wedding cakes on a table where there was nothing else to eat but stale bread.
The aggrandizement of the Church was confirmed, back at last from the papal exile at Avignon; and above all the Pope-the leading figure in the international world, outclassing not only kings, but the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian himself-had his seat in Rome again.
And hadn't it been Pope Alexander VI who'd divided, in his great judgment, the southern continent of the New Americas, through a vertical line, between the colonizing countries of Portugal and Spain by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the same year the New Disease broke out-for the first time in Italy-so badly in Naples? They called it the French disease-morbus gallicus. But everyone knew it'd come back from the New World with Columbus's bunch of Genoese sailors. It was an unpleasant affliction. People's faces and bodies bubbled morphews and boils, and in the last stages their faces were often pressed out of all recognizable shape.
And in Rome, the poor made do on barley and bacon-when they could get bacon. And the dirty streets harbored typhus, cholera, and the Black Death. As for the citizens-there were the ostentatiously rich, to be sure; but as for the rest, they looked like cowherds and lived as badly.
What a contrast to the gilded opulence of the Vatican! Rome, that great city, had become a rubbish heap of history. Along the filthy alleys that passed for streets, in which feral dogs and wolves now roamed, Ezio remembered churches, which today were falling apart, rotting refuse, deserted palaces that reminded him of the probable wreck (as his prophetic soul told him) of his own family seat in Florence.
'I must get up. I must find Messer Machiavelli!' said Ezio urgently, flinging the visions from his mind.
'All in good time,' replied his nurse. 'He left you a new suit of clothes. Put them on when you are ready.'
Ezio stood, and as he did so his head swam; but he shook himself to clear it. Then he donned the suit Machiavelli had left him-new linen, and a hood of soft wool with a peak like an eagle's beak. Strong, soft gloves and boots made of Spanish leather. He dressed himself, fighting the pain the effort caused him. When he was done, the woman guided him to a balcony. Ezio realized then that he had not been in some shrunken hovel, but in the remains of what had once been a great palace. They must have been on the piano nobile. He drew in his breath as he looked at the desolate wreck of a city spread out below him. A rat scuttled boldly over his feet. He kicked it away.
'Ah, Roma,' he said ironically.
'What's left of it,' the woman repeated, cackling again.
'Thank you, Madonna. To whom do I owe…?'
'I am the Contessa Margherita degli Campi,' she said, and in the dim light Ezio could see at last the fine lines of a face once beautiful. 'Or what's left of her.'
'Contessa,' Ezio said, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice, and bowed.
'The mausoleo is over there,' she replied, smiling and pointing. 'That is where you are to meet.'
'I can't see it.'
'In that direction. Unfortunately, you cannot see it from my palazzo.'
Ezio squinted into the dark. 'What about from the tower of that church?'
She looked at him. 'Santo Stefano's? Yes. But it's a ruin. The stairs to the tower have collapsed.'
Ezio braced himself. He needed to get to his meeting place as safely and as quickly as possible. He did not want to be delayed by the beggars, tarts, and muggers who infested the streets by day and even more by night.
'That should not be a problem,' he told the woman. 'Vi ringrazio di tutto quello che avete fatto per me, buona Contessa. Addio.'
'You are more than welcome,' she replied with a wry smile. 'But are you sure you are fit enough to go so soon? I think you should see a doctor. I'd recommend one, but I can't afford them anymore. I have cleaned and dressed your wound, but I am no expert.'
'The Templars don't wait, and nor can I,' he replied. 'Thank you again, and goodbye.'
'Go with God.'
He leapt from the balcony down to the street, wincing at the impact, and darted across the square dominated by the disintegrating palace in the direction of the church. Twice he lost sight of the tower and had to double back. Three times he was accosted by leprous beggars and once confronted a wolf, which slunk away down an alley with what may have been a dead child between its jaws, but at last he was in the open space before the church. It was boarded up, and the limestone saints that adorned its portal were deformed by neglect. He didn't know whether he could trust the rotten stonework, but there was nothing for it-he had to climb.
He managed it-though he lost his footing on several occasions and once his feet fell free over an embrasure that collapsed under them, leaving him hanging by the tips of his fingers. But he was still a very strong man, and he managed to haul himself up, out of danger-and at last he was on the top of the tower, perched on its lead roof. The dome of the mausoleum glinted dully in the moonlight several blocks away. He'd go there now and wait for Machiavelli to arrive.
He adjusted his hidden-blade and his sword and dagger, and was about to make a leap of faith down to a hay wain parked in the square below when his wound shrieked and he doubled up in pain.
'The contessa dressed my shoulder well, but she was right-I must see a doctor,' he said to himself.
Painfully he clambered down the tower to the street. He had no idea where to find a medico, so he first made his way to an inn, where he obtained directions in exchange for a couple of ducats; the money also bought him a beaker of filthy Sanguineus, which nevertheless assuaged his pain somewhat.
It was late by the time he reached the doctor's surgery. He had to knock several times, and hard, before there was a muffled response from within. Then the door opened a crack to reveal a fat, bearded man of about sixty, wearing thick eyeglasses. He looked the worse for wear and Ezio could smell drink on his breath. One eye seemed larger than the other.
'What do you want?' said the man.
'Are you Dottor Antonio?'
'And if I am…?'
'I need your help.'
'It's late,' said the doctor, but his eyes had wandered to the wound on Ezio's shoulder, and his eyes became-cautiously-more sympathetic. 'It'll cost extra.'
'I am not in a position to argue.'
'Good. Come in.'
The doctor unchained his door and stood aside. Ezio staggered gratefully into a hallway whose beams were hung with a collection of copper pots and glass vials, dried bats and lizards, mice and snakes.
The doctor ushered him through into an inner room with a huge desk untidily covered with papers, a narrow bed in one corner, a cupboard whose open doors revealed more vials, and a leather case, also open, containing a selection of scalpels and miniature saws.
The doctor followed Ezio's eyes and barked out a short laugh. 'We medici are just jumped-up mechanics,' he said. 'Lie down on the bed and I'll have a look. Before you do, it's three ducats-in advance.'
Ezio handed over the money.
The doctor undressed the wound and pushed and shoved so that Ezio virtually passed out with the pain.
'Hold still!' the doctor grumbled. He poked around some more, poured some stinging liquid from a flask over the wound, dabbed at it with a cotton wad, then produced some clean bandages and bound it back firmly.
'Someone your age cannot recover from a wound like this with medicine.' The doctor rummaged about in his cupboard and produced a vial of treacly looking stuff. 'But here's something to dull the pain. Don't drink it all at once. It's another three ducats, by the way. And don't worry. You'll heal over time.'
'Grazie, Dottore.'
'Four out of five doctors would have suggested leeches, but they haven't proven effective against this sort of wound. What is it? If they weren't so rare, I'd say it was from a gunshot. Come back if you need to. Or I can recommend several good colleagues around the city.'
'Do they cost as much as you do?'
Dr. Antonio sneered. 'My good sir, you've got off lightly.'
Ezio stomped out into the street. A light rain had begun to fall, and the streets were already turning sticky
