He was interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘Yes?’ he said, not displeased to be interrupted.
The door opened halfway and Sofia stood there, though she did not enter.
‘I’m taking Marcello into town,’ she said cheerily.
‘What – to see Niccolò’s latest?’ said Ezio, looking up from his reading and not really paying attention to her. ‘I shouldn’t have though Mandragola was a suitable play for an eight-year-old.’
‘Ezio, Machiavelli’s play closed three weeks ago. Besides, I’m not going to Florence just to Fiesole.’
‘I missed his play? He’ll be furious.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine about it. He knows you’ve got your head down. We’ll be back soon. Keep an eye on Flavia, will you? She’s playing in the garden.’
‘Of course. I’m fed up with this anyway. I think I’ll do some pruning instead.’
‘I must say it’s a pity to waste such a glorious afternoon cooped up in here.’ She gave him a slight look of concern. ‘Some fresh air would do you good.’
‘I’m not an invalid!’
‘Of course you aren’t, amore. I was just thinking …’ She gestured towards the crumpled pages scattered over the desk. Ezio pointedly dipped his quill and drew a blank sheet towards him.
‘A presto! Be safe.’
Sofia closed the door softly. Ezio wrote a few words and then stopped, scowling at the page.
He put down his quill, took off his glasses, and crumpled the page into a ball. Then he stalked from the room. He did need some fresh air.
He went to his tool shed and collected a pair of secateurs and a trug. Then he made his way across the garden towards the nearest row of vines. He looked idly around for Flavia but he could see no sign of her. He wasn’t unduly worried. She was a sensible girl.
He was halfway to the vineyard when he heard a sudden noise from a nearby shrubbery: Flavia in peals of laughter. She had ambushed him!
‘Flavia, tesoro – stay where I can see you!’
There was more laughter as the bush shook. Then Flavia peeked out. Ezio smiled, shaking his head.
Just then his attention was caught by someone on the road. He looked up, and, in the far distance, he saw a figure dressed in oddly coloured, motley garb. But the sun was behind it, and too bright for him to make it out completely. He held his hand up to shield his eyes, but when he looked again, the figure had disappeared.
He wiped his brow, and made his way across to his vines.
A little later he was deep in the vineyard, pruning the Trebbiano grapes. They didn’t really need it, but it gave him something to do while his mind beavered away at the problem of recounting the story of his fight, long ago in Rome, with the group of fanatics who’d called themselves the Sons of Remus. The vines brushed his elbows as he worked. He stopped to examine a bunch of grapes, he plucked one from the cluster and examined it, rolling it around. He squeezed it, crushing it and saw that it was juicy. He smiled, and ate the mangled grape, cleaning his fingers on his coarse linen tunic.
He wiped his brow again, satisfied. A breeze blew up, making the vine leaves rustle. He took a deep breath, scenting the warm air, and closed his eyes for a moment.
Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
He opened his eyes and made his way fast to the edge of the vines, looking in the direction of the villa. There, on the road by it, he saw Flavia talking to the oddly clothed person he’d seen earlier. The figure wore a peaked hood.
He hurried towards them, his secateurs held like a dagger. The wind freshened, bearing his warning cries away. He broke into a jog, wheezing with the effort. His chest hurt. But he had no time to worry about that. The figure was bending down towards his daughter.
‘Leave her alone!’ he shouted, stumbling on.
The figure heard him, turning its head, but keeping it lowered. At the same moment, Flavia plucked something, which she’d evidently been offered, from its hand.
Ezio was nearly upon them. The figure drew itself erect, head still low. Ezio hurled his secateurs at it, as if they were a throwing-knife, but they fell short and clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Ezio drew up to them. ‘Flavia! Go inside!’ he commanded, keeping the fear out of his voice.
Flavia looked at him in surprise. ‘But, Pappa – she’s nice.’
