through a glass, darkly
Except for a few new scars and one or two missing faces, Roma’s Assassins hadn’t really changed. The fashion might have gotten a bit more garish, she privately acknowledged, with a covertly critical look at a few of the attending fidā'ī, but it was a special occasion; Mario rarely hosted formal sit-down dinner parties.
“I think you’ve had about enough for one night, E-zo,” she commented, tone carefully tempered even.
Her brother pointedly rolled his eyes towards Lucia, seated on his right, as he tapped his blade against his wine glass. He’d really started drinking in earnest after their uncle had ordered him to stay as he’d tried to follow Taline when Altaïr had escorted her from the room. She could tell Ezio resented the order, that he wanted to chase after Taline and presumably take her back to their mother’s house himself, or at the very least to be assured that the extra cargo she was carrying was all right. And maybe get some groping in – it was Ezio, after all; he wasn’t that chivalrous.
“You’re awfully young to already sound so much like our mother, un’asina,” he responded as he lifted his refilled glass to his lips. She couldn’t tell which was stronger, the urge to hit him or hex him.
“Be nice to your sister, nipote,” Mario rumbled before draining and refilling his own wine glass.
Jesus Christ, Lucia wasn’t kidding about his drinking. She’d lost count of how many glasses her uncle had drunk so far, but he had to have been on at least his second bottle by this point, and he wasn’t even slurring. She dug her toes into the thin insoles of the high, strappy sandals she’d selected to compliment her dress, and was grateful that her mother was seated at the opposite end of the table, as etiquette dictated. While at first glance it seemed a bad idea for Maria to act as Mario’s hostess, in practice it actually worked quite well for all involved. They were both loyal to the Order – her mother perhaps a shade more so – and dedicated to protecting the family’s – namely Ezio’s – interests. Always Ezio. She resented being constantly overlooked by her own relatives, even as they fawned and obsessed over every little thing her older brother did.
“I’m plenty nice,” Ezio retorted, eliciting a faint ripple of amusement from a few of the Assassins seated nearby who were obviously doing their best to follow the conversation.
“Is that what you are?” she hummed, stabbing her fork into the fegatelli di maiale on the plate in front of her; she’d missed the taste of pork in Alamūt. “I wonder what your wife would make of that claim.” Her dinner knife sliced through the tender meat like it was nothing.
There was a poisonous beat of silence and the sound of metal scraping against bone china as she watched Ezio’s eyes narrow and jaw muscles clench.
“I’m sure she would agree,” Lucia cut in with a smooth smile, as she leaned into Ezio and gave his forearm an oddly intimate squeeze. “He’s so very indulgent of her every whim, like tonight, for example. How many other husbands would allow their wives to sit with whomsoever they choose – instead of at their side, where they belong – at a formal meal such as this? And he allows her to dine with Altaïr Effendi every week on nights he has to work late so she won’t have to wait on him or dine alone. Far more trust and consideration than most wives could expect from their husbands, I’m sure.”
She knew her brother well enough to tell Lucia’s slyly backhanded comments had struck a nerve; Ezio’s smile never faltered, but he casually slid away from Lucia’s touch, subtly increasing the physical distance between their bodies. It was the comment about “allowing” Taline to not sit beside him, she decided. She understood perfectly well why Lucia had brought it up, even though all three of them knew that neither Ezio nor Taline had been happy with the arrangement imposed on them by her mother and uncle; Taline not occupying the seat beside Ezio was a notable departure from Assassin etiquette that was sure to start tongues wagging, and Lucia was trying to head off crueler gossip by framing it simply as a Master being excessively indulgent of his kāfir wife who didn’t know any better.
“Of course I trust her,” Ezio replied, with perfectly manufactured charm. “Taline is the most devoted and loyal of wives. I am a very lucky man.”
That didn’t sound rehearsed at all.
“And your bella ragazza is a lucky young woman to have found a husband such as yourself, nipote,” Mario said, lifting his once again refilled glass, to tap the rim against Ezio’s before draining the contents in a deep drink. “Truly, it is a sign of God’s blessing that your marriage is already bearing fruit,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to Ezio’s discomfort at his praise.
It struck her as strange, the way Ezio seemed to get uncomfortable when just about anyone so far had commented approvingly on Taline’s pregnancy. It wasn’t that he didn’t seem happy about Taline being pregnant – or really creepily into it – because he clearly was; the palazzo’s walls weren’t thick, something her brother seemed to have forgotten. She wished she could come up with a not-awkward way of reminding him of that fact, because the nightly window into her brother’s troubled marriage made for really uncomfortable involuntary eavesdropping. It was getting harder to ignore the sounds of Ezio drunkenly brutalizing his wife, of Taline crying afterwards, his pleading and recriminations –other women beg for my cock inside them, why can’t you try to like it, Taline? – and her sister-in-law occasionally pushing back – please, Varpet, you might hurt our baby – but mostly she heard the muffled skin on skin slap of sex, followed by her sister-in-law crying and her brother begging his wife to tell him what was wrong.
It made her want to scream.
She didn’t understand how if she could tell, through a wall, that Taline clearly found the ways he was screwing her unpleasant, why her Master Assassin brother, the one actually interacting with Taline, couldn’t figure that out himself. It made her more and more nervous about becoming intimate with Hiro. It won’t be like that between us, she vowed. I’m not the sort of woman who gets treated like that. Besides,Hiro respects me.
