Chapter Text
There was always work to be done; correspondence that needed answering, planning that needed finished, new threats to be analyzed or even just dragging Altair away from the golden allure of the Apple. Malik’s days were full from beginning to end with things that needed doing but, in the early afternoon when the practice yard was cleared of everyone except the youngest of future assassin’s, he found himself sitting by the window where he could see clearest.
Tazim was made like his father, every muscle in his body perfectly sculpted to his bones, giving the mistaken impression that the boy was very weak. He was already ten but his face was round and soft like it had been when he was a baby. The other kids didn’t tease him in the practice ring–not out of respect as Tazim assumed, but out of fear of retribution.
–
Jaida was too young, that was what Tazim always told her. He was the gatekeeper to her every aspiration, shoving her back into bed in the morning when Mother went to practice in the yard. Father was still sleeping too heavily to interrupt and even if he hadn’t been, Tazim still would have hissed, “you’re just a baby, Jaida,” at her in the dark. But he took Sef, who was over a year younger, and still clumsy and whiny before breakfast
Jaida was a woman, that was what Tazim said to her every morning, and afternoon and night. He said it after breakfast when he went to play with the other boys, to play-act in the village at being thieves and assassins. He’d gotten taller and stronger by running with Rana and Rauf’s sons. Jaida tried to follow him and he shoved her back, and he said: “you’re a woman, Jaida,” and he took Sef (who did not even like to climb) with him.
Jaida was weak, that is what Tazim didn’t say when he rolled his eyes at her in the practice yard. They had only come to watch the novices train with their wooden swords but still Tazim pushed her away from the ring. He didn’t tell her why, just pushed her back. He made a pocket of space for the brother that he had not even wanted. (So said their parents, with a laugh, as they told the story of Tazim deciding to run away from Masyaf.)
–
Mother found her crying around a corner in the highest tower. He was dressed for travel, with a pack of supplies weighing down one of his shoulders. It slid off his arm as he looked at her. There was never any telling what Mother thought of anything, much less what he thought of Jaida–the stupid, weak, baby, girl.
“What has happened?” Mother asked. He did not sit with her but crouch in front of her so the long tails of his assassin uniform dragged in the dust on the floor. He did not try to touch her but watch her face as she scrubbed her fists into her eyes in any attempt to stop herself from crying.
“I’m a girl!” she screamed at him.
That made Mother look at her strangely, and he shifted so he was sitting in front of her, settling into place the very same way he did when it was time for bed. The sword rattled in its scabbard as he adjusted it at his side, and then he looked back at her. “Jaida,” he said, “you may be whatever you wish to be. You may chose whatever path suits you.”
Jaida was miserable with swollen eyes and snot on her face, she looked at Mother–very tall, and very strong. “Tazim says I cannot.”
“That does not mean is true.”
“Tell him to stop,” Jaida said.
Mother, whose face had not been made for expressions, looked sad then. If only for a moment. He said, “the only way to change his mind is to prove him wrong,” Mother said. “If I tell him to stop, he will always believe he is right.”
Jaida kicked her foot against the floor and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She sniffled while Mother watched her, and he smiled at her when she said, “then show me how to prove him wrong.”
–
Tazim was nine when Jaida was almost six. He started training with the other young boys, learning basic moves and endurance. Jaida watched him from a slanting-shadow, as the other boys laughed at her brother. He was fast, and lean, and just as smart as their Father. But he had a pale, pretty face and the other boys mocked him for it.
Jaida watched them laugh at him, and she watched them in practice, trying to make their clumsy movies graceful.
Out in the village, when the boys were walking home together, they hiccuped their insults to one another, catching and passing around the same laugh. Jaida followed them at a distance, just close enough to hear them make predictions about how her brother would be just like his Mother before him.
–
Mother was, as near as Jaida could figure, the only one of his kind. The other children that came to the castle had female Mothers. The other children snickered and whispered when they saw Mother.
When she was almost six, she said, “Mother, why aren’t you a girl?”
Mother said, “i was born as I am.”
“Are there more of you?” she asked.
Mother said, “there are, but there are less now than in the past.” And he considered the whole matter closed with only that.
