His retort is apparently good enough to win him a few seconds of silence. Altaïr supposes he should be glad but mostly he finds it disconcerting; it's too rare an occurrence when Hilda is around to be comfortable with it.

Thankfully, she moves on. For the moment. He won't trust that it will last.

"I live among mountains, with a river running below the cliffs that surround our village," he says. "The young people of Masyaf train for high leaps from a young age."

Entirely true. Of course, they're generally not leaping into the river.