A/N This chapter contains scenes of violence and trauma. The subject matter is rape and although the assault itself is not described the fall out is. Please don't read this chapter if you are sensitive or vulnerable. For the first time ever I cried while I wrote this :(
With one deft imperceptible flick of his wrist he releases his blade from its hiding spot; the only sound to accompany this mechanical beauty is a low snick. His index finger runs along the edge of the blade unafraid of her sting – he knows her – every tiny nick in the metal and scratch on her polished surface. Her sting is reserved for others, for men he deems worthy of death. Once, not long ago but what may as well have been in a previous lifetime another gave him the names of those condemned to death. No longer did he have that comfort, the luxury of blindly following orders. He was the master now and any blood which flowed would stain either his blade or his conscience.
The light from the window catches his eye and momentarily takes his attention from the cold steel. Wincing he pulls his hand from the blade and smiles before raising the bleeding finger to his lips and letting the metallic taste of blood fill his mouth. He had allowed himself to become distracted for a second and she nipped him to remind him that even the slightest lapse could be deadly to men like him. He had been slacking lately, distracted, but no more. The Templars and their lackeys would once again enjoy his undivided attention.
Drawing himself to his full height he stretched his arm behind him, his short blade like the others had been freshly sharpened and was ready. Tugging at the white hood of his master assassin robes he pulled it over his hair, his head moved from side to side as though embracing an old friend. The Englishmen had left at first light and he was now ready to depart, his destination the same as theirs.
Her neck cracked when she lifted her head from the cushions and squinting around from her unusual perspective it took her a few seconds to find her bearings before the events of the previous night flooded into her mind, every bit as sharp and unwelcome as the daylight now stinging her tired eyes. Raising an impatient hand to her face she swiped at the wild tuft of hair which had come loose and was covering her face. When she tried to rise from the cushions she found her legs tangled in the fabric of the dress she had fallen asleep in. The usual shouts and howls were coming from the training ring but this time she made no move toward the window, she had no interest in watching them today.
She dressed with more care than usual and spent extra time ensuring her hair was securely fastened in the neat bun at the back of her head. Moving to the window she smirked, 'If they objected to me before just wait until they see me now!' With an entirely malicious grin on her face she made her way out of her room and down to the study, it was time to put Masyaf behind her and she was eager to begin the journey.
Tahir chewed his lip and looked from the boy to the dog, "I don't know..."
Rashid clasped his hands in front of his chest, "I can do this please trust me brother. Not so long ago I was the most promising novice in the order and I made a mistake but I am still that same capable person."
Kaderi stood anxiously at her master's side seeming to understand there was tension but unsure of its nature. She watched the boy with obvious distrust. "She doesn't like you Rashid."
"How can she not like me, she's a dog!" Dropping to his knees beside her he rubbed her neck, Kaderi grudgingly accepted this affection. "I'm reduced to seeking approval from a beast Tahir and still I do it happily. Whatever I have to do to redeem myself to my brothers I will do."
Tahir flicked his head in the direction of the men around the ring. "You think caring for my dog while I'm away will change how any of them feel about you?"
"No Tahir I hope it will change how you feel. If I have to go among you one by one doing small things then I will."
The two other boys stood at their usual position beside the wall, looking bored. "Rauf would not suffer her causing any disruptions at the ring."
"She won't cause any. I will rise early and take her for a run in the fields then let her rest in the shade of the wall while I wait on my brothers. Before dinner she will have another run and she can sleep beside my bed." He saw Tahir cave, just a little. "Please Tahir you need someone to take care of her and I will do it and do it well."
He lowered himself to her level and said, "Walk over there and call her if she comes to you then she can stay with you."
Tahir stroked the thick hair on her neck while he waited for the boy to get far enough away. "I won't be gone long and when I come back we will be given a small house to live in, me, Gwen and you."
"Kaderi come here girl." He clapped his hands and repeated the call but she stayed beside her master, even if she did wag her tail. Rashid decided to add excitement to his tone and tried again but the dog looked at Tahir with a blank expression.
