Free Assassin's Creed: Renaissance by Oliver Bowden Page B

wearing silks and satins in green and yellow, cut in the Florentine fashion but with skirts slit to the top of the thigh, and plunging necklines that left nothing to the imagination except the promise of where it should not venture. Around three walls of the room, beneath the hangings and tapestries, a number of doors could be seen.

    Ezio looked round, in a sense not knowing
where
to look. ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ he asked Annetta.
    ‘
Ma certo!
And here is my sister to greet us.’
    An elegant woman who must have been in her late thirties but looked ten years younger, as beautiful as any
principessa
and better dressed than most, was coming towards them from the centre of the room. There was a veiled sadness in her eyes which somehow increased the sexual charge she transmitted, and Ezio, for all else that was on his mind, found himself stirred.
    She extended her long-fingered, bejewelled hand to him. ‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,
Messer
Auditore.’ She looked at him appraisingly. ‘Annetta speaks quite highly of you. And now I can see why.’
    Ezio, blushing despite himself, replied, ‘I appreciate the kind words, Madonna -‘
    ‘Please, call me Paola.’
    Ezio bowed. ‘I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to you for extending your protection to my mother and sister, Mado – I mean, Paola.’
    ‘It was the least I could do.’
    ‘Are they here? May I see them?’
    ‘They are not here – this would be no place for them, and some of my clients are highly placed in the city’s governance.’
    ‘Is this place then, forgive me, but is it what I think it is?’
    Paola laughed. ‘Of course! But I hope it is rather different from those stews down by the docks! It is really too early for business, but we like to be ready – there’s always the chance of the occasional caller on his way to the office. Your timing is perfect.’
    ‘Where is my mother? Where is Claudia?’
    ‘They are safe, Ezio; but it’s too risky to take you to see them now, and we mustn’t compromise their security.’ She drew him to a sofa and sat down with him. Annetta, meanwhile, disappeared into the bowels of the house on some business of her own.
    ‘I think it will be best,’ Paola continued, ‘for you to leave Florence with them at the earliest opportunity. But you must rest first. You must gather your strength, for you have a long and arduous road ahead of you. Perhaps you’d like -‘
    ‘You are kind, Paola,’ he interrupted her gently, ‘and you are right in what you suggest. But just now, I cannot stay.’
    ‘Why? Where are you going?’
    During their conversation Ezio had been growing ever calmer, as all his racing thoughts came crashing together. At last he found himself able to shrug off his shock and his fear, for he had come to a decision and found a purpose, both of which he knew were irrevocable. ‘I am going to kill Uberto Alberti,’ he said.

    Paola looked worried. ‘I understand your desire for vengeance, but the Gonfaloniere is a powerful man, and you’re not a natural killer, Ezio -‘
    Fate is making me one, he thought, but he said, as politely as he could, ‘Spare me the lecture,’ for he was bent on his mission.
    Paola ignore him and completed her sentence: ‘- but I can make you one.’
    Ezio fought down suspicion. ‘And why would you want to teach me how to kill?’
    She shook her head, ‘In order to teach you how to survive.’
    ‘I’m not sure that I need any training from you.’
    She smiled. ‘I know how you feel, but please allow me to hone the skills I am sure you have naturally. Think of my teaching as an extra weapon in your armoury.’

    She started his training that very day, recruiting those girls who were off-duty, and trusted house-servants, to help her. In the high-walled garden behind the house she organized twenty of her people into five groups of four. They then started to mill around the garden, crisscrossing each other, talking and