the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

Formal Gardens in the south but what he needed to locate was the …
He saw it, the huge Souk al-Silaah – where, according to the leader,
he could begin to learn about Tamir. The leader knew more than he was
revealing, of course, but was under strict instructions not to tell Altaïr.
He understood that: the ‘novice’ had to learn the hard way.
He took two steps back, shook the tension from his arms, drew a deep
breath, then jumped.
Safely across, he crouched for a moment, listening to the chatter from
the lane below. He watched a group of guards as they passed, leading an
ass with a cart that sagged beneath the weight of many stacked casks.
‘Make way,’ the guards were saying, shoving citizens from their path.
‘Make way for we come with supplies bound for the Vizier’s Palace. His
Excellency Abu’l Nuqoud is to throw another of his parties.’ Those
citizens who were shoved aside hid scowls of displeasure.
Altaïr watched the soldiers pass below him. He had heard the name,
Abu’l Nuqoud: the one they called the Merchant King of Damascus. The
casks. Altaïr might have been mistaken, but they looked as though they
contained wine.
No matter. Altaïr’s business lay elsewhere. He straightened and set off
at a jog, barely pausing for the leap to the next building and then the
next, feeling a fresh surge of power and strength with each jump. Back
to doing what he knew.
Seen from above, the souk was like ragged hole that had been
punched into the city’s rooftops so it was easy to find. The biggest
trading centre in Damascus, it lay in the centre of the city’s Poor District
in the north-east and was bordered on all sides by buildings of mud and
timber – Damascus turned into a swamp when it rained – and was a