Revelations

by Oliver Bowden

  “What news?” Barleti said as he drew level with the soldier.

  “Manuel has agreed to meet you, Tarik. He’s waiting by the Arsenal Gate.”

  Ezio pricked up his ears at the name.

  “An eager old weasel, isn’t he?” Tarik said flatly. “Come.”

  They set off, out of the Bazaar, and into the city streets. It was a long way to the Arsenal, which was situated on the north side of the Golden Horn, farther to the west, but they showed no sign of taking any kind of transport yet, and Ezio followed them on foot. A matter of a couple of miles—and he would have to be careful when they took the ferry across the Horn. But his task was made easier by the fact that the two men were engrossed in conversation, most of which Ezio managed to catch. It was not hard to blend in, in the streets of Constantinople, crowded with people from all over Europe and Asia.

  “How did Manuel look? Was he nervous? Or cagey?” Tarik asked.

  “He was his usual self. Impatient and discourteous.”

  “Hmn. I suppose he has earned that right. Have there been dispatches from the sultan?”

  “The last news was a week ago. Bayezid’s letter was short and full of sad tidings.”

  Tarik shook his head. “I could not imagine being at such odds with my own son.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Ezio followed the two Janissaries to a building close by the Arsenal Gate. Waiting for Tarik and his lieutenant was a large, plump, expensively dressed man in his late fifties, sporting a full grey beard and waxed mustaches. His feathered turban was encrusted with jewels, and there was a jeweled ring on each of his pudgy fingers. His companion was thinner, sparely built, and, to judge from his dress, hailed from Turkmenistan.

  Ezio, having selected a suitable place to make himself invisible, hiding discreetly among the heavy branches of a tamarind tree that grew close by, paid close attention as preliminary greetings were exchanged and learned that the plump dandy was—as he’d suspected—Manuel Palaiologos. Given what he’d heard from Yusuf about Manuel’s ambitions, this meeting would be an interesting one to listen in on. Palaiologos’s companion, also his bodyguard, as became apparent as the introductions were made, went by the name of Shahkulu.

  Ezio had heard of him. Shahkulu was a rebel against the Ottoman rulers of his country, and the rumors were that he was fomenting revolution among his people. But he also had a reputation for extreme cruelty and banditry.

  Yes, this meeting would indeed be interesting.

  Once the niceties—always elaborate, in this country, Ezio had noticed—had been dealt with, Manuel gestured to Shahkulu, who entered the building behind them—a kind of guard post, now evidently deserted—and from it brought a small but heavy wooden chest, which he placed at Tarik’s feet. The Janissary lieutenant opened it and began counting the gold coins with which it was filled.

  “You may verify the amount, Tarik,” Manuel said in a voice as plummy as his body, “but the money stays with me until I have seen the cargo for myself and ascertained its quality.”

  Tarik grunted. “Understood. You are a shrewd man, Manuel.”

  “Trust without cynicism is hollow,” intoned Palaiologos, unctuously.

  The Janissary had been counting fast. Soon afterward, he closed the chest. “The count is good, Tarik,” he said. “It’s all here.”

  “So,” said Manuel to Tarik. “What now?”

  “You will have access to the Arsenal. When you are satisfied, the cargo will be delivered to a location of your choosing.”

  “Are your men prepared to travel?”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Poi kalà.” The Byzantine princeling relaxed a little. “Very good. I will have a map drawn up for you within a week.”

  They parted company then, and Ezio waited until the coast was clear before he climbed down from the tree and made his way with all possible haste to the Assassins’ headquarters.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  It was dusk when Ezio returned to the Arsenal and found Yusuf already there waiting for him.

  “One of my men claims he saw a shipment of weapons brought in here earlier. So we got curious.”

  Ezio pondered this. It was as he had suspected. “Weapons.” He paused. “I would like to see them for myself.”

  He scanned the outer walls of the Arsenal. They were well guarded. The main gate looked impregnable.

  “Short of killing everyone in sight,” Yusuf said, following his Mentor’s thoughts, “I’m not sure how you will get inside.”

  The square behind them was still teeming with life—people hurrying home after work, coffee bars and restaurants opening their doors. Suddenly, their attention was drawn to an altercation that had broken out near the main gate in the Arsenal walls, between a trader and three Janissaries, who were harassing him.

  “You have been warned twice,” one of the Janissaries, a sergeant, was saying. “No merchants near the Arsenal walls!” He turned to his men. “Take this stuff away!”

  The privates started to pick up the trader’s crates of fruit and carry them away.

  “Hypocrites!” the man grumbled. “If your men didn’t buy my produce, I wouldn’t be selling it here in the first place!”

  The sergeant ignored him, and the soldiers went on with their work, but the trader hadn’t finished. He went right up to the sergeant, and said, “You are worse than the Byzantines, you traitor!”

  By way of reply, the Janissary sergeant whacked him with a hard fist. He collapsed, groaning, holding his bleeding nose.

  “Hold your tongue, parasite!” growled the sergeant.

  He turned away to supervise the continuing confiscation of the fruit, while a woman from the crowd rushed up to help the injured trader. Yusuf and Ezio watched as she helped him to his feet, staunching the blood from his face with a handkerchief.

  “Even in times of peace,” said Yusuf grimly, “the poor are always under siege.”

  Ezio was thoughtful, thinking of similar circumstances in Rome not so long ago. “Perhaps if we inspire them to vent their anger, that will help our cause.”

  Yusuf looked at him. “You mean—recruit these people? Incite them to rebel?”

  “It need only be a demonstration. But, with enough of them on our side . . .”

  The two men watched as the Janissaries, unimpeded, proceeded to carry off what was left of the man’s stock, leaving his stall completely bare. They disappeared through a wicket in the main gate.

  “Feigning solidarity to push your own agenda,” said Yusuf with a hint of contempt. “What a gentleman!”

  “It’s not pretty, I know. But it will work, believe me.”

  “Whatever works.” Yusuf shrugged. “And I see no other way of effecting a break-in here.”

  “Come—there’s a big crowd here, and it looks as if that trader is pretty popular. Let’s go and do some canvassing among the people.”

  For the next half hour and more, Ezio and Yusuf worked the crowd, hinting and persuading, cajoling and inspiring the ordinary working people around them, whom they found to be very open to the idea of putting an end to their oppression. All they had needed, it seemed, was someone to fire them up. Once a sufficient number had gathered into a mob, Ezio addressed them. The fruit trader stood by his side, defiant now. Yusuf had seen to it that most of the men and women had armed themselves in one way and another. The fruit trader held a large curved pruning knife.

  “Fight with us, brothers,” Ezio declaimed. “And avenge this injustice. The Janissaries are not above the law! Let’s show them we won’t stand for their tyranny.”

  “Yes!” several voices roared.

  “It makes me sick to see the kind of abuse they hand out,” Ezio continued. “Doesn’t it you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Will you fight with us?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then—let’s go!”

  By then, a detachment of armed Janissaries had issued forth from the Arsenal Gate, which was firmly closed behind them. They took up po
sitions in front of it, swords drawn, and faced the mob, whose mood had reached the boiling point. Undaunted by the soldiers’ show of strength—indeed, incensed by it—the crowd, whose volume grew by the minute, surged forward toward the gate. Whenever a Janissary was rash enough to close with people in the front rank, he was overcome by the sheer weight of numbers and either hurled aside or crushed under advancing feet. Soon afterward, the crowd was milling about at the gate itself, with Ezio and Yusuf keeping just enough command to direct their improvised strike force to batter it open.

  “Down with the Janissaries!” shouted a hundred voices.

  “You are not above the law!” yelled a hundred more.

  “Open the gate, you coward, before we tear it down!”

  “That gate won’t stay closed for long,” said Ezio to Yusuf.

  “The people are doing you a favor, Mentor. Return it and keep them safe from harm.”

  As Yusuf spoke, two detachments of Janissary reinforcements bore down on the crowd from right and left, having emerged from side gates in the north and south walls.

  “This calls for close-quarters fighting,” Ezio said, as, accompanied by Yusuf, he unleashed his hookblade and his hidden-blade, and threw himself into the fray.

  Encouraged by the professional skills of the two Assassins, the men and women on each flank of the crowd turned bravely to face the Janissary counterattack. As for the Janissaries, they were taken aback to encounter such firm resistance from such an unexpected quarter, and they hesitated—fatally—and were repulsed. In the meantime, those working on the gate were rewarded to see the firm planks of its doors first groan, then give, then buckle, then crumble. With a mighty crack, the main crossbeam holding the gate shut from within snapped like matchwood, and the gate fell back, its doors hanging drunkenly from their massive iron hinges.

  The crowd roared with one voice, like a great triumphant beast, and as they poured into the Arsenal, individual voices could be heard raised above the rest:

  “Push through!”

  “We’re inside!”

  “Justice or death!”

  The defending Janissaries within were powerless to prevent the onrush but, with their greater discipline, managed to hold it in check as ferocious fighting broke out in the Arsenal’s main quadrangle. Through it all, Ezio slipped like a wraith, into the inner confines of the fortress-like edifice.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Far from the shattered gate, deep within the western sector of the Arsenal, Ezio came at last to the place he was looking for. It was quiet there, for most of the fighting men in the Arsenal garrison were engaged in the quadrangle, and the handful of guards he did encounter, if he could not slip past them unnoticed, he swiftly dispatched. He would have to sharpen his hookblade once his work there was done.

  He made his way down a long stone corridor, so narrow that no one could enter the chamber at its end with any hope of surprising those within. Ezio approached slowly, soft-footed, until he came to an iron ladder fixed to the wall near the chamber’s entrance, which led to a gallery overlooking it. Strapping his sword scabbard to his leg so that it would not clatter, he climbed up, swiftly, and with as little noise as a flower makes when it opens. From his vantage point, he stared grimly at the scene taking place below him.

  Manuel and Shahkulu stood in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by a jumble of large crates, some of them open. A small Janissary guard unit stood at attention just inside the door. If Ezio had tried to enter, he would have fallen victim to an ambush. Softly, he breathed a sigh of relief. His instincts and experience had saved him, this time.

  Manuel paused in his examination of the contents of the crates. The angle of vision available to Ezio did not allow him to see what they were, though he could guess.

  “Twenty years in this city, living like a cipher,” Manuel was saying. “And now, at last, everything is falling into place.”

  Shahkulu replied, a note of menace in his voice: “When the Palaiologos line is restored, Manuel, do not forget who it was that helped you bring it back.”

  Manuel looked at him keenly, small eyes glittering coldly amid the folds of flesh. “Of course not, my friend! I would not dream of betraying a man of your influence. But you must be patient. Nova Roma was not built in a day!”

  Shahkulu grunted noncommittally, and Manuel turned to the captain of his escort. “I am satisfied. Take me to my ship.”

  “Follow me. There is a passage to the west gate by which we can avoid the fighting,” said the captain.

  “I hope and expect you will soon have that under control.”

  “As we speak, Prince.”

  “If one single item here is damaged, the money stays with me. Tell Tarik that.”

  Ezio watched them go. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he descended to the chamber and made a quick inspection of the crates, lifting the lid of one that had been unsealed.

  Rifles. One hundred or more.

  “Merda!” Ezio breathed.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a brazen clang—surely the west gate banging shut after Manuel’s departure. Immediately afterward, the sound of boots on stone approaching. The Janissaries would be returning to reseal the opened crates. Ezio pressed himself against the wall, and, as the soldiers entered, cut them down. Five of them. If they’d been able to enter together, instead of one at a time, the story might have been different. But the narrow corridor had turned out to be his friend.

  He passed back the way he had come. In the quadrangle, the battle was over, leaving the usual vile aftermath of combat. Ezio walked slowly past a sea of bodies, mostly still, some writhing in their last agonies, while the only sound was the keening of women as they knelt by the fallen, in the pitiless wind that blew through the yawning gateway.

  With his head bowed, Ezio strode from the place. The price paid for the knowledge he had gained seemed very high indeed.

  THIRTY-NINE

  It was high time to return to Sofia’s bookshop. He hurried there straightaway.

  The shop was still open, and lights within burned brightly. When she saw Ezio enter, Sofia took off her eyeglasses and got up from the worktable in the inner room, where the map he’d discovered in Yerebatan was spread out, amid several open books.

  “Salute.” She greeted him. Closing the door behind him and pulling down the blinds. “Time I closed for the day. Two customers all afternoon. I ask you. It’s not worth staying open for the evening trade.” Then she saw the expression on Ezio’s face and led him to a chair, where he sat, heavily, as she fetched him a glass of wine.

  “Grazie,” he said gratefully, glad she didn’t start asking questions.

  Instead, she said, “I’m closing in on two more books—one near Tokapi Saray, and the other in the Bayezid District.”

  “Let’s try the Bayezid first. The Topkapi will be a dead end. It was there that the Templars discovered the key they have.”

  “Ah—sì. They must have found it by chance, or by other means than ours.”

  “They had Niccolò’s book.”

  “Then we must thank the Mother of God that you rescued it from them before they could use it further.”

  She returned to the map, seated herself before it, and resumed writing. Ezio leaned forward and, producing the copy of Empedocles, placed it on the table by her. The second key that he had found had already joined the first, under secure guard, at the Assassins’ headquarters in Galata.

  “What do you make of this?” he said.

  She picked it up carefully, turning it over reverently in her hands. Her hands were delicate but not bony, and the fingers were long and slender.

  Her jaw had dropped in wonder. “Oh, Ezio! È incredibile!”

  “Worth something?”

  “A copy of On Nature in this condition? In its original Coptic binding? It’s fantastic!” She opened it carefully. The coded map within no longer glowed. In fact, Ezio could see that it was no longer visible.

  “Amazing. This must be a third-cen
tury transcription of the original,” Sofia was saying, enthusiastically. “I don’t suppose there’s another copy like this in existence.”

  But Ezio’s eyes were restlessly scanning the room. Something had changed, and he could not yet put his finger on what it was. At last, his gaze came to rest on a boarded-up window. The glass was gone from its panes.

  “Sofia,” he said, concerned. “What happened here?”

  Her voice took on a slight irritation though clearly overridden by her excitement. “Oh, that happens once or twice a year. People try to break in, thinking they will find money.” She paused. “I do not keep much here, but this time they succeeded and made off with a portrait of some value. No more than three hours ago, when I was out of the shop for a short time.” She looked sad. “A very good portrait of me, as it happens. I shall miss it, and not just for what it is worth. I’m certainly going to find a very safe place for this,” she added, tapping the Empedocles.

  Ezio was still suspicious that there might be more behind this painting theft than met the eye. He roamed through the room, looking for any clues it might afford him. Then he came to a decision. He was rested enough for the moment, and he owed this woman a favor. But there was more to it than that. He wanted to do whatever he could for her.

  “You keep working,” he said. “I will find your painting for you.”

  “Ezio, the thief could be anywhere by now.”

  “If the thief came for money, found none, and took the portrait instead, he should still be in this district, close by, eager to get rid of it.”

  Sofia looked thoughtful. “There are a couple of streets near here where a number of art dealers do business . . .”

  Ezio was already halfway to the door.

  “Wait!” she called after him. “I have some business in that direction. I’ll show you the way.”

  He waited as she locked the On Nature carefully in an ironclad chest by one wall, then followed her as she left the shop and locked the door firmly behind her.