“Cudgel? Not his Christian name, I take it.”
“No,” Mr. Tweed said. “Quite the opposite of a Christian name, actually, with a christening I have no doubt would shock a priest. Deliver this letter to him.”
“Yes, sir. When?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Can you do it?”
“Of course, Mr. Tweed.”
“Capital man!” Mr. Tweed said. “And now I’ll be off and hope Mrs. Tweed isn’t too put out. I’d like to have a word with your daughter before I leave.”
“Of course, Mr. Tweed.”
Eliza didn’t know what Mr. Tweed could want with her, but she scrambled as quietly as she could from her eavesdropping spot and rushed to the front hall, walking as if she just happened to be passing through as the library door opened.
“Ah, Eliza,” Mr. Tweed said. “I was just telling your father I’d like a word with you.”
“Of course, Mr. Tweed,” Eliza said.
“At Tammany we’ve received word there might be trouble on the streets tomorrow. It’s why Misters Connolly and Hall and Sweeny were here tonight.”
“What kind of trouble?” Eliza asked.
“It’s Lincoln’s damnable draft,” Mr. Tweed said. “The first drawing of names is set for tomorrow. There will be protests, surely. But we fully expect they’ll turn violent. It’s best you stay off the streets beginning tomorrow morning.”
“As you wish, Mr. Tweed. But surely—”
“People of your countenance won’t be safe, Eliza.” Mr. Tweed looked hard into her eyes. “Anger is a hot coal, and when the people get angry, they need a place to lay it by. There are many who blame those of your race for the current situation. Please, heed me and stay off the streets. You will be safe in this house.”
Eliza bowed her head. “I will, Mr. Tweed.”
“I’m sorry to be so crude, but there it is.” He walked to the front door, and took his hat and cane from the rack near the entry. “You know I bear no ill will to any race or religion. I look at a man, and I see one thing. Do you know what that is?”
“What, sir?”
“A potential voter.” Mr. Tweed opened the front door. “If Congress saw fit to give the vote to dogs I’d lead the march against cats myself and chair the committee for flea eradication. Good night.”
Eliza had to wonder if Mr. Tweed believed it more likely that dogs would vote than blacks or women. “Good night, sir.”
Eliza’s father saw Mr. Tweed through the door and down to the street where he helped him squeeze into his carriage. After it had set off down the road, her father returned and handed Eliza the key to the house.
“Lock up behind me.”
“Father, don’t go.”
“Go?” Eliza’s father asked, and then looked at her sideways. “Were you listening in, again?”
“I couldn’t help it. I worry.”
“What about? Me?”
Eliza bowed her head. She had already lost her mother, and that wound could still open fresh and raw at times. She couldn’t imagine her life if she lost him, too.
“Eliza,” he said. “I survived weeks in the swamps hiding from bounty hunters. I traveled hundreds of miles, and I hid in attics and cellars for days without light or air or end in sight. I’ve seen horrors that you never will, but for the grace of God Almighty and a Union victory for President Lincoln.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “I believe I can safely cross town to deliver a letter, even to a pirate’s den like the Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“Be careful,” she said.
“I will. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. Lock the door, but wait up and listen for me when I come back. I don’t much like the idea of spending the night outside on the stoop.”
“Yes, Father.”
He left through the front door and nodded to her from the sidewalk, waiting for Eliza to shut the door and lock it with the key he’d given her. Once she’d done that, she went and finished cleaning up the dining room. She took the tablecloth to the laundry, and then she went to work polishing the silver Margaret’s scrubber had already washed, which was something she could do for her father.
Before long she had the house sorted, and would have ordinarily gone up to bed, as Margaret had. But Eliza had to wait up, and couldn’t have slept anyway until she knew her father was home. She decided to find a book in the library to read. Mr. Tweed had never specifically forbidden that, so she cautiously walked into the room and looked at the shelves, the scents of tobacco and leather all around her.
The volumes there were remarkably barren of anything interesting, but then, this wasn’t Mr. Tweed’s primary residence, or even a true residence at all. He had a bedroom furnished upstairs, but had never slept in it that Eliza knew.
