“There’s no way out!” the captain called after him. “You might as well turn and face me, you pitiful old dog.” He fired again.
Ezio drew a breath and leapt to catch hold of the lintel of another doorway, swinging himself up so that he was able to get onto the flat clay roof of a dwelling. He ran across it to the other side as another bolt whistled past his ear.
“Stand your ground and die,” hollered the captain. “Your time has come, and you must accept it, even if it is far away from your wretched kennel in Rome! So come and meet your killer!”
Ezio could see where soldiers were running around to the back of the village, to cut off his line of retreat. But they had left the captain isolated, except for his two sergeants, and his quiver of bolts was empty.
The villagers had scattered and disappeared long since.
Ezio ducked behind the low wall surrounding the roof, unstrapped his bags from his back, and slipped the pistol harness onto his right wrist.
“Why will you not quit?!” the captain was calling, drawing his sword.
Ezio stood. “I never learned how,” he called back in a clear voice, raising his gun.
The captain looked at the raised weapon in momentary panic and fear, then, shrieking “Out of my way!” at his attendants, he shoved them aside and leapt from the tower to the ground. Ezio fired and caught him in midjump, the bullet catching him in the left knee joint. With a howl of pain, the captain hit the ground, dashing his head against a sharp stone, and rolled over there. The sergeants fled.
Ezio crossed the deserted square. No soldiers came back. Either their fear of Ezio had persuaded them that he was indeed a supernatural being, or their love of their captain could not have been very great. There was silence except for the steady clatter of the waterwheel, and the captain’s agonized whimpering.
The captain caught Ezio’s eye as he approached. “Ah, dammit,” he said. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go on—kill me!”
“You have something I need,” Ezio told him calmly, reloading his gun so that both chambers were ready. The captain eyed the weapon.
“I see the old hound still has his bite,” he said through gritted teeth. Blood flowed from his knee and from the more serious wound on his left temple.
“The book you carry. Where is it?”
The captain looked crafty. “Niccolò Polo’s old journal, you mean? You know about that? You surprise me, Assassin.”
“I am full of surprises,” Ezio replied. “Give it to me.”
Seeing there was no help for it, the captain, grunting, drew an old leather-bound book, some twelve inches by six, from his jerkin. His hand was shaking, and he dropped it onto the ground.
The captain looked at it with a laugh that died, gurgling, in his throat. “Take it,” he said. “We have gleaned all its secrets and found the first of the five keys already. When we have the rest, the Grand Temple, and all the power within, will be ours.”
Ezio looked at him pityingly. “You are deceived, soldier. There is no ancient temple at Masyaf. Only a library, full of wisdom.”
The captain looked at him. “Your forebear Altaïr had the Apple of Eden in his control for sixty years, Ezio. He gained much more than what you call wisdom. He learned . . . everything!”
Ezio thought about that fleetingly. He knew the Apple was safely buried in a church crypt in Rome—he and Machiavelli had seen to that. But his attention was drawn back immediately by a sharp gasp of pain from the captain. Blood had been streaming from his untended wounds all the time they had been speaking. Now the man had the death pallor on him. A curiously peaceful expression came over his face, and he lay back as a huge long, last, sighing breath escaped him.
Ezio watched him for a moment. “You were a real bastardo ,” he said. “But—for all that—Requiescat in Pace.”
He leaned forward and gently closed the man’s eyes with his gloved hand.
The waterwheel hammered on. Otherwise, there was silence.
Ezio picked up the book and turned it over in his hands. On its cover, he saw an embossed symbol, its gilding long since faded. The emblem of the Assassin Brotherhood. Smiling slightly, he opened it to the title page:
LA CROCIATA SEGRETA
Niccolò Polo
MASYAF, giugno, MCCLVII
COSTANTINOPOLI, gennaio, MCCLVII
As he read, Ezio drew in a breath.
Constantinople, he thought. Of course . . .
