the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

‘Did Altaïr and Maria go east?’
‘Maffeo, Maria is the mother of Darim, the gentleman who invited us
here.’
I watched as Maffeo turned his head to the sun and closed his eyes to
let it warm his face as he absorbed this information. I’m sure that he was
trying to reconcile the image of the Darim we knew, a man in his sixties
with the weathered face to prove it, with someone who had a mother – a
mother like Maria.
I let him ponder, smiling indulgently. Just as Maffeo would pester me
with questions during the tale, so of course I had pestered the Master,
albeit with a good deal more deference.
‘Where is the Apple now?’ I had asked him once. If I’m honest, I had
secretly hoped that at some point he would produce it. After all, he’d
spoken about it in terms of such reverence, even sounding fearful of it at
times. Naturally I had hoped to see it for myself. Perhaps to understand
its allure.
Sadly, this was not to be. He met my question with a series of testy
noises. I should not trouble myself with thoughts of the Apple, he had
warned, with a wagging finger. I should concern myself with the codex
instead. For contained in those pages were the secrets of the Apple, he
said, but free of the artefact’s malign effects.
The codex. Yes, I had decided, it was the codex that was to prove
significant in the future. Significant in my future, even.
But anyway: back in the here and now, I watched Maffeo mull over
the fact that Darim was the son of Altaïr and Maria; that from
adversarial beginnings had flourished first a respect between the pair,
then attraction, friendship, love and –