“And why did you want to pin me if not to attack me or steal my money?”
“Because it’s not your money, is it?”
Yusuf had no response to that. It wasn’t his money. But… “I give it to my mother,” he said quietly. “We need it.”
“And the woman watching the dancing didn’t?” Kemal retorted. “Her children didn’t?”
“She looked like she could spare some coins,” Yusuf answered, somewhat defensively, as he recalled her well-made, attractive clothes.
“Just like you, Selime’s children have no father. I don’t know what happened to yours, but I know what happened to theirs. He was violent and cruel to them, and Selime fled in the night to escape. You took everything she had. You could see her fine clothes, but not the bruises on her face, eh?”
Shame washed through Yusuf and he felt his face heat up. The purse was unusually heavy; generally those who went out in the market didn’t carry quite so much money with them, as thefts weren’t uncommon.
“I suppose you want me to give you the money I took from her. But how do I know you’re not lying?”
“I don’t want you to give me the money. I want you to give it back to her. What I want from you is just you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Bazaar, Istanbul itself… it can be a difficult place if you are not wealthy or powerful. And it can be particularly dangerous for children. We all look out for each other.”
His nose had stopped bleeding, but even in the faint light Yusuf could see it was a mess. Davud started to hand the cloth back to him but he waved it away. He was afraid he had broken the other boy’s nose. He thought about the happy little girl dancing gracelessly but joyously to the music. He wondered if the story Davud was telling was true, and if so, how long had it been since that girl had laughed.
“Obviously, you’re already a fine cutpurse. I can teach you how to fight. Well, fight even better.” Through the mask of blood on his face, Davud smiled. “There are things, and people, that are worth getting a bloody nose—and more—for. And those who aren’t. You need to be able to tell which is which, or else one day those light fingers of yours will steal from the wrong person.”
The whole thing sounded very strange… and very suspicious. But it also made a lot of sense. Yusuf was well aware that Davud could have killed him just now, and the boy had released him.
Davud got to his feet, towering over Yusuf by about a foot. Yusuf guessed he was about thirteen. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Selime and her family and you can give the money back. Or,” he said, “you can leave right now.”
Yusuf made up his mind. “Show me.”
An hour later, Yusuf walked home alone. His shirt was empty of coin, but his heart was full of satisfaction and his head was full of ideas. He was excited to learn everything that Davud could teach him.
“Cross reference this Davud bin Hassam with our database,” came the soft, modulated female voice.
“Nothing. No ties to the Assassins, at least none that we can determine.”
“How odd. I had thought, given the significance of this memory, it might be when Yusuf was recruited.”
“Too young at age eight even for Assassins, I suppose.”
“Formally, perhaps. Still… this was enlightening. What’s the next date?”
“April 23, 1480.”
REGRESSION: CONSTANTINOPLE, 1480
It was the bayram of Hidirellez, the festival that marked the beginning of the spring and summer, and everyone in the city was happy. Though it specifically honored the meeting of two prophets, Hizir and Ilyas, all members of the diverse population of Istanbul found something to celebrate in this bayram that was all about making wishes, letting go of the old and welcoming the new, good health and fortune, and plenty of eating, dancing, and music.
Nalan had been working harder than ever to prepare enough kemalpasa for the celebrating throngs that crowded the Bazaar, and the always genial Bekir bin Salih, the vendor who oversaw several stalls and spaces in the Bazaar, was practically radiating goodwill at the turnout. For once, Yusuf was kept too busy with legitimate deliveries to cut purses, but he would not have done so anyway.
“Hidirellez is about community,” the now eighteen-year-old Davud had told his group of young thieves, scouts, spies, and vigilantes. “We won’t start our new beginnings by making them bad for others.” Yusuf agreed wholeheartedly. There was enough legitimate business going on in the Bazaar anyway.
The festivities went on well into the night. It was the small hours before the last few celebrants headed to their homes, sleepy with full bellies and perhaps a little the worse—or better—for alcohol. After Yusuf and his mother had retired to their modest lodgings, she surprised him by placing something wrapped in cloth on the small table.
“Today is a day for wishes and new beginnings,” she said, “and your father had a wish for you… when you were ready. I think it is time.”
Yusuf’s heart leaped. He sat down on the single bench, eyeing the mysterious bundle. “A wish… what was it, Mother?”
“That I tell you what I could of him, without betraying any oaths he made. And that I gift you with something that once belonged to him.”
Yusuf trembled with excitement, and as his mother spoke, he listened with not just his ears, but with every part of himself.
“I have always done what I do,” she began. “I prepare kemalpasa and sell it. Your father helped me, as you do now, but he did other things as well.”
Her dark eyes watched the small candle flame on the table, obviously wrestling with what she felt she could reveal to their only child, and what needed to remain secret.
Exasperated, Yusuf grabbed his hair and pretended to tear at it. “Mama, I am going to die of anticipation! Tell me before my hair goes gray, will you?”
She laughed then and, sitting down next to him, tousled his hair fondly. “You are barely thirteen, still my little boy in so many ways. But,” she added as he rolled his eyes, “also not… in so many ways.”
