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Chapter Text

Haytham stared at Reginald. “Why on earth is he dead?” He hissed. “I told you to keep him alive!”

“Calm down Haytham,” Reginald snapped. “I tried but some mercenaries snuck through the back— I saw them ride away only after he was already dead.”

He supposed that was possible, but why would someone care enough about a decade-old murder to hire mercenaries? There was something more to this, he knew it.

“Then I will go to the military camp nearby— they would’ve surely seen something.” He studied Reginald’s face as he spoke for any sign of unease. He found none.

“We can only hope, Haytham— you know I also want to find out who murdered your father.”

“And who kidnapped Jenny.”

”Of course!” Reginald stepped closer towards him. “But it has been a decade Haytham— chances are that she’s dead.”

“I know.” He said coldly. He and Jenny may have never gotten along but she was family.

Reginald nodded, but Haytham didn't miss the flash of annoyance on his face. “Then I take my leave of you. Do update me on your progress.”

“Of course.”

He left, and Haytham was left standing in the room with the corpse.

Great. He decided it was too much of a bother to try to bury it.

He left. “At least you’re still here,” he said to his horse, scratching her head. “Now we’ve got to go to Braddock’s camp though.” Maybe it was him projecting, but he thought she looked put out.

“Me too, me too.”

——————————

It turned out that Braddock was just as irritating as he remembered, and as unhelpful.

“A group of mercenaries on horseback?”

“Yes.” He said through gritted teeth. “Have you seen any?”

“No.” Braddock smirked, then laughed. “Looks like your trail’s gone cold. Again.”

“It seems so.” Haytham agreed politely, then left before he did something stupid— like punching him.

Just why did Braddock have to be so irritating?

As he left the tent though, a soldier caught his eye. He was sitting with his carbine and was obviously supposed to be cleaning it, judging by the rags next to him, though he had abandoned this in favour of staring intently at him. Once he saw he had been spotted, he gestured discreetly at him to approach.

“What is it?” He asked irritably. Dealing with Braddock tended to do that to him.

The soldier got up. “I’ll escort you out.” He said loudly, then quieter, “I’ll tell you whilst we walk.”

Did he have information? Was it a trap? It was worth taking the risk.

He hesitated then nodded. “Thank you— I might’ve gotten lost.” He said in a deadpan.

He saw the soldier smirk. “We wouldn’t want that to happen now do we?”

They started walking in silence together and, as soon as they were out of Braddock’s earshot, the soldier started whispering. “I heard you are looking for some mercenaries?”

Haytham looked at him but he was staring straight ahead with an unreadable expression.

“Yes, I am—”

“Were they on horseback?”

Haytham faltered. How did he know?

“Only because—” he stopped as they reached the gate. Then loudly again, “Do you require an escort back to your lodgings? This area can be quite rough.”

“Why thank you, if it wouldn’t be a bother.” Haytham replied, equally as loud, in the tone of an aristocrat used to an escort. Thank God he was dressed as one.

“Not at all. It’s my duty to protect civilians.”

Haytham nearly lost his composure at this. He knew nearly everyone who was enlisted in the army was in it for money. He looked over at his companion and made eye contact. The man had an excellent poker face, but it only held for a few seconds before he started laughing.

Haytham joined in. It had been ages since he could laugh freely.

“Who are you?” He asked, curiously.

“I’m Jim Holden— just a soldier but I’ve… heard things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well,” he looked around surreptitiously even though there was nobody around. Haytham approved. You never knew just who could be listening. “you’re here because of an attack a few hours ago, right? Well a couple of hours before you arrived I saw General Braddock talking to some soldiers. When he finished they left the camp on horseback— they arrived back here just before you did.”

“Why would he lie about something like this?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I saw his face when you came in— he looked scared. I think he’s hiding something from you.”

“Why would you tell me then? He’s your commanding officer— isn’t he?”

Jim stopped. “Yes, he’s my commanding officer.” He said firmly. “But he’s been acting erratic. He’s been slaughtering civilians, he’s more willing to sacrifice soldiers’ lives— he has to be stopped. Everyone’s too intimidated to say anything because the people who do end up missing. For some reason I think you could help stop him.”

“Jim— I can call you Jim?— I think I can help you.”

Jim grinned. “Y’know, I think we’re going to get along great.”

