His hand hurt.
As he pulled the blade of his dagger roughly across the other man's throat, it was that thought that passed through his mind.
The man's body crumpled to the floor, blood flowing freely from the wound in his neck and Girolamo Riario wiped the blood off his blade on the dying man's pant leg. He sheathed the dagger back under his cloak and set off toward his horse. He prodded at his hand and saw the red bruises and cuts that marked the inner side where his thumb and forefinger were. He tried to recall when he had injured it but nothing came to mind.
Once on his horse he set a course for Rome, He would go to his estate and remain there for the week, catch up on his correspondence and perhaps take a rest day before he was back to doing the Pope's work.
Rest days would include traveling to Florence and hunting Da Vinci.
Nothing would happen of course, he didn't expect anything to but he would go nonetheless if only to gather a defense just in case he was accused of taking his duty lightly.
Florence glittered brighter with every visit, a place of culture and beauty which would bloom ever more perfect if only it belonged to Rome. But he need only be patient, Riario smiled as he imagined the rewards he would reap when they sacked this city. The streets would run red with blood.
It with that lovely vision in his mind he found himself at Verrochio's studio filled with artists sculpting, painting and working their trade.
He hadn't come with an entourage so he left his accompanying guard at the entrance and silently entered Leonardo Da Vinci's hovel.
The stench of fresh corpses permeated the air, Riario breathed without issue. The whole area was out of order, papers strewn about the floor and table; there was a lovely rendition of Riario's face pinned to the wall like a dartboard by a slim steel dagger. Riario approached it and yanked the dagger out and took a closer look at the drawing, it was as if he looked into a mirror.
Leonardo had captured his essence into paper with a mere shard of charcoal. Riario was quick to rip it into tiny pieces and scatter them about the floor.
He would have words with Da Vinci later about pinning his likeness to the wall and piercing it with knives.
He envisioned doing the same to Da Vinci, not a likeness, no, but the real man. Shackled to the wall by wrists and ankles, all to himself and he could do what he wanted. He could whip him, beat him, and he could throw knives.
He glanced down at the tiny pieces of paper left of Da Vinci's drawing and smiled. In his grasp Da Vinci would end up very much the same.
He left Leonardo's workshop without being spotted and headed back to his estate in Rome, but his guards told him the weather was going to be bad and so he decided to stay at an inn nearby.
"Room at the end of the hall."
With a request for food and someone to prepare a bath for him he went up to the room himself.
And as he opened the door he was stopped by the disorienting feeling of familiarity, he'd been here. The dingy window in the corner, the bad lighting and...The bed.
He clenched his fists and felt the ache on the side of his hand.
Teeth marks.
He stared at the bed and recalled the vision that had greeted him the last time he was here.
The man he'd killed two days ago had been the one who had thought it an amusing idea.
'Didn't even have to tie him up,' he'd said with a mocking grin.
Da Vinci had been drunk when he was led here and given a drug and some oil.
When Riario had entered he'd found him head down ass up with his own fingers buried inside him.
Locking the door had been Riario's first action and that way he locked it out of his official duties, away from his work and his life's task.
And for one night he had possessed the greatest mind in all of Italia.
He had taken Da Vinci in ways he knew no other man had had him.
Da Vinci had wept for him, cried out his name in that hoarse voice; trembled under him and gave in so completely even Riario had been taken aback. He'd shut him up though, which was the reason for his injury.
When it had finished, when he had finished with Da Vinci he left him there. Oh to have seen him in the proper light, used and left to his own devices. What had his expression been when he had to scoop Riario's cum out of his ass? Had his face flushed the way it had when Riario had pushed into him? His fists tight in those sheets as he sobbed into the pillow thinking nobody could hear him.
Those long, beautiful artist's fingers clenched painfully tight in the bed sheets.
He had whispered it to him, called him many names, but most of all he called him 'caro mio.'
For Riario had never truly felt he owned anyone until that moment and as if to confirm it Leo had devoured his mouth, drawn him in until he felt like his very soul was being sucked out of him.
He pulled away from the memory and walked to the bed and sat down on it, regret burned in the center of his chest, regret he hadn't just tied Da Vinci up and taken him to his estate, he would have never left home again.
His fists clenched the sheets much in the manner that Da Vinci had. He could have kept him drugged the whole time, naked, oiled up for him; he could have made him a slave.
Riario glanced sharply at the candle flickering on the other end of the room. He could see Da Vinci in the shadows it made.
He almost gave in to the urge to smash everything within sight.
It was only the hassle it would be to pay for it later that stopped him and he lied down against the stiff pillows and waited for his bath to be prepared.
As he stared up at the worn, wooden ceiling he emptied his mind of Leonardo Da Vinci, with the promise to think of him and the way he'd been here in this bed, another day; one where war wasn't clawing at all their backs and the so-called river of time looked less like a great waterfall without an end.
When he wasn't surrounded by death he would spare a thought for Leonardo Da Vinci.
And for the final time that night, as he inadvertently fell asleep, Girolamo Riario's last thought was that his hand hurt like hell.