the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

12
Now he moved around the outside of a building adjacent to the
Hospitaliers’ fortress. As he had expected, there was a guard, an archer,
and Altaïr watched as he paced the walkway, every now and then
casting his gaze into the courtyard below, but mainly gazing across the
roofline. Altaïr looked at the sun. It should be about now, he thought,
smiling to himself as, sure enough, the archer moved to a ladder and let
himself down.
Altaïr stayed low. He leaped from the roof to the walkway and quietly
scuttled along until he was able to peer over the edge and into the
courtyard below. Sheer-walled in dull, grey, forbidding stone, a well
stood in its centre, but it was otherwise bare, quite unlike the ornately
decorated buildings usually to be found in Acre. There, several guards
were wearing the quilted black coats of the Hospitalier knights, the
white cross on the chest, and there was also a group of monks. Moving
among them were what looked like patients, barefoot and shirtless. Poor
wretches who milled aimlessly about, their expressions blank, their eyes
glazed.
Altaïr frowned. Even with the walkway unguarded it was impossible
to drop into the courtyard unseen. He moved to the entrance wall of the
hospital, so that he was able to look into the street outside. On stone
painted white by the sun, ailing cityfolk and their families begged the