"Salve, Marietta. It has been some time. You look well."
Nodding with a tight smile she said nothing, observing how he refused to look at her as he spoke, and hearing the rigidity in his tone. A glance she shared with Leonardo told him all he needed to know about her feelings on Ezio's sudden arrival and her distrust of the man. Leo cleared his throat, blue eyes glimmering with understanding but not similar feeling.
He grinned at Ezio, who had noticed the brief and silent exchange, "You must have been keeping busy, Ezio. How is your family?"
The young man smiled, "They are well. There will be time, I hope, to sit down and talk over all that has happened since we last met. But now, I need your help again."
Only too eager to offer it, the men all but forgot her presence. Jessica watched in silence as the White Hood pulled a roll of yellowed parchment from a pouch on his belt and presented it to Leo.
"You remember the first one?" the assassin asked.
Leonardo grinned, nodding, "Of course. How could I forget? May I?"
Ezio relinquished the page to him and watched as the delighted man released it from its binding and unrolled it on the table nearby.
The Voice thrummed and the circular mark heated on her thumb.
A codex page.
Her head tilting with curiousity, she moved to stand by Leonardo, who was muttering to himself. She felt the White Hood's eyes on her face like a warm breath but ignored him as she blinked in awe of the spectacle which arose before her. She didn't know what Leonardo saw amongst the dissonance of scrawling figures upon the page, but she bet anything it was nothing like what had appeared before her eyes.
A mystical swirl of silver and the lightest blue slithered like eels across the parchment. The page itself pulsated with a golden light which seemed all too familiar. Her fingers massaged the muscle of her left thumb as a tendril of ink streaked across the page. Another appeared from the thin air and the two dark streaks danced, dominant against the sea of white and blue. Her eyes followed the movements as though in a trance. More of the dark wisps materialised and took a partner. A mess of swirling, wriggling and twisting tendrils flashed in a spiralling dance, slithering like eels thrown upon the shore.
As if in reaction to an unheard command, the tendrils stuck to place on the page, forming legible words and labelled figures. She realised she had been holding her breath for quite some time, so she set it free and refilled her lungs, feeling light headed. Jessica watched as the silver and light blue wisps faded into nothing and then all evidence of mystical happenings was gone. She blinked, feeling strangely weak as she leaned a hand on the table for support. She watched as Leonardo consulted books and searched through manuscripts in his enthusiastic attempt to decipher the page and uncover the secrets which had presently appeared before her.
Glancing at Ezio, who had moved to sit pensively in the armchair – her armchair – by the fire, and then at Leonardo, who was nose-deep in an old tome, Jessica turned the page toward her and read it.
"'Twice the White,'" she murmured to herself, reaching out to finger the corner of the soft parchment.
An improved weapon which removed the need for a finger to be chopped off to use it, and added a metal plate to deflect blows; a formulae for a strange alloy to use in addition to Damascus Steel, figures showing methods to assassinate a person from a ledge, from a hay cart and from above and the suggested use of two hidden blades opposed to just one.
She ran the name 'Malik' over her tongue and felt a strange familiarity with the handwriting, as if she had seen both the name and the hand information contained on the page. Jessica stepped away, feeling quite out of her body as her mind struggled to discover the reason for the sense of familiarity.
The Codex was written by Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Mentor of the Levantine Brotherhood of Assassins. It exists as both a journal and a study of the Piece of Eden, an Apple, which he possessed for the majority of his life. The Apple holds the power to create illusions, control the minds of humankind and impart to its holder, knowledge of the future.
For a moment, she was very still. Shocked, to say the least, that the Voice had conveyed such information freely, and also that it had spoken so many words at once. With nothing to say in return, she simply nodded and moved into the kitchen to fetch herself a cup of water. There she hid for some time, unwilling to return to the workshop which had been so pervaded by the White Hood's intimidating presence. Jessica knew that he would want to confront her sooner or later, but she was not looking forward to it. An assassin and a murderer, he was a stranger to her. The young boy of seventeen who had been so alone and confused after the death of his father and the loss of everything he knew and loved was not the same man who sat within. The boy she had sat and laughed with on that hill as they shared a picnic together on that fine evening so many months ago, did not exist. Perhaps he never had.
She recalled the night she had been woken by a nightmare of her father's death in the mine. The White Hood had stood on the rooftop across from her window, his white robes glowing stark against the fresh blood that stained his front. That had not been a dream. He had been a killer even then. Her stomach turned, disgusted at the thought. She had cared for him. She had taken care of him, fed him, watched after him. Her blood burned. The White Hood, the stranger in the bloody robes, and Ezio, the troubled young man, were one and the same.
