Assassin's Creed: Renaissance (27 page)

‘Save your breath! I must go now. Remember! The meeting is set ten days from now at San Stefano, outside Fiorella’s.’

‘I’ll remember,’ said Emilio sourly. ‘The Master will hear then how -‘

‘The Master will speak, and you will listen,’ retorted Grimaldi. ‘Farewell!’

He stepped into the darkened gondola as Ezio watched, and it glided off into the night.

‘
Cazzo!
‘ muttered Emilio to his secretary as he watched the gondola disappear in the direction of the Grand Canal. ‘What if he’s right? What if that damned Ezio Auditore
is
here?’ He brooded for a moment. ‘Look, get the boatmen ready, now. Wake the bastards up if you have to. I want those crates loaded now and I want the boat ready in half an hour by your water-clock. If Grimaldi
is
speaking the truth, I must find a place to hide, at least until the meeting. The Master will find a way of dealing with the Assassin…’

‘He must be working with Antonio de Magianis,’ put in the secretary.

‘I know that, you idiot!’ hissed Emilio. ‘Now come, and help me pack the documents we spoke of before our dear friend Grimaldi came calling.’

They moved back towards the interior of the palazzo, and Ezio followed, giving away no more sense of his presence than if he had been a spirit. He blended into the shadows and his footfall was no more noticeable than a cat’s. He knew Antonio would hold off the attack on the palazzo until he gave the signal, and first he wanted to get to the bottom of what Emilio was up to – what were these documents of which he had spoken?

‘Why won’t people listen to sense?’ Emilio was saying to his secretary as Ezio continued to tail them. ‘All this freedom of opportunity, it just leads to more crime! We must ensure that the State has control of all aspects of the people’s lives, and at the same time gives free rein to the bankers and the private financiers. That way, society flourishes. And if those who object have to be silenced, then that is the price of progress. The Assassins belong to a bygone age. They don’t realize that it’s the State that matters, not the individual.’ He shook his head. ‘Just like Giovanni Auditore, and he was a banker himself! You’d have thought he’d have shown more integrity!’

Ezio drew in his breath sharply at the mention of his father’s name, but continued to pursue his quarry as Emilio and his secretary made their way to his office, selected papers, packed them, and returned to the little jetty by the garden gate where another, larger gondola was now awaiting its master.

Emilio, taking his satchel of papers from his secretary, snapped a last order. ‘Send some overnight clothes after me. You know the address.’

The secretary bowed and disappeared. There was no one else about. The gondoliers prepared to cast off, fore and aft.

Ezio sprang from his vantage-point on to the gondola, which rocked alarmingly. With two swift elbow movements, he knocked the boatmen into the water, and then had Emilio by the throat.

‘Guards! Guards!’ gurgled Emilio, groping for the dagger at his belt. Ezio seized his wrist just as he was about to plunge the weapon into Ezio’s belly.

‘Not so fast,’ said Ezio.

‘Assassin! You!’ growled Emilio.

‘Yes.’

‘I killed your enemy!’

‘That does not make you my friend.’

‘Killing me will solve nothing for you, Ezio.’

‘I think it will rid Venice of a troublesome… bedbug,’ said Ezio, releasing his spring-blade. ‘
Requiescat in pace
.’ With barely a pause, Ezio eased the deadly steel between Emilio’s shoulder blades – death came quickly and silently. Ezio’s proficiency in killing was matched only by the cold metallic resolve with which he fulfilled the duty of his calling.

Bundling Emilio’s body over the gondola’s side, Ezio set to rifling through the papers in his satchel. There was much to interest Antonio, he thought, as he swiftly sifted through them, for there was no time now to examine them thoroughly; but there was one parchment which caught his own attention – a rolled and sealed page of vellum. Surely another Codex page!

As he was about to break the seal –
shoof!
– an arrow rattled and clanged into the baseboard of the gondola between his legs. Instantly alert, Ezio crouched, peering up in the direction the missile had come from. High above him on the ramparts of the palazzo a vast number of Barbarigo archers was ranged.

Then one of them waved. And acrobatically tumbled down from the high walls. In another second she was in his arms.

‘Sorry, Ezio – foolish prank! But we couldn’t resist.’

‘Rosa!’

She snuggled. ‘Back in the fray and ready for action!’ She looked at him with shining eyes. ‘And the Palazzo Seta is taken! We have freed the merchants who opposed Emilio, and we now control the district. Now, come! Antonio is planning a celebration, and Emilio’s wine cellars are legendary!’