SIXTEEN
The breeze freshened, and Ezio looked up from Niccolò Polo’s book, open on his lap as he sat under an awning on the afterdeck of the large, broad-bellied baghlah, as it cut through the clear blue water of the White Sea, both lateens and jib set to take full advantage of a favorable wind.
The journey from Latakia on the Syrian coast had first taken him back to Cyprus. The next port of call had been Rhodes—where his attention had been caught by the arrival on board of a new passenger, a beautiful woman of perhaps thirty wearing a green dress that perfectly accorded with her copper-gold hair. Then on through the Dodecanese north toward the Dardanelles, and, at last, the Sea of Marmara.
Finally, the voyage was drawing toward its close. Sailors called to each other as passengers lined up along the gunwale to watch as, a mile distant, glittering in the sharp sunlight, the great city of Constantinople rose on the port bow. As he watched, Ezio tried to identify parts of the city from the map of it he had bought in the Syrian port before embarkation. Near him stood an expensively dressed young man, an Ottoman, probably still in his teens but also clearly acquainted with the city. Ezio had struck up a nodding acquaintance with him. The young man was busy with a mariner’s astrolabe, taking measurements and making notes in an ivory-bound copybook, which hung on a silk cord from his belt.
“What’s that?” Ezio asked, pointing. He wanted to have as much knowledge of the place as possible before landing. News of his escape from the Templars at Masyaf would not be far behind, and he’d need to work fast.
“That’s the Bayezid Quarter. The big mosque you can see was built by the sultan about five years ago. And just beyond it you can see the roofs of the Grand Bazaar.”
“Got it,” said Ezio, squinting in the sun to focus and wishing that Leonardo had got around to making that instrument he was always talking about—a kind of extendable tube with lenses—which would make distant things seem closer.
“Watch your sleeve purse when you go to the Bazaar,” advised the young man. “You get a pretty mixed bag of people there.”
“Like in any souk.”
“Evet.” The young man smiled. “Just over there, where the towers are, is the Imperial District. That grey dome you can see is the old church of Haghia Sofia. It’s a mosque now, of course. And beyond it, you see that long, low, yellow building—more of a complex of buildings, really—with two low domes close together and a spire? That’s Topkapi Sarayi. One of the first buildings we erected after the conquest, and we’re still working on it.”
“Is Sultan Bayezid in residence?”
The young man’s face darkened slightly. “He should be—but no—he is not. Not at the moment.”
“I must visit it.”
“You’d better make sure you have an invitation first!”
The breeze slackened, and the sails rippled. The sailors furled the jib. The master brought the ship’s head around slightly, bringing another aspect of the city into view.
“You see that mosque there?” the young man continued, as if anxious to take the conversation away from Topkapi Palace. “That’s the Fatih Camii—the first thing Sultan Mehmed had built, to celebrate his victory over the Byzantines. Not that there was much of them left by the time he got here. Their empire was already long dead. But he wanted his mosque to surpass Haghia Sofia. As you can see, he didn’t quite make it.”
“Not for want of trying,” said Ezio diplomatically, as his eyes scanned the magnificent building.
“Mehmed was piqued,” the young man continued. “The story goes that he ha
d the architect’s arm cut off as a punishment. But, of course, that’s just a legend. Sinan was far too good an architect for Mehmed to want to damage him.”
“You said the sultan was not in residence,” Ezio prompted, gently.
“Bayezid? No.” The young man’s troubled look returned. “A great man, the sultan, though the fire of his youth has been replaced by quietness and piety. But, alas, he is at odds with one of his sons—Selim—and that has meant a war between them, which has been simmering for years now.”
The baghlah was sailing along under the southern walls of the city and soon rounded the corner north into the Bosphorus. Shortly afterward, a great inlet opened out on the port side, and the ship steered into it, over the great chain that hung across its mouth. It had been lowered, but could be raised to close the harbor in times of emergency or war.
“The chain has been in disuse since the conquest,” the young man observed. “After all, it did not stop Mehmed.”
“But a useful safety measure,” Ezio replied.
