Revelations

by Oliver Bowden

  This was quite a contrast to the chaos in which Leonardo loved to work, Ezio thought, smiling to himself at the memory of his friend.

  Yusuf and Ezio found Piri himself at work at a large drafting table directly under the windows. Six or seven years younger than Ezio, he was a tanned, weather-beaten, healthy, and robust figure of a man, wearing a blue silk turban, under which a strong face, currently bearing an expression of intense concentration, looked out at the work through piercing, clear grey eyes. His luxuriant brown beard was neatly trimmed, though worn long, covering the collar of the high-necked, silver brocade tunic he wore, with baggy blue trousers and plain wooden clogs.

  He gave Ezio an appraising glance, which Ezio returned, as Yusuf made the introductions.

  “What’s your name again?” said Piri.

  “Ezio. Ezio Auditore da Firenze.”

  “Ah yes. I thought for a moment Yusuf said ‘Lothario.’ Didn’t hear the difference.” He looked at Ezio, and Ezio could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye. Had Ezio’s reputation—in one department at least—preceded him?

  He thought he was going to like this man.

  “I have seen your work—your maps, anyway,” Ezio began. “I had a copy of the one you made for Cyprus.”

  “Did you?” replied the sailor, gruffly. Clearly, he didn’t like having his work interrupted. Or at least that was the impression he wanted to give.

  “But it is another aspect of your expertise I have come to seek your advice about today.”

  “That was a good map, the one of Cyprus,” said Piri, ignoring Ezio’s remark. “But I’ve improved it since. Show me yours.”

  Ezio hesitated. “I don’t have it anymore,” he confessed. “I gave it—to a friend of mine.”

  Piri looked up. “Very generous of you,” he said. “Do you know what my maps are worth?”

  “Indeed. But I owed that man my life.” Ezio hesitated again. “He’s a seaman, like yourself.”

  “Hmn. What’s his name? I might have heard of him.”

  “He’s a Mamluk. Goes by the name of Al-Scarab.”

  Piri suddenly beamed. “That old rogue! Well, I hope he puts it to good use. At least he knows better than to try anything on us.”

  Then he turned his eye on Yusuf. “Yusuf! What are you doing still standing there? Don’t you have anything better to do? Take yourself off and leave your friend with me. I’ll see that he has everything he needs. Any friend of Al-Scarab is a friend of mine!”

  Yusuf grinned and took his leave. “I knew I’d be leaving you in safe hands,” he said as he left.

  When they were alone, Piri became more serious. “I know who you are, Ezio, and I have a pretty good idea why you are here. Will you take some refreshment? There’s coffee, if you like it.”

  “I have acquired a taste for it at last.”

  “Good!” Piri clapped his hands at one of his assistants, who nodded and went to the back of the workshop, to return soon afterward with a brass tray holding a serpentine pot, with minute cups, and a dish of soft amber-colored sweetmeats, which Ezio had never tasted before.

  “I remember Al-Scarab from my own privateering days,” Piri said. “We fought side by side at both battles of Lepanto a dozen years ago or so, under the flag of my uncle Kemal. No doubt you’ve heard of him?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Spaniards fought us like tigers, but I didn’t think so much of the Genoese or the Venetians. You’re a Florentine, yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re a landlubber.”

  “My family were bankers.”

  “On the surface, yes! But something far more noble underneath.”

  “As you know, banking does not run in my blood as seafaring does in yours.”

  Piri laughed. “Well said!” He sipped his coffee, wincing as he burned his lips. Then he eased himself off his stool and stretched his shoulders, laying down his pen. “And that’s quite enough small talk. I see you’re already looking at the drawings I’m working on. Make any sense of them?”

  “I can see they’re not maps.”

  “Is it maps you’re after?”

  “Yes and no. There is one thing I want to ask you—about the city—before I talk about anything else.”

  Piri spread his hands. “Go ahead.”

