FIFTY-ONE.

"We've found Micheletto," said La Volpe.

"Where?" Ezio's voice was urgent.

"He's holed up in Zagarolo, just to the east of here."

"Let's get him, then."

"Not so fast. He's got contingents from the Romagna towns still loyal to Cesare. He'll put up a fight."

"Let him!"

"We'll have to organize."

"Then let's do it! Now!"

Ezio, with Machiavelli and La Volpe, summoned a meeting on Tiber Island that night. Bartolomeo was still in Ostia, watching the port, and Claudia was resting up at the Rosa in Fiore, tended by her ailing mother, after her terrible ordeal, but there were enough thieves and recruits to muster a force of one hundred men and women able to bear arms. There was no need of other condottieri condottieri to back them up. to back them up.

"He's encamped in an old gladiatorial school, and he's got maybe two hundred fifty men with him."

"What does he intend to do?"

"No idea. Break out, head for safety in the north with the French, who knows?"

"Whatever his plans are, let's nip them in the bud."

By early dawn, Ezio had gathered a mounted force. They rode out the short distance to Zagarolo and surrounded Micheletto's encampment by sunrise. Ezio bore his crossbow on one arm, over the bracer, and on the other, his poison-blade. There would be no quarter given, though he wanted to take Micheletto alive.

The defenders put up a fierce fight but, in the end, Ezio's forces were victorious, scattering the diehards under Micheletto's command like chaff.

Among the wounded, dead, and dying, Micheletto stood proud, defiant to the last.

"We take you, Micheletto Corella, as our prisoner," said Machiavelli. "No more shall you infect our nation with your putrid schemes."

"Chains will never hold me," snarled Micheletto. "Any more than they will hold my master."

They took him in chains to Florence, where he took up residence in the Signoria, in the very cell where Ezio's father, Giovanni, spent his last hours. There, the governor of the city, Piero Soderini, together with his friend and adviser Amerigo Vespucci, and Machiavelli, interrogated him and put him to the torture, but they could get nothing out of him and so, for the moment, left him to rot. His day as a killer seemed done.

Ezio, for his part, returned to Rome.

"I know you are a Florentine at heart, Niccol," he told his friend at their parting. "But I shall miss you."

"I am also an Assassin," replied Machiavelli. "And my first loyalty will always be to the Brotherhood. You will let me know when you next have need of me and I will come to you without delay. Besides," he added darkly, "I haven't given up all hope of squeezing information out of this vile man."

"I wish you luck," said Ezio.

But he wasn't so sure they'd break him. Micheletto was indeed an evil man; but he was also very strong willed.

FIFTY-TWO.

"Ezio, you must put Micheletto out of your mind," Leonardo told him, as they sat in the former's studio in Rome. "Rome is at peace. This Pope is strong. He has subdued the Romagna. He is a soldier as much as he's a man of God and perhaps under him all Italy will find peace at last. And although Spain controls the south, Ferdinand and Isabella are our friends."

Ezio knew that Leonardo was happy in his work. Pope Julius had employed him as a military engineer and he was tinkering with a host of new projects, though he sometimes pined for his beloved Milan, still in French hands, and talked in his more depressed moments of going to Amboise, where he had been offered all the facilities he needed whenever he wanted them. He frequently said he might go, when he had finished Julius's commissions.

And as for the Romagna, Ezio's thoughts turned often to Caterina Sforza, whom he still loved. The letter he'd received from her told him that she was now involved with someone else, the Florentine ambassador. Ezio knew her life remained in turmoil and that, despite Julius's support, she'd been dismissed from her city by her own populace on account of her former cruelties in putting down their rebellion when they rose up against her late and intractable second husband, Giacomo Feo, and that she was now growing old in retirement in Florence. His letters in reply to her were at first angry, then remonstrative, then pleading; but she replied to none of them, and he knew that she had used him and that he would never see her again.

Thus it was with relationships between men and women. The lucky ones last; but too often when they end, they end for good, and deep intimacy is replaced by a desert.

He was hurt and humiliated, but he didn't have time to deal with his misery. His work in Rome consolidating the Brotherhood and above all holding it in readiness kept him busy.

"I believe that as long as Micheletto lives, he will do his best to escape, free Cesare Borgia, and help him rebuild his forces."

