Altaïr awoke the next morning to find that he had only been asleep for a few hours after leaving the dumbfounded Ezio on top of a tower and returning to Leonardo's workshop alone. He felt tired and dizzy despite the sleep he had had, and he knew it was most likely because his body still thought it should be sunset instead of sunrise, but the knowledge did not make the feeling any less distasteful. His senses were becoming dulled by the endless cycle of waking up at odd hours, and he inwardly groaned when he realized just how short a time it had been. Not even a full day had passed since his arrival, but already it felt like an eternity.
His ears caught the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor. He didn't have to turn around to know that it was Ezio approaching; the man had an easily recognizable gait, and his friend Leonardo did not wear such loud shoes. He wondered again how Ezio could call himself an Assassin when he made such grievous errors.
"Come with me," Ezio called as he started towards the door.
"Why? Where are you going?" Altaïr asked. He didn't like the small smirk Ezio gave him in return.
"We need to get you some new clothes."
Altaïr followed him with suspicion ever present in his mind. He was thankful that the sun had only just risen, but he found it strange that only a few people were awake and roaming around. He was accustomed to seeing the city begin its life just before dawn and continue until the firelight was not strong enough to ward off the darkness of night. He spotted a few armed guards lingering in front of a doorway and instinctively ran through his mental inventory of his weapons. Ten throwing knives. The sword on his left side. The short fighting knife on his back-
There was a sudden sense of lightness where the knife had once been. He swung around, expecting to see someone running off with it, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Ahead of him, Ezio was fighting back laughter. He turned towards the man with intense aggravation only to see the handle of the knife firmly in Ezio's grip. Ezio gleefully pulled his shoulder cape over his arm to hide the blade from view as he tucked it into his belt. Altaïr's face flashed with fury.
"You should learn to pay more attention," Ezio said proudly before continuing along the street.
"Why did you do that?" Altair hissed.
"You seem to think I am not as skilled an Assassin as you," he answered.
"This only makes you a thief." He snatched the knife back from Ezio and tucked it safely away.
"Hey! You cannot have weapons here!" a nearby guard cried, pulling a sword on the two of them. Distracted as he had been by his anger at Ezio, Altaïr realized a moment too late that he had let down his defenses in order to direct his frustrations at the other man. The guard did not get a chance to attack, however, because both of Ezio's hidden blades were soon embedded in his lungs. To any nearby, it looked as if Ezio was simply pushing the man gently away. The guard stumbled back a few steps, blood strangling his screams, and he collapsed in a seated heap on a bench between two people. Ezio motioned for Altaïr to follow him, and they quickly left the scene of the sudden murder.
At least, they planned to.
A short man in a blue feathered cap ran up to them, toting an aging mandolin and a wide smile. Altaïr eyed him warily, while Ezio looked annoyed. The man put his fingers to the strings and began to play, singing a lighthearted tune at the same time.
"Wondrous deeds he has performed for the good of all, come to pay the evil ones, come to watch them fall…"
Altaïr's eyes widened when he realized that the words were about them, or at least Ezio. Glancing around, he noticed that several people were beginning to take notice of the song, including several guards. He snapped the hidden blade into place and moved to take care of the man, but Ezio placed a hand on his wrist to restrain him. Wearing a subversive smile and with a plan glinting in his hidden eyes, he reached into a small leather pouch and retrieved a handful of coins, then tossed them uselessly to the ground. The blue-clad man abandoned the faithful instrument and scrambled to pick up as many of the coins as he could. Ezio just barely managed to pull Altaïr out of the growing crowd of people before they would have become trapped.
Altaïr brushed himself off and immediately began walking away.
"What? Don't I even get a thank you for helping?" Ezio asked indignantly, following after him with a brisk pace. Altaïr did not answer, for it would mean accepting that he had erred in the situation. Instead, he increased his stride, stopping only when Ezio caught up to him enough to place a hand on his shoulder.
"What?" he growled.
