Free Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood by Oliver Bowden Page A

more sensible choice, but Campione was his last link with Mario.
    Now—where was he? He remembered a crumbling, dingy suburb and then, rising out of it, a once-majestic yellow stone arch, an erstwhile gateway that pierced a formerly magnificent city’s walls.
    Ezio’s impulse had been to rejoin Machiavelli—to right the wrong he had committed by not making sure that Rodrigo Borgia, the Spaniard, was dead.
    But by God, he was tired!
    He lay back on the pallet. He could smell the dry straw, its odor carrying with it a hint of cow dung.
    Where was he?
    An image of Caterina came suddenly and strongly into his mind. He must free her! They had to be together at last!
    But perhaps he should also free himself
from
her—though part of his heart still told him that this was not what he really wanted. How could he trust her? How could a simple man ever understand the subtle labyrinths of a woman’s mind? And, alas, the torture of love didn’t get any less acute with age.
    Was she using him?
    Ezio had always maintained an inner room within his heart, where he was himself alone, where he had his
sanctum sanctorum
; it was kept locked, even to his most intimate friends, to his mother (who knew of it and respected it), to his sister, and, formerly, to his late brothers and father.
    Had Caterina broken in? He hadn’t been able to prevent the killing of his father and brothers, and by Christ and the Cross he had done his best to protect Maria and Claudia.
    Caterina could look after herself—she was a book that kept its covers closed—and yet—and yet—how he longed to read it!
    “I love you!”—his heart cried out to Caterina, despite himself. The woman of his dreams at last—at last, this late in life. But his duty, he told himself, came first—and Caterina—Caterina!—never truly showed her cards. Her brown, enigmatic eyes, her smile, the way she could twist him around her little finger. Her long, expert fingers. The closeness. The closeness. But also the keen silence of her hair, which always smelled of vanilla and roses…
    How could he ever trust her, even when he laid his head on her breast after they had made passionate love and wanted—wanted so much—to feel secure?
    No! The Brotherhood. The Brotherhood. The Brotherhood! His mission and his destiny.
    I am dead,
Ezio said to himself.
I am already dead inside. But I will finish what I have to do.
    The dream dissolved and his eyelids flickered open. They bestowed a view of an ample but elderly cleavage descending toward him, the chemise the woman was wearing parting like the Red Sea.
    Ezio sat up rapidly in the straw he’d been lying on. His wound was properly dressed now, and the pain was so dull as to be almost negligible. As his eyes focused, they took in a small room with walls of rough-hewn stone. Calico curtains were drawn across the small windows, and in a corner an iron stove burned, the embers from its open door giving the place its only light. Then the door was shut, but whoever it was with him in the room lit the stump of a candle.
    A middle-aged woman, who looked like a peasant, knelt beside him, came within the frame of his vision. Her face was kindly as she tended to his wound, rearranging the poultice and bandage.
    It was sore! Ezio winced in pain.
    “Calmatevi,”
said the woman. “The pain will end soon.”
    “Where’s my horse? Where’s Campione?”
    “Safe. Resting. God knows he deserves it. He was bleeding from the mouth. A good horse like that. What were you doing to him?”
    The woman put down the bowl of water she was holding and stood.
    “Where am I?”
    “In Rome, my dear.
Messer
Machiavelli found you fainting in your saddle, your horse frothing, and brought you both here. And don’t worry, he’s paid me and my husband well to look after you and your horse. And a few more coins for our discretion. But you know
Messer
Machiavelli—cross him at your peril. Anyway, we’ve done this kind of job for your organization