Heello again! After months of hiatus, I've restarted writing - or better, I've restarted being betaed, because the story didn't really stop, I just lost Suomenlinna and I had to find another beta. And I found the best, this time. So a "grazie" to Mirror and Image, who had the patience to correct all the - many! - mistakes and help me out. I really didn't know what I could have done without them. Or better, maybe I know: continue the story only for the Italian readers, but that would have left a huge share of the readers without an ending.
By the way, IF you didn't know, I've also made major edits in Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2, so if you haven't already done it recently, you should reread the story from the beginning. Okay? I hope this won't bother you.
I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.
(Alexander the Great)
DATABASE:
Events - Italian Wars, 1524-25
One of the main battlefronts of the Italian wars was what today is Lombardy and then was known as the Ducato di Milano, which, as the Sforza bloodline was dying out, was contended by the French King Francis I of Valois and the Kaiser Charles V of Habsburg. Actually, the Kaiser was a bit too young to properly understand politics, but his army quite didn't understand that and kept fighting for their bread and butter – or maybe something else. Pope Clement VII sided with the French.
In October 1524, Milano had fallen under the French and Papal armies, and the Bande Nere did their best: they fought as an advance guard, mostly in recon missions, from which they came back with stolen supplies of food, gunpowder, and shots (that was their fighting technique – and we could say they were the special operations forces of that time!).
But on February 24, when the French King marched on Pavia, despite the advantage of numbers, he made a terrible mistake: he led a direct attack on the Kaiser's troops, riding with heavy cavalry in front of his own artillery, which obviously couldn't shoot. But the German and Spanish troops of the Kaiser could – and they did.
Now you're wondering, where were the Bande Nere while the French King was defeated, humiliated, and captured? They weren't there: they had left on February 18, a few days before the battle.
January 11th, 1525, Ducato di Milano
Dear Flavia,
I can only write a few lines because I don't have much time.
We're not so far from Milano, as far as I've understood, the food makes me sick and it's freezing cold, but no one really complains, especially when Giovanni is around, so I stay quiet too.
Some of the soldiers don't believe I can write, they think I'm pretending. I had a bet with them that if one of them picks a sheet from the desk of Messer Pietro, the Assassin who followed us here to replace the Apprentice who got the scabies, I'll read out loud what's written on it. I didn't bet money, calm down, they only say that if I lied they'll kick me in the nearest bog, even if I don't think they're serious.
I just hope Messer Pietro's handwriting is not bad, or I'm doomed.
Now I have to give the letter to the courier, he says he must be in Roma as soon as possible so he can bring news of a certain Borgia.
Seriously, an Assassin named Borgia?
A hug.
Marcello
Chapter 3
In Loco Parentis
Roma, January the 15th, 1525
"Assassino! Assassino!"
A step away from Flavia's back, Settimio flinched and swore. He had lost again.
Francesco Vecellio had invented the game to train the kids in the open air: everyone was given a folded piece of paper, the person who found the one with an "A" was the Assassin, the person who found the one with a cross was the Templar, and the others, who got a blank sheet, were the bystanders. The Assassin had to give a slap on the Templar's back without the latter or the bystanders noticing. The Templar had to stay as far as he or she could from the Assassin. If the Assassin patted by mistake a bystander's back, the bystander had to sit on the ground, even if some of the kids flopped down to show off, and that increased the Assassin's chances of being noticed.
The people of Roma were convinced it was something completely invented by the kids and chuckled as they kept going their own way without suspecting in any way that those "innocent children" were real Assassins.
"Bah," Settimio commented leaning against the wall. "Not a single thing right today."
"Shall we have another go?" asked a boy called Vito who, in the last ten days, had played neither as Assassin, nor as Templar.
"We'd better not; it's almost noon," Flavia said sitting on the nearest bench. She really didn't feel like playing. It didn't seem fair that she could stay at Enrico's house, in the city, training and attending lessons and playing happily with other kids her age, while Marcello, who like her had always desired those things, was probably freezing and starving in a camp two steps away from the war. It just wasn't fair. Marcello was her little brother, she was supposed to make sure he was fine now they were on their own.
"Are you still worried for your brother?" Bianca asked sitting near her. "He must be still traveling, don't worry. And you can say anything about Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, but he'll never break a promise."
People kept coming and going for their own business, and they almost did not notice the group of children at the roadside. One by one, heading to different entrances, the apprentices headed to the Headquarters, but in the Romans' eyes they were nothing but kids of the place, probably heading each to his or her home.
In the street, only Settimio, Bianca, and Flavia had remained when Alessio turned from behind a corner and dropped himself on the empty spot on the bench. He was still wearing the rags Flavia had seen on him when she had met him, and he looked like if he was about to freeze to death.
"Ancora tu?" Settimio burst out scowling at Alessio. "Make up your mind! You get in the Brotherhood or you scram!"
"Maestro Massimo begs to differ, I's the only one with enough guts to cross the city at night and stick his satire on the Pasquino statue," Alessio replied. "And you're two years older than me. Ha!"
Settimio was about to reply, but Bianca gestured for him to go back to Headquarters.
"Any messages for Maestro Massimo?" Bianca asked Alessio.