Ezio stepped between his daughter and the stranger, and took the person by the coat lapels. The stranger’s head came up, and Ezio saw the face of a young Chinese woman. He released her, taken aback.
The child held up a small oval coin with a square hole at its centre for him to see. The writing on it – if it was writing – looked strange. Pictograms. A Chinese qián.
The Chinese woman remained motionless, silent. Ezio, still tense, looked at her closely. He was breathing heavily, winded, but his mind was razor-sharp.
Then he saw that at her neck she wore a familiar emblem.
The emblem of the Brotherhood of the Assassins.
85
Later, when Sofia had returned, the three of them sat talking in the villa, while the children watched curiously from the top of the staircase. Ezio was being as hospitable as he possibly could to his unexpected guest, but he was adamant.
‘I don’t know what else to say, Shao Jun. I am so sorry.’
The Chinese woman did not reply, she was not angry, only very calm.
‘I am very sorry. But I cannot help you. I don’t want any part of this.’
Shao Jun raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I want to understand.’
‘Understand what?’
‘How to lead. How to rebuild my Order.’
He sighed, now slightly annoyed. ‘No. For me, that is over. Finito.’ He paused. ‘Now, I think you should go.’
‘Ezio, think!’ Sofia scolded him. ‘Shao Jun has come a long way.’ She turned to their guest. ‘Did I pronounce your name correctly?’
Jun nodded.
‘Will you stay for dinner?’
Ezio gave his wife a black look, and turned to face the fireplace.
‘Grah-zie,’ said Jun, in hesitant Italian.
Sofia smiled. ‘Good. And we have a bedroom already made up. You are welcome to stay for a few nights – or as long as you like.’
Ezio growled, but said nothing. Sofia left in the direction of the kitchens, while Ezio slowly turned and observed his guest. Shao Jun sat quietly; she was completely self-possessed. She surveyed the room.
‘I’ll be back before dark,’ he told her, in a bad-tempered voice.
He stormed out, throwing his manners to the wind. Jun watched him go, a subtle smile on her lips.
Once outside, Ezio took refuge in his vineyard.
86
Ezio was in the children’s room, watching their sleeping figures by candlelight. He stepped up to the window and locked it. He sat on the edge of Flavia’s bed, looking at her and Marcello with a heavy heart. They looked so peaceful – so angelic.
Suddenly the room got a little brighter as Sofia entered, holding another candle. He looked up at her and smiled. She smiled back, and sat at the foot of Marcello’s bed.
Ezio said nothing for a moment.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, a little timidly.
He looked down at his children again, lost in thought. ‘I can’t seem to leave my past behind me,’ he muttered. Then he turned his gaze to his wife. ‘I started this act of my life so late, Sofia. I knew I wouldn’t have time to do everything … But now I worry that I won’t have time to do anything.’
Her eyes were sad, but full of understanding.
They heard a faint creaking from above, and looked towards the ceiling.
‘What is she doing on the roof?’ Ezio muttered.
‘Leave her be,’ said Sofia.
Above them, Shao Jun stood on the red tiles high up near the chimneys. She had taken up a pose which was something between an Assassin attack position and simply that of someone relaxing and enjoying t
hemselves. She scanned the moonlit countryside as the night wind whispered around her.
The next day Ezio emerged from the villa early, to grey skies. He glanced up at the roof but, though the window of her room was open, there was no sign of Shao Jun.
He called her name, but there was no answer. He went to give orders to his foreman, for the time of the vendange was approaching, and he prayed for a good harvest this year – the grapes certainly promised it, and the summer weather had been favourable. The veraison had been good, too, but he wanted to double-check the sugar and acid levels in the grapes before picking. Then he’d send the foreman into Fiesole and as far as Florence if need be, to recruit the seasonal labour. It was going to be a busy time, and it was one which Ezio looked forward to every year – lots of physical activity and little time to think about anything else. Shao Jun’s arrival had thrown the hard won security he now enjoyed off track. He resented it. He found himself hoping that she had left before dawn.
