Chapter 16: Never Look Back

Trying to get information out of the authorities hadn't gone well for Haytham. They had utterly refused to cooperate, even when he'd shown them the contract that Shay had drawn up for King when he named him Captain of the Sussex. It made it relatively clear that the ship and all of its contents were their property, but it still got him nowhere. Haytham was more than a little irritable when he finally gave up some hours later. He had no choice but to leave it in Shay's hands. Gathering information about the attackers would be useful, but the documents were the priority. Shay wouldn't fail, at least. Haytham had that to depend on. He decided to see what he could find by eavesdropping on a pair of off-duty redcoats lounging on a bench near the crime scene.

"I don't know who he was, but we couldn't have caught him to save our lives." One of them, a small, seedy looking man commented. Curious, Haytham thought and listened closely.

"The boss said he didn't touch anythin', so what was he after anyway?" The second one commented. He was a tall, broad shouldered Irishman who was built like a brick house. Haytham would hate to cross paths with him unarmed.

"I don't know, but Thatch and Smith will be laid up for a while. I suppose we're just lucky he didn't kill any of us, the bloke was armed to the teeth after all. I mean, he was one tough son of a bitch. Didn't even flinch when I shot him." The first redcoat replied, waving his hands around dramatically as he spoke. "He didn't seem like a criminal, though. I could swear I've seen him before. I think he's the captain of one of the other private naval ships that's around these parts every now and then." Haytham bit his lip until it bled. Shay. They were talking about Shay. ...And he'd been shot?

"The Cherise?" The larger man asked, frowning. "Or the Alouette?"

"No, it was a real Irish sounding name. She was a big help a couple years back when we were fighting with the frogs. She had red sails, if I remember right." The shady looking man replied.

"Morrigan?" The the other man said tartly.

"Aye, that's the one."

"You shot the captain o' the Morrigan and you're still breathin'? That man fights like the devil. ...You know the Sussex is technically his property? King worked for him. He had more right'n us to be there." Haytham fought the urge to run off looking for Shay, but he didn't even know which direction he'd gone in. ...Yet. "But, the way I hear it, he didn't exactly just walk up and ask t'see the scene either. He sneaked in wearin' a stolen uniform, right? I wonder why he he needed to alter the property if it's really his ship." The man continued in a heavy Irish accent, not unlike Shay's.

"You two! Quit dawdling around! There's work to be done!" An officer called nearby and the two men scrambled to obey. Haytham swore under his breath. At least he had something to go on. Shay was wounded, and probably wearing a British military uniform. He'd have to find him before he did something reckless. A few documents were worth far less to Haytham than Shay's life. Nothing was worth Shay's life. He hurried off in the direction of the Sussex, hoping to find something that might lead him to Shay.

After a bit of slinking around in the shadows and avoiding the overly wary guards, Haytham found what he was looking for – a faint trail of still-wet blood spots leading away from the docks beside the Sussex. He followed it through a series of back alleys until he came upon one of the many openings to the network of maintenance tunnels that ran beneath the city. He was just about the open it, when a shout and the distinct sound of clashing steel rang through the air. Haytham drew his sword and rounded the corner of the alley he was in just in time to see Shay throw a man up against the wall with enough force that the sound of snapping bone rang through the air.

"Tell me where he is." Shay demanded, pressing his dagger to the man's throat. "Tell me!" He repeated when the man shook his head mutely.

"I can't! He'll kill my family!" The wretch finally replied. "Kill me if you will, at least no one will hurt my little girl then!"

"And what about the other children?" Shay demanded. "Did their lives not matter?" The man whimpered and writhed in Shay's hold, managing to land a hit on Shay's injured shoulder. He lost his grip just long enough for the man to escape, but he didn't make it far. He fell to the ground, a look of shock on his lifeless face as Haytham shot him straight through the back of his head.

"Damn it, Haytham! I needed him alive!" Shay snarled, tightening the bit of blood-soaked fabric he tied around the wound.