Leonardo was having his own problems with his feckless boyfriend, Salai, and barely listened to his old friend. "No one has ever escaped from the prison in Florence," he said. "Not from those cells."

"Why don't they kill him?"

"They still think they might get something out of him, though personally I doubt it," said Leonardo. "But in any case, the Borgia are finished. You should rest. Why don't you take your poor sister and return to Monteriggioni?"

"She has grown to love Rome and would never return to such a small place now, and in any case the Brotherhood's new home is here."

This was another sadness in Ezio's life. After an illness, his mother, Maria, had died; Claudia, after her abduction by the Borgia diehards, had given up the Rosa in Fiore. It was now controlled by Julius's own spy network, using different girls, and La Volpe negotiated with his colleague Antonio in Venice to send Rosa, now older and statelier but no less fiery than she had been when Ezio had known her in La Serenissima, to Rome to run it.

And there was the problem of the Apple.

So much had changed. When Ezio was summoned to the Vatican for another interview with the Pope, he was unprepared for what he was to hear.

"I'm intrigued by this device you've got," said Julius, coming as always straight to the point.

"What do you mean, Your Holiness?"

The Pope smiled. "Don't prevaricate with me, my dear Ezio. I have my own sources and they tell me you have something you call the Apple, which you found under the Sistine Chapel some years ago. It seems to have great power."

Ezio's brain raced. How had Julius found out about it? Had Leonardo told him? Leonardo could be curiously innocent at times, and he had wanted a new patron very badly. "It was vouchsafed to me, in a manner I find hard to explain to you, by a force from an antique world to help us. And it has, but I fear its potential. I cannot think that the hands of Man are ready for such a thing, but it is known as a Piece of Eden. There are other Pieces, some lost to us, and others perhaps left hidden."

"Sounds very useful. What does it do?"

"It has the ability to control men's thoughts and desires. But that is not all: It is able to reveal things undreamed of."

Julius pondered this. "It sounds as if it might be very useful to me. Very useful indeed. But it could also be turned against me in the wrong hands."

"It is what the Borgia were misusing to try to gain total ascendancy. Luckily, Leonardo, to whom they gave it to research, kept its darkest secrets from them."

The Pope paused once again in thought. "Then I think it better if we leave it in your care," he said at last. "If it was vouchsafed to you by such a power as you describe, it would be rash to take it away from you." He paused again. "But it seems to me that, after all, when you feel that you have no further use for it, you should hide it in a safe place, and maybe, if you wish, leave some kind of clue for any worthy successor-who knows, possibly some descendant of yours-who perhaps alone will be able to understand it, so that it may once more have a true use in the world, in future generations. But I do somehow believe this, Ezio Auditore, and perhaps I am truly being guided by God, that in our time no one but you should have custody of it; for perhaps there is some unique quality, some unique sense that enables you to withstand any irresponsible use of it."

Ezio bowed and said nothing; but in his heart he acknowledged Julius's wisdom, and he couldn't have agreed more with his judgment.

"By the way," Julius said, "I don't care for Leonardo's boyfriend-what's his name? Salai? Seems very shifty to me. I wouldn't trust him, and it's a pity Leo seems to. But apart from that one little weakness, the man is a genius. Do you know, he's developing some kind of lightweight, bulletproof armor for me? Don't know where he gets his ideas from."

Ezio thought of the bracer Leonardo had managed to re-create for him and smiled to himself. Well, why not? But now he could guess the source of the Pope's information about the Apple, and he knew Julius had revealed it deliberately. Fortunately Salai was more of a fool than a knave, but he'd have to be watched and, if necessary, removed.

After all, he knew what the nickname Salai meant-little Satan.

FIFTY-THREE.

Ezio made his way back to Leonardo's studio soon afterward, but he failed to find Salai at home, and Leonardo was almost shamefaced about him. He'd sent him into the country and no amount of persuasion would get him to reveal where. This would have to be a problem for La Volpe and his Thieves' Guild to deal with, but it was clear that Leonardo was embarrassed. Perhaps he would learn to keep his mouth shut in front of the boy in the future, for he knew that Ezio could place Leonardo himself in trouble. But fortunately Leonardo was still more of a help than a hindrance, and a good friend, as Ezio made very clear to him. But if there were any more breaches of security-well, no one was indispensable.