"No, but one for Flavia," Alessio said rubbing his arms. "Francesco's looking for you. Gotta take you to him."
"Where? At the den or at his house?"
"Vieni!" Alessio urged her grabbing her wrist. Despite Flavia knowing the boy, the fact he was very dirty, or at least his hands were, made her wince instinctively, and Alessio let her go, his face even more red than it already was from the cold.
"Sorry," he apologized, cleaning his hands the best he could wiping them on his 'trousers' and setting forth at a fast pace. His left hand even looked kind of swollen now Flavia could get a better look at it.
"No, it's nothing; it's my fault," Flavia reassured him, walking by his side. "Where's Francesco?"
"You follow me. I's takin' you where he's at."
For the entire time, he had kept his head low, and only by quickening her pace and bending over to look at him from below, did Flavia noticed his right eye was bruised.
"What happened?" she asked, trying to have a better look at the black eye.
"Nothing, I got hurt. What, 's never happened to you?" Alessio turned his head and covered his eye with a hand.
"The last time I saw something like that…" Flavia said. "Marcello got a fist in his face because he called a certain Edoardo a swine."
"Sto bene, Fla', sto bene. I didn't call anyone a swine." Alessio snorted.
"Listen, I can believe you broke your tooth on a stairway, but the only thing that can make an eye black is five clenched fingers. Who did it?"
"… Nobody."
"Sì, nessuno." The young Apprentice rolled her eyes. "I'd believe you more if you told me it was Odysseus!"
"Odysseus?" Alessio raised his head and gave her a puzzled look. He obviously couldn't know about the Odyssey episode in which the Greek hero Odysseus pretended his name was 'Nobody' so he could get away with blinding the Cyclops. His right eye was definitely swollen, and he could hardly keep it open.
"Forget it. Who. Did. That. To. You?"
Alessio stayed silent and lowered his head again, quickening his pace even more. They had been walking for at least half an hour when Alessio gestured her to take an alley, crossed a building site and pushed her behind a pile of blocks of marble.
Flavia would have recognized the huge in-progress building above them even without thinking twice, because since she had entered Roma she had heard abundantly buzzing about it: the Basilica of San Pietro… or what was left of it after the architect Donato Bramante, who had died the same year Flavia had had her little brother, had destroyed the ancient building twenty years before to rebuild it from scratch. Flavia had heard a lot about the building site: some people said (and Mamma and Papà had been certain of that) that it was because of the scandal of the indulgences used to fund the building that Martin Luther had walked away from the Church.
"Thanks a lot, Alessio. I can give you some money if you want to eat something." Francesco said popping out from behind a corner.
"No, thanks," Alessio said trying to get away, but Flavia seized him by the collar and tried to keep him still.
"Messer Francesco, Alessio has been beaten up. He has a black eye and a swollen hand… for a start."
"Not true!" Alessio protested, trying to hide his wounds the best he could.
"What happened, then?" Francesco asked, in a plain tone.
"I fell…"
"If you had really fallen, young man, at most you would have broken another tooth, or cut your eyebrow," Francesco said getting closer. "Flavia is right, the only thing that could have caused you such a bruise is a fist or a rock. Which one?"
Alessio stayed silent.
"Listen, you are not the first kid I'd have to pull out of a sticky situation." Francesco looked in Alessio's eyes. "The first boy I saved now is one of the best in the Brotherhood. And don't say you don't want to, we both know that non è così." He paused. "Go to Piero and Candida's place. Let Candida look at that eye. We'll meet there."
"At Piacentini's?" Alessio asked.
"Sì, that's right, there. If they ask you questions, tell them I sent you."
Alessio started to run and vanished in a few moments. Francesco sighed.
"I just hope he'll go," he told Flavia. "The only person who can make him see reason is your aunt."
"Who was the other kid you were talking about?" Flavia asked.
"My master's son," Francesco explained, "My first master, Perotto, I mean. After a series of accidents, he ended up with his uncle, one of the worst people who ever walked on Earth, and as soon as I was sure he was really there, I bent over backwards to help him run away from home. Now he's almost twenty-seven, he's in Basel for some inquiries, and he has outstripped his father. As he's called Giovanni, usually we call him by his surname, Borgia, to tell him apart from Medici when they're together, also because they have the same age."
"Borgia?" Flavia asked, puzzled. "Who was his uncle?"
"Cesare Borgia."
"You mean his mother is… Lucrezia Borgia? The strega of Castel Sant'Angelo?"
"She was just a pawn in their games," Francesco shook his head. "I put the blame on her when Perotto died… but with the wisdom of hindsight, they really were happy together. They were fighters on opposite lines, and they both paid for their love. And then Lucrezia regretted the war and kept loving her son even if he eventually became an Assassin. But I didn't call you here to tell you their story."
The few masons still on the building site were heading home for the midday meal. Francesco sat on a block of marble and gestured to Flavia to do the same.
"First off, early this morning a courier arrived from Basel, where Giovanni Borgia is working with the scholars at the university, and stopped near Milano to gather news from the Bande, too. Your little brother trusted him with a letter." Francesco started getting a folded sheet out of his purse. "Wait, don't read it now, I've got something else to show you." Flavia, who was already unfolding the sheet to recognize Marcello's handwriting, refolded the letter again and clutched it in her hand. "Put it in your belt pouch, we're going for a walk." Francesco added and gestured her to follow him.
