Assassin's Creed: Revelations (23 page)

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-century 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.

“This way,” she said. “But we part company at the first turning. I’ll point you in the right direction from there.”

They walked on in silence. A few dozen yards down the street, they came to a crossroads, and she halted.

“Down there,” she said, pointing. Then she looked at him. There was something in her clear eyes that he hoped he wasn’t imagining.

“If you happen to find it within the next couple of hours, please come and meet me by Valens’ Aqueduct,” she said. “There’s a book fair I need to attend, but I’d be so glad to see you there.”

“I will do my best.”

She looked at him again, then away, quickly.

“I know you will,” she said. “Thank you, Ezio.”

FORTY

The picture dealers’ quarter wasn’t hard to find—a couple of narrow streets running parallel to one another, the little shops glowing in the lamplight that shone on the treasures they held.

Ezio passed slowly from one to another, looking at the people browsing the art more than the art itself, and before too long he saw a shifty-looking character in gaudy clothes coming out of one of the galleries, engrossed in counting out coins from a leather purse. Ezio approached him. The man was immediately on the defensive.

“What do you want?” he asked, nervously.

“Just made a sale, have you?”

The man drew himself up. “If it’s any business of yours . . .”

“Portrait of a lady?”

The man took a swipe at Ezio and prepared to duck and run, but Ezio was a little too quick for him. He tripped him up and sent him sprawling. Coins scattered everywhere on the cobbles.

“Pick them up and give them to me,” said Ezio.

“I have done nothing,” snarled the man, obeying nevertheless. “You can’t prove a damn thing!”

“I don’t need to,” Ezio snarled back. “I’ll just keep hitting you until you talk.”

The man’s tone changed to a whine. “I found that painting. I mean—someone gave it to me.”

Ezio whacked him. “Get your story straight before you lie to my face.”

“God help me!” the man wailed.

“He has much better things to do than answer your prayers.”

The man finished his task and handed the full purse meekly to Ezio, who pulled him upright and pinned him to a nearby wall. “I do not care how you got the painting,” said Ezio. “Just tell me where it is.”

“I sold it to a merchant here. For a lousy two hundred
açke
.” The man’s voice broke as he indicated the shop. “How else will I feed myself?”

“Next time, find a nicer way to be a
canaglia
.”

Ezio let the man go, and he scampered off down the lane, cursing. Ezio watched him for a moment, then made his way into the gallery.

He looked carefully among the pictures and sculptures on sale. It wasn’t hard to spot what he was after, as the gallery owner had just finished hanging it. It wasn’t a large painting, but it was beautiful—a head-and-shoulders, three-quarter-profile portrait of Sofia, a few years younger, her hair in ringlets, wearing a necklace of jet and diamond stones, a black ribbon tied to the left front shoulder of her bronze satin dress. Ezio guessed it must have been done for the Sartor family when
Meister
Dürer was briefly resident in Venice.

The gallery owner, seeing him admiring it, came up to him. “That’s for sale, of course, if you like the look of it.” He stood back a little, sharing the treasure with his prospective client. “A luminous portrait. You see how lifelike she looks. Her beauty shines through!”

“How much do you want for it?”

The gallery owner hemmed and hawed. “Hard to put a price on the priceless, isn’t it?” He paused. “But I can see you are a connoisseur. Shall we say . . . five hundred?”

“You paid two hundred.”

The man held up his hands, aghast. “
Efendim!
As if I would take such advantage of a man like you! In any case—how do you know?”

“I’ve just had a word with the vendor. Not five minutes ago.”

The gallery owner clearly saw that Ezio was not a man to be trifled with. “Ah! Indeed. But I have my overheads, you know . . .”

“You’ve only just hung it. I watched you.”

The gallery owner looked distressed. “Very well . . . four hundred, then?”

Ezio glared.

“Three hundred? Two-fifty?”

Ezio placed the purse carefully in the man’s hand. “Two hundred. There it is. Count it if you like.”

“I’ll have to wrap it.”

“I hope you don’t expect extra for that.”

Grumbling sotto voce, the man unhooked the picture and wrapped it carefully in cotton sheeting, which he drew from a bolt by the shop counter. Then he passed it to Ezio. “A pleasure doing business with you,” he said, drily.

“Next time, don’t be so eager to take stolen goods,” said Ezio. “You might have had a customer who wanted the provenance on a painting as good as this one. Luckily for you, I’m prepared to overlook that.”

“And why, might one ask?”

“I’m a friend of the sitter.”

Flabbergasted, the gallery owner bowed him out of the shop, with as much haste as politeness permitted.

“A pleasure doing business with you, too,” said Ezio, aridly, in parting.

