Philippe pushed his steed as hard and as fast as he could as they tore across the goat paths between San Gimigiano and Monterigioni. The countryside was quickly falling apart; a group of five black robed figures had slipped into the city of towers during Maffei's onslaught and were now tearing the surrounding villages apart. The woman had looked near terrified as she had approached him with the parchment in her hand before saying, 'Boy, take this back to yer captain and with haste. I don' know how much longer I've got before they find me.' The drop had been quick, too quick to allow him even the slightest moment to inquire as to who he spoke to. She had smiled shortly, 'He'll know, trust me boy. Now, go!' she had said as the look of confusion remained on his features.
The black horse slid to a halt in the mud, the ground soaked from yesterday's rain. The sixteen year old mercenario messenger leapt off the horse, his feet hitting the ground before he made a dead sprint towards the villa. He knocked over noble and villager alike, grunts and curses flying at him as he bolted up the stairs, across the courtyard and through the open door of the villa. "Agostino! Messer Mario!" he gasped, finding the main foyer empty.
Mario slipped out of his study, Ezio and Anna in tow. "Philippe, breathe boy. What's wrong?"
The messenger slipped the piece of paper in his hand before standing, "Sir, news from San Gimigiano."
Mario lofted a brow as he opened the parchment. His eyes scanned half way through the paper before he felt as if he had just been punched hard in the chest, visibly shaken by the words as he felt faint. "Philippe, who gave this to you?" he demanded, "Be forthcoming with me, lying will get you nothing but death in this instance," he said sharply as he lunged at the boy, his hand wrapping around his neck.
Ezio worked to pry his uncle off of the messenger, the paper falling to the floor in the process. "Uncle, stop," he said as he managed to get in between the two to keep the mercenario from the would-be choke hold of death.
Anna picked up the paper, Mario unable to move in enough time, ice blue gaze reading the words scribed on the paper. Mario, five years ago you aided my family and delivered us all from the hands of death. I fear that the Angel o' Death is angry and has come once more for me. Now it is in the twilight that I write to you and ask you once more for your aid. I fear I have not been as thorough as I once thought as the men the Pope has sent managed to find a trail of breadcrumbs that has led them straight to me 'ere, in the towered city. I pray of you please, forgive my deceit. I hold nothin' against you or yer brother, God rest 'im. I am the one at fault. Should somethin' happen to me, please, take care o' her. Take care of my sweet little Anna. She's so lost, Mario. She's a shade of what she used to be and it breaks my heart ta see her like this. Tell her this. These men have pursued me for years now. I couldn't in good conscience lead 'em to her. Tell her the things we do for those we love 'oft times don't make sense, but we know it is for the betterment of the one we love that we do them. Respectfully, E. A. Grigorios.
Just as the messenger had managed to escape one fate, Anna quick stepped past Mario, her left hand removing the man's sword breaker before her right grabbed the boy by his throat. "Tell me who gave this to you, now!" she snarled as she picked him up, anger impelling her to nail him to one of the support columns of the second story balcony. "I swear to God that I will make you a permanent addition to this structure, piece by madre cazzo piece if you don't answer me."
Philippe gasped as the woman slammed him hard against the marble, "I don't...know," he gasped as he felt the life beginning to drain from him.
"Not good enough," she snarled, the point of the dagger coming ever closer to his throat, "who gave it to you!"
"Some...woman," he gasped still until Ezio came to his aid as he slipped up behind the red headed maven, a silver blade emerging from his sleeve as he held it to her throat.
"Anna, let him go," Ezio said slowly. He had come to discover over the last few days that the woman he had seen so open, so vulnerable to him last night as he claimed her body over and over again until the early hours of the morning was cut from a different cloth than most. His hands had found and traced over the lattice work scaring on her back while she was passed out of exhaustion, a testament to how truly screwed up the inquisition had been in their grilling of her...literally. The only way to get through to her when she became possessed with the pent up rage from years of abuse was to fight fire with fire. Or in this case steel.