As they crossed the rest of the building site, Flavia noticed that Francesco, oddly, was keeping his hood pulled back, and had a bag on his shoulders. His clothes, too, seemed dirtier than usual. Stained in paint.
"Oh, don't worry and act normally," Francesco said looking back with a grin. "I can come and go around here, I'm more known as an artist than as a you-know-what. As for you… I'm your godfather, no?"
Initially, Flavia thought Francesco was talking nonsense, then she understood he was trying to make her understand how she would have had to play along if someone asked them questions.
She tried to open Marcello's letter as they were walking, but she had barely arrived at the point in which her little brother complained about the food when Francesco noticed her.
"Flavia, I told you to read it later. I have a brother and three sisters, and yet I'm giving priority to you in these days. Moreover, my brother will get married in a few months!"
"Where's your brother now? In your hometown?"
"No, we both left Pieve di Cadore a long time ago. He works in Venezia… and he's a better painter than me for sure. Your mother knows him… we both attended your parents' wedding, and the first thing he did was not wish them all the best but offer them a painting for a friendly price!" Francesco chuckled. "Always like that, good old Tiziano. He won't change his spots."
They had arrived at the entrance of one of the many buildings in the complex of San Pietro, a modest, plain-looking edifice.
There was a small door, guarded by two Swiss Guards. Francesco quickly strode towards them and asked them to enter.
"Who are you?" one of them, a brute with a heavy German accent, asked.
"Francesco Vecellio da Pieve di Cadore. I'm here to make some sketches for my brother Tiziano."
"How can I believe you're not lying?"
"I have powerful friends," Francesco raised his eyebrow. "You know Giovanni de' Medici, right? His Holiness's third cousin. If I could not obtain the permission to enter the chapel…"
"Anyone can say he knows Giovanni de' Medici, but do you have a proof of it?" the guard interrupted Francesco. So the guards knew Giovanni. Plausible, as the Capitano was related to Pope Clement VII, previously known as Giulio De' Medici, only son of a Giuliano killed in the Templar conspiracy of the Pazzi.
"Is this enough?" Francesco asked the guard handing him a parchment with the seal of the six balls. The guard stuttered an apology and stepped backwards, letting Francesco and Flavia enter the building.
"But how…?" Flavia whispered, as they entered a hall.
"I asked him before he left, and he wrote it down and signed it without any objection," Francesco murmured. "He's trying hard to win back the faith we lost in him when he broke a tenet as a boy. He really wants to prove us all he's worthy of training your brother."
"Why did you need that permission?" Flavia asked as they crossed a cloister. Francesco led her through a covered courtyard.
"If I had had it some years ago, Leo X would have never have been poisoned. I've seen too many poisons in my life, a friend of mine was an expert with them. I would have recognized one for sure, if I had been allowed in the Pope's quarters. But at the moment, I'll need it for something else… oh, bene, no one's around."
From the courtyard, they had arrived into what seemed the interior of a church, which had nothing to see with the outer wall's plainness. Despite not being embellished with many sculptures or precious materials, the simple fact that the walls were completely frescoed made it majestic. The only flaw was the wall just behind them, which bore the signs of recent renovation: there was scaffolding near the walls, and there were two frescoes that seemed to have been partially covered and destroyed.
"The price to pay for the building to last," Francesco sighed looking at the destroyed paintings. "They had to ruin them after the wall almost fell on Pope Adrian three years ago. I guess someone will have to do them again. But the best ones, luckily, have been spared." He pointed at the ceiling. "Another Tuscan geniaccio, Michelangelo Buonarroti. Not exactly the friendliest person in the world, but he makes up for the lack of social life with his skills."
"Why did you take me here?" Flavia looked up and asked.
"For a lesson," Francesco said pulling out of his bag a piece of paper and a sanguine. "You don't mind if I draw, do you? They'll ask for me to show the drawings when we get out for sure." He traced a few lines, sitting on a step near the altar with Flavia by his side. "Someone would say Michelangelo's works are haphazard, the nudes up there are obscene, and they would be more suitable in a brothel than in a church, things of the like. But in your opinion, the ceiling is better blank or like this?"
"I like it this way," Flavia answered with a grin.
"This is the point, piccola. Variety is the spice of life. A frescoed ceiling looks better than a plain one. But there's always someone thinking… for example, too much yellow, too much red, too much blue… Germans are a pain in the neck, Frenchmen make me sick, the King of England farts, the Sultan Suleiman snores, there are sixty-six Assassins in Assisi…"
Flavia chuckled. It just seemed that Francesco wanted to make her smile, if not even laugh, with that speech and the tongue-twister in the end. It wasn't the first time the Master Assassin had to teach a child, and it was more than evident.
Francesco went on. "Someone would say that if the King of England didn't fart, the Sultan didn't snore, and someone assassinated the sixty-six Assassins of Assisi, the world would be a better place, but in reality, it would be like turning yellow, red and blue into grey… got it?"
