The well-trained soldiers under Bartolomeo’s command rushed forward to repel the sortie of French troops who, without warning, had appeared at the main entrance of the barracks. The French had clearly been holding back for this surprise attack and unfortunately, thought Ezio to himself, they had managed to gain the upper hand. Bartolomeo’s fortress had been caught unprepared for an attack.
Bartolomeo jumped down from the battlements and ran towards the gate at full tilt. Whirling Bianca, he towered above the Frenchmen, and the great broadsword sliced viciously into their ranks. The French soldiers seemed to halt in trepidation at Bartolomeo’s arrival. Meanwhile Ezio directed the musketeers to cover those men who strove to push the gates closed before the enemy could gain a surer foothold inside the barracks. The Assassin troops rallied with the presence of their leader and succeeded in pushing the gates closed, but only seconds later there was an almighty crash and the wooden bar that held the gates shut bowed ominously. The French had succeeded in manoeuvring a battering ram to the main gates while the defenders’ attention was focused on the French soldiers who’d breached the barrack walls.
‘We should have built a fuckin’ moat!’ yelled Bartolomeo.
‘There wasn’t time for that!’
Ezio shouted at the musketeers to divert their fire outside the walls at the gathering French forces. Bartolomeo leapt up the ramparts and stood next to Ezio, who was watching the scene unfolding – French troops had appeared from nowhere, and in great numbers.
‘We’re surrounded!’ cursed Bartolomeo, without exaggeration.
Behind them, one of the minor gates caved in with a crash and a splintering of timber, and before any of the defenders could do anything to prevent it, a large unit of French infantry stormed in, swords drawn and seemingly willing to fight to the death. This sudden infiltration succeeded in cutting Bartolomeo’s quarters off from the rest.
‘Oh my God, what are they up to now?’ shouted Bartolomeo. The Assassin soldiers were better trained than the French – and usually more resolved to their cause – but the sheer weight of numbers and the suddenness of the attack had caught them unawares. It was all they could do to hold the line and slowly try to move the French squadron back. The air was thick with the chaos of close-quarters hand-to-hand combat. The space was so crowded that in places the battle had turned into a straightforward fist fight as there was no longer room to wield weapons.
The atmosphere was hot and claustrophobic with the brewing storm – it was as if the gods were frowning on the scene as great storm clouds oppressed the sky overhead. The dust of the parade-ground floor rose up like a mist, and the day, which had been so fine only moments earlier, turned dark. Soon afterwards, the rain began to fall in torrents and the pitched battle turned into a confused rout, in which the two opposing forces could barely see what they were doing. The ground turned to mud and the fighting became more and more desperate and chaotic.
Then suddenly, as if the enemy had achieved some purpose, the French trumpets sounded a retreat and Valois’s men withdrew as swiftly as they had arrived.
It took a while to restore order, and Bartolomeo’s first concern was to order carpenters to replace the shattered gate with a new one. Naturally they had one ready in case of just such an eventuality, but it would take an hour to install it. Meanwhile, he led Ezio in the direction of his quarters.
‘What the hell were they after?’ he asked no one in particular. ‘My maps? They’re precious, those maps!’
He was interrupted by another French fanfare. With Ezio close behind, he ran up one of the stairways leading to a high rampart above the main gate. There, only a short distance away on the scrubby, cypress-scattered plain in front of the barracks, sat the Général Duc Octavien de Valois himself, on horseback, surrounded by a knot of his officers and infantry. Two of the infantrymen were holding a prisoner, whose body was obscured by a sack thrown over the head.
‘Bonjour, Général d’Alviano,’ smarmed the Frenchman, looking up at Bartolomeo. ‘Êtes-vous prêt à vous rendre? Are you ready to surrender?’
‘Why don’t you come a little closer and say that, you crummy little Frog?’
‘Tut, tut, mon Général. You really ought to learn French. That might help mask your barbaric sensibilities, mais franchement, je m’en doute.’ Smilingly, he looked around at his officers, who tittered appreciatively.
‘Perhaps you could teach me,’ Bartolomeo hollered back. ‘And I would instruct you in fighting, since you seem to do so little of it – at least, fair and square, like a gentleman should.’