"I give up; I'm beneath even the dogs now." Throwing his hands in the air he slumped to the ground. Kaderi sniffed the air and moved toward him nudging his head with his snout. "Oh, you pity me do you?" Wagging her tail she seemed to confirm his words.
"I think she has decided to give you a chance but Rashid if you tire of her care take her to the healers assistant Nijma she had agreed to care for her in my absence." Rashid nodded and let the dog shove her nose in his robes, "I will speak with her and ask her to keep an eye on you both."
Altaïr was in the main hall with Malik when Maria made it to the ground floor and her appearance the morning after the banquet was no less eye catching. Fully decked out in her Templar uniform she descended with her head high and her expression proud. The guards on either side of her turned their heads to her – she heard a tongue click and she smiled.
"Malik let me once again thank you for your welcome and your friendship. Should you ever find yourself in Acre please seek me out and I will happily return the kindness."
"I am a sad to see you leave Maria you added colour to our daily routine."
Offering him her hand she waited for him to take it before addressing herself to Altaïr, "I'll be outside I'm going to see Rauf before I leave."
Once she was out of earshot Altaïr continued with his instructions, "Tell Jabal to put his best man on Stephen, I don't want him having even an inkling that he is being watched."
"You really think he is going to take his father's side?"
"I am unsure Malik but I do know how difficult it is to stand against the man you hold above all others and I want to be informed if Maria's friend falters."
Malik nodded, "I will dispatch a bird immediately with your instructions."
Altaïr walked a few paces away before he stopped, "This time it really must be me Malik, she is too involved for me to be able to pass this task to another."
"She seems certain she will not be returning to Masyaf when this is over."
His reply was murmured softly, "It is likely we will part and so it falls to me to ensure I leave her secure."
Malik watched him depart the fortress before climbing the stairs to once again resume his role as care taker for the order. Once he reached the study he walked to the window and saw the woman standing beside Rauf and knowing what hopes his friend had for her he sighed, 'Perhaps we could have done more to help her settle in.'
Maria moved past the men with an air of nonchalance only the boldest of creatures would show in the same circumstance. The Templar cross on her tunic earned her disbelieving looks but if they doubted what they had seen they need only wait for her to pass to see it confirmed on the back of her mantel. Rauf, who had met her garbed in this very manner was just as surprised that she had chosen to wear them here of all places.
She approached him smiling, "It seems I shall be unable to step into the ring this time Rauf but rest assured should I ever return my wings will not be clipped and I'll be more than happy to help you prove your point."
His eyes shifted from the men to her, some of them were becoming greatly agitated. Lowering his voice he spoke confidentially to the woman. "You would have been wise to keep those clothes in your saddle bag until you have cleared our lands Maria."
Raising her voice she rebuked him, "Nonsense Rauf my friend. I hobbled around her in a dress for weeks and they looked down on me. Now they see me as I am – a woman who had command of an army – and they may not like what they see but they damn sure better respect it." Her eyes scanned the group looking for any sign of dissent but other than the odd glare she found none she could verbally challenge.
Altaïr stood in the doorway and watched this exchange with interest, he hadn't been aware of her problems with his men. Sometimes he so concerned himself with the problems of humanity he missed the little things happening under his very nose. "You should all regret her inability to enter the ring for a sparring session. You would have learned a great deal from this woman who has learned how to defeat enemies twice her size." Maria's eyes shone as he made his way towards them, "If she does see fit to return we will both take to the ring and show you how a master assassin and a master Templar do battle."
Struggling to keep a proud grin off her face she bowed, "Thank you for you kind words assassin."
Tahir joined them constantly looking back at his dog until he saw what Maria was wearing. He gaped ready to make a comment but she beat him to it. "Save your breath novice that ship has sailed."
The three made off towards the village Altaïr with Maria beside him and Tahir following behind still coming to terms with the news that the Mentor would be travelling with them. Tripping on a loose stone on the path he stumbled but regained his footing quickly. 'So it begins...' He sighed, sure in the knowledge that with the Master's eyes on him he would stumble many more times before they reached Acre.