She crossed the room to his desk, a vast slab of richly stained and polished wood, which bore a carved square cross at each of the corners. The expanse of the desk held a variety of items, including a sheaf of paper, likely the same paper on which Mr. Tweed had written the letter Eliza’s father had gone to deliver. She wondered what could possibly be so important that her father needed to deliver it that night, on the eve of an upheaval. What was worth putting him in danger?
She reached for the topmost sheet of paper, and looked at it closely. Mr. Tweed’s heavy hand had left a ghostly trail of his writing behind. But somehow, Eliza didn’t need to strain to see it, a peculiar ability she had at times. It was as though the message emitted a subtle radiance that she sensed as much as she saw, and what she read there chilled her.
Master Cormac,
It has come to the attention of the Order that an Assassin has infiltrated the City of New York. His name is Varius, and we know his purpose takes him to the Astor House this night. We do not know what he seeks there, but it must be something of tremendous worth to the Brotherhood for them to risk such an incursion at this volatile time. You must find the Assassin and stop him. Do not hesitate to kill him. I trust your particular discretion in the matter. Bring whatever he carries to my home on 36th Street tomorrow evening. I will come to you there when I can, but I must first be seen by the public meeting my obligations to the mayor and Aldermen.
Nothing can be allowed to disrupt our plans. Tomorrow the city will burn, sweeping away Opdyke and Governor Seymour. The city and the state will then belong to Tammany and the Order, and with New York as our fulcrum we will tip the balance of this war and take back the nation. You have your quarry. Hunt him down.
~ the Grand Master
Eliza stared at the letter, which seemed to burn in her trembling hands. She didn’t understand much of what it meant, but she knew it represented something of powerful and merciless intent, and that Mr. Tweed was not what he seemed. This letter went beyond politics and votes to something far larger and more dangerous, and she knew it meant destruction for the city and even beyond if it reached its destination. It was a letter her father must not deliver.
But over Eliza’s shoulder, Grace thought she knew what the letter meant. The mention of the Astor House and something of tremendous worth had to mean the Piece of Eden. This was what they had come into the Animus searching for. Grace fought the desynchronizing impulse to take control back from Eliza and do what she had come to do. But Grace didn’t have to struggle long, for a moment later, Eliza rose from the desk and rushed out into the main hall.
She doubted she would catch her father in time, but she had to try. She took a scarf from the hat rack to cover her hair, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the night.
Javier knew it was a different kind of night at the Hole-in-the-Wall, with work to be done before dawn. So far the noses had all come back reporting the city pigs, beaks, and bandogs were none the wiser for the hellfire sure to rain down on them the morrow. The ward bosses all knew something was afoot, but they also knew they were to look the other way. Tweed had made sure of that.
“Cudgel,” Gallus Mag whispered right into his ear. “
You baptizing that liquor?”
“I am,” Cudgel said.
“Why water it down? We running low?”
“No. But we need everyone’s wits about them come morning. Won’t do us any good if they’re all still half-hockey and sleeping it off.”
Gallus Mag leaned away, nodding, and then strode off. She was as tall as Cudgel, and wore trousers with suspenders to hold them up, a pistol, and a sock full of wet sand hanging from her belt in case she needed to knock anyone about. But she wouldn’t need that weapon tonight.
All day long, coves had come and gone with messages under the white flag of truce. Here and elsewhere in the city, the leaders of the gangs coordinated the next day’s mayhem. The Bowery Boys, the Roach Guards, the Daybreak Boys, and the lesser ones, they’d all put aside their enmity for the chance to win a far bigger prize. If successful at their enterprise, they would soon own the whole damn city, to be carved up and portioned out after the kill.
A customer slapped his three cents on the counter and nodded toward the barrel up on the shelf behind the bar. “No glass,” he said.
Cudgel nodded and offered him the end of the rubber hose. After the man had taken it between his teeth and given the nod, Cudgel turned the valve on the barrel, dispensing the cheapest blue ruin the Hole-in-the-Wall had to offer. Then he watched as the man sucked and swallowed and sucked until he had to stop to take a breath, and Cudgel cut off the supply. He’d learned to spot the wide-eyed, red-faced look of a man about to gasp, and he could turn the valve at just the right moment to avoid spilling a drop.
