The pale light of a false dawn had dragged the knight from his restless slumber no more rested than he had been when he closed his eyes to the dwindling twilight of the previous day. With no signs of life either human or animal to confirm what the sunless sky was telling him he wearily trudged to his steed and unpacked the few items he had left in order to break his fast. He thoughtlessly chewed on the stale bread giving no outward sign of distain or pleasure at his meal. He would be in Acre by mid afternoon and his mind was unwilling to give attention to anything other than the reason for the journey - William Marshal. Being the son of the most famous man in England was supposed to be a blessing, Stephen was told this many times and while it was undeniable it had opened doors and offered him countless opportunities it was also true it had come at a cost.

After eight unbroken years in Anjou serving as squire to the young Robert De Sable, Stephen was returning home or at least to the home of his mother in Canterbury. The men they passed in the field all bowed as he passed and Stephen could see their curious eyes straining up from their prostrate stance to look at the incumbent Lord of their Manor. The previous lord his uncle had passed away a few months prior and since he had died childless his modest holdings passed to him. He returned their gestures and shifted awkwardly on his saddle doubting he would ever become accustomed to the attention.

The castle, although small, stood proud against the back drop of the gloriously blue English sky and Stephen's heart rejoiced at the sight of it. The cold grey stone seemed warm and alive to him and as he passed the last of the workers cottages, as the smell of cooking began to replace the stench of the peasant's toilets his body and mind relaxed. Even the songs of the common starlings nesting in the trees around him were a treat to his homesick ears; he let the mundane waffling of his mother's steward drown out in order to focus on the mellifluous sounds of his childhood.

"Your Father has been here for almost a week now his patience is wearing thin; you know how he hates the quiet life."

The mention of his father had the same effect it always did – all sentimental musing evaporated in an instant, "My father is at the Castle?"

"Yes Sire he plans to accompany you to London to be there with you when you take your oath at the Temple. He is so proud young master Stephen – fit to burst."

"Good, very... good." But was it good? Although he hadn't seen him for neigh on ten years time hadn't dulled his memory of the boar-ish man who always seemed to make everyone at the castle nervous with his presence – his mother included. William had sent word from Europe that he had secured a place for his son at a noble home in France and almost immediately with no questions asked Stephen had been transplanted from his life, his home and his mother to begin his journey which would end in the Temple in London when he joined the Knights Templar.

His mother was waiting in the smallest of the entertaining rooms, the only one with soft seats close to the fire. She stood when she saw the large man approach her but hesitated, "Stephen?"

His dirty boots left half prints on the floor as she rushed to her side, "It is me yes. Did you expect the same boy you sent away?"

Still she paused, raising a hand to his chest to stop his advance; she looked upon his face looking for signs of the boy she used to sing to sleep. To him she had barely changed – still the same sharp green eyes and the same gentle smile – only the colours were different. Her hair was showing bold stripes of grey and her skin and teeth not as bright as he remembered. "I don't know what I expected." Her eyes shone as her hands took his finally able to believe this was not a cruel joke, "I have missed you so."

They embraced at first awkwardly until memory took control of their actions, her smell was exactly as he remembered and his size couldn't disguise the eyes she knew so well. The hold became firmer mother and son reunited and now loathe to part. But part they did there were practicalities to attend to.

"Waltham told me father is here."

Her smile faltered, "He yet languishes in his bedchamber but do not think to enter unbidden Stephen he is not alone."

An unseen fist reached into his chest and squeezed any happiness from it, "He takes a woman to his bed here in your home?"

"We long ago agreed we had no need for each other Stephen there is no cause for indignation." Her fingers patted his cheek then dropped to his hand, "Come tell me of your life Stephen."

Tugging his hand free he stared at her with something close to disgust. "Mother how can you be so calm about this? Your husband has a whore in his bed, in your marital bed!"

"Fie Stephen what has so changed you that believe this a fitting topic for a mother and her son?" Her expression more hurt than shocked.

"It is the changes I see in you which force my hand Mother you were never so timid as to accept his vile behaviour with such a meek heart."

"Marriage and time will soon temper a bold heart Stephen and what is left behind often can't lift itself for a fight; I have less energy and choose my battles accordingly."

Heavy footfalls on the stairs in the hallway and his father's booming voice cut short their exchange. "I heard riders approach is he here?" The big man entered the room with his shirt tails hanging loose over his leggings and his feet unshod. For the first time in a decade the soon-to-be knight greeted his father.

"I arrived moments ago but was told you were otherwise occupied."

Laughing he crossed the room to the young man who now stood perhaps a hair's breadth higher than he did and slapped his back. "Ah-ha my boy we must never forget to take pleasure in life."

His laughter was almost as big an offence to his son as his actions, "What of your wife's pleasure Father?"

"Pffftt, married women like flowers and gold Stephen they lose all interest in a man's cock once they have this name." He grinned at his wife whose face was burning an incredible shade of red and smacked her square on the arse. "If the old girl wants a ride she need only ask I would give her a go for old times' sake."