“The kuffār war in North Africa seems to be going poorly for Italy, and her ally,” she commented inanely, flashing a conspiratorial look at her brother, which he acknowledged with a quick double-blink. “How much longer before Tunisia falls, do you think?” she asked the table at large, hoping to steer the conversation away from herself and Ezio.
“Soon,” Giulio Fava, one of Rome’s senior Masters, irreverently called The Black Death by students – never to his face, of course – declared with grim relish. He was dressed in his customary somber tones, iron gray beard meticulously trimmed, and eyes practically brimming with hellfire and ecstasy at the thought of carnage. “All this upheaval and unrest, the Order needs to look to the security of its bureaus.”
She leaned back in her seat and took a dainty bite of fegatelli di maiale, satisfied that the pot and been well and truly stirred. That should keep them busy for a while.
Orsino Garfagnini, who had somehow managed to get even uglier since she’d been away, snorted disdainfully. “With all due respect, Messere, what have we to fear from the kuffār and their petty squabbles? Nothing, that’s what.”
“Spoken like a Young Turk,” Giulio grumbled into his wine, and she wondered at the flash of tension that ran through Ezio’s body.
Something struck a nerve. She felt a frown creasing her brows and quickly hid her expression behind a carefully measured sip of wine. Must be something to do with Taline, she decided, but that raised more questions than it answered, the foremost being, is Ezio really that infatuated with his little cabaret dancer? She wouldn’t have thought so before, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“Assassin?”
She belatedly realized she’d been asked a question, swallowed the mouthful of wine she’d been holding and forced a closed-mouth smile as she turned to the speaker. The last thing she wanted was to show off a mouth full of wine-stained teeth after all. Why does Uncle Mario always serve the darkest, reddest wines at his formal dinners?
Attilio Moretti had wavy, chestnut brown hair, greenish-hazel eyes and a light tan that she couldn’t help noticing ended before the opened neck of his robes. She made a mental note to keep that last observation to herself; he was a third tier Veteran, after all.
“I’m sorry. I was-” she hesitated and carefully smoothed a hand over her hair. Still sleek and smooth. Good. “Savoring the wine,” she finished, shooting a smile towards her uncle. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of a fine vintage. Since, you know, Altaïr Effendi doesn’t approve of drinking anything with alcohol.”
“Why would one abstain from life’s simple pleasures? Surely it must be bad for the soul to be so austere,” Attilio laughed, drawing his blade with a casual flick of his wrist.
She almost flinched at the clink of his blade against her wine glass. Ezio arched a questioning brow at her; she waved him off with a flick of her eyes, and her brother responded by draining his wineglass, again. She swallowed her sigh when Ezio again tapped his blade against his glass and pointedly turned her attention back to Attilio.
“What were you trying to ask me earlier, when I was distracted?” she hummed, absently winding a coil of her hair around her finger.
Attilio smiled, the expression amplified by the glamour he’d silently cast – she’d gotten good at spotting those after a couple years of training under Altaïr; Altaïr always noticed whenever anyone cast anything.
“Nothing important,” Attilio drawled before taking another sip of wine and leveling an even more intensified smile at her. “Mostly I was looking for a way to start a conversation, but we’re already having one of those, so that question doesn’t really matter anymore.”
Warning rippled across her skin and her smile was starting to feel forced.
“Maybe I’m curious.”
Attilio hummed. “I had asked about your contract in Libya, specifically your thoughts regarding Italy’s ability to hold on to it. Since you brought up the kuffār war in North Africa…”
Her skin was positively crawling. When she had left Italy, shortly after she’d come of age, her fellow Assassins had hardly spared her a second look over. Now, after almost three years training at the heart of the Order, under the most infamous fidā'ī in living memory, Roma’s men were interested, very interested. She didn’t flatter herself that they were suddenly impressed with her looks or skill – she’d always been pretty but she’d recently failed to rise to Mercenary, after all – so the obvious answer was ambition; they wanted to bed or marry her because doing so was likely to further their own careers. The Italian Assassins, encouraged by the fascist kuffār government ruling Italy, were usually pretty racist against people with North African or Arab blood – which included the Auditore side of her family. Her being only half Italian – and that half not even entirely, properly Italian, at that – should have kept men like Attilio away, but the other half – her mother’s half – was from one of the most infamous bloodlines in the whole of the Order, and that made up for quite a bit. Through her, any children she had would be able to trace their lineage back not only through scores of Al Mualim, notable Masters, and Medics, but to two of the most revered figures in the Order’s history – Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the Prophet and deified Renaissance Grandmaster of the Order’s Italian Brotherhood, on her father’s side, and the original Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad, the Order’s greatest Al Mualim since its founder Hasan-e Sabbāh, the man who single-handedly sculpted the Order into its modern form and founded her mother’s bloodline. Her and Ezio’s shared pedigree alone was enough to mob them with potential suitors, that her brother had risen to Master as young as he had only intensified the dynastic appeal. And then he ran off and married a Cathari cabaret dancer after some kāfir nobody broke his heart, she reflected bitterly as she stabbed her fork into the meat on her plate. Taking himself out of the marriage market and leaving the full focus of every old Assassin family in the whole damn Order on me. Thanks ever so.