"Shay, what is going on here?" Haytham demanded, stepping over the man's corpse.

"I found the documents, but I ran into some more o' these louts on my way back. They're gettin' followers by threatenin' their families. If they don't agree to help the gang, they kill their wives and children – and make them watch. I was too late to stop this animal from killin' a little boy. I don't know who's behind this. The Assassins aren't that ruthless." Shay explained. "...Sir?"

Haytham balled his hands into fists and kicked the wall in frustration. The only thought in his mind was of Braddock and his merciless slaying of that family at Fort Bergen Op Zoom. How could any sane person take their blade to the throat of a child, or a defenseless woman? How could they do that and look at themselves in a mirror, while still thinking that they'd done nothing wrong – that there was nothing profane about the murder of an innocent human being? Yet, how much better was he? He had threatened that child when he was pursuing the man he had thought was responsible for his father's murder. ...And he might have done it had the father not cooperated.

"Sir?" Shay repeated and Haytham looked up at him, barely holding in the mindless anger.

"Shay, we are going to find these bastards and slaughter them to a man. Do I make myself clear?" Haytham barked, meeting Shay's eyes.

Shay just gave him a displeased glare. "...I sort o' already did. There's only their leader that's on the run, and you just killed the one man left that'd know where t'find him. They had a base in the tunnels. I did a bit o' house cleanin' earlier. They were the same louts that killed King and his men. There might be more o' them skulkin' about, but I'd have to hunt them down."

"Ballocks." Haytham swore.

"Is somethin'... Are you alright?" Shay asked, applying pressure to the obviously still bleeding wound with another bit of fabric he tore from the British uniform he was wearing. Haytham might have thought he admired the look of Shay in the uniform, if not for all the blood and his current temperament.

"I – Yes. There's nothing we can do. Let us get you home." Haytham snapped. "Make no mistake, we are going to find this man and put an end to him – even if it takes years." Shay watched him with obvious concern, but followed when Haytham started off back toward the main road. They walked in silence for a time, Shay carrying his leather overcoat and spare weapons in his arms. He was obviously in pain, though Haytham knew he wouldn't complain.

"There's a story behind all that, en't there?" Shay asked as Haytham led him into a small apothecary. Haytham didn't reply. "Would you tell me if I asked?" He pressed, closing the door behind him.

"Not now." Haytham said, with a harsh edge to his voice. He ignored Shay's glaring as he rattled off a list of things he needed to the young male shopkeeper. He could take Shay to a doctor, yes, but it wasn't a very serious wound and he had learned how to treat such things during his time with Braddock. The less questions asked, the better. Perhaps some good had come of that particularly low part of his life. Very little good, mind you. Like Shay, Haytham had his own set of emotional triggers and traumatizing memories. He'd just learned over time to suppress it. Well, for the most part. He saved his breakdowns for when no one else was around to witness them.

The trek back to Fort Arsenal was spent mostly in silence. Haytham didn't feel like talking, not when he knew Shay would just ask him to explain his outburst. He didn't want to say a single word about it, or any of his own past really. He spent every day in near denial of the atrocities that lay behind him, constantly moving forward and not daring to look back. There was too much hurt there to turn around and face it. Just thinking about it was enough to make him ache where Lucio had stabbed him. Though, he knew that not to be entirely psychosomatic. He was lucky to have survived, never mind healed. Of course it ached sometimes. The worst part of that was that he thoroughly deserved every moment of the suffering it had caused for having been so blindly ignorant of Birch's actions. ...Birch.

"Damn it all." Haytham muttered to himself, dashing the thoughts from his mind.

"Did you say somethin'?" Shay asked, still walking along beside him.

"No, nothing." Haytham replied sourly.

"You know, you can tell me." Shay reminded him. "We're in this together now."

"I will. I just need time." Haytham snapped a little more rudely than he'd meant to. Shay just shrugged, and obviously instantly regretted the movement if the momentary wince of pain that crossed his face was any indication.

