Who knew that college could have snow days? Yeah for blizzards!

Chapter 3

The Bronze Pin

"Wow, so he gots two sons now?" squeaked the first girl.

The second girl demanded, "What's a virgin?"

The boy asked, "What's a gypsy?"

The woman merely laughed at the questions and beckoned at another boy who was shyly standing a little ways away from the storyteller and her charges. "Come here, little one, don't you want to hear the rest of the story?"

The next month was filled with finding another woman to help nurse his two sons. This was complicated that Raphael was now looking around for his mother and screamed loud and long when he realized that none of the women who tried to approach him were his mother. It took five minutes for them to calm him down enough to nurse him. And after all of that, the women were not as eager to stay on as the new prince's nurse.

Finally a formidable woman of about thirty three with a huge bosom and a squalling infant under each arm marched into the palace and took on the cranky little gypsy. Within ninety seconds, Raphael was suckling contentedly and the many other women who had spent the last two hours trying to win the boy's favor stared on in shock.

Splinter now was trying to accustom himself to two little boys. This now meant twice the amount of crying, diapers, and lost sleep.

One good thing was that Raphael was not overly needy, though he tended to be very vocal when he was cranky, hunger, or needed to be changed. He slept through the night and was generally fairly quiet when he was content.

It also helped that he was growing very fond of the two.

A week after the gypsy massacre, Splinter woke from dreams.

Dreams about a quiet young man with ridiculously thick glasses bent low over a book the size of a cobblestone looking up at shy girl who told him softly that the library was closing. He nodded quickly and self-consciously stood up, knocking the book to the ground with a resounding thud. As he dropped to snatch the tome from the dusty floor his hand into another hand. He looked up and stared straight into the girl's eyes. Both smiled shyly at each other.

Dreams of the boy walking into the library and sitting at a table with a clear view of the main desk.

And then dreams of the two kissing and getting married, the man now a doctor and the young girl now the main librarian. Then of the woman smiling excitedly at her husband, who stared at her a long moment before laughing out loud and hugging his wife. The woman's belly swelled until she was laying an infant into a crib.

And then a month after these dreams had begun, a man slipping into their house. Blood on blankets.

Splinter woke with a strangled yell.

He winced. "Here we go again."

It took two days to find who this doctor and his wife were, with only their appearances to go on.

They were John and Mary Brass, a well known doctor and his wife who had worked as a librarian until the birth of their child.

It took another few hours to find their house and he sent a group of his men to retrieve the couple and their child. He had planned to go with them, but Raphael was apparently fed up with waiting for his mother and was screaming in the manner that even his capable nurse couldn't handle him and Splinter had to stay to see if he could quiet the boy.

Just as he was lying his now sleeping son into his cradle, his captain Sebastian walked in, looking sick and holding a small bundle.

Splinter felt his heart sink into the region of his stomach. "Well?"

"Their throats were slashed last night. The whole house was picked clean, whoever did this took everything he could carry. Except this little fellow." Sebastian offered the bundle. "I thought that since you already had two sons…and since you're the one that saw his parents die…"

The king swallowed painfully and took the little one into his arms. The tiny boy had soft pale brown eyes and downy mousy brown hair. Just like his father.

A flash caught his attention and he looked at a metal pin holding the swaddling blankets closed. It was bronze and about the size of his palm. On it was the engraved design of a rod entwined with two serpents, the crest of medicine and doctors.

"Yes, that was only thing of any material value left in the house," his captain said quietly. "It was clipped onto his blanket."

There was a moment of silence.

"What are you going to call him, my Lord?"

"I don't know. Tell me, have you found those responsible for this?"

"No my Lord, we will return to the investigation immediately."

His subject bowed and left, leaving Splinter, the new boy, and his two sons and their nurses alone.

"Leave us," he commanded the nurses. The women bowed respectfully and left.

Splinter sat on a hard wooden chair set between his sons' cradles, Leonardo on his right and Raphael on his left, and looked down at the little pair of brown eyes that peered up at him with great interest. The sheer curiosity in such a little face made him laugh. "You are an odd one, child."

The boy sneezed.

The king shifted his gaze to the pin. It truly was a handsome thing… He unclipped it from the blanket and examined it more carefully.

"Your father must have a good practice to afford such a thing," he commented to the boy in his lap who was snatching his hand in the air as though trying to catch something.

This brought the man right back to the growing pit of guilt in his stomach. This was the third time that he had foreseen someone's death and had been unable to keep their sons from becoming orphans. Even if he were to raise these boys as his sons – which he fully planned on doing – he did not think he would ever get over the shame of his failure to keep the men and women alive.

The proud knight and his beautiful wife whose sweet face hid an incredible archery skill had been slaughtered by griffins.

The strong gypsy and his fierce wife who wielded weapons as easily as they breathed were dead by an attack of his own people.

The quiet doctor and the shy librarian were dead because he had not acted quickly enough.

Because of him…

Him…

"Well," he said at last, pulling himself with difficulty out of his dark musings. "You need a name, don't you?"

The child blinked up at him.

Splinter ran through names in his head. Somehow, none of them seemed right. He didn't much look like a John and the king didn't know of any good doctor names.

His eyes wandered to the Leonardo's cradle and a thought struck him.

"I named my first two sons after great artists… I suppose I should continue the tradition, don't you think?

"The difficulty is this – there are so many artists from that period of time…"

The king looked at the bronze item in his hand. "Metal workers… hmmm…"

Turning the broach over in his hand, he spoke a name he had heard of, an artist known for his sculptures, particularly ones in bronze. The man had been an innovative craftsmen… his had been –

"How about 'Donatello'? That is a good, strong name."

The little boy snatched again, but this time he grabbed a wad of Splinter's clothing and tugged cautiously.

"I shall take that as a yes."

At dawn the next morning, his guard dragged in a scruffy looking man with a scrawny face and narrow eyes. It took less than half an hour to prove that he was the culprit and the murderer of Donatello's parents.

He was sentenced to the mines.

Meanwhile, Splinter was groaning at the thought of finding another wet nurse.

Until the dreams began again.

OOOOOOO! I wonder who's coming next? (Thinks real hard.)

Review please!