Renaissance

20

The quickest way to reach San Pietro from Leonardo's workshop was by taking the ferry or hiring a boat from the Fondamenta Nuova and sailing east from the north shores of the city. To his surprise Ezio found it hard to get anyone to take him there. The regular ferries had been suspended, and it was only by digging deep into his pockets that he managed to persuade a pair of young gondoliers to make the journey.

'What's the problem?' he asked them.

'Word is, there's been some bad fighting down there,' said the aft oarsman, straining against choppy water. 'Seems that it's died down now, just a local feud. But the ferries aren't risking starting up again just yet. We'll drop you on the north foreshore. Just keep an eye out for yourself.'

They did as they had promised. Ezio soon found himself alone, plodding up a muddy bank to the brick retaining wall, from where he could see the spire of the church of San Pietro di Castello a short way off. What he could also see was several plumes of smoke rising from a group of low brick buildings some distance south-east of the church. They were Bartolomeo's barracks. His heart pounding, Ezio hastened in their direction.

The first thing that struck him was the silence. Then, as he drew nearer, he began to see dead bodies strewn around, some of the men wearing the blazon of Silvio Barbarigo, others a device he did not recognize. Finally he came upon a sergeant, badly wounded but still alive, who had managed to prop himself up against a low wall.

'Please, help me,' said the sergeant when Ezio approached.

Ezio searched around quickly and located the well, from which he drew water, praying that the attackers had not poisoned it, though it looked clean and clear enough. He poured some into a beaker he'd found and put it gently to the man's lips, then moistened a cloth and wiped the blood from his face.

'Thank you, friend,' said the sergeant. Ezio noticed that he wore the unfamiliar badge, and guessed that it must be Bartolomeo's. Evidently Bartolomeo's troops had been worsted by Silvio's.

'It was a surprise attack,' the sergeant confirmed. 'Some whore of Bartolomeo's betrayed us.'

'Where have they gone now?'

'The Inquisitor's men? Back to the Arsenal. They've established a base there, just before the new Doge could take control. Silvio hates his cousin Agostino because he isn't part of whatever plot the Inquisitor's involved in.' The man coughed blood, but endeavoured to continue. 'Took our Captain prisoner. Carried him off with them. Funny really, we were just planning to attack them. Bartolomeo was simply waiting for. a messenger from the city.'

'Where are the rest of your men now?'

The sergeant tried to look around. 'Those that weren't killed or taken prisoner scattered, tried to save themselves. They'll be lying low in Venice and on the islands in the lagoon. But they'll need someone to unite behind. They'll be waiting for word of the Captain.'

'And he's a prisoner of Silvio?'

'Yes. He.' But the unfortunate sergeant here started to fight for breath. His struggle ended as his mouth opened and a shower of blood streamed from it, drenching the grass for three yards in front of him. But the time the flow had stopped, the man's eyes were staring sightlessly in the direction of the lagoon.

Ezio closed them for him, and crossed his arms on his chest. 'Requiescat in pace,' he said, solemnly.

Then he hitched his sword-belt tighter - he had also strapped the guard-brace to his left forearm, but had left off the double-bladed dagger attachment. To his right forearm he had attached the poison-blade, always so useful when faced with huge odds. The pistol, most useful when a single, certain target was in view, as it had to be reloaded after each firing, he kept in his belt-pouch with powder and shot, and the original spring-blade as back-up. He pulled up his hood, and headed for the wooden bridge which connected San Pietro to Castello. From there he made his way unobtrusively but quickly down the main street in the direction of the Arsenal. He noticed that the people around him were subdued, though they went about their daily work as usual. It would take more than a local war to stop the business of Venice entirely, though of course few of the ordinary citizens of Castello could know just how important for their city the outcome of this conflict was.

Ezio didn't know then that it would be a conflict which would drag on for many, many months, indeed, into the following year. He thought of Cristina, of his mother Maria and his sister Claudia. And he felt himself to be homeless, and getting older. But there was the Creed to be served and upheld, and that was more important than anything else. No one, perhaps, would ever know that their world had been saved from the dominion of the Templars by the select Order of Assassins, which had pledged itself to opposing their evil hegemony.

