‘One thing I’ll soon have no shortage of is men. At least, I’ve enough to give you a decent workforce for the rebuilding work, and a handful of skilled scouts to cover the Borgia for you.’
‘Excellent!’ Ezio knew that Machiavelli had spies in place, but Machiavelli tended to play his cards close to his chest and Bartolomeo didn’t. Machiavelli was a closed room; Bartolomeo the open sky. And while Ezio didn’t share La Volpe’s suspicions – which he hoped he’d now allayed – there was no harm in having a second string to his bow.
He spent the next month supervising the strengthening of the barracks, repairing the damage done in the attack, building taller and stronger watchtowers, and replacing the palisades with stone walls. When the work was complete, he and Bartolomeo took a tour of inspection.
‘Isn’t she a thing of beauty?’ beamed Bartolomeo.
‘Very impressive, I think.’
‘And the even better news is, more and more men are joining us every day. Of course, I encourage competition between them: it’s good for morale and it’s good training too, for when they go out and fight for real.’ He showed Ezio a large wooden board with his crest at the top, mounted on an easel. ‘As you can see, this board shows the ranking of our top warriors. The better they become, the higher they move up the board.’
‘And where am I?’
Bartolomeo gave him a look and waved at the air above the board. ‘Somewhere up here, I should think.’
A condottiero came up to tell him that one of his best men, Gian, had begun his fight down in the parade ground.
‘If you want to show off, we have sparring matches too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got money on this boy.’ Laughing, he took his leave.
Ezio made his way to the new, improved map room. The natural light was better and the room had been enlarged to accommodate broader map tables and easels. He was poring over a map of the Romagna when Pantasilea joined him.
‘Where is Bartolomeo?’ she asked.
‘At the fight.’
Pantasilea sighed. ‘He has such an aggressive view of the world. However, I think strategy is just as important. Don’t you agree?’
‘I do.’
‘Let me show you something.’
She led the way from the room to a wide balcony overlooking an inner courtyard of the barracks. On one side of it was a sizeable new dovecote, alive with birds.
‘These are carrier pigeons,’ Pantasilea explained. ‘Each one, sent from Niccolò Machiavelli in the city, brings me the name of a Borgia agent in Rome. The Borgia grew fat on the Jubilee of 1500. All that money from eager pilgrims, willing to buy themselves absolution. And those that would not pay were robbed.’
Ezio looked grim.
‘But your various attacks have unsettled the Borgia badly,’ Pantasilea continued. ‘Their spies comb the city, seeking out our people and exposing them where they can. Machiavelli has uncovered some of their names as well, and these too he is often able to send me by pigeon post. Meanwhile, Rodrigo has added even more new members to the Curia, in an attempt to maintain his balance of power among the cardinals. As you know, he has decades of experience in Vatican politics.’
‘Indeed he has.’
‘You must take these names with you when you return to the city. They will be useful to you.’
‘I am lost in admiration, Madonna.’
‘Hunt these people down, eliminate them if you can, and we will all breathe more easily for it.’
‘I must return to Rome without delay. And I will tell you something that makes me breathe more easily.’
‘Yes?’
‘What you have just disclosed proves that Machiavelli is undoubtedly one of us.’ But then Ezio hesitated. ‘Even so …’
‘Yes?’
‘I have a similar arrangement with Bartolomeo. Give it a week, then ask him to come to the island in the Tiber – he knows the place and I daresay you do, too – bringing me what he has gleaned about Rodrigo and Cesare.’
‘Do you doubt Machiavelli still?’
‘No, but I am sure you’ll agree that it is good to double-check all the information one gets, especially in times like these.’
A shadow seemed to pass across her face, but then she smiled and said, ‘He will be there.’
19
Back in Rome, Ezio made his first port of call the brothel Machiavelli had mentioned as another source of information – perhaps some of the names he was sending Pantasilea by carrier pigeon came from there. He needed to check on how the girls collected their information, but he’d decided to go there incognito. If they knew who he was, they might just give him the information they thought he wanted.
