Assassin's Creed: Renaissance (42 page)

He raised his hands again, as the mob yelled and cheered.

Ezio knew that the only way to find the monk was through this acolyte. But he had to find a way to reach the man without arousing the suspicions of the devoted crowd. He made his way forward cautiously, acting the role of the meek man seeking conversion to the Herald’s flock.

It wasn’t easy. He was jostled aggressively by people who could see he was a stranger, a newcomer, a person to be regarded with reserve. But he smiled, bowed, and even, as a last resort, threw money down, saying, ‘I want to give alms to the cause of Savonarola and those who support him and believe in him.’ And money worked its usual charm. In fact, Ezio thought, money is the greatest converter of them all.

At last the Herald, who’d observed Ezio’s progress with a mixture of amusement and contempt, bade his minders step aside and beckoned to him, leading him to a quiet place, a little piazzetta off the main square, where they could have a private conversation. Ezio was pleased to see that the Herald clearly thought he’d made an important and wealthy new addition to his flock.

‘Where is Savonarola himself?’ he asked.

‘He is everywhere, brother,’ replied the Herald. ‘He is at one with all of us, and all of us are at one with him.’

‘Listen, friend,’ said Ezio, urgently. ‘I seek the man, not the myth. Please tell me where he is.’

The Herald looked at him askance, and Ezio clearly saw the madness in his eyes. ‘I have told you where he is. Look, Savonarola loves you just as you are. He will show you the Light. He will show you the
future
!’

‘But I must talk to him myself. I must see the great leader! And I have great riches to bring to his mighty crusade!’

The Herald looked cunning at that. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Be patient. The hour is not yet come. But you
shall
join us in our pilgrimage, brother.’

And Ezio was patient. He was patient for a long time. Then, one day, he received a summons from the Herald to meet him at the Venice dockyards at dusk. He arrived early and waited impatiently and nervously, until finally he saw a shadowy figure approaching through the evening mists.

‘I was not sure you would come,’ he greeted the Herald.

The Herald looked pleased. ‘The quest for Truth is passionate in you, brother. And it has withstood the test of time. But now we are ready, and our great leader has assumed the mantle of command he was born to. Come!’

He motioned ahead of him, and led Ezio to the quayside where a large galley waited. Near it, a crowd of the Faithful waited. The Herald addressed them:

‘My children! It is time at last for us to depart. Our brother and spiritual leader Girolamo Savonarola awaits us in the city he has at last made his own!’

‘Yes, he has! The son-of-a-bitch bastard has brought my town and my home to its knees – to the brink of insanity!’

The crowd and Ezio turned to look at the person who had spoken, a long-haired young man in a black cap, with full lips and a weak face, now contorted in anger.

‘I have just escaped from there,’ he continued. ‘Thrown out of my dukedom by that prick King Charles of France, whose meddling has caused me to be replaced by that Dog of God, Savonarola!’

The crowd’s mood turned ugly, and they would surely have seized the young man and thrown him into the lagoon if the Herald had not stayed them.

‘Let the man speak his mind,’ ordered the Herald, and, turning to the stranger, asked: ‘Why do you take Savonarola’s name in vain, brother?’

‘Why?
Why
? Because of what he’s done to Florence! He controls the city! The Signoria are either behind him, or powerless against him. He whips up the mob, and even people who should know better, like
Maestro
Botticelli, follow him slavishly. They burn books, works of art, anything which that madman deems immoral!’

‘Savonarola is in Florence now?’ asked Ezio intently. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Would it were otherwise! Would he were on the moon or in hell’s mouth! I barely got away with my life!’

‘And who might you be exactly, brother?’ asked the Herald, impatient now and showing it.

The young man drew himself up. ‘I am Piero de’ Medici. Son of Lorenzo,
Il Magnifico
, and rightful ruler of Florence!’

Ezio clasped his hand. ‘Well met, Piero. Your father was my staunch friend.’

Piero looked at him. ‘Thank you for that, whoever you may be. As for my father, he was lucky to die before all this madness broke like a giant wave over our city.’ He turned heedlessly to the angry crowd. ‘Do not support that wretched monk! He is a dangerous fool with an ego the size of the Duomo! He should be put down like the mad dog that he is!’

