"Dear Leonardo,"
No, too personal.
"To Leonardo da Vinci,"
Wrong again, far too cold and formal. It had to sound appropriately distant, yet approachable.
"To the loveliest, most wonderful artist in all the word, secret love of mine, Leonardo da Vinci,"
As much as he would like to leave that… No.
This was getting ridiculous. He had met the man once, just once, and yet he was consumed with infatuation. One glance is enough to set the heart aflutter they say. Well, whoever "they" are, they're right.
Ezio needed to get his feelings out somehow. Writing them down had always helped, even if he never gave the letters he wrote to who they were about, just taking the thoughts from his head and putting them down set him at rest somehow.
This wasn't the first time he had fallen for another male, and he had come to terms with being attracted to men and women years ago, but there was just something special about this one, something stopping him from thinking straight.
He needed a rest. He got up from his desk and dropped onto the bed. Maybe after a rest he would forget all about this.
"Ezio! Svegliare, my boy. I need you to run an errand for me!"
It was his mother, and it was morning. No doubt she needed him to deliver some unimportant letter or carry more boxes from ebulliently handsome artists' homes to their own. All he wanted to do was sleep…
"Ezio! I won't call you again, now get down here!"
"All right, all right. I'm coming!" He got up. He hadn't changed to go to sleep, so he figured it wouldn't matter if he didn't now.
The morning light was already beaming into every room in the house. He could hear Claudia outside in the courtyard gossiping with her friends and Petruccio playing games with his. Mother was sitting in her favourite chair, reading a book.
"Ezio I need you to take one of the paintings back to Leonardo. I think he gave it to us by mistake, or at least I didn't ask for it. Go straighten it out for me will you?"
What was this? A chance to go see him again? Surely this must be some sign, a touch of fate or something along those lines. Ezio was nervous.
"But why can't you go? Father might be needing me to help and I need to be here just in case."
"Your father is not here. He is visiting Lorenzo de Medici on some matter, and I'm just feeling too tired today. Please be a good boy and just take the painting back, it's in a box on the table."
He said no more on the matter, but bowed curtly, grabbed to box and left the room and building.
Firenze was buzzing with life; everyone was awake and busy despite it being the weekend. The art merchant and dottore outside of the Palazzo Auditore were as busy as to be expected, with the doctor attracting far more trade than the trader opposite. A recent outbreak in syphilis in the San Marco district had done wonders for the medical business in the area since those affected preferred to seek help outside of where they would most likely be recognised. The number of bards in the city had decreased sharply after a trend of writing bawdy songs involving members of the Signoria had resulted in the sudden quiet creation of a new law outlawing such music, with the punishment being the destruction of any musical instruments in possession of the performer, and a lifelong ban from any public musical spectacle. Due to its secret nature the law had caught out an impressive number of bards, increasing the amount of beggars but also increasing public morale who were pleased beyond measure not to be strummed at melodramatically each time they entered a public square. Ezio made a half-hearted attempt to stall for time by climbing onto a rooftop one-handed to find feathers for Petruccio, but not a single one was to be seen.
"Ezio Auditore! As much as it is a pleasure to see you again, would you satisfy my curiosity as to why you are on my rooftop?"
Merda.
