‘Contessa,’ Ezio said, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice as he bowed.
‘The Mausoleo is over there,’ she replied, smiling and pointing. ‘That is where you are to meet.’
‘I can’t see it.’
‘In that direction. Unfortunately, you cannot see it from my palazzo.’
Ezio squinted into the dark. ‘What about from the tower of that church?’
She looked at him. ‘Santo Stefano’s? Yes. But it’s a ruin. The stairs to the tower have collapsed.’
Ezio braced himself. He needed to get to his meeting place as safely and as quickly as possible. He did not want to be delayed by the beggars, tarts and muggers who infested the streets by day and night.
‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ he told the woman. ‘Vi ringrazio di tutto quello che avete fatto per me, buona Contessa. Addio.’
‘You are more than welcome,’ she replied with a wry smile. ‘But are you sure you’re fit enough to go so soon? I think you should see a doctor. I’d recommend one, but I can’t afford them any more. I have cleaned and dressed your wound, but I am no expert.’
‘The Templars won’t wait and nor can I,’ he replied. ‘Thank you again, and goodbye.’
‘Go with God.’
He leapt from the balcony down to the street, wincing at the impact, and darted across the square, which was dominated by the disintegrating palace, in the direction of the church. Twice he lost sight of the tower and had to double back. Three times he was accosted by leprous beggars and once confronted by a wolf, which slunk off down an alley with what may have been a dead child between its jaws. At last he was in the open space before the church. It was boarded up, and the limestone saints that adorned its portal were deformed by neglect. He didn’t know whether he could trust the rotten stonework, but there was nothing for it; he had to climb.
He managed it, though he lost his footing on several occasions and once his feet fell free over an embrasure that collapsed beneath them, leaving him hanging by the tips of his fingers. He was still a strong man, despite his injuries, and he managed to haul himself up and out of danger until at last he was on top of the tower that was perched on its lead roof. The dome of the Mausoleum glinted dully in the moonlight several blocks away. He’d go there now and wait for Machiavelli to arrive.
He adjusted his Hidden Blade, sword and dagger, and was about to make a leap of faith down to a haywain parked in the square below when his wound caused him to double up in pain.
‘The Contessa dressed my shoulder well, but she was right, I must see a doctor,’ he said to himself.
Painfully, he clambered down the tower to the street. He had no idea where to find a medico, so he made his way to an inn, where he obtained directions in exchange for a couple of ducats, which also bought him a beaker of filthy Sanguineus, which assuaged his pain somewhat.
It was late by the time he reached the doctor’s surgery. He had to knock several times, and hard, before there was a muffled response from within, then the door opened a crack to reveal a fat, bearded man of about sixty, wearing thick eyeglasses. He looked the worse for wear – Ezio could smell drink on his breath – and one of his eyes seemed larger than the other.
‘What do you want?’ said the man.
‘Are you Dottore Antonio?’
‘And if I am … ?’
‘I need your help.’
‘It’s late,’ said the doctor, but his gaze had wandered to the wound on Ezio’s shoulder, and his eyes became cautiously more sympathetic. ‘It’ll cost extra.’
‘I am not in a position to argue.’
‘Good. Come in.’
The doctor unchained his door and stood aside. Ezio staggered gratefully into a hallway whose beams were hung with a collection of copper pots and glass phials, dried bats and lizards, mice and snakes.
The doctor ushered him through to an inner room containing a huge desk, untidily covered with papers, a narrow bed in one corner, a cupboard whose open doors revealed more phials, and a leather case, also open, containing a selection of scalpels and miniature saws.
The doctor followed Ezio’s eyes and barked out a short laugh. ‘We medici are just jumped-up mechanics,’ he said. ‘Lie down on the bed and I’ll have a look. Before you do, it’s three ducats – in advance.’
Ezio handed over the money.
The doctor undressed the wound and pushed and shoved until Ezio virtually passed out with the pain.
‘Hold still!’ the doctor grumbled. He poked around some more, poured some stinging liquid from a flask over the wound, dabbed at it with a cotton wad, produced some clean bandages and bound it firmly once more.