The man wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and teetered. Cudgel didn’t know him, and didn’t expect he’d be much use the next day, drunk or not.
“Have another?” Cudgel asked. “Got the brass?”
The man shook his head. “That’ll fix me.”
Cudgel nodded and pulled the hose back, coiling it next to Gallus Mag’s jar of pickled human ears. Some she’d ripped off, some she’d sliced off, but most she’d just done with her teeth, and they sat there in that jar on the shelf as a trophy and a warning to anyone thinking of causing mischief in her place. Sadie the Goat had run afoul of Gallus Mag and left the evidence of that brawl behind. Somewhere in that ruddy brew was the ear of a man who’d simply asked Mag her age.
A few more riverfront blokes walked in, and Cudgel gave them a nod to the rear of the place where assignments were being handed out. The key to victory would be simultaneous attacks. With the city’s regiments still away in Pennsylvania, the only force remaining was the Metropolitan Police, and their numbers could be quickly overwhelmed if divided by multiplied points of assault.
A brash old black man then walked through the door, wearing a servant’s overcoat. Some in the saloon took note of him, and Gallus Mag moved to intervene if necessary. The man, white-haired and a little bent in the back, confidently scanned the room and then walked over to the bar.
Behind the line of Cudgel’s mind, Javier recognized him from the Memory Corridor as David’s ancestor, and wondered if David also recognized him, but didn’t want to risk desynchronization by saying something in the crowded bar.
“I’m looking for Cudgel Cormac,” the servant said.
“Who are you?” Cudgel asked.
“My name is Abraham,” the man said. “I work for Mr. William Tweed.”
Cudgel hadn’t seen the Grand Master in person for weeks. It was too risky to the plan. Tweed and Tammany had to be in a position to end the riots, not be seen as their agitator, if the scheme were to work.
“I’m Cudgel Cormac,” he said.
Abraham pulled a letter out of an inner pocket of his benjamin. “Mr. Tweed asked me to deliver this to you.”
Cudgel accepted the letter, and Abraham turned to leave. “Wait,” Cudgel said, “until I’ve read it.” There were often orders having to do with the messenger.
Abraham nodded and stood at the bar.
Cudgel broke the envelope’s wax seal, imprinted with the Templar cross, and pulled out the letter. As he read it, the pounding of his blood swelled in his ears, a drumbeat calling him to war.
His grandfather, Shay Patrick Cormac, had been a formidable Assassin hunter, and this night Cudgel was called to walk that path and honor that legacy. Varius would submit to the Templar Order or die by Cudgel’s hand.
“Will that be all, sir?” Abraham asked.
Cudgel held up the letter. “Mr. Tweed trusts you.”
“I try to be worthy of that trust.”
“Good,” Cudgel said. “In return, I mean to make sure you have safe passage home.”
“I can make my own way,” Abraham said.
“I’m sure of it,” Cudgel said. “But that doesn’t change my mind.” He cupped a palm to his mouth. “Gallus Mag!”
“What is it?” she called back from across the room.
“Boss wants me,” Cudgel said.
She nodded toward the door. “Go on with you, then.”
Cudgel removed his apron and came out from around the bar. “Wait here.”
Abraham nodded, and Cudgel went down to the saloon’s cellar to equip himself. First, he strapped on a few pieces of rigid hide armor, one around his neck, and the others across his back and chest. Then he pulled on his long leather coat, and belted on several knives, knuckledusters, and a pistol. He took his Herschel spyglass, and then he slung his air rifle over his shoulder, along with its bandolier of darts and grenades. The rifle was an ingenious weapon that had come down to Cudgel from his grandfather, given to him by Benjamin Franklin, and he carried it with pride.
Javier appreciated being in a younger body this time. Chimalpopoca had carried the aches of his old age, which had been a strange experience. His attraction to that translator, Marina, had likewise been strange. Cudgel liked women, too, but the only thing that ached for him were the many injuries he’d sustained training and brawling.
Back upstairs, his armed appearance seemed to startle Abraham for a moment as Cudgel stalked past him and said, “Let’s go.”