  Ezio took Niccolò Polo’s book, The Secret Crusade, out of his side wallet, and showed it to Piri.

  “Interesting,” said the seaman. “Of course I know all about the Polos. Read Marco’s book. Exaggerates a bit, if you ask me.”

  “I took this from a Templar at Masyaf. Yusuf knows of it and of its contents.”

  “Masyaf? So you have been there.”

  “It mentions the five keys to Altaïr’s library. From my reading of it, I see that Altaïr entrusted the keys to Niccolò, and that he brought them here and concealed them.”

  “And the Templars know this? So it’s a race against time.”

  Ezio nodded. “They’ve already found one, hidden in the cellars of the Topkapi Palace. I need to recover it and find the other four.”

  “So—where will you begin?”

  “Do you know the location of the Polos’ old trading post here?”

  Piri looked at him. “I can tell you exactly where it was. Come over here.” He led the way to where a large, immensely detailed map of Constantinople hung on the wall in a plain gold frame. He peered at it for an instant, then tapped a spot with his index finger. “It’s there. Just to the west of Haghia Sofia. No distance from here. Why? Is there a connection?”

  “I have a hunch I need to follow.”

  Piri looked at him. “That is a valuable book,” he said, slowly.

  “Yes. Very valuable, if I’m right.”

  “Well, just make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  He was silent for a long moment, thinking. “Be careful when you find the Polos’ old trading post,” he said. “You may find more than you bargain for there.”

  “Does that remark beg a question?”

  “If it does, it is a question to which I have no answer. I just ask you to be wary, my friend.”

  Ezio hesitated before taking Piri further into his confidence. “I think my quest will start in that place. I am sure there must be something hidden there that will give me my first clue.”

  “It is possible,” Piri said, giving nothing away. “But heed my warning.”

  Then he brightened, rubbing his hands vigorously, as if to chase away demons. “And now that we’ve settled that matter, what else can I help you with?”

  “I’m sure you’ve guessed. I am here on an Assassin mission, perhaps the most important ever, and Yusuf tells me you would be prepared to show me how to make bombs. The special ones you’ve developed here.”

  “Ach, that Yusuf has a big mouth.” But Piri looked serious again. “I cannot compromise my position, Ezio. I am Senior Navigator in the Sultan’s Navy, and this is my current project.” He waved his hands at the maps. Then he winked. “The bombs are a sideline. But I like to help my true friends in a just cause.”

  “You may rely on my discretion. As I hope I may on yours.”

  “Good. Follow me.”

  So saying, Piri led the way to the spacious alcove on the west wall. “The bombs are actually part of a naval research project, too,” he continued. “Through my soldiering, I have gained an appreciation for artillery and explosives. And that has served the Assassins well. It gives us an edge.”

  He waved his hand at the technical drawings. “I have developed many kinds of bombs, and some are reserved for the use of your Brotherhood alone. As you can see, they are divided into four main categories. Of course, they are expensive, but the Brotherhood has always understood that.”

  “Yusuf told me the Assassins here are short of funds.”

  “Most good causes usually are,” replied Piri. “But Yusuf is also resourceful. I gather you know how to use these weapons?”

  “I had a crash cour
se.”

  Piri looked at him levelly. “Good. Well, as Yusuf evidently promised you, if you want to craft your own bombs, I can show you.”

  He went round the table and picked up two pieces of strange-looking metal lying on it. Ezio, leaning forward curiously, reached for a third.

  “Ah ah ah! Don’t touch that!” warned Piri. “One wrong move and BANG! The building comes down.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Piri laughed. “The look on your face! Look, I’ll show you.”

  For the next few hours, Piri Reis took Ezio through every basic step involved in constructing each kind of bomb and the materials involved.