‘Someone your age cannot recover from a wound like this with medicine.’ The doctor rummaged about in his cupboard and produced a phial of treacly-looking stuff. ‘But here’s something to dull the pain. Don’t drink it all at once. It’s another three ducats, by the way. And don’t worry, you’ll heal over time.’
‘Grazie, dottore.’
‘Four out of five doctors would have suggested leeches, but they haven’t proven effective against this sort of wound. What is it? If they weren’t so rare, I’d say it was from a gunshot. Come back if you need to. Or I can recommend several good colleagues around the city.’
‘Do they cost as much as you do?’
Doctor Antonio sneered. ‘My good sir, you’ve got off lightly.’
Ezio stomped out into the street. A light rain had begun to fall and the streets were already turning muddy.
‘ “Someone your age,” ’ grumbled Ezio. ‘Che sobbalzo!’
He made his way back to the inn as he’d noticed they had rooms for rent. He’d stay there, eat something, and make his way to the Mausoleum in the morning. Then he’d just have to wait for his fellow Assassin to show up. Machiavelli might at least have left some kind of rendezvous time with the Contessa. Ezio was aware of Machiavelli’s passion for security, though. He’d no doubt turn up at the appointed spot every day at regular intervals. Ezio shouldn’t have too long to wait.
Ezio picked his way through the wretched streets and alleys, darting back into the darkness of doorways whenever a Borgia patrol – easily recognized by their mulberry and yellow livery – passed by.
It was midnight by the time he reached the inn again. He took a swig from the phial of dark liquid – it was good – and hammered on the inn door with the pommel of his sword.
14
The following day Ezio left the inn early. His wound felt stiff, but the pain was duller and he was better able to use his arm now. Before leaving he practised a few strokes with the Hidden Blade and found he could use it without difficulty, as well as more conventional sword-and-dagger work. It was just as well he hadn’t been shot in the shoulder of his sword-arm.
Not being sure whether the Borgia and their Templar associates knew that he had escaped the battle of Monteriggioni with his life, and noting the high number of soldiers armed with guns and dressed in the dark mulberry red and yellow livery of the Borgia, he took a roundabout route to the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the sun was high by the time he reached it.
There were fewer people about, and after having scouted round, assuring himself that no guards were watching the place, Ezio cautiously approached the building, slipping through a ruined doorway into the gloomy interior.
As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, he made out a figure dressed in black, leaning against a stone outcrop and still as a statue. He glanced to each side to ascertain that there was somewhere to duck behind before it noticed him, but apart from tussocks of grass among the fallen stones of the ancient Roman ruin, there was nothing. He decided on the next best thing and swiftly but silently started to move towards the deeper darkness of the Mausoleum’s walls.
He was too late. Whoever it was had seen him, probably as soon as he’d entered, framed by the light from the doorway, and moved towards him. As it approached, he recognized the black-suited figure of Machiavelli, who placed a finger on
his lips as he came closer. Beckoning him discreetly to follow, Machiavelli made his way into a deeper, darker area of the ancient Roman Emperor’s tomb, built almost one and half millennia earlier.
At last he stopped and turned.
‘Shh,’ he said and, waiting, listened keenly.
‘Wha—?’
‘Voice down. Voice very low,’ admonished Machiavelli, listening still.
At last he relaxed. ‘All right,’ he continued. ‘There’s no one.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Cesare Borgia has eyes everywhere.’ Machiavelli relaxed a little. ‘I am glad to see you here.’
‘But you left me clothes at the Contessa’s …’
‘She had word to watch for your arrival in Rome.’ Machiavelli grinned. ‘Oh, I knew you’d come here. Once you’d assured yourself of the safety of your mother and sister. After all, they are the last of the Auditore family.’
‘I don’t like your tone,’ said Ezio, bridling slightly.
