Sometimes, Malik dreams of pomegranates and honey, the smell of hay and sandy stone, goat's milk, a slender brown hand taking a piece of lamb or a few almonds. Instead of the murmur of steel or creak of leather, there's the hum of women's voices, of girl's voices.
These chickens, they chant with the clapping of hands, how they are beautiful. They are walking around their mother happily, chant some more. They drank water and said: wow, yum, yum! They raised their heads and thanked God happily.
Do you remember that song? someone asks him.
Malik has the inclination he shakes his head in response. The sun, he thinks, is warmly baking his dark skin, and it will be hotter soon, but there is a breeze enough to cool any sweat.
You know it, the voice tells him. The one Ommy use to sing us.
Malik wakes and finds himself whispering the words of an old song, unable to recall exactly why. Tic, tic, tic, Sleiman's mother. Tic, tic, tic, where is your husband? Quietly, he searches Masyaf for nothing in particular, the scent of Syria still cluttering his nose. As usual, he finds similar life: Altaïr, sleepless, indulging in a hobby Malik never knew the man had a talent for. The Grand Master has some of the finest artistic sketches Malik knows, but even then, they can always use a cartographer's touch.
"Peace be upon you, brother," Altaïr says, glancing up. "Can't sleep?"
Malik smiles wryly, sits down as Altaïr returns the same smile. "I dreamed of home," says Malik like it's an after-thought, and then he adds, running his fingers idly through the flame of a candle, "I dreamed of someone else, too."
He already knows what they both think: Kadar. Altaïr doesn't say anything on it, continuing to scratch the slanted edge of the quill over the parchment in rough, cross-hatched lines. Malik says nothing on it either.
"I don't know if you do," begins Malik, and then he stops thoughtfully a moment, studies the intricate pistol-shaped outline on Altaïr's page as if the thing will impart some knowledge unto him. "Do you remember a rhyme the children in the village use to sing?"
Pausing, Altaïr lifts his eyes, lets them shine, small and quivering embers of a fire, expectant. Finally, he smiles crookedly, and Malik sighs.
"Tic, tic, tic," Malik whispers, trying to keep the grinding stone of discord and masculinity out of his voice, trying to make the song smooth, "Sleiman's mother. Tic, tic, tic, where is your husband?"
A whuff of amused air comes, an almost-laugh from Altaïr's chest. "Tic, tic, tic, he was in the fields," says Altaïr softly.
"Picking plums and pomegranates," Malik finishes, revelation on his face. He briefly takes the time to regard Altaïr skeptically, suspiciously, and the man allows him to do so without showing much sign of sheepishness. "Where did you learn that?" Malik asks.
All Altaïr says is, "Kadar taught me that song."