Chapter 7: The Scent of Sheep and Gunpowder

He had found Meggie's weak spot. Yet it was not only the least fortunate moment for this, but it also had made her cry. She tried to suppress it, to concentrate on the search for the Elmwood Manor, yet she actually did nothing but mutely trail behind him. He hadn't meant to hurt her so badly. He hadn't meant to hurt her at all. And he couldn't bear it anymore.

"I am sorry," he said, stopping abruptly in the middle of the street.

The next moment he felt Meggie bumping into him.

He turned to her. "Honestly, I -"

"You don't need to apologize", she said, staring vacantly into space. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"You are crying."

"Not anymore."

"We -" Connor shook his head. "We can't work like this. And we still have three hours left."

He grabbed her arm, dragging her straight into a valley, and, spotting a nice church roof, headed towards it. There weren't many places in a city where one could talk in private, and since most people didn't care about what was going on above their heads, a high rooftop seemed to be a suitable alternative. Meggie looked almost afraid when he gestured her to climb the church, apparently having a presentiment of what he was up to.

"Do you want me to flood all of New York with tears?" she grumbled as they reached the roof. "I'm not crying anymore, Connor, so -"

"In this state you are going to be a drag for me," Connor said, being highly surprised by the harshness of his words himself. "Either you go back to the Aquila and wait or you talk to me."

"Talk?!"

"You did not tell me the story of Meggie the Parrot yet." Just what was he talking about?! What was he doing?! The only thing that was certain was that it was an emergency. There was a possibility that he would need her. But why was he asking about the Parrot?

Meggie's look got a hostile shade. She pushed her mandible forward, pursing her lips and staring piercingly in his eye.

"All right," she said. "If it pleases you ..." She took a deep breath. "When I turned thirteen I decided to take action. What was left of the Brotherhood, Achilles and Bobby Faulkner, had deserted me, so I looked for new allies. John Hancock had problems with the British then. They accused him of smuggling and had confiscated his ship. I paid him a visit through the window of his bureau, fully armed, with legs on his desk and, well, thirteen years old. I told him that the Sons of Liberty were everything but warriors, so they would need me if they were going to resist the British. Hancock laughed at me of course, but he was forced to change his mind after I burned the confiscated HMS Liberty in his name.

"The Sons of Liberty and I made a deal: I aided them in dangerous affairs while they provided me with information. My problem was that I was barely able to leave Boston, since I had to take care of the household and Peter. Most Templars were out of my reach anyway, but as a merchant, even as an honest one, Hancock had to have an eye on the black market, since it had effects on his business as well. I had found out that Thomas Hickey, my main target, was operating there, so I concentrated on observing it through Hancock and even partly participating in smuggling affairs, hoping to meet Hickey. He came to Boston a few times, but I failed at even getting close to him.

"I was the Parrot from 1768 until 1772. In 1770 my stepfather became victim of the Boston Massacre. I tried to run his shop in Peter's name for a while, but the household, Peter and the taxes made it impossible. So I gave it up and earned money by aiding the smugglers, mainly providing escort and killing recoats. I made us quite wealthy. At least we had enough to pay a cook and a governess for Peter.

"My Parrot career began and ended with the burning of a ship. In 1772 I burned the HMS Gaspée, and upon my return I got a message from Hancock that Hickey would be in New York soon. After failing so many times I didn't want to take any risks anymore and decided to kill him immediately when I'd see him, no matter what. It happened that I saw him on a crowded street in full daylight, and so I shot him on a crowded street in full daylight. Had to kill half of the city guards as well after that. Yet that bastard survived somehow and even regained his full health. However, his injury alarmed the Templars. I had foiled some of their business earlier, but they never took me really seriously. Yet after shooting Hickey I got a visit by Haytham Kenway himself. This was when I realized how irrelevant I was. He could have killed me easily. Yet he spared my life. I've never felt so humiliated before ... Killing so many people just to be spared by the enemy. He didn't mean it, though. He only tried to convince me to stop interfering. He told me how my father died with much respect towards him and advised me to stop wasting my life and finally marry George whom I knew since the Boston Massacre. He frightened me by knowing everything about me, and - what was worse - he pitied me. My enemy who killed my mother fucking pitied me. He made me realize that I had lived for nothing.