“On second thought, I’m not curious,” she interrupted Attilio, sweetening her words with a smile as she dropped her fork onto the table next to her plate. “Please excuse me, I need to go powder my nose.”
“I thought powdering one’s nose was a euphemism for doing lady-things in the lavatory, not running off to hide alone on the roof like a hermit,” Ezio commented as he sidled up beside her. She was grudgingly impressed by her brother’s ability to hold his drink; even after all the wine he’d drunk at their uncle’s table, and god only knows how much hard alcohol before they’d even left their mother’s house, his footsteps had been quiet and even, unhurried and purposeful. It wasn’t exactly an admirable quality, but she was still impressed despite disapproving of how much he seemed to be drinking nonetheless.
Even under a blackout order, the view of Roma at night from the Motherhouse’s rooftop was breathtaking. She’d been admiring the familiar cityscape, enjoying the crisp, lingering chill in the spring breeze, the familiar rasp of roman wood smoke in her lungs – which somehow smelled different than the wood smoke at Alamūt. She hooked her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder; the fabric of his suit was warm and soft against her skin.
“Has Uncle noticed my absence?”
“Of course he has, you didn’t exactly sneak out,” Ezio retorted. “The look on Tillo’s face when you scampered off was pretty great,” he added after a moment. “Almost better than his expression when he realized you probably weren’t coming back. Absolutely priceless. Cammello di merda.”
She bit the edge of her lip to keep from smiling when he sighed and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers. She’d missed this easy closeness they used to have with each other, back when her brother still had time for her.
“Tillo’s not that ugly,” she protested. “And he’s presumably quite good with his blade-”
“He’s predictable, boring, and missing a testicle. Ask Emilia, she’s been around enough to know,” he shrugged. “Besides, you’ve already got a boyfriend, back at Alamūt, which is what you should have told Uncle Mario when he sat that minchione next to you – unless you’re keeping your options open?”
She pushed away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t be vulgar, Ezio. Remember that you’re talking to your sister, not a slattern.”
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
“You spend too much time at the cinema and not enough training, un’asina,” he harrumphed and turned back to surveying the metropolis below them. The barb hurt.
“How would you know?” she retorted, hating how sullen she sounded as she rubbed at the gooseflesh prickling over her arms. I should have grabbed a wrap on the way up here.
He sighed and shrugged off his coat. “You’re my little sister; it’s my job to notice those things.” He hooked his coat around her shoulders. “And I talk to Altaïr.”
She forced herself to take a carefully measured breath as she tramped down the sharp spike of irritation that had shot up her throat. Of course Altaïr reported on her to her brother, her mother, his sister, and god only knows who else – of-fucking-course he does. She was still more angry with Ezio than Altaïr though – you could just take the time to talk to me too, you know – but there wasn’t really any point to letting herself be angry with Ezio; it wasn’t like he was going to change any time soon. Being angry with Altaïr didn’t do her much good either, but it was easier than being mad at Ezio, somehow.
“How would he know? Has he ever even been to a cinema?” she replied scornfully when she trusted herself to speak. Part of her recognized that it wasn’t entirely fair to take potshots at their cousin, but, again, it was easier.
“I’m sure he went loads of times when he was younger,” Ezio shrugged. “Mal loves-loved going to the cinema.” Her brother’s voice hitched awkwardly over the past tense and her eyes stung. She hated that correction. “What was the name of that one movie he liked so much? The one with that figone in the white dress and the giant gorilla?”
She rolled her eyes. Of course he thinks of the girl first.
“Can you be more specific? There’s loads of pretty girls in white dresses in the movies.”
Ezio hummed thoughtfully and scratched at his jaw.
“She might have been blonde, maybe? And she had a really great pair of tits, like they’d fit in a man’s hands like dollops of meringue-”
“Nice neck?” she asked, a touch waspishly. “Maybe a name to go with those really great tits?”
“Her neck was okay. Not her most striking feature-” he said distractedly. She could practically hear him considering it in his voice.
She sighed. “King Kong.”
Ezio burst out laughing – that hearty, irresistible laugh everybody loved about him, the one that made it almost impossible not to want to laugh along with him. She quirked her lips against the urge to smile at the sound.
“Even an American wouldn’t name their daughter something like that.”
“King Kong is the name of the enormous gorilla, E-zo. You know, the one the whole film was actually about,” she replied in mock exasperation, reaching up to pull his coat more snugly around her shoulders. “The actress’ name is something bird-sounding, Fay Wray, maybe?”
“You would know better than me, un’asina,” he laughed, slinging his arm around her shoulders and momentarily crushing her against his chest with a tight squeeze. “Come on, Uncle summons us.”
Her smile shattered at his words; their uncle hadn’t bothered to cast a summons for her.
“You,” she corrected as she shoved away from him. “Uncle summoned you. Not me. I didn’t feel anything in my blades.” She hated how much it stung. Always Ezio. Everything is always about Ezio.
“He knows I came to find you,” her brother cajoled.
“So?”
“So he summoned me, to bring you back.”
“He could have summoned us both,” she insisted. “What if you hadn’t been able to find me?”
