Brotherhood

FIFTY-ONE

“We’ve found Micheletto,” said La Volpe.

“Where?” Ezio’s voice was urgent.

“He’s holed up in Zagarolo, just to the east of here.”

“Let’s get him, then.”

“Not so fast. He’s got contingents from the Romagna towns still loyal to Cesare. He’ll put up a fight.”

“Let him!”

“We’ll have to organize.”

“Then let’s do it! Now!”

Ezio, with Machiavelli and La Volpe, summoned a meeting on Tiber Island that night. Bartolomeo was still in Ostia, watching the port, and Claudia was resting up at the Rosa in Fiore, tended by her ailing mother, after her terrible ordeal, but there were enough thieves and recruits to muster a force of one hundred men and women able to bear arms. There was no need of othercondottieri to back them up.

“He’s encamped in an old gladiatorial school, and he’s got maybe two hundred fifty men with him.”

“What does he intend to do?”

“No idea. Break out, head for safety in the north with the French, who knows?”

“Whatever his plans are, let’s nip them in the bud.”

By early dawn, Ezio had gathered a mounted force. They rode out the short distance to Zagarolo and surrounded Micheletto’s encampment by sunrise. Ezio bore his crossbow on one arm, over the bracer, and on the other, his poison-blade. There would be no quarter given, though he wanted to take Micheletto alive.

The defenders put up a fierce fight but, in the end, Ezio’s forces were victorious, scattering the diehards under Micheletto’s command like chaff.

Among the wounded, dead, and dying, Micheletto stood proud, defiant to the last.

“We take you, Micheletto Corella, as our prisoner,” said Machiavelli. “No more shall you infect our nation with your putrid schemes.”

“Chains will never hold me,” snarled Micheletto. “Any more than they will hold my master.”

They took him in chains to Florence, where he took up residence in the Signoria, in the very cell where Ezio’s father, Giovanni, spent his last hours. There, the governor of the city, Piero Soderini, together with his friend and adviser Amerigo Vespucci, and Machiavelli, interrogated him and put him to the torture, but they could get nothing out of him and so, for the moment, left him to rot. His day as a killer seemed done.

Ezio, for his part, returned to Rome.

“I know you are a Florentine at heart, Niccolò,” he told his friend at their parting. “But I shall miss you.”

“I am also an Assassin,” replied Machiavelli. “And my first loyalty will always be to the Brotherhood. You will let me know when you next have need of me and I will come to you without delay. Besides,” he added darkly, “I haven’t given up all hope of squeezing information out of this vile man.”

“I wish you luck,” said Ezio.

But he wasn’t so sure they’d break him. Micheletto was indeed an evil man; but he was also very strong willed.