"Sì." The eleven-year-old answered. She was pretty sure she had understood the point.
"And if this ceiling was grey, there would have been no reason why I should have asked Giovanni de' Medici a safe-conduct to come here and study the paintings, no?" The Master Assassin finished his theories.
"I don't think so!" Flavia immediately replied.
"In plain Italian, this is the reason why Assassins exist. Templars think that if they put the whole world on the same level, any kind of war could be avoided. But it's too high a price. You cannot sacrifice every person's free will for a so-called perfect world. You need to teach peace, not to force it." Vecellio kept on sketching the downfall of Adam and Eve. "The yellow must stay in the place of yellow, the red in its place and the blue too, the King of England must go to the privy more often and the Sultan must blow his nose before going to bed. In brief, respect is the key."
"What about the Assisi Assassins?" Flavia joked.
"Well…" Francesco muttered. "They're not sixty-six. Assisi is not a big town, I'd be surprised if they were more than six!"
Dear Marcello,
Next time you write me a letter don't wait for the courier to arrive, just write it and WHEN the courier arrives you'll have it ready!
Mamma isn't here yet, but our cousin Enrico sent her a letter to explain the situation, so she knows where you are. Make sure you win that bet, and don't make another, mud won't get off your clothes so easily.
Anyway, Borgia is Giovanni Borgia… he's the son of Francesco's first master (he has his mother's family name) and he's keeping an eye on the alchemists of Basel. Yes, he's the nephew of that Cesare Borgia; no, he won't betray the Brotherhood, he ran away from home when he was a kid and he hated his uncle.
As I'm writing, it has started snowing. I'm at the house of one of Papà's old students, Piero Piacentini, and of his wife Candida. Alessio is here with me, as it seems the other street urchins have beaten him up, and in Francesco's opinion this is the last straw. It all began when I noticed he had a black eye, and THAT was nothing, compared to everything else! Candida made him remove shirt and pants and, according to her, he was full of bruises and grazes under them. In her opinion, he even has a broken knucklebone, and that must hurt like hell, I would have expected him to cry.
In the end, Candida shoved Alessio in a tub, lent him some of her son's clothes (you remember Vito, don't you? He was near you when the masters chose us) and took him to the nearest surgeon.
Francesco says Alessio has ghosts in his past, and it's for this he does not want to become an Assassin. But working for the Brotherhood anyway, he eats enough, he survives to the coldest nights, he doesn't fall ill so often, and if he does, Zia Claudia and Berta nurse him back to health. And the other urchins don't like this.
I'm worried for him. The things he does to survive make him an enemy towards his peers, and the Brotherhood could never stop all of them. Can you imagine what will happen if they see him bandaged?
I just hope he makes up his mind before they really hurt him, and that he makes the right decision.
I don't know how long the war will last, but I beg you to stay out of trouble. I really hope you come back soon.
Take care,
Flavia
Camp of Bande Nere, January 25th, 1525
Marcello sighed and made his way through the huddle of soldiers, sticking a feather on the back of one of them. That was the last one.
It was a chore Giovanni had assigned him: after gathering a bunch of feathers together, he had given him fifteen and told him to stick them with resin on the backs of as many soldiers who, in the last battle, had acted in an irresponsible way.
Marcello had found the last one, a local burly former peasant called Alfredo Acciaioli, and had tagged him with the feather, so now, at last, he could watch Giovanni training the newest recruits in sword fighting. It wasn't exactly fun, but it was a lesson, and watching Giovanni sparring with the soldiers might have turned out to be useful if one day Giovanni would have called him to spar.
Marcello slipped in the empty space between Messer Pietro del Buta da Arezzo, a fellow Assassin who had left Roma with them, and Richard of Suffolk, a strange-accented man who was Giovanni's right hand man, and looked at the scene.
Unlike the majority of the officials in that period, Giovanni took every new soldier and gave him personally weapon training. In the previous days, Marcello had already seen half a dozen of them leaving the sparring ring, bruised, battered, and exhausted. But the ones who had been with the army for weeks were already able to stand their ground.
The last recruit fell on his butt in the muddy snow in the middle of the training ring. Giovanni sheathed his sword and cleared his throat.
"Before I call in another recruit, you have to know that any soldier who has a feather on his clothes has acted in an irresponsible way in the last skirmish," he announced. "Feel free to kick their lazy asses."
Among the soldiers silence fell. Some were reaching their own backs, searching for the infamous feather. Marcello couldn't help smirking when Messer Pietro and Richard looked at him. Then Messer Pietro tousled his hair and whispered "good job".
"Now…" Giovanni walked towards the rack and picked up what seemed a simple wooden stick. "For the last spar…" He flourished the stick. "Get in the ring, Marcello."
Some of the soldiers looked around, puzzled. Marcello could hear some of them mumbling something that sounded like "What? The bagai?".
Who knew what it meant. Another was muttering, "He's just a criatura…". Marcello sighed and stepped forward. He didn't know what those words meant, but he could easily guess. They thought he was too young to be trained. Giovanni took his guard and Marcello wielded his wooden training sword.