William Marshal's knuckles were white, the force he was using to hold the letter would have been more appropriate for a hammer than a single parchment. The messenger swallowed and shuffled his feet. He had thought bringing messages from the carrier birds would be a cushy job with little risk but at this moment he would swap places with any other soldier in the Holy Land.
"When did this arrive?"
"Moments ago Sire, I brung it straight from the coop I did."
"Leave."
Bowing his whole body forward he backed up to the door, "Very good sire, thankee kindly."
He heard the man thump against the door before bowing and scraping to the hall. 'Fucking idiotic yokel.'
His tongue worked on removing an imaginary piece of food from his front teeth as his fingers began drumming on the desk. "Not enough time to bring him round in my own way it looks like I'll have to be creative."
Samir had sent word that Stephen was blundering around Jerusalem prying into Templar affairs and while he had always expected his son to find out he had hoped it would be on his own terms. "I left him with his Mother too much when he was a boy and now I'm stuck with a son who could like as not bleed breast milk to feed a starving babe."
His eyes darted around the room as though inspiration could be hiding in one of the corners. He would never understand his son but he loved him and the idea that he might now have to view him as an enemy was incredibly troubling. "I'll not harm you boy but maybe I won't have to. A good brave soldier but you've a soft heart and there is a place for me within that soft core."
His mind seemed settled on a course of action as he made his way to the forecourt to join his waiting men. Even in times of truce a soldier had work to do and this time was no different. Dividing the men into two groups he issued his commands. "You men go to the disease cursed street of the poor district and burn any homes were people have fallen ill. If they try to stay inside so much the better it will save us carrying the bodies to the city walls." Pointing to the remaining men he smiled, "You come with me I have a feeling we will get lucky today and find the rat bastards who sabotaged our supplies."
And he was telling the truth he truly believed everything was going to be alright.
The sun's daily trek across the sky was almost over and it had begun its descent back to the horizon. Most of the first days travel had passed in silence well if you discounted the incomprehensible babble the men were spouting to each other. She had given them leave to speak Arabic because Altaïr wanted to use the time with Tahir to advance his intellectual teaching and although Tahir's English was good the words they would use most often in these exchanges he only knew in his mother tongue.
A shrill ear piercing scream cut into the silence of the early dusk sending birds from their nests and Maria's heart to her throat.
All three riders kicked their horses in unison and headed in the direction of the screaming. They had to dismount as they neared a thick grove of trees but the sight of other riders having done the same had them looking at each other and drawing their weapons. The screaming had stopped and all that was guiding them through the failing light was the soft sobbing of a woman. Maria felt bile rise in her throat - she knew what they were going to find – even before she saw the men standing around the female on the ground she knew that sound. It was the sound her own soul had begged her to issue when Gerhard had raped her.
One of the men was still atop her and Maria felt a fury she thought would never again be matched after the sight of those poor souls in Homs. Baring her teeth she howled as she ran to them with her sword in the air and her heart on her sleeve. "Bastards fucking hell bound lowlife bastards!"
She was aware of Altaïr on her left shoulder but she would have had at them even had she been alone. One of the men had been in the process of retying his sash around his waist but was now frantically trying to free his sword from its sheath when the woman ran past him. He saw the glint of her sword in the fading orange light but he was already on the ground gasping for air before he realised she had cut his throat.
Altaïr moved with the silky ease of a stream over a well worn mountain path and reached the man who was trying to climb off the woman and get to his sword beside him. The assassin caught him by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him to his feet before bringing his short blade down on his skull. There was a blood curdling crack as the blade broke through into the brain and again when the assassin unceremoniously yanked it back out. He let the cur drop still twitching at his feet while he turned to deal with the last remaining man.
Tahir had him engaged in a sword battle but the novice was being over powered. Maria moved beside the rapist and smashed her foot into the side of his knee grinning wildly as she heard the bones crush under the pressure, "Finish him off in any way you see fit Tahir."
