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Ratonhnhaké:ton heard a knock on the door of his new bedroom, and felt the sting of sunbeam as he slowly opened his eyes. He groaned, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Was it morning already?
The young boy never really liked morning. He much preferred the night, when he could hunt in peace, alone, using eagle vision to his advantage. But then this morning was different. He didn’t cross miles from his village to Achilles’ manor to sleep the day away. When the old man knocked, he thought, he better got up.
As he tried to get up, his body, too, felt different – heavy, shivering and weak. He coughed painfully. Then he recalled what happened last night, and was no longer surprised that he felt so unwell. He fought a dozen men in the rain just after walking a great distance from his old home to a new one. The stress and the fatigue must have caught up with him. Still, he didn’t want this to get in the way of his first day of training.
After some minutes, he successfully got out of bed and staggered to the door. He opened the door, and before he could apologize to Achilles for keeping him waiting, he was seized with a long coughing fit.
“Boy, you look really ill,” said Achilles.
After Ratonhnhaké:ton stopped coughing and regained his breath, Achilles lifted his hand towards the boy’s forehead. Ratonhnhaké:ton winced and carefully pushed the hand away. He didn’t like being touched, not since Charles Lee grabbed his throat and choked him nine years ago.
As if reading his mind, Achilles said, “I’m not going to hurt you, boy. I just want to know if you’re feverish or not.”
“Sorry,” Ratonhnhaké:ton said and let Achilles touch his forehead. Achilles’ hand might not be quite as soft, but it did remind him of his mother’s touch. For a moment, he felt like that happy little child again.
“You’re burning up. Go back to bed. I’ll see if I can make something to ease that fever,” Achilles ordered.
“I’m alright. It’s just a cold, I think. Please let me train,” Ratonhnhaké:ton protested, and then he coughed again.
Achilles shook his head, “Look, child. I lost my family to a fever, and I’ve seen small colds turn into something much worse. So, go back to bed.”
“I am sorry,” Ratonhnhaké:ton lowered his head and went back to bed. He still desperately wanted to train, but he didn’t want to upset his new mentor. Achilles left the room. Ratonhnhaké:ton tried to fall back to sleep.
And he couldn’t. He’s anxious to know what was in store for him. The spirit he saw spoke cryptically, and no one in his village knew what any of that was about. Though Achilles did tell him about the Assassins and the Templars last night, it felt more like an introduction than a full explanation of what the Assassin Brotherhood was about, who they were, what they did, and how they should behave. That’s why he couldn’t wait to train and catch the first glimpse of how it’s like to become an Assassin.
He rose from bed and went downstairs. Achilles was in the kitchen.
“I thought I told you to stay in bed,” said Achilles, “Well, never mind. Now that you’re here, take this,” He handed the boy a warm cup of herbal tea.
“Niá:wen,” Ratonhnhaké:ton said, looking at Achilles with grateful eyes, and drank the tea. It soothed his throat. Then he asked, “When can I train?”
Achilles looked at the sick boy, whose eyes were bloodshot, whose breath heavy, whose cheeks reddened with fever, who was leaning against the wall in exhaustion. Then the old man said, “I am no doctor, but from the look of it, you need at least a week of rest.”
“A week? Oh, no!” Ratonhnhaké:ton moaned. He’d have died of boredom before he recovered from this sickness!
Then Achilles seemed to recall something. “Can you read?”
“Yes, Achilles, I can read.”
“Then follow me.” Achilles led the boy to his study where he kept his books. “Choose a book. I’ll find a dictionary for you. These texts aren’t the easiest to read, but they’re worthwhile. Being an Assassin is about the mind as much as it is about the body, if not more.”
Ratonhnhaké:ton picked one book at random. It was The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
“A fine choice, my boy. The author was an Assassin, too. In fact, he’s a friend of Ezio Auditore, whom we talked about last night,” said Achilles as he grabbed Samuel Johnson’s dictionary from another shelf and handed it to the Mohawk boy. “Now you can go back to bed. Don’t exhaust yourself with those books, by the way. If you need to rest, do rest.”
Ratonhnhaké:ton nodded and walked away, but then he stopped at the door. “Thank you, Achilles, for all this, for taking me in, for…” A coughing fit interrupted his sentence.
“Go get your rest already!”
A week later, Ratonhnhaké:ton finally felt better. A slight cough still persisted, but otherwise he was his usual energetic self. Better yet, he had already finished reading The Prince.
“Did you like it?” Achilles asked as Ratonhnhaké:ton returned the book to him.
“It was… horrifying,” said Ratonhnhaké:ton, “Surely, Machiavelli did not really mean what he wrote. It’s just too evil.”
“You mean you think it’s a satire? Well, that’s one way to read it.”
“What are the other ways?”
“Some people think that Machiavelli was simply being a realist, that it’s necessary to follow his advice should one wants to stay a leader.”
Impassioned, Ratonhnhaké:ton said, “If that was the case, I do not believe him! There has to be other ways, ones that do not require deception or fear.”
Achilles wanted to agree with the youth’s idealism. He wanted to believe, like Ratonhnhaké:ton did, that the world could be changed without resorting to at least some Machiavellian methods. His experience and observation, however, proved otherwise. But then he didn’t have the heart to tell the boy so.
Instead, he said, “I hope you’ll be the one who finds those ways.”