The doctor spread his hands. "I'm a Spaniard; so is Cesare. Why not send him home? It's just a hunch. I'm sorry I can't be more specific."

Ezio thought, It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack...But it may be a start. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack...But it may be a start.

FIFTY-FOUR.

Ezio no longer kept the location of his lodgings secret. But only a few knew where they were. One of them was Machiavelli.

Ezio was awakened by him at four in the morning. A deliberate, urgent knocking at the door.

"Niccol! What are you doing here?" Ezio was instantly alert, like a cat.

"I have been a fool."

"What's happened? You were working in Florence! You can't be back so soon." But Ezio already knew something grave had happened.

"I have been a fool," said Machiavelli.

"What's going on?"

"In my arrogance, I kept Micheletto alive." Machiavelli sighed. "In a secure cell, to question him."

"You'd better tell me what's going on."

"He has escaped! On the eve of his execution!"

"From that place? How?"

"Over the roof. Borgia diehards climbed to it in the night and killed the guards. They lowered a rope. The priest who confessed him was a Borgia sympathizer-he is being burned at the stake today-and smuggled a file into his cell. He sawed through just one bar on the window. He's a big man, but it was enough for him to squeeze out and climb up. You know how strong he is. By the time the alarm was raised, he was nowhere to be found in the city."

"Then we must seek him out, and"-Ezio paused, suddenly seeing an advantage even in this adversity-"having found him, see where he runs. He may yet lead us to Cesare. He is insanely loyal, and without Cesare's support his own power is worthless."

"I have light cavalry scouring the countryside even now, trying to hunt him down."

"But there are certainly small pockets of Borgia diehards-like those who rescued him-willing to shelter him."

"I think he's in Rome. That's why I've come here."

"Why Rome?"

"We have been too complacent. There are Borgia supporters here, too. He will use them to make for Ostia, and try to get a ship there."

"Bartolomeo is in Ostia. He's fed up, but no one will escape him and his condottieri condottieri there. I'll send a rider to alert him." there. I'll send a rider to alert him."

"But where will Micheletto go?"

"Where else but Valencia-his hometown."

"Ezio-we must be sure. We must use the Apple, now, this minute, to see if we can locate him."

FIFTY-FIVE.

Ezio turned and, in the bedroom of his lodgings, out of sight of Machiavelli, drew the Apple from its secret hiding place and brought the box that contained it back to his principal chamber.

Carefully he drew it out of its container with gloved hands and placed it on the table there.

He concentrated. The Apple began, very slowly at first, to glow, and then its light brightened until the room was filled with a cold illumination. Next, images, dim at first and indistinct, flickered onto the wall and resolved themselves into something the Apple had shown Ezio before-the strange, remote castle in a brown, barren landscape, very old, with a massive outer barbican, four main towers, and an impregnable-looking square keep at its center.

"Where is that rocca rocca? What is the Apple telling us?"

"It could be anywhere," said Machiavelli. "From the landscape, Syria perhaps?"

"Or," said Ezio as, with a sudden rush of excitement, he remembered Dr. Torella's words, "Spain."

"Micheletto can't be in Spain."

"I am certain he plans to go there!"

"Even so, we don't know where this place is. There are many, many castles in Spain, and many similar to this one. Consult the Apple again."

But when Ezio once more consulted the Apple, the image remained unchanged: a solidly built castle on a hill, a good three hundred years old, surrounded by a little town. The image was monochrome. All the houses, the fortress, and the countryside were an almost uniform brown. There was only one spot of color, a bright flag on a pole on the very top of the keep.

Ezio squinted at it.

A white flag with a red, ragged cross in the form of an X X.

His excitement mounted. "The military standard of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella-of Spain!"

"Yes," said Machiavelli. "Good. Now we know what country. But we still don't know where it is is. Or why we're being shown it. Is Micheletto on his way there? Ask the Apple again."

But the vision faded, to be replaced by a fortified hill town, from whose fort a white flag crisscrossed with red chains, their links filled with yellow, which Ezio recognized as the flag of Navarre. And then a third and final picture: a massive, wealthy seaport, with ships drawn up on a glittering sea and an army gathering. But no clue about the exact location of any of these places.

FIFTY-SIX.

Everyone was in place. Couriers rode daily between the points where the Brotherhood had set up bases. Bartolomeo was beginning to enjoy Ostia, and Pantasilea loved it. Antonio de Magianis still held down the fort in Venice. Claudia had returned for the time being to Florence to stay with her old friend Paola, who kept an expensive house of pleasure on which the Rosa in Fiore had been modeled, and La Volpe and Rosa watched over Rome.

It was time for Machiavelli and Ezio to go hunting.

FIFTY-SEVEN.

"Leo, we need your help," Ezio said, coming straight to the point as soon as his friend had, slightly reluctantly, allowed them into his studio.

"You weren't very pleased with me last time we met."