Valois smiled thinly. ‘Hmm. Well, cher ami, as amusing as this little parley has been, I see I must repeat my request: I’d like your unconditional surrender by sunrise.’
‘Come and get it. My Lady Bianca will whisper it in your ear.’
‘Ah! I believe another lady might object to that.’
He nodded to his infantrymen, who pulled the sack off their prisoner. It was Pantasilea!
‘Il mio marito vi ammazzerà tutti,’ she spluttered defiantly, spitting pieces of hemp and dust. ‘My husband will murder you all!’
It took Bartolomeo a moment to recover from the shock. Ezio grasped his arm, while his men looked at one another, aghast.
‘I’ll kill you, fotutto Francese!’ he screamed.
‘Dear me, calm down,’ sneered Valois. ‘For your wife’s sake. And rest assured that no Frenchman would ever harm a woman – unnecessarily.’ His tone became more businesslike. ‘But even a dunderhead like you can imagine, I think, what will happen if you do not accede to my terms.’ He kicked his horse’s flanks and prepared to turn away. ‘Come to my headquarters at dawn – unarmed – and bone up on a little French. Soon all Italy will be speaking it.’
He raised his hand. The infantrymen threw Pantasilea across the back of one of the officer’s horses and the whole party cantered off, the infantry following in its wake.
‘I’ll get you, you pezzo di merda figlio di puttana!’ Barlomeo shouted impotently after them. ‘That whoreson piece of shit,’ he muttered to Ezio before charging off.
‘Where are you going?’ Ezio yelled after him.
‘To get her back!’
‘Bartolomeo! Wait!’
But Bartolomeo ploughed on, and by the time Ezio caught up with him, he was in the saddle, ordering the gates to be opened.
‘You can’t do this alone,’ pleaded Ezio.
‘I’m not alone,’ replied the condottiero, patting Bianca, which hung at his side. ‘Come with me if you wish, but you’ll have to hurry.’ He spurred on his horse and headed for the now-open gates.
Ezio didn’t even watch him go. He shouted brisk orders to Bartolomeo’s Captain of Cavalry and, within minutes, he, Ezio and a mounted unit of condottieri were galloping out of the barracks in hot pursuit of their leader.
40
General de Valois’s headquarters were situated within the ruins of the fortified ancient Roman barracks of the old emperors’ personal brigade, the Praetorian Guard. It was located in the eighteenth rione, on the north-eastern edge of Rome, which was now outside the shrunken city Rome had become. In its heyday, 1500 years earlier, Rome was vast – the greatest city in the world by far – boasting one million inhabitants.
Ezio and his troop had caught up with Bartolomeo on the road, and now they were gathered together on a small rise near the French base camp. They’d attempted an attack, but their bullets had bounced uselessly off the strong modern walls de Valois had had built on top of the old ones. Now they had moved out of range of the responding hail of gunfire that had been the French response to their foray. All Bartolomeo could do was hurl imprecations at his enemies.
‘You cowards! What, steal a man’s wife and then go and hide inside a fortress? Hah! Nothing hangs between your thighs, do you hear me? Nothing! Vous n’avez même pas une couille entre vous tous! There, that good enough French for you, you bastardi? In fact, I don’t think you have any balls at all.’
The French fi
red a cannon. They were within range of that and the shot hammered into the ground a few feet from where they were standing.
‘Listen, Barto,’ said Ezio. ’Calm down. You’ll be no good to her dead. Let’s re-group, then we’ll storm the gates, just like we did at the Arsenale that time in Venice when we were chasing down Silvio Barbarigo.’
‘It won’t work,’ said Bartolomeo glumly. ‘The entrance is thicker with Frenchmen than the streets of Paris.’
‘Then we’ll climb the battlements.’
‘They can’t be scaled. And even if you could, you’d be so outnumbered, even you wouldn’t be able to hold out.’ He brooded. ‘Pantasilea would know what to do.’ He brooded some more, and Ezio could see that his friend was becoming positively despondent. ‘Maybe this is the end,’ he continued gloomily. ‘I’ll just have to do what he says: enter their camp at dawn, bearing propitiatory gifts, and just hope the sod spares her life. Wretched coward!’