Anna blinked slowly, the point of Ezio's blade hovering dangerously close to her throat, her eyes clearing as she shook her head. As she came back to reality, she relinquished her grasp of the mercenario's throat, the boy dropping to the floor as Philippe was able to get his first gasp of air in what had felt like an eternity. "This letter isn't possible," she said. "The woman who gave this to you must have been a part of the Maffei disaster there. She clearly hasn't gotten the hint that the bastardi no longer breathes."
Ezio took the paper from Anna, scanning through the words until the closing, "That's where I heard it," he said. "Merda why didn't I think of it sooner," his eyes fell on her as a confounded look crossed her face. "I had been sitting in a tavern just outside the southern gate, trying to find a way to slip in undetected. I was about to leave when this mystery woman kicked a chair out and bade me sit down while she told me about..." he drifted, uncertain as he searched for how to deliver the fact that it was very possible he had met the woman in question and that she was very much alive. "She told me about you, Anna. About how you fight and your gift."
Mario snarled, "And you didn't see it fit to tell me this little bit of news when you first got here, Ezio?" As he moved to begin his lecturing, he caught Anna out of the corner of his eye... "Anna...Anna!" he called as he caught sight of her turning around and walking out of the villa.
Ezio sighed, this time it was his turn to go after the girl, "No, stay here. I'll see if I can talk her off the ledge this time."
It was too much to bear all at once. Just when she was beginning to feel as if maybe there was hope, when her world began to turn slow enough for her to keep up things took a turn for the worse and another part of her world was rocked to its core. "This is porcheria!" she snapped, "Absolute and utter porcheria." She spun to face Ezio, "You fonging knew she was alive, you knew it the day I said the same maledetto thing to you after you and your ex split. Yet you didn't see it appropriate to say anything, to either me or Mario?" she snarled.
"Anna," Ezio said, "I swear to you that I had to clue who the hell she was! Don't crucify me for not knowing everything," he sighed, frustrated with how quickly both she and Mario had been to feed him to the wolves. "You both have done a damned good job at not telling me merda and then jumping on my case when I 'screw up' due to lack of information. Io non sono un lettore di testa, cazzo!" he snapped.
She rubbed her temples, her head throbbing, "When someone asks you 'Hey, what happened when you were on assignment' I would think that maybe you'd be more forthcoming about things especially when it's your mentor asking you the damned question!" she growled.
Ezio rolled his eyes as she went off on lecturing him about how things were to be done. "Really? So instead of focusing on what we are to do now to help your own flesh and blood, you're going to stand there and be hypocritical?"
Anna felt the chill in his words, "So what if I've screwed up beyond all repair, if that's how you feel about things then fine. Why don't you go complain about how someone who's been trained in our ways since birth dared to share information with you about their experience and how much it annoyed you to someone who gives a shit." As she spun on her heel, she took the dagger she had in her hand and threw it as hard as she could, a resounding thud as the blade sunk into a tree. "I'm done with people trying to help me," she softly. "Cazzo fino all'ultimo di voi. If you came out here to console me, congratulations, you've done the opposite. Now get lost before I choke you out too." she snapped, tears threatening her eyes once more as she took two steps towards the staircase before leaning heavily against the wall.
A low growl of frustration left Ezio's throat as he moved to get in the last word. Mario put a hand on his shoulder, "Nipote, leave her be," he said. "She has to process this on her own, how would you feel if you found out your father were alive these last two years when you've been made the believe otherwise."He looked from Anna to his uncle, truth in the elder man's words.
"Fine," Ezio said shortly before he spun on his heel, grumbling about how much of a pain she was turning out to be. Last night she had been one person, now it was as if that woman had been a shimmer of heat off of the stones of the courtyard at his old home in Firenze.
Mario walked over to Anna, "At this point the most important thing is to bring your mother back to us alive. Take today to gather your wits and focus, I know this is not what you expected. Tomorrow, I'm letting you take to the countryside and as per your punishment Ezio will take lead and he'll be there to shadow you." Her body tensed as the words left his mouth, "Let me finish. He'll also be there to provide support in case things go south."