“You were saying he did other things,” Yusuf prompted helpfully.
“He was no friend to the Ottomans, or… to others who seek to dominate and control the people.” She gave him a sly smile. “My sweet little lion, do you think I do not know what you do when you are not in my sight?”
Yusuf blanched. How did she….
“You could not possibly earn what you do by simple deliveries or entertaining customers. I have seen you with Davud and the others. You explore, you climb, you run along the rooftops. You give what you can to those you can. So did your father.”
“What happened to him, Mama?”
She looked away, back at the leaping flames. “He is dead, Yusuf. I have only a few things that were returned—” she caught herself and clucked her tongue. “I say too much. But these things are yours, now that you are of an age where they will fit you. You are not a little boy anymore.”
Far from it, Yusuf thought, his pride slightly wounded. But any offense he felt was washed away by the look of pride commingled with sorrow on his mother’s strong, beautiful face. He accepted the outstretched bundle, noting the length of teal-colored silk cloth in which it was wrapped.
“Be careful as you unwrap it,” his mother warned.
“Why, is there a scorpion or viper hiding inside?”
“No… but it might bite you, nonetheless.”
He turned the last fold of cloth and stared at what was revealed. It seemed to be a bracer, or gauntlet of some sort. The leatherworking was beautiful, and Yusuf picked it up carefully, mindful of his mother’s warning. Turning it over, he saw that there was something attached to the underside.
“What is it?”
“Your father called it a hookblade,” his mother answered. “There is a mechanism in it that will—”
Yusuf started as with a sharp sound, a piece of metal shot out from the end of the gauntlet.
“Ah, I see you found it,” his mother finished wryly. �
�There is a hook, as you can see, and there is a simple blade as well.”
“How do I use it?”
Nalan’s smile faded. “I never saw them in use,” she said. “You know as much as I do, now. But… I think you were meant to know more.”
He looked up at her, the question in his dark gray eyes. Her own suddenly glinted in the candlelight, bright with unshed tears.
“I was selfish, and somehow hoped that you would be content to live an ordinary life, with me, and one day with a wife and children. I knew who and what your father was when we wed; and I cannot love you and deny the parts of him I see in you. You were not meant to stay with me, selling kemalpasa and working in the Bazaar, any more than he was. Go, and discover your father’s legacy, my darling boy who is now a man.”
He wanted to promise her he would be safe, that he wouldn’t add the grief of his own death to that which she had already borne. But he couldn’t lie to her. The night, the dark alleys, the looks on the faces of those who helped—and those he harmed—drew him too powerfully.
So he did the best that he could to be a dutiful son in this moment. He rose and embraced her, realizing as he did so that somehow in the last year he had shot up to become a half a head taller than her. Holding her so tightly he feared he might crush her, he whispered in her ear, “I will be wise.”
It was all the reassurance he could offer.
The night called, and he was anxious to learn.
And… to show off to Davud.
Very, very carefully, he experimented with how the hookblade functioned. Unlike the blade, it was a tool, not a weapon, and his quick mind starting wondering just exactly how it worked. He was able to snag things off the ground as he wandered in the streets, mostly deserted now. It added almost a foot to his reach, so handholds that were impossible suddenly became so, and he found he could ascend much more quickly.
Ascend… and perhaps descend as well….
He made for one of the buildings where he remembered seeing the mysterious ropes, using the hookblade to climb swiftly atop the roof. His heart pounded in his chest and he extended the new tool toward the rope.
It fit over it exactly… as if the rope’s thickness had been selected specifically to accommodate the curve of the hook.
Yusuf’s mouth was dry with excitement. This couldn’t be coincidence. This was deliberate—and he wondered if, perhaps, his father had stood on this very roof years ago, using the blade his son now wore.
He had to know what it was like. But it was a long fall. A very long fall.
Gingerly, he reached out with the hookblade and snagged the rope. It took him a moment to work up his courage, but then he took a deep breath, and stepped off the roof.
Smoothly, swiftly, he sped along the rope. Several yards below, stone streets lay ready to break his bones should the hook slip or give way. The ride was dizzying, exhilarating, and far too brief. Before he knew it, his feet touched the roof of the shorter building.
Yusuf struggled not to let out a whoop of sheer exultation. What a sensation! He had to feel it again. Grinning from ear to ear, this time he didn’t fasten the hook on the rope slowly and carefully. He sprang, caught the line, and soared.
He hoped that somehow, his father could see him, and was proud.
“This is unusual,” the woman said as Emir drifted, caught between his present and Yusuf’s past. “Using an Assassin’s weapon at thirteen so efficiently with no training. Remarkable.”
“This weapon and this little gang he’s running with—all the evidence we’ve gathered suggests they’re extremely important to who he will become.”
“And who he becomes has an effect on one of the most important Assassins we know of to date,” mused the woman. “Ezio Auditore. Is there anything else we should see before we go to their first encounter?”
“There does seem to be something important about two years on. Hang on… let me get the exact date.”
REGRESSION: CONSTANTINOPLE, 1482
Yusuf was both tremendously excited and terribly nervous. In the seven years since he had first met Davud in the alley and learned of the older boy’s odd organization of the Bazaar’s children, they had had many adventures and close calls.