"I did the same thing as Achilles whom I had despised for his inactivity. Which made me feel even more humiliated. But I decided to start a new life without killing, without hoods, without violence. I married George, and we had a son. Fletcher. Peter lived with us.

"Then the war broke out. George, my intellectual aesthete, was a confirmed Patriot, yet he had also some problems of his own because it was me and not him who knocked in the nails in our household, and he thought that he absolutely had to prove to me what a man he was. So he joined the Continental Army and died directly at Lexington. A few weeks later Fletcher died too. Pox. As for Peter, he was almost a redcoat-hating fanatic, and I barely could hold him back from going to war at his young age. He was fourteen years old then. He had accepted George as kind of a father and after his death he wanted revenge, so I couldn't stop him anymore. Since Fletcher was dead, I decided to disguise myself as a man and join the army as well to protect him. He was too young to become a soldier, but since he refused to leave he was accepted as gofer. Yet I failed to protect him nonetheless. Lost my fingers then as well.

"After losing everyone I just stayed in the army. I had nowhere to go anymore. And at least I had Jonathan there. I even got pregnant by him. Forced the doctor to do an abortion. I couldn't bear a child in the middle of the war, could I? And as punishment I barely survived the procedure. Later, when the war was clearly about to end, Jonathan and I married. You already know the rest.

"So you see: I failed. I failed as a daughter, I failed as an Assassin, I failed as an avenger, I failed as a sister, I failed as a shopkeeper, I failed as a lover, I failed as a wife, and I failed as a mother. I failed completely. The only thing I didn't fail at is killing. Actually, I'm pretty good at it. I was born to kill, I was taught to kill, I wanted to kill, I killed, then I wanted to stop, but ended up killing again, then I wanted to stop once more and ended up killing my husband. Are you happy now?"

Connor stared at her. This had been a very long story, told in complete monotony. Except for the part with Haytham Kenway's visit it even had sounded as if Meggie was telling a story which she had heard somewhere by pure accident. As if this story weren't her own. She hadn't been crying, she hadn't been stuttering, she hadn't shown even the slightest emotion.

This was ... scary. Scary, and it didn't explain anything. What had made her cry just before? It definitely wasn't her past. It had been foolish of him to ask about that. It had been foolish of him to even force her to speak. Had he hoped to find a way to calm her down? Well, at least in this matter he succeeded: Meggie was as calm as a sleeping glacier during a polar night. A glacier which easily could turn into an avalanche, and take countless lives without a single spark of emotion.

And then it struck him. He raised his gaze and looked directly in her eye, trying to break through the wall of ice.

"You are lying," he said. "You are lying by speaking of failure. You never felt this way." He noticed that Meggie's green eyes widened and her piglet pink skin turned pale. "It is rather that you are afraid of failing. You did what you could, according to the situations you were in - and you know it. You told me that for you there is no such thing as guilt and innocence. Yet failure means guilt. I do not believe that you do not see this. So as far as I understand you there is no place for the notion of failure in your philosophy. Yet you are afraid your conception might prove wrong. Because you do not completely believe in it. You cling to it to avoid feeling bad because of killing which you loath. You pretend to be apathetic about it, trying to convince yourself in the first place. You never ceased to be a real Assassin. You turned your back on the Brotherhood only after the Brotherhood abandoned you. You would not have tried to restore the Brotherhood, and you would not have sabotaged Templar plans, if you were only up to kill one single man. You never truly ceased to believe in our ideals, and you never gave up. Each time you lost something you found a new path, a new purpose in life. And now ... I do not want to sound presumptuous, but seeing that you were watching me for years and felt obliged to protect me from the Templars I conclude that the true reason why you are helping me is that ..." He swallowed, thinking about how to put it best. "That you see your new path by my side."

Something tingled inside his belly as he said this. His fingers were also slightly trembling while his thoughts circled around the many meanings of the last sentence. He had to admit that for some reason he felt nervous. His breath made it obvious.

As for Meggie, she still stood in front of him - not pale anymore but wet with tears. He had touched her very inside, she was crying again, even more than before. Her eyes sparkled in the light of the afternoon sun, and her bronze freckles vainly tried to hide the glow of her cheeks. There was an old sorrow in her gaze, but it was a sorrow that only existed because there was still something inside her it hadn't destroyed yet.