The novice paused for a second looking from the man howling in agony to the woman on the ground scrambling around to find something to cover her naked bleeding body. His lip curled back and he growled, a barbaric sound he never thought he would hear from himself. He embedded his sword up to the hilt in his fat monstrous gut and took the time to watch the life light dull in his eyes.
Maria lifted a torn dress from the ground and handed it to the woman but she was no woman at all, this girl couldn't have been much older than 14. Her eyes were perfect circles filled with the horror of what she had endured and the horror of what she probably feared would still come. "Talk to her Tahir, tell her we will take her home."
But it was Altaïr who spoke to the girl, his gentle voice trying to reassure her that she was safe but she backed away from them. Maria held out her hand to her imploring her to accept their offer, "Please child don't fear us."
The girl never understood her words but the tone was soft and the look on the woman's face was unmistakable. There was no judgement here only understanding. "I can't go home now I can never go home I have shamed them."
Her voice was weak and her words were blighted by tears but the men heard them well enough, he told Maria what she had said. "She is wrong, tell her she is wrong." Maria got to her knees and dared to shuffle closer to the girl. "The shame is theirs alone to bear and God will judge them now, you have done nothing wrong child."
Altaïr imparted her words and added a few of his own. The assassin was well used to hiding his feelings and keeping everything on the surface calm but as he watched the girl clutching her ruined dress to her body he could barely contain his rage. His eyes drifted to the dead men and he wished he could kill them all again. He remembered Maria's treatment of Gerhard with the flag pole and the bread crumbs and he found himself cursed with a shred of understanding for her actions.
Tahir found it impossible to look at her, so young and so horribly abused. "I'll light a fire we might as well stop here for the night."
The Mentor nodded, "I'll bring the packs from the horses." He moved through the trees with the boy, the young man, clearly rattled but Altaïr didn't hold that against him nothing in life could prepare you for what they had just seen. He glanced back at the females facing each other on the ground with no common language but knew they shared something else something deeper...
She lifted a cautious hand to the girl but there was no sign that she would accept her touch so she dropped it to her lap. The girl was sobbing again with her knees pulled up to her chin and her small body rocking back and forth. "Don't do this you mustn't be sad that will eat you alive."
She let her hand slip under the dress to hold her aching private parts but when she brought it back out and saw it covered with her own blood she gasped and held it out to Maria looking for an explanation. How do you explain this to anyone let alone a child who had suffered it? Her big brown eyes met Maria's blue ones and at that moment Maria would have given her life in exchange for the pained look and the heart of this child to be mended.
"Did they kidnap you from your home?" The blank stare showed the girl was lost and Maria offered a few words in Arabic which would come close to asking what she wanted to know.
Her head nodded violently and her breathe caught in her throat. She looked so lost and defeated Maria knew she had to instil some fight in the child, "Get angry it will help. Well perhaps not help but oh I don't know – you are still a child and I was a woman full grown. I brought it on myself but you, you are so innocent." Her heart broke the same way any woman's would but her mind handled that pain in a different way and that was all she had to offer the girl now. "Get up and kick them, stab them. Cut their nasty bodies to pieces child don't just sit there looking afraid, they can't hurt you now."
She didn't understand so Maria decided to show her. Getting to her feet she drew back her right leg and delivered a full force kick to the closest of the bodies. The girl scrambled further away and Maria held out her hands to soothe her, "You do it; do anything you want to them." Drawing the dagger she had taken from the man who had raped her she held it to the girl but her tears became louder and her body began to shake uncontrollably. Taking the cloak from her shoulders she wrapped it around the small bruised and bleeding body of the child and closed her eyes when she saw her flinch from her touch.
Maria stopped thinking and simply reacted. She dropped to the ground beside the girl and ignoring her struggles she held her tight against her body. "I'm hardly even a woman at all I pity you child that it was me who found you and I curse my aching body which made me rest more than I should have. We could have been here sooner had I not been so gentle with myself."