“But I did,” he replied negligently. “Practically in record time at that.”
“But what if you hadn’t.”
“Oh, come on, Mari. Don’t be like-”
“Like what?” she interrupted. “Don’t be like what, E-zo? Tired of being a distant second best? Tired of being a constant afterthought?”
He sighed. “No one thinks that but you, un’asina.”
“Says the favorite.”
Ezio coughed with incredulous laughter. “Jesus Christ, Mari. Uncle doesn’t have a favorite between us, and we both know if anyone is Mother’s favorite, it’s Altaïr!
He’s not wrong about Mother…
“Says the favorite,” she repeated forcefully, suddenly furious and fed-up with her brother’s refusal to acknowledge what continuously went on right in front of him. “Everyone’s been terrible and rude about Hiro – especially you, dear brother – and that’s just fine,” she seethed.
What else did you expect, Maria-joon? You are being guarded for your own good, Altaïr had said with an unconcerned shrug when she’d confronted him about it, as though it was obvious. If anyone doesn’t understand the difference between love and control, it’s Altaïr, but he’s certainly not alone in that regard, she thought with another surge of irritation as she glared at her brother.
“But how dare I express any reservations about the stray you picked up in a cabaret.” She saw Ezio’s posture stiffen warningly, but the words kept pouring out of her mouth and she didn’t actually care about stopping herself anyway. “Oh no, I’m just a bitch for being cautious about the strange Cathar absolutely no one knows anything about!” she finished, her voice having risen to a furious crescendo.
Ezio said nothing. He just stood there, stiff and tense and silent, and it made her a little nervous. Ezio had never been the quiet type of angry. Part of her wished she could take back some of what she’d said. The other part was glad she’d finally said it, that she’d finally pointed out the hypocrisy of her family’s attitudes towards Hiro, towards her. It probably won’t change anything. She hated the familiarity of the powerlessness she felt at the thought.
“I know things about her,” he finally replied, tone hard-edged and defensive. “Loads of things.”
“Like where to hit her so it won’t show?” she retorted before she could stop herself. She immediately clamped a hand over her mouth and took a half step back at the way her brother’s shoulders leveled and his spine stiffened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“Like hell you didn’t mean to say that,” he spat. “This is me you’re talking to, Mari, and I know you too well to believe that.” He clamped a hand around her upper arm, through his coat still wrapped around her shoulders, and yanked her along when he turned to go back into the Motherhouse. “Uncle is waiting for us.”
“Not us, you,” she corrected him, stumbling to match his pace. Really shouldn’t have said that last thing about him hitting Taline.
He stopped and spun to face her so abruptly she nearly collided with his chest.
“What happened to you, Mari?” he demanded. “You used to be nice. What happened to the nice girl that used to be my sister? I miss her.”
“And you used to be dependable,” she shot back, startled and stung by his words. She knew better than to have ever thought of herself as nice, but it surprised her to hear that Ezio had. Have I really changed so much, or has he never really known me at all? “I miss the older brother I could depend on – the one who was going to marry a good, Italian girl, and keep Uncle’s drinking in check, and make Mother proud. What happened to him, huh, Ezio? Where did he go? I miss the brother who made time for me and cared about what was going on in my life. I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“I’m right here, right in front of you,” he shouted, voice ringing down the empty stairwell in front of them. “But you don’t actually want to talk to me – you just want to shit on me to make yourself feel better – and I’m tired of it. You don’t like Taline, I don’t understand why, but I got that message loud and clear. You don’t have to keep hammering it home. And I want you to stop saying shit about how I abuse her because I don’t!”
Her chest felt tight and her throat was burning and her eyes stung, but she wasn’t going to let herself cry – not now and not over this. It hurt to breathe. She took a deep breath, and then another. Embrace the pain, it will only make you stronger, Altaïr had so often counseled her during training. Nothing is true.
She wanted to tell him about Cesare, how their mother had sold her to seal a deal, how frightened she was, and how desperately she needed help because she was in way over her head and had no idea how to get herself out. But, of course, that’s not what came out of her mouth.
“Maybe I’d believe that if I didn’t have to listen to you raping your wife every night so far this week. Jesus Christ-”
“A man cannot rape his own wife,” Ezio interrupted her angrily. “We’re married. She’s just getting used to-”
“Getting used to what?” she demanded incredulously. That sure as hell explains a lot. “Are you serious? She’s getting used to what? Jesus Christ, Ezio. You know how that sounds? No wonder she cries so much!”
“She cries so much because she’s pregnant, and because you’re such a bitch to her,” he retorted as he raked a hand through his hair, smoothing back the locks that had slipped free of the low ponytail containing the rest of his thick hair.
She resented how much smoother and more manageable her brother’s hair naturally was than hers. It wasn’t fair. And he doesn’t even appreciate it. Her hair tended to explode out of ponytails, buns – anything that wasn’t some sort of braid, really – when the elastic inevitably gave way, or the comb snapped, or the metal pins bent. She’d soaked her hair in about a liter of smoothing serum to achieve the silky-smooth style she’d wanted for the evening, and, to her extreme annoyance, none of her family had bothered to compliment it or acknowledged her efforts at all.
“So her crying all the time is my fault?” she demanded. “That’s convenient.” For you, she mentally added.
