Chapter 20

Botched

May 23

Gaspar eventually came to consciousness and stood up out of the bushes where he had come to lie. He checked the sun over Paris, judging the time to be about ten o'clock in the morning. Feeling inside his robes, he pulled Herbois' diary from within and turned to the page he had seen before. He clapped it together angrily and stuck it back inside his robes. He looked up at the window from which he had fallen from and felt the back of his head. A good sized welt had risen on his scalp. He surveyed the region and began to piece together what exactly had happened before he lost consciousness. After falling to the ground, he had hit his head on a rock and rolled into the bushes, where he had remained hidden the entire night. 'Fallen, or was I pushed?' he thought.

"Damn it, Henri!" he shouted, looking around to find him. "Henri?" Gaspar said, less sure of the situation. He quickly climbed back up to the window and looked inside. Not finding Henri, he began to panic. "Oh no, no, no, no," he said. "The horses." He dropped down and ran back to where he and Henri had hid their mounts. He found that both were still tied to the tree. "Damn it!" he said again. Mounting his, he took Henri's horse by the reins and headed back to the chateau.

Leona was sitting in the chateau when Gaspar arrived.

"Where have you been? You should have been back hours ago!"

"Henri."

"What?"

"Henri, is he here? Quickly!"

"What? No, Henri is not here, he is supposed to be with you." Upon hearing this, the gravity of the situation hit Gaspar like a ton of bricks. He slumped into the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands. Leona went over to him. "Gaspar, what happened?" Gaspar looked back at her with shame and fear.

"We made… I made… a mistake…"

"Please, tell me."

"We… we had infiltrated Herbois' flat, just like we meant to…"

May 22

It was about eleven at night as Henri gave a last little wiggle to the wire, and the lock to Herbois' apartment went loose. He tucked his lock picking tools back into his robes and swung the door open. The flat was interestingly spotless, thought Henri. He supposed that the hours that Herbois devoted to the committee kept him from his home, so cleaning would not be an ordeal.

'Solving mysteries about cleaning is not what I came here to do,' he thought. He walked to the bedroom and found the window that he and Gaspar had spotted. He unlocked it and lifted it open to find Gaspar clinging to the outside ledge.

"Thanks brother," Gaspar said. Henri helped him through with a pull. "Where shall we start?"

"It will be faster if we search through different areas, don't you agree?"

"Quite. I'll begin in the study. You start here, in the bedroom." The two men split. Gaspar found the study room one door down from the bedroom and went to Herbois' writing desk. Several plays and scripts were scattered across it. Leona had told them that Herbois had been an amateur playwright during his times with the assassins. Gaspar began to skim through them. "Lucie, ou les Parents imprudents, L'Aîné et le cadet, L'Inconnu, ou le Préjugé vaincu," he read. He also found an essay which he had read, L'Almanach de père Gérard. None of these, however, were what he was looking for. He opened the writing desk and rummaged through more papers, but soon found himself empty-handed. Undaunted, he crouched down to look under the desk. Towards the back was a small wooden compartment attached to the underside. It did not match the wood that the desk had been made from, which piqued Gaspar's interest in it. He felt around on it and found a handle. He pulled at it, which caused the bottom of the compartment to slide out. On it was a leather-bound diary, sealed by a cord. He took the diary from its compartment and brought it up to the desk to read. He flipped to the first page, which read:

January 11th 1786

I will have to apologize to the man whom I stole this diary from. I have been on the run for so long now that morality is a passing thing to me, but I feel that I must put my thoughts to paper, should they become too crowded inside of my mind. My pursuers certainly will not give up the chase, and as I sit here writing this in this alley, I believe I hear them on the approach. They will not give up, will not forgive.

February 1st 1786

By the most gracious luck, I was stopped today by a most peculiar man. He recognized that I was in trouble, and promised me that I would be protected from whatever hounded me if I were to join his organization. He claimed to be an assassin. Assassin! My, I have heard tales in my day, but none like that. Oh well, if this man can promise a safe haven, then I will surely take it.

August 9th 1786

So I have fallen in with the assassins, a well-meaning group, if you ask me, but I find that their goals and their methods often conflict. They preach that they wish to have peace, but they maintain that the freedom of mankind is what will bring them there. I honestly cannot see them ever achieving their goal, but it matters little to me. They have provided me with shelter and safe haven, so much so that I can walk out in the streets without the fear of being cut down by my enemies. They also seek to topple the king from his throne, which, personally…

Gaspar flipped to the middle of the diary, hoping to find something more relevant.

July 21st 1789

I have graduated into full assassin status. Hooray. I have started to entertain the thought of leaving this organization, as they will now, without a doubt, expect more of me. I care nothing for their creed or their goals. My enemies have now been long dead or chased away. Jefferson has held Saint-Just back because he believes him to be an insubordinate. How easy it has been to pin all of my… little tendencies upon him. Calais, Monaco, Dijon, and that special little thing I did in Nice, he has been blamed for. Shame, really. Out of the three of us, he was the one who most believed in what the assassins were trying to accomplish, but it has been beaten out of him by the constant berating of Jefferson. Oh well, tomorrow will be a different day.