  Ezio learned that each bomb contained the fundamental ingredient of gunpowder, but that not all were designed to be lethal. He’d already had experience of lethal explosives when attacking Cesare Borgia’s fleet in Valencia four years earlier, and Yusuf had shown him how to use diversionary bombs which created smoke screens, thunderclaps, appalling odors, and apparent pennies from heaven. Piri now demonstrated other applications. Among the bombs with lethal effect were those using coal dust, which added a heavy blasting power to the gunpowder, and fragmentation bombs whose shrapnel killed messily over a wide range. Bombs containing sachets of lambs’ blood spattered their opponents with it, causing them to think they had been wounded, and panicking them. Another type of nonlethal explosive, useful in delaying pursuers, was the caltrop bomb, which showered numbers of twisted-together nails in the path of an oncoming enemy. Perhaps the most unpleasant were the bombs that used either datura powder or deadly nightshade.

  “Datura and deadly nightshade are two of what we call the witches’ weeds, along with henbane and mandrake,” Piri explained, his face grave. “I do not like to use them except in cases of great extremity and danger. When exploded in the midst of an enemy, datura causes delirium, deranging the brain, and death. It is perhaps the worst of all. Deadly nightshade produces a poison gas, which is equally lethal.”

  “The Templars would not hesitate to use them against us if they could.”

  “That is one of the moral paradoxes mankind will wrestle with until the day he becomes truly civilized,” replied Piri. “Is it evil to use evil to combat evil? Is agreeing with that argument merely a simple justification for something none of us should really do?”

  “For now,” said Ezio, “there is not leisure to ponder such questions.”

  “You’ll find the ingredients for these bombs in locations about the city, which Yusuf will tell you of,” said Piri. “So keep your eyes open and your nose to the ground as you roam the streets.”

  Ezio rose to take his leave. Piri extended a walnut brown hand. “Come back whenever you need more help.”

  “Ezio shook hands and was unsurprised at the firmness of the grasp.

  “I hope we will meet again.”

  “Oh,” said Piri with an enigmatic smile. “I have no doubt of it.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Following Piri Reis’s instructions, Ezio made his way through the Bazaar once more, ignoring the insistent blandishments of the traders there, until he reached the quarter west of the enormous bulk of Haghia Sofia. He almost got lost in the labyrinth of streets and alleyways around it but came at last to the spot which, he was sure, Piri had indicated on his map.

  A bookshop. And a Venetian name over the door.

  He entered and, to his surprise and barely suppressed delight, found himself face-to-face with the young woman he had encountered on his voyage to Constantinople. She greeted him warmly, but he saw immediately that he was merely being welcomed as a potential customer. There was no sign of recognition on her face.

  “Buon giorno! Merhaba!” she said, switching automatically from Italian to Turkish. “Please come in.”

  She was busying herself among her stock and, in turning, knocked over a pile of books. Ezio saw at a glance that this shop was the antithesis of Piri Reis’s well-ordered studio.

  “Ah!” said the woman. “Excuse the clutter. I have not had time to tidy up since my trip.”

  “You sailed from Rhodes, no?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Sì. How did you know?”

  “We were on the same ship.” He bowed slightly. “My name is Auditore, Ezio.”

  “And I am Sofia Sartor. Have we met?”

  Ezio smiled. “We have now. May I look around?”

  “Prego. Most of my best volumes are in the back, by the way.”

  Under the pretext of looking at the books, stacked in apparent chaos on a maze of teetering wooden shelves, Ezio delved deeper into the dark confines of the shop.

  “It’s nice to meet another Italian in this district,” Sofia said, following him. “Most of us keep to the Venetian District, and Galata.”

  “It’s good to meet you, too. But I thought the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire would have driven most Italians away. After all, it’s only seven or eight years ago.”

  “But Venice kept control of her islands in the White Sea, and everyone came to an arrangement,” she replied. “At least, for the moment.”

  “So you stayed?”

  She shrugged. “I lived here with my parents when I was a girl. True, when the war was on, we were pushed out, but I always knew I would return.” She hesitated. “Where are you from?”

  “Florence.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, no. I have met some very nice Florentines.”