She didn’t want to push her brother too far, not when she’d need his support and help with their mother and uncle for the remainder of their visit, especially once they went up to Lucca for Easter weekend. Their grandmother would not be pleased when she heard about her failed test for Mercenary, or about her not-Italian boyfriend. And he’s going to need me in his corner too, once Nana Claudia gets a look at his wife. It probably wouldn’t hurt to remind Ezio of that fact.
“Is that what you’re going to tell Nana Claudia when Taline flinches away from you in front of her?” she inquired, sweetening her tone and forcing a smile.
Ezio froze. She wondered if she had miscalculated and mentally cursed the sudden nervous sweat blooming under her arms.
“She doesn’t flinch away from me,” he informed her tersely.
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything; even Ezio couldn’t be that self-deluded. Because Taline did flinch whenever Ezio touched her, she’d heard Taline’ crying through the bedroom wall at night when he had sex with her, and she’d seen bruises and other suggestions of ill treatment in her sister-in-law ever since her brother had returned from his contract in Armenia. Quite frankly, she was a little surprised at how slavishly devoted Taline continued to be towards Ezio; she would have thrown over any man that treated her like that months ago. Hiro’s a perfect gentleman. He respects me as an equal, she reminded herself. And my family would never tolerate him forgetting his manners – not that he ever would. She pressed the fingertips of one hand into the tightening muscle at the side of her neck, just above her clavicle, and forced herself to hold her silence.
“She just startles easily is all. This trip hasn’t been easy,” he continued, jaw grimly set and staring at a fixed point on the wall behind her. “It’s a lot of new things – people, places, the food –she’s just nervous and shy is all. I think it might be a little overwhelming. And, as my sister, I thought you’d have wanted to help with all that, but you don’t. You just want to double down on being awful-”
Her tenuously held self-control snapped at that final, entirely unfair allegation.
“I’m not nearly as awful as you like to make me out to be,” she retorted. “Does it ever occur to you that not everything is all about you? That maybe I’m a little overwhelmed by stuff in my own life that has nothing whatsoever to do with you or where you stick your cock?”
“Like what,” he demanded, tone tempered dangerously hard and even.
“You’d already know if you’d ever bothered to ask me.” She hated the sullen tinge to her tone, how childish she could tell she sounded. She hated that they both knew he heard it too.
“I’m asking now.”
She hesitated, picking at a chip in the varnish Filomena had painted onto her nails earlier that evening. She thought of Cesare coming into her personal spaces uninvited to toy with her, like a cat playing with frightened mouse before the kill. A chill slid down between her shoulder blades at the possibility that she might be trapped in her childhood room with him later that very night. There was a disquieting undercurrent of anticipation to her apprehension at the thought, a gathering heaviness in the cradle of her pelvis and something electric sparking in her blood she didn’t want to think too long or hard about. You’ll never be free from me, Maria. That’s not how these contracts work.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She thought of the things Cesare told had her during his unwelcomed visits; his declarations of ownership over her, the cryptic comments – almost warnings, really – regarding Sirocco’s ownership of Altaïr, his smirking hints at what the Maraas really wanted from them, from the Order, and what he had suggested they were willing to do to keep her and Altaïr for themselves. Such a shame, really, what happened to Dino Messana. She swallowed her fear and took a slow deep breath to banish all traces of it from her voice.
“Dino recently failed to return from a contract. Did you know?”
“Yeah, I’d heard that,” Ezio replied. She hated the unconcerned evenness of his voice, the distance she could feel swelling up between them. “You can’t really be too upset over his loss; you hardly knew him, Mari.”
Something twisted inside her chest, sharp and serrated against her lungs, sudden and unexpectedly painful.
“And whose fault is that, I wonder,” she snarled, ripping his coat off her shoulders and crushing the fabric into a tight ball before lobbing it into his face. Her outburst seemed to have caught him off guard, but he recovered quickly, catching his coat before it touched the floor and shaking the wrinkles out with a single sharp snap.
“I saved you from being a trophy.”
She scoffed at that assertion; he ignored her and ground on.
“From being nothing but a notch on Dino’s bedpost and a bunch of coin in his pocket.” Ezio shifted his weight and avoided looking directly at her. It was his oldest tell that he was about to say something he really wished he didn’t have to. It was never an encouraging sign. “Some of the fidā'ī here used to run this… game, competition might be a better term for it – several years ago now – where everyone who wanted to seduce a certain girl put in some money, and the first to prove their success with her got the lot.”
Their uncle’s wine and meat were churning in her stomach, like a capped bottle of soda being shaken, waiting to explode the moment she opened her mouth and it was getting harder and harder to get enough oxygen just breathing through her nose. She braced a hand against the wall and studied the hallway floor in front of her, the patterned tiles blurring as her pulse pounded harder and her brother kept talking in that grimly resolute voice. She wanted to tell him to shut up, but she didn’t dare unclench her teeth.
“I’d known about it for some time – I’m sure Uncle did too, he just looked the other way, you know how he is – but it never occurred to me that they’d target you. I mean, between our uncle and mother, our cousins, and, you know, me – I never thought anyone would be that stupid, honestly.
“How-” She managed just the one word before her throat spasmed ominously.