Leonardo was eager to make it up to Ezio, apparently.

"I've been thinking about Cesare," he said, with his usual eagerness.

"Oh?"

"In fact, I'm very glad you've come. I've found someone I think you should meet."

"Does he know where Cesare is?" asked Ezio.

If he did, thought Ezio, Micheletto would cease to matter. If he didn't, Ezio might even consider letting Micheletto escape from his prison-for Ezio knew the Signoria well-and using the man to lead him to his master. A dangerous plan, he knew, but he wasn't going to use the Apple...

But in the last resort, he would have have to use the Apple again; but it disturbed him increasingly. Ezio had been having strange dreams, of countries and buildings and technology that couldn't possibly exist... to use the Apple again; but it disturbed him increasingly. Ezio had been having strange dreams, of countries and buildings and technology that couldn't possibly exist...

Then he remembered that vision of the castle, the remote castle in a foreign land. That was at least a recognizable building of his own time. But where could it be?

Leonardo brought him back from his musings.

"I don't know if he knows where Cesare is. But he's called Gaspar Torella, and he was Cesare's personal physician. He's got some ideas I think are interesting. Shall we go and see him?"

"Any lead is a good one."

Dottor Torella received them in a spacious surgery on the Aventine, whose ceiling was hung with herbs but also with strange creatures-dried bats, the little corpses of desiccated toads, and a small crocodile. He was wizened, and a little bent in the shoulders, but he was younger than he looked, his movements were quick, almost lizardlike, and his eyes behind his spectacles were bright. He was also another Spanish expatriate, but he was reputed to be brilliant and Pope Julius had spared him-he was, after all, a scientist with no interest in politics. Torella received them in a spacious surgery on the Aventine, whose ceiling was hung with herbs but also with strange creatures-dried bats, the little corpses of desiccated toads, and a small crocodile. He was wizened, and a little bent in the shoulders, but he was younger than he looked, his movements were quick, almost lizardlike, and his eyes behind his spectacles were bright. He was also another Spanish expatriate, but he was reputed to be brilliant and Pope Julius had spared him-he was, after all, a scientist with no interest in politics.

What he was interested in, and talked about at length, was the New Disease.

"You know, both my former master and his father, Rodrigo, had it. It's very ugly indeed in its final stages, and I believe it affects the mind and may have left both Cesare and the former Pope affected in the brain. Neither had any sense of proportion, and it may still be strong in Cesare-wherever they've put him."

"Do you have any idea?"

"My guess is somewhere as far away as possible, and in a place he could never escape from."

Ezio sighed. So much was surely obvious.

"I have called the disease the morbus gallicus morbus gallicus-the French disease," Dr. Torella plunged on enthusiastically. "Even the present Pope has it in the first stage and I am treating him. It's an epidemic, of course. We think it came from Columbus's sailors and probably Vespucci's, too, when they came back from the New World-they brought it with them."

"Why call it the French disease, then?" asked Leonardo.

"Well, I certainly don't want to insult the Italians, and the Portuguese and the Spanish are our friends. But it broke out first among French soldiers in Naples. It starts with lesions on the genitals and it can deform the hands, the back, and the face, indeed the whole head. I'm treating it with mercury, to be drunk or rubbed on the skin, but I don't think I've found a cure."

"That is certainly interesting," said Ezio. "But will it kill Cesare?"

"I don't know."

"Then I must still find him."

"Fascinating," said Leonardo, excited by yet a new discovery.

"There is something else I've been working on," said Torella, "which I think is even more interesting."

"What is it?" asked his fellow scientist.

"It's this: that people's memories can be passed down-preserved-from generation to generation in the bloodline in the bloodline. Rather like some diseases. I'd like to think I'd find a cure for my morbus gallicus morbus gallicus; but I feel it may be with us for centuries."

"What makes you say that?" said Ezio, strangely disturbed by the man's remark about memories being passed on through many years.

"Because I believe it's transmitted, in the first instance, through sex-and we'd all die out if we had to do without that."

Ezio grew impatient. "Thank you for your time," he said.

"Don't mention it," replied Torella. "And by the way, if you really want to find my former master, I think you could do worse than looking in Spain."

"In Spain? Where in Spain?"