He arrived at the address and checked the sign: The Rosa in Fiore. There was no doubt of it, and yet it didn’t look like the kind of place the Borgia nomenklatura might frequent – unless they went in for slumming. It certainly wasn’t a patch on Paola’s establishment in Florence, at least from the outside. But then, Paola’s place had kept a pretty discreet shop front. He knocked dubiously on the door.
It was opened immediately by an attractive, plump girl of about eighteen, wearing a tired-looking silk dress.
She flashed him a professional smile. ‘Welcome, stranger. Welcome to the Rosa in Fiore.’
‘Salve,’ he said, as she let him pass. The entrance hall was certainly a step up, but even so there was an air of neglect about the place.
‘And what did you have in mind for today?’ the girl asked.
‘Would you be kind enough to get your boss for me?’
The girl’s eyes became slits. ‘Madonna Solari isn’t in.’
‘I see.’ He paused, uncertain what to do. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Out.’ The girl was distinctly less friendly now.
Ezio gave her his most charming smile, but he wasn’t a young man any more and he could see that it cut no ice with the girl. She thought he was an official of some sort. Damn! Well, if he wanted to get any further, he’d have to pretend to be a client. And if pretending to be one meant actually becoming one, so be it.
He had just decided on this course of action when the street door suddenly burst open and another girl ran in, her hair awry, her dress disarranged. She was distraught.
‘Aiuto! Aiuto!’ she cried urgently. ‘Madonna Solari—’ she sobbed, unable to continue.
‘What is it Lucia? Pull yourself together. What are you doing back so soon? I thought you’d gone off with Madonna and some clients.’
‘Those men weren’t clients, Agnella. They … they … said they were taking us to a place they knew down by the Tiber, but there was a boat there and they started to slap us about and drew knives. They took Madonna Solari on board and chained her up.’
‘Lucia! Dio mio! How did you get away?’ Agnella put an arm round her friend and guided her to a couch set along one wall. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at a red weal that was starting to rise on Lucia’s cheek.
‘They let me go – sent me back with a message – they’re slave traders, Agnella. They say they’ll only let her go if we buy her back. Otherwise they’ll kill her.’
‘How much do they want?’ Ezio asked.
‘A thousand ducats.’
‘How much time do we have?’
‘They’ll wait an hour.’
‘Then we have time. Wait here. I’ll get her back for you.’ Cazzo! Ezio thought. This looks bad. I need to talk to that woman. ‘Where are they?’
‘There’s a jetty, Messere. Near Isola Tiberina. Do you know the place?’
‘Very well.’
Ezio made haste. There was no time to get to Chigi’s bank and none of its three branches was on his route, so he resorted to a moneylender, who drove a hard bargain, but made up the sum Ezio already carried to the one thousand required. Armed with this, but determined not to part with a penny of it if he could possibly avoid it, and swearing to exact interest from the bastards who’d taken the one person he most needed to talk to, he hired a horse and rode reck
lessly through the streets towards the Tiber, scattering the people, chickens and dogs that cluttered them as he went.
He found the boat – more of a small ship really – without difficulty, thank God, and, dismounting, ran to the end of the jetty on which it was moored, yelling Madonna Solari’s name.
Her captives were prepared for him. There were two men already on deck and they trained pistols on him. Ezio’s eyes narrowed. Pistols? In the hands of cheap little villains like these?
‘Don’t come any closer.’
Ezio backed off, but kept his finger on the release trigger of his Hidden Blade.
‘Brought the fuckin’ money, have you?’
Ezio slowly produced the pouch that contained the thousand ducats with his other hand.
‘Good. Now we’ll see if the captain’s in a good enough mood not to slit her fuckin’ throat.’
‘The captain! Who the hell do you think you are? Bring her out! Bring her out now!’