October2nd 1789

One thing keeps me. Him. The man who bent down in kindness to see if I needed help that cold day in February; Robespierre. He speaks with me, Billaud-Varenne, and Saint-Just about his plans for the future; one without the meddling of Assassins or Templars, and for that matter, the meddling of religion. A world in which women can have the same opportunities as men can, where no child ever goes hungry, where no man is anyone's slave. All equal, in every single way. How can I turn away from this opportunity? This is a mission that I can get behind, one with a goal and the means to get there. He tells us that to see this goal realized we will need to grab ahold of the Apple of Eden that the king wields over his subjects. The assassins plan to take it from him soon, and then it will be within our grasp.

Gaspar flipped farther into the pages.

December 20th 1792

The days grow even shorter and colder. Robespierre is working on turning each assassin within the order. Billaud-Varenne, Saint-Just, and I have been allowed to keep control of our minds, for Robespierre tells us that he will need people who are able to think for themselves in the coming months. Most of the assassins submit to the power of the Apple quite easily, but there are some anomalies that must be dealt with. He leaves that to me. We have pleaded with him not to take Leona's life, however. She may be annoying with her dedication to the assassins, but she has been a friend to each of us. She may see the light soon enough…

Becoming frustrated, Gaspar then flipped to the back of the diary, trying to find anything that he could bring back to Leona.

April 17th 1794

The committee has recalled me due to my "excessive" behavior in Lyon. Excessive! Says the man who gives the orders to execute thousands daily! Sometimes I fear that my association with the man might lead to my downfall, so I may need to distance myself from him in the future.

'Interesting' thought Gaspar, 'but not enough.' Determined to find something, Gaspar read the very last entry.

April 20th 1794

I do often dream of my past life, and wonder if I was rescued from it, or the enslavement only began under Robespierre's service. Yes, the destruction of the Fontaine family was what I had agreed to, but not all were accounted for on the night the ship sank. Charles still evaded me, and my employers were not happy. I tried to explain that I would pursue him and bring my contract to a close, but they would hear none of it. They sent trained mercenaries after me, such as I had been sent after the Fontaines. I was determined, however, that bringing the news of Charles' death to them would provide me my freedom. After four years of searching I had found him living in Paris. I went to his residence, but all I found was his wife. He had been gone from the Fontaines for five years and created a new life for himself, going by Gaspar. She invited me in and explained that he had gone to work that day, but he would be back after. Her hair was long and golden, with the prettiest blue eyes that anyone has ever seen. I will write here, shamefully, that at the sight of her, sweet Dianne, my… tendencies gave in. She was just so lovely…

Gaspar dropped the diary. He tried to remain standing, but his legs gave out on him. He then lied on the ground and wept for a short time. The last piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place for him. The destruction of his family, all the pain that he had suffered in his life came from this one man.

"Gaspar?" he heard Henri call out to him. He wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up, tucking the diary into his robes.

"Gaspar!" hollered Henri from the bedroom.

"Y… yes?" he hollered back at him, his voice shaky.

"Herbois returns home! We need to leave!" Anger surged throughout Gaspar's body, all the way to the tip of his head.

"You mean he's here, now?"

"I see him coming up the roadway. We cannot be here when he arrives!" Gaspar withdrew his pistol from his belt. He walked out of the study and began to go towards the front door. Henri caught him.

"Brother, what are you doing? No aggression, this is what Leona has told us!"

"Get out of here, Henri." Gaspar growled, holding his pistol out in the direction of the door.

"No brother! You cannot do this!" Henri grabbed at the pistol and tried to wrench it from him. His interference caused it to go off in Gaspar's hand and the gun fired into the ceiling. Gaspar, forgetting Herbois in his fury, lunged at Henri. Henri, however, was an equal match for Gaspar's strength, and the two began to struggle throughout the house. Henri was able to pull him back to the bedroom and pushed him over the bed. Gaspar rose up, getting ready to go at it again, but the sound of the doorknob turning reminded him of his goal. He tried to push past Henri, but Henri, quickly thinking, grabbed Gaspar and pushed him out the open window through which he had entered from.

Down at the bottom, he saw that Gaspar had rolled into some bushes and was covered from sight. He had gotten one leg through the window, but then was caught by the shoulder by Herbois. He pulled Henri back through the window and threw him on top of the bed. Henri lunged at him, hidden blade extended, but Herbois caught his arm, extended his own hidden blade, and cut the twine that held Henri's hidden blade in place, all in one motion.

"I still keep mine on, despite what the others say. I've found it to be an invaluable tool," he said. He again tossed Henri to his bed. He pulled his pistol from his robes and aimed it at Herbois' leg, not wanting to kill him but allow for his own escape. He pulled the trigger, but the pistol misfired, a cloud of smoke hanging in the room. Henri threw the pistol at Herbois, which he dodged, then went after him with his fists. Herbois caught Henri and flipped him onto his back. "You know, I've had the exact same training that you've had," he said as he sat on Henri, "but I bet there's this one thing that bitch did not get to teach you." He ran his thumbs along Henri's throat and pressed down in a spot. "It's because I came up with it." After a few moments, Henri's world went dark.