Ezio shrugged. “Vincenzo. It really is amazing, the shit people just say around someone they think is too stupid to follow their conversation.”
“Who?”
“Did he pick it up from?” Ezio shrugged again. “Honestly, I never bothered to try to get that out of him; you know how Cenzo is. He came to me – all worked up – and said that Dino had taken you off with him to win some bet. I immediately checked and you were nowhere to be found in the training grounds, so I sent Cenzo to your room while I went to Dino’s… and you know the rest of it.”
Cesare. She was still too angry and embarrassed over the whole humiliating episode to feel any actual gratitude for his meddling, but she was forced to acknowledge that he had undoubtedly spared her – and her family – from a particularly prurient scandal, one that could have ended her uncle’s tenure as Italy’s Grandmaster if all the salacious details Ezio had just shared with her had made it back to Alamūt. Al Mualim drew a very hard line against sexual misconduct and exploitation within the Order, and the fact that Mario had known what his fidā'ī were doing but had done nothing, that he appeared to wield so little control or respect from those beneath him, would have been judged harshly. Her mother probably would have weathered Al Mualim’s displeasure, possibly even without drawing on her veritable spiderweb of well-placed connections. She didn’t want to contemplate just how much of her mother’s power came from her special relationship with Cesare. … tethered to a Maraas you will never be at other people’s mercy as I have been… Jesus Christ Mother, was I the payment for your security?
“Mari?” Ezio looked mildly concerned – in spite of himself. “D’you need to go home, un’asina? I can make your excuses to Uncle, tell him you’re not used to such rich food anymore. Alamūt has a reputation for austerity, after all.”
He’s not wrong. She sawed her teeth along the inside of her cheek as she weighed the offer. Her pride balked at accepting the help, but she really didn’t want to have to go back to their uncle’s table and make her own excuses either. Fuck it.
“Thanks, E-zo. I’ll see you back at Mother’s then?” The words nearly choked her.
“Yeah, don’t mention it.” He rolled one shoulder forward, something halfway between a stretch and a shrug, and finished the gesture with a lopsided smile before carefully clearing his throat.
Always a catch.
“You’ll look in on Taline, yeah? Make sure she and the baby are alright?”
She was tempted to sneer at the carefully calibrated nonchalance in his tone – so much fuss over such a little wife – but forced herself to smile instead; she really was going to need his help weathering their grandmother in Lucca.
“If she’s still up. You know how Filomena likes to fuss, all the attention might have already driven your little – Taline – to bed,” she replied, forcing her smile wider. Dio santo, all this damned smiling is making my face hurt. She couldn’t wait to be alone in her room, where she didn’t have to guard her expression or temper her tone or swallow down the things she really wanted to say but knew better.
He’d noticed her near slip – she could tell by the way his eyes narrowed ever so slightly – but he returned her smile after a moment’s hesitation. So, he’s worried about how our visit to Lucca will go too. She filed the observation away as potentially useful and tried to ignore the pang of sadness that it took the threat of their grandmother’s displeasure to force them into something like how their relationship used to be. It hurt.
“Let’s head down,” Ezio said, tone holding noticeably less warmth than it had only moments before. “Before Uncle sends anyone else after us.” He turned towards the stairs.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and hesitated, wanting to somehow prolong their interaction without being obvious about it. Even with the missteps and sharp edges, it was nice talking with Ezio, had almost felt like it used to before the Cristina thing and the Dino incident, when they had still been so close and the future felt wide open and hopeful.
Ezio had paused after a couple of steps down when he noticed she wasn’t right behind him, and half turned back towards her. “Un’asina?”
She recognized her chance to say something, to extend an olive branch and take the first step towards restoring their former closeness – I’m sorry. I’m frightened. I need your help, as my brother and friend. Protect me, E-zo – but for some stupid reason she hesitated, and Ezio sighed, and the moment was gone. She hated how much it hurt.
“What? I’m coming,” she chirped with a carefully calibrated toss of her hair as she started down the stairs after him. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Maestro.”
She belatedly noticed Altaïr, ensconced in the corner of the settee closest to the fireplace, after she’d already stormed into the private family parlor and flung her wadded-up wrap onto one of the couches, when it was far too late to attempt any sort of graceful retreat. He studied her over the rim of his teacup; silent, judging.
Sranje.
She hated how she could feel him noticing the glamour she’d cast to camouflage the pimple on the side of her chin she couldn’t resist picking at before dinner, the chipped polish on her right hand ring finger, and the way she was trying not to favor the ankle she’d slightly twisted flouncing down the stairwell behind Ezio after they’d argued. Altaïr noticed everything.
“Your mother did not expect you to return so soon,” he commented, uncanny amber eyes glowing gold as he studied her. She clenched her teeth and pointedly stared at the fire.
“Ezio did not return with you. Did something happen at the Motherhouse to upset you, Maria-joon?” he asked when she remained silent.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
A log popped in the fire, loud as a gunshot. She watched a spray of sparks land on the Renaissance brickwork and burn out.
“May I offer you a glass of mint tea then?”
She wanted to tell him how frustrated and confused she felt, how isolated and alone, but the words she wanted were proving elusive and it’s not like Altaïr would understand what she was trying to tell him anyway. She’d watched him struggle to comprehend other people’s emotional reactions long enough to know that much, at least.
