His heart was in his mouth as he carefully lifted the bag free—he knew the Borgia, and there was no guarantee that it might not be booby-trapped, but he had to take that risk.

But where the hell was Cesare? The man had had a good few minutes’ start on him and had doubtless got here on horseback.

“I’ll take that,” cried a cold, cruel voice behind him. Bag in hand, Ezio dropped lightly to the ground and turned to confront Cesare, who had just burst through the southern wall door, followed by a troop of his personal guardsmen, who fanned out around the courtyard, surrounding Ezio.

Of course, Ezio thought, he didn’t reckon on competition. He had wasted time collecting backup.

“Beat you to it,” he taunted Cesare.

“It won’t do you any good, Ezio Auditore. You’ve been a thorn in my side too long. But it ends here. Now. My sword will take your life.”

He drew a modern schiavona with a basket hilt and took a step toward Ezio. But then, suddenly, he turned grey and clasped his stomach, dropping his sword as his knees buckled. Not a strong enough antidote, evidently, thought Ezio, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Guards!” croaked Cesare, struggling to stay on his feet.

There were ten of them, five armed with muskets. Ezio ducked and dived as they fired at him, the balls from their muskets cannoning into the floor and walls as Ezio skittered into cover behind a pillar. Whisking out the poison darts from his belt one by one, he sprang from his cover—close enough to the musketeers to hurl the darts. Cesare’s men weren’t expecting a ranged assault—they looked in bewildered surprise when Ezio launched the darts. The first three found their marks with polished ease—within seconds three guards were down—the poison was beautifully quick in its fatal effect. One of the musketeers, regaining a moment’s composure, hurled his weapon like a club—Ezio ducked, and the weapon went spiraling over his head. He quickly loosed the next two darts, and the musketeers were all down. Ezio had no time to retrieve his darts as Leonardo had advised. The five other guards, swordsmen, after recovering from their initial shock—for they’d assumed that their companions with the guns would have made short work of the Assassin—closed in quickly, wielding heavy falchions. Ezio, almost dancing among them as he avoided their clumsy blows—the swords were too heavy for fast work or much maneuverability—released the newly recrafted poison-blade and drew his own sword. Knowing he didn’t have much time to engage these men before Cesare made a move, Ezio’s fighting technique was more sparse and efficient than usual—he preferred to lock each opponent’s blade with his own sword and call into effect his poison-blade to finish the job. The first two fell without a whisper—at which point the remaining three decided their best attack was all at once. Ezio pulled back five quick paces, extending his sword up full and high, and charged forward at the nearest of the three oncoming guards. As he drew into range, Ezio skidded to his knees—sliding across the ground, under the blade of the baffled guard. The poison-blade nicked the man’s thigh—but only as Ezio was skidding past, barreling toward the remaining guards, his sword slashing at the tendons of their lower legs. Both men shrieked as Ezio’s blade tore through, and the men fell, their legs useless.

Cesare had been watching all this in quiet disbelief; but as Ezio had careened across toward these last three guards, Cesare had decided not to wait for the rest of the fight. He recovered himself enough to turn and flee.

Hemmed in by the guards and unable to follow, Ezio had watched him go out of the corner of his eye.

But he still had the Apple. And he remembered enough of its power—how could he forget?—to use it, after the melee was over, to guide him back through the Vatican by a different route from that by which he’d come—reckoning as he did that Cesare would have wasted no time in securing the Passetto di Borgo. Glowing from within the leather bag, the Apple indicated on its surface a way through the high, painted halls and chambers of the offices of the Vatican toward the Sistine Chapel, and thence by a southward-leading corridor into Saint Peter’s itself. Its power was such that passing monks and priests within the Vatican turned away from Ezio, avoiding him, and papal guards remained rigidly at their posts.

Ezio wondered how soon the news of the Pope’s death would filter down through the hierarchy of the Vatican to these people. The confusion that would follow in its wake would need a strong hand to control, and he prayed that Cesare would not have the opportunity to take advantage of any uncertainty to stake his own claim, if not to the Papacy itself, for that was out of even his reach, then at least by influencing the election in order to place a new Pope, friendly to his ambitions, on Saint Peter’s throne.

Passing young Michelangelo’s brilliant new sculpture of the Pietà on his left, Ezio left the basilica and blended into the crowds milling about in the rather shabby old square that lay in front of the east entrance.

FORTY-FIVE

By the time he had reached the Assassins’ hideout on Tiber Island, church bells had begun to ring out all over Rome. They were sounding the death knell.

He found his friends waiting for him.

“Rodrigo is dead,” he announced.

“We guessed as much from the bells,” said Machiavelli. “Magnificent work!”

“It was not by my hand—but Cesare’s.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. Then Machiavelli spoke again. “And what of Cesare?”

“He lives—though the Pope tried to poison him.”

“The serpent is biting its own tail,” said La Volpe.

“Then the day is saved!” cried Claudia.

“No!” said Machiavelli. “If he’s freed himself of the restraint of his father, Cesare may yet regain the ground he has lost. We must not allow him to assemble his remaining supporters. The coming weeks will be critical!”

“With your aid I will hunt him down,” said Ezio firmly.

“Niccolò is right—we must act fast,” La Volpe put in. “Do you hear those trumpets? They are a summons to the Borgia forces to gather.”

“Do you also know where?” asked Bartolomeo.

“It’s likely that they’ll rally their troops in the piazza in front of Cesare’s palace in Trastevere.”

“My men will patrol the city,” said Bartolomeo, “but we’d need a full army to do it properly.”

Ezio carefully produced the Apple from its bag. It glowed dully. “We have one,” he said. “Or at least, something as good.”