Hope you like history because that's all this chapter is. It's also brought to you by Istanbul (Not Constantinople) because we've got a lot of historical names for places.
"Are we ready?" Desmond asked in Old French as he looked down at the nearly four pages that he'd written all spread out on the desk in the workshop. Then he switched to English. "Sorry, Connor."
"It's fine," Connor said. "Just explain it to me after."
"We're just doing big picture stuff so it should be fine," Desmond said.
Maria cleared her throat, bringing Desmond's attention back. "Yes, we're ready."
"Good," Desmond said. "I did not write down as much as I wanted, but I have my own memories of history and Ezio's. We start with the big events. First, the crusades. The first, second, and third were the same as the point where we changed events was 1191. After that, there were thirteen more crusades in the Holy Land though only five more were numbered for a total of eight. The crusades end with the loss of Acre in 1291. Are we agreed?"
"I read there were seven numbered crusades," Maria said.
"And there were fifteen crusades," Altaïr added. "Not including the popular ones."
Desmond turned to them. "Let's start with the numbering. Was there a King's Crusade instead of the Third Crusade?"
"No, they used both names," Maria said.
"Was there a Crusade of Frederick II instead of the Sixth Crusade?"
"Yes," Altaïr said.
"They used Sixth in the book I read," Maria said.
"Was there a Lord Edward's Crusade?" he asked.
"Yes, but they also said some called it the Eighth Crusade," Maria said, "I didn't count it as one of the numbered ones because of that."
Desmond frowned, trying to figure out how that worked, and had to ask even if it was unlikely. "There was no crusade after that?"
"No, it was the last," she said, shaking her head.
"There was one less crusade, but the one that did not happen was not the last one?" Desmond asked. "That makes no sense. The crusades stopped due to political changes in Europe. If there was one less crusade it should be Lord Edward's that did not happen."
"Lord Edward's crusade was from 1271 to 1272 against the Mamluk Sultanate. It was essentially a couple of raids and a navy battle that was a crusader victory that ended with the Treaty of Caesarea," Altaïr said. "Is that what happened originally?"
Desmond nodded as that had been essentially what he'd written down for that crusade. "Yes, that's what happened."
"So we need to find out which one didn't happen and why," Maria said. "We should start the other way around. Start with the fourth and go forward."
"Agreed," Desmond said, then pointed to what he'd written on the Fourth Crusade. "The Fourth Crusade was from 1202 to 1204. The pope wanted to recapture Jerusalem, the crusaders wanted to take Egypt first, but instead they sacked Constantinople. Some crusaders reached the Holy Land, but not many."
"No. According to what I read, the Fourth Crusade was from 1217 to 1221 and in Egypt. It failed as they lost the land and never made it to the Holy Land let alone Jerusalem. There was nothing about Constantinople," Maria said.
"I did read a mention of an attempted crusade in 1202. They led a siege on Zara and reached the city of Constantinople, but they did not siege or sack it," Altaïr added.
"So the Fourth Crusade is missing," Desmond said. "Why that one? The difference is in the Siege of Constantinople, but why did that not happen?"
Maria shrugged. "We only removed one Apple and only the Assassin Order knew anything about this whole plan. Maybe Europe was too far away to change or the change too subtle over time. It's not as if any of the crusades were prevented from starting."
"If it is about distance, why the Fourth and not the Fifth then?" Desmond asks. "The Fifth was also a failure. I think Constantinople is closer to Cyprus than Egypt, but that is as the bird flies."
"It does not make sense by land. The Assassin Order would have an easier time moving through Egypt under the Ayyubid Sultanate than through Christian territories. If it was the Order's doing, I would think it would be the Fifth that was stopped, not the Fourth," Altaïr said.
"So it could have been the Apple?" Desmond asked. "What changed between Zara and Constantinople?"
"From what I read, the crusaders needed money to pay for the Venetian fleet to get to the Holy Land, but they were too few to pay so they sieged Zara," Altaïr said. "Then everyone deserted."
