FORTY-TWO
Ezio arrived at the Castel Sant’Angelo to find that a crowd had gathered on the opposite bank of the Tiber. Blending in with the gathered masses, he made his way to the front and saw that the French troops guarding the bridge that led to the Castel, and the Castel itself, were in total disarray. Some soldiers were already packing up their equipment, while officers and others moved frantically among them, issuing orders to unpack again. Some of the orders were contradictory, and here and there fights had broken out as a result. The Italian crowd was watching, Ezio noted, with quiet pleasure. Though he carried his own clothes in a satchel slung over his shoulder, he had taken the precaution of once again donning the French uniform he had saved from the attack on the Castra Praetoria, and he now shed the cloak he’d been wearing to cover it and walked quickly onto the bridge. No one paid him any attention, but as he passed among the French troops, he gleaned useful snippets of conversation.
“When are we expecting the attack from d’Alviano and his mercenaries?”
“They say he’s on his way now.”
“Then why are we packing? Are we retreating?”
“I hope so!
A private spotted Ezio. “Sir! Sir! What are our orders?”
“I’m on my way to see,” replied Ezio.
“Sir!”
“What is it?”
“Who’s in charge now, sir? Now that General Valois is dead?”
“No doubt the king is sending a replacement.”
“Is it true, sir—that he died valorously in battle?”
Ezio smiled to himself. “Of course it’s true. At the head of his men.”
He moved on, toward the Castel itself.
Once within, he found his way up to the ramparts and from this vantage point looked down to the courtyard, where he spotted Cesare himself, talking to a captain of the Papal Guard posted at the door of the inner citadel.
“I need to see the Pope!” Cesare was saying, urgently. “I need to see my father
“Of course, Your Grace. You will find His Holiness in his private apartments at the top of the Castel.”
“Then get out of my way, you fool!” Cesare thrust past the hapless captain as the latter gave hasty orders for a wicket gate in the main door to be opened to admit him. Ezio watched for a moment, then made his way around the circumference of the Castel until he came to the place where the secret gate was located. He dropped to the ground and let himself through the gate with Pietro’s key.
Once inside, he looked around warily, then, seeing no one, he dived down a stairway in the direction of the cells from which, an age ago, it seemed, he’d rescued Caterina Sforza. Finding a quiet spot, he swiftly shed the French lieutenant’s uniform and changed back into his own clothes, which were designed for the work he had to do. He checked his weapons quickly, strapping on the bracer and the poison-blade and confirming that he had a supply of poison darts safely stowed in his belt. Then, hugging the walls, he made off in the direction of the stairway that led to the top of the Castel. But these were guarded and he had to send three guards to their Maker before he could proceed.
At last he arrived at the garden where he had watched Lucrezia and her lover keep their tryst. In daylight he could see that her apartments were part of a complex. Larger and even grander ones stood beyond, and he guessed these to be the Pope’s. But as he was making in that direction he was interrupted by a conversation coming from within Lucrezia’s rooms. He made his way stealthily to the open window where the voices were coming from and listened. He could just see Lucrezia, apparently none the worse for wear after her ordeal in the cells, talking to the same attendant he’d seen her entrust with the information about her affair with Pietro, which he had passed on to her jealous brother—with evident success, to judge by Cesare’s fast return to Rome.
“I don’t understand it,” Lucrezia was saying irritably. “I ordered a fresh batch of cantarella only last night. Toffana was to have delivered it to me personally by noon. Did you see her? What’s going on?”
“I’m terribly sorry,
“That old bastard. Where is he?”
“In his rooms. Madonna. There’s a meeting—”
“A meeting? With whom?”
The attendant hesitated. “With Cesare, Madonna.”
Lucrezia took this in, then said, half to herself: “That’s strange. My father didn’t tell me Cesare was back here again.”
Deep in thought, she left the room.
Alone, the attendant started to tidy up, rearranging tables and chairs while muttering under his breath.
Ezio waited a moment to see if there would be any more information useful to him, but all the attendant said was, “That woman gives me so much trouble…Why didn’t I stay in the stables, where I was well off? Call this a promotion?! I put my head on the block every time I run an errand.
“What a family!” he added.
FORTY-THREE
But Ezio had left before he could hear those last words. He slipped through the garden toward the Pope’s apartments and, since the single entrance was heavily guarded and he did not want to draw attention to himself—it wouldn’t be long before the bodies of the guards he’d killed downstairs were discovered—he found a place where he could climb to one of the principal windows of the building unobtrusively. His hunch that this would be a window giving on to the Pope’s principal chamber paid off, and it had a broad external sill on one end of which he could perch out of sight. Using the blade of his dagger, he was able to pry a sidelight open a fraction, so that he could hear anything that might be said.
Rodrigo—Pope Alexander VI—was alone in the room, standing by a table on which sat a large silver bowl full of red and yellow apples, whose position he adjusted nervously just as the door opened and Cesare entered, unannounced. He was clearly angry, and without any preamble he launched into a bitter diatribe.
“What the hell is going on?” he began.
“I don’t know what you mean,” replied his father, with reserve.
“Oh, yes, you do! My funds have been cut off, and my troops dispersed.”
“Ah. Well, you know that after your banker’s tragic…demise, Agostino Chigi took over all his affairs…”
Cesare laughed mirthlessly. “
“Financial difficulties strike all of us from time to time, my boy, even those of us with armies and overweening ambition.”
“Are you going to get Chigi to release money for me or not?”
“No.”
“We’ll see about that!” Angrily, Cesare snatched an apple from the bowl. Ezio saw that the Pope was watching his son carefully.
“Chigi won’t help you,” said the Pope levelly. “And he’s too powerful for even you to bend to your will.”
“In that case,” said Cesare, sneering, “I’ll use the Piece of Eden to get what I want. It will render your help unnecessary.” He bit into the apple with a mean smile.
“That has been made abundantly clear to me already,” said the Pope drily. “By the way, I suppose you are
