Alberti was speaking again: 'The evidence against you has been amassed and examined. It is irrefutable. In the absence of any proof to the contrary, I am bound by my office to pronounce you and your accomplices, Federico and Petruccio, and - in absentia - your son Ezio - guilty of the crime you stand accused of.' He paused as the crowd once more fell silent. 'I hereby sentence you all to death, the sentence to be carried out immediately!'
The crowd roared again. At a signal from Alberti, the hangman prepared the nooses, while two of his assistants took first little Petruccio, who was fighting back tears, to the gallows. The rope was placed round his neck as he prayed rapidly and the attendant priest shook Holy Water on to his head. Then the executioner pulled a lever set into the scaffold, and the boy dangled, kicking the air until he was still. 'No!' mouthed Ezio, barely able to believe what he was seeing. 'No, God, please no!' But his words were choked in his throat, his loss overcoming all.
Federico was next, bellowing his innocence and that of his family, struggling in vain to break loose from the guards who wrestled him towards the gallows. Ezio, now beside himself, striving desperately forward again, saw a solitary tear roll down his father's ashen cheek. Aghast, Ezio watched as his older brother and greatest friend jolted at the rope's end - it took longer for him to leave the world than it had taken Petruccio, but at last he, too, was still, swaying from the gallows - you could hear the wooden crossbeam creak in the silence. Ezio fought with the disbelief within him - could this really be happening?
The crowd began to murmur, but then a firm voice stilled it. Giovanni Auditore was speaking. 'It is you who are the traitor, Uberto. You, one of my closest associates and friends, in whom I entrusted my life! And I am a fool. I did not see that you are one of them !' Here he raised his voice to a great cry of anguish and of rage. 'You may take our lives this day, but mark this -we will have yours in return!'
He bowed his head and fell silent. A deep silence, interrupted only by the murmured prayers of the priest, followed as Giovanni Auditore walked with dignity to the gallows and commended his soul to the last great adventure it would travel on.
Ezio was too shocked to feel grief at first. It was as if a great iron fist had slammed into him. But as the trap opened below Giovanni, he couldn't help himself. 'Father!' he cried, his voice cracking.
Instantly the Spaniard's eyes were on him. Was there something supernatural about the man's vision, to pick him out in such a throng? As if in slow motion, Ezio saw the Spaniard lean towards Alberti, whisper something, and point.
'Guards!' shouted Alberti, pointing as well. 'There! That's another one of them! Seize him!'
Before the crowd could react and restrain him, Ezio muscled through it to its edge, smashing his fists into anyone who stood barring his way. A guard was already waiting for him. He snatched at Ezio, pulling back his hood. Acting now on some instinctive drive within him, Ezio wrenched free and drew his sword with one hand, grabbing the guard by the throat with the other. Ezio's reaction had been far faster than the guard had anticipated, and before he could bring his arms up to defend himself Ezio tightened his grip on both throat and sword, and in one swift punching movement ran the guard through, slicing the sword in the body as he drew it out so that the man's intestines spilled from under his tunic on to the cobblestones. He threw the body aside and turned to the rostrum, fixing Alberti with his eye. 'I will kill you for this!' he screamed, his voice straining with hatred and rage.
But other guards were closing in. Ezio, his instinct for survival taking over, sped away from them, towards the comparative safety of the narrow streets beyond the square. To his dismay, he saw two more guards, swift of foot, rushing to cut him off.
They confronted each other at the edge of the square. The two guards faced him, blocking his retreat, the others closing in behind. Ezio fought them both frantically. Then an unlucky parry from one of them knocked his sword out of his hand. Fearing that this was the end, Ezio turned to flee from his attackers - but before he could find his feet, something astonishing happened. From the narrow street he was making for, and was within a few feet of, a roughly dressed man appeared. With lightning speed he came up on the two guards from behind, and, with a long dagger, cut deep under the pits of their sword arms, tearing through tendons and rendering them useless. He moved so fast that Ezio could scarcely follow his movements as he retrieved the young man's fallen sword and threw it to him. Ezio suddenly recognized him, and smelled once more the stench of onions and garlic. At that moment, damask roses couldn't have smelled sweeter.
