Mentions of abortion via herbs
You have got to speak up for them that have no voices.
The dead did not speak. Not with words, or through actions did they make themselves understood but Leonardo had to know.
What made this man fat and that man thin if they were brothers and ate the same at every meal? Why did that woman carry a new child to term every nine months and that woman fail every time, mourning a new lost life that broke her heart with each passing month?
His scalpel was similar in size to Ezio's blade and that was were the similarities between them stopped.
Leonardo was no fighter, not as graceful with his movements as the assassin was, the other almost seeming to glide from shadow to shadow to hide from the guards, grin playing on his scarred lips with every patrol that passed him unseeing. But Ezio did not know.
He did not know why that one died from the wound, when that one would live from the same; why that man's organs were flipped as if in a looking glass but otherwise healthy.
These were questions Leonardo had for the world and he would find answers.
Ezio's hands snaked across the bed, arm thrown over his eyes to block out the early morning sunlight stretching it's golden fingers directly into his eyes. His head throbbed in time with every heavy pulse of his heart, blood still containing more wine than anything else. The assassin grinned up at the ceiling, a cat lazy and content in the sunshine. He could still remember certain parts of last night, picture Leonardo above him, eyes so blue and open, lips bitten pink and a trail of purpling bruises scattered down his neck. Ezio was truthfully a very lucky man to have found Leonardo, some guiding hand directing him to the artist's doorstep that fateful day with his mother many years ago.
Cold sheets met his grasp, not the warm flesh he was expecting. Heart beginning to thump in his chest, cold dread replacing drunken contentedness, Ezio crept across the room, avoiding the scattered items of clothing and Leonardo's ever present notebooks. His hidden blade, never parted from his wrist, whispered as he activated it, flicking the poison off with an instinctive twitch of his thumb. If something had happened to Leonardo, they would not get the respite of a quick death.
"Maestro please!"
The woman's voice was loud and begging, a woman at the end of her rope with nowhere left to turn.
"Senora I have none left. I cannot help you with this."
Leonardo. He was alive. Ezio let out the breath that he didn't realise he had been holding, but continued to the door silently. The assassin did not believe the woman would wish Leonardo harm, but he never could be too careful after seeing the artists long list of uncompleted works.
"Please Maestro, I have nowhere else to go. La vecchia strega she-"
"Hush."
Ezio froze, sure that his presence had been noticed. He heard Leonardo's feet cross to the door to the street outside and shut it firmly, heavy bolt that the assassin had insisted upon drawing closed with a heavy thunk.
"She asked you to pay her money that you did not have?" Leonardo's voice was calm and serious, a vast difference to the jovial tone he had with Ezio, his sheer delight at the world slipping out at every opportunity, This, this was something else.
"I have two florins to my name Maestro, she asked for six. This child will kill me, or if it doesn't then my father will." She sounded broken, and young. Too young to have this thrown upon her.
"Go to market, look around, speak to people. Make sure no-one sees you here. Come back at noon. I will have it for you then."
A shaking breath from the young woman, then quick light footsteps to the door and she was gone.
"Aren't strega meant to be women?"
To Leonardo's credit, he reacted well, wheeling on Ezio on the first note of sound that left the man. His face paled visibly, eyes reflexively darting to the now closed door as if judging if he could make it before the assassin got to him.
"I'm not a strega," Leonardo protested, shifting further behind the worktable in the centre of the room, "They know nothing of what they do. Most of it is river water and greens from the market place and they charge the desperate everything."
Ezio calmly walked into the room, deactivating the hidden blade deliberately, Leonardo's wide eyes following every movement, not quite prey tracking a predator, but a predator tracking another.
"She thought you were," Ezio replied, inclining his head towards the closed door.
"I cannot help what people think. I'm already in enough trouble with the law being inclined to men, what is witchcraft on top of that?" Leonardo shrugged, forcing himself to relax, mimicking Ezio's posture but not shifting away from the table.
"What I do is science. I tested the herbs they come to me for, I tell them what I have learnt through study and practice and they call it witchcraft."
Ezio took a moment to study Leonardo through new eyes. His lover's hair was loosely pulled back, strands already beginning to escape the leather cord and frame his pale face. His usual hat was still gracing the floor on the stairs following the events of last night. Hands normally rapid and twitching were still, pressed flat on the table. He was ready to run, every muscle tense, blood pounding rapidly in the pulse of the vein in his neck, mouth dry as his throat bobbed.
"Did you not trust me love?" Ezio asked quietly, sitting down slowly, keeping his eyes on Leonardo's until the last second, unable to potentially watch the other man's features twist into rejection.
"I forget how young you are at times my love," Leonardo offered, voice shaking minutely but still with an undercurrent of steel, "You won't know of the inquisition that was carried out in my hometown."
Ezio's head shot up, gaze meeting Leonardo's who shrugged, spreading his hands as he relaxed.
"The city gives me their dead to study, the guards follow me at times when I'm in the market, my mother was killed for witchcraft when I was a child and I am sleeping with a male assassin. My fate is an unusual one Ezio. I couldn't have you run from me too."
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have-"
"No. You couldn't. If you kill the guards, there will always be more. I am happy knowing that you are as safe as can be when you visit me."
Leonardo paused, pushing a locks of hair away from his face, shifting from foot to foot on the cold stone floor.
"I need to make this draught before she gets back. Did you want to watch me work?"
An olive branch, a peace offering that Ezio could recognise. The hurt faded when the assassin saw the age old shadows of hurt lingering on Leonardo's face.
"I always love watching you work. You are such a wonderful man."
The blush still lingered on Leonardo's face following Ezio's last comment as the man double checked the locks on the door.
"This way," Leonardo beckoned Ezio towards the small kitchen, set into the side of the workshop. "Sit there please," the man commanded, gently shooing Ezio towards a rare clear patch on the table. Sun dappled slowly shifting patterns on the whitewashed walls, the herbs hanging from the ceiling lending an earthy scent to the air.
"You keep your witchcraft in your kitchen?" Ezio queried as Leonardo began to shift some of the piles of paper down onto the floor haphazardly. The assassin tilted his head to try and glean some details from the loose sheets of paper, covered in Leonardo's strange illegible spidery handwriting.
The artist clicked his tongue and Ezio shot back upright, the very picture of a child caught with his hand in the desserts.
"If you wish to hide a body, hide in amongst bodies," Leonardo said, nodding his head towards the cellar hatch where Ezio knew from personal experience several corpses lay, courtesy of the city of Florence, "If you wish to hide plants, hide them amongst plants."
"Plants?" Ezio said incredulously, wrinkling his nose as he stared up at the hanging green bunches.
"Where do you think your poison comes from?" Leonardo asked, watching the wheels turn in Ezio's head before the assassin was forced to shrug.
"I did not consider it except that I can get them from a doctor," he admittedly bashfully.
"And that is where you will continue to get them from," Leonardo laughed, "The plants I have here won't do much to a full grown man like you desire."
"I desire many things from you Leonardo," Ezio purred, watching the sudden flush spread over Leonardo's face, freckles standing out in stark relief.
A brief pause as slow smile fought its way across Leonardo's face.
In moments like these, the artist so relaxed before him, hair loose and curling around his face with faint bruises peeking their way out from the open collar of his shirt, Ezio wished they would last forever
."Ah assassin you ask too much of me," Leonardo laughed, sunlight tracing patterns on his skin, stepping forward and rising up on his toes to press a languid kiss, unhurried and all encompassing.
"I need to make magic, and you are here distracting me, looking entirely indecent," Leonardo purred, lightly tracing his fingertips over Ezio's neck sending goose bumps shooting down the others spine.
Leonardo was different the women Ezio had been used to, hard where they are soft, confident only in private while they could be brash in public, and his strength in mind and body thrilled Ezio.
"Apologies Strega," Ezio gasped, breath leaving his lungs, mouth running dry, "Whatever are you going to do with me?"
"Later Ezio," Leonardo murmured against his lips, the faint scent of coffee following him as he pulled away, "I have work to do."
Ezio let out a groan, theatrically clutching his heart to make Leonardo laugh once more and glance over out of the corner of his eye.
It was almost a religious experience, watching Leonardo work. The man's hands almost seemed to dance across the wrapped bundles of herbs, plucking leaves from one, the entirety of another, humming as he moved.
"Most of these are harmless to you or me. Some aren't, which is why I do my own cooking," Leonardo explained, taking a quick sip of his coffee, pulling a face at the coldness, "I can't be having clumsy apprentices or assassins for that matter accidentally poisoning me because they get herbs confused."
"I've seen that one used in cooking," Ezio mused, pointing towards the small green sprigs Leonardo was steadily crushing into a paste.
"The oil can induce a miscarriage. That one does the same but it can cause the mother to become sicker that she can stand, this one is effective but I do not have much left. There isn't much call for it in cooking and I can only lie to so many vendors that I use it for my paints."
Leonardo brandished the red bloom in Ezio's direction before returning to his work, knife blade flashing in the steadily rising sun.
"How do they know to come to you?" Ezio wondered, rolling his head on his shoulders, muscles aching but he was unwilling to move.
"They know I am interested in human anatomy, people gossip about the bodies in my cellar. All it takes is one desperate woman to have nothing left to lose and go and ask the crazy artist if he can remove a baby. From there, people talk."
A faint knock broke them from their concentration, Leonardo blinking heavily as if pulled from a deep sleep.
"That should be the young Senora. Mio amore, can you wait in here? Please?" He added as Ezio looked about to protest.
The assassin slipped down from the table, hissing at the burn in his legs, muscles aching to be used. He hears Leonardo pass through the other room, the clink of the bottle being carefully placed down amongst others, the perfect hiding spot.
The bolt slid back.
Her voice was hushed, barely more than a faint clink of coins exchanging hands and she was gone.
The bolt slid shut once more.
"You can come out now Ezio!" Leonardo called, flopping down onto a nearby chair, twirling a single florin in between his finger and thumb.
Ezio slunk our of the shadows, eyes fixed on the artist who gave him a weary smile.
"It is noon, come with me to bed?" Leonardo offered lazily, a tired smile gracing his face.
"Always my love."