His first task was clearly to locate and, if possible, free Bartolomeo d'Alviano, but getting into the Arsenal would be hard. Surrounded by high brick fortified walls, and containing a warren of buildings and shipyards, it stood at the eastern limit of the main city, and it was heavily guarded by Silvio's private army, whose numbers seemed to exceed the two hundred mercenaries Agostino Barbarigo had told him of. Ezio, passing the architect Gamballo's recently built main gate, wandered round the outside perimeters of the buildings as far as they were accessible by land, until he came to a heavy door with a wicket gate built into it, and, observing from a distance, saw that this unobtrusive entry was used by guards on the outside when they changed shift. He had to wait unobtrusively for four hours, but at the next shift change he was ready. It was baking hot in the late afternoon sun, the atmosphere was humid, and everyone except Ezio was torpid. He watched as the relief soldiers marched out through the gate, which had only one guard, and then followed the mercenaries coming off shift, bringing up the rear and blending in as best he could. Once the last soldier was through, he cut the throat of the guard posted at the gate and slipped through it himself before anyone had noticed what was happening. As had happened years ago at San Gimignano, Silvio's force here, big as it was, wasn't sufficient to cover the entire area it guarded. It was, after all, the city's military focal point. No wonder Agostino couldn't wield any real power without control of it.

Once inside, it was relatively easy to move about between the wide open spaces beween the huge buildings - the Cordelie, the Artiglierie, the shot-towers, and above all, the shipyards. As long as Ezio kept to the dark late-afternoon shadows and took care to avoid the patrols within the vast complex, he knew he would be all right, though naturally he remained extremely vigilant.

Guided at last by the sounds of merriment and mocking laughter, he found his way to the side of one of the main dry-docks, into which a massive galley was drawn. On the side of one of the dock's massive walls, an iron cage had been hung. In it was Bartolomeo, a vigorous bear of a man in his early thirties and so just four or five years' Ezio's senior. Around him was a crowd of Silvio's mercenaries, and Ezio thought how much better employed they'd have been patrolling than triumphing over an enemy they'd already rendered helpless, but he reflected that Silvio Barbarigo, Grand Inquisitor though he was, was not experienced in matters of handling troops.

Ezio didn't know how long Bartolomeo had been chained up in his cage; certainly for many hours. But his anger and energy seemed unaffected by his ordeal. Given that he'd almost certainly been given nothing to eat or drink, this was remarkable.

'Luridi codardi! Filthy cowards!' he was shouting at his tormentors, one of whom, Ezio noticed, had dipped a sponge in vinegar and was pushing it up to Bartolomeo's lips on the tip of a lance in the hope that he'd think it was water. Bartolomeo spat it away. 'I'll take you all on! At the same time! With one arm - no, both arms - tied behind my back! I'll fucking eat you alive!' He laughed. 'You must be wondering how such a thing could be even possible, but just let me out of here and I'll gladly demonstrate! Miserabili pezzi di merda!'

The Inquisitor's guards howled in derision, and poked at Bartolomeo with poles, making the cage swing. It had no solid bottom, and Bartolomeo had to grip hard with his feet on the bars beneath to keep his balance.

'You have no honour! No valour! No virtue!' He summoned enough saliva into his mouth to spit down at them. 'And people wonder why the star of Venice has begun to wane.' Then his voice took on almost a pleading tone. 'I'll show mercy to whomever here has the courage to release me. All the rest of you are going to die! By my hand! I swear it!'

'Save your fucking breath,' one of the guards called out. 'No one's going to die today but you, you fucking turdbag.'

All this time Ezio, sheltered by the shadow of a brick colonnade that skirted a basin where some of the smaller war-galleys were moored, was working out a way of saving the condottiero. There were ten guards around the cage, all with their backs to him, and there was none other in view. What was more, they were off-duty and had no armour on. Ezio checked his poison-dagger. Dispatching the guards should present no difficulty. He'd timed the passing of the on-duty patrols and they came by every time the shadow of the dock wall lengthened by three inches. But there was the additional problem of releasing Bartolomeo, keeping him quiet while doing so, and making quick work of it. He thought hard. He knew there wasn't much time.

'What sort of man sells his honour and dignity for a few pieces of silver?' Bartolomeo was bellowing, but his throat was getting dry and he was running out of steam despite his iron will.