"What of your wife's happiness then, her dignity? Did she earn your contempt when she accepted your common name?"

William Marshall stopped his blustering posture and regarded the only child he had ever accepted responsibility for. "You speak true I earned all I have. I had no father purse me land and title as you did. I worked and earned first the respect of the nobles then their gold and land. I am the first Earl of Pembroke it was created for me to honour me you will be the second but fortunately you need do no more than be my son to use the noble title I earned."

Stephen smiled wryly and mockingly bowed his head, "Those nobles only let you in because you had a noble wife to open the door for you. Undeniably you made the most of that but never forget your true roots in life Father. It's been many years since we spoke and I had no wish to quarrel but I will not accept this treatment of my Mother." He stood beside the woman now on the verge of tears, "Robert De Sable -the man you choose to instruct me -taught me many things not the least of those -our duty to protect and respect the gentler sex."

"Then it seems the mistake was mine I sent a boy to become a man and you have been returned to me as weak as piss."

"Feel free to return to Pembroke Father, London has not moved any I will find the Temple without your aid or company."

Marshal habitually sucked at his teeth as he considered his next move, the little prick was standing up to him and he hadn't expected that. "Dry your tears boy the wench was slack and is not worth this trouble, I'll send her back to the scullery and spare your Mother more shame." The young man signalled his acceptance with his eyes but his father still had more to say. "Make no mistake boy I will be there in London when you become a Templar because it is my place." Grabbing at his own groin to add weight to his comments he continued. "You came from here; you are me, made from me ,never forget that you owe me all including the fucking respect you seem to think she merits for shoving you out of her hole."

He walked away mumbling about thanking the pot and slapping the cook and left his wife and son behind to watch his departure.

Tahir shifted on his blanket, not the first groan he had emitted but it was the first one loud enough to wake the woman sleeping beside him. His sleep had been troubled and Maria knew whatever dark thoughts haunted his dreams the boy was struggling to shake them. She had often been warned against waking up a person in the throes of a nightmare but he didn't seem to be fearful only upset. A cautious hand on his shoulder shook his body. "Wake up and have some water Tahir."

He grunted and snored and she waited to see if he had been calmed but when his body turned to her and she saw the tears streaking his young face she let her hand fall from his body. Waking up a man from a nightmare was one thing but these tears were not something she wished to face. She lay down on her own blanket and pulled it up to her chin, watching him battle whatever demons lived in his dreams.

Altaïr was blissfully unaware of Maria's unhappy vigil over his novice; he was facing demons of his own. The leap that failed to land where his feet desired, the promise screamed at her from the depth of his heart... "I'll find you Adha..." A promise he had failed to keep, at least while she was still alive, and a moment which would haunt him forever. Then his own blade piercing into the flesh of one he knew wasn't De Sable but one sent as a decoy. In many of his dreams his blade had torn open the flesh of that imposter's throat before he ever thought to remove the helm to see the face of his opponent. What that face had come to mean to him, the idea of harm finding her as it had Adha... his heart once more had dared to love and it ached at the very notion of losing Maria too. There had to be something he could do to ensure he never failed her as he had Adha. His head moved to the side to look at her back as she slept and suddenly it all seemed so clear to him, what he had to do to ensure she wasn't hurt by her former comrades. Remembering the morning he had set out from Masyaf, how he knew he had been distracted, ignoring feelings he should have been listening to he made his choice. Moving from the soft linen blanket he was laying on he put his plan into action.

The row of hovels, still smoking from the previous day's assault looked like a monstrous row of broken teeth to the assassin as he gazed down from his vantage point. Jabal had sent him here to see the full aftermath of the attempt to stop the spread of disease among the poorer people who lived so tightly packed in this squalor that even a whisper was hard to contain. A young woman hobbled along the street coughing into her hand stopped to wipe the dirty blonde hair from her face before she made her way to a house at the end of the row.

A burly man who was carrying an enormous chunk of wood on his shoulder paused to question her, "Where the hell do you think you are going lass? There's nowt here now but ash and soot."

She stopped at first seeming too dazed to understand the question but then she spoke in a sickly voice. "He said he would come back for me and this is where he knows to look so where else would I go?"

"Where else, where else girl has you taken leave of your senses!" He scoffed, "I should imagine he would want to find you anywhere else but here and dead girl. Get on with you now and find a bed somewhere else."

She lowered her head and tried to pay no heed to his grim warning. Tahir had said he would come and Gwen never doubted that for a second and she would not have him come for her and find nought but any empty burned out house. No he would come and she would be here waiting to begin their life together, better he find her dead than not find her at all and believe she had abandoned him. Her heavy feet trudged wearily on towards the shell of her home but her heart was light and her faith in her love was strong. He would come.