Chapter Text

It turned out that a surprising number of soldiers under Braddock wanted him dead, which really made things easier for him. However there were some complications.

“Yeah,” a soldier told him, in the rooms he had booked in a discrete, out-of-the-way inn. “I s’pose that if you wanted to know why he was lying to you you’d have to find his journal— and he goes everywhere with it.”

“So I’ll have to steal it.” He paused, and a thought occurred to him. “Does he really take it everywhere?”

“Whenever he goes out to drink, or he’s inspecting the troops.” The soldier confirmed.”

“But he doesn’t take it with him to mealtimes, or when he strategises with the others?”

“No I don’t think so— at least I’ve never seen it with him at mealtimes. But I guess he might do.”

Well, if he didn’t that would be a good opportunity to get it. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem— someone’s got to stop that maniac. I’ve lost friends to him.”

“I’ll make sure he is.”

The soldier nodded and left the rooms. Haytham took a deep breath. Was he really about to do this? Kill a fellow Templar? Then he remembered what Jim told him through whispers, about the crimes he had committed and he felt his resolve harden. Templar or not, Braddock had to die.

But how?

—————————————

He sat for an hour trying to come up with a plan before he gave up. He just didn’t have enough information, and he not only had to kill him, but he had to steal his journal as well. Perhaps Jim knew what he needed to know.

He found Jim playing pool. “You winning?” He asked out of curiosity.

Jim looked up at him. “Unfortunately not. You come to save me from making a fool out of myself?”

“Something like that. I can come back later if you want.” He offered. They still had time before Braddock group moved on, about a month by Jim’s reckoning.

“No, it’s fine— we weren’t betting on anything.”

“Just pride?” He asked.

Jim laughed and turned to his friends. “You don’t mind if I leave, do you gentlemen?”

One of the men replied without even looking up, “‘Course not Holden.”

They left and went upstairs. Haytham closed the door behind them before he turned to Jim. “There’s a slight problem.”

“Slight? What’s the problem?”

Haytham hesitated. How could he put this? “I don’t have enough information to make a plan— ideally I’d have his routine, any meetings of his, his habits…” he trailed off.

Jim finished his sentence for him. “But you have none of those.” He said tiredly.

Haytham shook his head. “I could always improvise— but chances are it’ll take longer and I’m more likely to be spotted too.”

Jim straightened. “But what if we could guarantee that you won’t be?”

“Got any ideas how?”

“Well, we could invent an emergency— something that absolutely requires his presence. Then you can sneak in and just… steal his journal.” He saw him perk up. It definitely sounded doable.

Haytham paused. That could actually work. He’d have to be quick though, and— “That doesn’t solve the problem of killing him.”

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it— he might not have written everything down in his journal, so you might still need him alive.” He pointed out. “And besides, we don’t need him dead immediately— just soon. That way we both win— you get what you want and we get what we want.’

Haytham thought it through.“When do you want to begin?”

Jim looked at him with a determined look on his face, and Haytham suddenly felt a lot more confident. He wasn’t surrounded by idiots— these were trained men— admittedly not up to Templar standards, but trained nonetheless. It was very likely that they would succeed. “Now.”

“Now?” He asked, surprised. That was faster than he expected.

“Well, not now— I still need to organise with the others— but tomorrow. That way we can act before he suspects anything.”

That was a good way of thinking. “Should I find you when it’s time?”

Jim gave him an amused look. “Just hang around the camp. I think you’ll know the signal when you see it.”

Haytham thought he had better— he couldn’t image if it went wrong just because he had somehow missed a signal.

Chapter Text

The next morning Haytham was loitering by the north entrance to the camp, carefully positioned just out of view of the guards. He had woken up outrageously early— before the sun even a thought on the horizon— in order to get to his position during shift change, when he was less likely to be spotted.

He had tried to get a good night’s sleep but he was pretty sure he only got a couple of hours, given how terrible he was feeling. It was probably, he admitted to himself, a good thing that he was used to running missions with no sleep at all or else this mission was over before it even began.

As it was, he managed to push past the tiredness to watch the camp carefully for any signals. There were none. Minutes passed by slowly and Haytham remembered why he preferred to be in the action— he did not deal well with boredom.

