Renaissance

24

The monk who welcomed Ezio at the Wetlands Abbey was as monks should be - plump and rubicund, but he had flaming red hair and puckish, shrewd eyes, and spoke with an accent Ezio recognized from some of the condottieri he'd encountered in Mario's service - the man was from Ireland.

'Blessings on you, brother.'

'Grazie, Padre -'

'I am Brother O'Callahan -'

'I wonder if you can help me?'

'That's why we are here, brother. Of course, we live in troubled times. It's hard to think straight without something in our stomachs.'

'You mean something in your coin-purse.'

'You take me wrong. I'm not asking you for anything.' The monk spread his hands. 'But the Lord helps the generous.'

Ezio shook out some florins and passed them across. 'If it's not enough.'

The monk looked reflective. 'Ah, well, the thought is there. But the truth is that the Lord actually helps the slightly more generous.'

Ezio continued shaking out coins until Brother O'Callahan's expression cleared. 'The Order appreciates your open-handedness, brother.' He folded his hands on his belly. 'What do you seek?'

'A black-hooded monk - who lacks one of his ten fingers.'

'Hmmn. Brother Guido has only nine toes. Are you sure it wasn't a toe?'

'Quite sure.'

'And then there's Brother Domenico, but it's his entire left arm he's lacking.'

'No. I'm sorry, but I'm quite sure it was a finger.'

'Hmmn.' The monk paused, deep in thought. 'Now, wait a moment! I do recall a black-cowled monk with only nine fingers. Yes! Of course! It was when we had our last San Vicenzo's Feast at our abbey in Tuscany.'

Ezio smiled. 'Yes, I know the place. I'll try there. Grazie.'

'Go in peace, brother.'

'I always do.' Ezio crossed the mountains westwards into Tuscany, and though the journey was a long and difficult one, as autumn approached and the days became unkinder, he felt his greatest trepidation when he approached the abbey - for it was the place where one of those implicated in the plot to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici - Jacopo de' Pazzi's secretary, Stefano de Bagnone - had met his end at Ezio's hands long ago.

It was unfortunate that the abbot who greeted him here was one who had been a witness to that killing.

'Excuse me,' Ezio said to him first. 'I wonder if you can -'

But the abbot, recognizing him, drew back in horror, and cried, 'May all the Archangels - Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Saraquel, Gabriel, Remiel and Raguel - may they all in their Mightiness protect us!' He turned his blazing eyes from heaven to Ezio. 'Unholy Demon! Begone!'

'What's the matter?' said Ezio, in consternation.

'What's the matter? What's the matter? You are the one who murdered Brother Stefano. On this Holy Ground!' A nervous group of brothers had gathered at a safe distance, and the abbot now turned to them. 'He has returned! The killer of monks and priests has returned!' he pronounced in a voice of thunder, and then took flight, followed by his flock.

The man was clearly in a state of high panic. Ezio had no choice but to give chase. The abbey was not as familiar to him as to the Abbot and his troop of monks. At last he tired of hurtling round unfamiliar stone corridors and cloisters, and leapt to the rooftops to get a better view of where the monks were headed, but this only threw them into a greater panic, and they started to scream, 'He's come! He's come! Beёlzebub is come!' and so he desisted and stuck to conventional means of pursuit.

Finally, he caught up with them. Panting, the Abbot rounded on him and croaked: 'Begone, demon! Leave us alone! We have done no sin so great as thine!'

'No, wait, listen,' panted Ezio, almost equally out of breath. 'I just want to ask you a question.'

'We have called down no demons upon us! We seek no journey to the Afterlife just yet!'

Ezio placed his palms downwards. 'Please. Calma! I wish you no harm!'

But the Abbot wasn't listening. He rolled his eyes. 'My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? I'm not yet ready to join your angels!'

And he took to his heels again.

Ezio was obliged to bring him down in an arms-to-feet tackle. They both got up, dusting themselves down in the middle of a circle of goggling monks.

'Stop running away, please!' pleaded Ezio.

The Abbot cowered. 'No! Have mercy! I don't want to die!' he burbled.

Ezio, conscious that he was sounding prim, said: 'Look, Father Abbot, I only kill those who kill others. And your Brother Stefano was a killer. He tried to murder Duke Lorenzo in 1478.' He paused, breathing heavily. 'Be reassured, Messer Abate, I'm certain you are no such thing as a murderer.'

The Abbot's look became a trace calmer, but there was still suspicion in his eyes.

'What do you want, then?' he said.

'All right, now, listen to me. I'm looking for a monk dressed like you are - a Dominican - who is missing a finger.'

The Abbot looked wary. 'Missing a finger, do you say? Like Fra' Savonarola?'

Ezio seized on the name. 'Savonarola? Who is he? Do you know him?'

'I did, Messer. He was one of us. for a time.'

'And then?'

The Abbot shrugged. 'We suggested he take a nice long rest at a hermitage in the mountains. He didn't quite. fit in here.'

'It seems to me, Abate, that his time as a hermit may be over. Do you know where he may have gone now?'

'Oh dear me.' The Abbot searched his mind. 'If he's left the hermitage, it may be that he has returned to Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence. It's where he studied. Perhaps that's where he'd go back to.'