Now, as one, the crowd growled in righteous fury. The Herald turned to Piero and yelled, ‘Heretic! Seeder of evil thoughts!’ To the crowd he cried, ‘This is the man who must be
put down
! Be
silenced
! He must
burn
!’

Both Piero and Ezio, by his side, had their swords out by now, and faced the menacing mob.

‘Who are you?’ asked Piero.

‘Auditore, Ezio,’ he replied.

‘Ah!
Sono grato del tuo aiuto
. My father spoke of you often.’ His eyes flickered over their adversaries. ‘Are we going to get out of this?’

‘I hope so. But you weren’t exactly tactful.’

‘How was I to know?’

‘You’ve just destroyed untold effort and preparation; but never mind. Look to your sword!’

The fight was hard but short. The two men let the mob beat them back to an abandoned warehouse, and it was there that they took their stand. Luckily, though enraged, the crowd of pilgrims were far from being seasoned fighters, and once the boldest of them had retreated nursing deep cuts and slashes from Ezio’s and Piero’s longswords, the rest of them fell back, and fled. Only the Herald, grim and grey, stood his ground.

‘Impostor!’ he said to Ezio. ‘You shall freeze for ever in the ice of the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle. And it is I who will send you there.’ From his robes he produced a keen-edged basilard and ran at Ezio holding it above his head, ready to strike. Ezio, backing, almost fell and was at the Herald’s mercy, but Piero sliced at the man’s legs and Ezio, having regained his feet, unleashed his double-blade – punching the sharp points deep into the man’s abdomen. The herald’s whole frame shuddered with the impact; he gasped, and fell, writhing and twitching, clawing the ground, until at last he was still.

‘Hope that pays you back for the bad turn I’ve done you,’ said Piero, with a rueful smile. ‘Come on! Let’s get to the Doge’s Palace and tell Agostino to send the Watch out to make sure that bunch of lunatics has split up, and that they’ve all gone back to their kennels.’

‘
Grazie
,’ said Ezio. ‘But I go the other way. I go to Florence.’

Piero looked at him incredulously. ‘What? Into the mouth of hell itself?’

‘I have my own reasons for seeking out Savonarola. But perhaps it’s not too late to undo the damage he’s done to our native city as well.’

‘Then I wish you luck,’ said Piero. ‘Whatever end you seek.’

Fra’
Girolamo Savonarola took over the effective government of Florence in 1494, aged forty-two. He was a tormented man, a twisted genius, and the worst kind of fanatical believer; but the most frightening thing about him was that people allowed him not only to lead them, but to incite them to commit the most ludicrous and destructive acts of folly. All based on a terror of hell-fire, and on a doctrine which taught that all pleasure, all worldly goods, and all the works of man, were despicable, and that only by complete self-abnegation could a person find the true light of faith.

No wonder, thought Ezio, pondering these things as he rode towards his home town, that Leonardo stayed put in Milan – apart from anything else, from his friend’s point of view, Ezio had learned that homosexuality, hitherto winked at or punishable by an affordable fine, was once again a capital offence in Florence. And no wonder, too, that the great materialist and humanist school of thinkers and poets who had gathered around the nurturing and enlightened spirit of Lorenzo had broken up, and sought less barren soil than the intellectual desert which Florence was fast becoming.

As he approached the city, Ezio became aware of large groups of black-robed monks and soberly attired laymen heading in the same direction. All looked solemn but righteous. All walked with their heads bent.

‘Where are you bound?’ he asked one of these passers-by.

‘To Florence. To sit at the feet of the great leader,’ said a pasty-faced merchant, before continuing on his way.

The road was broad, and approaching him from the city Ezio saw another mass of people, evidently leaving town. They also walked with their heads bent, and their expressions were serious and depressed. As they passed him, Ezio heard snatches of their conversations, and realized that these people were going into voluntary exile. They pushed carts piled high, or carried sacks, or bundles of possessions. They were refugees, banished from their home either by edict of the Monk, or by choice, since they could bear to live under his rule no longer.

‘If Piero had had only a tenth of his father’s talent, we’d have somewhere to call home…’ said one.

‘We never should have let that madman gain a foothold in our city,’ muttered another. ‘Look at all the misery he’s wrought…’

‘What I don’t understand is why so many of us are willing to accept his oppression,’ said a woman.