Anna looked to Mario, "Does Machiavelli know of this?"
Mario shook his head, "And he won't know either. Let him get angered, I am the leader of this order. He is just my eyes and ears beyond my reach in Italia. Also, I have decided to let you take up your bow and quiver once more, but if Ezio dies or harm comes to him in any way you will not be given a second chance."
Anna nodded, "Grazie, il mentore," she said before offering a salute and bow.
"Child, don't be so damned formal all of the time," Mario laughed, "you might give me a complex."
Anna had done a good job at avoiding Ezio for the duration of yesterday and well into the evening hours. He had tried to get her attention, tried to reach out to her but she pushed him to edge of her thoughts, careful to keep him at arm's length. At the time he had turned and walked away, his back to her as she stood at the opposite end of the hallway as he muttered something about her being stubborn and pigheaded just like his uncle and his father. "Good night, Nastassia," he said before he vanished within the confines of the same room the two had shared most of the day prior and night.
Now, as dawn was still an hour shy of breaking, she laid in her bed, eyes cast towards the ceiling as her skin tingled at the thought of what had happened to her night before last. She both smiled and felt tears begin to flow once more, a thing she seemed to be doing a lot lately. The first time had been strictly a lust driven session, but the subsequent sessions between him and her seemed to soften bit by bit as he slowed himself down, each time lasting longer than the previous until she finally collapsed from exhaustion. Or at least he must have thought she did as she rolled over and drifted into her usual sleep state of sleeping but having a keen awareness of her environment.
His fingers traced the scars on her back as he lay on his side. 'Mio Dio mia bella,' he had whispered, 'mi dispiace.' At the time she had opened her eyes, crying softly at his words. He was the first man to not shrink back in horror at the sight of her body, instead he laid there with nothing but pure sympathy in his voice as he spoke to her.
There was a reason why she covered herself from head to toe, the initial days following her imprisonment had been filled with hissed gossip, especially from those who saw the markings left by the Heretic Fork. Harlot, witch there wasn't a word she didn't hear from the public. First it had been her switch from skirts to pants to hide the brand marks on her legs, then it was her switch from the short sleeved blouses to the long sleeved ones to hide the scripture reference she had carved into her flesh, then she added the cloak to hide the scaring left on her upper back before she completed the ensemble with the face veil to hide the scars on her neck.
Ezio had looked past her physical flaws, and still fought to reach through the emotional gunk that hid her in a veil of darkness. His eyes had refused to leave her's even as she looked away from him as he had hovered there above her. 'Anna, don't look away' he had said softly, 'It's alright.' He smiled when he was able to look down into her ice blue gaze once more, 'Better.'
The knock on her door had been soft, so soft she barely noticed it before she heard the door creak open. Quickly she wiped her tears away with her sheets and sat up in bed, "Mario?" she asked.
Sleep had not been so quick to find Ezio as it had the night previous after they finally drifted off in his room. It appeared the more he had made love to her, the more consumed he became with her. Inside of his mind, a war raged. She was beautiful, strong, but the world had spun the opposite direction and right out from underneath her. He watched her break over and over again since the church, every blow almost more crushing than the last it seemed. Part of it worried him as he found himself wanting to save her; no matter how screwed up they were no one should ever have to fight the darkness alone. The other part, well, it wanted him to stay the hell away from her.
"Hey," he whispered as he stuck his head into her room, "Mind if I join you for a bit?" The candlelight illuminated her skin in a soft glow, golden bits shimmering throughout the beautiful lush red curls that framed her face. But her eyes were dark; the brief breaks between the shadows cast by the flickering candle showed them red as if she had been crying. "Anna, you alright? I don't need you breaking on me before this..." he said as he slipped into her room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Anna rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I'm good. Something must've fallen into my eyes this morning, they've done nothing but tear up since like an hour ago," she said as she squinted against the light. "What was it you needed to tell me before I actually had to wake up?" She was careful to build her walls back up again, ready to face him and the matter at hand from behind a sarcastic façade once more. She did not need him to serve as a distraction and even though her mind and heart closed up tighter than an oyster, her animalistic desires sure as hell made their selves known. The dream she had woke from as she relived the night before in her sleep came to her mind's eye, sending a shiver up from the root of her spine to her neck.
