Assassin's Creed: Revelations by Oliver Bowden Page A

man paused. “What stories did your father tell? Brave Christians being beaten down by wicked Turks?”
    “No. Not at all.”
    The young man sighed. “I suppose the moral of any story matches the temper of the man who tells it.”
    Ezio pulled himself erect. Most of his muscles had recovered during the long voyage, but there was still an ache in his side. “That we can agree on,” he said.
    The young man smiled, warmly and genuinely. “ Güzel! I am glad! Kostantiniyye is a city for all kinds and all creeds. Even the Byzantines who remain. And students like me, or . . . travelers like you.”
    Their conversation was interrupted by a young Seljuk married couple, who were walking along the deck past them. Ezio and the young man paused to eavesdrop on their conversation—Ezio, because any information he could glean about the city would be of interest to him.
    “My father cannot cope with all this crime,” the husband was saying. “He’ll have to shut up shop if it gets any worse.”
    “It will pass,” his wife replied. “Maybe when the sultan returns.”
    “Hah!” rejoined the man sarcastically. “Bayezid is weak. He turns a blind eye to the Byzantine upstarts, and look what the result is— kargasa! ”
    His wife shushed him. “You should not say such things!”
    “Why not? I tell only the truth. My father is an honest man, and thieves are robbing him blind.”
    Ezio interrupted them. “Excuse me—I couldn’t help overhearing—”
    The man’s wife shot her husband a look: You see?
    But the man turned to Ezio and addressed him. “ Affedersiniz, efendim. I can see you are a traveler. If you are staying in the city, please visit my father’s shop. His carpets are the best in all the empire, and he will give you a good price.” He paused. “My father is a good man, but thieves have all but destroyed his business.”
    The husband would have said more, but his wife hastily dragged him away.
    Ezio exchanged a look with his companion, who had just accepted a glass of sharbat brought to him by what looked like a valet. He raised his glass. “Would you care for one? It’s very refreshing, and it will be a while yet before we dock.”
    “That would be excellent.”
    The young man nodded at his servant, who withdrew. In the meantime, a group of Ottoman soldiers passed by, on their way home from a tour of duty in the Dodecanese, and talking of the city they were returning to.
    Ezio nodded to them and joined them for a moment, while the young man turned his face away and stood aloof, making notes in his little ivory-bound book.
    “What I want to know is, what are these Byzantine thugs holding out for?” one of the soldiers asked. “They had their chance once. They nearly destroyed this city.”
    “When Sultan Mehmed rode in, there were fewer than forty thousand people living here, and living in squalor,” put in another.
    “Aynen oyle!” said a third. “Exactly so! And now look at the city. Three hundred thousand inhabitants, and flourishing again for the first time in centuries. We have done our part.”
    “We made this city strong again. We rebuilt it!” said the second soldier.
    “Yes, but the Byzantines don’t see it that way,” rejoined the first. “They just cause trouble, every chance they get.”
    “How may I recognize them?” Ezio asked.
    “Just stay clear of any mercenaries you see wearing a rough, reddish garb,” said the first soldier. “They are Byzantines. And they do not play nice.”
    The soldiers moved off then, called by an NCO to ready themselves for disembarking. Ezio’s young man was standing at his elbow. At the same moment, his valet reappeared with Ezio’s sharbat .
    “So you see,” said the young man. “For all its beauty, Kostantiniyye is not, after all, the most perfect place in the world.”
    “Is anywhere?” Ezio replied.

SEVENTEEN
    Their ship had docked, and passengers and crew scrambled about, getting in each other’s way, as mooring ropes were thrown to