"We need you to fix the new cannon on the battlements."

"Not today, chum. First thing."

"Are you too drunk to do your job? I don't think Captain Mario would be very happy if he got wind of that."

"No more work today."

"But it's not that late. Do you know what time it is?"

"No. Don't care, either. Make cannon, not clocks."

Ezio had squatted down to speak to the man, who in turn had pulled himself into a sitting position and was treating Ezio to a gale of his breath, pungent with garlic and cheap Montalcino, as he belched luxuriously. Ezio drew himself to his feet.

"We need those cannon ready to be fired, and we need them ready now," he said. "Do you want me to find someone else who's more capable than you?"

The man scrambled to his feet. "Not so fast, friend-no other man's going to lay hands on my guns." He leaned on Ezio as he got his breath back. "You don't know what it's like-some of these soldiers, they got no respect for artillery. Newfangled stuff for a lot of 'em, of course, grant you that-but I ask you! They expect a gun to work like magic, just like that! No sense of coaxing a good performance out of 'em."

"Can we talk as we walk?" said Ezio. "Time isn't standing still, you know."

"Mind you," the master-armorer continued, "these things we've got here, and I mean they're in a class of their own-nothing but the best for Captain Mario-but they're still pretty simple. I've got hold of a French design for a handheld gun. They call it a 'wrought-iron murderer.' Very clever. Just think-handheld cannon. That's the future, chum."

By now they were approaching the group around the cannon.

"You can call off the hunt," said Ezio cheerfully. "Here he is."

The master-sergeant eyed the armorer narrowly. "Up to it, is he?"

"I may be a little the worse for wear," retorted the armorer, "but I am a peaceful man at heart. In these times, encouraging the sleeping warrior in my gut is the only way to stay alive. Therefore, it is my duty to drink." He pushed the sergeant aside. "Let's see what we've got here..."

After examining the cannon for a few moments, however, he rounded on the soldiers. "What have you been doing? You've been tampering with them, haven't you? Thank God you didn't fire one-you could have got us all killed. They're not ready yet. Got to give the bores a good clean first."

"Perhaps with you around we won't need cannon after all," the sergeant told him. "We'll just get you to breathe on the enemy!"

But the armorer was busy with a cleaning rod and wads of coarse, oily cotton. When he'd finished, he stood up, easing his back.

"There, that's done it," he said. Turning to Ezio, he went on, "Just get these fellows to load her-that's something they can do, though God knows it took 'em long enough to learn-and you can have a go. Look, over there on the hill. We set some targets up there on a level with this gun. Start by aiming at something on the same level; that way, if the cannon explodes, at least it won't take your head off with it."

"Sounds reassuring," said Ezio.

"Just try it, Messere Messere. Here's the fuse."

Ezio placed the slow match on the touchhole. For a long moment, nothing happened, then he sprang back as the cannon bucked and roared. Looking across to the targets, he could see that his ball had shattered one of them.

"Well done," said the armorer. "Perfetto! At least one person here apart from me knows how to shoot." At least one person here apart from me knows how to shoot."

Ezio had the men reload and fired again. But this time he missed.

"Can't win 'em all," said the armorer. "But come back at dawn. We'll be practicing again then and it'll give you a chance to get your eye in."

"I will," said Ezio, little realizing that when he next fired a cannon, it would be in deadly earnest.

FIVE.

When Ezio entered the great hall of Mario's citadel, the shadows of evening were already gathering, and servants were beginning to light torches and candles to dispel the gloom. The gloom accorded with Ezio's increasingly somber mood as the hour of the meeting approached.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts was he that he did not at first notice the person hovering by the massive fireplace, her slight but strong figure dwarfed by the giant caryatids that flanked the chimney, and so was startled when the woman approached him, touching his arm. Immediately he recognized her, and his features softened into an expression of pure pleasure.

"Buona sera, Ezio," she said-for her, a little shyly, he thought.

"Buona sera, Caterina," he replied, bowing to the Countess of Forl. Their former intimacy was some way in the past, though neither of them had forgotten it, and when she had touched his arm, both-Ezio thought-had felt the chemistry of the moment. "Claudia told me you were here, and I have been looking forward to seeing you. But"-he hesitated-"Monteriggioni is far from Forl, and-"

"You needn't flatter yourself that I have come all this way just on your account," she said with a trace of her former sharpness, though he could see by her smile that she was not entirely serious, and, for himself, he knew that he was still drawn to this fiercely independent and dangerous woman.

"I am always willing to be of service to you, Madonna-in any way I can." He meant it.

"Some ways are harder than others," she countered, and now there was a tough note in her voice.

"What is it?"

"It is not a simple matter," continued Caterina Sforza. "I come in search of an alliance."

"Tell me more."