Time passed, and Venice seemed to be at peace. No one mourned Emilio’s disappearance; indeed, many believed him still to be alive, and some assumed he had just gone on a journey abroad to look after his business interests in the Kingdom of Naples. Antonio made sure that the Palazzo Seta still ran like clockwork, and as long as the mercantile interests of Venice as a whole were not affected, nobody really cared about the fate of one businessman, however ambitious or successful he may have been.

Ezio and Rosa had grown closer, but a fierce rivalry still existed between them. Now she was healed, she wanted to prove herself, and one morning she came to his rooms and said, ‘Listen Ezio, I think you need a re-tune. I want to see if you’re still as good as you became when Franco and I first trained you. So – how about a race?’

‘A race?’

‘Yes!’

‘Where?’

‘From here to the Punta della Dogana. Starting
now
!’ And she leapt out of the window before Ezio could react. He watched her as she scampered over the red rooftops and seemed almost to dance across the canals that separated the buildings. Throwing off his tunic, he raced after her.

At last they arrived, neck-and-neck, on the rooftop of the wooden building that stood on the spit of land at the end of the Dorsoduro, overlooking St Mark’s Canal and the lagoon. Across the water stood the low buildings of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, and opposite, the shimmering pink stone edifice which was the Palazzo Ducale.

‘Looks like I won,’ said Ezio.

She frowned. ‘Nonsense. Anyway, even by saying that, you show yourself to be no gentleman and certainly no Venetian. But what can one expect of a Florentine?’ She paused. ‘In any case you are a liar.
I
won.’

Ezio shrugged and smiled. ‘Whatever you say,
carissima
.’

‘Then, to the victor, the spoils,’ she said, pulling his head down to hers and kissing him passionately upon the lips. Her body, now, was soft and warm, and infinitely yielding.

Emilio Barbarigo may not have been able to make the appointment in the Campo San Stefano himself, but Ezio was certainly not going to miss it. He positioned himself in the already bustling square at dawn on that bright morning late in 1485. The battle for ascendancy over the Templars was hard and long. Ezio began to believe that, as it had been for his father and was for his uncle, it would turn out to be
his
life’s work too.

His hood pulled up over his head, he melted into the crowd but stayed close as he saw the figure of Carlo Grimaldi approaching with another man, ascetic-looking, whose bushy auburn hair and beard were ill-sorted with his bluish, pallid skin, and who wore the red robes of a State Inquisitor. This, Ezio knew, was Silvio Barbarigo, Emilio’s cousin, whose soubriquet was ‘
Il Rosso’
. He did not look in a particularly good mood.

‘Where
is
Emilio?’ he asked impatiently.

Grimaldi shrugged. ‘I told him to be here.’

‘You told him yourself? In person?’

‘Yes,’ Grimaldi snapped back. ‘Myself! In person! I’m concerned that you don’t trust me.’

‘As am I,’ muttered Silvio. Grimaldi gritted his teeth at that, but Silvio merely looked around, abstractedly. ‘Well, perhaps he’ll arrive with the others. Let’s walk a while.’

They proceeded to stroll around the large, rectangular
campo
, past the church of San Vidal and the palaces at the Grand Canal end, up to San Stefano at the other, pausing from time to time to look at the wares the stallholders were setting out at the beginning of the day’s trading. Ezio shadowed them, but it was difficult. Grimaldi was on edge, and kept turning round suspiciously. At times it was all Ezio could do to keep his quarry within earshot.

‘While we’re waiting, you can bring me up to date with how things are at the Doge’s Palace,’ said Silvio.

Grimaldi spread his hands. ‘Well, to be honest with you, it’s not easy. Mocenigo keeps his circle close. I have tried to lay the groundwork, as you asked, making suggestions in the interest of our Cause, but of course I am not the only one vying for his attention, and old though he is, he’s a canny bugger.’

Silvio picked up a complicated-looking glass figurine from a stall, inspected it, and put it back. ‘Then you must work harder, Grimaldi. You must become part of his inner circle.’

‘I am already one of his closest and most trusted associates. It has taken me years to establish myself. Years of patient planning, of waiting, of accepting humiliations.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Silvio impatiently. ‘But what have you to show for it?’

‘It’s harder than I expected.’

‘And why is that?’