The rage in Ezio’s voice subdued the slave trader who’d spoken. He turned slightly and called to someone below deck, who must already have heard the interchange because two men were on their way up the companionway, manhandling a woman of perhaps thirty-five. Her makeup was badly smeared, both by tears and rough treatment, and there were ugly bruises on her face, shoulders and breasts, which were exposed where her lilac dress had been ripped apart, revealing the bodice beneath. There was blood on her dress, lower down, and she was manacled hand and foot.
‘Here’s the little treasure now,’ sneered the trader who’d first spoken.
Ezio breathed hard. This was a lonely bend of the river, but he could see Tiber Island only fifty yards in the distance. If only he could get word to his friends. If they had heard anything, they’d assume it was just a bunch of drunken sailors – God knows, there were enough of them along the riverbank – and if Ezio raised his voice or called for help, La Solari would be dead in an instant, and himself, too, unless the gunmen were bad shots, for the range was negligible.
As the woman’s desperate eyes caught Ezio’s, a third man, sloppily dressed in the sad remains of a naval captain’s jacket, came up the ladder. He looked at Ezio, then at the bag of money.
‘Throw it over,’ he said in a rough voice.
‘Hand her over first. And take off those manacles.’
‘Are you fuckin’ deaf? Throw. Over. The. Fuckin’. Money!’
Involuntarily, Ezio moved forward. Immediately the guns were raised threateningly, the captain drew a falchion and the two others took a tighter grip on the woman, making her moan and wince with pain.
‘Don’t come any closer. We’ll finish her if you do.’
Ezio stopped, but did not retreat. He measured the distance between where he stood and the deck with his eyes. His finger trembled over the trigger of the Hidden Blade.
‘I have the money; it’s all here,’ he said, waving the bag and edging one step closer while their eyes were on it.
‘Stay where you are. Don’t test me. If you take one step more, she dies.’
‘You won’t get your money then.’
‘Oh, won’t we? There’s five of us and one of you, and I don’t think you’d get a fuckin’ toe on board before my friends here had shot you in the mouth and in the balls.’
‘Hand her over first.’
‘Look, are you stupid or what? Nobody gets near this fuckin’ boat unless you want this puttana dead!’
‘Messere! Aiutateme!’ whimpered the wretched woman.
‘Shut the fuck up, you bitch!’ snarled one of the men holding her, hitting her across the eyes with the pommel of his dagger.
‘All right!’ yelled Ezio, as he saw fresh blood spurt from the woman’s face. ‘That’s enough. Let her go. Now.’
He threw the bag of money over to the captain so it landed at his feet.
‘That’s better,’ said the slave trader. ‘Now, let’s finish this business.’
Before Ezio could react, he placed the blade of his sword against the side of the woman’s throat and drew it across, down and deep, half-severing her head from her body.
‘Any objections, take it up with Messer Cesare,’ sneered the captain as the body slumped to the deck under a fountain of blood. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded to the two men with pistols.
Ezio knew what was coming next, and he was ready. With lightning speed he dodged both bullets, and in the same instant that he threw himself into the air, he released the Hidden Blade. With it he stabbed the first of the men who’d been holding the prisoner deep in the left eye. Before the man had even fallen to the deck, Ezio, dodging a swinging blow from the captain’s falchion and, coming up from underneath, he plunged the blade low down into the other man’s belly, ripping as he thrust. The blade wasn’t designed for slicing, and bent a little, tearing rather than cutting, but no matter.
Now for the gunmen. As he’d expected, they were frantically trying to reload their weapons, but panic had made them clumsy. He rapidly withdrew the blade and unsheathed his heavy dagger. The fighting was too close for him to be able use his sword, and he needed the dagger’s serrated edge and heavy blade. He sliced off the weapon hand of one gunman, then jabbed the point hard into the man’s side. He hadn’t time to finish the job, though, because the other gunman, coming from behind, clubbed him with the butt of his pistol. Luckily the blow didn’t find its mark, and Ezio, shaking his head to clear it, swung round and drove his dagger into the man’s chest as he raised his arms to attempt another blow.
He looked round. Where was the captain?
