I was just playing the scene where Ezio is driving the carriage to Venice, at which point I got distracted by my cat. Due to failing to press buttons, this resulted in the strangulation and moving vehicle tumbulation of Ezio :D
… I think we can safely say that it was an epiphanic moment
"Leonardo, would you stop waxing lyrical about Venezia for just one moment? I am trying to concentrate on my driving, and as we all know from those government campaigns; it's hard you're four times more likely to concentrate to have a carriage accident on two things when you're talking to Leonardo Da'vinci at once." says Ezio with considerable annoyance, having just spent the last hour having his ear melted by smoking hot scientific terminology regarding wheels.
Leonardo looks confused, but shuts up while he thinks about it. Despite his considerable awesomeness in the fields of art, science and mechanics, the best mark he ever got in his language essays was a stamp saying "Better luck next time, fool!"
"Shh, I think I can hear something."
Galloping hoof beats are echoing around the mountains, and distant battle cries can be heard..
The assassin, a master of the mysterious ways of nature, says "Nah, actually, I think it might have been a bird or something. There are a hell of a lot of eagles in Italy, have you noticed?"
Leonardo says nothing, as an arrow has just skewered his hat to his seat.
"Damn, I got that beaut in Sicily. I had to haggle for bloody hours with this deaf guy."
While the inventor is busy trying to pull his fancy headwear out of the wooden chair, Ezio is trying to push him into a rather convenient hatch on the back of the vehicle.
"Get in there, you great big Nancy! Every time you get involved in a fight, you practically bend over and take it up the arse from the guards."
Leonardo stares at him weirdly for a second, and then finally frees his hat.
"Poof! And I am gone!" he says, disappearing headfirst into the hole like a mole with an urgent appointment.
Ezio stares at him weirdly for a second, and then gets on with the harrowing task of steering two maddened horses along a narrow cliff path, lugging some sort of giant bat with just a whip and making some enthusiastic "Yah!" noises, whilst simultaneously dodging arrows, boulders, randomly placed blockades of rubbish, and a lot of very acrobatic guardsmen.
He watches as another one mistimes his leap and fell screaming into the gorge.
"Roflmao, you fail!" he sniggers.
It is at about this point that Ezio discovers the five or so guards that have had the presence of mind to bring their Vespas along to the party. The tiny engines can barely keep up, but, with a great deal of artistic licence, the armoured guards leap aboard the erratically bouncing carriage. They advance menacingly on Ezio, who is leaning from side to side and shaking the controls, as if the extra movement will somehow help. [It doesn't.]
"Arrrr, hand us yarrrr booty. Yarrrr florins or yarrrr wife/sister/aunt/daughter/female cousin. Yarrrr knows the arrrrangement." Says the first one, who is clearly terrifying, what with his fur trimmed eye patch and tight PVC looting gear.
Ezio begins to weep dramatically. "I'm afraid I can't give you a woman, because my sister is a mouthy bitch, and my mother got raped by one of your horny relatives. You'll have to settle for my money, I guess." He spirals rapidly down into depression, while the guards stand around looking awkward. One of them produces a Kleenex. Ezio blows his nose, and throws it behind him. It flutters on the wind like an epileptic seagull and then lands on the face of a young archer hidden in a bush, who panics, and shoots his arrow upwards by mistake.
Ezio squints at the autocue.
"Press circle repeatedly? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Suddenly, a crowd of black-clad people appear over the hill, riding whatever transport they can get their grubby hands on. With a roar of sound, they converge on the carriage, encircling it totally.
Some of them are carrying large tripods with a box on top, and have stuck their heads under a little black curtain. Others clutch notepads and quills, scribbling down furiously everything that the people with tiny, wind-up gramophones are recording.
"Stay still! That's it! Pose baby! Work that arse!" One of them says, polishing the lense with his shirt while balancing on a motorized gondola of some sort.
From inside the hold, Leonardo facepalms violently. "Press circle. Fucks sake. Can't we get a real writer for once?"
Up on the carriage, the kerfuffle is escalating. Three of the soldiers have fallen off after a hopscotch competition went horribly wrong., and the fourth is trying to poke Leonardo with his sword through the grille of the trapdoor. There is a small fire in the back of the compartment which the artist should be worrying about, but he is enterprisingly spearing marshmallows onto the offending sword and roasting them, therefore sees no need to douse the flames.
On the carriage roof, the fifth guard grabs Ezio around his chest, and starts to give a remarkable imitation of the Heimlich Manoeuvre.
The assassin rolls his eyes, and says drily, "If you're going to attempt to kill me, I suggest you squeeze my neck, rather than my pecs. Although if you'd rather…" He wiggles his dark eyebrows seductively, and the man screams in fear, stepping backwards and careering onto the last guard, who is trying to scrape the gloopy sugar off of his blade. They both tumble off with a sound like so many skittles. Leonardo gulps as the dropped sword falls through the bars and impales his hat, for the second time.
Ezio whoops, beating his chest. "Who are ya? Who are ya?"
Out of the sky falls an eagle, randomly killed by the rogue arrow. It lands on the assassin's face in a cloud of feathers which he instinctively collects. Occupied stuffing the eagle feathers into his pockets, he drops the reins, startles the overly hyper horses, and is thrown screaming into a tree. The press circle have a field day.
The main article in "Venezia today" is bizarrely titled:
"Bloody Eagles."