Ezio caught the shiver, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he walked over to her bed. "I wanted to apologize," he said as he sat on the edge.
"For what?" Anna asked, lofting a brow as she leaned against the headboard.
"For yesterday," he said, his eyes finding her's, "I found myself getting frustrated and let that frustration cloud my better judgment. Mi dispiace...Anna."
Anna smiled slightly, "Nessun problema," she said.
Ezio reached a hand out, finding she did not shy away from him as he cupped her cheek with his hand, "May I say something else?" he asked softly.
His fingers brushed past the tear stains on her cheeks, "If you must," she said. Please, don't make this more complicated. I'm not ready for this rifiuti...
His eyes searched her's in the faint glow, the clouds outside keeping the sky dark just long enough for the candle to still hold some strength. "Why do you hide yourself beneath all of these different layers? I have met my fair share of mysterious women, but you," he drifted as he wiped a remnant tear from her cheek. "You mia bella take the cake, plate and all."
She smirked, "Would you want it any other way? If I kissed and told every single little one of my dark secrets, what interest would I be to you?" Please let that work... Ezio was the only man she knew aside from Mario who held some sway over her. It didn't help that he was a kindred soul, having seen devastation of a kind himself.
"Ah, so the wit I saw on the roof of the church returns," Ezio said. It's some progress; at least she's not lying to me, he thought
"Speaking of rooftops, remind me to re-educate you on the skills of rooftop running," she said as she folded her arms across her chest, "you are simply horrible at it."
"You're words wound me, madonna" he said, feigning hurt as he leaned back, his hands folding one atop the other over his heart.
Anna laughed softly, "Now, is there a reason why you happen to be remaining in my room? I think your uncle said something about us riding out this morning?"
"Mario said last night we would ride out mid-day. As far as I can figure, we should get to San Gimigiano before or slightly after nightfall which is when we'll begin our search." His tone became serious, "Can you remember anything at all of the day you and your mother parted ways or before? Anything to help us get an idea for places to look."
She knew this was coming, a day she dreaded as she nodded, "It's part of the curse of my talent...I have a memory where I can remember every last detail down to the way things smell." With a sigh, Anna closed her eyes, recalling the day she watched her mother leave and the days leading up to their escape. "The day she left, Giovanni put her on a fieno cart heading from a village near the southern tip of the Apennine pass. She was told to take up residence in a satellite village near the roads leading to Monterigioni. Mario's men frequented the paths on their way to San Gimigiano so there would have been no way she would have ever been without constant watch."Anna felt sweat bead on her forehead as flashes of the final days of her imprisonment surfaced, phantom aches consuming her body as her shoulder throbbed, drawing a hiss from her lips.
Ezio was quick to catch the wince, "Easy now," he said as he reached out to her, "What about before, do you remember where you were before?"
"There was a tower, in the middle of nowhere. That was where we were...where we..." she drifted, "Please...just...I can't..." Her head began to throb as she tried to break the barriers that still stood, her eyes opening, "I can't." She was quick to pull her hand away from him, he was getting too close for comfort.
He nodded, "It's a start," he said. "It's better than nothing, things will shake loose at some point and chances are it'll be during an inopportune moment you'll have a revelation."
Anna's eyes grew distant as she stared off into the darkness beyond the end of her bed. He was getting too close to her, "Ezio, whatever thoughts you have about night before last, whatever feelings or emotions you have attached to it. Do me a favor will you?"
Ezio smiled softly, "What can I do for you?"