"Isn't the money why they sieged Constantinople? Why siege Zara then desert if nothing changed?" Desmond asked, racking his memory because he had once made the mistake about asking Shaun his opinion on the crusades and he'd ranted about the Fourth Crusade for twenty minutes. "They sieged the Constantinople to put a prince on the throne so that when he had it, he could pay them. If they sieged Zara in this time then the money problem still existed. Did they just march past it and leave the Venetians without their money?"
"It did not have more. All it said was they deserted," Altaïr said.
Desmond sighed. "That is not enough. Why would they siege the city in one time and not the other if they owed money in both?"
Maria said, "The prince probably died. It sounded like that happened a lot in all the Crusades. So, you still have the issue with money, but there's no way to get it. You wouldn't siege a city like Constantinople without the expectation of high rewards. How much does not sieging Constantinople change anyways?"
"A lot," Desmond said, Old French really hampering his ability to explain exactly how much this would change history. "The Byzantine Empire falls because of the siege and then sack of Constantinople."
"I've never heard of a Byzantine Empire," Maria said.
"Not Byzantine," Desmond said, rubbing his face. That just showed how crazy this all was that he was slipping up and using modern terminology. "The Roman Empire."
"Really?" Maria asked, and even Altaïr looked surprised.
"I knew it was weakened, but I did not think it was that weak," Altaïr said. "That version of the Fourth Crusade was only a decade away."
"I do not know much about them, but I do know that the Fourth Crusade ended the empire. At some point the Ottoman Turks takes Anatolia and Constantinople, and that is the end of it," Desmond said.
"So what does the Roman Empire surviving the Fourth Crusade change?" Maria asked. "Does that help or hurt our cause?"
"I do not know. I did not get that far in my reading, and I do not know if I have enough on my phone to say more," Desmond said. "Have you read what happens with the Roman Empire after that failed version of the Fourth Crusade?"
"No, it only mentioned it before continuing with the other crusades," Altaïr said.
"I read nothing about it," Maria said. "Do we have any books on the period between the Third and Fourth Crusades or anything on failed crusades?"
"You would have to look," Desmond said, gesturing to the pile that they had brought over from Mario's study. "If you cannot find books on that, try for the Roman Empire. I am sure it would mention any attacks on Constantinople."
"Alright," Maria said, grabbing a number of books from the top and passing them to Altaïr to look through before starting to go through the rest.
Desmond turned to Connor and switched to English. "Ready to hear what's up?"
Connor gave him an annoyed look for his language. "I'm ready to be told what you've discovered if that's what you mean."
"See, you get it," Desmond said before getting serious. "We have a bit of an unexpected situation. One of the crusades didn't happen, but it wasn't the one we expected."
"Which one?" Connor asked.
"The Fourth," he said, but he knew from Connor's memories that while Achilles had explained much of European and Assassin history to him, the crusades were far enough removed that they were not of great importance beyond mentioning the Third to explain how the modern Assassin Order came to be. "In the original time line, the Fourth Crusade is a failed crusade that didn't even make it to Jerusalem. They sieged Zara and then sieged and sacked Constantinople, but in this new time line they only sieged Zara. I thought if there was going to be a change to the Crusades it would be that the later ones didn't happen, but all the rest of them happened. It's just the Fourth that got cut off in the middle."
"Do you know why?" he asked. "Was it because we removed the Apple?"
"We don't know, but we think it might have just been a prince that died," Desmond said. "We have to do more research so you're going to be stuck with nothing to do for a while longer, sorry."
Connor shook his head. "I will find something to do."
"Alright," Desmond said and turned back to the desk to return to his work while Connor made his way out of the workshop.
He checked who he already had down on the page as the Fourth Crusade had been difficult to piece together just through the major figures involved. He had Pope Innocent III who called for the crusade, and Shaun had noted he'd been involved in the Reconquista as well as the crusade against the Cathars in southern France, but not much else. The rest of the information he had on the Fourth Crusade was all from a single file on the Byzantine Emperors. Alexios III who fled during the first siege of Constantinople and causing the loss. Alexios IV, the prince who had been backed by the crusaders and Venetians as he'd promised them more money than the Empire had. And Lastly, Alexios V who killed his predecessor in a coup. Shaun had added a little more than that, but that was all Desmond had copied down as the rest wasn't that useful. He had to find more.