"Are you mad or what?" Pietro protested from the edge of the ring. "It's alright with your men, they're soldiers and of age, but he's a child! He could get seriously hurt!"
"He won't get hurt if he won't get hit." Giovanni replied, and Marcello barely had the time to see him move before his stick dangerously approached him. He had to clutch his wooden sword with both hands to keep the wood away from him. Some of the soldiers sluggishly clapped.
That was close.
Another blow came, and landed painfully on his left hip.
"Come on, boy! Move those feet and close your guard!" Giovanni closed his guard and struck another blow. Marcello held up his wooden sword and tried moving around. You won't get hurt if you won't get hit. Come on Marcello, you can do this.
At the next blow, he jumped backwards, but when he approached Giovanni again, the Capitano's big and calloused left hand seized him by his collar.
"Capitano, that's enough!" Pietro burst out. "Let him down!"
"Would Frundsberg listen to you, Pietro?" Giovanni asked almost without looking away. "Break free, Marcello."
"How?" Marcello stuttered, his feet up in the air, not knowing exactly what to do.
"Just do it, Marcello! Don't think, act!" Giovanni harshly replied. Marcello waved the sword and hit Giovanni's knee. It didn't work. He tried it again. Nothing. Then he hit his arms and Giovanni opened his hands and dropped him on the ground. It was staged, Marcello was more than certain he had done nothing to his mentor.
"Sì, that would work," the condottiero said as Marcello got back on his feet. He had his butt covered in icy mud – and there goes my new tunic. The soldiers were loudly laughing and joking. He could distinguish the word "bagai" and "criatura" in their speech. He clenched his dirty fists and gritted his teeth. This was like school all over again. He knew he was no match for Giovanni. That was for sure. His teacher was a fully-fledged Assassin and a Capitano and a sword master. But that… the soldiers looking at him that way… that was discouraging, to say the least.
"ENOUGH!" Giovanni stuck his stick in the ground and drew out his sword. "The next soldier who laughs at him again will have to compete against me… unarmed," he bellowed. "So maybe he'll have a taste of what it means to be really helpless."
The soldiers fell silent. Marcello tried to slap the mud off his clothes the best he could.
"On guard," Giovanni told him. "Again." He sheathed his sword and picked up the stick.
Marcello didn't know for how long Giovanni kept him in the ring, but when he was done, he was dirty, wet, and aching everywhere. Pietro immediately rushed to him to check if anything was broken, but Marcello ducked away from him as quickly as he could and slurred he wanted to change his clothes before he got a cold. He rushed into the tent he shared with Giovanni, Pietro, and Richard, threw on the ground his dirty clothes and picked up clean ones.
He pulled up his breeches and checked on his bare chest. There were some blueish stains on his arms and chest, and they hurt like hell when he put his shirt and tunic on.
In the few days he had been at the camp, Giovanni and Pietro had set a routine for him. At the sound of the Diana, the wake-up call, he had to attend some chores with the army. When he was done, he had reading exercises to do. Then, there was lunch, more reading, a race around the camp before it got dark, and then Messer Pietro would school him at something. Depending on when he and Marcello had time, some classes could even be in the morning.
The book he was reading in those days was Orlando Furioso. He could not say he disliked it – there was adventure and everything, and the hippogriff, a strange beast half eagle and half horse, was just too funny to describe, and the English knight's trip to the Moon, where it was found everything that was lost on Earth, to get back Orlando's lost wits had been a pleasure to read. But it didn't seem something an Assassin could have written, let alone the Mentore. Much more like children's fairy tales. Much more like an insult, to him. He had read the Aeneid in his last month in Fiesole, and he could recognize Mentore Ariosto had taken a lot after the ancient Roman poem, but the resemblances ended there. It was a book for… he wouldn't dare say prissy sissies, that was offensive… but it certainly was no book for an Assassin trainee. He just hoped Messer Pietro's next textbook would have been something with a bit more sense. Something more useful for his training. Maybe an unfinished version of Zio Niccolò's work about principati. Messer Pietro treated him like a brat, not like an Apprentice.
Or better, Marcello called him Messer Pietro, but just out of respect because he was the only scholar in the army. As far as he had understood, he was a poet as well as an Assassin, but after a glance at his papers, he had found so many profanities in them he had dropped them before he could say, "Damn".
Marcello had met Pietro when he had run after them at their departure, and, though the official reason for his presence was the replacement of Giovanfrancesco Cellini, the Apprentice Giovanni had left in Roma because of his permanent itch, he had a clear suspicion the real reason was so that Zia Claudia could keep an eye on them.
Whatever had been the reason, Giovanni and Messer Pietro had become friends, and the latter had become the de facto scrivener of the Bande and Marcello's schooling tutor.
All in all it wasn't too bad, as Giovanni, when the army was in a pinch, got mad and shouted his reproach at the soldiers, and when it happened, there was always Messer Pietro at Marcello's side. But sometimes Messer Pietro acted a bit too much like Serena, the old nursemaid at the villa in Fiesole.
Marcello sat on his camp bed and opened the book. After a while, Giovanni came back in. He and Messer Pietro were still having an argument, and Richard was just following them and staying silent.
