Cavanagh

Cavanagh (died 1862) was a director of the Metropolitan Railway of London, a member of the British Rite of the Templar Order during the Victorian era, and formerly a Corporal in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War.

Biography

Retreat from Kabul

In 1842, Cavanagh served as a Corporal in the British occupation and subsequent retreat from Kabul, under the command of Major-General William Elphinstone. Sensing the immediate danger and likelihood of death that would occur during the retreat, he convinced a Colonel he knew to be a member of the Templar Order, Walter Lavelle, that they would both be better off deserting the army and making their own way to Jalalabad around the Khord-Kabul Pass, where he knew the main assault on the army would occur.

After the first night of the march, Lavelle had seen enough evidence of the Afghans' intentions to kill them that he agreed to leave the group, with Cavanagh serving as his batman along with a Sikh sepoy. During the journey, the three men were faced with a small encampment of five Afghan hillmen and were forced to fight. Lavelle and the sepoy provided cover fire from behind a boulder as Cavanagh used the element of surprise to attack the tribesmen directly. When an errant shot allowed one the Afghans to get in an attack, Cavanagh walked away from the conflict with a permanent facial scar and a considerably low opinion of Lavelle's abilities.

Concealing themselves in the hillmen's clothes, the three deserters later stumbled upon a roaming settlement of one of Afghan leader Akbar Khan's warlords. Unable to simply flee, the disguised Cavanagh and Lavelle made their getaway when Cavanagh used his command of Pushtu to tell the Afghans that the sepoy was their prisoner, and the pair left him to die.

Joining the Templars

Years later, Cavanagh and Lavelle returned to England, where the latter nominated Cavanagh for membership in London's Travellers Club. Cavanagh would also be inducted into the Templar Order; shortly after, and possibly at his own recommendation, he killed Lavelle under the Order's direction.

By the 1860s, Cavanagh was involved in the construction of the world's first underground railway; a cover for his attempts to unearth an Apple of Eden with which he sought to usurp the position of Grand Master from Crawford Starrick.

Metropolitan Railway excavation

In 1862, after his subordinate, Marchant, alerted him that a body had been found on the construction site, Cavanagh arrived just as Police Constable Frederick Abberline was beginning his investigation. As Abberline showed him the body of Robert Waugh, Cavanagh told the officer that he didn't know the man, but Jayadeep Mir, who at the time was posing as a worker on the site by the name of Bharat Singh, saw that despite his talent for hiding his true feelings, Cavanagh was lying. Although Mary Pearson, the wife of Solicitor Charles Pearson, requested to delay the construction due to the death, Cavanagh insisted that they continue the work.

Later, Cavanagh and several hired thugs, accompanied by Jayadeep, went to Robert Waugh's home to conduct their own investigation of his murder. As they arrived, they found Abberline and his colleague, Aubrey Shaw, questioning Waugh's wife and attacked them. Jayadeep intervened and knocked out Abberline to prevent Cavanagh's men from killing him, but the thugs nonetheless kidnapped Mrs. Haugh and later hanged her. Cavanagh, pleased with Jayadeep's performance, took him under his wing and assigned Marchant to train him as both an accountant for the railway and a henchman for the Templars.

While Jayadeep began to ingratiate himself with Cavanagh, the Templar soon grew suspicious of the man's intentions and identity, especially following a meeting with private detective Leonard Hazlewood at the Travellers Club. Hazlewood, who was investigating an Indian man that had attacked a viscount in the Marylebone churchyard, mentioned his belief that the attacker was Cavanagh's employee, Bharat Singh. Cavanagh told Hazlewood that he would conduct his own investigation, and used his contacts in India to have the Indian Assassin Ajay captured and interrogated. Ajay eventually broke and, after being smuggled into London, met with Cavanagh to confirm his suspicions that Bharat was the Assassin Jayadeep Mir.

Now aware of Jayadeep's identity and mission, Cavanagh began devising a plan to deal with the Assassin. During this time, he continued facing problems from Abberline, who had also come to suspect "Bharat Singh" and began probing around the railway construction site. Despite Abberline being removed from the case due to the numerous complaints against him, Cavanagh decided to send a clear message to the constable by having his thugs beat Aubrey Shaw almost to death.

Death

Eventually, Cavanagh's plans to acquire the Apple of Eden buried under the railway construction site were undone when Charles Pearson unknowingly found the artifact. In a plan to simultaneously recover the Apple and deal with Jayadeep Mir, Cavanagh ordered the latter to kill Pearson, under the pretense of testing his loyalty to the Templars. Despite his reluctance, Jayadeep eventually told Cavanagh that he would assassinate Pearson with a blowpipe.

On 14 September 1862, during the official opening of the underground track and the inaugural trip along its rails, Cavanagh had his thugs capture Jayadeep and force him to watch as he stabbed Pearson to death to acquire the Apple. He then revealed his knowledge of the Assassin's true identity and mission, and that he had sent his men to kill Jayadeep's mentor, Ethan Frye, whom he knew to be in the audience. However, Jayadeep managed to free himself, and Ethan was saved by Abberline's intervention, forcing Cavanagh to flee into the railway tunnel with the Apple.

There, Cavanagh used the artifact to fight the two Assassins, until the Apple began to glow abnormally and became unstable, causing the tunnel around them to collapse. Jayadeep and Ethan decided to escape and abandon the Apple, while Cavanagh followed them and attempted to direct the Apple's power towards the pair. However, he was suddenly stabbed in the armpit by Marchant using the very knife used earlier to kill Pearson. As Cavanagh bled out, Marchant revealed that his execution had been ordered by Crawford Starrick, who was aware of Cavanagh's plans to overthrow him. With the tunnel collapsing, Marchant took the Apple and delivered it to the Order, leaving Cavanagh's body to be buried under the debris.

Behind the scenes

Cavanagh is a fictional character appearing in the 2015 novel Assassin's Creed: Underworld by Oliver Bowden, released as a tie-in to Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. His name is an Anglicised form of the Irish surname Caomhánach, meaning "descendant of Caomhán". It originated from Domhnall Caomhánach, a 12th-century King of Leinster.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Underworld

References

• Assassin's Creed: Underworld