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!’

25

Ezio felt that he had spent too long on what seemed to be a fruitless quest. Chasing Savonarola seemed like chasing a will o’ the wisp, or a chimera, or your own tail. But the search had to continue, remorselessly, for the nine-fingered man of God held the Apple – the key to more than he could imagine possible, and he was a dangerous religious maniac, a loose cannon potentially less controllable than the Master, Rodrigo Borgia, himself.

It was Teodora who met him as he disembarked from the Ravenna galley at the Venice docks.