'Good,' said Mario, more kindly. 'And you will thank me for this. Your new combat training begins in the morning. And remember, the preparation is all!'
A week later, armed and ready, Ezio rode out for San Gimignano. Mario had told him to make contact with one of the condottieri patrols he had posted within sight of the town to keep track of its comings and goings, and he joined one of their encampments for his first night away from Monteriggioni.
The sergeant in command, a tough, battle-scarred man of twenty-five, whose name was Gambalto, gave him a slab of bread with pecorino and a mug of heavy Vernaccia, and while he was eating and drinking told him the news.
'I think it's a shame Antonio Maffei ever left Volterra. He's got a bee in his bonnet about Lorenzo and thinks the Duke crushed his home town, whereas all he did was bring it under the wing of Florence. Now Maffei's gone mad. He's set himself up at the top of the cathedral tower, surrounded himself with Pazzi archers, and spends each day spouting scripture and
arrows in equal measure. God knows what his plan is - to convert the citizens to his cause with his sermons, or kill them off with his arrows. The ordinary people of San Gimignano hate him, but as long as he continues his reign of terror, the city is powerless against him.'
'So he needs to be neutralized.'
'Well, that would certainly weaken the Pazzi power-base in the city.'
'How well defended are they?'
'Plenty of men on the watchtowers and at the gates. But they change the guard at dawn. Then, a man like you might be able to get over the walls and into the city unseen.'
Ezio mused, wondering whether this was a distraction from his own mission to hunt down Jacopo. But he reflected that he must be able to see the bigger picture - this Maffei was a Pazzi supporter and it was Ezio's wider duty as an Assassin to unseat this madman.
By sunrise the following day, any especially attentive citizen of San Gimignano might have noticed a slim, grey-eyed, hooded figure gliding like a ghost through the streets which led to the cathedral square. The market traders were already setting up their stalls, but it was the ebb of the day's cycle and the guards, bored and dispirited, leant on their halberds and dozed. The western side of the campanile was still in deep shadow, and no one saw the black-clad figure climb up it with all the quiet ease and grace of a spider.
The priest, gaunt, hollow-eyed and wild-haired, was already in position. Four tired Pazzi crossbowmen had also taken up their places, one at each corner of the tower. But, as if he did not trust the crossbowmen alone to protect him, Antonio Maffei, though clutching a Bible in his left hand, held a rondel-dagger in his right. He was already orating, and as Ezio drew close to the top of the tower, he began to catch Maffei's words.
'Citizens of San Gimignano, heed well my words! You must repent. REPENT! And seek forgiveness. Join me in prayer, my children, so that together we may stand against the darkness which has fallen across our beloved Tuscany! Give ear, oh Heavens, and I shall speak; and hear, oh Earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distil as the dew, as raindrops on the tender herbs, as showers on the grass; for I proclaim the Name of the Lord! He is the Rock! His Work is perfect, for all His ways are just! Righteous and upright is He; but they who have corrupted themselves, they are not his children - a blemished, perverse and crooked generation! Citizens of San Gimignano - do you thus deal with the Lord? Oh, foolish and unwise people! Is he not your Father, who bore you? By the light of His mercy, be cleansed!'
Ezio leapt lightly over the parapet of the tower and took up a position near the trapdoor which opened on to the stairway that led below. The bowmen struggled to bring their crossbows to bear on him, but the range was short, and he had the element of surprise. He crouched and grasped the heels of one, toppling him over the parapet, howling to his death on the cobblestones two hundred feet below. Before the others could react, he had rounded on a second, stabbing him in the arm. The man looked astonished at the small wound, but then turned grey and collapsed, the life draining from him in an instant. Ezio had strapped his new poison-blade to his arm, for there was no time for fair mortal combat now. He whirled on the third, who had dropped his crossbow and was trying to get past him to the stairs. As he reached them, Ezio kicked him in the rump and he stumbled down the wooden steps, head first, bones snapping as he crashed down the first flight. The last raised his hands and burbled something. Ezio looked down and saw that the man had pissed in his hose. He stepped aside and with an ironic bow allowed the terrified bowman to scamper down the stairs after the broken ruins of his comrade.