Ezio breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank you, Abbot. Go with God.' It was strange for Ezio to be in his home town again, after so long. There were many memories to deal with. But circumstances dictated that he work alone. He could not contact even old friends or allies, lest the enemy were alerted.

It was also clear that even if the city remained stable, the church, at least, which he sought, was in turmoil. A monk came running from it in fear.

He accosted the monk. 'Whoa, there, Brother. It's all right!'

The monk looked at him, wild-eyed. 'Stay away, my friend. If you value your life!'

'What's happened here?'

'Soldiers from Rome have seized our church! They've scattered my brothers, asking questions that make no sense. They keep demanding that we give them fruit!'

'What kind of fruit?'

'Apples!'

'Apples? Diavolo! Rodrigo has got here before me!' hissed Ezio to himself.

'They've dragged one of my fellow Carmelites behind the church! I'm sure they're going to kill him!'

'Carmelites? You are not Dominicans?' Ezio left the man, and made his way carefully round the outer walls of Santa Maria, hugging them. He moved as stealthily as a mongoose confronting a cobra. When he reached the walls of the church's garden, he skimmed to the roof. What he saw below him took even his experienced breath away. Several Borgia guards were beating the shit out of a tall young monk. He looked about thirty- five years old.

'Tell us!' cried the leader of the guards. 'Tell us, or I will make you hurt so badly you'll wish you'd never been born. Where is the Apple?'

'Please! I don't know! I don't know what you're talking about!'

The lead guard leaned in close. 'Confess! Your name is Savonarola!'

'Yes! I told you! But you beat the name out of me!'

'Then tell us and your suffering will cease. Where the fuck is the Apple?' The interrogator kicked the monk savagely in the crotch. The monk howled in pain. 'Not that that'll make much difference to a man in your missionary position,' jeered the guard.

Ezio watched, deeply concerned. If this monk was indeed Savonarola, the Borgia thugs might kill him before he himself got the truth out of the man.

'Why do you keep lying to me?' sneered the guard. 'My Master will not be pleased to hear you made me torture you to death! Do you want to get me into trouble?'

'I don't have any apple,' sobbed the monk. 'I'm just a simple friar. Please let me go!'

'In a pig's eye!'

'I know nothing!' the monk cried piteously.

'If you want me to stop,' shouted the guard, kicking him again in the same place, 'then tell me the truth, Brother Girolamo - Savonarola!'

The monk bit his lip, but stubbornly replied, 'I've told you everything I know!'

The guard kicked him again, and had his henchmen grab his ankles and drag the man mercilessly along the cobbled ground, his head bouncing painfully on the hard stone. The monk screamed, and struggled in vain.

'Had enough, you abominato?' The lead guard held his face close again. 'Are you so ready to meet your Maker, that you would lie again and again, just to see Him?'

'I am a plain monk,' wept the Carmelite, whose robes were dangerously similar in cut and colour to that of the Dominicans. 'I have no fruit of any kind! Please.'

The guard kicked him. In the same place. Again. The monk's body twisted in an agony beyond tears.

Ezio had had enough. He sprang down, a phantom of vengeance, slicing for once in pure rage with poison-dagger and double-blade. Within a minute of sheer slaughter, the Borgia thugs, all of them, lay either dead or groaning in the same agony they'd inflicted, on the flagstones of the courtyard.

The monk, weeping, clung to Ezio's knees: 'Grazie, grazie, Salvatore.'

Ezio stroked his head. 'Calma, calma. It will be all right now, my Brother.' But Ezio also looked at the monk's fingers.

All ten were intact.

'You have ten fingers,' he murmured, disappointed despite himself.

'Yes,' cried the monk. 'I have ten fingers. And I don't have any other apples than those that come to the monastery from the market every Thursday!' He stood up, shook himself down, tenderly readjusted himself, and swore. 'In the name of God! Has the whole world stopped making sense?'

'Who are you? Why did they take you?' asked Ezio.

'Because they found out that indeed my family name is Savonarola! But why should I betray my cousin to those thugs?'

'Do you know what he's done?'

'I know nothing! He is a monk, like me. He chose the harsher Order of the Dominicans, it is true, but -'

'He has lost a finger?'

'Yes, but how could anyone - ?' A kind of light was dawning in the monk's eyes.

'Who is Girolamo Savonarola?' persisted Ezio.

'My cousin, and a devoted man of God. And who, may I ask, are you, though I thank you humbly for my rescue, and owe you whatever favour you may ask?'

'I am. nameless,' said Ezio. 'But do me the favour of telling your name.'

'Fra' Marcello Savonarola,' the monk replied meekly.

Ezio took that in. His mind raced. 'Where is your cousin Girolamo?'

Fra' Marcello thought, struggling with his conscience. 'It is true that my cousin. has a singular view of how to serve God. He is spreading a doctrine of his own. You may find him now in Venice.'

'And what does he do there?'

Marcello straightened his shoulders. 'I think he has set off on the wrong path. He preaches fire and brimstone. He claims to see the future.' Marcello looked at Ezio through red-rimmed eyes, eyes full of agony. 'If you really want my opinion, he spews madness!'