Revelations

SEVENTY-NINE

Ezio was quiet for much of the journey back to Constantinople. Sofia, remembering Selim’s dire warning, questioned the wisdom of his returning there at all, but he merely said, “There is still work to be done.”

She wondered about him-he seemed so withdrawn, almost ill. But when the golden domes and white minarets once again appeared on the northern seaboard, his spirits lifted, and she saw the old gleam back in his dark grey eyes.

They returned to her shop. It was almost unrecognizable. Azize had modernized it, and all the books were ranged neatly on their shelves, in impeccable order. Azize was almost apologetic when she handed Sofia back the keys, but Sofia had mostly noticed that the shop was full of customers.

“Dogan wishes to see you, Mentor,” Azize said as she greeted Ezio. “And be reassured. Prince Suleiman knows of your return and has provided you with a safe-conduct. But his father is adamant that you should not remain long.”

Ezio and Sofia exchanged a look. They had been together awhile, ever since she had insisted on accompanying him on his journey to Masyaf-a request which he’d agreed to, to her surprise, with no objection at all. Indeed, he had seemed to welcome it.

With Dogan, Ezio made sure that the Turkish Assassins had a firm base in the city, with Suleiman’s tacit agreement and under his unofficial protection. The work had already started in purging the city and the empire of any last trace of renegade Ottomans and Byzantines, now leaderless, following the deaths of Ahmet and Manuel; and the Janissaries, under Selim’s iron hand, knew no more dissent within their ranks. There was no need of any since their preferred prince had made himself their sultan.

As for the Templars, their power bases in Italy and, now, in the East, broken, they had disappeared. But Ezio knew that the volcano was dormant, not extinct. His troubled thoughts turned to the Far East-the Orient-and he wondered what the knowledge imparted to him by Jupiter and the ghostly globe might mean for the undiscovered continents-if they existed-far away across the Western Sea.

Dogan, though lacking Yusuf ’s elan, made up for this by his organizational skills and his complete devotion to the Creed. He might make a Mentor one day, Ezio thought. But his own feelings seemed to have been cut adrift. He no longer knew what he believed, if he believed in anything at all, and this, with one other thing, was what had preoccupied him during the long voyage home.

Home! What could he call home? Rome? Florence? His work? But he had no real home, and he knew in his heart that his experience in Altair’s hidden chamber at Masyaf had marked the end of a page in his life. He had done what he could, and he had achieved peace and stability-for the time being-in Italy and in the East. Could he not afford to spend a little time on himself? His days were growing short, he knew, but there were still enough of them left to reap a harvest. If he dared take the risk.

Ezio spent his fifty-third birthday, Midsummer’s Day, 1512, with Sofia. The days permitted him by Selim’s visa were also growing short in number. His mood seemed somber. They were both apprehensive, as if some great weight were hanging over them. In his honor she had prepared a completely Florentine banquet: salsicce di cinghiale and fettunta, then carciofini sott’olio, followed by spaghetti allo scoglio and bistecca alla fiorentina; and afterward a good dry pecorino. The cake she made was a castagnaccio, and she threw in some brutti ma buoni for good measure. But the wine, she decided, should come from the Veneto.

It was all far too rich, and she’d made far too much, and he did his best, but she could see that food, even food from home, which had cost her a fortune to get, was the last thing on his mind.

“What will you do?” she asked him.

He sighed. “Go back to Rome. My work here is done.” He paused. “And you?”

“Stay here I suppose. Go on as I have always done. Though Azize is a better bookseller than I ever was.”

“Maybe you should try something new.”

“I don’t know if I’d dare to, on my own. This is what I know. Though-” she broke off.

“Though what?”

She looked at him. “I have learned that there is a life outside books.”

“All life is outside books.”

“Spoken like a true scholar!”

“Life enters books. It isn’t the other way round.”

Sofia studied him. She wondered how much longer he’d hesitate. Whether he’d ever come to the point at all. Whether he’d dare. Whether he even wanted to-though she tried to keep that thought at bay-and whether she’d dare prompt him. That trip to Adrianopolis without him had been the first time she’d realized what was happening to her, and she was pretty sure it had happened to him as well. They were lovers-of course they were lovers. But what she really longed for hadn’t happened yet.

They sat at her table for a long time in silence. A very charged silence.

“Azize, unlike you, has not sprung back from her ordeal at Ahmet’s hands,” said Ezio, finally, and slowly, pouring them both fresh glasses of Soave. “She has asked me to ask you if she may work here.”

“And what is your interest in that?”

“This place would make an excellent intelligence center for the Seljuk Assassins.” He corrected himself hastily. “As a secondary function, of course, and it would give Azize a quieter role in the Order. That is, if you…”

“And what will become of me?”

He swallowed hard. “I-I wondered if-”

He went down on one knee.

Her heart was going like mad.