Ezio caught sight of him stumbling along the riverbank, clutching the bag as coins spilled from it. Fool, thought Ezio, he should have taken the horse. He bounded after him, easily catching up, for the bag was heavy. He seized the captain by the hair and kicked his legs away, forcing him to kneel with his head back.
‘Now for a taste of your own medicine,’ he said, and severed the captain’s head exactly as he had done to Madonna Solari.
Letting the body fall writhing to the ground, he picked up the bag and made his way back to the boat, collecting fallen coins as he went. The wounded slave trader squirmed on deck. Ezio ignored him and went below, ransacking the meagre cabin he found there and quickly locating a small strongbox, which he wrenched open with the bloody blade of his dagger. It was full of diamonds.
‘That’ll do,’ said Ezio to himself, tucking it under his arm and running up the companionway again.
He loaded the bag of coins and box of diamonds into the saddlebags of his horse, along with the pistols, then he returned to the wounded man, nearly slipping on the blood in which the slave trader slithered. Bending down, Ezio cut one of the man’s hamstrings, keeping a hand over his mouth to stop him howling. That should slow him up. For good.
He pressed his mouth close to the man’s ear.
‘If you survive,’ he said, ‘and get back to that pox-ridden louse you call your master, tell him all this was done with the compliments of Ezio Auditore. If not, Requiescat in Pace.’
20
Ezio didn’t return to the brothel immediately. It was late. He returned the horse, bought a sack from the ostler for a few coins, and stowed his spoils, and the money, in it. He slung the sack over his shoulder and made his way to the moneylender, who seemed surprised and disappointed to see him back so soon, and gave him what he owed. Then he returned to his lodgings, taking care to blend in with the evening crowds whenever he sighted Borgia guards.
Once there, he had them bring him water to bathe, undressed, and washed himself wearily, wishing that Caterina would once again appear at the door and surprise him. This time there was no one to interrupt him so pleasantly. He changed into fresh clothes and shoved the ones he’d been wearing – ruined by the day’s work – into the sack. He would get rid of them later. He cleaned the pistols and put them in a satchel. He’d thought of keeping them, but they were heavy and unwieldy, so he decided to hand them over to Bartolomeo. Most of the diamonds would go to Bartolom
eo, too, but after examining them, Ezio selected five of the largest and best and put them in his own wallet. They’d ensure that he wouldn’t have to waste time scraping around for money for a while, at least.
Everything else he’d get La Volpe to send to the barracks. If you can’t trust a friendly thief, who can you trust?
Soon he was ready to go out again. The satchel was slung over his shoulder and his hand was on the latch when he was overcome by tiredness. He was tired of the killing; tired of the greed, and the grasping for power, and tired of the misery that all that led to.
He was almost tired of the fight.
He let his hand fall from the door and unslung the satchel, placing it on his bed. He locked the door and undressed once more, then he snuffed out the candle and all but fell onto the bed. He just had time to remember to place a protecting arm around the bag before he fell asleep.
He knew the respite wouldn’t be long.
At The Sleeping Fox, Ezio handed over the satchel with precise instructions. He didn’t like to delegate this job, but he was needed elsewhere. The reports La Volpe’s spies had brought in were few, but the results coincided with those Machiavelli had sent by carrier pigeon to Pantasilea, which assuaged most of Ezio’s remaining misgivings about his friend, though La Volpe remained reserved. Ezio could understand it. Machiavelli came across as remote, even cold. Although they were fellow Florentines, and Florence had no love for Rome, and especially not for the Borgia, it seemed that La Volpe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, still harboured doubts.
‘Call it a gut feeling,’ was all he said, gruffly, when Ezio pressed the point.
There was no news of the Apple, except that it was still in the possession of the Borgia, though whether Cesare or Rodrigo had it was uncertain. Rodrigo well knew its potential, though to Ezio it seemed unlikely that he would confide much of what he knew to his son, given the tension between them. As for Cesare, he was the last person seen in control of it, but there was no sign that he was using it. Ezio prayed that whoever he had given it to for study – if indeed he had done so – was either stumped by its mysteries or was concealing them from his master.
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