'Isn't that what you do, fuckwit? Aren't you a mercenary like us?'

'I have never been in the service of a traitor and a coward, as you are!' Bartolomeo's eyes glittered. The men standing beneath him were momentarily cowed. 'Do you think I don't know why you've chained me up? Do you think I don't know who your boss Silvio's puppet-master is? I've been fighting the weasel who controls him since most of you boys were puppies suckling your mothers' teats!'

Ezio was now listening with interest. One of the soldiers picked up a half-brick and threw it angrily. It bounced harmlessly off the bars of the cage.

'That's right, you fuckers!' Bartolomeo yelled hoarsely. 'You just try it on with me! I swear, once I'm free of this cage I'm going to make it my mission to sever each and every one of your fucking heads and shove them up your fucking girlie arses! And I'll mix and match the heads too, because you little tykes clearly don't know your heads from your arses anyway!'

The men below were getting seriously angry now. It was clear that only orders prevented them from stabbing the man to death with their pikes, or shooting arrows at him, as he hung defencelessly above them in his cage. But by now Ezio had seen that the padlock which secured the door of the cage was relatively small. Bartolomeo's captors relied on the fact that the cage was hung high. No doubt they intended that the harsh sun of the day, and chill of the night, coupled with dehydration and starvation, would finish him off, unless he broke down and agreed to talk. But from the look of him, that was something Bartolomeo would never do.

Ezio knew he had to act fast. An on-duty patrol would pass by very shortly. Releasing the spring on his poison-blade, he moved forward with the speed and grace of a wolf, covering the distance in a matter of seconds. He scythed through the group and had sliced death into the bodies of five men before the others knew what was happening. Drawing his sword, he savagely killed the rest, their vain blows glancing off the metal guard on his left forearm, while Bartolomeo watched open-mouthed. At last, silent, Ezio turned and looked up.

'Can you jump from there?' he asked.

'If you can get me out, I'll jump like a fucking flea.'

Ezio grabbed one of the dead soldiers' pikes. Its point was iron, not steel, and cast, not forged. It would do. Balancing it in his left hand, he prepared himself, crouched, and sprang into the air, at last clinging to the outer bars of the cage.

Bartolomeo looked at him pop-eyed. 'How in buggery did you do that?' he asked.

'Training,' said Ezio, smiling tightly. He forced the point of the pike through the hasp of the lock and twisted. It resisted at first, then broke. Ezio pulled the door open, free-falling to the ground as he did so, and landing with the grace of a cat. 'Now you jump,' he ordered. 'Be quick.'

'Who are you?'

'Get on with it!'

Nervously, Bartolomeo braced himself against the open door of the cage and then flung himself forwards. He landed heavily, the breath knocked out of him, but when Ezio helped him to his feet, he shook his rescuer off proudly. 'I'm all right,' he huffed. 'I'm just not used to doing fucking circus tricks.'

'No bones broken, then?'

'Fuck you, whoever you are,' said Bartolomeo, beaming. 'But you have my thanks!' And to Ezio's surprise, he gave him a bear-hug. 'Who are you anyway? The Arch-fucking-angel Gabriel or what?'

'My name is Auditore, Ezio.'

'Bartolomeo d'Alviani. Delighted.'

'We haven't got time for this,' Ezio snapped. 'As you well know.'

'Don't try to teach me my job, acrobat,' said Bartolomeo, still quite genially. 'Anyway, I owe you one for this!'

But they had already wasted too much time. Someone must have noticed from the ramparts what was going on, for now alarm bells started to ring and patrols emerged from the buildings nearby to close on them.

'Come on, you bastards!' bellowed Bartolomeo, swinging fists that made Dante Moro's look like panelling hammers. It was Ezio's turn to look on admiringly, as Bartolomeo ploughed into the oncoming soldiers. Together, they beat their way back to the wicket gate, and at last were clear.

'Let's get out of here!' Ezio exclaimed.

'Shouldn't we break a few more heads?'

'Perhaps we should try to avoid conflict for now?'

'Are you afraid?'

'Just practical. I know your blood's up, but they do outnumber us by one hundred to one.'

