'The Pazzi broke in from the rear and opened the doors from within. But our men inside the palazzo are keeping them off. They haven't got beyond the courtyard. With luck we'll be able to hem them in!'
'Is there news of Francesco de' Pazzi?'
'He and his men are holding the back entrance of the Palazzo. If we could gain control of that we'd have them trapped for sure.'
Ezio turned to his men. 'Let's go!' he shouted.
They rushed across the square and down the narrow street which ran along the north wall of the palazzo, where a very different Ezio had climbed to his father's cell window long ago, and, taking the first right from it, quickly encountered the Pazzi troop under Francesco guarding the rear entrance.
They were immediately on their guard, and when Francesco recognized Ezio he cried, 'You again! Why aren't you dead yet? You murdered my son!'
'He tried to murder me!'
'Kill him! Kill him now!'
The two sides engaged fiercely, hacking and cutting at each other in near-desperate fury, for the Pazzi knew full well how important it was to protect their line of retreat. Ezio, cold rage in his heart, muscled his way towards Francesco, who took a stand with his back to the palazzo door. The sword Ezio had taken from the Medici armoury was well balanced and its blade was of Toledo steel, but the weapon was unfamiliar to him and, as a consequence, his blows were a fraction less effective than he'd normally inflict. He had maimed rather than killed the men who had stood in his way. This Francesco had noticed.
'You think yourself a master swordsman now, do you, boy? You can't even make a clean kill. Let me give you a demonstration.'
They fell on each other then, sparks flying from their blades as they clashed; but Francesco had less room to manoeuvre than Ezio and, twenty years his senior, was beginning to tire, even though he had seen less action that day than his opponent.
'Guards!' he cried at last. 'To me!'
But his men had fallen back before the Medici onslaught. He and Ezio now faced each other alone. Francesco looked desperately around for a means of retreat himself, but there was none save through the palazzo itself. He threw open the door behind him and went up a stone staircase that ran up the inside wall. Ezio realized that as most of the Medici defenders would be concentrated at the front of the building where most of the fighting was, they probably didn't have enough men to cover the rear as well. Ezio raced up after him to the second floor.
The rooms here were deserted, since all the occupants of the palazzo, save for half a dozen frightened clerks who ran away as soon as they saw them, were down below, fighting to contain the Pazzi in the courtyard. Francesco and Ezio fought their way through the gilded, high-ceilinged staterooms until they reached a balcony high above the Piazza della Signoria. The noise of battle reached up to them from below, and Francesco called out hopelessly for aid, but there was no one to hear him, and his last retreat was cut off.
'Stand and fight,' said Ezio. 'It's just us now.'
'Maledetto!'
Ezio slashed at him, drawing blood from his left arm. 'Come on, Francesco, where's all the courage you showed when you had my father killed? When you stabbed Giuliano this morning?'
'Get the hell away from me, you spawn of the devil!' Francesco lunged, but he was tiring, and his aim went far too wide. He staggered forwards, his balance thrown, and Ezio stood deftly aside, raising his foot and bringing it firmly down on Francesco's sword blade, pulling the man down with it.
Before Francesco could recover, Ezio stamped on his hand, making him let go of the hilt, grabbed him by the shoulder and heaved him over on to his back. As he struggled to get up, Ezio kicked him brutally in the face. Francesco's eyes rolled as he struggled into unconsciousness. Ezio knelt down and proceeded to frisk the old man while he was half-awake, ripping off body-armour and his doublet, revealing the pale, wiry body beneath. But there were no documents, nothing of importance on him. Just a handful of florins in his purse.
Ezio flung aside his sword and released his spring-blade dagger. He knelt, put an arm under Francesco's neck and pulled him up so that their faces were almost touching.
Francesco's eyelids flickered open. His eyes expressed horror and fear. 'Spare me!' he managed to croak.