"I -" She closed her mouth, giving up speaking, covering her face with her hands and wiping off the tears while more streamed out of her eyes.

"You are strong, Meggie," Connor said, removing her hands from her face to look in it. "After so much disappointment you still believe and continue to live and to fight. You are very persistent and determined. You are intelligent and sophisticated, and very good at hiding it by your acting skills. And you have a good heart, although you try to hide it as well. You perfectly know what I feel, and by means of all our discussions you actually try to help me to recover from everything I went through. You force me to confront my own sorrow, to fight it by confronting you. And I have to admit that since Achilles' death someone to argue with is probably what I need most. I already told you: You are a much better person than you want me to believe. So I thank you for everything."

Just what was he talking about? The words slipped out spontaneously and instinctively from somewhere very deep inside.

"I asked you about the Parrot's story because I knew you would tell it this time," he continued with his voice growing weaker. "I realize it just now. I did not understand it when I asked. I felt that I needed to know it, that ... We are indeed very similar, Meggie. I could have been you. I could have ended up denying morality and being afraid of believing. Maybe I was not even far away from it, I do not know for sure. I wanted to learn your story to understand my own. To understand myself. So driving you to tears was a selfish act which I am very sorry for."

Meggie didn't say anything, but only stared at him with puffy, red eyes. She wasn't even blinking, standing in front of him stone-still as if hypnotized.

"I am sorry," he repeated, wiping off her tears, holding her face in his hands, realizing that it actually was pretty with her deep set eyes, her straight nose and her light crimson lips, revealing a cute, little gap between her teeth on the left side when they opened. He couldn't resist smiling thinking of this tiny defect which made her set of teeth fairly unique. Meggie was an extraordinary woman. It was unarguable. No one had ever understood him as well as her, and she had come into his life out of the blue, as if saying: 'You always used to accept what you considered to be your destiny. You didn't choose the life you're living. You never asked for it. So here am I now. Laugh, cry, run around in circles, screaming - but accept your destiny. For at your side is where I belong.'

Was there a choice? Still holding her face, he leaned down and laid his forehead against hers; then, sliding by the tip of her nose, he tenderly lowered his lips onto her mouth. For a short time at first, then again, then more determined, feeling her hands gliding along his back. He strewed her lips with this little kisses until she opened them to let in his tongue while his hands slid down to embrace her body.

She felt warm and tasted salty from crying. And she was incredibly soft. He could feel her breath lightly touching his skin, her caressing lips and tongue, her bosom against his chest ... Her scent. Her scent beneath all the smells of the day, the scent she was born with, the scent of a distant land beyond the ocean with green hills and sheep and old castles, at the same time mixed with months of sea air as well as the smell of the Colonies, iron and gunpowder.

Their kiss didn't end until the grip of her sword got caught up with his tomahawk. Only then Connor realized that her set of throwing knives was squeezing against his stomach, and he didn't even dare to imagine in which way he may have hurt her. Heavily armed people just weren't supposed to kiss.

He instantly let go of her, fastening his eyes on her and checking if she was all right. Yet she seemed to care very little about the weapons. Instead she had her vacant stare into space again, carefully palpating her lips and blinking.

"That wasn't bad," she breathed with glowing cheeks and reddened lips. "That wasn't bad at all ..." And turning her face to him again and firmly: "You shouldn't have done this."

"I know," Connor answered, suddenly feeling something like a crack running from his top down to his toes. Remembering everything that had been said, everything that had been thought. That they were Assassins ... Meanwhile the crack grew, getting more and more branches, covering him completely with tiny crevices, releasing ...

"Once, when I still lived in Kanatahséton, my friend Kanen'tó:kon and I were sent out to collect eagle feathers for a ceremony," he started speaking again, unexpectedly even to himself. "We found a nest on a cliff, difficult to access, and I felt challenged. Despite Kanen'tó:kon's warning I climbed it and obtained a feather. Just as I was about to leave the eagle returned, attacking me to protect its nest. And I fell. Luckily there was a bush beneath me. I told Kanen'tó:kon -" Connor would have chuckled if he wouldn't have been his serious self, "that I did that on purpose. But as a matter of fact, I could have broken my neck and died then. Pretending that I landed in the bush intentionally did not change anything about the truth that I had failed. Does it mean that I should not have climbed the cliff? How was I supposed to improve if I did not push myself? I would not have come far if I always would have done what I should."