Desmond searched through his phone, trying to find anything more on the Fourth Crusade. He ended up finding just a few tidbits more on a list of Italian historical figures Shaun had put together, but there weren't dates or really any other relevant information on them. It made sense that there wouldn't be much as they were after information on Ezio's time, but Desmond still found it annoying. The first figure was Doge Enrico Dandolo who ruled Venice and oversaw the Venetian's part in the Fourth Crusade. The other was Boniface of Monferrat.
"Hey, Altaïr," Desmond said, speaking in Arabic now that he wasn't actively writing in Italian. "Did William of Montferrat have a son named Boniface?"
"You have all my memories, shouldn't you know?" Altaïr asked, not looking up from his book.
Desmond groans. "That was months ago. And I never had all of your memories."
"Yes," Altaïr said. "William of Montferrat has a son named Boniface. I'm assuming you're asking about Boniface because he was involved in the Fourth Crusade. Did you find anything on him?"
"Just that he was Marquess of Montferrat and led the Fourth Crusade. We were focused on Italy in the late 15th early 16th century, not the 13th," he said.
"He was marquess? What happened to Conrad? I thought he was first to inherit."
"Assassins killed him. That's actually one of the famous ones people actually know about."
Altaïr looked up from his book then. "What are you talking about?"
"I tried to look up your targets after I got out of Abstergo. Turns out nobody knows when or how William of Montferrat died, but they definitely knew about Conrad."
"When was Conrad killed?"
"Oh," Desmond said, now seeing Altaïr's point. "That was in 1192. That's why you don't know about it. Wait, you didn't read it in your book on Crusades?"
"You said to start after the Third."
"What are you discussing?" Maria interrupted in Old French.
"Confirming Boniface of Montferrat was William of Montferrat's son," Desmond answered.
"Of course, he is, but he's not the marquis yet, just first in line," she said, having missed the discussion on Boniface's ascension in Arabic. "How little information do you have?"
"Nothing, just that he was the leader of the Fourth Crusade."
She didn't look very impressed.
"Have you found anything?" he asked.
"The prince doesn't die," Maria said. "Not in Constantinople during what would have been the Fourth Crusade."
"What?"
"She's right," Altaïr said. "He goes to Constantinople with the crusaders and Venetians. They didn't have enough men to properly siege the city, they only attacked a section of its walls. The Emperor sent out the army, and while the emperor turned and fled, the army remained and attacked. Enough crusaders deserted after that that they couldn't finish the siege. The prince went back to his sister in Germany."
"What I don't understand is how it could have ever gone differently. It was a not that large of an army in debt to the Venetians. How could they have ever thought they could take Constantinople? Its walls are unbreachable," Maria said.
"I don't know how, but they did it the first time," Desmond said with a shrug. "So we have no idea what changed, but it wasn't the prince. We should look into what happens with the Roman Empire and the Ayyubid Sultanate and eventually the Ottoman Turks now that the Fourth Crusade hasn't happened."
"Alright, we can see what we can get done before it's time to eat," Altaïr said.
Desmond began new searches on his phone, looking for anything related to the Byzantine Empire or Anatolia or Ottoman Turks. Most of what he found was about the flight of Byzantine scholars from Constantinople to Italy after the Ottoman Turks conquered the city and how it contributed to the development of the Renaissance. Shaun, however, had added his commentary that he thought the impact of Byzantine scholars was overblown. Which was all relevant if you were looking strictly into Ezio and what led up to his time period, but not super helpful for figuring out what happened in the decline and aftermath of the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Most of what Desmond himself brought to the table actually came from Ezio's time in Constantinople, but that had been 60 years after the city's fall which he'd only had second hand knowledge of. He'd also been occupied with Templars and getting into Altaïr's library rather than learning the history of the Ottoman conquest.
