We should have known better, should have thought it out more carefully. But at the end of it all, it did not matter that we were above our peers in strategic planning or skill. It did not matter that we were his favorite pupils, his most favored and prized. We would still be punished. And we were still human. We still err. And err we did.
Our first mistake was believing that we wouldn't be discovered. In the Brotherhood, the Master knows all. He has eyes everywhere. There are no secrets that can be kept from him. Somehow, we forgot this.
Maybe it was just that we shared one too many lingering looks. Perhaps someone had been woken by the sound of our heavy breaths late at night, the sound of saliva-slicked lips against flesh that not even the sun had touched. It could have been that we didn't wait until we were fully hidden in the privacy of the haystack before he grabbed my hips and pulled them to his own that one summer day that the heat had us dizzy and impatient with lust. We were too foolish to consider the consequences, too enamored by the other to think it through. Too in love to wait a moment longer.
"To be so attached to another is to be weak," our Master admonishes us as we kneel before his feet, our foreheads resting against the dusty floor of his study. The sun beats down on us from the window behind his desk, bleeding through the fabric of my cowl, and I question Al Mualim, my Master, for the first time in my life. To trust another with my life, my entire being, this makes me weak? I turn my head to look at my partner in punishment – for I still believe that we committed no crime – as I consider this.
Would I be half as strong as I am without him to goad me, to push me, to not fear me or be intimidated by me as all the others before him had been? Surely there could be no logic behind our Master's words. Is Al Mualim not human as well? Does this not mean that he can err as well, like the best and worst of us? Because I know that without my friend, my confidante, my Malik, I would not be who I am today. I would have no reason to strive for the world that Al Mualim has promised us for our struggles and hardships. If not for Malik, this fight would not be worth it. Does this devotion make me weak? Or does it make me even stronger than Al Mualim, who holds no attachments to another?
I raise my head. I raise my voice. Our Master does not listen. The dirt on my face and the blood on my lips, neither persuades any sympathy from him. Nothing grants us mercy from our punishment. (Malik stands with me, pulls my sash, urges me to "quiet down, don't make this worse, you novice," but how can I be quiet in the face of such injustice?)
Twenty lashes; something even a child could manage. The relief in our expressions must show, because Al Mualim chuckles under his breath at us in derision. "That is only the beginning…"
Without a word, our hands connect, palms pressed together, fingers linked behind our backs. Malik turns to me and whispers that it will all be fine. And I believe him. With all of my heart, I believe that we can survive any torture that Al Mualim could put us through.