, I continue along the path, passing many different buildings, but I could barely make out what they were as they were too far off the road for me to get more than a silhouette with my Eagle Vision.

I finally come across the church; however, the Manor must have been a bit too far away as I could not locate it. I hear the door behind me open and considering the direction the sound came from, I can guess it must be the priest. "Oh, hello my dear, is there something I can help you with?"

I hesitate, if I ask for directions for a building that is clearly within sight for a non blind person, I make it obvious that I cannot see; however, he is the priest and I would hate to lie to a man of the Lord. "Please forgive me, I am looking for the manor, but I am blind and cannot find it from here."

"No worries, my dear, I can lead you there, it isn't far," a true man of God, helping out those in need.

"Thank you Father," and I just now realise, a blind woman would not have known he was a priest.

He doesn't seem to realise or mind, and simply offers his arm to me which he leads my hand onto. "It is no problem my dear, I am Father Timothy and it is a pleasure to meet you."

"I am Mirela, it is a pleasure to meet you as well Father," he was my saving grace after all.

He leads me up a small path and I slowly start to see the outline of the manor with my Eagle Vision. He then leads me up the stairs and to the door, "Here we go my dear, I shall leave you to it."

"Thanks again Father," and as he slowly makes his way back down the stairs I go to knock on the door.

However, I hesitate when I hear voices from the window to my right. I can vaguely make out a few male voices and female voice, but cannot distinguish any words. When they go silent, I decide now is a good a time as any to knock. After several seconds, the door opens and I see the blue silhouette of a woman. Despite glowing blue, she could not possibly be an Assassin, she was not dressed like one; in fact, she was wearing a dress and had long hair. I am broken from my musing when she speaks, "Can I help you lass?"

I cock my head to the side, momentarily stunned; who was this Irish woman? There was something about her that rings a bell but I could not put my hands on what it was. "Oh, my apologies, my name is Mirela, I am an Assassin from England."

"That is quite a long journey to come all this way. What in God's name brought you here?"

I hesitate; I cannot be sure about this woman who, despite glowing blue, was clearly not an Assassin. I decide to get to the point, "Is the Mentor here?"

She seems to understand my hesitation, "Aye, he is dear, if you come through here, you can talk to him; we were just finishing a bit of a meeting."

Meeting; she must be somewhat high up in the Brotherhood if she was part of a meeting. "Thank you kindly," and I follow her as she leads me to another room.

We enter a room filled with blue silhouettes; I can make out two elder men who clearly were not Assassins either and another in the familiar robes. This must be Connor, the Colonial Mentor. Seeing that I was surrounded by allies, I decide to recede my Eagle Vision to stop further strain on my eyes; everything goes black again. "Connor, you have a visitor, a sister from England."

I hear a voice coming from the direction I saw Connor and I can only guess he is the first to talk, "I see, it is a pleasure to meet you, my name is Connor," he pauses before continuing, "What can we help you with?"

"Ah yes, my name is Mirela and I came all this way with some dire news," I hesitate before saying my next words. "I had overheard a conversation between the current Templar Grand Master of the British Rite and a few of his higher ranking Templars; I am afraid that with the fall of the Colonial Rite, he plans on sending over far more Templars to the Colonies in order to stamp out the still recovering Colonial Assassin Brotherhood."

It is one of the older men who talk first, I cannot help but notice his English accent, "How can you be sure he will follow through with this, and he was not just saying those things because he knew you were eavesdropping."

How dare he make such an accusation, "Because," and despite my anger, I hesitate to defend myself, "because my father is a terrible man and I feel him fully capable of doing such a thing."

They all go quite, and I can only hope that revealing this would not make them even more suspicious of me, "Look I realise that saying that makes me more suspicious, my father being a Templar and all, but you need to trust me."

It was the other man who answers me, and I notice he too has an Irish accent; still there is something that rings a bell about this, "Trust me lass, we are not unfamiliar with Templar Grand Masters producing Assassin offspring."

Wait what? They were not more suspicious, this was not unusual to them? I do not get a chance to respond before the Englishman says something, "You know what would make us trust you more? If you removed your hood."