Ezio had been thinking, and now he snapped his fingers excitedly. ‘Perché non ci ho pensato prima? Why didn’t I think of it before?’
‘What? Did I say something?’
Ezio’s eyes were shining. ‘Back to your barracks.’
‘What?’
‘Call your men back to barracks. I’ll explain there. Come on!’
‘This had better be good,’ said Bartolomeo, giving his men the order, ‘Fall back!’
It was night by the time they got back. Once the horses had been stabled and the men stood down, Ezio and Bartolomeo went to the map room and sat down in conference.
‘So, what’s this plan of yours?’
Ezio unrolled a map, which showed the Castra Praetoria and its surroundings in detail. He pointed inside the fortress.
‘Once inside, your men can overpower the camp’s patrols, am I correct?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Especially if they are taken completely by surprise?’
‘Ma certo. The element of surprise is always—’
‘Then we need to get hold of a lot of French uniforms. And their armour. Fast. At dawn, we’ll walk right in, bold as brass; but there’s no time to lose.’
Comprehension dawned on Bartolomeo’s rugged face – comprehension, and hope: ‘Hah! You crafty old scoundrel! Ezio Auditore, you truly are a man after my own heart. And thinking worthy of my Pantasilea herself. Magnifico!’
‘Give me a few men. I’m going to make a sortie to their tower now, get in, and fetch what we need.’
‘I’ll give you all the men you need; they can strip the uniforms from the dead French troops.’
‘Good.’
‘And Ezio.’
‘Yes?’
‘Be sure to kill them as cleanly as possible. We don’t want uniforms covered in blood.’
‘They won’t feel a thing,’ said Ezio. ‘Trust me.’
As Bartolomeo was detailing men for the job in hand, Ezio collected his saddlebag, and from it selected the Poison Blade.
They rode silently up to the Borgia Tower, which the French commanded, their horses’ hooves muffled with sacking. Dismounting a short way off, Ezio bade his men wait while he scaled the outer wall with the skill of a denizen of the distant Alps and the grace and cunning of a cat. A scratch from the Poison Blade was enough to kill, and the over-confident French had not posted many guards – those that there were, he took completely unawares and they were dead before they even knew what had happened to them. Once the guards were out of the way, Ezio opened the main gate, which groaned on its hinges, making Ezio’s heart race. He paused to listen, but the garrison slept on. Without a sound, his men ran into the tower, entered the garrison and overcame its inmates with barely a struggle. Collecting the uniforms took a little longer, but within an hour they were back at the barracks, mission accomplished.
‘Bit of blood on this one,’ grumbled Bartolomeo, sifting through their booty.
‘He was the exception as he was the only man who was truly on his toes – I had to finish him the conventional way, with my sword,’ said Ezio, as the men detailed for the operation ahead changed into the French uniform.
Bartolomeo said, ‘Well, you’d better bring me a suit of their perverted mail, too.’
‘You’re not wearing one,’ said Ezio, as he put on a French lieutenant’s uniforms.
‘What?’
‘Of course you aren’t! The plan is that you gave yourself up to us. We are a French patrol, bringing you to the Général Duc de Valois.’
‘Of course.’ Bartolomeo thought hard. ‘Then what?’
‘Barto, you can’t have been paying attention. Then your men attack – on my signal.’
‘Bene!’ Bartolomeo beamed. ‘Get a move on,’ he said to those of his men who hadn’t yet finished dressing. ‘I can smell the dawn already, and it’s a long ride.’
The men rode hard through the night, but left their horses at a little distance from the French HQ, in the charge of their squires. Before leaving them, Ezio first checked Leonardo’s little Codex pistol – the design had been improved so he could fire more than one shot before reloading – and discreetly strapped it to his arm. He and his group of ‘French’ soldiers then proceeded on foot in the direction of Castra Praetoria.
‘De Valois thinks Cesare will allow the French to rule Italy,’ explained Bartolomeo as he and Ezio marched side by side. Ezio was playing the part of the senior officer of the patrol, and would hand Bartolomeo over himself. ‘Silly fool! He’s so blinded by the trickle of royalty in his blood that he can’t see the plan of the battlefield – blasted little inbred runt that he is!’ He paused. ‘But you know and I know that, whatever the French may think, Cesare intends to be the first king of a united Italy.’