Eventually, they are called to the evening meal. Desmond found himself trying to wash off ink as Connor scrubbed dirt from his hands.
"What exactly did you get up to?" Desmond asked.
"I've been ripping down vines from the exterior of the villa," he said.
Made sense given the work Connor had put into restoring Achilles' home.
"Did you just decide to do that or did you ask Mario?"
"I asked," he said then added. "Sort of."
Desmond laughed, imagining Connor trying to speak with his very new and limited Italian and probably miming pulling down the vines. "Did you make any progress?"
"It's a start."
They sit down to eat, getting a break from history and training as Mario told his stories. Claudia was finally looking less nervous to sit with all of them, and while Ezio still didn't speak much, he was at least less aggressive. So, progress, even if it was small.
After the meal, the group of time travelers retreated back to the workshop to work on learning Italian. They ran through the vocabulary and conjugations that Desmond had taught the before then start moving on to new material. Altaïr quickly took the lead in picking up the language, just as he had picked up modern English while Desmond had taught Connor Arabic. Desmond had him run through irregular verb conjugations in the present tense by himself while he worked with Connor and Maria to catch them up. They could all construct very short and basic sentences by the end of the evening, not that it meant much with the very limited vocabulary so far.
"Are you ever going to tell us about your time?" Maria asked in Old French as they wound down with the lesson.
"My time?" Desmond asked, confused.
"Yes, the future," she said then gestured to Altaïr. "He said it was very different from our times. Your little phone thing proves it."
"I can," he answered. "But it does not exist anymore. It does not matter."
"Aren't we going to end up there eventually?" she asked. "Or were you planning to stay here for the rest of our lives?"
"No," Desmond admitted. "But I want the future to be different, better than when I left it."
Maria did not look satisfied by the answer. Glancing at Altaïr showed that he was curious as well. Connor, of course, had that politely interested look he wore when he waited for them to finish with the French.
"I can show you something," Desmond said, pulling out his phone. He hadn't taken many photos on the new phone he'd been given. A drink looked like a drink and a beach looked like a beach no matter what era you were in. There was really only one photo he could show them even if it was kind of embarrassing. He pulled up the selfie he had taken from the top of the crane in New York City. "There. That is what cities look like in my time."
Maria took his phone from him, tilting it to be able to see the screen. "Why is your face in the way?"
Desmond sighed. "It is a selfie. That is what you do in the future."
"The buildings are so tall," she said, and Altaïr leaned in over her shoulder to take a look. "How are they lit up so brightly and in such colors?"
"Not with candles," he said, not wanting to get into explaining light bulbs and electricity. "Let me show Connor."
Maria passed the phone back to him, and Desmond showed it to Connor. "That's New York in 2012," he said in English.
Connor stared at the screen, the only other person in this time who had ever been to New York. "That's New York? It looks nothing like it."
"Yeah, that's what a couple centuries and an Industrial Revolution will do to you," Desmond said.
"What is an Industrial Revolution?" he asked.
"Uh, well, it's when you invent an engine so machines can do the work for you and then you run with it until you live totally differently from everyone who'd ever lived before because you can make way more complex things," he answered though that probably was not the best explanation in the world. "Or if you believe the Templars, humans didn't invent anything, the Templars just found Precursor artifacts and shared them with the world."
"You mentioned that before, when you were talking to Mario," Connor said. "What did you mean?"
Desmond turned to Maria and Altaïr to check on them, and found Maria looking annoyed, and Altaïr evaluating him.
"Does this matter for the mission?" Altaïr asked in modern English.
"It could, but I don't think we should get into it tonight. It's very complicated."
"Care to explain?" Maria asked, interrupting in Old French.
Desmond sighed and switched to Old French. "I want to wait until you know Italian to talk about how things like my phone came to be."
"What does that mean?" Maria asked.
Desmond cursed his poor knowledge of old languages once again. "We need to talk about whether people made them or if Templars found them through the Apples."
It took Maria a moment to process the information. "The Templars claim that they made your phone with the Apple? Can it do that?"