Strange, how determined he was about what he was saying ...

"Many years later Kanen'tó:kon was convinced by Charles Lee that I was a traitor. I tried to prevent my people from entering the war, and as I confronted him, my friend turned against me. He did not believe me that he had been lied to. He attacked me ... We grew up together, Meggie, I knew him for my whole life ... We had been playing together ... We had learned to speak and walk together ... We had hunted together ... He was like a brother to me, especially after the death of my mother. But if I had not killed him, he would have killed me. He died believing that I was his enemy."

Connor paused, turning his gaze aside and pressing his lips together. He was so determined, but what was he telling her? Why?

"I never spoke about this before," he whispered, shivering at the wretched sound of his voice. "Yet not speaking about it does not change anything about the truth as well. Kanen'tó:kon is dead by my hand. There is no point in running away from it. I do not regret having climbed that cliff, and I should not regret having stabbed my childhood friend. I should not regret anything I have done in my life. I should not think about what might have been, for it will never be. What is done cannot be undone. It can only be accepted."

Meggie was holding his hand. For how long already? He didn't know.

"I'm sorry for your friend," she said, pausing in respect. Then continuing: "You might be right. It might be the only way. This is actually what my mother was teaching me. She was a nice person, but a hard teacher. She taught me to swim by tossing me into the water in the middle of the Davenport Bay and letting me paddle for my life. As for fighting, I had a weakness as a child. I used to think much about my opponent's movements and wasn't able to move instinctively, so my reactions were too slow. Yet my mother showed no mercy when exercising. If I wasn't quick enough to defend myself, I got beaten. I was all blue of bruises back then, sometimes bleeding. If I just stood there crying, I was beaten up even more. So at some point my instincts took over, and I was able to block her attacks. I had to accept the rules; I had to change according to them. I had to accept the pain and learn from my failures."

Almost all of his own pain was blown from Connor's mind. He could barely move, and his eyes bulged out. "How can anyone treat his own child like this?!"

"This is Assassin education - at least, how my mother understood it," Meggie shrugged with a very scary amount of serenity. "Of course, as a child I even hated her sometimes, but she was still my mother ... And without her hard lessons ... The Assassin Brotherhood is much about bloodlines. If you are connected to it by blood, the war between Assassins and Templars sooner or later will come for you, whether you want it or not. I wouldn't have had any chance of survival without this training."

"It is still barbaric," Connor murmured, feeling even pampered by his childhood among his people. "Our main purpose might be to fight and to kill, but we Assassins are human beings, and we should treat each other as such. However," he suddenly sighed, letting his gaze wander around aimlessly, "accepting pain and sorrow, enduring all the difficulties of our path might be indeed what the Assassin Brotherhood truly is about. Achilles had failed as an Assassin, for he could not bear his own losses. So maybe this - spirit -" Astonishment and bewilderment flooded Meggie's face. She seemingly knew about the spirits, but not that he had met one of them. "Maybe she was right. She told me that I have succeeded. That the loss of my people's land had been a sacrifice for a greater purpose which I do not need to understand. So maybe the Brotherhood is indeed not about feelings or about morality or guilt or innocence. It is about following the Creed. Nothing more."

"There is much irony and bitterness about being an Assassin," Meggie nodded. "But it's getting late. We'll fail our mission to save the Brotherhood if we don't go now. Are you ready?"

"I am," Connor replied. "And I am glad to see that you are as well."

Meggie grinned. She finally grinned. Proudly. She straightened her back, speaking quite loudly:

"Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember:

"Nothing is true.

"Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember:

"Everything is permitted.

"We work in the dark to serve the light. We are Assassins.

"So let's go kick some Templar asses!"

Before he knew what was happening he felt her hands firmly clasping his head and pushing him into a short kiss, embracing him with the scent of sheep and gunpowder once again. The next moment she was flying towards a haystack.


To be continued ...

Thanks to everyone reading this fanfic! See you next week! :)