Then he was hit hard on the back of the neck by the heavy steel pommel of a dagger. Maffei had recovered from his shock at the attack and closed on Ezio from behind. Ezio staggered forward.
'I will put you on your knees, sinner!' screamed the priest, foam appearing at the sides of his mouth. 'Beg forgiveness!'
Why do people always waste their time in talk, thought Ezio, who had had time to recover and turn while the priest was speaking.
The two men circled each other in the narrow space. Maffei slashed and lunged with his heavy dagger. He was clearly an unskilled fighter, but desperation and his fanaticism made him very dangerous indeed, and Ezio had to dance out of the way of the erratically swinging blade more than once, unable to land a blow himself. But at last he was able to catch the priest's wrist and pull him forwards, so that their chests were touching.
'I will send you whimpering to hell,' snarled Maffei.
'Show some respect for death, my friend,' Ezio retorted.
'I'll give you respect!'
'Give in! I'll give you time to pray.'
Maffei spat in Ezio's eyes, forcing him to let go. Then, screaming, he plunged his dagger at Ezio's left forearm, only to see the blade slide harmlessly to one side, deflected by the metal bracer in place there. 'What demon protects you?' he snapped.
'You talk too much,' Ezio said, pushing his own dagger a little way into the priest's neck, and tensing the muscles in his forearm. As the poison flowed through the blade into Maffei's jugular, the priest stiffened, opened his mouth, but nothing but foul breath came forth. Then he pushed himself away from Ezio, staggered back to the parapet, steadied himself an instant, and then fell forward into the arms of death.
Ezio stooped over Maffei's corpse. From his robes he extracted a letter, which he opened and quickly scanned.
Padrone:
It is with fear in my heart that I write this. The Prophet has arrived. I feel it. The very birds don't act as they should. They swirl aimlessly round the sky. I see them from my tower. I will not attend our meeting as you required, for I can no longer remain thus exposed in public view, for fear that the Demon may find me. Forgive me, but I must heed my inner voice. May the Father of Understanding guide you. And guide me.
Brother A.
Gambalto was right, thought Ezio, the man had lost his mind. Sombrely, remembering his uncle's admonition, he closed the priest's eyes, saying as he did so, 'Requiescat in pace.'
Aware that the archer to whom he'd shown mercy might have raised the alarm, he looked down over the tower's parapet at the town below, but could see no activity to worry him. The Pazzi guards still lounged at their posts, and the market had opened, doing a thin trade. No doubt the crossbowman was by now halfway across the countryside, making his way home,
finding desertion preferable to a court-martial and possibly torture. He pushed his blade back into its mechanism, hidden on his forearm, taking care to touch it only with a gloved hand, and picked his way down the stairs of the tower. The sun was up, and it would make him too easily visible if he were to climb down the outside of the campanile.
When he rejoined Mario's troop of mercenaries, Gambalto greeted him in an excited mood. 'Your presence brings us good fortune,' he said. 'Our scouts have tracked down Archbishop Salviati!'
'Where?'
'Not far from here. Do you see that mansion, on the hill, over there?'
'Yes.'
/> 'He's there.' Gambalto remembered himself. 'But first, I must ask you, Capitano, how you fared in the city?'
'There will be no more sermons of hatred from that tower.'
'The people will bless you, Capitano.'
'I am no captain.'
'To us you are,' said Gambalto, simply. 'Take a detachment of men from here. Salviati is heavily guarded and the mansion is an old, fortified building.'
'Very well,' said Ezio. 'It is good that the eggs are close together, almost in one nest.'
'The others cannot be far away, Ezio. We will endeavour to find them during your absence.'
Ezio selected a dozen of Gambalto's best hand-to-hand combat fighters, and led them on foot across the fields that separated them from the mansion where Salviati had taken refuge. He had his men fanned out, but within calling distance of one another, and the Pazzi outposts Salviati had put into position were easily either avoided or neutralized. But Ezio lost two of his own men in the approach.
Ezio had hoped to take the mansion by surprise, before its occupants were aware of his attack, but when he came close to the solid main gates a figure appeared on the walls above them, dressed in the robes of an archbishop, gripping the battlements with claw-like hands. A vulturine face peered down, and was quickly withdrawn.
