Assassin's Creed: Revelations Read Online Free PDF Page B

up the Larnaka agent, Bekir, whose name Ma’Mun had given him. Bekir was welcoming and even deferential. Ezio Auditore da Firenze. The famous rescuer of ships! He was already the talk of Larnaka. Auditore effendi ’s name was on every lip. Ah—the question of passage to Tortosa. The nearest mainland port to Masyaf. In Syria. Yes, yes of course. Arrangements will be placed in hand immediately—this very day! If the effendi will be patient, while the necessary wheels are set in motion . . . The best possible accommodations will be at his disposal . . .
     
     
    The lodgings arranged for Ezio were indeed splendid—a large, light apartment in a mansion built on a low hill above the town, overlooking it and the crystal sea beyond. But after too much time had passed, his patience grew thin.
    “It is the Venetians,” explained the agent. “They tolerate an Ottoman presence here, but only in a civil sense. The military authorities are, regrettably, wary of us. I feel that”—the man lowered his voice—“were it not for the reputation of our sultan, Bayezid, whose authority stretches far and whose power is mighty, we might not be tolerated at all.” He brightened: “Perhaps you could help in your own cause, effendi .”
    “In what way?”
    “I thought, perhaps, that as a Venetian yourself . . .”
    Ezio bit his lip.
     
     
    But he was not a man to let time hang idly. While he waited, he studied Piri Reis’s map, and something drew him, something half-remembered that he had read, to hire a horse and ride down the coast to Limassol.
    Once there, he found himself wandering through the motte and bailey of the deserted castle of Guy de Lusig-nan, built during the Crusades but currently neglected, like some once-useful tool whose owner has forgotten to throw it away. As he walked through its empty, drafty corridors and looked at the wildflowers growing in its courtyards, and the buddleia that clung to its crumbling ramparts, memories—at least, they seemed to be memories—prompted him to explore more deeply, to delve into the bowels of the keep and explore the vaults beneath it.
    There, shrouded in crepuscular gloom, he found the desolate and empty remains of what had undoubtedly once been a vast archive. His lonely footfalls echoed in the dark labyrinth of rotting, empty shelving.
    The only occupants were scuttling rats, whose eyes glinted suspiciously at him from dark corners as they scurried away, giving him slanting, evil looks. And they could tell him nothing. He made as thorough a search as he could, but not a clue of what had been there remained.
    Disheartened, he returned to the sunshine. The presence of a library there reminded him of the library he sought. Something was prompting him though he could not put his finger on what it was. Stubbornly, he remained at the castle two days. Townspeople looked oddly at the dark, grizzled stranger who roamed their ruin.
    Then Ezio remembered. Three centuries earlier, Cyprus had been the property of the Templars.

SIX
    The Venetian authorities—or someone behind them—were clearly blocking his onward passage. This became clear to him as soon as he had confronted them. Florentines and Venetians might have been rivals, might have looked down on one another, but they shared the same country and the same language.
    That cut no ice at all with the governor there. Domenico Garofoli was like a pencil—long, thin, and grey. His black robes, exquisitely cut in the most costly damask, nevertheless hung from him like rags from a scarecrow. The heavy gold rings, set with rubies and pearls, clattered loosely on his bony fingers. His lips were so narrow that you could hardly say they were there at all, and when his mouth was closed, you could not see where it was in his face.
    He was, of course, unfailingly polite—Ezio’s action had done much to warm Ottoman-Venetian relations in the region—but he was clearly unwilling to do anything. The situation on the mainland