Grimaldi made a gesture of frustration. ‘I don’t know. I do my utmost for the State, I work hard… But the fact is, Mocenigo doesn’t like me.’

‘I wonder why not,’ said Silvio coolly.

Grimaldi was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice the snub. ‘It’s not my fault! I keep trying to please the bastard! I find out what he most desires and lay it on for him – the finest jams from Sardinia, the latest fashions from Milan -‘

‘Maybe the Doge just doesn’t like sycophants.’

‘Do you think that’s what I am?’

‘Yes. A doormat, flatterer, a bootlicker – need I go on?’

Grimaldi looked at him. ‘Don’t you insult me,
Inquisitore
. You haven’t a clue what it’s like. You don’t understand the pressure in the -‘

‘Oh,
I
don’t understand
pressure
?’

‘No! You have no idea. You may be a state official but I am two steps from the Doge almost every waking hour of the day. You wish you could be in my shoes, because you think you could do better, but -‘

‘Have you finished?’

‘No! Just listen. I am close to the man. I have dedicated my life to establishing myself in this position, and I tell you I am convinced I can recruit Mocenigo to our Cause.’ Grimaldi paused. ‘I just need a little more time.’

‘It seems to me that you’ve had more than enough time already.’ Silvio broke off, and Ezio watched as he raised a hand to attract the attention of an expensively dressed elderly man with a flowing white beard, accompanied by a bodyguard who was the largest person Ezio had ever seen.

‘Good morning, Cousin,’ the newcomer greeted Silvio. ‘Grimaldi.’

‘Greetings, Cousin Marco,’ replied Silvio. He looked around. ‘Where is Emilio? Did he not come with you?’

Marco Barbarigo looked surprised, then grave. ‘Ah. Then you have not yet heard the news.’

‘What news?’

‘Emilio is dead!’

‘What?’ Silvio, as always, was irritated that his older and more powerful cousin should be better informed than he was. ‘How?’

‘I can guess,’ said Grimaldi, bitterly. ‘The
Assassino
.’

Marco looked at him sharply. ‘It is so. They pulled his body out of one of the canals late last night. It must have been in there for – well, for long enough. They say he’d swollen up to twice his usual size. That’s why he floated to the surface.’

‘Where can the Assassin be hiding?’ Grimaldi said. ‘We must find him and kill him before he does any more damage.’

‘He could be anywhere,’ said Marco. ‘That is why I take Dante here everywhere with me. I wouldn’t feel safe without him.’ He broke off. ‘Why, he could be here, even now, for all we know.’

‘We must act fast,’ said Silvio.

‘You’re right,’ said Marco.

‘But Marco, I’m so close. I feel it. Just give me a few more days,’ Grimaldi pleaded.

‘No, Carlo, you’ve had quite enough time. We no longer have the leisure for subtlety. If Mocenigo will not join us, we must remove him and replace him with one of our own, and we must do it this very week!’

The giant bodyguard, Dante, whose eyes had not ceased to scan the crowd from the moment he and Marco Barbarigo had arrived, now spoke. ‘We should keep moving,
signori
.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Marco. ‘And the Master will be waiting. Come!’

Ezio moved like a shade among the crowds and the stalls, striving to keep the men within earshot as they crossed the square and made off down the street which led in the general direction of Saint Mark’s Square.

‘Will the Master agree to our new strategy?’ asked Silvio.

‘He’d be a fool not to.’

‘You’re right, we have no choice,’ Silvio agreed, then looked at Grimaldi. ‘Which kind of makes you redundant,’ he added unpleasantly.

‘That is a matter for the Master to decide,’ retorted Grimaldi. ‘Just as he will decide whom to place in Mocenigo’s shoes – you, or your cousin Marco here. And the best person to advise him on that is me!’

‘I wasn’t aware that there was a decision to be made,’ said Marco. ‘Surely the choice is obvious to all.’

‘I agree,’ said Silvio, edgily. ‘The choice should fall on the person who organized the entire operation, the one who came up with the idea of how to save this city!’

Marco was quick to reply. ‘I would be the last to undervalue tactical intelligence, my good Silvio; but in the end it is wisdom which one needs in order to rule. Do not think otherwise.’

‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Grimaldi. ‘The Master may be able to advise the Committee of Forty-One when they meet to elect the new Doge, but he cannot sway them. And for all we know, the Master may be thinking of someone quite other than either of you…’