"I am afraid your work is not over yet, Ezio. The papal armies are marching on Forl. My dominion is small, but fortunately or unfortunately for me it lies in an area of the utmost strategic importance to whoever controls it."

"And you desire my help?"

"My forces on their own are weak-your condottieri condottieri would be a great asset to my cause." would be a great asset to my cause."

"This is something I will have to discuss with Mario."

"He will not refuse me."

"And nor will I."

"By helping me, you will not just be doing me a good deed. You will be taking a stand against the forces of evil we have always been united against."

As they spoke, Mario appeared. "Ezio, Contessa Contessa, we are gathered and await you," he said, his face unusually serious.

"We will talk more of this," Ezio told her. "I am bidden to a meeting that my uncle has convened. I am expected to explain myself, I think. But afterward-let us arrange to see each other afterward."

"The meeting concerns me, too," said Caterina. "Shall we go in?"

SIX.

The room was very familiar to Ezio. There, on the now-exposed inner wall, the pages of the Great Codex were arranged in order. The desk, usually littered with maps, was cleared and around it, on severe straight-backed chairs of dark wood, sat those members of the Assassins' Brotherhood who had gathered at Monteriggioni, together with those of the Auditore family who were privy to its cause. Mario sat behind his desk, and at one end sat a sober, dark-suited man, still young-looking, though with deep lines of thought now etched into his forehead, who had become one of Ezio's closest associates, but also one of his most unremitting critics-Niccol Machiavelli. The two men nodded guardedly at each other as Ezio went over to greet Claudia and his mother, Maria Auditore, matriarch of the family since his father's death. Maria hugged her only surviving son hard, as if her life depended on it, and looked at him with shining eyes as he broke free and took a seat near Caterina and opposite Machiavelli, who now rose and looked questioningly at him. Clearly there was going to be no polite prologue to the matter at hand.

"First, perhaps, I owe you an apology," began Machiavelli. "I was not present in the Vault and urgent business took me to Florence before I could truly analyze what happened there. Mario has given us his account, but yours alone can be the full one."

Ezio rose in his turn and spoke simply and directly. "I entered the Vatican and encountered Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, and confronted him. He was in possession of one of the Pieces of Eden, the Staff, and used it against me. I managed to defeat him and, using the combined powers of the Apple and the Staff, gained access to the Secret Vault, leaving him outside. He was in despair and begged me to kill him. I would not." Ezio paused.

"What then?" prompted Machiavelli, as the others watched silently.

"Within the Vault were many strange things-things not dreamed of in our world." Visibly moved, Ezio forced himself to continue in level tones. "A vision of the goddess Minerva appeared to me. She told of a terrible tragedy that would befall mankind at some future time. But she also spoke of lost temples that may, when found, lead us to a kind of redemption and aid us. She appeared to invoke a phantom that had some close connection with me, but what that was, I cannot tell. And after her warning and her predictions, she vanished. I emerged to see the Pope dying-or so it seemed; he told me he appeared to have taken poison. But then something compelled me to return. I seized the Apple, but the Staff and a great Sword, which may have been another Piece of Eden, were swallowed up by the earth, and I am glad of it. The Apple alone, which I have given in custody to Mario, is already more than I personally wish to have responsibility for."

"Amazing!" cried Caterina.

"I cannot imagine such wonders," added Claudia.

"So-the Vault did not house the terrible weapon we feared-or at any rate, the Templars did not gain control of it. This at least is good news," said Machiavelli evenly.

"What of this goddess-Minerva?" Claudia asked. "Did she appear-like us?"

"Her appearance was human, and also superhuman," Ezio said. "Her words proved that she belonged to a race far older and greater than ours. The rest of her kind died many centuries ago. She'd been waiting for that moment all that time. I wish I had the words to describe the magic she performed."

"What are these temples she spoke of?" put in Mario.

"I know not."

"Did she say we should search for them? How do we know what to look for?"

"Perhaps we should-perhaps the quest will show us the way."

"The quest must be undertaken," said Machiavelli crisply. "But we must clear the path for it first. Tell us of the Pope. He did not die, you say?"

"When I returned, his cope lay on the chapel floor. He himself had disappeared."

"Had he made any promises? Had he shown repentance?"

"Neither. He was bent on gaining the power. When he saw he was not going to get it, he collapsed."

"And you left him to die."

"I would not be the one to kill him."

"You should have done so."

"I am not here to debate the past. I stand by my decision. Now we should discuss the future. What we are to do."