Once he had finished his meeting with his foreman, he felt an irresistible impulse to return to the villa to see if his prayer had been answered. Somehow he doubted it, but there was no one about when he entered the house. Grimly, following some instinct which hollowed his stomach, he made his way to his den.
He stopped short at the door. It was open. He swept into the room and discovered the Chinese woman standing behind his desk – still littered with discarded notes and pages from the days before – reading part of the completed manuscript.
Ezio fell into a red rage. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Get out!’
She put down the sheaf of papers she was reading from, and looked at him calmly. ‘The wind – it opened the door.’
‘Fuori!! ’
Jun walked past him and out of the room. He made his way quickly to the desk and shuffled the papers around, picking up one that caught his eye and reading it. Then, unimpressed, he tossed it back on the pile, and turned from the desk to stare blankly out of the window. He could see Jun out there in the yard, her back to him, apparently waiting.
His shoulders slumped. After a few more minutes’ hesitation, he left the den and made his way out to her.
She was sitting on a low stone wall. He approached her, coughing lightly in the keen October wind.
She turned. ‘Duìbùqi – I’m sorry. It was wrong of me.’
‘It was.’ He paused. ‘I think you should leave.’
She sat silently for a moment, then, without warning, she quoted, ‘ “My name is Ezio Auditore. When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it; I had time, but I did not know it; and I had love, but I did not feel it. It would be thirty long years before I understood the meaning of all three.” ’ She paused. ‘That is beautiful,’ she said.
Ezio was stunned. He stared past Jun, reflecting. In the distance they could hear the jingling of a horse’s reins.
‘I want to understand, like you do,’ Jun went on, ‘how to help my people.’
Ezio looked at her with a friendlier eye. ‘I was an Assassin for a long time, Jun. And I know that at any moment, someone could come for me. Or my family.’ He paused. ‘Do you see? That is why I must be careful.’
She nodded, and he could see that she felt almost sorry for him. He looked towards his vineyards. ‘I should be starting to hire people to help me with the vendange, but …’
He trailed off. Jun tilted her head, listening.
‘Come inside. Let’s get something to eat.’
She slid off the wall and followed him.
87
The market in the great square south-west of the cathedral was as busy as ever. Merchants, businessmen, servants and peasants, jostled each other in a more or less friendly way as they passed between the stalls. Jun stood under one side of the surrounding colonnade, watching the bustle as Ezio, nearby, haggled in the cold sunlight with a stallholder over the price of a grape picker’s basket. Jun was rapt, absorbing the sights and sounds of Florence. She stared openly at people just as openly as people stared at her. She was unbothered.
Ezio completed his purchase and came over, tapping her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll be lucky if this lasts three seasons,’ he said. She looked at him as he showed her the basket, unsure what she should be looking for to judge its quality. Ezio realized this and smiled.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’
They moved through the crowds in the direction of the Piazza della Signoria, and once there sat down on a bench near the loggia, watching the people come and go, all brightly clad, except for those dressed in expensive black silks and velvets.
‘Who are they?’ asked Jun.
‘They are the bankers,’ Ezio replied. ‘It’s a kind of uniform, so that they can recognize each other – but it has another advantage – we can see them coming!’
Jun smiled uncertainly.
‘It’s nice, no?’ Ezio continued. ‘Full of life!’
‘Yes.’
‘But not always. Half my family was murdered in this piazza. Executed. Right here. Forty-five years ago. I was nineteen.’ He closed his eyes briefly at the memory, then went on, ‘But now to see it like this, so piena di vita, I can’t help but feel content and satisfied that so much pain has faded away.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘The life of an Assassin is pain, Jun. You suffer it and you inflict it. You watch it happen – all in the hope that you can help it disappear, in time. It’s terribly ironic, I know. But there it is.’