Bartolomeo considered. 'You have a point. And after all, I'm a commander. I ought to think like one, not leave it to some whippersnapper like you to make me see sense.' And then he lowered his voice and said in a concerned tone, 'I just hope my little Bianca is safe.'

Ezio didn't have time to question or even wonder about Bartolomeo's aside. They had to make tracks, and they did, racing through the town back towards Bartolomeo's headquarters on San Pietro. But not before Bartolomeo had made two important diversions, to the Riva San Basio and the Corte Nuova, to alert his agents in those places that he was alive and free, and to summon his scattered forces - those who had not been taken prisoner - to regroup.

Back at San Pietro at dusk, they found that a handful of Bartolomeo's condottieri had survived the attack and had now emerged from their hiding-places, moving among the already fly-blown dead and attempting to bury them and put matters in order. They were elated to see their Captain again, but he was distracted, running here and there in his encampment, calling mournfully, 'Bianca! Bianca! Where are you?'

'Who's he after?' Ezio asked a sergeant-at-arms. 'She must be worth a lot to him.'

'She is, Signore,' grinned the sergeant. 'And far more reliable than most of her sex.'

Ezio ran to catch up with his new ally. 'Is everything all right?'

'What do you think? Look at the state of this place! And poor Bianca! If something's happened to her.'

The big man shouldered a door, already half off its hinges, on to the ground and entered a bunker which, from the look of it, must have been a map-room before the attack. The valuable maps had been mutilated or stolen, but Bartolomeo sifted through the wreckage until, with a cry of triumph -

'Bianca! Oh, my darling! Thank God you're all right!'

He had pulled a massive greatsword clear of the rubble and brandished it, roaring, 'Aha! You are safe! I never doubted it! Bianca! Meet. What's your name again?'

'Auditore, Ezio.'

Bartolomeo looked thoughtful. 'Of course. Your reputation goes before you, Ezio.'

'I am glad of it.'

'What brings you here?'

'I too have business with Silvio Barbarigo. I think he's outstayed his welcome in Venice.'

'Silvio! That turd! He needs flushing down a fucking latrine!'

'I thought I might be able to rely on your help.'

'After that rescue? I owe you my life, let alone my help.'

'How many men do you have?'

'How many survivors here, Sergeant-at-Arms?'

The sergeant-at-arms Ezio had spoken to earlier came running up and saluted. 'Twelve, Capitano, including you and me, and this gentleman here.'

'Thirteen!' shouted Bartolomeo, waving Bianca.

'Against a good two hundred,' said Ezio. He turned to the sergeant-at-arms. 'And how many of your men did they take prisoner?'

'Most of them,' the man replied. 'The attack took us completely by surprise. Some fled, but Silvio's men took far more away with them in chains.'

'Look, Ezio,' said Bartolomeo. 'I'm going to supervise rounding up the rest of my men who are at liberty. I'll get this place cleaned up and bury my dead and we'll regroup here. Do you think in the meantime you can see to the business of liberating the men Silvio's taken prisoner? Since that's a thing you seem to be very good at?'

'Intensi.'

'Get back here with them as soon as you can. Good luck!'

Ezio, his Codex weapons buckled on, headed westward again towards the Arsenal but wondered if Silvio would have kept all Bartolomeo's men prisoner there. He hadn't seen any of them when he had gone to rescue their Captain. At the Arsenal itself he stuck to the shadows of the falling night and tried to listen to the conversations of the guards stationed along the perimeter walls.

'Have you ever seen bigger cages?' said one.

'No. And the poor bastards are crammed into them like sardines. I don't think Captain Barto would have treated us like that, if he'd been the victor,' said his comrade.

'Of course he would. And keep your noble thoughts to yourself, if you want to keep your head on your shoulders. I say finish them off. Why don't we just lower the cages into the basins, and drown the lot of them?'

At that, Ezio tensed. There were three huge rectangular basins inside the Arsenal, each designed to hold thirty galleys. They were on the north side of the complex, surrounded by thick brick walls and covered by heavy wooden roofs. Doubtless the cages - larger versions of the one which had imprisoned Bartolomeo - were suspended by chains over the water in one or more of the bacini.

