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It was early in the morning when Yusuf went out onto the patio to breath in some fresh air. He stretched his muscles as he did every other morning, ready to go find Aguilar or Claudia and see what plans they had for him today.
“Yusuf!”
The assassin turned around to see Claudia Auditore herself walking towards him with her ever-present accounting book open in her hands.
“Today you have a supply run with Alonso,” she instructed as she scribbled something on the book.
“Good morning to you too, Claudia,” Yusuf retorted, with arms crossed and an amused half smile on his lips.
That got her to finally raise her head, but still she kept all her seriousness.
“Good morning,” she finally answered.
Yusuf smiled sincerely now. It's not that she was impolite: she was just too tense and too focused on her job all the time. Or maybe he was too relaxed? Yusuf shrugged internally and changed his train of thought.
“Alonso…” he said pensively, a hand on his chin. “The pirate guy with the eyepatch, right?”
He barely knew the man. Their paths had crossed a couple of times when coming in and out for supplies, and he had seen him walking around the Brotherhood as well, but that was it.
“Alonso Pinto, yes,” Claudia remarked. “He's waiting for you at the supply room.”
“And may I ask why are we going in pairs today?”
“Our intel speaks of more templar activity on the roads lately,” Claudia explained, “so I'd rather neither of you went alone.”
“Aye, aye, kaptan ,” he said smiling as he made a light military salute with two fingers to his forehead. “I'm sure he'll be able to keep an eye on me, heh, heh…”
Claudia blinked twice and stared blankly at him.
“You're lucky he shares your sense of humor…” she said, and sighed soon after. "Report to me when you get back, si?”
She turned around and went away.
Yusuf arched an eyebrow and scratched his head.
“Was it that bad…?”
When he got to the supply room, Alonso was sitting on the highest one of a huge pile of crates, looking outside and whistling. When he heard him, he turned around and jumped from box to box until he landed gracefully on the ground. He approached him and extended a hand.
“Buenos días, camarada,” he greeted with a relaxed smile.
“Buonos días.” Yusuf’s Spanish was mostly a kind of weird Italian, but enough to get by. He shook his hand. “Alonso, right? I'm Yusuf.”
“I know,” Alonso acknowledged. “Your reputation precedes you, Ottoman Master.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, you're no Master Auditore, but your name gets around,” Alonso said with a roguish smile. “Me… well, I'm pretty sure I am just the handsome sailor with the eyepatch.”
Yusuf half-smiled. Cheeky. He liked that. He didn't even feel guilty for having thought of him in similar terms.
He grabbed a satchel and threw it over his shoulder.
“Well, who needs fame when you have natural charm?”
“True,” Alonso agreed. He grabbed another satchel. “You will learn that I'm way more than meets the eye.”
He then winked his one eye.
Yusuf couldn't help but snort.
Hours later, they found themselves running through the woods in front of a whole pack of guard dogs and trying their best to dodge a storm of arrows and bullets.
“Why did no one write on the map that this forest was someone's property?!” Yusuf cried out loud as he jumped over a fallen tree.
“Maybe Aguilar thought we needed the extra training!!” Alonso shouted as he jumped that same log just a second after.
“Well, I’d feel more fulfilled if I knew I can actually survive the training!!”
They kept running forward, trying to lose the guards among the oak trees until, at some point, Alonso cried out, “Yusuf! To the left!”
Yusuf turned around to see a rocky ridge that fell into the sea down below.
“Are you suggesting we jump?!” Yusuf shouted.
“Do you have a better idea?!” Alonso asked, shooting a glance towards their pursuers.
Yusuf looked at him, then at the guards and the hounds closing in on them, and finally towards the cliff.
“Hay aksi*!!” he swore between his teeth.
Yusuf held onto a tree and made a swift turn around it, and started running towards the cliff, with Alonso just a couple of steps behind him.
“Alonso, if I die, I'll kill you!!”
“I won't hold it against you!!”
And with a last step, they both jumped into the void.
*[Shit!]
Hours later, they had burrowed inside a small cove next to the sea. They had built a little fire with the few logs they had managed to keep despite the chase. They had hung their clothes to dry, so now they sat in their undergarments next to the fire.
“So much for the wood…” Yusuf complained. “We'll need to pick some more on our way back.”
“I'm happy just knowing that you won't have to kill me,” Alonso joked.
Yusuf let out a dry laugh and looked at him sideways, as if considering something.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Shoot,” Alonso nodded.