Davud—whose nose had never healed quite right after that memorable first encounter—had kept his word. He had taught Yusuf how to fight, both fairly and sneakily. He had introduced him to the other members of the group—children all at the time, though some of them, like Davud and Yusuf himself—who was now second only to Davud—had grown up. Some of them had left the city, or moved to other areas of it. But he and Davud stayed, to look out for the interests of the Bazaar community in ways that the merchants themselves could not.
Tonight, they would perform that duty in a way they had never done before. They would not be throwing small smoke bombs to cause distractions, or stealing coins in a crowd, or even defacing property. Tonight, they would be breaking into a private residence, and stealing whatever they could smuggle out.
Their hands had been forced. Vendors, like the kindly Bekir, rented their stalls from others who owned the spaces. Rent was steep, but that was understood—it was a prime place to sell in the greatest city in the world. But in the last week, a stranger, riding in a palanquin and wearing the finest silks, had made his way through the Bazaar, turning cold, appraising eyes on certain stalls.
And the next thing the stunned merchants learned was that their rent was about to quadruple.
There was nothing they could do, a heartbroken Nalan had told her distraught and furious son. “Poor Bekir is sobbing. He has run his business out of that stall for a dozen years. And now, he has to leave.”
“What if we could meet the price?” Yusuf had asked.
She’d laughed, bitterly. “Even if you could cut that many purses, my light-fingered boy, you would not have time to do so. We will need to be out in five days.” At the thunder in his face, she added, “We are luckier than most. There are other souks in the city, and everyone likes kemalpasa. We’ll be all right.”
They might land on their feet, but not everyone else would. What would become of friendly Bekir, and the others who could not readily ply their trades elsewhere?
Fortunately, Davud agreed with Yusuf, and they hatched the scheme they were now about to enact.
They had sent some of the younger children to act as beggars in the area near the new owner’s lodgings, and to follow him unobtrusively as he went about his business. That night, one of them reported that the owner, who was obviously not Turkish, would be dining out and not returning until well into the small hours.
He was staying, unsurprisingly, in the best part of town, an area near to the Topkapi Palace, though not, thankfully, within its walls. It was a private residence, and there were a pair of guards out front and a few servants within. As planned, a group of children began to distract the guards long enough for the pair of young robbers to maneuver toward the back and hide themselves amid the flowering trees of a private garden.
While the guards tried to chase away the children, it was the work of a moment for Yusuf to activate his hookblade, ascend to an upper story window, open it, and lower a rope down for his friend. Once Davud had climbed up, they pulled the rope into the room and closed the shutters, so that no passing guard below would notice anything amiss.
Voices floated up from the rooms below; idle conversations from servants who were taking advantage of the fact that their master was not home to gossip and relax. Any theft would have to be conducted upstairs, and Yusuf, who had the ability to do many things at the same, listened with half an ear to the chatter below while he and Davud searched the upstairs rooms.
Yusuf tried to be nonchalant about what he beheld, although he had never seen such luxuries in his short life. Silks and furs decorated the rooms. There were carved, heavy chairs, not benches, and drawers filled jewelry and with ornate clothes with gems sewn into them. He went right to work, using his blade to separate the gems from the fabric while Da
vud scoured the rooms for coins and other smaller, portable riches. They had several merchants who “knew people” and would be able to liquidate the gems and small valuables quickly.
“This is unbelievable,” Yusuf murmured as he picked up a small alabaster carving and thrust it into his sack. His eye fell on a small, wickedly sharp dagger. The hilt was covered with gold and dotted with rubies, and the sheath was made of buttery soft leather. He tossed it to Davud, who caught it deftly. “Here, for you for now,” he said. “You are so jealous of my hookblade.”
Davud grinned. For the next several minutes, they scoured the large room, shaking their heads at the vast amount of wealth. “We should think about doing this more frequently,” Yusuf said. “I have enough in my bag alone to cover the increased rent for a year. Maybe two or three.”
“No,” Davud said. “It would attract too much attention. We had to do it, this time. But it’s best if we keep to the shadows. Don’t get greedy, Yusuf. It’ll get you every—”
The word died on his lips as they heard the door open below and conversation floated up. Their gazes locked, and their eyes flew open wide. Yusuf turned at once toward the window, cracking the shutters and peering down into the garden below.
Where a guard, dressed like none he had ever seen before, stood. There would be no chance of escaping via rope until he moved.
“We’re stuck here,” he whispered, “at least for now.”
Davud nodded. “Keep watch. Maybe they won’t come upstairs right away.”
“I am glad all is proceeding well,” came a voice. It was a thick accent, and though Yusuf couldn’t place it, he took an immediate dislike to it. “The Templars have always had eyes in the Bazaar, of course. The Assassins are not the only ones who can hide in plain sight if need be. But now, we have permanent stalls.”
Raucous laughter floated up. Davud and Yusuf stared at each other, horrified. Was the cold-eyed new owner of the stalls setting up some kind of spy ring? Assassins? Templars? He had never heard the terms before.
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