  “There’s no need to sound so surprised.”

  “Forgive me. If you have any questions about the books, just ask.”

  “Grazie.”

  “There’s even more stock in the rear courtyard if you’re interested.” She looked a little rueful. “More than I seem to be able to sell, to be honest.”

  “What took you to Rhodes?”

  “The Knights of Rhodes are uneasy. They know the Ottomans haven’t given up the idea of taking the island over. They think it’s only a question of time. Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam was selling off part of their library. So it was a shopping trip, if you like. Not very successful, either. The prices they were asking!”

  “De L’Isle-Adam is a good Grand Master and a brave man.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Only by repute.”

  The woman looked at him as he poked around. “Look, nice as it is to chat with you—are you sure I cannot help? You seem a bit lost.”

  Ezio decided to come clean. “I am not really looking to buy anything.”

  “Well,” she replied, a touch crisply, “I’m not giving anything away free, Messere.”

  “Forgive me. Just bear with me a little longer. I will make it up to you.”

  “How?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Well, I must say—”

  But Ezio silenced her with a gesture. He had manhandled one bookshelf from the back wall of the covered courtyard. The wall was thicker than the others, he could see that, and he’d noticed a crack in it that wasn’t a crack at all.

  It was part of a doorframe, artfully concealed.

  “Dio mio!” exclaimed Sofia. “Who put that there?”

  “Has anyone ever moved these bookshelves before?”

  “Never. They’ve been in place since before my father took over the shop, and before that, it had been in disuse for years—decades, even.”

  “I see.” Ezio brushed dust and debris accumulated over what looked like far more than decades away from the doorframe but found no handle or any other means of opening the door. Then he remembered the secret door that led to the vault back in Monteriggioni, at his uncle’s fortress, and felt around for a hidden catch. Before long, the door swung open and inward. Within, steps the width of the wall led downward into blackness.

  “This is incredible,” said the woman, peering over Ezio’s shoulder. He smelled the soft scent of her hair, her skin.

  “With your permission, I’ll find out where it leads to,” he said firmly. />
  “I’ll fetch you some light. A candle.”

  She was back in moments, with a candle and a tinderbox. “Who are you, Messere?” she asked, looking into his eyes.

  “Only the most interesting man in your life.”

  She smiled, quickly. “Ah! Presuntuoso!”

  “Stay here. Let no one into the shop. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Leaving her, he descended the steps, from whose foot a tunnel led deep in the earth.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Ezio found himself in a system of underground cisterns. By the feeble light of the candle, he could make out barrel-vaulted roofs supported by row upon row of slender columns, decorated at their capitals with a variety of symbols, among which Ezio recognized eyes. At their bases, some of them, bizarrely, showed the inverted heads of monstrous Gorgons.

  Ezio recognized the place he must be in—the Yerebatan Sarnici. The great system of cisterns built below Constantinople. In his book, Niccolò Polo mentioned it. It had been built as a water-filtration system by Justinian a thousand years earlier. But knowing that didn’t make it feel any less creepy.

  He was all but daunted at the vast, cavernous space around him, which he judged, from the echoes the sound his movements made, to be as great as a cathedral. But he remembered that Niccolò had given some indication in The Secret Crusade of where one key might be found. The directions had been deliberately obscure, but Ezio decided to try to follow them, concentrating as he forced his mind to remember the details.

  It was hard to make no noise at all, moving through the shallow water that covered the floor of the cistern, but with practice, Ezio managed to reduce this to a minimum. Besides, any sound he made was soon drowned out by the noise of the unsuspecting people he heard up ahead. Evidently, he was not alone in his quest, and he reminded himself that, before he got hold of the book, it had been in the Templars’ possession.

  There were lights up ahead as well. Ezio doused his candle and crept forward toward them. Soon, he made out the forms of two Templar foot soldiers, sitting by a small fire in a dark passage. Ezio drew closer. His Greek was good enough to pick up most of what they were saying.