‘Lorenzo’s been wounded,’ Ezio gasped. ‘They’re coming for us! Open the door!’
‘I need the password,’ said the man within; Ezio was at a loss, but Lorenzo had heard the sound of the man’s voice and, recognizing it, he rallied.
‘Angelo!’ he said loudly. ‘It’s Lorenzo! Open the fucking door!’
‘By the Thrice Greatest,’ said the man within. ‘We thought you must be dead!’ He turned and yelled at someone unseen. ‘Get this thing unbolted! And fast!’
The spyhole closed and there was a sound of bolts quickly being drawn. Meanwhile, the Pazzi guardsmen, making their way up the street, had broken into a run. Just in time, one of the heavy doors swung open to admit Ezio and Lorenzo, and as quickly slammed shut behind them, the bolts shot back into place by the keepers in charge of them. There was a terrible noise of battle outside. Ezio found himself looking into the calm green eyes of a refined man of perhaps twenty-four.
‘Angelo Poliziano,’ the man introduced himself. ‘I sent some of our men round the back way to intercept those Pazzi rats. They shouldn’t give us any more trouble.’
‘Ezio Auditore.’
‘Ah – Lorenzo has spoken of you.’ He interrupted himself. ‘But we can talk later. Let me help you get him to a bench. We can take a look at his wounds there.’
‘He’s safe now,’ said Ezio, handing Lorenzo over to two attendants who gently guided him to a bench set against the north wall of the church.
‘We’ll patch him up, staunch the blood, and as soon as he’s recovered enough, we’ll get him back to his palazzo. Don’t worry, Ezio, he is indeed safe now, and we will not forget what you have done.’
But Ezio was already thinking of Francesco de’ Pazzi. The man had had more than enough time to make good his escape. ‘I must take my leave,’ he said.
‘Wait!’ Lorenzo called. Nodding to Poliziano, Ezio went over to him, and knelt by his side.
‘I am in your debt, signore,’ Lorenzo said. ‘And I do not know why you helped me, or how you could have known what was afoot, when even my own spies could not.’ He paused, his eyes wrinkling in pain as one of the attendants cleaned his shoulder wound. ‘Who are you?’ he continued when he had recovered a little.
‘He’s Ezio Auditore,’ said Poliziano, coming up and placing a hand on Ezio’s shoulder.
‘Ezio!’ Lorenzo gazed at him, deeply moved. ‘Your father was a great man and a good friend. He was one of my strongest allies. He understood honour, loyalty, and never put his own interests before those of Florence. But…’ he paused again and smiled faintly, ‘I was there when Alberti died. Was it you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You took a fitting and swift revenge. As you see, I have not been so successful. But now, through their overweening ambition, the Pazzi have at last cut their own throats. I pray that…’
One of the men from the Medici patrol that had been sent out to deal with Ezio’s Pazzi pursuers came hurrying up, his face streaked with blood and sweat.
‘What is it?’ asked Poliziano.
‘Bad news, sir. The Pazzi have rallied and they are storming the Palazzo Vecchio. We can’t hold them off much longer.’
Poliziano grew pale. ‘This is bad news indeed. If they gain control of it, they’ll kill all the supporters we have that they can lay their hands on, and if they seize power –’
‘If they seize power,’ Lorenzo said, ‘my survival will mean nothing. We will all be dead men.’ He tried to get up, but fell back, groaning in pain. ‘Angelo! You must take what troops we have here and –’
‘No! My place is with you. We must get you to the Palazzo Medici as soon as possible. From there we may be able to reorganize and hit back.’
‘I will go,’ said Ezio. ‘I have unfinished business with Messer Francesco as it is.’
Lorenzo looked at him. ‘You have done enough.’
‘Not until this job is finished, Altezza. And Angelo is right – he has a more important task to perform – getting you to the safety of your palazzo.’
‘Signori,’ the Medici messenger put in. ‘I have more news. I saw Francesco de’ Pazzi leading a troop to the rear of the Palazzo Vecchio. He’s seeking a way in on the Signoria’s blind side.’
Poliziano looked at Ezio. ‘Go. Arm yourself and take a detachment from here, and hurry. This man will go with you and be your guide. He will show you where it is safest to leave this church. From there, it will take you ten minutes to reach the Palazzo Vecchio.’