"We went forward two hundred years and that's what you question?" Altaïr asked.
"It holds information just like my phone does," Desmond said before Maria could get in a retort. "It is probably how Juno gets control of people."
"Then we do need to talk about it," Maria said.
"Yes, when we all speak one language," Desmond said. "Agreed?"
"Agreed," Altaïr said.
Desmond switched to English to tell Connor, "Okay we're going to discuss technology and the industrial revolution and all that when we can speak Italian. For tonight, I want to go to bed."
"We're still training in the morning, aren't we?" he asked.
"Yes, so, time for bed."
"Alright," he said, getting up.
They all made their way out of the workshop and upstairs to bed. Desmond slept well and woke bright and early. Things went similarly to how they had the day before. Desmond helped the others get used to the new weapons while also trying to keep an eye on Ezio's training. This time, however, Desmond opened it up to bouting.
There was just one problem with that. Altaïr and Maria lined up to face each other immediately. "This is going to end poorly, isn't it?" Desmond asked in English when he'd lined up across from Connor.
"What makes you say that?" Altaïr asked.
"Do anything and we're switching," Desmond told him.
"It's practice," he said before turning to face Maria.
"Famous last words," Desmond muttered. Altaïr didn't hear them as Maria began her attack, but Connor nodded.
Desmond began his match with Connor, and they were clearly on the same page about this actually being practice. Connor tested out the new attacks and blocks he had just learned while Desmond kept it as by the book as possible so he could get used to the basic movements. He had to pay attention, but there was nothing aggressive or threatening about it. Maria and Altaïr, however, went at it like they still fought on opposite sides of a war.
"Do you think she's still mad about the whole marriage and children thing?" Desmond asked.
Connor glanced to the side, watching how Maria attacked Altaïr. "Probably. What's he mad about then?"
"Probably that, too," he said because he still had his suspicions that Altaïr was bothered by it. "And I think he's incapable of not going at it one hundred percent."
"I think I understand what you mean."
"Do you think it's good or bad to just let them go at it like that?"
Connor shrugged before he moved into his next round of attacks. "It's not the worst way. Let them so long as they don't hurt each other."
Of course, that was when Altaïr forgot he wasn't using a curved blade, relied on his old muscle memory, and blocked incorrectly. Maria landed a heavy hit to his shoulder, and Altaïr dropped the practice sword. He cursed in Arabic, clutching at his shoulder.
"Okay," Desmond said, grabbing Maria's arm and pulling her away before she could do something worse like start celebrating the hit. "No more for you."
"Is your arm numb?" Connor asked Altaïr while Desmond led Maria away from them.
"It's fine," Altaïr said, moving his arm around experimentally.
Desmond turned back to Maria and said, "No fighting Altaïr when you are mad at him."
"I'm not mad at him," Maria snapped.
Desmond just gave her a look to show he wasn't convinced.
She glared at him for a time, then moved on. "Are we going to practice or not?"
"Fine, let's practice," he said.
That was around the time that he realized Maria was mad at him, too. Whatever she did to keep it together while they were actively working for the mission clearly went out the window for fighting with fancy sticks. Desmond couldn't speak for Altaïr, but he kind of couldn't blame her for being angry with him after the way he'd delivered the news to her. He also had the advantage of Ezio's memories to rely on so at least he didn't get his whole arm numbed while he let her work out her anger, just some bruises.
They finished up training for the morning, washing up before the midday meal with the Auditore family. Then it was back to the workshop for Desmond, Altaïr, and Maria while Connor returned to removing the vines. Desmond didn't really get to work immediately, keeping an eye out to make sure Altaïr and Maria wouldn't start anything. When he was certain they would continue reading without causing problems, he got back to his work with the phone.
He was reduced to just looking through every single file that he had just to see if there was anything at all on the Byzantine Empire. He just wasn't finding much, not even under Roman Empire or Eastern Roman Empire. While Desmond had spent time in Ezio's memories when he was in Constantinople, Shaun had had no idea because Desmond had been in a coma at the time. He hadn't researched it.