“We call this the Haliç,” said the young man. “The Golden Horn. And there on the north side is the Galata Tower. Your Genoese countrymen built it about a hundred and fifty years ago. Mind you, they called it the Christea Turris. But they would, wouldn’t they? Are you from Genoa yourself?”
“I’m a Florentine.”
“Ah well, can’t be helped.”
“It’s a good city.”
“Affedersiniz. I am not familiar enough with your part of the world. Though many of your countrymen live here still. There’ve been Italians here for centuries. Your famous Marco Polo—his father, Niccolò, was trading here well over two hundred years ago, with his brother.” The young man smiled, watching Ezio’s face. Then he turned his attention back to the Galata Tower. “There might be a way of getting you to the top. The security people might be persuaded. You get the most breathtaking view of the city from there.”
“That would be—most rewarding.”
The young man looked at him. “You’ve probably heard of another famous countryman of yours, still living, I believe. Leonardo da Vinci?”
“The name stirs some memories.”
“Less than a decade ago, Sayin da Vinci bey was asked by our sultan to build a bridge across the Horn.”
Ezio smiled, remembering that Leonardo had once mentioned it to him in passing. He could imagine his friend’s enthusiasm for such a project. “What became of it?” he asked. “I see no bridge here now.”
The young man spread his hands. “I’m told the design was beautiful, but, unfortunately, the plan never came to pass. Too ambitious, the sultan felt, at last.”
“Non mi sorprende,” Ezio said, half to himself. Then he pointed to another tower. “Is that a lighthouse?”
The young man followed his gaze toward a small islet aft of them. “Yes. A very old one. Eleven centuries or more. It’s called the Kiz Kulesi—how’s your Turkish?”
“Weak.”
“Then I’ll translate. You’d call it the Maiden Tower. We called it after the daughter of a sultan who died there of a snakebite.”
“Why was she living in a lighthouse?”
The young man smiled. “The plan was, to avoid snakes,” he said. “Look, now you can see the Aqueduct of Valens. See that double row of arches? Those Romans certainly could build. I used to love climbing it, as a child.”
“Quite a climb.”
“You almost look as if you’d like to try it!”
Ezio smiled. “You never know,” he said.
The young man opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind and shut it again. His expression as he looked at Ezio was not unkind. And Ezio knew exactly what he was thinking: an old man trying to escape the years.
“Where have you come from?” asked Ezio.
The young man looked dismissive. “Oh—the Holy Land,” he said. “That is, our Holy Land. Mecca and Medina. Every good Muslim’s supposed to make the trip once in his lifetime.”
“You’ve got it over with early.”
“You could say that.”
They watched the city pass by in silence as they rode up the Horn to their anchorage. “There isn’t a city in Europe with a skyline like this,” Ezio said.
“Ah, but this side is in Europe,” replied the young man. “Over there”—he gestured east across the Bosphorus—“that side’s Asia.”
“There are some borders even the Ottomans cannot move,” Ezio observed.
“Very few,” the young man replied quickly, and Ezio thought he sounded defensive. Then he changed the subject. “You say you’re an Italian—from Florence,” he went on. “But your clothes belie that. And—forgive me—you look as if you’ve been in them rather a long time. Have you been traveling long?”
“Sì, da molto tempo. I left Roma twelve months ago, looking for . . . inspiration. And that search has brought me here.”
The young man glanced at the book in Ezio’s hand but said nothing. Ezio himself didn’t want to reveal more of his purpose. He leaned on the rail and looked at the city walls, and the other ships, from all the countries in the world, crowded at moorings, as their baghlah slowly passed them.
“When I was a child, my father told me stories of the fall of Constantinople,” Ezio said at last. “It happened six years before I was born.”
The young man carefully packed his astrolabe into a leather box slung from a belt round his shoulder. “We call the city Kostantiniyye.”
“Doesn’t it amount to the same thing?”