Damn, I was hoping to gain their trust before revealing my blindness, but if this meant they would trust me more, then so be it. I close my eyes before pulling back my hood, and when I finally open them, they all breathe in quickly; they now knew I was blind. "Look, I realise I am blind, I mean, everything is black, but you need to understand that I am still every bit of an Assassin as any other."

They are momentarily quite before the woman speaks up, "Oh hush now dear, it came as quite the shock lass, I will admit, but we will not judge you for it."

The more she talked, the more I liked this woman and her clearly kind heart. "Thank you Miss, uhh, I just realised, I only know the Mentor's name."

"Oh how silly of me, I cannot believe I forgot to introduce myself or any of the others. I am Norah Cormac, that being my married name, so it is in fact Missus dear, and the Irish fellow you can hear, that is my husband Shay. The unmistakably British fellow is Connor's father Haytham Kenway, I can imagine you know who he is, he is the reason your parentage was not unusual to us."

This makes me freeze, no wonder the whole Irish thing was ringing bells; I had heard of Shay Patrick Cormac, the Assassin Hunter and his wife who was a Templar Informant, no, THE Templar Informant. I could never forget the name Haytham Kenway either; these two men were responsible for annihilating the previous Colonial Brotherhood. I think the only thing stopping me from either fighting or fleeing was the fact that they all had glowed blue and Connor, the Assassin Mentor, was not disturbed by their presence. They clearly notice my face go pale as Connor quickly says something, "Oh, yes, my father and Shay used to be Templars, and Norah their Informant, but they are our allies now, so there is no reason to fear."

"You see lass, after the Order was pretty much destroyed and Haytham injured, Norah decided it was time all three of us retired from the life of Templars, and Informant. As it is, Haytham and I are a bit too old for fighting, and Norah is done with everything. So we came here and, well we did not join the Brotherhood, but we have become tutors for the recruits and Connor's sort of advisors."

That explained why they glowed blue, but were clearly not Assassins. This must have happened after we stopped receiving information about the Colonial situation. The last news I had heard was while living with the Templars, and all I had managed to hear was that the Colonial Rite was gone and the Brotherhood had regained America. I could never have suspected this. "I see, this explains a few things indeed. However, this brings me back to why I am here, I overheard my father having his conversation and they were clearly talking about sending Templars here to regain control of the Colonies."

"This is indeed troubling news, now that I think about it, after I returned here from killing Reginald, I lost track of the British Rite, who is now Grand Master in his stead, your father yes, what is his name?"

"My father's name is Benedict Lock, but do not get my surname confused, I was raised by my mother, Moira Favell, and therefore take her name as mine," I felt I needed to ascertain how much I do not follow my father.

I was not expecting them to quite go as silent as they did before Norah says something, "Woah, this sounds more and more like déjà vu."

I was not quite sure what she was referring to, did she mean the whole Templar has Assassin child thing, with Connor and Haytham? "We have more pressing things to worry about my dear, so young Benedict took his place? That is very interesting, if he took Reginald's place straight after I killed him, your father would have still been very young, this was over twenty years ago after all. I honestly expected it to be Mister Graves who would take his place, what of him?"

I pull a face simply at his name, "Harrison Graves is my father's second in command, and honestly, he is the first person I have ever wanted to call a wanker so badly, despite being the sort of person who reins in my bad language. If I ever see his face again, it will be too soon."

I seemed to have shocked them because they are all silent before Haytham continues, "I see, do you know who your father plans on sending over?"

"Unfortunately no, my father only handed Mister Graves a piece of paper with the names, but they did not say any of them aloud," if only I knew who they would be, we could plan for their arrival better.

"Very well, I suppose we best get ready for them then, do you have an idea of when?"

"Well, my father was on a business trip when I managed to escape their estate, he would be gone for a month or two at least, I expect they would wait for his return. My best guess is that they are two or three months behind me," although, I wish we could have more time.

"Escape? You were their prisoner?"

Oh, I forgot to mention that part.

Woohoo, another chapter out yay. So anyone who has read The Templar Informant would recognise the meeting scene between our wonderful characters. Cause it is basically the epilogue of TTI from Mirela's POV. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and are enjoying the fic so far.

Shout out to MohawkWoman for another review, always great to see them. I am glad you always look forward to reading more and yes, cataracts, good guess. Always love getting your reviews.

Seza, out