there in his encampment, calling mournfully, 'Bianca! Bianca! Where are you?'
'Who's he after?' Ezio asked a sergeant-at-arms. 'She must be worth a lot to him.'
'She is, Signore,' grinned the sergeant. 'And far more reliable than most of her sex.'
Ezio ran to catch up with his new ally. 'Is everything all right?'
'What do you think? Look at the state of this place! And poor Bianca! If something's happened to her.'
The big man shouldered a door, already half off its hinges, on to the ground and entered a bunker which, from the look of it, must have been a map-room before the attack. The valuable maps had been mutilated or stolen, but Bartolomeo sifted through the wreckage until, with a cry of triumph -
'Bianca! Oh, my darling! Thank God you're all right!'
He had pulled a massive greatsword clear of the rubble and brandished it, roaring, 'Aha! You are safe! I never doubted it! Bianca! Meet. What's your name again?'
'Auditore, Ezio.'
Bartolomeo looked thoughtful. 'Of course. Your reputation goes before you, Ezio.'
'I am glad of it.'
'What brings you here?'
'I too have business with Silvio Barbarigo. I think he's outstayed his welcome in Venice.'
'Silvio! That turd! He needs flushing down a fucking latrine!'
'I thought I might be able to rely on your help.'
'After that rescue? I owe you my life, let alone my help.'
'How many men do you have?'
'How many survivors here, Sergeant-at-Arms?'
The sergeant-at-arms Ezio had spoken to earlier came running up and saluted. 'Twelve, Capitano, including you and me, and this gentleman here.'
'Thirteen!' shouted Bartolomeo, waving Bianca.
'Against a good two hundred,' said Ezio. He turned to the sergeant-at-arms. 'And how many of your men did they take prisoner?'
'Most of them,' the man replied. 'The attack took us completely by surprise. Some fled, but Silvio's men took far more away with them in chains.'
'Look, Ezio,' said Bartolomeo. 'I'm going to supervise rounding up the rest of my men who are at liberty. I'll get this place cleaned up and bury my dead and we'll regroup here. Do you think in the meantime you can see to the business of liberating the men Silvio's taken prisoner? Since that's a thing you seem to be very good at?'
'Intensi.'
'Get back here with them as soon as you can. Good luck!'
Ezio, his Codex weapons buckled on, headed westward again towards the Arsenal but wondered if Silvio would have kept all Bartolomeo's men prisoner there. He hadn't seen any of them when he had gone to rescue their Captain. At the Arsenal itself he stuck to the shadows of the falling night and tried to listen to the conversations of the guards stationed along the perimeter walls.
'Have you ever seen bigger cages?' said one.
'No. And the poor bastards are crammed into them like sardines. I don't think Captain Barto would have treated us like that, if he'd been the victor,' said his comrade.
'Of course he would. And keep your noble thoughts to yourself, if you want to keep your head on your shoulders. I say finish them off. Why don't we just lower the cages into the basins, and drown the lot of them?'
At that, Ezio tensed. There were three huge rectangular basins inside the Arsenal, each designed to hold thirty galleys. They were on the north side of the complex, surrounded by thick brick walls and covered by heavy wooden roofs. Doubtless the cages - larger versions of the one which had imprisoned Bartolomeo - were suspended by chains over the water in one or more of the bacini.
'One hundred and fifty trained men? That'd be a waste. For my money, Silvio's hoping to turn them to our cause,' said the second uniform.
'Well, they're mercenaries like us. So why not?'
'Right! They just need to be softened up a little first. Show them who's boss.'
'Spero di si.'
'Thank God they don't know their boss has escaped.'
The first guard spat. 'He won't last long.'
Ezio left them and made his way to the wicket gate he'd discovered earlier. There was no time to wait for any changing of the guard, but he could judge the time by the distance of the moon from the horizon and he knew he had a couple of hours. He flicked the spring-blade out - his original Codex weapon and still his favourite - and slashed open the throat of the fat old guard Silvio had seen fit to put on duty alone there, pushing him clear before any of the man's blood could get on to his clothes. Quickly he wiped the blade clean on the grass and exchanged it for his poison-blade. He made the sign of the Cross over the body.
The compound within the walls of the Arsenal looked different by the light of a sickle moon and a few stars, but Ezio knew where the basins were located and went, skirting the walls and keeping an ever-watchful eye out for Silvio's men, to the first one. He peered through the great open arches into the watery gloom beyond, but could see nothing but galleys bobbing gently in the half-light of the stars. The second bore the same fruit, but as he approached the third he heard voices.
'It's not too late for you to pledge yourselves to our cause. Only say the word and you'll be spared,' one of the Inquisitor's sergeants was calling in a mocking tone.
Ezio, pressing himself against the wall, saw a dozen troops, weapons laid down, bottles in their hands, gazing up into the gloom of the roof, where three massive iron cages were suspended. He saw that an invisible mechanism was slowly lowering the cages towards the water beneath. And there were no galleys in this basin. Only black, oily water, in which something unseen but frightful teemed.
The Inquisitor's guards included one man who wasn't drinking, a man who seemed constantly on the alert, a huge, terrible man. Ezio instantly recognized Dante Moro! So, with the death of his master Marco, the man- mountain had transferred his allegiance to the cousin, Silvio, the Inquisitor, who had already professed his admiration for the massive bodyguard.
Ezio made his way cautiously round the walls until he came to a large open-frame box containing an arrangement of cog-wheels, pulleys and ropes that might have been designed by Leonardo. This was the mechanism, driven by a water-clock, which was lowering the cages. Ezio drew his ordinary dagger from its sheath on the left-hand side of his belt and jammed it between two of the cogwheels. The mechanism stopped, and not before time, for the cages were now inches from the water's surface. But the guards instantly noticed that the cages' descent had ceased, and some came running towards the machinery that controlled it. Ezio sprang out his poison-blade and hacked at them as they came. Two fell into the water from the jetty and screamed, briefly, sinking into the oily black water. Meanwhile, Ezio raced along the perimeter of the basin towards the others, all of whom fled in alarm save Dante, who stood his ground and loomed like a tower over Ezio.
'Silvio's dog now, are you?' said Ezio.
'Better a live dog than a dead lion,' said Dante, reaching out to cuff Ezio into the water.
'Stand down!' said Ezio, ducking the blow. 'I have no quarrel with you!'
'Oh, shut your face,' said Dante, picking Ezio up by the scruff of the neck and bashing him against the wall of the basin. 'I have no serious quarrel with you, either.' He could see that Ezio was stunned. 'Just stay there. I must go and warn my master, but I'll be back to feed you to the fishes if you give me any more trouble!'
And he was gone. Ezio shook his head to clear it, and stood up, groggily. The men in the cages were shouting and Ezio saw that one of Silvio's guards had crept back in and was about to dislodge the dagger he'd jammed in the cage-lowering mechanism. He thanked God he had not forgotten his old knife-throwing skills learned at Monteriggioni, produced a knife from his belt, and hurled it with deadly accuracy. The guard stumbled over, groaning, snatching helplessly at the blade which was buried between his eyes.
Ezio snatched a gaff from a rack on the wall behind him, and, leaning over the water dangerously, deftly hauled the nearest cage towards him. Its door was closed by a simple bolt and he shot it back, releasing the men inside, who tumbled out on to the wharf. With their help, he was able to haul in the remaining cages and release