"Forget them. Leave them as far away from your memory as possible. I can promise you that when this is all over, when we find my mother, I'm not staying at the villa. I am going to take her as far away from this God forsaken country as possible. I'll take her back with to Ireland where at least I know she'll be safe, where I can watch her myself," Anna said coldly as something inside of her shattered into a million tiny shards of glass.
The smile on his face faded. She had been quick to draw him near to her, but just as quick to push him hundreds of meters away from her, "Anna, what...?" His brows furrowed as he struggled to make heads or tails of what she was saying.
"From now on, it's Nastassia. That night is nothing but a memory for us, a shadow that will quickly vanish come this time tomorrow." Her head lowered, "Come the end of all of this, I will leave Toscana...and I feel that I shall never look back. Now, please leave my room. I'll see you shortly." She didn't make eye contact as he stood.
"Why are you doing this? Did I..." Ezio found himself cut off.
"Just go...please..." she interjected, her voice cracking.
Once Ezio had left, she grabbed her pillow and screamed as loud and as hard as she could into it, the sound muffled by the down within the fabric. Her world shook and officially broke into so many pieces she would never be able to assemble it again.
Ezio stood by the front gate of the village, ensuring his gear was secured as Mario double checked his armor. His mind had been left in a haze by the woman he had made love to just one night ago as she was quick to shut him out...of everything it seemed after he had her think back to the days before she said farewell to her mother.
"Nipote," Mario said, forcing Ezio to make eye contact with him, "what's on your mind that has you looking puzzled and so concerned?"
He sighed, "She slammed the door on me, uncle. An..." he stopped himself, his voice cracked as he corrected, "Nastassia officially told me to go take a flying leap just as I was starting to get close to her." He didn't think anything of it at first, but now even as he thought back he felt as if he had just had his heart wrenched free from him again. Had he begun to feel something for her?
Mario sighed, saddened by what he heard, "She'll come around...in time," he said softly. She had to.
Ezio shook his head, inhaling as he looked down at the ground, rain beginning to softly fall again, "No uncle. I don't think she will." The words echoed strangely off of his lips, as if he was saying goodbye to someone close.
Mario lofted a brow, "What do you mean, Ezio?"
He sighed, "Mario she's already making plans to run from Italia with her mother in tow when this is all over." The thought of never seeing her again upset him to the point where he wished he had a strong drink in his hand right now. "She's going to make the trip across the sea to Spain before leaving for Ireland."
Anna appeared at the gate, head to toe in black, not even donning a red cloak. Already she had her face well hidden by a veil. Only her eyes, red from crying and as grey as the sky above her, shown. Her bow once more sat across her body at an angle, her quiver slung at the same. "Auditore, il mentore," she said, unable to make eye contact with Ezio.
Mario sighed, her tone was as cold as ever as she spoke, "My nephew tells me you have plans of leaving Italia for good once this is over. Is that true?"
Anna nodded, "Si, il mentore. The safest place for me and my mother will be several countries away. I know she and my father have friends in Spain, France, and England still. I have already sent pigeons out today to give them a rough estimate of when we will be arriving. It will be at which time I will resign my post, whatever I can still claim, and leave the Assassin Order." She had nothing left now, save for a faint hope that somewhere out there the last of her family remained alive.
Ezio mounted his horse, a large black stallion that he had be given by Agostino's family. How could she be so cold again? What had he done to push her so far away? Her words cut him deep, he had been enjoying having her company, whatever of it he could claim for himself. Love was not the word, but a strong taking to her was more appropriate to explain how he had felt towards her.
Mario felt the knot well up in his throat as he watched her mount a chestnut mare, "Is there nothing I can do to sway you from doing so?"
Anna shook her head, "My mind is set. I will finish my final task and will set out as soon as it is done."
Mario nodded, "Be safe. Remember, nothing is true..."
Anna smiled sadly behind the veil, "...everything is permitted."
Both Assassins rode for the towered city. With any luck they would make it by nightfall in one piece, neither speaking to the other.