Her body began rocking with the child's and their motions synchronised, she first felt her relax against her before the girl turned herself fully to her embrace and buried her head in her breast. Maria kept talking not even aware of what she was saying but hoping that it would work.
"You can go home, we will hide this no one need ever know what happened child. Don't worry about when you take a husband men are such egotistical pricks a well placed cry of pain will convince him of your purity."
The girl grabbed her tunic and a good chunk of her flesh with it and omitted the most heart wrenchingly anguished cry Maria had ever heard as she tried to crawl impossibly close to the strange woman nursing her. Maria rubbed her back and murmuring to her in time with their rocking.
"That's alright child you cry now but soon enough you'll stop and I'll show you how to use this pain. You can let adversity defeat you or you can welcome it, swallow it down to the depth of your stomach and wait for the bitterness to toughen you from the inside out."
The child nodded against her chest understanding the sentiment behind her words. "If you truly can't go home then you will stay with me. I can help you. It will get better with time, I know you don't believe me now but I'll protect you and teach you how to protect yourself."
Altaïr had returned to them and heard the words she was saying. Maria was speaking through tears of her own and it hurt his heart to see them fall but it also gave him hope. 'She hides so much of herself still...'
Maria's cloak was draped over the girls back and both women were lying on the ground having fallen into an uneasy sleep. The girl must have been exhausted because even with her eyes closed in sleep she still sobbed and her body still twitched as though it were still fighting off the attack. Tahir had lain on the other side of the fire and had been silent since their meal, he would have to speak to him about this matter but for now it was enough that the troubled group had found a way to rest. He rested his head on his hands and watched the women to the left of him until sleep came.
His eyes flew open and he felt the brief confusion of one who awakens suddenly panicked but still unsure why. The embers of the fire still glowed enough to illuminate the area around it and his eyes shifted around looking for the cause of his disquiet. He sat up suddenly aware of what was wrong. Maria and the girl were gone.
He found them in a small clearing dangerously close to the cliff edge, "Maria..."
She was crouching forward as though clutching at her stomach but he could see the outline of something dark in her arms. His hand dropped onto her shoulder as he saw past her body, she was cradling the girl to her chest. Her cries were muffled by the girl's body but he could still hear the strangled, stomach wrenching sobs coming from the woman he loved. He left his hand on her shoulder and waited for her sobbing to subside.
"I never heard her wake up." Her voice was low, he had to move closer and even then he strained to hear her words. "She crept away alone and I never noticed she was gone until it was too late." These words seemed to inspire fresh agony but once she had calmed herself she whispered, "Why wouldn't she fight this?"
"We are not all capable of strength Maria."
"Three men Altaïr, three men did this to her. I know the pain of one such demon abusing you and I'm a bitter old maid she was just a child what chance did she have?"
He sighed as he sat behind her but sensed his words were not required.
"I think her name was Saba because I told her I was Maria and she repeated Saba. What does it mean?"
"It means morning."
She sniffed and her body heaved. "She used the dagger I offered her to take revenge on her assailants to cut her own wrists."
"Let me take her Maria, we can wrap her and find a place to lay her to rest."
She pulled the girl away from his hands shielding her from his with her own body, "Leave her alone, she is mine."
He moved in front of them and even in the dim starlight he could see the dark wet patches of blood soaking them both. "You are not responsible for what happened to her."
Maria pulled her limp body closer to her and found a place for her head on her shoulder. "Why would you not fight child?"
"You are a woman and so you are bound to feel this more than I do let me handle this; please give her to me she needs to be laid to rest."
Her head swung from the child to him and she faced him with her eyes narrowed to slits. "Do you not listen to a word I say? I am no woman assassin. I can barely manage the monthly bleeding most of them whine about. I chose to live as a man and God granted me that wish but the price I paid was my gender. It's gone now and I don't mourn its loss and don't you dare waste one shred of pity on me not when this innocent girl is lying dead in my arms."
