Patience part 10
? Anno 1488
The third time Ezio opened his eyes he could see sunlight through a lattice, a pattern of black and white that burned on his retinas. He stared hard at it until it started to smudge out, loose it sharpness and he thought that he might lose consciousness again. To his surprise he didn't but stayed awake.
The pain he vaguely remembered was still there, but manageable now. It was focused around his middle regions and had lost its edge; retreated to a dull background noise. He tried to sit up but there was a hand on his shoulder forcing him down. He felt ashamed, the pressure was light as a feather, and yet it was enough to hold him still. He stayed back on the bed and turned his head to the side, trying to spot his caretaker.
He first laid eyes on densely embroidered silk, deep red with golden weaves. He turned his head slightly and the Lady Forsa came into full view. He must be in Forli then, the town the Lady governed when she was not working for the assassin order.
"Bentornato to the world of the living Ezio," she said, a relived smile on her lips, "You should know it was close," she added.
Ezio simply nodded, lifting a hand to his stomach feeling the linen wrapped tight around him.
"What happened," his voice was horse and his throat felt like he had eaten a pound of sand and broken glass.
"Here, drink this," Caterina held a cup watered, spiced wine to his lips and he drank greedily emptying the liquid yet still feeling thirsty.
"Il Doctore says it will be days before you are back on your feet, you must take it slow," She placed the cup on a table behind him and rang a small silver bell. The clear chime rang out loud and clear and Ezio realized that it was dead quiet. There were no sounds of battle or wounded men, all noises which had been there before things had gone black.
"The battle?" He said no more but she seemed to understand him perfectly.
"The siege was broken and the troops left as soon as it became clear that you had killed both the Orsini brothers, the soldiers realized that there was no one left alive to pay them," as she talked a quiet servant entered with a tray covered with a cloth. The man placed it on the small side table and left the way he had come, a tiny bow to his Lady.
"The retreat, it should have taken days, perhaps even a week. No army moves that fast," Ezio said.
Caterina looked at him with something Ezio could not read, her head turned to the side.
"It did Ezio," she said and reached for the tray, pulling away the cloth revealing a bowl of steaming broth and more spiced wine.
Ezio's stomach made a loud noise; he could smell the rich aroma and he felt like he hadn't eaten in years. His mind drifted to the food and it took him a moment until he registered what Caterina had said and a cold hand gripped his heart.
"How long was I out?" he dreaded the answer yet had to know.
"Six days. My men found you barely alive far to the south, you almost died Ezio."
Six days? He shuddered, it has been weeks he realized, the battle to take back Forli which they had found besieged as they arrived to place the apple under safeguard. Then to hold the castle after they had taken it back from the Orsini brothers' forces and lastly his injury. It had now been months since he had left Venezia by ship and promised to be back soon.
He closed his eyes briefly, for a moment struggling not to pass out again. News would be slow yet he hoped Leonardo had heard of the siege and that he would wait for just a while longer. He pushed the thoughts away, thinking he would deal with them later when there was time. Right now something else needed to be settled.
"The apple?" even in his own ears his voice sounded harsher than it had before. He had to ask yet he now remembered it all too well, it had not been a dream but a memory.
"We found Checco's body next to you, dead as they get but neither of you had the apple on you," She placed the tray in front of him, urging him to eat. So that last glimpse had been true, he thought, and not a figment of his imagination. He forgot all about his hunger and thought back to what he remembered.
"It was taken," he said, "He wore a black robe. Like a monk... And I think... a missing finger? Si! Caterina, I have to go - right away."
Haste burned in his veins joined with a sense of approaching doom. The apple, he had to reach to before it disappeared, he had already lost days and now there was no time to lose.
In the end he finished the broth before rising on weak legs, but only because Caterina had threatened to force-feed him while her guards held him down. She watched him with displeasure radiating from her like heat, and eyes narrowed as he rose and gathered his equipment. Pride and responsibility the only things holding him up and keeping his legs from folding under him. He had to find the apple before it left Forli, before the trail grew cold. It had been entrusted to him and him alone, he could not fail now.
ooo
It turned out it was not hard to track down the man with a missing finger who had taken the apple, and within days he thought he had pieced together the full story. The monk, Brother Savonarola, had been at the Abbey in Forli until some years previously when he had retired to an Hermitage in the outskirts of the city.
The brother was not at the hermitage anymore but another holy man Ezio tracked down supplied the information that Savonarola in his youth had been a student at the Santo Spirito in Firenze. Ezio had to assume that was where the monk had disappeared to, together with the apple. It was a dangerous thing; he had felt as much during the short time he had been in position of it. It would easily seduce a careless man.
ooo
Outside of Forli Ezio sat on his horse; it was turning into evening and the diminishing light was obscuring the horizon. He had already said his goodbyes and left Forli on the fastest horse he had been able to find, determined to follow the thief where he had to. His middle still ached faintly as he rode; the knife had left an ugly looking wound, edges jagged and still red. In the days since he had woken it had healed well enough that when he kept still he could pretend it wasn't there. He was still now, yet for some reason he could feel its weak but insistent throbbing.
His horse danced under him anxious to get underway, to feel ground pass under hooves. Without looking down he rained it in with a firm grip on the reins and then absently pated the mottled stallion on its neck. Ezio was studying the crossroads in front of him intently, yet he did not see it. To his left the road lead to the harbour and the ships to Venezia and to his right was the way to Firenze and the apple; the way he should take.
As he had woken up from his wound and realized that the apple was truly gone his mind had been set. He had to find the apple and finish his task, to keep it safe. It seemed that yet again things were never as fast or easy in reality as they were in plans. Still there had been no doubt in him that he must find it and he had told Caterina that he was leaving for the city of his youth.
However, when he had come upon the crossroad he had stopped dead in his track as a surge of regret filled him up to a point where he could taste bile in the back of his throat. He had made a promise, a promise it was now clear he could not keep. He had been forgiven, made again by that vow and now that was all crumbling away. The new ground had not had time to settle and the smallest water washed the stones away.
He sat for a long while unable to untangle the broken mess his life had become until he could not make out anything in front of him anymore and he had to rub his eyes to see clear again; his hand came away wet. It seemed like the things he wanted and the things he had to do were simply not the same.
He turned the horse to the right and nudged him gently on the ribs and they set of. This was his way, duty and responsibility, the path he had chosen so long ago that he now had to walk. He allowed the water to clear away the last of the earth for the foundation of a new life he had for a short while dreamt he might have, and gave those things up.