"I'm not finding anything," Desmond eventually announced. "We were looking into Ezio's time period and into Italy. All I have is that a lot of Roman scholars fled to Italy when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453."
"I don't have anything on that," Maria said. "This is book is just about what went wrong with the Crusades. I'm not finished, but I don't think it goes past the 13th century."
"Altaïr?" Desmond asked.
"This one covers the Roman Empire in the 13th century," he said. "I could go to the next volume?"
"I have nothing on my phone. I could start reading it. I will just be slow," he said.
Altaïr handed over the next volume, and Desmond rubbed his face, preparing himself to try and read handwritten Latin. It definitely wasn't as easy as reading off his phone even if it was much larger text. It felt like he was translating as he read. It slowly formed a picture much different than the one Desmond knew from Ezio's memories. The Roman Empire had been basically just been the city of Constantinople and a few overseas territories it couldn't even reach as it had no navy. Desmond assumed it had been that way for some time. According to this book, however, the Roman Empire held almost all of Anatolia at the start of the 15th century. No Fourth Crusade had definitely changed things.
He did his best to pick up his speed before just deciding to skip to the end. He wasn't sure when the book was written, it wasn't like there were copyright dates in the front, but he had to hope it was somewhat recently as he began scanning for dates. He didn't see 1453 anywhere, but eventually he found 1465. It was over a decade earlier than where they were currently, but it was better than nothing. He started reading more closely again.
"The Roman Empire still exists," he said in Old French, trying not to burst into hysterical giggles over it. "We didn't actually do anything, and an entire Empire still exists now."
"Are you alright?" Maria asked, looking at him skeptically.
"No, I'm not alright," he said. "We have no control over any of this. We do not know if this is good or bad for the mission, and we had nothing to do with it. We do not even know what has changed in areas where the Assassin Order is."
"Does that matter?" Altaïr asked.
"Yes," Desmond insisted. "We cannot predict anything. How can we save the world if anything can happen?"
Altaïr just gave him a confused look. "Isn't that the way it's always been? We cannot control everything and should not seek to. The most we have ever done is remove obstacles. That is what we are doing with the Pieces of Eden."
"Yes, but," he said and then just couldn't and had to switch to English. "Dude, this is insane, though. I thought that we would just do our best to get the Apples and we would stop some wars without Juno's influence on people and maybe the Assassin Order could focus on a few more things than just Templars like slavery or something. Reasonable shit. This is not reasonable. Not only did this not really stop any war, the Roman Empire is currently fighting the Ottoman Turks and they have Moscow as an ally. You know who is in charge of Moscow now? Ivan the Great. I don't know that much about Russian history, but I do know that Ivan the Great was good at the whole get territories thing. I don't know what we're supposed to do with this."
"I think we should take a break," Altaïr said, totally calm.
Desmond groaned, rubbing his face in his hands. "You don't get it because it's all in the future for you. If you had any idea how history is supposed to go I think you'd be freaking out, too."
"I thought we were trying to change history."
"Not like this!"
"I don't know what you want then, but it's time to take a break," Altaïr said, standing up and pulling the volume he'd given Desmond on Roman history away from him. He closed the book and set it aside.
"You're not getting it," Desmond said, calming somewhat as he narrowed in on what was really bothering him about this. "Inoculation came from the Ottoman Turks that the Roman Empire is now fighting. There may not be an Ottoman Empire which means we may not find a doctor who can help us stop the spread of smallpox."
"Desmond," Altaïr said, facing him. "I don't know what inoculation is or what it has to do with smallpox. Why are you so worried about this?"
"Inoculation is a method of preventing the spread of disease. You give people a weakened form of the disease so they're more likely to survive and get immunity so they don't catch or spread it again. We could potentially help stop the spread of a lot of diseases, but especially smallpox with it."
"Alright, smallpox is a terrible disease and I understand why you would want this, but why is this something we must do? Why not other diseases or let doctors handle this if they've discovered it before?" he asked.
