Strange Meeting

'If we are to get what we want, we must work together.'

'Do you take me for a fool?'

'No. I believe you are the most intelligent and gifted man I've ever met.'

Riario stated it baldly; Leonardo uncharacteristically ignored what could have been called a compliment.

'You expect us to work alongside one another, after all that has passed between us… that I might bring the Book of Leaves within your grasp, only for you to stick your knife between my shoulder blades at your earliest convenience. Truly, I think you overestimate your powers of persuasion, and my gullibility.'

'And you underestimate me. You need me.'

'What could I possibly need you for? You've been nothing but a fucking thorn in my side since first we crossed paths.'

'Resources, artista, resources. And reputation. My name opens doors, whereas yours ensures they are firmly closed in your face.'

'I've come this far without you. And, in fact, in spite of your attempts to stop me.'

Leonardo smirked triumphantly.

'And how much longer, do you imagine, will you be able to sustain your act? Deceiving your way into the purses of patrons, ducking and diving to avoid your creditors, promising commissions that you never complete, trailing along those obedient dogs that you call friends…and always, always, being forced to shed the blood of whichever poor fool you've got in thrall to you, just to extricate yourself from the situation which has inevitably transformed into something beyond your control.'

'I get by.'

'Yes, artista, you get by. But you could always do better. Ponder on what we could achieve together.'

'You're a fucking arrogant prick aren't you?'

It was a low, ineloquent blow. The anger rose in Leonardo, blunting his sharp tongue.

Riario ran a hand over his face, the hypocrisy not lost on him. Half hiding a smile, he ensured Leonardo caught the expression.

'Ask yourself…what would you be without me? A wildfire needs a breeze to fan the flames.'

Leonardo said nothing, only glared.

'Your genius needs to be challenged, it thrives on it. It lives and breathes and longs for someone to offer confrontation that you can face up to. Were you really satisfied with paintings of supercilious dukes and their vile mistresses? Everything new that you have created, every ludicrous idea that you have worked into a reality has been as a response to my provocation. You wouldn't be where you are if it wasn't for me. We are linked, Leonardo. God has brought us together.'

The use of his name caused Leonardo to prick up his ears and a fresh hesitation swept through him.

Riario waited; he had spoken his piece. He believed, he knew, that Leonardo must feel the truth of what he had said. The artista perhaps didn't put faith in a higher power, as he did, but the Count had long been convinced that Da Vinci's fate was linked inextricably with his own. Now that they had come to their point of union, Leonardo could hardly argue against it.

He took a step forward, bringing mistrustful eyes up to Riario's limpid orbs.

'How would you propose this partnership functions then, Girolamo?' Leonardo enunciated the name.

The smallest smile at the corner of Riario's mouth.

'We pool our…talents. We already strive for the same end; it would not be so difficult to work together.'

'We do not strive for the same end. Your intentions for the Book are abhorrent.'

Da Vinci turned away; he hardly believed that he was entertaining the idea. Riario was a snake in the grass, a danger to any and all. At every turn, he had done his level best to frustrate, harm or kill Leonardo and any of those he thought of as dear to him. Leonardo was aware of his weakness; the value he placed on human relationships was not one that Riario shared. People, for him, had utility. As spies, as assassins, as whipping boys. So what value did the Count place on Leonardo?

He had never been one for self- deprecation; he didn't believe in it, for it had always been fruitless to pretend that he was anything other than special. But Leonardo now found a sliver of doubt slicing into his prideful confidence. Riario had all but confessed a strange interest in him and Da Vinci felt that to allow himself to be a tool, a cog, in the Count's grand plan would be a foolish mistake. For evidently, Riario had intentions towards Leonardo that went beyond simply finding the Book of Leaves. He would not be used.

'And when we find the Book, what then? Because I'm not minded to share it with His Holiness.'

Riario, Leonardo noted with some little satisfaction, did not seem to have an answer. The Count looked briefly at his feet, perhaps trying to gather his thoughts.

'I mean to have that Book, artista. It is worth a great deal to me. I wonder quite how much it is worth to you. Wouldn't you rather the knowledge remain safe, in the Secret Archives, away from hands that might destroy it? Because that, I assure you, would be the only alternative. If the Holy Father cannot have it, no one can.'

'I know exactly what the Book is worth to me. And to you, Girolamo. If you don't deliver it into the hands of Pope Sixtus, your life will be forfeit. You're fighting for your very existence and you have been from the beginning.'

The Count swallowed, a subtle shift in his demeanour. Now, now, Leonardo could begin to see into Riario's thoughts. And it was at this impasse that he could begin to wonder what value he placed on his adversary.

'I value my loyalty far more than I value my life. God prepares a seat for me among the Blessed and I will be glad to join them when the time comes.'

Leonardo scoffed ungraciously.

'Think of what we have had to do, each of us, to arrive at this point; the blood spilt and the blood yet to come. The deprivation, the danger, the fury and the frustration. I know that when I find the Book of Leaves my conscience will be as clear as I can make it, as unsullied as I'm content to let it be. But you, Count…you take lives when they could be spared and ruin them when you might have left them be.'

'I spared Nico's life.'

'One suspects not through a sense of altruism. You never do anything without purpose or gain.'

A wry expression gave familiar smugness to Riario's dirt stained face.

'And neither, artista, do you. Nor shall you, or I, get much further alone. It would be a terrible shame if the Book was never brought to light.'

Internally, Leonardo could not but be of the same mind.

'So, do we have an agreement?' Riario held out his hand, a false gesture of openness. Rather, Leonardo felt a trap was somehow closing around him and though his mind, even now, was working with great speed, ricocheting from plot to plan to idea, he could not conceive what Riario's endgame was. He did not know what he was walking into but he would walk with head aloft and his eyes to an unknowable future. Because he would not, he would never, let Riario cast the Book, and all it contained, into the darkness of Sixtus' stone vaults.

Leonardo stepped forward and gripped Riario's hand with more force than was necessary. The Count grinned, though the artista could not.

'Good, good.' Riario reminded Leonardo of nothing so much as a wolf, supremely satisfied with the prey it has caught by the throat. Suddenly, he yanked Leonardo forward by the hand, bringing them so close together that their chests almost touched. For a lingering moment, that idled for a second longer than it ought, Leonardo wondered what Riario intended; their eyes met, olive green and liquid umber, something unintelligible writhing in transition between them. Then, an embrace. A clinch, an indication of an accord; intimation that they had brokered a, somewhat vague, deal.

The free left hand of the Captain General grasped the bastard artista by the back of the neck, their right hands still clasped together crushed between their bodies. A firm kiss, before Leonardo could even process that Riario's face was coming towards his. Closed lips, no wetness; just a heavy and insistent press that Leonardo returned instinctively, so accustomed was he to the ardent attentions of models, lovers and devotees. Just as he felt that the heady fog around him needed desperately to be blown away by a fresh intake of breath, Riario released him, their lips unsticking a little noisily in the quiet chamber.

A conjuring of something in Leonardo's belly; simmering and lurching, making him feel flighty. And Riario felt it too, Leonardo perceiving the slight change in countenance and recognising it for what it was. Their faces, fine in profile, remained close together. It was done.