'It's Salviati,' Ezio said to himself.
There were no other guards posted outside the gates. Ezio beckoned to his men to come up close to the walls, so that archers would not have enough of an angle to fire down at them. There was no doubt that Salviati would have concentrated what remained of his bodyguard inside the walls, which were high and thick enough to seem unbreachable. Ezio was wondering whether he should once again attempt climbing up and over the walls, and open the gates from the inside to admit his troops, but he knew that the Pazzi guards inside would be alerted to his presence.
Motioning to his men to stay out of sight, huddled against the walls, he crouched low and made his way back through the tall grass the short distance to where the body of one of their enemies lay. Quickly he stripped and donned the man's uniform, bundling his own clothes under his arm.
He rejoined his men, who at first bristled at the sight of a supposed Pazzi approaching, and handed his clothes over to one of them. Then he banged on the gates with the pommel of his sword.
'Open!' he cried. 'In the name of the Father of Understanding!'
A tense minute passed. Ezio stood back so that he could be seen from the walls. And then he heard the sound of heavy bolts being drawn.
As soon as the gates began to open, Ezio and his men stormed them, heaving them back and scattering the guards within. They found themselves in a courtyard, around which the mansion formed itself in three wings. Salviati himself stood at the top of a flight of stairs in the middle of the main wing. A dozen burly men, fully armed, stood between him and Ezio. More occupied the courtyard.
'Filthy treachery!' cried the archbishop. 'But you will not get out again as easily as you have got in.' He raised his voice to a commanding roar: 'Kill them! Kill them all!'
The Pazzi troops closed in, all but surrounding Ezio's men. But the Pazzi had not trained under such a man as Mario Auditore, and despite the odds against them, Ezio's condottieri engaged successfully with their opponents in the courtyard, while Ezio sprang towards the stairs. He released his poison-blade and slashed at the men surrounding Salviati. It didn't matter where he hit; every time he struck and drew blood, be it only at a man's cheek, that man died in a heartbeat.
'You are indeed a demon - from the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle!' Salviati spoke in a shuddering voice as at last he and Ezio confronted one another alone.
Ezio retracted the poison-blade, but drew his battle-dagger. He grasped Salviati by the scruff of his cope and held the blade to the archbishop's neck. 'The Templars lost their Christianity when they discovered banking,' he said, evenly. 'Do you not know your own gospel? "Thou canst not serve God and Mammon!" But now is your chance to redeem yourself. Tell me -where is Jacopo?' Salviati glared in defiance. 'You will never find him!'
Ezio drew the blade gently but firmly across the man's gizzard, drawing a little blood. 'You'll have to do better than
that, Arcivescovo.' 'Night guards us when we meet - now, finish your business!'
'So, you skulk like the murderers you are under cover of darkness. Thank you for that. I will ask you once more. Where?'
'The Father of Understanding knows that what I do now is for the greater good,' said Salviati coldly, and, suddenly seizing Ezio's wrist with both his hands, he forced the dagger deep into his own throat.
'Tell me!' yelled Ezio. But the archbishop, his mouth bubbling blood, had already sunk at his feet, his gorgeous yellow-and-white robes blossoming red.
It was to be several months before Ezio had further news of the conspirators he sought. Meanwhile, he worked with Mario to plan how they might retake San Gimignano and free its citizens from the cruel yoke of the Templars, but they had learned a lesson from the last time, and maintained an iron grip on the city. Knowing that the Templars would also be searching for the still-missing pages of the Codex, Ezio roamed far and wide in quest of them himself, but to no avail. The pages already in the possession of the Assassins remained concealed, under Mario's strict guard, for without them, the secret of the Creed would never yield to the Templars.
Then, one day, a courier from Florence rode up to Monteriggioni bearing a letter from Leonardo for Ezio. Quickly, he reached for a mirror, for he knew his friend's habit, being left-handed, of writing backwards - though the spidery scrawl would have been difficult for the most talented reader, unfamiliar with it, to decipher in any circumstances. Ezio broke the seal and read eagerly, his heart lifting at every line:
Gentile Ezio,
Duke Lorenzo has asked me to send you news - of Bernardo Baroncelli! It seems that the man managed to take ship for Venice, and from thence secretly made his way, incognito, to the court of the Ottoman sultan at Constantinople, planning to seek refuge there. But he spent no time in Venice, and did not learn that the Venetians had recently signed a peace with the Turks - they have even sent their second-best painter, Gentile Bellini, to make a portrait of Sultan Mehmet. So that when he arrived, and his true identity became known, he was arrested.
