“We need him as much as he needs us.”
“That is true.” Ezio paused, looking round the old hall. So many memories. But it was almost as if they had nothing to do with him any longer. “There is something I need to discuss with you, sister.”
“Yes?”
“The question of… my successor.”
“As Mentor? You are giving up?” But she did not sound surprised.
“I have told you the story of Masyaf. I have done all I can.”
“Marriage has softened you up.”
“It didn’t soften you up, and you’ve done it twice.”
“I do approve of your wife, by the way. Even if she is a Venetian.”
“Grazie.”
“When’s the happy event?”
“May.”
She sighed. “It’s true. This job wears one out. The Blessed Mother knows, I’ve only been doing it in your stead for two short years, but I have come to realize what you have been carrying on your shoulders for so long. But have you thought of who might take on the mantle?”
“Yes.”
“Machiavelli?”
Ezio shook his head. “He would never accept. He is far too much of a thinker to be a leader. But the job-and I say this in all modesty-needs a strong mind. There is one of our number, never called on to assist us before in anything but his diplomatic missions, whom I have sounded out, and who, I think, is ready.”
“And do you think the others-Niccolo himself, Bartolomeo, Rosa, Paola, and Il Volpe-will they elect him?”
“I think so.”
“Who have you in mind?”
“Lodovico Ariosto.”
“Him?”
“He was Ferraran ambassador to the Vatican twice.”
“And Julius nearly had him killed.”
“That wasn’t his fault. Julius was in conflict with Duke Alfonso at the time.”
Claudia looked astonished. “Ezio-have you taken leave of your senses? Do you not remember who Alfonso is married to?”
“Lucrezia-yes.”
“Lucrezia Borgia.”
“She’s leading a quiet life these days.”
“Tell Alfonso that! Besides, A riosto’s a sick man-and, by Saint Sebastian, he’s a weekend poet! I hear he’s working on some tosh about Sieur Roland.”
“Dante was a poet. Being a poet doesn’t automatically emasculate you, Claudia. And Lodovico is only thirty-eight, he’s got all the right contacts, and, above all, he’s loyal to the Creed.”
Claudia looked sullen. “You might as well have asked Castiglione,” she muttered. “He’s a weekend actor.”
“My decision is taken,” Ezio told her, firmly. “But we will leave it to the Assassin Council to ratify it.”
She was silent a long time, then smiled, and said, “It’s true that you need a rest, Ezio. Perhaps we all do. But what are your plans?”
“I’m not sure. I think I’d like to show Sofia Florence.”
Claudia looked sad. “There’s not much left of the Auditores there to show her. A nnetta’s dead, did you know?”
“Annetta? When?”
“Two years ago. I thought I wrote to you about it.”
“No.”
They both fell silent, thinking of their old housekeeper, who had stayed loyal and helped save them after their family and their home were destroyed by Templar agents over thirty years earlier.
“Nevertheless, I’m taking her there.”
“And what will you do there? Will you stay?”
“Sister, I really don’t know. But I thought… If I can find the right place…”
“What?”
“I might grow a little wine.”
“You don’t know the first thing about it!”
“I can learn.”
“You-in a vineyard! Cutting bunches of grapes!”
“At least I know how to use a blade.”
She looked scornful. “Brunello di Auditore, I suppose! And what else? Between harvests, I mean.”
“I thought-I might try my hand at a bit of writing.”
Claudia almost exploded.
EIGHTY-TWO
But Claudia would later come to love her visits to the estate in the hills above Florence that Ezio and Sofia found, more or less falling down, but bought and, with the proceeds from the sale of the Constantinople bookshop to the Assassins, and Ezio’s own capital, restored and turned into a modest, but quite profitable, vineyard within two years.
Ezio became lean and tanned, wore workmen’s clothes during the day, and Sofia scolded him, telling him that his hands were getting too gnarled for lovemaking from working on the vines.
But that hadn’t prevented them from producing Flavia in May 1513, and Marcello arrived a year later, in October.
And Claudia loved her new niece and nephew almost more than she thought possible, though she made quite sure, given the twenty-year difference in their ages, that she never became a kind of ersatz mother-in-law to Sofia. She never interfered, and she disciplined herself to visit the Auditore estate near Fiesole no more than half the number of times she would have liked to. Besides, she had a new husband in Rome to think about as well.
But Claudia couldn’t love the children as much as Ezio did. In them, and in Sofia, Ezio had at last found the reason, which he had spent a lifetime seeking.
EIGHTY-THREE
Machiavelli had had a hard time of it, politically, and even spent a while in prison, but when the white water was past, and he was able to take up the reins of his life in Florence again, he was a frequent visitor to the Villa Auditore.
Ezio missed him when he wasn’t there, though he didn’t take kindly to his old friend’s sometimes acerbic comments on his frequently-put-off attempts to write a memoir. The raccolto of 1518 had not been good, and Ezio had caught some kind of chest infection-which he ignored-that had dragged on throughout the winter.
Early one evening, near the beginning of the following spring, Ezio sat alone by the fire in his dining hall, a glass of his own red by him. He had pen and paper, and he was trying to make a start, for the umpteenth time, on Chapter XVI, but he found recollection far less interesting than action, and after a while, as always, he impatiently pushed the manuscript away. Reaching for his glass, he was overcome by a fit of painful coughing, knocking it over. It fell with a terrible clatter, spilling wine all over the olive-wood surface of his table, but it did not break. He stood to retrieve it as it rolled toward the edge of the table, and righted it, as Sofia came in, attracted by the noise.
“Are you all right, amore?”
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry about the mess. Hand me a cloth.”
“Forget the cloth. You need rest.”
Ezio groped for a chair as Sofia stood by his side, easing him down. “Sit,” she commanded, gently. As he did so, she picked up the unlabeled bottle, small towel wrapped round its neck, and checked the level of wine left in it.
“Best cure for a cold,” said Ezio, sheepishly. “Has Niccolo arrived yet?”
“He is right behind me,” she replied, adding drily, “I’d better bring you another bottle. This one, I see, is nearly empty.”
“A writer needs his fuel.”
Machiavelli had entered the room with the lack of ceremony he was entitled to as an old friend and a frequent guest. He took the cloth from Sofia.
“Here, let me.” He wiped the glass, then the tabletop. Ezio watched him, a slightly sour look on his face.
“I invited you here to drink, not clean up after me.”
Machiavelli finished the job before he replied, with a smile, “I can do both. A tidy room and a good glass of wine are all a man needs to feel content.”
Ezio laughed mockingly. “Rubbish! You sound like a character from one of your plays.”
“You’ve never seen one of his plays,” put in Sofia, shaking her head.
Ezio was embarrassed. “Well, I can imagine.”
“Can you? Then why not put that imagination to work? Why don’t you buckle down and get on with this?” He indicated the neglected manuscript.
“We’ve been over this, Niccolo. I don’t write. I’m a father, a husband, a winemaker. I’m quite happy with that.”
“Fair enough.”
Sofia had fetched a fresh bottle of the red, and placed it by them, with two clean glasses, clean napkins, and a basket of pandiramerino. “I’ll leave you two to discuss literature together,” she said. “Once I’ve helped Andrea get the children to bed, I’ve got some writing of my own to do.”