"Salai shouldn't have told anyone about the Apple."

"I told him in confidence."

Machiavelli gave a sharp laugh. "In confidence?!"

"He got drunk in a wine booth and blurted it out to impress. Most of the people around him didn't know what he was talking about but there was an agent of Pope Julius within earshot. He is very contrite."

"Where is he now?" asked Ezio.

Leonardo squared his shoulders. "If you want my help, I want payment."

"What kind of payment?"

"I want you to leave him alone. He means a lot to me; he is young, with time he will improve."

"He's a little sewer rat," said Machiavelli.

"Do you want my help or don't you?"

Ezio and Machiavelli looked at each other.

"All right, Leo-but keep him under a very close rein or by God we'll show no mercy next time."

"All right. Now, what do you want me to do?"

"We are having problems with the Apple. It seems not as acute as it was. Could there be something wrong with it mechanically?" asked Machiavelli.

Leonardo stroked his beard. "You have it with you?"

Ezio produced the box. "Here." He took it out and placed it carefully on Leonardo's large worktable.

Leonardo examined it with equal care. "I don't know what this thing really is," he conceded finally. "It's dangerous, it's a mystery, and it's very, very powerful. And yet only Ezio seems able fully to control it. God knows, when it was in my power in the old days under Cesare, I tried. But I only partially succeeded." He paused. "No, I don't think the word 'mechanical' actually describes this thing. If I weren't more of a scientist than an artist, I'd say this thing had a mind of its own."

Ezio remembered the voice that had come from the Apple. What if Leonardo were unconsciously telling the precise truth?

"Micheletto is on the run," said Ezio urgently. "We need to locate him, and fast. We need to pick up his trail before it's too late!"

"What do you think he's planning?"

"Ezio has convinced me that Micheletto has decided to go-we are almost certain-to Spain and there locate and liberate his master Cesare. They will then attempt to return to power. We will stop them," said Machiavelli.

"And the Apple?"

"Shows an image of a castle, somewhere in Spain, it must be; it flies the Spanish flag, but doesn't, or won't, or can't give its location. We also saw an image of a town flying the Navarrese flag. And a seaport with an army gathering to embark there. But the Apple gave us nothing on Micheletto at all," said Ezio.

"Well," said Leonardo, "Cesare can't have jinxed it because no one's that clever, so it must-how can I put this?-have decided decided not to be helpful." not to be helpful."

"But why would it do that?"

"Why don't we ask it?"

Ezio once again concentrated, and this time a most divine music, sweet and high, came to his ears. "Can you hear it?" he asked.

"Hear what?" replied the others.

Through the music came the voice he had heard before: "Ezio Auditore, you have done well. But I have more than played my part in your career and you must now return me. Take me to a vault you will find under the Capitoline, and leave me there to be found by future members of your Brotherhood. But be quick! You must then ride posthaste to Naples, where Micheletto is embarking for Valencia! This knowledge is my last gift to you. You have more than enough power of your own now to have no further need of me. But I will lie in the ground until future generations do have need of me. So you must leave a sign to indicate my burial place. Farewell, Mentor of the Brotherhood! Farewell! Farewell!"

The Apple ceased to glow and looked dead, like an old leather-bound ball.

Swiftly, Ezio told his friends what had been imparted to him.

"Naples? Why Naples?" Leonardo asked.

"Because it's in Spanish territory. We have no jurisdiction there."

"And because he knows-somehow-that Bartolomeo is policing Ostia," said Ezio. "But we must make all speed. Come!"

Dusk was falling as Machiavelli and Ezio carried the Apple in its box down into the catacombs below the Colosseum and, passing through the dreadful gloomy rooms of the remains of Nero's Golden House, carried torches before them as they made their way through a maze of tunnels under the old Roman Forum to a spot near the church of San Nicola in Carcere, where they found a secret door within the crypt. Behind it was a small, vaulted room, in the center of which stood a plinth. On this they placed the Apple in its box and withdrew. Once closed, the door ceased as if by magic to be visible even to them, but they knew where it was and near it drew the sacred, secret symbols that only a member of the Brotherhood would understand. The same symbols they inscribed at regular intervals along their way back, and again at the mouth of the entrance near the Colosseum from which they emerged.

Then, after meeting Leonardo again, who had insisted on joining them, they rode hard to Ostia, where they took a ship for the long coastal journey south to Naples. They arrived on Midsummer Day, 1505-Ezio's forty-sixth birthday.

They didn't go into the teeming, hilly town, but remained among the fortified docks, splitting up to search among the sailors, tradesmen, and travelers busy about their fishing smacks, their shallops, and their caravels, carracks, and cogs, visiting the taverns and brothels, and all in frantic haste, for no one, Spanish, Italian, or Arab, seemed to have an answer to their question: "Have you seen a big man, with huge hands, scars on his face, thin, seeking passage to Valencia?"