Desmond sighed trying to figure out how to explain this, why it would matter so much for Connor and for him as well. "You remember when I told you about the future that there were other continents further west of Europe and Africa?"
"Yes, you said you and Connor were from there."
"Yeah, and when Europeans find that continent in 1492 which isn't that long from now in the grand scheme of things, they bring smallpox and a bunch of other diseases with them. Smallpox gets the most blame though for the millions, and not just like a million like fifty millions, of people from those continents that die in the century after Europeans make contact with them. We also know for a fact that the British intentionally tried to infect them with smallpox. We need to find a doctor and start inoculating people as soon as possible, but I don't know how we do it if we can't find a Turkish doctor because there may not be an Ottoman Empire."
Altaïr took a moment to absorb the information then asked, "No one but Turkish doctors knows about this inoculation?"
"As far as I know. I'm not a disease expert. That's all I remember."
"Can't you do it if you know what it is?"
"No, actually, I can't," he said. "I've never had smallpox or been vaccinated or inoculated or anything for it. I could legitimately die from it if I get into contact with it so I can't do it."
"What? You say you have this ability to not get the disease, but then you don't use it?"
"It's not my fault, man. I was born in the 80s. They stopped giving people vaccines for it then because it was eliminated in the 70s," he said then corrected himself, "The 1970s."
Altaïr glared at him, "I know it's not these 70s. So you're the only who knows how this works, but you can't be involved because you have never had it or smallpox?"
"No, Connor got inoculated during the war so he actually has experience with it," Desmond said.
"Then let's have him do it," Altaïr said.
"He's not a doctor or anything like one though," he said. "We need to get a doctor because we need to get people to trust the inoculation. You can still get infected and die from inoculation, you know. It's just less likely."
"Alright, we find a doctor then."
"They don't know what germ theory is in this time period. How would we even explain it to them?"
"I don't know what germ theory is but you explained it to me just fine," he said. "Calm down. We will figure this out, but not right now. You said we had time until the next major event. We have to finish learning what happened, and then we can deal with this."
"Fine," Desmond said, frustrated by his reasonableness. "But we need to do it soon."
"You want to explain what any of that was?" Maria asked in Old French.
"I swear," Desmond said because he was not in the mood to translate.
"Desmond is worried we need something from Ottoman Turks to save people, but with the Roman Empire still around, they may not come to exist," Altaïr explained to her. "We will find another way."
"Are we done then?" she asked, setting the book aside without much care.
"Yes," Altaïr said. "At least until we do Italian."
Desmond groaned, running his hands down his face. He was so done with languages.
I'm going to try and keep my notes shorter on this fic which is hard on this chapter because it's a lot of history and there's also an issue of what history happened vs what would any of the characters reasonably know or be able to learn about that history and then trying not to get bogged down in exposition. The thing about the Crusades though is that they kind of didn't have that much impact as they were a lot of Europeans gaining some land and then losing it again. I wanted to take out a war/cause some impact from the time traveling, but for a lot of them if you take the war away it doesn't matter at all. There were really only two long term consequences over all of the crusades, smallpox spreading to Europe and the fall of the Byzantine Empire. In terms of what I wanted to accomplish with this story, the Fourth Crusade was the only one that really worked for what I was trying to do. Also the Fourth Crusade is just like some of the worst shit you've ever heard of so like if you could make it not happen you probably should. It also took 800 years for the pope to apologize for it.
But I do have to say in case people don't remember, William of Montferrat is the 2nd target in Acre in AC1 and Ubisoft did originally want it to be Conrad of Montferrat who is mentioned in that game except the game is set in 1191 and Conrad is assassinated by the actual historical Assassins in 1192 and wasn't in Acre in 1191. The thing is, William of Montferrat was born in 1115 so he's supposed to be 76, but I swear Ubisoft was just like...nobody is gonna play this game and want to kill some old dude let's make him forty even though his son is supposed to be a full grown adult. Also, Conrad was like actually a pretty good leader both in politically and militarily which is why he got assassinated, but he opposed Richard I so he's not portrayed well in English media. Boniface was not as good in my opinion.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed!