Assassin's Creed: Renaissance (21 page)

‘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 acknowledged 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.

Soon after his arrival he spotted Stefano, deep in conversation with the abbey’s
hospitarius
, a corpulent monk who looked as if he had taken on the shape of one of the wine barrels he so evidently frequently emptied. Ezio managed to manoeuvre himself close enough to listen without being noticed.

‘Let us pray, brother,’ said the monk.

‘Pray?’ said Stefano, whose black garb contrasted with all the sunny colours around him. He looked like a spider on a pancake. ‘For what?’ he added sardonically.