He led Abraham from the saloon out into the streets. Gang runners marched and hustled up and down the sidewalks, some of them pushing wheelbarrows full of brickbats and paving stones down the road, arming up for the battle. Cudgel walked Abraham a block west on Dover to Pearl Street, and there he saw Skinny Joe with his wagon and whistled him over.
“I want you to see this man home,” Cudgel said.
Skinny Joe stared at Abraham. “Him?”
“He’s Boss Tweed’s man,” Cudgel said. “You got a problem?”
“Sir, I truly can make my own way,” Abraham said, but Cudgel ignored him.
Skinny Joe shrugged. “No problem. If he’s the Boss’s man.”
“Good.” Cudgel opposed slavery, and had nothing against the black residents of the city himself. They weren’t the problem. But he knew it’d be a devil’s day for them tomorrow. The Grand Master opposed slavery, as well. He said it was an unsustainable system that stifled progress. But he was willing to use the question of abolition to drive a wedge deep into the country to split it open so it could be put back together in the right way. “Take him wherever he wants to go,” Cudgel ordered Skinny Joe. “See he gets there unharmed.”
Abraham climbed up into the wagon, and Skinny Joe flicked his horses onward up Pearl Street. After they’d rounded the bend and passed out of sight, Cudgel turned to the rest of his task.
The Astor House was half a mile and a world away from the Hole-in-the-Wall. It was a place where the women sparked with jewels like an ironworks, and the men drank from crystal instead of a rubber hose. Cudgel had once glimpsed the menu for the gentlemen’s ordinary, a six-course feast of soup, fish, boiled roast, entree, pastry, and dessert, served nightly in a room lined with marble pillars and white tables. It existed unperturbed by the denizens of the Fourth Ward because Tweed needed the money of the rich just as he needed the muscle of the gangs. Order kept the city in balance.
But sometimes a correction w
as needed.
From Pearl Street, Cudgel followed Frankfort west, past Tammany Hall, until he reached City Hall Park and the tracks of the Harlem Railroad. Part of the strategy for the next day involved tearing up the railways at strategic points to prevent the rapid transit of patrolmen or weapons. That, and the cutting of the telegraph lines, would give the mob all the advantage it needed to take the island.
Cudgel could see Astor House rising up over the trees like a white fortress near the southern tip of the park, where Park Row met Broadway, the spire of St. Paul’s Chapel just south of it. Here, he decided to employ the stealth training he’d received from his grandfather and father, and went up, scaling the nearest wall using cracks and ledges and drainpipes, until he reached the roof. Such running was a traditional Assassin skill, but the Cormacs had long used the Brotherhood’s tactics against them.
Cudgel then crossed Spruce and then Beekman, leaping along the rooftops, skirting chimneys and skimming peaks, scattering surprised birds from their roosts, the city below him, the night sky above him. When he reached Ann Street and Broadway, directly across from the chapel and the hotel, he paused and took a sentry position to watch the ground below.
Varius wouldn’t use the hotel’s front entrance any more than Cudgel would, so he kept his eye on the windows and the roof, but after waiting and watching for an hour, he saw no sign of the Assassin.
Cudgel decided he needed a different, better vantage, so he descended to the street, crossed Broadway, and passed by the four columns at the front of St. Paul’s Chapel. He then scaled the church using the quoining at the southwest corner, and climbed the clock tower to its pinnacle, just as an Assassin might do.
At one time, this church spire was the highest point on the island. But now there were other churches visible in the distance, St. Mark’s and Trinity, stabbing upward through the flesh of the city like knives.
Cudgel now had a commanding view of Astor House, and more time passed without sign of the Assassin, and though the night deepened, the city stayed awake, quivering in anticipation.
Then Cudgel saw him. He came from the west, over Church Street, and scaled the hotel with ease. He was out of range for the air rifle, so Cudgel simply watched him for several moments, not wanting to move and give away his location, instead smirking and reveling in the advantage he enjoyed. Varius wore the long frock coat of a Bowery Boy, though he’d left the beaver top hat behind. It made sense he’d be a Bowery Boy, as they’d thrown their allegiance behind the Republicans, against Tammany and the Templars.