Ezio bowed, and turned to leave.
‘Florence will never forget what you are doing for her,’ said Lorenzo. ‘Go with God.’
Outside, the bells of most of the churches were ringing, adding to the cacophony of clashing steel, and of human cries and groans. The city was in turmoil, wagons set afire blazed in the streets, pockets of soldiery from both sides ran hither and yon, or faced each other in pitched mêlées. The dead were scattered everywhere, in the squares and along the roadways, but there was too much tumult for the crows to dare to fly in for the feast they regarded with their harsh black eyes from the rooftops.
The western doors of the Palazzo Vecchio stood open, and the noise of fighting came from the courtyard within. Ezio brought his little troop to a halt and accosted a Medici officer who was running towards the palazzo in charge of another squad.
‘Do you know what’s going on?’
‘The Pazzi broke in from the rear and opened the doors from within. But our men inside the palazzo are keeping them off. They haven’t got beyond the courtyard. With luck we’ll be able to hem them in!’
‘Is there news of Francesco de’ Pazzi?’
‘He and his men are holding the back entrance of the Palazzo. If we could gain control of that we’d have them trapped for sure.’
Ezio turned to his men. ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted.
They rushed across the square and down the narrow street which ran along the north wall of the palazzo, where a very different Ezio had climbed to his father’s cell window long ago, and, taking the first right from it, quickly encountered the Pazzi troop under Francesco guarding the rear entrance.
They were immediately on their guard, and when Francesco recognized Ezio he cried, ‘You again! Why aren’t you dead yet? You murdered my son!’
‘He tried to murder me!’
‘Kill him! Kill him now!’
The two sides engaged fiercely, hacking and cutting at each other in near-desperate fury, for the Pazzi knew full well how important it was to protect their line of retreat. Ezio, cold rage in his heart, muscled his way towards Francesco, who took a stand with his back to the palazzo door. The sword Ezio had taken from the Medici armoury was well balanced and its blade was of Toledo steel, but the weapon was unfamiliar to him and, as a consequence, his blows were a fraction less effective than he’d normally inflict. He had maimed rather than killed the men who had stood in his way. This Francesco had noticed.
‘You think yourself a master swordsman now, do you, boy? You can’t even make a clean kill. Let me give you a demonstration.’
They fell on each other then, sparks flying from their blades as they clashed; but Francesco had less room to manoeuvre than Ezio and, twenty years his senior, was beginning to tire, even though he had seen less action that day than his opponent.
‘Guards!’ he cried at last. ‘To me!’
But his men had fallen back before the Medici onslaught. He and Ezio now faced each other alone. Francesco looked desperately around for a means of retreat himself, but there was none save through the palazzo itself. He threw open the door behind him and went up a stone staircase that ran up the inside wall. Ezio realized that as most of the Medici defenders would be concentrated at the front of the building where most of the fighting was, they probably didn’t have enough men to cover the rear as well. Ezio raced up after him to the second floor.
The rooms here were deserted, since all the occupants of the palazzo, save for half a dozen frightened clerks who ran away as so
on as they saw them, were down below, fighting to contain the Pazzi in the courtyard. Francesco and Ezio fought their way through the gilded, high-ceilinged staterooms until they reached a balcony high above the Piazza della Signoria. The noise of battle reached up to them from below, and Francesco called out hopelessly for aid, but there was no one to hear him, and his last retreat was cut off.
‘Stand and fight,’ said Ezio. ‘It’s just us now.’
‘Maledetto!’
Ezio slashed at him, drawing blood from his left arm. ‘Come on, Francesco, where’s all the courage you showed when you had my father killed? When you stabbed Giuliano this morning?’
‘Get the hell away from me, you spawn of the devil!’ Francesco lunged, but he was tiring, and his aim went far too wide. He staggered forwards, his balance thrown, and Ezio stood deftly aside, raising his foot and bringing it firmly down on Francesco’s sword blade, pulling the man down with it.