“We run it now. But you’re right. Kostantiniyye, Byzantium, Nea Roma, the Red Apple—what real difference does it make? They say Mehmed wanted to rechristen it Islam-bul—Where Islam Flourishes—but that derivation’s just another legend. Still, people are even using that name. Though of course, the educated among us know that it should be Istan-bol—To the City.” The young man paused. “What stories did your father tell? Brave Christians being beaten down by wicked Turks?”
“No. Not at all.”
The young man sighed. “I suppose the moral of any story matches the temper of the man who tells it.”
Ezio pulled himself erect. Most of his muscles had recovered during the long voyage, but there was still an ache in his side. “That we can agree on,” he said.
The young man smiled, warmly and genuinely. “Güzel! I am glad! Kostantiniyye is a city for all kinds and all creeds. Even the Byzantines who remain. And students like me, or . . . travelers like you.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a young Seljuk married couple, who were walking along the deck past them. Ezio and the young man paused to eavesdrop on their conversation—Ezio, because any information he could glean about the city would be of interest to him.
“My father cannot cope with all this crime,” the husband was saying. “He’ll have to shut up shop if it gets any worse.”
“It will pass,” his wife replied. “Maybe when the sultan returns.”
“Hah!” rejoined the man sarcastically. “Bayezid is weak. He turns a blind eye to the Byzantine upstarts, and look what the result is—kargasa!”
His wife shushed him. “You should not say such things!”
“Why not? I tell only the truth. My father is an honest man, and thieves are robbing him blind.”
Ezio interrupted them. “Excuse me—I couldn’t help overhearing—”
The man’s wife shot her husband a look: You see?
But the man turned to Ezio and addressed him. “Affedersiniz, efendim. I can see you are a traveler. If you are staying in the city, please visit my father’s shop. His carpets are the best in all the empire, and he will give you a good price.” He paused. “My father is a good man, but thieves have all but destroyed his business.”
The husband would have said more, but his wife hastily dragged him away.
Ezio exchanged a look with his companion, who had just accepted a glass of sharbat brought to him by what looked like a valet. He raised his glass. “Would you care for o
ne? It’s very refreshing, and it will be a while yet before we dock.”
“That would be excellent.”
The young man nodded at his servant, who withdrew. In the meantime, a group of Ottoman soldiers passed by, on their way home from a tour of duty in the Dodecanese, and talking of the city they were returning to.
Ezio nodded to them and joined them for a moment, while the young man turned his face away and stood aloof, making notes in his little ivory-bound book.
“What I want to know is, what are these Byzantine thugs holding out for?” one of the soldiers asked. “They had their chance once. They nearly destroyed this city.”
“When Sultan Mehmed rode in, there were fewer than forty thousand people living here, and living in squalor,” put in another.
“Aynen oyle!” said a third. “Exactly so! And now look at the city. Three hundred thousand inhabitants, and flourishing again for the first time in centuries. We have done our part.”
“We made this city strong again. We rebuilt it!” said the second soldier.
“Yes, but the Byzantines don’t see it that way,” rejoined the first. “They just cause trouble, every chance they get.”
“How may I recognize them?” Ezio asked.
“Just stay clear of any mercenaries you see wearing a rough, reddish garb,” said the first soldier. “They are Byzantines. And they do not play nice.”
The soldiers moved off then, called by an NCO to ready themselves for disembarking. Ezio’s young man was standing at his elbow. At the same moment, his valet reappeared with Ezio’s sharbat.
“So you see,” said the young man. “For all its beauty, Kostantiniyye is not, after all, the most perfect place in the world.”
“Is anywhere?” Ezio replied.
SEVENTEEN
Their ship had docked, and passengers and crew scrambled about, getting in each other’s way, as mooring ropes were thrown to men on the quayside and gangplanks were lowered.
Ezio had returned to his cabin to collect his saddlebags—all that he carried. He’d know how to get what he needed once he was ashore. His young companion’s servant had arranged three leather-bound trunks on the deck, and they awaited porters to carry them ashore. Ezio and his new friend prepared to take leave of one another.
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