Gradually, Ezio’s breathing calmed and leveled, and the aches in his muscles, forgotten in the crisis, began to return. But there was much to do before he could allow his body the rest it needed. What he had to do was feed it. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for nearly twenty-four hours.
He bandaged his grazed hands as well as he could, using a scarf drawn from within his tunic and tearing it in two, and cupped a palm to capture a trickle of water that was running off the rock against which his cheek was pressed. Partly assuaged, he pushed away from the surface he’d been leaning on and checked himself over. No broken bones, a slight sprain in the left side, where he’d been wounded, but nothing else, nothing serious.
He surveyed the scene. No one seemed to have set out in pursuit, but they would have watched his fall down the escarpment and his run across the collapsing bridge-perhaps they hadn’t noticed that he’d made it-perhaps they’d just assumed that he hadn’t. But he couldn’t discount the possibility that there’d be search parties out, if only to recover a body. The Templars would want to be quite sure that the Mentor of their archenemies was indeed dead.
He looked at the mountainside next to him. Better to climb than to use the path. He didn’t know where it led, and it was too narrow to afford him room to maneuver if he had to fight. And the mountain looked climbable. At the very least, he might be able to reach some pockets of snow and really slake his thirst. He shook himself, grunting, and set about his task.
He was glad that he was dressed in dark colors, for he had no need to make any effort to blend with the rock face he was crawling up. Handholds and footholds were easy to find at first though there were times when he had to stretch hard, times when his muscles shrieked in protest, and, once, a shard of rock flaked off in his hand, nearly causing him to crash back down the hundred feet or so he’d already covered. The worst thing-and the best-was the thin but constant stream of water that fell on him from above. The worst, because the wet rocks were slippery; the best, because a waterfall meant a creek-at the very least a creek-up above.
But half an hour’s climb brought him to the top of what turned out to be not a mountain but a cliff, since the ground he finally hauled himself up onto was level and covered with patches of rough, tussocky grass. A kind of all-but-barren Alpine meadow, bordered on two sides by more walls of black and grey rock, but opening westward quite some way, as far as Ezio could see. A mountain pass, except for the fact that, behind him, it led nowhere. Perhaps once, long ago, it had. An ancient earthquake might well have caused the cliffs he’d just climbed, and the gully into which the bridge had fallen.
Ezio sped to one side of the little valley to reconnoiter. Where there were passes, where there was water, there could also be people. He waited, near motionless, for another half an hour before venturing forward, shaking his muscles to keep them warm as they had begun to stiffen with the long period of immobility. He was wet, he was getting cold. He could not afford to be out there for too long. It was one thing to escape the Templars, but his effort would be wasted if he now fell victim to Nature.
He moved closer to the stream, locating it by the chuckling of its water. Stooping by its bank, he drank as much as he dared without glutting himself. He followed on. A few woody shrubs began to appear by its banks, and soon he came upon a stunted coppice by the side of a pool. There, he paused. It would be a miracle if there was anything living so high, so far from the village that squatted below the castle of Masyaf, any animal he could catch and eat; but if there was a pool, there was also the faintest chance that there might be fish.
He knelt and peered into the depths of the dark water. Still as a fishing heron, he disciplined himself to be patient. And then, at last, a ripple, a faint one, which disappeared as soon as it had unsettled the water’s surface, but enough to show him that there was something alive in there. He continued his watch. Little flies hovered low over the pool. Some flew over and harassed him, attracted by his body heat. Not daring to swat them away, he endured their tickling attentions and their tiny, vicious bites.
Then he saw it-a large, plump body, the color of a corpse, moving sluggishly six inches below the surface. Better than he’d dared hope-it looked like a carp, maybe, or something very like it. As he watched, another, much darker, joined it, and then a third, its scales coppery gold.
Ezio waited for them to do what he expected them to do-put their snouts to the surface and gulp air. That would be his moment. All his attention focused, he tensed his body and steeled his hands.
The dark fish made its move, bubbles erupted as a fat mouth appeared.
Ezio sprang.
And fell back, elated, the big fish wriggling frantically in his grasp but unable to slide out. He laid it on the ground beside him and dispatched it with a stone.