Before Francesco could recover, Ezio stamped on his hand, making him let go of the hilt, grabbed him by the shoulder and heaved him over on to his back. As he struggled to get up, Ezio kicked him brutally in the face. Francesco’s eyes rolled as he struggled into unconsciousness. Ezio knelt down and proceeded to frisk the old man while he was half-awake, ripping off body-armour and his doublet, revealing the pale, wiry body beneath. But there were no documents, nothing of importance on him. Just a handful of florins in his purse.
Ezio flung aside his sword and released his spring-blade dagger. He knelt, put an arm under Francesco’s neck and pulled him up so that their faces were almost touching.
Francesco’s eyelids flickered open. His eyes expressed horror and fear. ‘Spare me!’ he managed to croak.
At that moment a great cry of victory rose from the courtyard below. Ezio listened to the voices, and caught enough to understand that the Pazzi had been routed. ‘Spare you?’ he said. ‘I’d as soon spare a rabid wolf.’
‘No!’ shrieked Francesco. ‘I beg you!’
‘This is for my father,’ said Ezio, stabbing him in the gizzard. ‘And this is for Federico,’ stabbing him again, ‘And this for Petruccio; and this for Giuliano!’
Blood spurted and streamed from Francesco’s wounds and Ezio was covered in it, but he would have gone on stabbing the dying man if Mario’s words had not then come back to him: ‘Do not become the man he was.’ He sank back on to his heels. Francesco’s eyes still glittered, though their light was fading. He was muttering something. Ezio leaned low to listen.
‘A priest… a priest… for pity’s sake, fetch me a priest.’
Ezio was deeply shocked, now that the fury within him had abated, at the savagery with which he had killed. This was not in accordance with the Creed. ‘There is no time,’ he said. ‘I will have a Mass said for your soul.’
Francesco’s throat was rattling now. Then his limbs stiffened and shook as he reached his death throes, his head arching back, his mouth open wide as he fought the last impossible battle with the invincible foe whom we all have to face one day; and he sank down, an empty bag, a slight, shrunken, pallid thing.
‘Requiescat in pace,’ murmured Ezio.
Then a new roar arose from the square. Across from the south-west corner fifty or sixty men came running, led by a man Ezio recognized – Francesco’s uncle, Jacopo! They bore the Pazzi banner aloft.
‘Libertà! Libertà! Popolo e libertà!’ they shouted as they came. At the same time the Medici forces streamed out of the palazzo to meet them, but they were tired and, as Ezio could see, outnumbered.
He turned back to the body. ‘Well, Francesco,’ he said. ‘I think I have found one way in which you can repay your debt, even now.’ Quickly, he reached under the corpse’s shoulders, hoisted it up – it was surprisingly light – and carried it to the balcony. Here, finding a lanyard from which a banner hung, he used the length of rope to fasten around the old man’s lifeless neck. He quickly attached the other end to a sturdy stone column, and, summoning up all his strength, raised it high, then tossed it over the parapet. The rope paid out, but suddenly jerked taut with a snap. Francesco’s limp body hung, toes pointing listlessly at the ground far below.
Ezio hid himself behind the column, ‘Jacopo!’ he called in a voice of thunder. ‘Jacopo de’ Pazzi! Look! Your leader is dead! Your cause is finished!’
Below, he could see Jacopo look up, and falter. Behind him, his men, too, hesitated. The Medici troops had followed his gaze, and now, cheering, they were closing in. But the Pazzi had already broken ranks – and were fleeing.
In a matter of days, it was all over. The power of the Pazzi in Florence was broken. Their goods and property were seized, their coats-of-arms torn down and trampled. Despite Lorenzo’s appeals for mercy, the Florentine mob hunted down and killed every Pazzi sympathizer they could find, though some of the principals had fled. Only one who was captured obtained clemency – Raffaele Riario, a nephew of the Pope, whom Lorenzo considered to be too credulous and ingenuous to have had any serious involvement, though many of the Duke’s advisers thought that Lorenzo was showing more humanity than political astuteness in his decision.
Sixtus IV was furious, nevertheless, and placed Florence under an interdict, but he was powerless otherwise, and the Florentines shrugged him off.