“Isn't it hard to measure distance with just one eye?” he said, confident that Alonso wouldn't feel upset. “I mean, you're a damn good acrobat.”
Alonso laughed.
“Well, I had to retrain myself for some time, but you know how it is: the body remembers.”
Yusuf nodded in understanding.
“So… what's the story behind the eyepatch?” he asked, pointing to his own eye.
Alonso looked at him, tailoring an adequate response.
“Well, there was an eye once.” Alonso smiled cynically and shrugged. “Now, there isn't.”
Yusuf snorted.
“Fair,” he shrugged too, probably taking the answer as a warning to stop asking.
But Alonso looked at his comrade from the corner of his eye. For once, he seemed to be serious.
“I'll tell you if you tell me about that scar,” he said finally, looking at him under his brow.
Yusuf returned the look and shrugged again.
“Fair.”
The assassin got suddenly grave, maybe the gravest Alonso had seen him during the whole day.
“I was fifteen,” he said, staring into the fire. “Me and a dear friend of mine —the one who introduced me to the Creed— had this stupid idea of breaking into the house of the Istanbul Baazar's owner on our own. The guy was squeezing the merchants dry with their rents. We managed to get in and started looting, but the damned man came home sooner than expected.”
Yusuf's voice grew lower.
“Davud heard him. He was older than me, so I guess he felt the need to protect me. He ordered me to make a run for it while he remained behind to stall him. I obeyed, but as I was sliding down along the clothesline with my hookblade, I turned around and saw the merchant slicing his throat.”
Alonso looked at Yusuf. His eyes had turned a bit darker and his hands were clenched in fists.
“I was so in shock that I failed to jump and crashed into a window. That was when this happened,” he said, drawing the scar with his index finger. “Every time I look in the mirror, I get a reminder of how awful it feels when you leave someone behind. Also… it makes me ruggedly handsome, doesn't it?”
He turned to look at Alonso with an eyebrow lifted and a half smile. Alonso smiled knowingly. He used humor as a defense mechanism too.
“Well, I did my part,” Yusuf said. “Now let's hear your story.”
Alonso shifted slightly in place. It felt more surreal each time he told the story, as if it had happened to someone else.
It was his turn to look pensively into the fire.
“Well, I was in the navy back then,” he started. “I've always had a resistance to excessive work and a considerable disgust of authority. Maybe it has something to do with growing up without parents, who knows…”
He didn't want to get into details on that part, so he jumped forward.
“Anyway, while I was serving in the Spanish Armada during their conquest of the Indias, I saw some pretty shitty behaviors among my superiors, towards the sailors and also towards the natives once we got there. Abuse of power and entitlement, if you know what I mean.”
Yusuf nodded knowingly and kept listening.
“Thing is, I started a mutiny. I got most of the crew to organize, but somehow our superiors got wind of it before we could do anything and I was appointed, accurately, as the instigator.”
Alonso clenched his jaw, remembering the next part.
“The beating was exemplary. That's when I got this scar too. I spent the journey back home in a cell, while the eye that had been hurt rotted slowly. It never saw the Spanish coast again. Back in the motherland, the prison doctor took it out and saved my life, so I guess I got lucky.”
Alonso turned around to see a serious look in Yusuf's eyes. He cleared his throat and looked towards the fire again.
“Obviously, I was discharged with dishonor. Not long after, I met Rodrigo and Teresa and became a pirate, and with them I got to the Brotherhood.”
Yusuf sighed. He took the branch and poked the fire.
“We assassins are such a bunch of misfits,” he commented.
“That we are,” Alonso acknowledged. “Still better than the alternative.”
“Hear, hear,” Yusuf smiled.
They remained quiet for a while, just looking at the fire side by side, each one immersed in their own memories… but not alone.
The next morning, they arrived at the Brotherhood's villa with wrinkled clothes, salty hair and a slightly smaller shipment than intended. In the end, they had managed to get the wood from a less risky area, so the job was mostly done and the promise of a good washing and a soft bed was enticing.
Just before going their separate ways, as they reached the dorm rooms, Yusuf stopped at the door and rested a shoulder on the frame, arms crossed.
“Maybe it's a good idea to keep doing these supply runs together,” he suggested. “Because, you know… three eyes see more than two.”
He raised his head with a half smile, and found Alonso was smiling too.
“Definitely,” Alonso said. “Let's try with less running and swimming next time, ¿vale?”
“Agreed,” Yusuf laughed. “Have a good shuteye.”
Alonso made a pause and smiled roguishly.
“You two.”