Revelations

SEVENTY

Ezio made his way to the Istanbul Assassins’ headquarters at all possible speed. Once there, he took the four keys he’d already retrieved in the city and added the one he’d taken from Manuel in Derinkuyu to their number. Packing them safely in a shoulder satchel, he slung it round him. He strapped his hookblade to his right wrist and his pistol to his left, and, in case a quick escape from the top of the Tower should prove necessary, placed Leonardo’s parachute in a backpack.

But before he went to the Tower, there was a quick duty he had to perform. He hastened to the Galata cemetery, where Yusuf’s body had already been taken for burial. It was Dogan who had taken over as acting captain of the Istanbul Assassins, and he stepped forward to greet Ezio.

“Mentor.”

“Mentor,” said Irini, coming up in her turn to salute him.

Ezio addressed them briefly, standing by the coffin. “Now should be a time for remembrance and mourning, I know. But our enemies do not permit us that luxury.” He turned to Dogan. “I know that Yusuf thought highly of you, and I find no reason to question his judgment. Do you have it in your heart to lead these men and women, and to maintain the dignity of our Brotherhood, as Yusuf did with such passion?”

“It would be an honor,” Dogan replied.

“As it will continue to be an honor to work for our cause, and to support the Creed,” said Evraniki, who stood beside him.

“Bene,” said Ezio. “I am glad.” He stepped back and looked over the buildings that surrounded the cemetery, to where the Galata Tower stood. “Our enemy is close,” he continued. “When the obsequies are done, take up your positions around the Tower and there await my command.”

He hurried away. The sooner Sofia was safe, the better.

He came upon Ahmet, flanked by a single guard, on a rampart near the Tower’s foot.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Ahmet smiled that irritating smile of his, and replied. “I admire you, Ezio; but your bloodlust makes it hard for me to call you a friend.”

“Bloodlust? That is a strange insult, coming from the man who ordered an attack on his own nephew.”

Ahmet lost some of his sangfroid. “He was to be kidnapped, Assassin; not killed.”

“I see. Kidnapped by the Byzantines, so that his uncle could rescue him, and be heralded a hero. Was that the plan?”

Ahmet shrugged. “More or less.”

Then he nodded. At once half a dozen Templar soldiers appeared from nowhere and surrounded Ezio.

“Now, Messer Auditore-the keys, if you please.”

Ahmet extended his hand.

But Ezio made a signal of his own. Behind the semicircle of Templars, a larger number of Assassins materialized, scimitars in their hands. “The girl first,” said Ezio in a cold voice.

Ahmet chuckled. “She’s all yours.”

He made a gesture skyward. Ezio followed the direction of his arm and saw, atop the tower, a woman standing next to a guard, who was clearly poised to throw her over the edge. The woman was wearing a green dress, but her head was covered in a burlap sack. She was bound hand and foot.

“Sofia!” Ezio gasped involuntarily.

“Tell your men to back off!” snapped Ahmet.

Fuming, Ezio signaled the Assassins to do so. Then he threw Ahmet the satchel containing the keys. He caught it adroitly and checked its contents. Then he grinned. “As I said, she’s all yours!”

With that, he disappeared from the rampart, his men following. He boarded a waiting carriage, which sped off through the city, heading toward the North Gate.

Ezio had no time to watch him go. He took a running jump at the Tower and began his ascent.

Anxiety and anger speeded him, and in a matter of minutes he was on the topmost battlement, at the side of the woman. The guard backed away, toward the stairway which led downward.

Ezio leapt forward, wrenched the woman back from the edge of the Tower, and pulled the bag from her head.

It was Azize!

She’d been gagged to stop her crying out any warning, and now Ezio tore the scarf away from her mouth.

“Tesekkur, Mentor. Cok tesekkur ederim!” she gasped.

The guard cackled and rushed away down the stairs. He would meet a grim reception at the bottom.

Ezio was in the process of freeing Azize from her bonds when he was interrupted by a woman’s scream. Turning to look, he saw, on another battlement, not far distant, that a temporary gallows had been erected. On the scaffold, a rope already round her neck, stood Sofia, poised on a stool. As he watched, a Byzantine soldier reached up and tightened the noose with rough hands.

Ezio gauged the distance between the top of the Galata Tower and the battlement he had to reach. Leaving Azize to free herself from the rest of her bonds, he unslung his backpack and swiftly assembled the parachute. A matter of seconds later he was flying through the air, guiding the chute with his weight toward the scaffold, where the Byzantines had kicked the stool from beneath Sofia’s feet and tied off the rope. Still airborne, he unleashed his hookblade and used it to slice through the taut rope inches above Sofia’s head. He landed an instant later and caught her falling body in his arms.

Uttering curses, the Byzantine guards made off. Assassins were racing through the streets between the Galata Tower and this battlement, but Ezio could see Byzantines coming toward them to block their approach. He would have to act alone.

But first he turned to Sofia, pulling the rope from her neck with frantic hands, feeling her breast rise and fall against his own.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, urgently.

She coughed and choked, getting her breath back. “No, not hurt. But very confused.”

“I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I am sorry.”

“You aren’t responsible for other men’s actions,” she said, hoarsely.

He gave her a moment to recover and looked at her. That she could be so rational at such a moment…! “All this will be… behind us, soon. But first I must recover what they have taken. It is of primal importance!”

“I don’t understand what’s happening, Ezio. Who are these men?”

She was interrupted by a cannon’s blast. Moments later, the battlement they were on shook with the impact of a twenty-pound ball. Sofia was knocked to the ground as shattered stonework flew.

Ezio pulled her to her feet and scanned the area beneath them. His eye lit on an empty carriage guarded by two regular Ottoman troops, who had taken cover immediately when the gunfire started.

He gauged the distance again. Would the parachute take both her weight and his? He’d have to risk it.

“Come!” he said, taking her in his arms tightly and leaping from the battlement.

For a terrible moment, it looked as if the parachute would snag on the crenellations, but it just cleared them, and they dropped-very fast, but still slowly enough to make a safe landing near the carriage. Ezio folded the chute and stuffed it into his pack, not bothering to unclip it, and the two of them made a dash for the carriage. Ezio hurled Sofia onto the driver’s seat, smacked one of the horse’s flanks, and leapt on after her. He seized the reins and drove away at breakneck speed, the Ottoman guards shouting vainly for him to stop as they pursued on foot.

Ezio drove hard, heading through the Galata District north, and out of the city.