Of course then you can imagine the letters that flew between the Sublime Porte and Venice; but the Venetians are our allies too -at least for now - and Duke Lorenzo is nothing if not a master diplomat. Baroncelli was sent in chains back to Florence, and once here, he was put to the question. But he was stubborn, or foolish, or brave, I know not which - he withstood the rack and the white-hot tongs and the floggings and the rats nibbling his feet, only telling us that the conspirators used to meet by night in an old crypt under Santa Maria Novella. Of course a search was made but yielded nothing. So he was hanged. I have done rather a good sketch of him hanging, which I will show you when we next meet. I think it is, anatomically speaking, quite accurate.
Distinti saluti
Your friend
Leonardo da Vinci
'It is good that the man is dead,' commented Mario when Ezio showed him the letter. 'He was the type who would steal straw from his mother's kennel. But alas, it brings us no nearer to discovering what the Templars plan next, or even the whereabouts of Jacopo.'
Ezio had found time to visit his mother and his sister, who continued to while away their days in the serenity of the convent, watched over by the kindly abbess. Maria had, he saw to his sadness, made as much of a recovery as she would ever make. Her hair had turned prematurely grey, and there were fine crowsfeet lines at the corners of her eyes, but she had achieved an inner calm, and when she spoke of her dead husband and sons it was with affectionate and proud remembrance. But the sight of little Petruccio's pearwood box of eagle's plumes, which she kept on her bedside table, could still bring tears to her eyes. As for Claudia, she was now a novizia, but although Ezio regretted what he saw as a waste of her beauty and her spirit, he acknow
ledged that there was a light in her face which caused him to bow to her decision, and be happy for her. He visited them again over Christmas, and in the New Year took up his training again, though inside himself he was boiling over with impatience. To counter this, Mario had made him joint commander of his castle, and Ezio tirelessly sent out his own spies and scouts to range the country in quest of the quarry he implacably sought.
And then, at last, there was news. One morning in late spring Gambalto appeared in the doorway of the map-room where Ezio and Mario were deep in conference, his eyes ablaze.
'Signori! We have found Stefano da Bagnone! He has taken refuge in the Abbey Asmodeo, only a few leagues to the south. He has been right under our noses all this time!'
'They hang together like the dogs they are,' snapped Mario, his stubby workman's fingers quickly tracing a route on the map before him. He looked at Ezio. 'But he is a lead-dog. Jacopo's secretary! If we cannot beat something out of him - !'
But Ezio was already giving orders for his horse to be saddled and made ready. Swiftly, he made his way to his quarters and armed himself, strapping on the Codex weapons and choosing, this time, the original spring-blade over the poison one. He had replaced Leonardo's original hemlock distillation with henbane, on the advice of Monteriggioni's doctor, and the poison sac in its hilt was full. He had decided he would use the poison-blade with discretion, since there was always the risk of delivering himself a fatal dose. For this reason, and because his fingers were covered with small scars, he now wore supple but heavy leather gloves when using either blade.
The abbey was located near Monticiano, whose ancient castle brooded over the little hill town. It was set in the sunlit hollow of a gentle slope, packed with cypress trees. It was a new building, perhaps only one hundred years old, built of expensive imported yellow sandstone and built round a vast courtyard with a church at its centre. The gates stood wide open, and the monks of the abbey's Order, in their ochre habits, could be seen working in the fields and orchards which had been cleared around the building, and in the vineyard above it; the wine of the monastery attached to the abbey was famous, and was exported even to Paris. Part of Ezio's preparation had been to provide himself with a monk's habit of his own, and, having left his horse with an ostler at the inn where he had taken a room under the guise of a state courier, he donned his disguise before arriving at the abbey.
Assassin's Creed: Renaissance Page 16