‘Well, anywhere’s better than Florence now,’ another woman said. ‘We were just thrown out when we refused to hand over everything we own to his precious Church of San Marco!’

‘It’s sorcery, that’s the only way I can explain it. Even
Maestro
Botticelli is under Savonarola’s spell… Mind you, the man’s getting old, he must be damned near fifty, maybe he’s hedging his bets with heaven.’

‘Book burnings, arrests, all those endless bloody sermons! And to think what Florence was just two short years ago… a beacon against ignorance! And now here we are again, back mired in the Dark Ages.’

And then a woman said something which made Ezio prick up his ears. ‘Sometimes I wish the Assassin would return to Florence, that we might be free of this tyranny.’

‘In your dreams!’ replied her friend. ‘The Assassin’s a myth! A bogey-man parents tell their children about.’

‘You’re wrong – my father saw him in San Gimignano,’ the first woman sighed. ‘But it
was
years ago.’

‘Yeah, yeah –
se lo tu dici
.’

Ezio rode on past them, his heart heavy. But his spirits rose when he saw a familiar figure coming along the road to meet him.

‘
Salute
, Ezio,’ said Machiavelli, his serious-humorous face older now, but more interesting for the etching of the years.

‘
Salute
, Niccolò.’

‘You’ve picked a fine time for a homecoming.’

‘You know me. Where there’s sickness, I like to try to cure it.’

‘We could certainly use your help now,’ Machiavelli sighed. ‘There’s no doubt Savonarola couldn’t have got where he is now without the use of that powerful arte-fact, the Apple.’ He held up his hand. ‘I know all about what has happened to you since last we met. Caterina sent a courier from Forlì two years ago, and more recently one arrived with a letter from Piero in Venice.’

‘I am here for the Apple. It has been out of our hands far too long.’

‘I suppose in a sense we should be grateful to the ghastly Girolamo,’ said Machiavelli. ‘At least he kept it out of the new Pope’s hands.’

‘Has he tried anything?’

‘He keeps trying. There’s a rumour that Alexander’s planning to excommunicate our dear Dominican. Not that that’ll change much around here.’

Ezio said, ‘We should get to work on retrieving it without delay.’

‘The Apple? Of course – though it’ll be more complicated than you might think.’

‘Hah! When isn’t it?’ Ezio looked at him. ‘Why don’t you fill me in on things?’

‘Come, let’s go back to the city. I’ll tell you everything I know. There’s little to relate. In a nutshell, King Charles
VIII
of France finally managed to bring Florence to its knees. Piero fled. Charles, land-hungry as ever – why the hell they call him “the Affable” is beyond me – marched on to Naples, and Savonarola, the Ugly Duckling, suddenly saw his chance and filled the power-vacuum. He’s like any dictator anywhere, tinpot or grand. Totally humourless, totally convinced, and filled with an unshakeable sense of his own importance. The most effective and the nastiest kind of Prince you could wish for.’ He paused. ‘One day I’ll write a book about it.’

‘And the Apple was the means to his end?’

Machiavelli spread his hands. ‘Only in part. A lot of it, I hate to say, is down to his own charisma. It isn’t the city itself he’s enthralled, but its leaders, men possessed of influence and power. Of course some of the Signoria opposed him at first, but now -‘ Machiavelli looked worried. ‘Now they’re all in his pocket. The man everyone once reviled suddenly became the one they worshipped. If people didn’t agree, they were obliged to leave. It’s still happening, as you’ve seen today. And now the Florentine council oppress the citizens and ensure that the mad Monk’s will is done.’

‘But what of decent ordinary people? Do they really act as if they had no say at all in the matter?’

Machiavelli smiled sadly. ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do, Ezio. Rare is the man willing to oppose the status quo. And so – it falls to us to help them see their way through this.’

By now the two Assassins had reached the city gates. The armed guards of the city, like all police, serving the interest of the state without reference to its morality, scrutinized their papers and waved them through, though not before Ezio had noticed another pack of them busy piling up the corpses of some other uniforms who carried the Borgia crest. He pointed this out to Niccolò.

‘Oh yes,’ said Machiavelli. As I said, friend Rodrigo – I’ll never get used to calling the bastard Alexander – keeps trying. He sends his soldiers into Florence, and Florence sends them back, usually in pieces.’