"And you could have harmed him seriously, Giovanni, when kids fall down like that they could easily break a bone! He's ten years old, for fuck's sake!" Pietro was spitting out at the Capitano.
"If he won't learn how to fall from such a ridiculous height, he'll never be skilled enough to jump off a floor, let alone a Leap of Faith," Giovanni replied at Pietro trying to slap the snow off his armor. "And anyway you've seen him, he does know how to fall… that was way too easy, too, for a ten-year-old."
"That has yet to be seen," Pietro approached Marcello and lifted his shirt.
"Messer Pietro, please, it's cold!" Marcello complained and tried to back away while the scholar's cold fingers pressed on his ribs, probably checking for anything broken. Whenever something had to do with his well-being, the tables were turned: Giovanni kept calm, even looked bored in some moments, while Messer Pietro literally flared up and clucked over Marcello, who was more than annoyed for his excessive attentions. Sometimes, Marcello had the funny thought that, if Pietro had his way, he would have been forced to walk around wearing an armor made of pillows.
"Trousers down, Marcello," Pietro said once he finished checking his ribs.
"Messer Pietro…" Marcello protested again. "My legs are not broken, I didn't break my butt, it's freezing cold and I'd rather not show my privates in front of everyone when I'm not going out to pee! And I used to climb walls at home, too, I'm used to bruises. I even sprained my wrist once when I was eight… but now I'm fine, really."
"Well I'm not taking the responsibility if he gets seriously wounded!" Pietro finished and stomped to his desk.
"Good riddance!" Giovanni smirked at him. Marcello roared with laughter. He wasn't too sure the scholar was serious: he had already announced he would have not taken any responsibility if Marcello had gotten a burn helping in the kitchen, or caught a cold, yet he kept watching on him like a dry nurse.
"And you'd better read your assignment, boy!" Pietro added from behind his desk.
"So, what are you reading?" Giovanni approached Marcello and picked up the book from his hands. It wasn't properly bound, so he had to inspect it a bit before recognizing what it was, but once he did, he pulled a face.
"Seriously, Pietro? Orlando Furioso? He's an Assassin apprentice, not a spoiled little brat… he needs to know history and politics, not fairy tales! Read that load of old tosh yourself!"
Giovanni tossed the book on Messer Pietro's desk, quickly got out of the light armor he used for training, and changed it with his black and burgundy Assassin robes.
"Today's lesson will be outside."
Marcello jumped on his feet and followed Giovanni outside of the tent.
"Pull your hood forward. If they don't know who we are, it's so much the better," said Giovanni giving a tug at the rear of Marcello's tunic.
"What about your sword?" Marcello asked pulling his hood forward. Giovanni was leading him out of the camp.
"It's all right, I'm not unarmed," Giovanni said flicking his wrist. A blade sprung out.
"One of the two Cellini boys made this for me a while ago. I don't use it too much, not in these times." The Assassin continued retracting the blade. "When you fight in the open field, leading an army into a battle, a hidden blade is useless and dangerous. I've also acted as a spy in the Kaiser's army, using the hidden blade in there would have given me away. But now the only thing I might fear is getting too close to enemy scouts where they could take you to get to me; if they don't bother us, however, I won't even have a reason to nail them."
"What if they do bother us?" Marcello couldn't help sounding worried.
"You run as far as you can. Don't worry about me." Giovanni sighed and a puff of steam came out of his mouth. "If your aunt finds out I let you into any kind of trouble, I won't have to worry about the Kaiser's army."
They were on one of the many mule tracks of the countryside. Despite Giovanni's concerns, there was nobody around. Nothing, apart from the snow on the ground. At a certain point, Giovanni stopped and pointed at the walls of a city, on the horizon.
"You see? Pavia. There… are the Kaiser's troops. The enemy. The Templars."
"Are they all Templars?" Marcello asked.
"No. Some of the commanders are. Charles de Lannoy is a Templar. Georg Von Frundsberg and his right hand man, Niklas of Salm, are Templars, though I highly doubt they're here. Once he was a respectable man, you know. Frundsberg, I mean. But people get corrupted. According to our new mole in the court, it's quite likely Frundsberg is the head, at least for the Germans. The Duke of Bourbon is a Templar for sure. Some think the Kaiser is a Templar too, but no one has confirmed or contradicted it, and honestly, I think it's a hoax. And there's Charles de la Motte in the French lines, but he fell into disgrace after the challenge of Barletta and the defeat of his Borgia friends, so no one would never trust him with an army."
"If we know who they are," Marcello asked again, shrugging. "Why doesn't the Brotherhood strike?"
"Oh, this is the fregatura. If you just rub them out, their soldiers will cry 'Assassino' if they see you and keep fighting if they don't. And even if they didn't want to keep on fighting for ideals or for a ruler, they would for their bread and butter. You'll see. At a point we could be forced to kill one and his army will keep fighting harder. Just, they won't know what their leader really wanted, and the death could be a diversion – you could not prevent a battle, for example, but the Brotherhood would be safe and could eventually strike back. Full victory is never an option. You always lose something, so you must know what you really want to save. That's what makes a difference between a victory and a defeat."