Another cup of water ran down her throat, the cool sensation cooling her raging heart and steadying her trembling fingers. The taste of the metal mug was bitter in her mouth as she leaned against the counter and stared at the wall opposite.
Even after all this time, she still felt as angry and lost as she had the day she woke up on that bench. While events unfolded around her, while people came and went, she still felt the same heaviness in the pit of her stomach and the uncertainty of a mind filled with confusion and doubt. She was grateful for Leonardo, of course, but even he held a limited understanding of her situation. though he knew more than anyone on the earth. Jessica shook herself as her mind began to descend into the depths of the self-pity and despair with which it had recently become familiar. It wouldn't help anything to fall into a kind of depression or constant angst. Not that she could help it some days.
Sighing, she returned to the workshop, finding that an hour had almost passed and that the White Hood had disappeared.
"Are you alright?" Leonardo asked her from where he was bent over the apparently deciphered Codex page. The morning sun streamed through the high windows and upon his face, smooth and happy in the afterglow of the White Hood's visit. A tight smile and a short nod was her answer.
Though she didn't want to, she found herself growing annoyed at how her friend had thrown himself into the task assigned to him by the White Hood; a task which would serve to further the assassin's deadly work. Her jaw tightened as she turned from him and glared at her armchair which now seemed tainted. She could not look at it without seeing the man sitting upon the cushions and throw blankets strewn across the high backed, floral patterned chair.
"You're helping him, then?" she asked, trying to keep her tone light.
Leonardo, knowing her too well, was not fooled. "He is a friend," he said diplomatically.
"So you know what he does?" she winced as her voice cut through the air toward him. Keeping his eyes upon the books before him, he replied, "I do not ask."
Jessica recoiled as if he had spat at her. A tremor rippled throughout her body, causing her nostrils to flare and her fingers to curl into tense fists as she simply turned on her heel and marched out the door before she said anything she would later regret.
She was at odds with this world and the people in it. That was plain to see. As she strode through the morning markets, boisterous and colourful as they were, she looked at the people and she felt no inherent connection with them. She was an outsider in this time, and she very much doubted that fact would ever change no matter how she had convinced herself otherwise. Even Leonardo da Vinci himself was not progressive enough for her consistent comfort.
You are not one of them, Jessica. Nor will you ever be.
Making a sudden turn, she made a beeline to a bench in a relatively isolated area by the Arno River, where the sounds of the crowds enjoying the market were less oppressive and passersby were far and in between. Sitting upon the cool, hard stone, she took a deep breath of the stench that was the city. Though the river water was not overtly foul, she would not dare drink it nor swim in it, having personally seen the waste, both human-produced and otherwise, which was thrown into it daily. As a result of this, it gave off a bitter scent which nipped at the nose and offended the otherwise scenic view.
You are unhappy. You have been for some time.
Jessica nodded, wondering why the Voice, after all this time, had finally begun to talk freely to her. She placed her hands in her lap and fingered the material of her dress broodingly.
It is understandable for you to be upset. You have been taken from your home, from everyone you love and everything you know, and thrust into this place which goes intrinsically against every value you hold dear. Know that you are right to be wary and distrustful. The Auditores are not your allies. They, as well as all others you will meet and know, are a means to an end. In the meantime use them to stave off your loneliness. You require companionship and so take it as it is offered, in any form. But do not trust them. Do not trust anyone other than yourself.
Resting her head against the wall behind her, a slow breath blew from her nose.
"Does that include you?"
The Voice seemed amused by this. She could almost hear a smile in its tone when it replied, That is for you to decide.
Jessica chuckled shortly, "Why all the talking all of the sudden?"
For several long beats the Voice was silent. Expecting this, she rolled and closed her eyes as the sun kissed her cheeks and throat, warming her hands where they sat on her lap. She could feel that the bench below here was not just cool, but also wet, and there was a puddle at her feet into which a continuous stream water fell as it careened off the edge of the roof high above her. A small flock of birds called to each other as they flew overhead. A slight, crisp wind blew against her exposed skin, raising goosebumps which were quickly soothed by the warmth of the sun still shining above.
Jessica imagined for a moment that growing from each of those raised hair follicles was a smooth, gleaming black feather, and that her arms were very much like the wings of a bird and that she could simply wave them to and fro and she would be lifted into the air and away from this place. She imagined her wings would take her wherever and whenever she liked and there was no voice in her head and no heaviness in her heart. She dreamed she could do whatever she liked and that she could be forever free.
I, too have experienced such wretched isolation.
Though she registered the sincere admittance, she chose not to acknowledge it and instead lost herself in her daydream.