On the way, he had the opportunity to do another good deed when he encountered a young woman, frantic with anxiety, who turned out to be the mother of the lost little girl. Ezio explained what had happened, taking care to tone down the degree of danger the little girl had been in. Once he’d told her where the girl was, she ran ahead of him, calling out her child’s name - ‘Sophia! Sophia!’ - and Ezio heard an answering cry of ‘Mamma!’ Minutes later he had rejoined the little group and handed the reins over to Federico who, thanking him again, begged him not to say anything to Mario. Ezio promised not to and Federico led the horse back to the stables.

The mother was still waiting with her daughter and Ezio turned to them with a smile.

‘She wants to say thank you,’ said the mother.

‘Thank you,’ said Sophia dutifully, looking up at him with a mixture of awe and trepidation.

‘Stay with your mother in future,’ said Ezio kindly. ‘Don’t leave her like that, capisco?’

The little girl nodded mutely.

‘We’d be lost without you and your family to watch over us, signore,’ said the mother.

‘We do what we can,’ Ezio said, but his thoughts were troubled as he entered the citadel. Even though he was pretty sure he could stand his ground, he wasn’t looking forward to his encounter with Machiavelli.

*

There was still time enough before the meeting, so to avoid brooding on the course it might take, and from natural curiosity, Ezio climbed the ramparts to take a closer look at the new cannon Mario had installed and of which he was so proud. There were several of them, all beautifully chased in cast bronze and each with a pile of iron cannonballs neatly stacked beside its wheels. The biggest cannon had barrels ten feet long, and Mario had told him that these weighed as much as 20,000 pounds, but there were also lighter, more easily manoeuvrable culverins interspersed with them. In the towers that punctuated the walls were saker cannon on cast-iron mounts, as well as lightweight falconets on wooden trolleys.