–
Jaida would have avenged her brother without extra incentive. It was just that, there was no man or woman in all of Masyaf that she loved more than she loved her Mother. No other person in all of the world, it seemed, that deserved the same respect.
So she followed the boys to a curve in the road where there was a clear spot she could fight them, and she introduced herself to them with the help of a stick she’d brought from the castle. She’d gotten good at using it as a weapon–she’d perfected her aim and the swing to maximized the effect it had when it landed. She’d only used it against rails and stones, and never against flesh, but it struck the first boy in the side of his face and it made the most fantastic, elastic popping sound.
The boy was coughing blood when the others screamed at her in outrage.
Jaida looked at them–all four of them, all of them taller and stronger than her, and she said, “you will never speak to my brother with that such disrespect again.”
“You’re regret this,” one of the boys shouted at her.
Jaida was afraid, but she did not back away from them. She did not let them see it in her face. Mother had told her, all of her opponents would look for her fear and she should never give it to them. When they came to attack her, she did not cry or run, but meet them with a scream.
–
Jaida waited all of a day, and a night, and a day again. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, in the full sunlight, and watched the boys in the practice yard. They had bruises and welts and cuts on them from the fight. She had limped home, clutching her wrist in her good hand with her stick clamped under her arm.
Jaida had drawn their blood and had exacted her revenge.
But no boy among the group named her as the assailant. Not a single boy told Rauf, or her Father, or Mother. Not a single parent came to the castle to demand justice. They simply continued to practice. The cluster of boys with loose mouths and stupid ideas never looked at her, and they never laughed at her brother’s pale, pretty face again.
–
When Jaida was six (at last) and Father was always working, she found him at his desk to shout at him. She screamed, “it was me! I was the one that beat them! I did it and they are cowards that will not admit it!”
Father sent away the man he had been speaking to and regarded her quietly. His face betrayed his every thought, cycling through what he guessed to be the truth before it arrived at something like pride. It was an expression she had seen often when Father looked at his sons, and she could not remember crossing his face when he saw her. “They are cowards,” Father said. “They would rather lie than admit that they were defeated by you. Did you fight them all at once?”
Jaida was furious, “of course I did! They are never separate.” But more importantly, “if they do not tell, then Tazim will not know. He won’t believe it from me, I am only a stupid girl to him.”
Father sighed then. “They will never tell, Jaida. Tazim will know, when he is old enough to figure it out.”
There it was again, the useless tears on her face. Her face was hot and her fists were clenching uselessly up into fists she could not use. “Then he will never figure it out.”
“He will,” Father promised. “You must be patient. If it seems that he cannot figure it out or you cannot be patient, perhaps you could show him directly.”
Jaida wiped her nose on the back of her fist, “he would be like the other boys, he would never admit I had done it.”
Father shrugged, “sometimes, if we cannot be moved to discovering the truth on our own, we must be pushed.”
–
Altair found Malik at the window, watching the children practicing in the yard. Tazim led his group with effortless mastery (and hours, and hours of practice and effort). His mastery was cased in fragile ego, and bolstered by his arrogant smiles. “She will never fight him,” Altair said.
“Did you ask her not to?” Malik asked.
Jaida was not with the other boys, or even with the spectators. She was hidden around a corner–slim and silent and waiting, the same as she had always been. She came every day to watch a while and then she left again without being seen. Every day Altair came to look for her, and every day it was a little more difficult to find her.
“No,” Altair said. “You know what I would do if I were her. Our son would have no teeth.”
Malik sighed at that, “then why wouldn’t she?” he looked away from the yard to look at Altair. “Why would she let him think she is weak?”
“To protect him,” Altair said. “She’ll surpass him, easily. Tazim will become a scholar, maybe. He’ll master strategy and he’ll send plans and make choices from here, but Jaida will fight.”
“What of Sef?” Malik asked.
They looked together, at their youngest son, playing with stones and mud in the yard while the other boys trained to be killers. The boy was not quite five and content to be young.
“I don’t know,” Altair said.
Malik smiled at that. “So there is something you do not know!”