He knelt and peered into the depths of the dark water. Still as a fishing heron, he disciplined himself to be patient. And then, at last, a ripple, a faint one, which disappeared as soon as it had unsettled the water’s surface, but enough to show him that there was something alive in there. He continued his watch. Little flies hovered low over the pool. Some flew over and harassed him, attracted by his body heat. Not daring to swat them away, he endured their tickling attentions and their tiny, vicious bites.
Then he saw it—a large, plump body, the color of a corpse, moving sluggishly six inches below the surface. Better than he’d dared hope—it looked like a carp, maybe, or something very like it. As he watched, another, much darker, joined it, and then a third, its scales coppery gold.
Ezio waited for them to do what he expected them to do—put their snouts to the surface and gulp air. That would be his moment. All his attention focused, he tensed his body and steeled his hands.
The dark fish made its move, bubbles erupted as a fat mouth appeared.
Ezio sprang.
And fell back, elated, the big fish wriggling frantically in his grasp but unable to slide out. He laid it on the ground beside him and dispatched it with a stone.
There was no way he could cook this. He’d have to eat it raw. But then he looked again at the stone he’d used to kill it and remembered the shard that had flaked off in his hand during his climb. Flint! With luck, he could start a fire—to dry his clothes as much as to cook with. Raw fish didn’t bother him—he’d read, besides, that somewhere in an unimaginable country far away to the east there was a people who actually regarded it as a delicacy. But wet clothing was quite another thing. As for the fire itself, he’d take the risk. From what he’d seen, he was probably the first human in this valley in a thousand years, and its towering sides hid it from view for miles.
He gathered together some brushwood from the coppice, and, after a few moments’ experiment, he had managed to start a tiny red glow in a handful of grass. Carefully, he placed it under a prepared tent of twigs, burning himself as his fire immediately flared. It burned well, giving off little smoke, and that was thin and light, immediately whisked into nothingness by the breeze
For the first time since his first sighting of Masyaf, Ezio smiled.
Despite the cold, to save time, he took off his clothes to dry them by the fire on rudimentary brushwood frames as the fish cooked and bubbled on a simple spit. Less than an hour later, the fire kicked out and its traces scattered, he felt a certain warmth in his belly and was able, soon afterward, to don garments which, if not laundry-fresh, were warm, and sufficiently dried for him to wear comfortably. They would have to finish drying as he wore them. As for his exhaustion, that would have to keep. He’d resisted the desire to sleep by the fire and the pool, a fight as tough as any he’d had on the road, but he was rewarded by a second wind.
He felt equal to the task of returning to the castle. He needed his gear, then he needed to unlock the secrets of the place if his quest was to mean anything.
As he retraced his steps, he noticed, shortly before he reached the cliff he’d climbed, that on the southern side of the valley another pathway led upward along the side of that rock face. Who had hewn these pathways? Men from the dawn of time? Ezio had no leisure to ponder this but was grateful that this one was there. It rose steeply eastward, back in the direction of Masyaf. Ezio started to climb.
After an ascent of some five hundred feet, the path ended on a narrow promontory, where a few foundation stones testified to the presence long ago of a lookout tower, where guards would have been able to scan the country around and give the castle advance warning of any approaching army or caravan. Looking eastward and down, the great complex of Masyaf, with its rearing walls and cupola’d towers, spread out beneath him. Ezio focused hard, and his eyes, as keen as an eagle’s, began to pick out the details that would help him return.
Far below, he discerned a rope bridge across the same chasm formerly spanned by the stone one he had run across. Near it was a guard post. There was no other access to the castle, as far as he could see, from the side he was on, but at the far side of the bridge, the way to the castle was relatively clear.
The way down to the bridge, on his side, was another matter. An all-but-sheer cascade of black rock—enough to daunt the surest-footed ibex. And it was in full view of the guard post on the castle side of the bridge.
Ezio looked at the sun. It was just past its zenith. He calculated it would take four to five hours to reach the castle. He needed to be inside before darkness fell.
He clambered down from the promontory and began his descent, taking it slowly, taking care not to dislodge the jumble of loose rocks, in case they tumbled down the mountainside and alerted the Templars guarding the bridge. It was delicate work, but the sun would be setting behind him and, therefore, shining in the eyes of any watchers below, and Ezio was grateful for its protection. He’d be down before it set behind the rock face he was on.
At last he reached the security and concealment of a large outcrop on level ground not fifty yards from the west side of the bridge. It had grown colder, and the wind was getting up. The bridge—of black-tarred rope, with narrow wooden slats as its walkway—swung and rattled. As Ezio watched, two guards emerged from the post and walked a little way to and fro on their side but did not venture onto the bridge itself. They were armed with crossbows and swords.
The light was dull and flat, it was difficult to judge distances. But the lessening light was to Ezio’s advantage, and he blended in easily with his surroundings. Like a shadow, crouching, he made his way closer to the bridge, but there would be no cover once he was on it, and he was unarmed.
He paused once more about ten feet away, watching the guards. They looked cold and bored, Ezio noted to his satisfaction—they would not be alert. Nothing else had changed except that someone had lit a lamp within the post, so he knew there were more than two of them.
But he needed some kind of weapon. On the climb down and on his final approach, he had been too preoccupied with not giving his position away to look for something, but he hadn’t forgotten that the mountain stone was flint, and there were plenty of loose shards at his feet. They glinted black in the dying light. He selected one with his eyes, a bladelike flake about twelve inches long and two wide. He picked it up and in doing so was too hasty, causing other stones to clatter. He froze.
But there was no reaction. The bridge was thirty yards across. He could be halfway, easily, before the guards noticed him. But he’d have to make a move immediately. He braced himself, stood up, and hurled himself forward.