At the same time I was getting an odd and not altogether pleasant feeling: that somewhere there existed an idea of what constituted "normal", and that we, the Kenway family, were not included in it.
***
And, apart from that, of course, I wanted a friend. Not a parent or nursemaid or tutor or mentor — I had plenty of those. Just a friend. And I hoped it would be Tom.
It never will be now, of course.
They bury him tomorrow.
***
I liked to play in the corridor nearby because it was so rarely visited, which meant I was never bothered by nursemaids, who would invariably tell me to get off the dirty floor before I wore a hole in my trousers; or by other well-meaning staff, who would engage me in polite conversation and oblige me to answer questions about my education or non-existent friends; or perhaps even by Mother or Father, who would tell me to get off the dirty floor before I wore a hole in my trousers and then force me to answer questions about my education or non-existent friends.
***
'I think perhaps I know what you’re looking for, Master Haytham.'
'What’s that, sir?'
'The way home?'
***
When I killed the man about to kill her, I changed in her eyes. I was no longer the boy who had sat on her knee.
I was a killer.
***
Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s my cock and balls they took off me, not my gumption.
Не то чтобы мне нравилась ситуация, но я искренне люблю сочетание английской вежливости в соседстве с какой-нибудь мерзостью.
***
He grasped the sword, looked up at me, and I thought I saw a softening in his eyes.
Then he plunged it into me.
***
We were two people who had experienced enough suffering and loss to last a dozen lifetimes. What could we possibly discuss in a letter?
Nothing. So nothing was what we discussed.
***
It is too late for me to feel paternal now. Whatever inside me that might once have been capable of nurturing my child had long since been corrupted or burned away. Years of betrayal and slaughter have seen to that.
***
Connor, that’s his name. That’s the name Ziio gave him. I wondered how different things might have been, had we brought him into this world together.
Would Connor still be his name?
Would he still have chosen the path of the Assassin?
And if the answer to that question was, No, he wouldn’t have chosen the path of an Assassin because his father was a Templar, then what did that make me but an abomination, an accident, a mongrel? A man with divided loyalties.
***
And, as I rode, I wondered what I was doing and realized I didn’t know. All I knew was how I felt, which was as though I had been asleep but suddenly was awake.
***
Around the sides of the square were horses and carts, on to which families clambered for a better view: craven-looking men, short women with pinched, worried faces, and grubby children. Sight-seers sat in the square while others milled around: women in groups who stood and gossiped, men swigging ale or wine from leather flasks. All of them here to see my son executed.
***
And what turmoil it was: I’d saved the life of my son but effectively sabotaged the work of my own Order — an operation that I myself had decreed. I was a traitor. I had betrayed my people.
***
The only difference, Connor — the only difference between me and those you aid — is that I do not feign affection.
***
What hope is there for us? Me, a Templar — a Templar forged in the crucible of treachery, but a Templar nevertheless — and him an Assassin, created by the butchery of the Templars.
***
Once upon a time, many years ago, I’d dreamed of one day uniting Assassin and Templar, but I was a younger and more idealistic man then. The world had yet to show me its true face. And its true face was unforgiving, cruel and pitiless, barbaric and brutal. There was no place in it for dreams.
***
My own path was paved with lies, my mistrust forged from treachery. But my own father never lied to me and, with this journal, I preserve that custom.
I present the truth, Connor, that you may do with it as you will.