There was no way he could cook this. He’d have to eat it raw. But then he looked again at the stone he’d used to kill it and remembered the shard that had flaked off in his hand during his climb. Flint! With luck, he could start a fire-to dry his clothes as much as to cook with. Raw fish didn’t bother him-he’d read, besides, that somewhere in an unimaginable country far away to the east there was a people who actually regarded it as a delicacy. But wet clothing was quite another thing. As for the fire itself, he’d take the risk. From what he’d seen, he was probably the first human in this valley in a thousand years, and its towering sides hid it from view for miles.
He gathered together some brushwood from the coppice, and, after a few moments’ experiment, he had managed to start a tiny red glow in a handful of grass. Carefully, he placed it under a prepared tent of twigs, burning himself as his fire immediately flared. It burned well, giving off little smoke, and that was thin and light, immediately whisked into nothingness by the breeze
For the first time since his first sighting of Masyaf, Ezio smiled.
Despite the cold, to save time, he took off his clothes to dry them by the fire on rudimentary brushwood frames as the fish cooked and bubbled on a simple spit. Less than an hour later, the fire kicked out and its traces scattered, he felt a certain warmth in his belly and was able, soon afterward, to don garments which, if not laundry-fresh, were warm, and sufficiently dried for him to wear comfortably. They would have to finish drying as he wore them. As for his exhaustion, that would have to keep. He’d resisted the desire to sleep by the fire and the pool, a fight as tough as any he’d had on the road, but he was rewarded by a second wind.
He felt equal to the task of returning to the castle. He needed his gear, then he needed to unlock the secrets of the place if his quest was to mean anything.
As he retraced his steps, he noticed, shortly before he reached the cliff he’d climbed, that on the southern side of the valley another pathway led upward along the side of that rock face. Who had hewn these pathways? Men from the dawn of time? Ezio had no leisure to ponder this but was grateful that this one was there. It rose steeply eastward, back in the direction of Masyaf. Ezio started to climb.
After an ascent of some five hundred feet, the path ended on a narrow promontory, where a few foundation stones testified to the presence long ago of a lookout tower, where guards would have been able to scan the country around and give the castle advance warning of any approaching army or caravan. Looking eastward and down, the great complex of Masyaf, with its rearing walls and cupola’d towers, spread out beneath him. Ezio focused hard, and his eyes, as keen as an eagle’s, began to pick out the details that would help him return.
Far below, he discerned a rope bridge across the same chasm formerly spanned by the stone one he had run across. Near it was a guard post. There was no other access to the castle, as far as he could see, from the side he was on, but at the far side of the bridge, the way to the castle was relatively clear.
The way down to the bridge, on his side, was another matter. An all-but-sheer cascade of black rock-enough to daunt the surest-footed ibex. And it was in full view of the guard post on the castle side of the bridge.
Ezio looked at the sun. It was just past its zenith. He calculated it would take four to five hours to reach the castle. He needed to be inside before darkness fell.
He clambered down from the promontory and began his descent, taking it slowly, taking care not to dislodge the jumble of loose rocks, in case they tumbled down the mountainside and alerted the Templars guarding the bridge. It was delicate work, but the sun would be setting behind him and, therefore, shining in the eyes of any watchers below, and Ezio was grateful for its protection. He’d be down before it set behind the rock face he was on.
At last he reached the security and concealment of a large outcrop on level ground not fifty yards from the west side of the bridge. It had grown colder, and the wind was getting up. The bridge-of black-tarred rope, with narrow wooden slats as its walkway-swung and rattled. As Ezio watched, two guards emerged from the post and walked a little way to and fro on their side but did not venture onto the bridge itself. They were armed with crossbows and swords.
The light was dull and flat, it was difficult to judge distances. But the lessening light was to Ezio’s advantage, and he blended in easily with his surroundings. Like a shadow, crouching, he made his way closer to the bridge, but there would be no cover once he was on it, and he was unarmed.
He paused once more about ten feet away, watching the guards. They looked cold and bored, Ezio noted to his satisfaction-they would not be alert. Nothing else had changed except that someone had lit a lamp within the post, so he knew there were more than two of them.
But he needed some kind of weapon. On the climb down and on his final approach, he had been too preoccupied with not giving his position away to look for something, but he hadn’t forgotten that the mountain stone was flint, and there were plenty of loose shards at his feet. They glinted black in the dying light. He selected one with his eyes, a bladelike flake about twelve inches long and two wide. He picked it up and in doing so was too hasty, causing other stones to clatter. He froze.