FORTY-ONE

Unable to keep a rendezvous with Sofia that evening, Ezio sent her a note arranging to meet the following day at the Bayezid Mosque, where he would give her back the picture.

When he arrived, he found her already there, waiting for him. In the dappled sunlight, he thought her so beautiful that the portrait scarcely did her justice.

“It’s a good likeness, don’t you think?” she said, as he unwrapped it and handed it to her.

“I prefer the original.”

She elbowed him playfully.
“Buffone,”
she said, as they began walking. “This was a gift from my father when we were in Venice for my twenty-eighth birthday.” She paused in reminiscence. “I had to sit for
Meister
Albrecht Dürer for a full week. Can you imagine? Me sitting still for seven days? Doing nothing?”

“I cannot.”

They’d arrived at a nearby bench, on which she sat, as Ezio suppressed a laugh at the thought of her posing, trying not to move a muscle, for all that time. But the result had certainly been worth it—even though he really
did
prefer the original.

The laughter died on his lips as she produced a slip of paper; his expression immediately became serious, as did hers.

“One good turn . . .” she said. “I’ve found you another book location. And it’s not far from here, actually.”

She handed him the folded slip. He took it and read it.

“Grazie,”
he said. The woman was a genius. He nodded gravely to her and made to go, but she stopped him with a question.

“Ezio—what is this all about? You’re not a scholar, that much is clear.” She eyed his sword. “No offense, of course!” She paused. “Do you work for the Church?”

Ezio gave an amused laugh. “Not the Church, no. But I am a teacher . . . of a kind.”

“What then?”

“I will explain one day, Sofia. When I can.”

She nodded, disappointed, but not—as he could see—actually devastated. She had sense enough to wait.

FORTY-TWO

The decoded cipher led Ezio to an ancient edifice barely three blocks distant, in the center of the Bayezid District. It seemed once to have been a warehouse, currently in disuse, and looked securely shut, but the door, when he tried it, was unlocked. Cautiously, looking up and down the street for any sign of either Ottoman guards or Janissaries, he entered, following the instructions on the paper he held in his hand.

He climbed a staircase to the first floor and went down a corridor, at the end of which he found a small room, an office, covered in dust; but its shelves were still full of ledgers, and on the desk lay a pen set and a paper knife. He examined the room carefully, but its walls seemed to hold no clue at all about what he sought, until at last his keen eyes noticed a discrepancy in the tilework that surrounded the fireplace.

He explored this with his fingers, delicately, finding that one tile moved under his touch. Using the paper knife from the desk, he dislodged it, listening all the time for the sound of any movement from below—though he was certain no one had noticed him enter the building.

The tile came away after only a moment’s work, revealing behind it a wooden panel, which he removed, seeing in the faint light behind it a book, which he withdrew carefully. A small, very old, book. He peered at the title on its spine: the version of Aesop’s
Fables
put into verse by Socrates while he was under sentence of death.

He blew the dust from it and expectantly opened it to a blank page at the front. There, as he had hoped, a map of Constantinople revealed itself. He scanned it carefully, patiently, concentrating. And as the page glowed with an unearthly light, he could see that the Galata Tower was pinpointed on it. Stowing the book carefully in his belt wallet, he left the building and made his way north through the city, taking the ferry across the Golden Horn to a quay near the foot of the tower.

He had to use all his blending-in skills to get past the guards but, once inside, was guided by the book, which took him up a winding stone staircase to a landing between floors.

It appeared to contain nothing beyond its bare stone walls.

Ezio double-checked with the book and verified that he was in the right place. He searched the walls with his hands, feeling for any giveaway crevice that might indicate a hidden aperture, tensing at the sound of the slightest footfall on the stairway, but none approached. At last he found a gap between the stonework that was not filled with mortar, and followed it with his fingers, disclosing what was a very narrow, concealed doorway.

A little more research led him to push gently against the surrounding stones until he found one about three feet from the floor that gave slightly, allowing the door to swing back, revealing, within the depth of the tower’s wall, a small room, scarcely big enough to enter. Inside, on a narrow column, rested another circular stone key—his third. He squeezed into the space to retrieve it, and as he did so, it began to glow, its light increasing fast, as the room in turn seemed to grow in volume, and Ezio felt himself transported to another time, another place.

As the light was reduced to a normal brightness, the brightness of sunshine, Ezio saw Masyaf again. But time had moved on. In his heart, Ezio knew that many years had passed. He had no idea whether or not he was dreaming. It seemed to be a dream, as he was not part of it; but at the same time, somehow, he was involved, and as well as having the feeling of dreaming, the experience was also, in some way Ezio could not define, like a memory.

Disembodied, at one with the scene that presented itself to him, yet no part of it, he watched, and waited . . .

And there again was the young man in white, though no longer young; whole decades must have passed.