“Yes, please.”
She watched him carefully select a teacup. It chimed, impossibly high and clear, at the gentle tap of his blade. It was her mother’s special tea set – made by the master glassblowers of Masyaf, moosh-am, don’t touch – crafted of a crystalline-clouded material that was as colorless as the mists of the Mirror Roads until it was filled with liquid, then an aurora borealis of color slowly spread across its surface as though materializing from its misty depths. Hot liquids created warmer colors – shades of gold, rose, peach, orange, and crimson – and cold liquids created cooler colors – lilac, emerald, azure, indigo, and eggplant – the color composition constantly shifting, changing, flowing as though pulled by some cosmic changing tide. Her mother only got that tea set out for her sisters’ children: Malik, Kadija, and Altaïr. She and Ezio were otherwise not allowed to touch it.
“You should tell me if something, or someone, is bothering you, Maria-joon,” he commented as he handed her the cup of tea carefully balanced on a saucer. “You are my cousin, as well as my student, and I would not see you harmed or your capacity for happiness damaged. It is my duty to protect and guide you through these unsettled times.”
Duty. Everything is always about duty with him, she thought morosely as she watched blooming plumes of honey and rose darken to amber and garnet across the teacup’s surface. Altaïr liked to drink things hot, burn away the ability to ever taste anything ever again with your mouth hot, and she was always embarrassed to have to cool her tea before she could drink it. It felt like he did it on purpose, to further illustrate his superiority over those around him, even when engaged in a purely domestic activity like serving and drinking tea. Her mother liked to drink things hot too, not as hot as Altaïr did – the water was almost still boiling when he drank it – but still much hotter than anyone she served was comfortable drinking. She caught herself right before she blew on her tea. Use your blade, moosh moosh-am, you’re an Assassin aren’t you, not some ignorant kāfir.
“Are you actually acknowledging that the kuffār war might actually pose a threat to us, Altaïr?” she drawled as her blade clinked against her teacup. “You just might be the first Master I’ve heard do so, if you were.”
He spared her a derisive grunt before taking a deep drink of his tea. His teacup, she noticed, was marbled in shades of mahogany and raisin. Jesus Christ, that’s practically still boiling. Her mouth hurt just watching him.
“We are hardly impervious to harm from kuffār, primitive and unrefined as their weapons and tactics may be,” he replied, lashes lowered to veil his eyes as he gently touched his blade to the rim of his cup to refill it. “But that is not the unsettled circumstances I had in mind.”
“Which are?” she prompted after waiting an impatient moment. He took his time answering her, seeming to study the details of everything else in the room while avoiding her eyes. She could tell he regretted introducing the subject, but she was disinclined to let him hint at a potentially unexploded warhead beneath their feet and not tell her what it was.
“Al Mualim is not a young man,” he finally said. “His health is not as robust as it once was-” he hesitated, carefully setting his teacup and saucer down on the edge of her mother’s gilded coffee table “-and the Grandmasters sense this. Already some of them have begun positioning themselves for when he falls, including your uncle. The Order is most vulnerable when the Mentor’s Mantle changes hands. We must, all of us, be vigilant in its care during these less settled times.”
He partially drew his blade and absently scraped it along the edge along his jaw. She’d always hated it when he did that. The rasping scrape of his tainted blade being dragged across his skin gave her chills, and Altaïr’s particular habit of scratching the underside of his jaw with his blades, where the slightest slip could cause potentially fatal blood poisoning, only increased the budding anxiety his carefully constructed response had sparked in her.
Is he telling me that Uncle Mario is suspected of being disloyal to the Order? Is he trying to warn me, or Uncle, or all of us?
He leveled a long, penetrating look at her, his eyes positively fluorescing gold, and she felt the tips of her fingers go cold.
“I don’t understand.”
“If that is true, I should have allowed you to be demoted.”
She hated how much his rebuke stung
“That’s not fair.”
“And so it is with many things, Maria-joon. This world is not fair,” he responded dryly, but there was a hint of something else in his voice. Something sad and bitter and almost desolate, and her skin prickled as she wondered just how unhappy he really was.
“I know the world isn’t fair – I’m not stupid, you know – but I thought you were, or at least tried to be. Fair, that is,” she clarified after an awkward pause when she realized what it might have sounded like she was saying about him. “I know you’re not stupid.”
He lowered his eyes and picked his teacup back up, letting the silence between them lengthen as he refilled his cup and sipped the boiling hot liquid. It took an uncomfortable amount of willpower not to squirm and fill the silence with nervous chatter. It bothered her, how much more comfortable with silence Altaïr was. She wondered if he ever felt lonely.
“Have you received any recent letters from your beau?” he suddenly asked, pinning her with a strangely intent look. “I believe Ibrahim Effendi was planning to assign him out on a contract in the Caucasus Mountains.”
She had gotten a letter from Hiro – a charmingly chatty bit of fluff, with absolutely no mention of an impending assignment. Maybe he didn’t want to worry me, or he might have wanted to tell me his good news in person when we both are back at Alamūt. There’s nothing sinister about this at all. She would have questioned the information, and motives, from anyone else, but Altaïr had always been scrupulously honest with her. Besides, Altaïr didn’t lie; he equivocated.