'Get out of here,' said the man; and then he, too, was gone. Ezio plunged down the street, and ducked off it down alleys and lanes he knew intimately from his nightly forays with Federico. The hue and cry behind him faded. He made his way down to the river, and found refuge in a disused watchman's shack behind one of the warehouses belonging to Cristina's father.
In that hour Ezio ceased to be a boy and became a man. The weight of the responsibility he now felt he carried to avenge and correct this hideous wrong fell on his shoulders like a heavy cloak.
Slumping down on a pile of discarded sacks, he felt his whole body begin to shake. His world had just been torn apart. His father. Federico. and, God, no, little Petruccio. all gone, all dead, all murdered. Holding his head in his hands, he broke down - unable to control the pouring out of sorrow, fear and hatred. Only after several hours was he able to uncover his face - his eyes bloodshot and run through with an unbending vengeance. At that moment, Ezio knew his former life was over - Ezio the boy was gone for ever. From now, his life was forged for one purpose and one purpose alone - revenge. Much later in the day, knowing full well that the watch would still be out looking for him relentlessly, he made his way via back alleys to Cristina's family mansion. He didn't want to put her in any danger, but he needed to collect his pouch with its precious contents. He waited in a dark alcove that stank of urine, not moving even when rats scuttled at his feet, until a light in her window told him that she had retired for the night.
'Ezio!' she cried as she saw him on her balcony. 'Thank God you're alive.' Her face flooded with relief - but that was short-lived, grief taking over. 'Your father, and brothers.' She couldn't finish the sentence, and her head bowed.
Ezio took her in his arms, and for several minutes they just stood holding each other.
Finally, she broke away. 'You're mad! What are you still doing in Florence?'
'I still have matters to attend to,' he said grimly. 'But I cannot stay here long, it's too big a risk for your family. If they thought you were harbouring me -'
Cristina was silent.
'Give me my satchel and I'll be gone.'
She fetched it for him, but before she gave it to him said, 'What about your family?'
'That is my first duty. To bury my dead. I can't see them thrown into a lime-pit like common criminals.'
'I know where they have taken them.'
'How?'
'The town's been talking all day. But no one will be there now. They're down near the Porta San Niccolo, with the bodies of paupers. There's a pit prepared, and they're waiting for the lime-carts to come in the morning. Oh, Ezio - !'
Ezio spoke calmly but grimly. 'I must see to it that my father and my brothers have a fitting departure from this earth. I cannot offer them a Requiem Mass, but I can spare their bodies indignity.'
'I'll come with you!'
'No! Do you realize what it would mean if you were caught with me?'
Cristina lowered her eyes.
'I must see that my mother and sister are safe too, and I owe my family one more death.' He hesitated. 'Then I will leave. Perhaps for ever. The question is - will you come with me?'
She drew back, and he could see a host of conflicting emotions in her eyes. Love was there, deep and lasting, but he had grown so much older than she since they had first held each other in their arms. She was still a girl. How could he expect her to make such a sacrifice? 'I want to, Ezio, you don't know how much - but my family - it would kill my parents -'
Ezio looked at her gently. Though they were the same age, his recent experience had made him suddenly far more mature than she was. He had no family to depend on any more, just responsibility and duty, and it was hard. 'I was wrong to ask. And who knows, perhaps, some day, when all this is behind us -' He put his hands to his neck and from the folds of his collar withdrew a heavy silver pendant on a fine chain of gold. He took it off. The pendant bore a simple design - just the initial letter 'A' of his family name. 'I want you to have this. Take it, please.'
With trembling hands she accepted it, crying softly. She looked down at it, then up at him, to thank him, to