"Maria you are strong and brave but you are a woman."
"Oh really, then why did I not cry and wail and end myself like this girl did? I'll tell you why it's because I am incapable of feeling the things she felt. I was so set on my path I failed to notice that along the way I shed not only my hair but every attribute that makes a woman a woman. I fear there is so little left inside that even when I would cut myself open to find even a trace of feminine gentility it is not there." She looked back to the dead girl whose eyes were now closed forever. "I could do nothing for her. What twisted pleasure did fate find in having her suffer like that and then putting her into the care of one so woefully ill prepared to aid her?"
He knelt beside her and placed a hand on the girls arm, "You felt what she felt only you never let it show and now you see reflected in this child what you have denied all along. but tell me why do you feel guilty Maria? You did all you could for her it wasn't you who wronged her."
Her head rested gently on top of the girls as tears flowed from her eyes. If his words had rung true with Maria he would never know, she decided to alter the path of the discussion. "It's not fair Altaïr; we can't bury her alone in the mountains with her family never knowing her fate."
"We will wrap her body and tomorrow we will make for the nearest village to make enquiries but she must be put to rest Maria and we will lay her there. We will tell them we found her at the bottom of a drop and that she died in the fall. Even if she isn't from that village the people in these hills are close, her family will learn of her whereabouts and her death but never of her true end. We will spare them that much."
"I'm surprised you would be willing to lie."
"The truth would bring them needless pain and the child suffered enough. The guilty men are dead and her family can remember her as the girl she was."
He reached again and this time she let him take her from his arms, she was so slight he found he could stand with her body in his arms with ease. "It is possible she never had to fight Maria, women are raised to believe their men will do that for them. You chose a different path and it did indeed sharpen your edges but those edges have not diminished you Maria they have enhanced you."
He carried her back to the camp and found Tahir sitting up on his bedroll watching them approach. "What happened?"
"The child suffered more than her spirit could endure and she took her own life." Placing her on the ground still wrapped in Maria's cape he moved her head to a more natural position.
Tahir was on his feet behind him his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Tomorrow we will burn them and erase any trace of those bastards from existence."
Smoothing out his robes as he stood Altaïr looked from the novice to Maria, "I think she knows a better way to handle their remains."
Tahir turned to the trees and swiped an arm across his eyes fighting with all he had not to cry in front of the Master but Maria saw his struggle and would have none of it. Unlike Homs when the horror they witnessed had caused division between them she was free to comfort the boy who had come to mean a great deal to her. Her arms went around him and his around her, she would never admit that his arms were providing her with the same comfort she offered him but nobody here would force her to so it mattered little.
Altaïr rearranged his bed so he was closer to the small body and watched his novice being mothered by a woman who believed she had no claim to the title. Finally before dawn Tahir slept and Maria moved beside him. "How are you?"
He was about to answer when something else popped into his brain. "Were it not for Robert and his willingness to give you a chance you would have been hung in Acre all those years ago, yes?"
She nodded unsure of his meaning so he elaborated, "You found yourself in a position where you absolutely relied on someone believing in you and giving you a chance to prove your worth and I ask the same of you now."
"You've lost me assassin."
He shifted his body closer to hers and reached for her hand. "You tell me I want more from a wife than you can give and it's likely that at one point in my life you would have been right but I am beyond that now. I want a companion who will stand with me not behind me. I love you and I need you to give me a chance to prove you wrong."
Her head dropped onto his shoulder and together they sat silently watching the sun rise upon an ugly scene. Both covered in the blood of a child who lay dead a few feet away from them but both still trying desperately to find a reason to go on. To live and love and to continue the fight to protect the free will of men who sometimes went to great lengths to prove they didn't deserve to have it.
A/N I don't know what to say, this is messy and ugly but it feels right. I always planned to return to Maria's apparently underwhelming reaction to her rape but I never knew it would be like this until I wrote it. I deliberately omitted any details on the ethnicity of her attackers because to me it doesn't matter.