But there was no reaction. The bridge was thirty yards across. He could be halfway, easily, before the guards noticed him. But he’d have to make a move immediately. He braced himself, stood up, and hurled himself forward.
But it wasn’t easy going once he was on the bridge. It swayed and creaked alarmingly in the now-savage wind, and he had to grab its guide ropes to retain his balance. All that cost time. And by then, the guards had seen him. They shouted challenges, which gained him a second or two, but seeing him come on, they unslung their bows, fitted bolts, and fired. As they did so, three more guards, bows already primed, came rushing out of the post.
The bad light affected their aim, but it was close enough, and Ezio had to duck and dodge. At one point in the middle of the bridge an old plank snapped under him, and his foot caught, but he managed to pull it free before his leg sank through the gap-then he would have been done for. As it was, he was lucky to be able to avoid more than a grazing shot as a bolt caressed his neck, ripping through the back of his hood. He could feel its heat on his skin.
They’d stopped firing, and were doing something else. Ezio strained to see.
Winches!
They had plenty of slack rope on the winches, and they were preparing to let it go, let it spin out as soon as they unlocked the winches. They could haul the bridge up again after they’d tumbled him into the gulf below.
Merda, Ezio thought, half-running, half-stumbling, forward. Twice in one day! With five yards to go, he threw himself into the air as the bridge fell away beneath him, sailing forward and landing on one guard, knocking another flat, plunging the flint blade into the first man’s neck and trying to bring it out again fast, but it broke off where it must have snagged on bone-then finding his feet, spinning around as he hauled the second guard, not yet recovered, roughly toward him, and swiftly drawing the man’s own sword, he pulled it back and ran him through with it.
The other three had abandoned their bows and drawn their own swords, penning him in with his back to the precipice. Ezio thought fast. He’d seen no other men around, no one had gone to raise the alarm; he’d have to finish these three, then get into the castle before anything was discovered. But the men were big, and they hadn’t been on guard; they were fresh and rested.
Ezio hefted the sword in his hand. He looked from one face to the other. But what was it he saw in their eyes? Fear? Was it fear?
“You Assassin dog!” one of them spat though his voice all but trembled. “You must be in league with the Devil!”
“If the Devil is anywhere, he’s with you,” snarled Ezio, throwing himself forward, knowing that he could take advantage of their fear, of their fear that he was in some way filled with a supernatural force. Se solo!
They closed then, shouting oaths so loudly that Ezio had to make haste to cut them down, to silence them. Their blows were wild and panicky, and the job was quickly done.
He dragged the bodies into the guard post, but there was no time to haul the bridge back up; besides, that was an impossible job for a man alone. Briefly, he considered changing clothes with one of the guards, but that might have wasted precious time, and the gathering darkness was on his side.
Ezio started up the path leading to the castle, grateful for the shadows that had begun to gather at its sides.
He reached the foot of its walls on its blind side, unmolested. The sun had all but set, only a red glow showing behind the distant cliffs and mountains to the west. It was cold, and the wind insistent. The castle, old as it was, had weathered stones and they afforded enough handholds and footholds for a climber who knew what he was doing. Ezio, keeping in mind a picture of the plan of the fortress, which he had studied in Rome, drew on the last reserves of his energy and began the ascent. One hundred feet, he calculated, and he’d be within the outer sanctum. After that, he knew where the connecting gates that led to the inner fortifications, the towers, and the keep were.
The climb was harder than he’d thought. His arms and legs ached, and he wished he had some kind of implement that would help extend his reach, one that could grip the holds inflexibly, extending the power of his hands. But he willed himself upward, and, as the last embers of sunset died behind the black ramparts of mountain, giving way to the first pale stars, Ezio dropped onto a walkway that ran a few feet below the crenellations of the Outer Wall. Fifty yards on either side of him were watchtowers, but the guards in them were looking out and down-there was a commotion, dimly heard, from the direction of the guardhouse by the bridge.
He raised his eyes to the keep tower. They would have stowed his kit-his precious saddlebags with his weapons-in the secure cellar storeroom below it.
He dropped from the walkway to the ground, always keeping to the shadows. He bore left, toward where he knew the gate giving access to the keep lay.