the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

standing at the window, watching over the valley with glittering eyes.
Then his friend began to withdraw and become less communicative. He
was not so quick to smile any more. Where before he had spent hours
talking, now he stood at the window instead.
Altaïr thought: If only he knew. Abbas’s grief would flare and
intensify, then settle into an ache, just as Altaïr had experienced. The
fact of his father’s death hurt him every day, but at least he knew. It was
the difference between a dull ache and a constant sense of hopelessness.
So one night, after the candles had been snuffed out, he told Abbas.
With bowed head, fighting back the tears, he told Abbas that Ahmad had
come to his quarters and there he had taken his own life, but that Al
Mualim had decided it best to hide this fact from the Brotherhood, ‘in
order to protect you. But the Master hasn’t witnessed your yearning at
first hand. I lost my father, too, so I know. I know that the pain of it
recedes over time. By telling you, I hope to help you, my friend.’
Abbas had simply blinked in the darkness, then turned over in his
bed. Altaïr had wondered how he had expected Abbas to react. Tears?
Anger? Disbelief? He had been prepared for them all. Even to bar Abbas
in and prevent him going to the Master. What he hadn’t expected was
this … emptiness. This silence.