'One hundred and fifty trained men? That'd be a waste. For my money, Silvio's hoping to turn them to our cause,' said the second uniform.

'Well, they're mercenaries like us. So why not?'

'Right! They just need to be softened up a little first. Show them who's boss.'

'Spero di si.'

'Thank God they don't know their boss has escaped.'

The first guard spat. 'He won't last long.'

Ezio left them and made his way to the wicket gate he'd discovered earlier. There was no time to wait for any changing of the guard, but he could judge the time by the distance of the moon from the horizon and he knew he had a couple of hours. He flicked the spring-blade out - his original Codex weapon and still his favourite - and slashed open the throat of the fat old guard Silvio had seen fit to put on duty alone there, pushing him clear before any of the man's blood could get on to his clothes. Quickly he wiped the blade clean on the grass and exchanged it for his poison-blade. He made the sign of the Cross over the body.

The compound within the walls of the Arsenal looked different by the light of a sickle moon and a few stars, but Ezio knew where the basins were located and went, skirting the walls and keeping an ever-watchful eye out for Silvio's men, to the first one. He peered through the great open arches into the watery gloom beyond, but could see nothing but galleys bobbing gently in the half-light of the stars. The second bore the same fruit, but as he approached the third he heard voices.

'It's not too late for you to pledge yourselves to our cause. Only say the word and you'll be spared,' one of the Inquisitor's sergeants was calling in a mocking tone.

Ezio, pressing himself against the wall, saw a dozen troops, weapons laid down, bottles in their hands, gazing up into the gloom of the roof, where three massive iron cages were suspended. He saw that an invisible mechanism was slowly lowering the cages towards the water beneath. And there were no galleys in this basin. Only black, oily water, in which something unseen but frightful teemed.

The Inquisitor's guards included one man who wasn't drinking, a man who seemed constantly on the alert, a huge, terrible man. Ezio instantly recognized Dante Moro! So, with the death of his master Marco, the man-mountain had transferred his allegiance to the cousin, Silvio, the Inquisitor, who had already professed his admiration for the massive bodyguard.

Ezio made his way cautiously round the walls until he came to a large open-frame box containing an arrangement of cog-wheels, pulleys and ropes that might have been designed by Leonardo. This was the mechanism, driven by a water-clock, which was lowering the cages. Ezio drew his ordinary dagger from its sheath on the left-hand side of his belt and jammed it between two of the cogwheels. The mechanism stopped, and not before time, for the cages were now inches from the water's surface. But the guards instantly noticed that the cages' descent had ceased, and some came running towards the machinery that controlled it. Ezio sprang out his poison-blade and hacked at them as they came. Two fell into the water from the jetty and screamed, briefly, sinking into the oily black water. Meanwhile, Ezio raced along the perimeter of the basin towards the others, all of whom fled in alarm save Dante, who stood his ground and loomed like a tower over Ezio.

'Silvio's dog now, are you?' said Ezio.

'Better a live dog than a dead lion,' said Dante, reaching out to cuff Ezio into the water.

'Stand down!' said Ezio, ducking the blow. 'I have no quarrel with you!'

'Oh, shut your face,' said Dante, picking Ezio up by the scruff of the neck and bashing him against the wall of the basin. 'I have no serious quarrel with you, either.' He could see that Ezio was stunned. 'Just stay there. I must go and warn my master, but I'll be back to feed you to the fishes if you give me any more trouble!'

And he was gone. Ezio shook his head to clear it, and stood up, groggily. The men in the cages were shouting and Ezio saw that one of Silvio's guards had crept back in and was about to dislodge the dagger he'd jammed in the cage-lowering mechanism. He thanked God he had not forgotten his old knife-throwing skills learned at Monteriggioni, produced a knife from his belt, and hurled it with deadly accuracy. The guard stumbled over, groaning, snatching helplessly at the blade which was buried between his eyes.

Ezio snatched a gaff from a rack on the wall behind him, and, leaning over the water dangerously, deftly hauled the nearest cage towards him. Its door was closed by a simple bolt and he shot it back, releasing the men inside, who tumbled out on to the wharf. With their help, he was able to haul in the remaining cages and release their prisoners in turn.

Exhausted though they were by their ordeal, they cheered him.