The minutes passed even slower and by the time the sun had properly risen he had resorted to practicing his Welsh to pass the time. Not that he didn't like speaking Welsh— it was just that he once he realised he didn't know a word, he needed to find out. And Welsh dictionaries were hard to come by in Germany. The game went something like this: every time he had a thought it had to be in Welsh. If he forgot a word then it was a point against him.It was very boring, but at least it let him keep his Welsh. His father had imparted a pride for the country and language in him that he hadn’t been able to shake, and this made him feel closer to the man who had been killed when he was a child.

When he had accrued so many points he was ashamed to call himself Welsh, he heard church bells ringing and, with a fervour usually reserved for dying men, counted the tolls. He knew that Jim was likely to be too busy in the morning so the signal would be closer to noon, and he didn’t have a pocket watch.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Half and hour. It had only been half an hour. He felt like he was going insane. He prayed that Jim would hurry up.

————————————

Whilst Haytham was busy pacing, Jim and his conspirators were preparing the signal. It was pretty important that this part went perfectly, because the plan was committing arson in a cramped, busy camp. No pressure, then.

They were outside the camp as well, but east, not north, and just out of sight of any…less sympathetic soldiers who would raise the alarm. They had a short window of time to act when Braddock went for his morning walk but there was a problem.

The plan was originally to commandeer one of the barrels of gunpowder they had in the camp and rig it to explode the blind spot and use it as a smokescreen for the attack, but they found out that the usual drunken guards had been replaced by those loyal to Braddock— it could be nothing, but he could also be on to them.

“We need to hurry,” Jim snapped. “We have maybe twenty minutes before Braddock comes and our only plan has gone to shit!”

“We could jump him ourselves,” said John. “But how do we get a signal to Kenway?”

“We could burn something?” Suggested Tommy.
“I mean, it would be easy ‘nough to pass off as an accident.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” Jim asked desperately.

“Well, get a bottle of wine, or some sort of drink, splash it on a tent or a piece of cloth, light it with a match and there you go! Nice and quick fire.”

“Will it burn well enough to get his attention?”

“Should do.”

That was better than nothing. But still there was a problem. “What do we burn then? Should one of us go find some deserter’s tent and rob it?”

“I have some rum— enough to light. And a lighter.”

“Then we just need the tent.”

Tommy looked like he was going to respond but his eyes widened as he looked behind him and Jim half-turned and saw Braddock at the end of the road and rapidly approaching, looking furious and like he was going to say something, and reacted instinctively. He took off his coat and doused it quickly in Tommy’s rum, who then whipped his lighter out and touched it to the coat. To say it set alight quickly would’ve been an understatement. Before they could blink it was sending up a fairly thick trail of white smoke —Jim thanked the stars that it was a clear day— and threw it at Braddock, who coughed, stunned.

Next to him, Tommy drew his gun and fired, but the smoke must’ve gotten into his eyes because they were red and he missed. But Braddock had recovered by then and drawn his own so Jim unsheathed his sword and swung, but Braddock managed to dodge and fire back and Jim felt a familiar stabbing pain in his shoulder and the shock made him drop his sword. Damn. He really didn’t want to die— he hadn’t even made it out of his twenties— but he straightened faced Braddock and—

————————————

Luckily for him, Haytham had seen the signal or, more accurately, he had been pacing up and down the road and when he saw the smoke he had stopped to consider whether or not it was the signal. On one hand, there wasn’t a very high likelihood that someone had decided to start a campfire right next to an army camp. On the other hand, it was… kind of small for a signal. That was when he had heard gunshots and any doubts he had went out the window.

He had managed to make it just in time to see Braddock disarm Jim and before he could kill him, Haytham fired and he saw him fall. Jim and his friends , turned to him.

“Thank God you came!” One of them said. “We were done for.”

“We’ll still be done for if we don’t get out of here,” Haytham warned. “They must have heard us at the camp. I’d advise you to lie low for a time.”

“Thanks for the warning.” said a different one. Then he took his arm and shook it. “You don’t know how much you’ve helped us.”

Jim nodded. “I owe you one— anything you need..”

“We owe you one.” Emphasised—Tommy?— “Like Jim said if there’s anything we can do let us know.”

Haytham was oddly touched. “I will.”

He watched them head down the road towards the forest where all this started, and turned back. Up ahead he could see a group of soldiers approaching. He looked and saw them light up in a bright red light. He sighed. He had almost thought he could relax.