"But if the soldiers aren't Templars…" Marcello bit his lip. "Rule number one, stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent…"
"You're too good, eaglet. And they're not innocents. They'd draw their sword in front of you without even thinking. They'll attack you, that's it, so be ready to fight back, when you have to."
"Why do they fight?"
"Why do you?" Giovanni asked him in a solemn tone, looking straight in his eyes. Marcello didn't know what to answer. He wanted to say "because they're the enemy", but something told him that was not the answer Giovanni wanted from him. It wasn't an easy question… he hadn't even started fighting properly. Then, he remembered what Papà and Mamma always said. "For the others who can't," his answer was almost instinctive, after that memory. "We live for the others. Templars want to rule the world and make everyone think the same - because in their opinion there'll be always war if it's not like that - but Papà always says peace must be taught, love of people, not making them afraid of you, and… diceva sempre."
"Be strong, eaglet, the answer was right." Giovanni told him putting an arm around his shoulders. "Now do you understand why do we have to keep on fighting? Why we can't give up? Your father did what he could. Now it's our turn. And there'll be more after us. But we must not give up now."
Snow started falling again, getting thicker and thicker. Marcello rubbed his hands and blew on his palms, trying to stay warm despite the freezing cold. Giovanni chuckled, and a large puff of steam came out of his nose and mouth.
"Well, there's no point fighting winter on its ground, though," the Assassin commented. "Andiamo, let's get back to the tent before you get ill."
Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months.
Alessio left the streets for good – let's say that the black eye and broken knucklebone had been the last straw, and Zia Claudia burnt his old rags he called clothes as soon as she had the chance and forbade him to ever sleep outside again.
In that period, Alessio was a very shy boy. He kept doing his errands for the Brotherhood, but even though he had been granted a bed at Tiber Island, he hardly talked to anyone, especially to the adults. I tried to break him out of his silence, but that didn't work a lot. He only talked to me.
And then, my mother arrived in Roma.
March 3, 1525, Roma, Tiber Island Headquarters
It was pouring rain that day.
After the snow of the last days of January, it was milder, but the clouds had not gone with the cold, and snow had turned to rain and thunderstorms. With such weather, few Apprentices were allowed to stay outside.
Alessio was sulking on a bench and staring at the window, and Flavia was sitting next to him, in a similar mood. It had been days and she had not received any news from Marcello. What if he had gotten hurt? What if the Kaiser's army…?
"Flavia, come on. No courier will come through that door if you keep staring at it," Alessio nudged her and hinted at a grin.
"The dottore said you'd better not to use that arm until it heals." Flavia sighed, pointing at the splint still on Alessio's hand after a month and a half.
"It don't hurt no more." Alessio grinned and leaned on the backrest. "Can't wait until I can use my hand again. I used to draw on the walls where I slept – well, I use my right hand, but I can't go back there if I can't use both hands to climb."
"Walls? And no one told you off?"
"No one ever goes there," Alessio hinted at a grin. "They say there are ghosts. It's deep under the city."
"In the catacombs? Well, I could guess why people think there are ghosts."
"There's a statue, actually." Alessio shrugged. "It looks like an ancient goddess. And she's damn ugly… I don't really know who could worship her. I just call her Sora Mignotta."
Flavia chuckled. She knew enough Roman dialect to know it meant Sister Whore.
Alessio stood up and looked outside the window.
"I just hope it don't rain enough for the Tiber to flood," he said. "You know… once my Papà and I were trapped by a flood."
"Your father?" Flavia stood up in turn.
"Sì, my Papà."
"You say you don't even remember his name."
"I wasn't even three when I lost him. He was just Papà for me – it's not that I don't remember his name… I just never knew it. Maybe I was one or something when Roma was flooded, I was told years later it had been in October 1514. Judging by these rains, one of these years it's going to happen again." He looked at the streets outside. Then he had a start. "Merda! Flavia, call Francesco!"
"What's up?" Flavia approached him. He looked somewhat worried.
"A woman. Just outside the door. She just seems to know the Headquarters is here!" Alessio hastily explained.
"A woman? Probably she's just looking for shelter." Flavia shrugged.
"Well we can't let her in…" Alessio leaned on the window sill. Flavia took a look. It was really raining cats and dogs, but she would have recognized that face anywhere.
"Of course she knows the place," Flavia told Alessio. "Open the door, she's my Mamma!"
Alessio turned purple and stayed still. Flavia leaned out of the window and waved an arm. "Mamma! I'll open the door right now!"
Alessio walked back to the bench and stayed there. Flavia went to the door and opened, then she flung herself at Mamma as soon as she was in.
"Calm down, Flavia, I'm wet…" Mamma tried to complain, but Flavia turned a deaf ear to her protests.
"Doesn't matter!" she squeaked.
"You're going to get soaked…" Mamma tried to protest again.
"Who cares? I'm so happy you're here!" Flavia took a step backwards and grinned. "Weren't you traveling with Paolo?"
"He showed me our new home and told me you were here." Mamma explained. "Any news from Marcello?"
"No. Not at all," Flavia sighed. "Francesco says that sometimes couriers do have delays, especially during a rainstorm like this. But I can't help staying worried."