Are you certain, about the contract? Perhaps Ibrahim Effendi changed his mind,” she suggested, proud of how smooth and unconcerned she managed to sound.
“Perhaps,” he conceded easily – too easily – as he took another deep drink of scalding tea. “I was unable to attend that weekly meeting. It is possible that another was deemed more suited to the contract Ibrahim Effendi had in mind. Selim Effendi has several Disciples, and a few Mercenaries, Al Mualim might have felt a better match to the contract’s requirements.”
He was being almost suspiciously diplomatic. The backhandedness was probably unintentional.
“I wish you would just admit that you don’t approve of Hiro,” she replied, carefully setting her tea down on the table between them. “Not that you’ve deigned to meet him socially or even tried to get to know him. Notreally,” she added, remembering that he had, inexplicably, invited Hiro to the training dinner he had hosted a few weeks prior. She knew he knew about the contraceptive ring she’d gotten, no matter the medics’ repeated assurances otherwise. Few, if any, at Alamūt had either the seniority or bravery to deny Altaïr information. But he hadn’t commented on her having it, which wasn’t surprising, not really. She imagined that sex was in the same category as feelings for Altaïr, something he presumably had, but never discussed; not with her, at least.
“You are mistaken, Maria-joon.” He paused to take another careful sip of his tea. “I find Hiram’s record and actions in service of the Order to be quite commendable – long may his skill strengthen our own – my interest is solely in your future and happiness. I have seen many promising careers abruptly cut short by incautious young love and I would not see you befall the same misfortune.”
He has to get lonely sometimes, especially with how busy Kadija’s been lately, she thought, watching him watch her. Altaïr had been interacting with her more frequently over the last couple months than had been his habit previously. While it wasn’t entirely accurate to describe his behavior as friendly, it wasn’t absolutely necessary either, which was basically as good as friendly with him. She sucked her bottom lip against her teeth as she considered how she should respond. Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell him that his interest in her personal life was unwelcomed, but, it wasn’t, not entirely. While he could often be aggravating and frustrating, she kind of liked the attention. She liked that he didn’t pump her for information about Ezio, that he never commented on her chipped nail polish or bad hair days, that he never asked if it was that time of the month when her training wasn’t going well. It wasn’t an especially high bar, but she liked not being treated like a girl first and a fidā'ī second. She wondered if Altaïr ever felt the same – not that anyone had ever treated him like a girl, and his problem was probably the other way around from hers – everyone always treating him like a Master and never really as a person. Not that he exactly encouraged people to remember his personhood.
“I know it may not seem like it to you,” she responded carefully, ironing her tone perfectly smooth and even, mindful that any ripple of emotion might be interpreted as disrespect. “But I share those concerns, I truly do, and they have haunted my sleepless hours. I just don’t have your strength-”
“You might surprise yourself, if you were to try.”
She swallowed a sigh. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to live my life alone. I need love in my life, Altaïr; some things are worth the risks.”
“Our work is dangerous. It would be far wiser to entrust your heart to someone serving another branch of the Order-”
“Or better still, something completely outside it?” she interrupted, having finally lost patience with having her private life picked apart and analyzed like a contract she’d been assigned.
He went perfectly still and she almost missed the half-heartbeat hitch in his breathing. She still wasn’t entirely sure what that particular response from him meant exactly, but it was unvaryingly followed by him disengaging from the conversation.
“The hour has grown late,” he observed – right on cue – as he stood and carefully smoothed his clothing. “And I still have many things that require my attention before I may rest.”
“Yes, of course,” she replied automatically, also rising to her feet.
She didn’t doubt that he did indeed have a fair amount of correspondence that required reading and response, but she was also fairly certain that his abrupt departure had much more to do with what she’d said than any obligation he undoubtedly felt towards a stack of letters. It was easier to ignore the guilty twinge she felt at the thought. He paused on his way to the door, turned to face her and tilted his head slightly to one side as he studied her. His eyes looked especially uncanny, almost luminescent, in the dying firelight. They also say your cousin – Altaïr Effendi – is half Maraas; that you can see it in his eyes – that that’s the reason why they’re so strange and light. Her skin prickled with rising gooseflesh. She knew it was just a stupid story, but, seeing Altaïr’s eyes in that moment, it also wasn’t all that difficult to understand why the rumors were so persistent.
“You looked nice tonight. The color of your dress is very flattering,” he told her stiffly. “I had meant to say so earlier, but the opportunity did not present itself.”
“Yes, thank you,” she sputtered, completely wrongfooted by his compliment. Altaïr rarely commented on her appearance, unless it was to tell her if she looked poorly rested when she arrived for training or to put on sunscreen when she was getting sunburnt. He had even stopped commenting on any of her bruises after misidentifying a lovebite on her clavicle a few weeks ago, which had turned into a really awkward conversation when she’d had to all but spell it out before he understood his error. He waited, watching her, for an uncomfortably long moment while she tried to scrape together a response that wouldn’t offend him, before turning away.
“Goodnight, Maria-joon.”
“Good night,” she rasped as she lowered her eyes, hesitating over how to address him, what expression of affection he might find acceptable. Not that it would have mattered; when she looked up again he was already gone.