the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

‘It seems the Master has given Fahad his blessing to come into the
village,’ said Mukhlis, later that night, as the candles burned down. He
sat at the bedside of the stranger, talking more to himself than to the
man in the bed, who had not regained consciousness since the battle at
the waterhole. Afterwards Mukhlis had manhandled him over the saddle
of his second horse and brought him home to Masyaf in order that he
might be healed. Aalia and Nada had attended to him, and for three days
they had wondered if he would live or die. Blood loss had left him as
pale as mist and he had lain in bed – Aalia and Mukhlis having given up
theirs for him – looking almost serene, like a corpse, as though at any
moment he might have departed the world. On the third day his colour
began to improve. Aalia had told Mukhlis so when he returned from
market, and Mukhlis had taken his usual place on a chair by the side of
the bed to speak to his saviour in the hope of reviving him. He’d got into
the habit of recounting his day, occasionally talking of significant things
in the hope of exciting the patient’s unconscious mind and bringing him
round.
‘Abbas has his price, it seems,’ he said now. He looked sideways at
the stranger, who lay on his back, his wounds healing nicely, growing
stronger by the day. ‘Master Altaïr would have died rather than allow
such a thing,’ he said.
He leaned forward, watching the figure in the bed very carefully. ‘The
Master, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad.’
For the first time since he had been brought to Mukhlis’s home the
stranger’s eyes flicked open.
It was the reaction he’d hoped for, but even so Mukhlis was taken
aback, watching as the patient’s cloudy eyes slowly regained their light.