"Are you tryin' to kill me?!" Shay whined as Haytham did his best to very carefully remove the bullet lodged in Shay's shoulder.

"If you hold still it would be easier on the both of us." He grumbled. Shay sighed and shook his head, leaning forward a bit against the oaken surface of the long table in the dining room for support. Charles and Gist were nowhere to be seen, presumably still off conducting investigations of their own – even though it was well past midnight. Haytham wasn't especially worried. Shay was there with him, he didn't really care what Gist and Charles spent the wee hours of the morning doing. Gist was probably holed up in some tavern anyway; Charles was like as not forced to tag along.

Sparing a glance at Shay, Haytham decided it was high time he opened up at least a little bit concerning his past. "When I worked for Braddock a few years back, he... Well, you can ask Gist about his general disposition if you care to. He served under him as well. The man was a tyrant, and a disgrace to the Templar Order. I was never particularly fond of him, but it got worse. At the end of the siege of Bergen Op Zoom, a civilian family begged us for safe passage. I agreed to take them on board, but Braddock refused. When the man insulted him, Braddock slaughtered him – and his entire family. ...Even the children." Haytham explained, and dropped the bullet onto the pile of blood-soaked linens Shay had wrapped around his arm earlier.

"Aye, Gist has mentioned him a few times. He said he wasn't surprised when he was killed. Apparently the men thought one o' their own had turned on him, and none o' them were bothered by it. They just wished it had been them, or that they'd known so they could help off him." Shay replied, watching as Haytham wiped blood from his hands.

"It was not one of his men that killed him. It was me, disguised as one of them." Haytham replied, with the barest hint of a smile. Gist was actually most likely the only member of their rite that didn't know it was Haytham that had done it, as he'd joined after that particular debacle. "I needed Braddock out of the way to gain Ziio's trust – to find the way to precursor site. ...Though that is not to say I was particularly put out to have to kill the bastard. He had been moving away from the Order and its ideals for some time as it was."

"I suppose that's your way o' tellin' me that Gist's rants about how much of a horse's arse he was are all true, then." Shay commented, flinching involuntarily when Haytham poured alcohol over the wound to disinfect it.

"I do not doubt it." Haytham replied and pressed a clean cloth to Shay's shoulder. "Even Master Gist could not possibly exaggerate where complaining of that man's cruelty is concerned." They sat in silence for a while as Haytham dressed Shay's wound. It felt strange talking about these things – things he'd wished never happened. His entire life as he knew it was built upon betrayal leavened with lies.

"I joined the Order as a child, recruited by the very man that destroyed my family. He expected me to forgive him, or to at least understand that he had murdered my father and sold my sister into slavery for the greater good – all because my father was an Assassin and he had information about a precursor site that he desired. But I did not forgive him, and I certainly will never forget the life he that stole from me. ...Even if I did choose to stay the path of a Templar." Haytham said bitterly as he began cleaning up the mess. Shay watched him wordlessly as he tossed the blood-stained linens into the fireplace.

"I suppose it's fair to assume this man is feastin' on a diet o' worms?" Shay asked, giving Haytham a soft smile.

"Yes, though it was actually my sister who killed him and not I. To this day she is disappointed that she did not manage to make him eat his own cock before he died. ...So am I." Haytham replied, thinking fondly of Jenny's latest letter where she'd made a similar remark. They rarely wrote of that nightmare, or their lives before being reunited. Normally it was useless tripe about the weather, or politics. I'm still alive, and I see that you are as well, was really all the letters meant to either or them. Of that, Haytham had no doubt. His relationship with Jenny was damaged beyond all repair, not that they ever really were particularly close. Still, as his only living relative, he did care for her well-being regardless of their past. ...And then he thought of Holden for the first time since returning to the colonies. The wave of grief that overcame him was utterly crippling. Without another word, Haytham commented that he needed some air and vanished from the room.

dawdling – wasting time

altering the property – wearing a disguise

feasting on a diet of worms – dead and buried

brick house - A huge, hulking muscular sort of person