Gradually the general mood of the city wavered, and Savonarola saw his support ebbing, as Machiavelli, La Volpe and Paola worked in tandem with Ezio to organize an uprising, an uprising guided by a slow but forceful process of enlightenment of the people.
The last of the 'targets' for Ezio was a beguiled preacher, who at the time Ezio tracked him down was preaching to a crowd in front of the church of Santo Spirito.
'People of Florence! Come! Gather round. Listen well to what I say! The end approaches! Now is the time to repent! To beg God's forgiveness. Listen to me, if you cannot see what is happening for yourselves. The signs are all around us: Unrest! Famine! Disease! Corruption! These are the harbingers of darkness! We must stand firm in our devotion lest they consume us all !' He scanned them with his fiery eyes. 'I see you doubt, that you think me mad. Ahhhh. but did the Romans not say the same of Jesus? Know that I, too, once shared your uncertainty, your fear. But that was before Savonarola came to me. He showed me the truth! At last, my eyes were opened. And so I stand before you today in the hope that I might open yours as well!' The preacher paused for breath. 'Understand that we stand upon a precipice. On one side, the shining, glorious Kingdom of God. On the other - a bottomless pit of despair ! Already you teeter precariously on the edge. Men like the Medici and the other families you once called masters sought earthly goods and gain. The abandoned their beliefs in favour of material pleasures, and they would have seen you all do the same.' He paused again, this time for effect, and continued: 'Our wise prophet once said, "The only good thing that we owe Plato and Aristotle is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics. Yet they and other philosophers are now in hell." If you value your immortal souls you'll turn back from this unholy course and embrace the teachings of our prophet, Savonarola. Then you will sanctify your bodies and spirits - you will discover the Glory of God! You will, at last, become what our Creator intended: loyal and obedient servants!'
But the crowd, already thinning out, was losing interest, and the last few people were now moving away. Ezio stepped forward and addressed the beguiled preacher. 'Your mind,' he said. 'I sense it is your own.'
The preacher laughed. 'Not all of us required persuasion or coercion to be convinced. I already believed. All I have said is true!'
'Nothing is true,' replied Ezio. 'And what I do now is no easy thing.' He unsprung his wrist-blade and ran the preacher through. 'Requiescat in pace,' he said. Turning away from the kill, he pulled his cowl close over his head.
It was a long, hard road, but towards the end Savonarola himself became the Assassins' unwitting ally, because Florence's financial power waned: the Monk detested both commerce and making money, the two things which had made the city great. And still the Day of Judgement did not come. Instead, a liberal Franciscan friar challenged the Monk to an ordeal by fire. The Monk refused to accept, and his authority took another knock. By the beginning of May 1497, many of the city's young men marched in protest, and the protest became a riot. After that, taverns started to reopen, people went back to singing and dancing and gambling and whoring - enjoying themselves, in fact. And businesses and banks reopened as, slowly at first, exiles returned to the city quarters now liberated from the Monk's regime. It didn't happen overnight, but finally, a year almost to the day after the riot, for the man clung doggedly to power, the moment of Savonarola's fall seemed imminent.
'You've done well, Ezio,' Paola told him, as they waited with La Volpe and Machiavelli before the gates of the San Marco complex, together with a large, expectant and unruly crowd gathered from the free districts.
'Thank you. But what happens now?'
'Watch,' said Machiavelli.
With a loud crash a door opened above their heads and a lean figure swathed in black appeared on a balcony. The Monk glowered at the assembled populace. 'Silence!' he commanded. 'I demand silence!'
Awed despite themselves, the crowd quietened.
'Why are you here?' demanded Savonarola. 'Why do you disturb me? You should be cleansing your homes!'
But the crowd roared its disapproval. 'Of what?' one man yelled. 'You've already taken everything!'
'I have held my hand!' Savonarola shouted back. 'But now you will do as I command! You will submit!'
And from his robes he produced the Apple and raised it high. Ezio saw that the hand which held it lacked a finger. Instantly, the Apple started to glow, and the crowd fell back, gasping. But Machiavelli, remaining calm, steadied himself and unhesitatingly threw a knife which pierced the Monk's forearm. With a cry of pain and rage, Savonarola let go of the Apple, which fell from the balcony into the throng below.
'Nooooo!' he screamed. But all of a sudden he seemed diminished, his demeanour both embarrassing and pathetic. That was enough for the mob. It rallied, and stormed the gates of San Marco.
'Quick, Ezio,' said La Volpe. 'Find the Apple. It can't be far away.'
Ezio could see it, rolling unheeded between the feet of the crowd. He dived in among them, getting badly knocked about, but at last it was within his grasp. Quickly he transferred it to the safety of his belt-pouch. The gates of San Marco were open now - probably some of the brethren within considered that discretion was the better part of valour and wanted to save their church and monastery as well as their own skins by bowing to the inevitable. There were not a few among them too who had had enough of the Monk's tiresome despotism. The crowd surged through the gates, to re-emerge, some minutes later, bearing Savonarola, kicking and screaming, on their shoulders.
'Take him to the Palazzo della Signoria,' commanded Machiavelli. 'Let him be tried there!'
'Idiots! Blasphemers!' yelled Savonarola. 'God bears witness to this sacrilege! How dare you handle His prophet in this way!' He was partly drowned out by the angry shouts of the crowd, but he was as livid as he was frightened, and he kept it up - for the Monk knew (not that he thought in quite these terms) that this was his last roll of the dice. 'Heretics! You'll all burn in hell for this! Do you hear me? Burn!'
Ezio and his fellow Assassins followed as the mob bore the Monk away, still crying out his mixture of pleas and threats: 'The sword of God will fall upon the Earth swiftly and suddenly. Release me, for only I can save you from His wrath! My children, heed me before it is too late! There is but one true salvation, and you forsake the path to it for mere material gain! If you do not bow again to me, all Florence shall know the anger of the Lord - and this city will fall like Sodom and Gomorrah, for He will know the depth of your betrayal. Aiutami, Dio! I am brought down by ten thousand Judases!'
Ezio was close enough to hear one of the citizens carrying the Monk say, 'Oh, enough of your lies. You've been pouring out nothing but misery and hatred since you first walked among us!'
'God may be in your head, Monk,' said another, 'but he is far from your heart.'
They were approached the Piazza della Signoria now, and others in the crowd took up the triumphant cry.
'We have suffered enough! We shall be free people once more!'
'Soon, the light of life will return to our city!'
'We must punish the traitor! He is the true heretic! He twisted the Word of God to suit himself!' a woman shouted.
'The yoke of religious tyranny is broken at last,' another exclaimed. 'Savonarola will at last be punished.'