"What we are to do is made all the more urgent by your failure to finish off the Templar leader when you had the chance." Machiavelli breathed hard, but then relaxed a little. "All right, Ezio. You know in what high esteem we all hold you. We would not have got anything like this far without the twenty years of devotion you have shown to the Assassins' Brotherhood and to our Creed. And a part of me applauds you for not having killed when you deemed it unnecessary to do so. That is also in keeping with our code of honor. But you misjudged, my friend, and that means we have an immediate and dangerous task ahead of us." He paused, scanning the assembled company with eagle eyes. "Our spies in Rome report that Rodrigo is indeed a reduced threat. He is at least somewhat broken in spirit. There is a saying that it is less dangerous to do battle with a lion's whelp than with an old, dying lion; but in the case of the Borgia the position is quite otherwise. Rodrigo's son, Cesare, is the man we must match ourselves against now. Armed with the vast fortune the Borgia have amassed by fair means and foul-but mostly foul"-Machiavelli allowed himself a wry smile-"he heads a large army of highly trained troops and with it he intends to take over all Italy-the whole peninsula-and he does not intend to stop at the borders of the Kingdom of Naples."

"He would never dare-he could never do it!" Mario roared.

"He would and he could," snapped Machiavelli. "He is evil through and through, and as dedicated a Templar as his father the Pope ever was, but he is also a fine though utterly ruthless soldier. He always wanted to be a soldier, even after his father made him Cardinal of Valencia when he was only seventeen years old! But as we all know, he resigned from that post-the first cardinal in the Church's history to do so! The Borgia treat our country and the Vatican as if they were their own private fiefdom! Cesare's plan now is to crush the North first, to subdue the Romagna and isolate Venice. He also intends to extirpate and destroy all of us remaining Assassins, since he knows that in the end we are the only people who can stop him. Aut Caesar, aut nihil Aut Caesar, aut nihil-that's his motto-'Either you're with me or you're dead.' And do you know, I think the madman actually believes it."

"My uncle mentioned a sister," Ezio began.

Machiavelli turned to him. "Yes. Lucrezia. She and Cesare are...how shall I say? Very close. They are a very close-knit family; when they are not killing those other brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, whom they find inconvenient to them, they are...coupling with each other."

Maria Auditore could not suppress a cry of disgust.

"We must approach them with all the caution we would use to approach a nest of vipers," Machiavelli concluded. "And God knows where and how soon they will next strike." He paused and drank half a glass of wine. "And now, Mario, I leave you. Ezio, we will soon meet again, I trust."

"You're leaving this evening?"

"Time is of the essence, good Mario. I ride for Rome tonight. Farewell!"

The room was silent after Machiavelli left. After a long pause, Ezio said bitterly, "He blames me for not killing Rodrigo when I had the chance." He looked around at them. "You all do!"

"Any of us might have made the decision you made," said his mother. "You were sure he was dying."

Mario came and put an arm around his shoulders. "Machiavelli knows your value-we all do. And even with the Pope out of the way, we'd still have had to deal with his brood-"

"But if I had cut off the head, could the body have survived?"

"We must deal with the situation as it is, good Ezio, not with it as it might have been." Mario clapped him on the back. "And now, as we are in for a busy day tomorrow, I suggest we dine and then prepare for an early night!"

Caterina's eyes met Ezio's. Did he imagine it, or was there a flicker of the old lust there? He shrugged inwardly. Perhaps he'd just imagined it.

SEVEN.

Ezio ate lightly-just pollo ripieno pollo ripieno with roasted vegetables; and he drank his Chianti cut half-and-half with water. There was little conversation at dinner, and he answered his mother's string of questions politely but laconically. After all the tension that had mounted in anticipation of the meeting, and which had now melted away, he was very tired. He had barely had a chance to rest since leaving Rome, and it looked now as if it would be a long time still before he could realize a long-cherished ambition of spending some time back in his old home in Florence, reading and walking in the surrounding gentle hills. with roasted vegetables; and he drank his Chianti cut half-and-half with water. There was little conversation at dinner, and he answered his mother's string of questions politely but laconically. After all the tension that had mounted in anticipation of the meeting, and which had now melted away, he was very tired. He had barely had a chance to rest since leaving Rome, and it looked now as if it would be a long time still before he could realize a long-cherished ambition of spending some time back in his old home in Florence, reading and walking in the surrounding gentle hills.

As soon as he decently could, he made his excuses to the company and set off for his bedroom, a large, quiet, dimly lit space on one of the upper floors, with a view across the countryside rather than the town. Once he'd reached it and dismissed the servant, he let go of the steeliness that had supported him throughout the day, and his very body slumped, his shoulders sagged, and his walk eased. His movements were slow and deliberate. He moved across the room to where the servant had already drawn him a bath. He approached it, tugging at his boots and taking off his clothes as he did so, and, naked, stood for a moment, his clothes bundled in his hands, before a full-length mirror on a stand near the copper tub. He looked at his reflection with weary eyes. Where had the four long decades gone? He straightened. He was older, stronger even, certainly wiser; but he could not deny the profound fatigue he felt.