'Come on!' he cried. 'I've got to get you back to your Captain!'

Once they had overwhelmed the men guarding the basins, they returned unopposed to San Pietro, where Bartolomeo and his men had an emotional reunion. In Ezio's absence all the mercenaries who'd escaped Silvio's initial onslaught had returned, and the encampment was once again in perfetto ordine.

'Salute, Ezio!' said Bartolomeo. 'Welcome back! And well done, by God! I knew I could depend on you!' He took Ezio's hands between his. 'You are indeed the mightiest of allies. One might almost think -' but then he stopped himself, and said instead, 'Thanks to you my army is restored to its former glory. Now our friend Silvio will see just how grave a mistake he's made!'

'So, what should we do? Make a direct assault on the Arsenal?'

'No. A head-on assault would mean we'd be massacred at the gates. I think we should plant my men throughout the district and get them to cause enough trouble locally to tie most of Silvio's men up.'

'So - if the Arsenal is almost empty -'

'You can take it with a hand-picked team.'

'Let's hope he takes the bait.'

'He's an Inquisitor. He knows how to bully people who are already at his mercy. He's not a soldier. Hell, he doesn't even have the wit to be a halfway decent chess-player!'

It took a few days to deploy Bartolomeo's condottieri about Castello and the Arsenal district. When all was ready, Bartolomeo and Ezio gathered the small group of hand-picked mercenaries they'd kept back for the assault on Silvio's bastion. Ezio himself had selected the men for their agility and skill at arms.

They'd planned the assault on the Arsenal with care. The following Friday night, all was in readiness. A mercenary was sent to the top of the tower of San Martino and, when the moon was at its height, he set off a massive Roman candle designed and provided by Leonardo's workshop. This was the signal for the attack. Dressed in dark leather gear, the condottieri of the task-force scaled the walls of the Arsenal on all four sides. Once over the battlements, the men moved like spectres through the quiet and undermanned fortress and quickly contained the skeleton guard within. It wasn't long before Ezio and Bartolomeo found themselves confronting their deadliest foes - Silvio and Dante.

Dante, wearing iron knuckle-dusters, was swinging a massive chain-mace around, protecting his master. It was hard for either Ezio or Bartolomeo to come within range, as their own men engaged the enemy.

'A fine specimen, isn't he?' crowed Silvio from the safety of the ramparts. 'You should be honoured to die by his hand!'

'Suck my balls, you fuck!' Bartolomeo yelled back. He'd managed to snag the mace in his battle-staff, and Dante, his weapon torn from his hand, retreated. 'Come on, Ezio! We need to catch that grassone bastardo!'

Dante turned, having reached his objective, an iron club pierced with twisted nails, and faced them again. He swung it at Bartolomeo and one of the nails tore a furrow in his shoulder.

'I'll have you for that, you pig-eyed sack of shit!' bellowed Bartolomeo.

Meanwhile Ezio had loaded and fired his pistol at Silvio, and missed. His shot ricocheted off the brick walls in a shower of sparks and splinters.

'Do you think I don't know why you're really here, Auditore?' Silvio barked, though clearly frightened by the gunshot. 'But you're too late! There's nothing you can do to stop us now!'

Ezio had reloaded, and fired again. But he was angry, and confused at Silvio's words, and once again the shot went wide.

'Hah!' spat Silvio from the ramparts as Dante and Bartolomeo slogged it out. 'You pretend you don't know! Though once Dante's done with you and your muscle-bound friend, it'll hardly matter either way. You'll just follow your fool of a father! Do you know what my greatest regret is? That I couldn't have been Giovanni's hangman myself. How I would have loved to pull that lever and watch your miserable dad kick and gasp and dangle! And then of course there would have been plenty of time for that winesack of an uncle of yours, ciccione Mario, and your not-quite-past-it mother, droopy-dugs Maria, and that luscious little strawberry Claudia, your sister. How long it's been since I fucked anything under twenty-five! Mind you, I'd keep the last two for the voyage - it can get quite lonely out at sea!'

Through the red mist of his fury, Ezio concentrated on the information the spittle-strewn lips of the Inquisitor were madly spewing forth along with the insults.