They sat in silence for a while. Jun seemed watchful. Then Ezio saw her tense at something. Something she had noticed in the crowd. A flash of a certain colour? A uniform perhaps? One of the Signoria guards? But the moment passed, and he let it go.
‘All right,’ he said, rising. ‘Time to drag this old man back to his villa.’
They left, crossing the square and taking the street, so familiar to Ezio, which ran east, just to the north of the Palazzo. Jun kept casting backward glances.
The street they’d reached was considerably emptier of people, and finally, as they moved along it, they were alone. Suddenly, Ezio heard a noise which Jun did not. He turned his head quickly. He took a backward leap, raising his basket to shield Jun, and in the nick of time – a thrown dagger embedded itself in it. Barely a second later, someone landed Ezio a savage kick in the gut. He staggered backwards and fell against a stone wall. Meanwhile, Jun had reacted with lightning speed. She was already standing between Ezio and his assailant – another Chinese woman, similarly dressed to Jun, but stripped down to combat tunic and trousers.
The two women circled each other, almost balletically, slowly, then lunged at each other like striking snakes, landing slicing blows with the edges of their hands or kicking so fast that Ezio could barely follow the movement. But he could see that Jun was getting the worst of it. He sprang forward and struck her attacker on the head with the basket, sending her sprawling.
She lay prone, motionless. Jun stepped forward.
‘Jun! She’s faking it!’
At the same moment the mysterious woman was back on her feet, falling on Jun with another knife raised. They both fell to the ground, rolling in the dust, fighting with the ferocity and the vicious agility of cats, their limbs and bodies moving so fast that they became blurred. There was a sudden scream. The assailant broke free, her own knife buried in her chest, just above the sternum. She tottered sideways for a moment, then keeled over, striking her head on a flint buttress and was still. This time she was not faking.
Ezio looked round. No one in sight.
He grabbed Jun’s hand.
‘Come on!’ he said, through clenched teeth.
As they rode home in Ezio’s carriage, Jun began to explain. Ezio realized that she might have done so earlier if he’d given her the chance. He listened grimly as she told her tale.
‘It was my Mentor’s wish to meet you. We left China together, in secret. But we were followed. They caught up with us in Venice. They took my master prisoner there. He bade me flee, co
mplete our mission. I did not see him again.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Servants of Zhu Huocong – the Jiajing Emperor. A young man, scarcely more than a boy, and not born to rule, but fate gave him the throne and now he controls us with a ruthless and bloody hand.’ She paused. ‘I was born a concubine, but my Mentor freed me when I was young. We returned later to save more girls, but they were …’ She paused. ‘The emperor thought that if he drank their monthly blood it would give him eternal life.’ She broke off, swallowing hard before mustering her self-control with an effort and continuing, ‘Jiajing is a cruel man. He kills all who oppose him, and he prefers ling chi to beheading.’
‘Ling chi?’
Jun made several slicing motions across her palm. ‘Slow. process. Many thousand cuts. Then – dead.’
Ezio’s face set like granite. He whipped his horses on.
88
Sofia was in Ezio’s den, stoking a fresh fire, when she heard the carriage tear up to the front of the house. Alarmed, she rose quickly to her feet. A moment later, Ezio burst in, closely followed by Shao Jun. He rushed to the window and closed the shutters, bolting them. Then he turned to his wife.
‘Pack some bags. They are putting fresh horses to the coach. Some of our men will go with you.’
‘What …?!’
‘You must stay at Machiavelli’s tonight.
‘What’s happened?’
‘A misunderstanding.’
Sofia looked from him to Jun, who lowered her eyes, embarrassed at having brought her troubles to their door.
‘Give me a moment,’ she said.
Soon afterwards, she and the children were installed in the carriage. Ezio stood at its door. They looked at each other. Both wanted to say something, but no words came.
Ezio stepped back, and nodded to the coachman. He cracked the reins and the horses moved forward into the gathering gloom.
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