"Naaa… don't!" Alessio stretched on the bench. "No one in his right mind would get a ten-year-old into battle…"
"Well, Alessio, you said that thing about Giovanni's son," Flavia pointed out.
"It's just rumors," Alessio shrugged and stared at his shoes. "I mean, no one in his right mind would let a baby…" He had started talking gibberish.
"Is he a friend of yours?" Mamma asked Flavia. "I think I know him."
"I don't think so, Mad… Madonna," Alessio mumbled. He was as red as a beetroot.
"Is your name Alessio Falcone?" Mamma turned to him and asked.
"Alessio what?" both kids spoke together. Alessio had turned from red to white.
What did Mamma know about him? And… was it him? The name just seemed to fit him perfectly.
"My name is Alessio," Alessio mumbled. "But I've never known my family name. If I really have one. At Santo Spirito the boys like me were given the last name of Proietti. Forsaken. Children of no one."
"How old are you, Alessio?" Mamma asked him.
"Twelve. I lived with my father until I was two or something." Alessio bit his lip.
"Listen, Alessio." Mamma explained. "About two months before Flavia was born, my husband and I visited Roma for the last time. I remember that Ezio received bad news as soon as we arrived. A man called Filippo Falcone had been wounded while exploring a gallery, and he was alone with a baby to look after. The baby's name was Alessio."
A father with a baby, and no one is called Falcone around here, Flavia thought. This sums it all, Alessio never knew his mother! "That's bound to be you!" Flavia burst out.
"Are you sure, Madonna?" Alessio stood up and looked in her eyes. "I don't think I'm the boy you knew. I mean, I can't be… my father… an Assassin…?"
"You have a biiiig problem with your self-esteem, Alessio," Flavia smirked and folded her arms. She could bet anything the friars running the orphanage had annihilated it, and that probably also was the reason why the twelve-year-old wanted nothing to do with something big like the Brotherhood.
Mamma chuckled. "You know, Flavia, you just looked like your father for a moment" she explained. "That smirk."
Flavia grinned, then sighed. It was not time to dwell upon that.
"Va bene, let's say that I am Filippo Falcone's son," Alessio mumbled. "So if my father was an Assassin, why the fuck didn't no one ever told me before? I've known Francesco since I was eight!"
"To keep you safe," Francesco entered the room. His hair and clothes were wet, but he was clutching an oilskin pouch that seemed to contain something. "Madonna Sofia… good morning and welcome to Roma."
"Safe? From what, exactly?" Alessio pulled a face.
"The Assassins' children are an easy target, even when their parents are dead. Especially, when their parents are dead." Francesco laid the pouch on the nearest table. "It's not safe for them to know, not if they can't use a weapon or they are not willing to learn. If you're younger than twenty, you can't use a weapon and you won't be trained, then no one will tell you 'your father was an Assassin'. Telling you would have meant forcing you into the Brotherhood. And you seemed to be more than determined not to get involved."
Alessio stepped forward and clutched his sound fist. "Not fair! You made me think I was… I was… a bum! Those friars who kept telling me that… that nobody wanted me… and that was why I was there… and that I was a good for nothing and that I would have gone to Hell if I…"
"It could be a violation of the third tenet," Francesco explained. "Never compromise…"
"The Brotherhood!" Alessio interrupted him. "So what? I knew you all!" He didn't sound angry, but his voice was sad. "I thought you trusted me."
Francesco approached Alessio and put his hands on his shoulders. "We do trust you. But no matter who your father was, a child would have no chance when facing a fully armed adult man."
Alessio pulled a face and looked down. "So now I have to be trained, right?"
"Just until you'll be able to take care of yourself." Francesco grinned and patted him on the back. "Then you can choose whether to stay or to go."
"Go? And where?" Alessio shrugged. "I got nowhere to go."
"If you will really want to leave, in some years, after the training, you will know how to read and write, how to fight, and probably something else. You'd have your own way." Francesco stated. Then he turned to Mamma and Flavia and the grin faded from his face. "Regardless, we have received news from the battlefront. Giovanni has been wounded in action."
"What?" A chill ran through Flavia's back. How could it have happened? When had it happened. And… was Marcello safe? Where were they now? What could they mean, "wounded"?
"Your brother is safe and sound. They're heading to San Secondo Parmense now, at the manor of Giovanni's nephew. I'm up to leave and check on them, I had scheduled to go to Venezia anyway in two months. Flavia, here, I have a letter. By the way, do you need me to take anything there for Marcello? Nothing too heavy though, I only have a horse and…"
"What if we all go there?" Mamma interjected.
Translations:
Vieni = come
Sto bene, Fla', sto bene = I'm OK, Flavia, I'm OK
Sì, nessuno = yes, nobody
non è così = it's not this way
strega = witch, but also "mean woman".
no? = a common question tag. Yeah, in Italian one size fits all.
Bene = well / good
Eh già = yeah (something like that)
Geniaccio = erratic genius
Piccola = little one (only used with girls)
Bagai (Milanese dialect) = kid, little boy
Criatura (Southern Italian dialect) = kid, little boy… baby.
Fregatura = con
Diceva sempre = he always said. Notice the past tense.
Andiamo = let's go
Dottore = doctor
Va bene = OK