Machiavelli allowed himself a thin smile. ‘This is no time for tact, my dear colleague. I know the guilt you feel about your lost family, even though you are not remotely to blame for that great betrayal.’ He paused. ‘News of the attack on Monteriggioni has spread across this city. Some of us were sure that you had died there. I left the clothes with our trusted friend because I knew you better than that you would go and die on us at such a crucial time – or at any rate, just in case.’
‘You still have faith in me then?’
Machiavelli shrugged. ‘You blundered. Once. Because fundamentally your instinct is to show mercy and trust. Those are good instincts. But now we must strike, and strike hard. Let’s hope the Templars never know that you are still alive.’
‘But they must already know.’
‘Not necessarily. My spies tell me there was a lot of confusion.’
Ezio paused for thought. ‘Our enemies will know soon enough that I am alive – and very much so. How many do we fight?’
‘Oh, Ezio, the good news is that we have narrowed the field. We have wiped out many Templars across Italy and across many of the lands beyond its boundaries. The bad news is that the Templars and the Borgia family are now one and the same thing, and they will fight like a cornered lion.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘We are too isolated here. We need to lose ourselves in the crowds in the centre of town. We will go to the bullfight.’
‘The bullfight?’
‘Cesare excels as a bullfighter. After all, he is a Spaniard. In fact he’s not a Spaniard, but a Catalan, and that may one day prove to be to our advantage.’
‘How?’
‘The king and queen of Spain want to unify their country. They are from Aragon and Castile. The Catalans are a thorn in their side, though they are still a powerful nation. Come, and be cautious. We must both use the skills of blending in that Paola taught you so long ago in Venice. I hope you have not forgotten them.’
‘Try me.’
They walked together through the half-ruined, once-imperial city, keeping to the shadows and slipping in and out of the crowds as fish hide in the rushes. At last they reached the bullring, where they took seats on the more expensive, crowded, shady side, and watched for an hour as Cesare and his many backup men despatched three fearsome bulls. Ezio watched Cesare’s fighting technique: he used the banderilleros and the picadors to break the animal down before delivering the coup de grâce after a good deal of showing off. But there was no doubting his courage and prowess during the grim ritual of death, despite the fact that he had four junior matadors to support him. Ezio looked over his shoulder at the box of the Presidente of the fight: there he recognized the harsh but compellingly beautiful face of Cesare’s sister, Lucrezia. Was it his imagination or had he seen her bite her lip until it bled?
At any rate, he had learned something of how Cesare would behave in the field of battle – and how far he could be trusted in any kind of combat.
Everywhere, Borgia guards watched the throng, just as they did in the streets, all of them armed with those lethal-looking new guns.
‘Leonardo …’ he said involuntarily, thinking of his old friend.
Machiavelli looked at him. ‘Leonardo was forced to work for Cesare on pain of death – and a most painful death it would have been. It’s a detail – a terrible detail, but a detail nonetheless. The point is, his heart is not with his new master, who will never have the intelligence or the facility to control the Apple fully. Or at least I hope it isn’t. We must be patient. We will get it back, and we will get Leonardo back with it.’
‘I wish I could be so sure.’
Machiavelli sighed. ‘Perhaps you are wise to be doubtful,’ he said at last.
‘Spain has taken over Italy,’ said Ezio.
‘Valencia has taken over the Vatican,’ Machiavelli replied, ‘but we can change that. We have allies in the College of Cardinals, some of whom are powerful. They aren’t all lapdogs. And Cesare, for all his vaunting, depends on his father Rodrigo for funds.’ He gave Ezio a keen look. ‘That is why you should have made sure of this interloping Pope.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘I’m as much to blame as you are. I should have told you. But as you said yourself, it’s the present we have to deal with, not the past.’
‘Amen to that.’
‘Amen.’
‘But how do they afford all this?’ Ezio asked as another bull foundered and fell under Cesare’s unerring and pitiless sword.
