the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

‘No, I mean what happened to him next?’
‘That also will have to wait, brother. The next time I saw Altaïr he
had moved the focus of his narrative forward by fifteen years, to a day
that found him creeping through the dark, dripping catacombs beneath
Jerusalem …’
The year was 1191, more than three years since Salah Al’din and his
Saracens had captured Jerusalem. In response the Christians had
gnashed their teeth, stamped their feet, and taxed their people in order
to fund the Third Crusade – and once more men in chainmail had
marched upon the Holy Land and laid siege to its cities.
England’s King Richard, the one they called the Lionheart – as cruel
as he was courageous – had recently recaptured Acre, but his greatest
desire was to re-take Jerusalem, a holy site. And nowhere in Jerusalem
was more sacred than the Temple Mount and the ruins of the Temple of
Solomon – towards which Altaïr, Malik and Kadar crept.
They moved fast but stealthily, clinging to the sides of the tunnels,
their soft boots barely disturbing the sand. Altaïr went ahead, Malik and
Kadar a few paces behind, all with senses tuned to their surroundings,
their pulses quickening as they came closer to the Mount. The catacombs
were thousands of years old and looked every day of it; Altaïr could see
sand and dust trickling from unsteady wooden supports, while underfoot
the ground was soft, the sand wet with the water that dripped steadily
from overhead – some kind of nearby watercourse. The air was thick
with the smell of sulphur from the bitumen-soaked lanterns that lined
the tunnel walls.
Altaïr was the first to hear the priest. Of course he was. He was the