the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

country of these Crusaders.’
Excellent, thought Altaïr. ‘Then I need you to keep this woman safe
until I return. I have to find someone before the Templars do.’
‘We’ll be at the harbour all day. She’ll be safe here with us,’ said
Markos, and once again Maria was grumbling as the men hauled her
away. She’d be all right, thought Altaïr, watching them go. She’d spend
the day between a couple of burly Cypriots, watching the world go by in
Kyrenia harbour: there were better ways to waste a few hours, but also
far worse. At least he knew she’d be safe while he met with Alexander’s
Resistance contact, the Barnabas he’d been told about.
He found him at the safe-house, which doubled as a grain store.
Walking in, Altair had called out cautiously, hearing nothing but the
scuttling of mice and the distant sounds of the street. Then a man had
appeared from among the sacks. He had a dark beard and watchful black
eyes, and introduced himself as Barnabas. When Altaïr asked him if the
safe-house had an area that could be used as a cell, he smiled
obsequiously and assured him that of course it did, but then dithered,
going first to one door, which he opened and closed, and then to a
second, through which he peered before announcing that the drying
room had a barred area that could be used as a cell.
‘I’ve been following Armand Bouchart,’ Altaïr told Barnabas, moments
later, the two of them now sitting on grain sacks in the storeroom.
‘Ah … Bouchart is in Kyrenia?’ said the Resistance man. ‘He’s
probably visiting his prisoners in Buffavento.’
‘Is that a keep nearby?’
‘A castle, yes. It was once the residence of a wealthy Cypriot
noblewoman, until the Templars seized her property.’