Grimaldi smiled. ‘You can kill me,’ he said, ‘But you can never defeat the Templars.’
Ezio plunged the dagger into Grimaldi’s heart. ‘Peace be with you,’ he said, coldly.
‘Good,’ said a feeble voice behind him. Looking round, Ezio saw that the Doge, though deadly pale, was still alive.
‘I’ll fetch help – a doctor,’ he said.
‘No – it’s too late for that. But I shall die happier for seeing my assassin go before me into the dark. Thank you.’ Mocenigo was struggling for breath. ‘I’d long suspected he was a Templar but I was too weak, too trusting… But look in his wallet. Take his papers. I don’t doubt that you’ll find something among them to help your own cause, and avenge my death.’
Mocenigo was smiling as he spoke. Ezio watched as the smile froze on his lips, his eyes glazed, and his head lolled sideways. Ezio put a hand on the side of the Doge’s neck to ascertain that he was dead, that there was no pulse. Ezio drew his fingers over the dead man’s face to close his eyelids, muttered a few words of blessing, and hastily took and opened Grimaldi’s wallet. There, among a small sheaf of other documents, was another Codex page.
The guards continued to hammer at the door, and now it was beginning to give. Ezio ran to the window and looked down. The courtyard was alive with guards. He’d have to take his chances on the roof. Climbing out of the window, he started to scale the wall above him as arrows hissed around his head, clattering against the stonework on either side of him. When he reached the roof he had to contend with more archers, but they were off guard and he was able to use the element of surprise to dispense with them. But he was confronted with another difficulty. The grille which had kept him out before now trapped him within! He ran up to it, and realized that it was designed only to keep people out – its spiked top curved outwards and downwards. If he could climb to the top, he could leap clear. Already he could hear the footfalls of many guards thundering up the stairs to the roof. Summoning all the strength his desperation could give him, he took a running jump and clambered to the top of the grille. The next moment he was safely on the other side of it and it was the guards who were trapped by it. They were too heavily armed to be able to scale it, and Ezio knew that in any case they lacked his agility. Running to the edge of the roof, he looked down, leapt across to the scaffolding erected along the cathedral wall, and shinned down it. Then he sped into St Mark’s Square and lost himself in the crowd.
18
The death of the Doge on the same night that the bizarre bird-demon appeared in the sky caused a great stir in Venice which lasted many weeks. Leonardo’s flying-machine had crashed into St Mark’s Square, already a conflagration, and had burnt to ashes, as no one would dare approach the strange contraption. In the meantime, the new Doge, Marco Barbarigo, was duly elected and took office. He swore a solemn public oath to track down the young assassin who had avoided capture and arrest by the skin of his teeth, and who had murdered that noble servant of the state, Carlo Grimaldi, and probably the old Doge too. Barbarigo and Ducal guards were to be seen at every street corner and they also patrolled the canals day and night.
Ezio, on Antonio’s advice, lay low at his headquarters, but he was boiling with a frustration that wasn’t helped by the fact that Leonardo had temporarily left town in the entourage of his patron, the Conte de Pexaro. Even Rosa lacked the means to distract him.
But soon, one day not far into the new year, Antonio called him to his office, greeting him with a broad smile. ‘Ezio! I have two pieces of good news for you. First of all, your friend Leonardo has returned. Secondly, it’s Carnevale! Nearly everyone is wearing a mask and so you -‘ But Ezio was already halfway out of the room. ‘Hey! Where are you off to?’
‘To see Leonardo!’
‘Well, come back soon – there’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘Who is it?’
Her name’s Sister Teodora.’
‘A nun?’
‘You’ll see!’
Ezio made his way through the streets with his hood up over his head, making his way unobtrusively between the groups of extravagantly dressed and masked men and women who thronged the streets and the canals. He was keenly aware of the clusters of guards on duty as well. Marco Barbarigo was no more concerned about Grimaldi’s death than he was about the death of his predecessor, which he had helped to plan; and now that he had made a pious show of seeking out a culprit, he could let the matter drop with a good public conscience, and appear to scale down the costly public operation. But Ezio also knew that if the Doge could secretly trap and kill him, he would. As long as he was alive and could be a thorn in the Templars’ side, they would count him among their bitterest enemies. He would have to remain constantly on the lookout.
He made his way to Leonardo’s workshop successfully, however, and entered it unseen.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ Leonardo greeted him. ‘This time I thought you were dead for sure. I heard no more of you, then there was all that business over Mocenigo and Grimaldi, then my patron took it into his head to travel and insisted I went with him – to Milan, as it happens – and I never have the leisure to rebuild my flying-machine because the Venetian Navy finally want me to start designing stuff for them – it’s all very vexing!’ Then he smiled. ‘But the main thing is, you are alive and well!’
‘And the most wanted man in Venice!’
‘Yes. A double murderer, and of two of the state’s most prominent citizens.’
‘You know better than to believe that.’
‘You wouldn’t be here if I did. You know you can trust me, Ezio, as you can everybody here. After all, we’re the ones who flew you into the Palazzo Ducale.’ Leonardo clapped his hands and an assistant appeared with wine. ‘Luca, can you find a carnival mask for our friend here? Something tells me it might come in handy.’
‘Grazie, amico mio. And I have something for you.’ Ezio handed over the new Codex page.
‘Excellent,’ said Leonardo, recognizing it immediately. He cleared some space on the table near him, unrolled the parchment and started to examine it.
‘Hmnn,’ he said, frowning in concentration. ‘This one does have the design for a new weapon, and it’s quite complex. It looks as if it’ll attach to your wrist once again, but this is no dagger.’ He pored over the manuscript some more. ‘I know what this is! It’s a firearm, but on a miniature scale – as small as a humming-bird in fact.’