At that moment a great cry of victory rose from the courtyard below. Ezio listened to the voices, and caught enough to understand that the Pazzi had been routed. 'Spare you?' he said. 'I'd as soon spare a rabid wolf.'
'No!' shrieked Francesco. 'I beg you!'
'This is for my father,' said Ezio, stabbing him in the gizzard. 'And this is for Federico,' stabbing him again, 'And this for Petruccio; and this for Giuliano!'
Blood spurted and streamed from Francesco's wounds and Ezio was covered in it, but he would have gone on stabbing the dying man if Mario's words had not then come back to him: 'Do not become the man he was.' He sank back on to his heels. Francesco's eyes still glittered, though their light was fading. He was muttering something. Ezio leaned low to listen.
'A priest. a priest. for pity's sake, fetch me a priest.'
Ezio was deeply shocked, now that the fury within him had abated, at the savagery with which he had killed. This was not in accordance with the Creed. 'There is no time,' he said. 'I will have a Mass said for your soul.'
Francesco's throat was rattling now. Then his limbs stiffened and shook as he reached his death throes, his head arching back, his mouth open wide as he fought the last impossible battle with the invincible foe whom we all have to face one day; and he sank down, an empty bag, a slight, shrunken, pallid thing.
'Requiescat in pace,' murmured Ezio.
Then a new roar arose from the square. Across from the south-west corner fifty or sixty men came running, led by a man Ezio recognized - Francesco's uncle, Jacopo! They bore the Pazzi banner aloft.
'Liberta! Liberta! Popolo e liberta!' they shouted as they came. At the same time the Medici forces streamed out of the palazzo to meet them, but they were tired and, as Ezio could see, outnumbered.
He turned back to the body. 'Well, Francesco,' he said. 'I think I have found one way in which you can repay your debt, even now.' Quickly, he reached under the corpse's shoulders, hoisted it up - it was surprisingly light - and carried it to the balcony. Here, finding a lanyard from which a banner hung, he used the length of rope to fasten around the old man's lifeless neck. He quickly attached the other end to a sturdy stone column, and, summoning up all his strength, raised it high, then tossed it over the parapet. The rope paid out, but suddenly jerked taut with a snap. Francesco's limp body hung, toes pointing listlessly at the ground far below.
Ezio hid himself behind the column, 'Jacopo!' he called in a voice of thunder. 'Jacopo de' Pazzi! Look! Your leader is dead! Your cause is finished!'
Below, he could see Jacopo look up, and falter. Behind him, his men, too, hesitated. The Medici troops had followed his gaze, and now, cheering, they were closing in. But the Pazzi had already broken ranks - and were fleeing. In a matter of days, it was all over. The power of the Pazzi in Florence was broken. Their goods and property were seized, their coats-of-arms torn down and trampled. Despite Lorenzo's appeals for mercy, the Florentine mob hunted down and killed every Pazzi sympathizer they could find, though some of the principals had fled. Only one who was captured obtained clemency - Raffaele Riario, a nephew of the Pope, whom Lorenzo considered to be too credulous and ingenuous to have had any serious involvement, though many of the Duke's advisers thought that Lorenzo was showing more humanity than political astuteness in his decision.
Sixtus IV was furious, nevertheless, and placed Florence under an interdict, but he was powerless otherwise, and the Florentines shrugged him off.
As for Ezio, he was one of the first to be summoned to the Duke's presence. He found Lorenzo standing on a balcony overlooking the Arno, watching the water. His wounds were still bandaged but they were healing, and the pallor had left his
cheeks. He stood proud and tall, and fully the man who had earned the soubriquet Florence had bestowed on him - Il Magnifico.
After they had greeted one another, Lorenzo gestured towards the river. 'Do you know, Ezio, when I was six years old, I fell into the Arno. I soon found myself drifting down and into darkness, certain that my life was at an end. Instead, I woke to the sound of my mother weeping. At her side stood a stranger, soaking wet and smiling.
