Free Assassin's Creed The Secret Crusade by Oliver Bowden Page A

the Bureau leader. He’d learned that de Naplouse was Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Hospitalier. Originally founded in Jerusalem – their aim to provide care for ailing pilgrims – the Knights had a base in one of Acre’s most deprived areas.
    And there, according to what Altaïr had learned, de Naplouse was doing anything but providing care.
    In the Hospitalier district he had overheard two members of the Order talking about how the Grand Master was turning ordinary citizens away from the hospital, and the people were close to violence because of it. One had said that he feared a repeat of a scandal that had taken place at Tyre.
    ‘What scandal?’ his friend had asked.
    The man had leaned in close to his companion to finish and Altaïr had been forced to listen hard. ‘Garnier once called that city home,’ the man had said, ‘but he was exiled. It’s said he was experimenting on its citizens.’
    His companion had looked a little sick. ‘What sort of experiments?’
    ‘I don’t know the details, but I worry … Has he begun again? Is that why he locks himself away in the Hospitalier fortress?’
    Later, Altaïr had read a scroll that he had pickpocketed from an associate of de Naplouse. The Hospitalier had no intention of healing his patients, he read. Supplied with subjects from Jerusalem, he was conducting tests – tests for some unknown master – aimed at inducing certain states in his subjects. And Tamir – the recently deceased Tamir – had been charged with finding arms for the operation.
    One particular phrase in the letter caught his eye: We should endeavour to reclaim what has been taken from us. What did that mean? Puzzling over it, he continued his enquiries. The Grand Master allowed ‘madmen’ to wander the grounds of the hospital, he heard, and he discovered the times at which the archers covering the walkways above the hospital left their posts; he learned that de Naplouse liked to make his rounds without a bodyguard and that only monks were allowed passage.
    Then, having all the information he needed, Altaïr had visited Jabal to collect Al Mualim’s marker.

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    Now he moved around the outside of a building adjacent to the Hospitaliers’ fortress. As he had expected, there was a guard, an archer, and Altaïr watched as he paced the walkway, every now and then casting his gaze into the courtyard below, but mainly gazing across the roofline. Altaïr looked at the sun. It should be about now, he thought, smiling to himself as, sure enough, the archer moved to a ladder and let himself down.
    Altaïr stayed low. He leaped from the roof to the walkway and quietly scuttled along until he was able to peer over the edge and into the courtyard below. Sheer-walled in dull, grey, forbidding stone, a well stood in its centre, but it was otherwise bare, quite unlike the ornately decorated buildings usually to be found in Acre. There, several guards were wearing the quilted black coats of the Hospitalier knights, the white cross on the chest, and there was also a group of monks. Moving among them were what looked like patients, barefoot and shirtless. Poor wretches who milled aimlessly about, their expressions blank, their eyes glazed.
    Altaïr frowned. Even with the walkway unguarded it was impossible to drop into the courtyard unseen. He moved to the entrance wall of the hospital, so that he was able to look into the street outside. On stone painted white by the sun, ailing cityfolk and their families begged the guards to be allowed inside. Others whose minds had gone wandered among the throng, casting their arms into the air, shouting gibberish and obscenities.
    And there – Altair smiled to see them – was a group of scholars. They were moving through the crowd as if it wasn’t there, heedless of the suffering and tumult around them. They seemed to be going in the direction of the hospital. Taking advantage of the disorder, Altaïr lowered himself into the street unnoticed, joined the