The fortifying walls surrounding the city came into view as his mount climbed the last of the hill. The knight tugged his helmet from his head and tucked in under his arm. He wanted the men at the gate to see him and know him if he was now a wanted man they would surely take him exactly where he wanted to so hiding seemed futile but more than that it felt cowardly. He tried stealth in Jerusalem and it had failed him, under other circumstances could have cost him his life. He would stick with what had served him well his whole life and let fate decide how it should end.

He saw soft grey smoke billowing up into the sky and wondered what mischief had befallen his adopted home in his absence but as he neared the walls and the guards he had his answer -disease. There were bodies piled high and wide outside the city walls and men dragging carts containing more of the unfortunates to their unholy burial.

"You might want to think twice about coming inside the city sire there be no end to the misery within."

He lowered himself from his horse and tethered the beast to a stall, "What happened soldier?"

He shrugged and grinned smugly, it was an entirely malicious sight and Stephen had to stop himself from striking the man as he smirked at the bodies being dragged past him. "There's them what say it's from dirty water but then there's them what say it's dirty deeds what brung this upon us, whoring and drinking and the like. I know I drank the water but I always makes time for God and church and as you see I've been spared the sickness. So you tell me."

"Take that fucking look from your face before I do it for you! You stand here sure of your own righteousness while you gloat over the misfortune of others! Get out of my way and make sure I don't see you again today."

He stormed past him and stopped at the stairs just within the city walls. The hospital to his left was out of sight but the lines of the sick and the dying made it all the way to the edge of the city. 'Dirty water or dirty deeds...' He walked past them at first trying to keep his eyes averted but it was impossible, there were hundreds of people all reaching out to him imploring him to help. The cross he wore on his robes perhaps offering them some hope that he would be able to give them more than pity. But the cross was symbolic and not literal he was a soldier not a doctor. The pale flesh of the arms which reached out to him all streaked with dirt and the faces were seared red with fever as the cries of mother's holding their dying children out to him cut deeply into his heart. "Save him my Lord."

There was another group of Hospitalier soldiers milling around watching the people begging for help and a sudden tight knot of pain gripped his stomach. He could track its course as it made its way from the pit of his gut to his throat, the anger burned at his insides so much so that when he moved to the nearest man and grabbed him by the throat he felt sure his words would be accompanied by fire.

"You stand here watching this, you who joined the Hospitaliers. Get off your fucking arses and start helping these people or so help me I will cut off your useless hands."

Wide eyed with fear the Frenchman began to mumble weak excuses but the knight wasn't in the mood to listen. "Help them now."

"B-b-but how my lord we have no equipment?"

He sneered as he let him go, "I've seen your order work in the battlefield surely you can think of something so close to a hospital."

The man yelped instructions to his comrades to go to the hospital and start building tents but Stephen had already begun walking away. The chaotic scenes of the sick gradually thinned out and the streets became more and more deserted as he made his way through the city. A boy who was built like a bull strode past him with the body of a girl in his arms, she looked so young and ironically the red flush the disease had caused on her face probably made her look healthier than she had in life. He had to force his eyes away from her dirty blonde hair hanging limply over his arm and her pale arm dangling lifelessly behind them.

This was perfect, exactly the scene which should greet a man on a mission such as he was. His mood could hardly have been darker when the tower of the citadel came into view.

Maria awoke to Tahir's voice, "He's gone Maria."

"Wh-what, gone what do you mean?"

"The Master is gone he must have left in the night."

She sprang up from the earth which had been her bed "He left in the night. Why would he do that?"

Tahir looked to the ground "Our behaviour lately can't have inspired much confidence I assume he believed we weakened him."

"Weakened him I'll break his God damn fucking legs when I catch him! How Dare he." She kicked out at the ashes of the previous night's fire scattering glowing embers all around the ground. "I can't believe this he actually asked if he could escort me I was so gullible Tahir."

The novice stood behind her "What do you intend to do?"

Already moving to her horse she began to mount, "I intend Tahir, what I intend to do is ride for Acre to oversee the death of two men. Are you with me?"

He chuckled in spite of the fact she was threatening to kill his Master, or perhaps because of that fact either way he chuckled. "We will travel to Acre together I'm sure he has a good reason for his actions but Maria, get back off the horse for now."

"Tahir we have no time to waste we can't know how far ahead he is."

Gesturing at her belongings, weapons and all, still lying on the ground beside her bed he shrugged, "Are we leaving this stuff here?"

Looking more than a little sheepish the impetuous woman dismounted and began the task of packing up.

Altaïr rode hard the rest of the night and in the morning when his horse was sweating heavily he looked for another and rode that one until it would move no more. He had to walk a short distance before he found another mount, this one likely a farmers munching on the hay but he cared not for ownership. He would not stop, he would ride and be in Acre for nightfall and one way or another he would end the men who threatened everything he held dear.

To the guest reviewer who asked for jealousy from Maria... she gets a rival on Limassol a few chapters down the line