‘Papa Alexander is a strange mixture,’ Machiavelli replied. ‘He’s a great administrator and has even done the Church some good, but the evil part of him always defeats the good. He was the Vatican’s treasurer for years and found ways of amassing money – the experience has stood him in good stead. He sells cardinal’s hats, creating dozens of cardinals virtually guaranteed to be on his side. He has even pardoned murderers, provided they have enough money to buy their way off the gallows.’
‘How does he justify that?’
‘Very simple. He preaches that it is better for a sinner to live and repent than to die and forego such pain.’
Ezio couldn’t help laughing, though his laugh was mirthless. His mind returned to the recent celebrations to mark the year 1500 – the Great Year of the Half-Millennium. True, there had been flagellants roaming the country in expectation of the Last Judgement, and hadn’t the mad monk Savonarola – who’d briefly had control of the Apple, and whom he himself had defeated in Florence – not been duped by that superstition?
1500 had been a great jubilee year. Ezio remembered that thousands of hopeful pilgrims had made their way to the Holy See from all parts of the world. The year had even been celebrated in those small outposts across the far seas to the west, in the New Lands discovered by Colombus and, a few years later, by Amerigo Vespucci, who had confirmed their existence. Money had flowed into Rome as the faithful bought indulgences to redeem themselves from their sins in anticipation of Christ returning to earth to judge the quick and the dead. It had also been the time when Cesare had set out to subjugate the city states of the Romagna, and when the king of France had taken Milan, justifying his actions by claiming to be the rightful heir – the great-grandson of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
The Pope had then made his son, Cesare, Captain-General of the Papal Forces, and Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church in a great ceremony on the morning of the fourth Sunday of Lent. Cesare was welcomed by boys in silk gowns and four thousand soldiers wearing his personal livery. His triumph had seemed complete: the previous year, in May, he’d married Charlotte d’Albret, sister of John, King of Navarre; and King Louis of France, with whom the Borgia were allied, gave him the dukedom of Valence. Having already been Cardinal of Valencia, no wonder the people gave him the nickname Valentino.
Now this viper was at the peak of his power.
How could Ezio ever defeat him?
He shared these thoughts with Machiavelli.
‘In the end, we
will use their own vainglory to bring them down,’ said Niccolò. ‘They have an Achilles heel. Everyone does. I know what yours is.’
‘And that is?’ snapped Ezio, needled.
‘I do not need to tell you her name. Beware of her,’ rejoined Machiavelli, but then, changing the subject, he continued, ‘Remember the orgies?’
‘They continue?’
‘Indeed they do. How Rodrigo – I refuse to call him Pope any more – loves them. And you’ve got to hand it to him, he’s seventy years old.’ Machiavelli laughed wryly, then suddenly became more serious. ‘The Borgia will drown under the weight of their own self-indulgence.’
Ezio remembered the orgies well. He had been witness to one. There’d been a dinner, given by the Pope in his Nero-like, over-decorated, gilded apartments and attended by fifty of the best of the city’s army of whores. Courtesans, they liked to call themselves, but whores for all that. When the eating – or should it be called feeding? – was over, the girls danced with the servants who were in attendance. They were clothed at first, but later they shed their garments. The candelabra that had been on the tables were set down on the marble floor, and the nobler guests threw roasted chestnuts among them. The whores were then told to crawl about the floor on all fours like cattle, buttocks high in the air, to collect the chestnuts. Then almost everyone had joined in. Ezio remembered with distaste how Rodrigo, together with Cesare and Lucrezia, had looked on. At the end, prizes were given – silk cloaks; fine leather boots, from Spain of course; mulberry-and-yellow velvet caps encrusted with diamonds; rings; bracelets; brocade pouches each containing 100 ducats; daggers; silver dildoes; anything you could imagine – to those men who had had sex the most number of times with the crawling prostitutes. And the Borgia family, fondling each other, had been the principal judges.
The two Assassins left the bullfight and made themselves invisible in the crowds that thronged the early-evening streets.
‘Follow me,’ Machiavelli said, an edge to his voice. ‘Now you have had a chance to see your principal opponent at work, it would be well to purchase any equipment you are missing. And take care not to draw any undue attention to yourself.’
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