Brotherhood

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. “Your banker! I might have known! And my men?”

“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 aware that General Valois is dead?”

Cesare’s smile disappeared in a flash. “No. I have only just returned to Rome.” His tone became threatening. “Did you—?”

The Pope spread his hands. “What possible reason could I have had to kill him? Or was he plotting against me, perhaps, with my own, dear, brilliant,treacherous captain-general?”

Cesare took another bite of the apple. “I do not have to stand for this!” he snarled as he chewed.

“If you must know, the Assassins murdered him.”

Cesare swallowed, his eyes wide. Then his face went dark with fury. “Why did you not stop them?”

“As if I could! It was your decision to attack Monteriggioni, not mine. It’s high time you took responsibility for your misdeeds—if it’s not too late.”

“Myactions, you mean,” replied Cesare proudly. “Despite the constant interference of failures like you!”

The younger man turned to go, but the Pope hurried around the table to block his way to the door.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Rodrigo growled. “And you are deluded.I have the Piece of Eden.”

“Liar! Get out of my way, you old fool!”

The Pope shook his head sadly. “I gave you everything I could—and yet it was never enough.”

At that instant, Ezio saw Lucrezia burst into the room, her eyes wild.

“Cesare!” she shrieked. “Be careful! He intends to poison you!”

Cesare froze. He looked at the apple in his hand, spitting out the chunk he had just bitten out, his expression a mask. Rodrigo’s own expression changed from one of triumph to one of fear. He backed away from his son, putting the table between them.

“Poison me?” said Cesare, his eyes boring into his father’s.

“You would not listen to reason!” stammered the Pope.

Cesare smiled as he advanced, very deliberately, on Rodrigo, saying, “Father. Dear Father. Do you not see? I control everything.All of it. If I want to live, despite your efforts, I shall live. And if there is anything— anything—I want, I take it!” He came close to the Pope and seized him by the collar, raising the poisoned apple in his hand. “For example, if I want you to die, you die!”

Pulling his father close he shoved the apple into his open mouth before he had time to close it, and, grabbing him by the head and jaw, forced his lips together and held them shut. Rodrigo struggled and choked on the apple, unable to breathe. He fell to the floor in agony and his two children coldly watched him die.

Cesare wasted no time; kneeling, he searched his dead father’s robes. There was nothing. He stood and bore down on his sister, who shrank from him.

“You—you must seek help. The poison is in you, too,” she cried.

“Not enough,” he barked hoarsely. “And do you think I am really such a fool as not to have taken a prophylactic antidote before coming here? I know what a devious old shit our father was, and how he’d react if he thought for a moment the real power was slipping away in my direction. Now, he said he had the Piece of Eden.”

“He—he—was telling the truth.”

Cesare slapped her. “Why was I not told?”

“You were away…he had it moved…he feared the Assassins might…”

Cesare slapped her again. “You plotted with him!”

“No! No! I thought he had sent messengers to tell you—”

“Liar!”

“I am telling the truth. I really thought you knew, or at least had been informed, of what he’d done.”

Cesare slapped her again, harder this time, so that she lost her balance and fell.

“Cesare!” she said as she struggled for breath, panic and fear in her eyes now. “Are you mad? I am Lucrezia! Your sister! Your friend! Your lover! Your queen!” And, rising, she put her hands timidly to his cheeks, to stroke them. His response was to grab her around the throat and shake her, as a terrier shakes a ferret.

“You’re nothing but a bitch!” He brought his face close to hers, thrusting it at her aggressively. “Now tell me,” he continued, his voice dangerously low. “Where. Is. It?”

Disbelief showed in her voice when she replied, gagging as she struggled to speak at all, “You…never loved me?”

His response was to let go of her throat and hit her again, this time close to the eye, with a closed fist.

“Where is the Apple?The Apple!” he screamed. “Tell me!”

She spat in his face and he grasped her arm and threw her to the floor, kicking her hard as he repeated his question, over and over again. Ezio tensed, forcing himself not to intervene though he was appalled at what he was witnessing. But he had to know the answer.

“All right! All right!” she said at last in a broken voice.

He pulled her to her feet and she placed her lips close to his ear, whispering, to Ezio’s fury.

Satisfied, Cesare pushed her away. “Smart decision, little sister.” She tried to cling to him but he pushed her away with a gesture of disgust and strode from the room.

As soon as he had gone, Ezio smashed through the window and landed close to Lucrezia, who, all the spirit apparently drained from her, slumped against the wall. Ezio quickly knelt by Rodrigo’s inert body and felt for his pulse.

There was none.

“Requiescat in pace,” whispered Ezio, rising again and confronting Lucrezia. Looking at him she smiled bitterly, a little of the fire back in her eyes at the sight of him.

“You were there? All the time?”

Ezio nodded.

“Good,” she said. “I know where the bastard is going.”

“Tell me.”

“With pleasure. Saint Peter’s. The pavilion in the courtyard…”

“Thank you, Madonna.”

“Ezio—”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”