As for Ezio, he was one of the first to be summoned to the Duke’s presence. He found Lorenzo standing on a balcony overlooking the Arno, watching the water. His wounds were still bandaged but they were healing, and the pallor had left his cheeks. He stood proud and tall, and fully the man who had earned the soubriquet Florence had bestowed on him – Il Magnifico.
After they had greeted one another, Lorenzo gestured towards the river. ‘Do you know, Ezio, when I was six years old, I fell into the Arno. I soon found myself drifting down and into darkness, certain that my life was at an end. Instead, I woke to the sound of my mother weeping. At her side stood a stranger, soaking wet and smiling. She explained to me that he had saved me. That stranger’s name was Auditore. And so began a long and prosperous relationship between our two families.’ He turned to look at Ezio solemnly. ‘I am sorry that I could not save your kinsmen.’
Ezio found it hard to find words. The cold world of politics, where distinctions between right and wrong are too often blurred, was one he understood but rejected. ‘I know you would have saved them if it had been within your power,’ he said.
‘Your family house, at least, is safe and under the city’s protection. I have put your old housekeeper, Annetta, in charge of it, and it is staffed and guarded at my expense. Whatever happens, it will be waiting for you whenever you wish to return to it.’
‘You are gracious, Altezza.’ Ezio paused. He was thinking of Cristina. Might it not be too late to persuade her to break her engagement, marry him, and help him bring the Auditore family back to life? But two short years had changed him beyond recognition, and he had another duty now – a duty to the Creed.
‘We have won a great victory,’ he said at last. ‘But the war is not won. Many of our enemies have escaped.’
‘But the safety of Florence is assured. Pope Sixtus wanted to persuade Naples to move against us, but I have persuaded Ferdinando not to do so; and neither will Bologna or Milan.’
Ezio could not tell the Duke of the greater battle he was engaged in, for he could not be sure if Lorenzo was privy to the secrets of the Assassins. ‘For the sake of our greater security,’ he said, ‘I need your permission to go and seek out Jacopo de’ Pazzi.’
A cloud crossed Lorenzo’s face. ‘That coward!’ he said angrily. ‘He fled before we could lay hands on him.’
‘Do we have any idea where he might have gone?’
Lorenzo shook his head. ‘No. They’ve hidden themselves well. My spies report that Baroncelli may be trying to make his way to Constantinople, but as for the others…’
Ezio said, ‘Give me their names,’ and there was something in the firmness of his voice that told Lorenzo that here was a man it might be fatal to cross.
‘How could I ever forget the names of my brother’s murderers? And if you seek and find them, I shall be forever in your debt. They are the priests Antonio Maffei and Stefano da Bagnone. Bernardo Baroncelli I have mentioned. And there is another, not directly involved in the killings, but a dangerous ally of our enemies. He is the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati – another of the Riario family, the Pope’s hunting dogs. I showed his cousin clemency. I try not to be a man like they are. I wonder sometimes how wise I am in that.’
‘I have a list,’ said Ezio. ‘Their names will be added to it.’ He prepared to take his leave.
‘Where will you go now?’ asked Lorenzo.
‘Back to my uncle Mario in Monteriggioni. That will be my base.’
‘Then go with God, friend Ezio. But before you do, I have something that may interest you…’ Lorenzo opened a leather wallet at his belt and from it extracted a sheet of vellum. Almost before he’d unrolled it, Ezio knew what it was.
‘I remember years ago talking to your father about ancient documents,’ said Lorenzo quietly. ‘It was a shared interest that we had. I know he’d translated some. Here, take this – I found it among Francesco de’ Pazzi’s papers, and as he no longer needs it, I thought you might like it – as it reminded me of your father. Perhaps you might like to add it to his… collection?’
‘I am indeed grateful for this, Altezza.’
‘I thought you might be,’ said Lorenzo, in such a way as to make Ezio wonder how much he actually knew. ‘I hope you find it useful.’
Before he packed and made ready for his journey, Ezio hastened, with the fresh Codex page Lorenzo had given him, to visit his friend Leonardo da Vinci. Despite the events of the last week, the workshop was carrying on as if nothing had happened.
‘I am glad to see you safe and sound, Ezio,’ Leonardo greeted him.
‘I see that you came through the troubles unscathed too,’ replied Ezio.
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