‘Unless we stop him.’
‘Yes.’ Bartolomeo reflected. ‘You know, brilliant though your plan is, personally I don’t like using this kind of trick. I believe in a fair fight – and may the best man win.’
‘Cesare and de Valois may have different styles, Barto, but they both fight dirty, and we have no choice but to fight fire with fire.’
‘Hmm! “There will come a day when men no longer cheat each other. And on that day we shall see what Mankind is truly capable of.” ’ he quoted.
‘I’ve heard that somewhere before.’
‘You should have! It’s something your father wrote.’
‘Psst!’
They had drawn close to the French encampment, and up ahead Ezio could see figures moving about – French perimeter guards.
‘What’ll we do?’ asked Bartolomeo, sotto voce.
‘I’ll kill them – there aren’t many of them – but we must do it noiselessly and without fuss.’
‘Got enough poison left in that gadget of yours?’
‘This lot are alert and they’re quite widely spaced apart. If I kill one and I’m noticed, I may not be able to prevent some getting back and raising the alarm.’
‘Why kill them at all? We’re in French uniforms. Well, you lot are.’
‘They’ll ask questions. If we make an entrance with you in chains …’
‘Chains?!’
‘Shh! If we make an entrance, de Valois will be so tickled it won’t occur to him to ask where we sprang from. At least, I hope it won’t.’
‘That chicken brain? No worries!’ But how are we going to get rid of them? We can hardly shoot them. The gunfire would be as good as a fanfare.’
‘I’m going to shoot them with this,’ said Ezio, producing Leonardo’s compact, quick-load crossbow. ‘I’ve counted. There are five of them and I have six bolts. The light’s still a bit dim for me to aim properly from here, so I’ll have to get a bit closer. Just you hang on here with the rest.’
Ezio slipped forward until he was within twenty paces of the nearest French sentry. Cranking back the string, he placed the first bolt in the groove and, lifting the tiller to his shoulder, took a quick bead on the man’s breast and fired. There was a muted snap and a hiss, and the man toppled to the ground insta
ntly, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Ezio was already on his way through the bracken to his next victim; the twang of the crossbow was barely audible. The small bolt hit the man’s throat, and he made a strangulated gargling sound before his knees gave way beneath him. Five minutes later, it was all over. Ezio had used all six bolts, since he’d missed on the first shot at his last man, causing him to lose his resolve momentarily, but he’d reloaded and fired successfully before the soldier had had time to react to the strange, dull noise he’d heard.
He had no more ammunition for the bow now, but he gave silent thanks to Leonardo. He knew this weapon would prove more than useful on another occasion. Ezio quietly hauled the fallen French soldiers to some sparse cover, hoping it would be enough to hide them from anyone who happened to pass by. As he did so he retrieved the used bolts for another time – recalling Leonardo’s advice – then, stowing the crossbow, made his way back to Bartolomeo.
‘All done?’ the big man asked him.
‘All done.’
‘Valois next,’ Bartolomeo vowed. ‘I’ll make him squeal like a stuck pig.’
The sky was lightening, and dawn, clad in a russet mantle, was walking over the dew on the distant hills to the east.
‘We’d better get going,’ said Bartolomeo.
‘Come on, then,’ replied Ezio, clapping manacles on his wrists before he could object. ‘Don’t worry, they’re spring-loaded fakes. Just make a sudden tight fist and they’ll drop off. But for God’s sake wait for my signal. And by the way, the “guard” just to your left will stay close to you. He’s got Bianca under his cloak. All you have to do is reach across and …’ Ezio’s voice took on a warning note, ‘But only at my signal.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ smiled Bartolomeo.
At the head of his men, Bartolomeo two paces behind him with a special escort of four, Ezio marched boldly in the direction of the main gate of the French headquarters. The rising sun glittered on their chain mail and breastplates.
‘Halte-là!’ ordered a sergeant-commander at the gate, who was backed up by a dozen heavily armed sentries. His eyes had already taken in the uniforms of his fellow soldiers so he ordered, ‘Déclarez-vous!’
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