‘Abbas has his price, it seems,’ he said now. He looked sideways at the stranger, who lay on his back, his wounds healing nicely, growing stronger by the day. ‘Master Altair would have died rather than allow such a thing,’ he said.
He leaned forward, watching the figure in the bed very carefully. ‘The Master, Altair Ibn-La’Ahad.’
For the first time since he had been brought to Mukhlis’s home the stranger’s eyes flicked open.
It was the reaction he’d hoped for, but even so Mukhlis was taken aback, watching as the patient’s cloudy eyes slowly regained their light.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ whispered Mukhlis, as the stranger blinked, then turned his gaze on him. ‘You are him, aren’t you? You’re Altair.’
Altair nodded. Tears pricked Mukhlis’s eyes and he dropped from his seat to the stone floor, grasping one of Altair’s hands in both of his own.
‘You’ve come back to us,’ he said, between sobs. ‘You’ve come to save us.’ There was a pause. ‘ Have you come to save us?’
‘Do you need saving?’ said Altair.
‘We do. Was it your intention to come to Masyaf when we met?’
Altair thought. ‘When I left Alamut it was inevitable I would find myself here. The only question was when.’
‘You were in Alamut?’
‘These past twenty years or so.’
‘They said you were dead. That the morning Maria died you threw yourself from the citadel tower.’
‘I did throw myself off the citadel tower,’ Altair smiled grimly, ‘but I lived. I made it to the river outside the village. By chance Darim was there. He was returning from Alamut, where he had found Sef’s wife and children. He retrieved me and took me to them.’
‘They said you were dead,’ said Mukhlis again.
‘They?’
Mukhlis waved a hand that was meant to indicate the citadel. ‘The Assassins.’
‘It suited them to say so, but they knew I was not.’
He disentangled his hand from Mukhlis’s grasp, pulled himself to a sitting position and swung his legs out of the bed. He looked at his feet, at their wrinkled old skin. Every inch of his body sang with pain but he felt… better. His robe had been washed and replaced on him. He pulled his hood over his head, liking the feel of it and breathing in the scent of the clean cloth.
He put his hands to his face and felt that his beard had been tended. Not far away were his boots, and on a table by the side of the bed he saw his blade mechanism, its new design gleaned from the Apple. It looked impossibly advanced, and he thought of the other designs he had discovered. He needed the assistance of a blacksmith to make the objects. But first…
‘My pack?’ he asked of Mukhlis, who had scrambled to his feet. ‘Where is my pack?’
Wordlessly, Mukhlis indicated where it sat on the stone at the head of the bed and Altair glanced at its familiar shape. ‘Did you look inside?’ he asked.
Mukhlis shook his head firmly and Altair looked at him searchingly. Then, believing him, he relaxed and reached for his boots, pulling them on, wincing as he did so.
‘I have you to thank for tending me,’ he said. ‘I would be dead by the waterhole were it not for you.’
Scoffing, Mukhlis retook his seat. ‘My wife and daughter cared for you, and I must thank you. You saved me from a grisly death at the hands of those bandits.’ He leaned forward. ‘Your actions were those of the Altair Ibn-La’Ahad of legend. I’ve told everyone.’
‘People know I’m here?’
Mukhlis spread his hands. ‘Of course. The whole village knows the tale of the hero who delivered me from the hands of death. Everybody believes it was you.’
‘And what makes them think that?’ asked Altair.
Mukhlis said nothing. Instead he indicated with his chin the low table where Altair’s blade mechanism shone dully, wicked and oiled.
Altair considered. ‘You told them about the blade?’
Mukhlis thought. ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘of course. Why?’
‘Word will reach the citadel. They will come looking for me.’
‘They will not be the only ones,’ said Mukhlis, ruefully.
‘What do you mean?’
‘A messenger from the father of the man you killed visited the fortress earlier.’
‘And who was the man I killed?’
‘A vicious cutthroat called Bayhas.’
‘And his father?’
‘Fahad, leader of a band of brigands who roam the desert. It’s said they are camped two or three days’ ride away. It’s from there the envoy came. They say he was asking the Master’s blessing to come to the village and hunt the killer.’
‘The Master?’ said Altair, sharply. ‘Abbas?’
Mukhlis nodded. ‘A reward was offered for the killer, but the villagers spurned it. Abbas has perhaps not been so steadfast.’
‘Then the people are of good heart,’ said Altair, ‘and their leader is not.’
‘Truer words rarely spoken,’ agreed Mukhlis. ‘He takes our money and gives us nothing in return, where once the citadel was the heart of the community from which came strength, guidance…’
‘And protection,’ said Altair, with a half-smile.
‘That too,’ acknowledged Mukhlis. ‘All those things left with you, Altair, to be replaced by… corruption and paranoia. They say that Abbas was forced to quell an uprising after you left, a rebellion of Assassins loyal to you and Malik; that he had the ringleaders put to death; that he fears a repeat of the insurrection. His paranoia makes him stay in his tower day and night, imagining plots and putting to death those he thinks responsible. The tenets of the Order are crumbling around him just as surely as the fortress itself falls into disrepair. They say he has a recurring dream. That one day Altair Ibn-La’Ahad returns from exile in Alamut with…’ he paused, looking at Altair askance and casting a glance at the pack ‘… an artefact capable of defeating him… Is there such a thing? Do you plan an attack?’
‘Even if there was, it is not an artefact that will defeat Abbas. It is belief – belief in ourselves and in the Creed – that will accomplish that.’
‘Whose faith, Altair?’
Altair waved an arm. ‘Yours. That of the people and of the Assassins.’
‘And how will you restore it?’ asked Mukhlis.
‘By example,’ replied Altair, ‘a little at a time.’
The next day Altair went out into the village where he began not simply to preach the way of the Assassins but to demonstrate it.
56
There had been fights in which Altair had had to intervene, disputes between traders that had required his moderation, land arguments between neighbours, but none had been as thorny as that of the two women who appeared to be fighting over a man. The man in question, Aaron, sat on a bench in the shade, cowering as the two women argued. Mukhlis, who had walked the village with Altair as he went about his business, was trying to intercede, while Altair stood at one remove, his arms folded, patiently waiting for a break in hostilities so that he might speak to them. He’d already decided what to say: Aaron would have to exercise free will in this instance, whether he liked it or not. Altair’s real concerns lay with the boy, whose fever had yet to break and to whom he had administered a potion, its recipe, of course, gleaned from the Apple.
Or with the basket weaver who was creating new tools for himself to specifications given to him by Altair, who had transcribed them from the Apple.
Or to the blacksmith, who had cast his eye over the drawings Altair had given him, turned them upside down and squinted at them, then laid them out on a table so that Altair could point out exactly what needed forging. Soon the Assassin would have new equipment; new weapons, the like of which had never been seen.