Ezio completed his purchase and came over, tapping her on the shoulder. “I’ll be lucky if this lasts three seasons,” he said. She looked at him as he showed her the basket, unsure what she should be looking for to judge its quality. Ezio realized this, with a smile.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
They moved through the crowds in the direction of the Piazza della Signoria, and once there sat down on a bench near the loggia, watching the people come and go, all brightly clad, except for those dressed in expensive black silks and velvets.
“Who are they?” asked Jun.
“They are the bankers,” Ezio replied. “It’s a kind of uniform, so that they can recognize each other—but it has another advantage—we can see them coming!”
Jun smiled uncertainly.
“It’s nice, no?” Ezio continued. “Full of life!”
“Yes.”
“But not always. Half my family was murdered in this piazza. Executed. Right here. Forty-five years ago. I was nineteen.”
He closed his eyes briefly at the memory, then went on: “But now, to see it like this, so piena di vita, I can’t help but feel content. And satisfied that so much pain has faded away.” He looked at her earnestly. “The life of an Assassin is pain, Jun. You suffer it, and you inflict it. You watch it happen—all in the hope that you can help it disappear, in time. It’s terribly ironical, I know. But there it is.”
They sat in silence for a while. Jun seemed watchful. Then Ezio saw her tense at something. Something she had noticed in the crowd. A flash of a certain color? A uniform perhaps? One of the Signoria guards? But the moment passed, and he let it go.
“All right,” he said, rising. “Time to drag this old man back to his villa.”
She joined him, and they left, crossing the square and taking the street, so familiar to Ezio, which ran east, just to the north of the Palazzo.
Jun kept casting backward glances.
The street they’d reached was considerably emptier of people, and finally, as they moved along it, they were alone. Suddenly, Ezio heard a noise Jun did not. He turned his head quickly.
He took a backward leap, raising his basket to shield Jun, and in the nick of time—a thrown dagger embedded itself in it. Barely a second later, someone landed Ezio a savage kick in the gut. He staggered backward and fell against a stone wall.
Meanwhile, Jun had reacted with lightning speed. She was already standing between Ezio and his assailant—another Chinese woman, similarly dressed to Jun, but stripped down to combat tunic and trousers.
The two women circled each other, almost balleti-cally, slowly, then lunging at each other like striking snakes, landing slicing blows with the edges of their hands, or kicking so fast that Ezio could barely follow the movement.
But he could see that Jun was getting the worst of it. He sprang forward and struck her attacker on the head with the basket, sending her sprawling.
She lay prone, motionless. Jun stepped forward.
“Jun! She’s faking it!”
At the same moment the mysterious woman was back on her feet, falling on Jun with another knife raised. They both fell to the ground, rolling in the dust, fighting with the ferocity and the vicious agility of cats, their limbs and bodies moving so fast that they became blurred.
Then a sudden scream. The assailant broke free, her own knife buried in her chest, just above the sternum. She tottered sideways for a moment, then keeled over, striking her head on a flint buttress, and was still. This time she was not faking.
Ezio looked round. No one in sight.
He grabbed Jun’s hand.
“Come on!” he said through clenched teeth.
As they rode home in Ezio’s carriage, Jun began to explain. Ezio realized that she might have done so earlier if he’d given her the chance. He listened grimly as she told her tale.
“It was my Mentor’s wish to meet you. We left China together, in secret. But we were followed. They caught up with us in Venice. They took my master prisoner there. He bade me flee, complete our mission. I did not see him again.”
“Who are they?”
“Servants of Zhu Huocong—the Jiajing Emperor. A young man, scarcely more than a boy, and not born to rule, but fate gave him the throne, and he controls us with a ruthless and bloody hand.” She paused. “I was born a concubine, but my Mentor freed me when I was young. We returned later to save more girls, but they were—” She paused. “The emperor thought that if he drank their monthly blood it would give him eternal life.” She broke off, swallowing hard before mustering her self-control, with an effort, and continuing:
“Jiajing is a cruel man. He kills all who oppose him, and he prefers ling chi to beheading.”
“Ling chi?”
Jun made several slicing motions across her palm. “Slow process. Many thousand cuts. Then—dead.”
Ezio’s face set like granite. He whipped his horses on.
EIGHT Y-EIGHT
Sofia was in Ezio’s den, stoking a fresh fire, when she heard the carriage tear up to the front of the house. Alarmed, she rose quickly to her feet. A moment later, Ezio burst in, closely followed by Shao Jun. He rushed to the window and closed the shutters, bolting them. Then he turned to his wife.
“Pack some bags. They are putting fresh horses to the coach. Some of our men will go with you.”
“What—?”
“You must stay at Machiavelli’s tonight.”
“What’s happened?”
“A misunderstanding.”
Sofia looked from him to Jun, who lowered her eyes, embarrassed at having brought her troubles to their door.
“Give me a moment,” she said.
Soon afterward, she and the children were installed in the carriage. Ezio stood at its door.
They looked at each other. Both wanted to say something, but no words came.
Ezio stepped back and nodded to the coachman. He cracked the reins, and the horses moved forward into the gathering gloom.
As they gathered pace, Sofia leaned from the window and blew him a kiss. He raised his arm in farewell, then, without waiting to watch them out of sight, returned to the villa and closed and locked the door.
EIGHT Y-NINE
Ezio and Jun sat facing each other on wooden benches, drawn up in front of a roaring fire. Waiting.
“When I first fought the Borgia, it was revenge that drove me, and my first impulse was to aim for the head,” Ezio was telling her. “In time, however, I learned that those who inspire fear have more devoted followers than those who preach love. Killing Rodrigo and Cesare would have achieved nothing if I had not been able to replace their reign of terror with one that involved some measure of fraternity.” He paused in thought. “So I spent many years teaching men and women to think and act for themselves. First in Rome, then among our Brotherhood in Constantinople.”