By now, Silvio's guards, at superior odds, were beginning to rally against Bartolomeo's commandos. Dante dealt another swingeing blow at Bartolomeo, thumping him in the ribcage with his knuckle-dusters and causing him to falter. Ezio fired a third bullet at Silvio and this time it ripped through the Inquisitor's robes close to his neck, but though the man staggered, and Ezio saw a thin line of blood, he did not fall. He shouted a command to Dante, who fell back, swarming up to the rampart to join his master, and with him disappearing over the other side of the wall. Ezio knew there'd be a ladder on the other side to take them down to the jetty, and, yelling to Bartolomeo to follow him, he dashed out of the arena of battle to cut his foes off.

He saw them clambering into a large boat, but noticed the anger and despair on their faces. Following their gaze, he saw a huge black galley disappearing across the lagoon southwards.

'We've been betrayed!' Ezio heard Silvio say to Dante. 'The ship has sailed without us! God damn them! I've been nothing but loyal and yet this - this! - is how they repay me!'

'Let's use this boat to catch them up,' said Dante.

'It's too late for that - and we'd never get to the Island in a craft this size; but at least we can use it to get away from this catastrophe!'

'Then let us cast off, Altezza.'

'Indeed.'

Dante turned to the trembling crew. 'Cast off! Raise the sails! Look lively!'

At that moment Ezio sprang from the shadows across the wharf and on to the boat. The frightened sailors made themselves scarce, diving into the murky lagoon.

'Get away from me, murderer!' shrieked Silvio.

'You've delivered your last insult,' said Ezio, stabbing him in the gut and drawing the blades of his double-dagger slowly across his belly. 'And for what you said about my kinswomen I'd cut your balls off with this if I thought it was worth it.'

Dante stood rooted to the spot. Ezio fixed him with his eye. The big man looked tired.

'It's over,' Ezio told him. 'You backed the wrong horse.'

'Maybe I did,' said Dante. 'I'm going to kill you anyway. You filthy assassin. You make me tired.'

Ezio snapped out his pistola and fired. The slug hit Dante full in the face. He fell.

Ezio knelt by Silvio to give him absolution. He was nothing if not conscientious, and always remembered that killing should only happen if there were no alternative; and that the dying, who very soon would have no rights at all, should at least be accorded the last rites.

'Where were you going, Silvio? What is that galley? I thought you sought the Doge's seat?'

Silvio smiled thinly. 'That was just a distraction. We were meant to sail.'

'Where?'

'Too late,' smiled Silvio, and died.

Ezio turned to Dante and cradled the massive leonine head in the crook of his arm.

'Cyprus is their destination, Auditore,' croaked Dante. 'I can perhaps redeem my soul at the last by telling you the truth. They want. They want.' But choking on his own blood, the big man passed on.

Ezio searched both men's wallets but found nothing except a letter to Dante from his wife. Shamefacedly, he read it.

Amore mio

I wonder if ever the day will come when these words might make sense to you once more. I am sorry for what I have done - for allowing Marco to take me from you, divorce you, and make me his wife. But now that he has died, I may yet find a way for us to be joined again. I wonder, though, if you will even remember me? Or were the wounds you suff ered in battle too grave? Do my words stir, if not your memory, then your heart? But perhaps it doesn't matter what they say, because I know you're still in my heart, somewhere. I will find a way, my love. To remind you. To restore you.

Forever yours Gloria

There was no address. Ezio folded the letter carefully and put it in his wallet. He would ask Teodora if she knew of this strange history, and if she could return the letter to its sender, with news of the death of this faithless creature's true husband.

He looked at the corpses and made the sign of the Cross over them 'Requiescant in pace,' he said, sadly. Ezio was still standing over the dead men when Bartolomeo came up, panting. 'See you didn't need my help, as usual,' he said.

'Have you taken back the Arsenal?' 'Do you think I'd be here if we hadn't?' 'Congratulations!' 'Evviva!'

But Ezio was watching the sea. 'We've got Venice back, my friend,' he said. 'And Agostino can rule it without further fear of the Templars. But I think there'll be little rest for me. Do you see that galley on the horizon?' 'Yes.' 'Dante told me with his dying breath that it is bound for Cyprus.' 'To what end?' 'That, amico, is what I need to find out.'