"You are going the wrong way," Ezio said innocently, motioning in the direction that they should have been traveling. The scowl he received as a response was momentarily unsettling. He had never been looked at so directly before. He turned away to avoid appearing weakened by Altaïr's gaze and continued his trek down the street. "It is not much farther."
Altaïr was no longer listening to anything Ezio was saying. If Ezio hadn't stolen his blade, he never would have attracted the attention of the guard, and that unnecessary display of charity could have been avoided altogether. If anything, he wished he had been able to simply kill the musician and be done with it. As it were, he and Ezio were walking away from a scene of pure chaos. People were shoving each other out of the way for the loose coins as if they were the last scraps of gold in the world. Altaïr gazed upon them with nothing short of disgust. They were no better than the stray dogs that wandered the streets of Jerusalem, whining for a few crumbs and nibbling on the rotted fingers of those struck down by plague and poverty. He was glad he did not have to be counted among them, flying the rooftops above as opposed to crawling along the cluttered streets below. He could hardly wait to be rid of the mongrels and return to the peace and sanctity of the rooftops.
"Ah, here we are," Ezio said finally. They had arrived at a small shop with bolts of colorful cloth lining the shelves.
Altaïr studied the interior of the shop with a wary eye. Such frivolities as varyingly colored clothes were only available to the richest citizens of the cities he had visited. He watched from a distance as Ezio spoke a few words in that other language – Italian, was it? – to the man behind the counter, who quickly hurried to a back room. He began to put the pieces together in his mind. Ezio's arrogantly relaxed pace. His willingness to throw handfuls of gold to the ground. The look of smug pride in his eyes whenever they passed a beggar or another stricken by poverty. He had most likely implied so as he had regaled to Altaïr the details of what had befallen his family, but his appearance and mannerisms explained the fact much more clearly than any spoken sentences.
He was wealthy. A noble, judging by his looks. Altaïr was glad he was finally able to pinpoint the reason for his intense dislike of the man. He had killed many rich men in his time, and the act always brought with it a certain satisfaction. He did not consider himself an advocate of the poor; rather, he had noticed that there existed a greater evil on the upper end of society than on the lower end. He wondered if any other Assassins of this time lived as prosperously as Ezio. The idea disgusted him.
"I was having a second set of robes made," Ezio said, still letting the words roll off of his tongue, "just in case. They should fit you."
Altaïr realized grudgingly that he was not much taller than Ezio. His brain tried rapidly to find a reason that Ezio could be wrong, but by the time he was prepared to speak, the other Assassin had placed a bundle of black fabric in his arms.
"You are lucky," Ezio said. "I almost had them dyed purple."
They returned to the workshop, where Altaïr reluctantly changed into the new robes. They fit much less comfortably and the fabric was of a strange texture, but he knew it would be the only decent way to blend in and decided to put up with it, at least for the moment.
"An improvement already," Ezio said as Altaïr began replacing his weapons in their proper positions. "When we return to Venice, you will blend in much better."
Altaïr grimaced at the thought of going back to the half-drowned city. Ezio caught the expression and gave him a questioning look.
"Are you afraid of water?"
"I do not believe it is any of your business," Altaïr said gruffly.
"Ah, so you are," Ezio continued, sounding intrigued. "Tell me what happened."
He was silent.
"Fell in and nearly drowned as a child, perhaps?" Ezio offered, relishing every moment of the other man's clearly pained silence. "Or maybe you just skipped your swimming lessons-"
A square punch to the jaw sent him sprawling to the floor, letting his body slam into the wood with a hollow echo. Altaïr flexed his four fingers.
"The ocean claimed the life of a friend," he said simply. Ezio pulled himself to his feet and looked him in the eye. He looked much older, Altaïr noticed, when his tongue was not betraying his immaturity. He appeared to be holding back a comment of some sort. He flipped his shoulder cape over his arm to hide the sword at his waist and stalked out the door.
They rode toward Venice at what Altaïr considered a surprisingly fast pace. He believed Ezio was still reeling from the impact on his face, and he was certainly still fuming about the fact that Altaïr had once again bested him unexpectedly. Still, Altaïr believed it pointless to force the horses to suffer on account of Ezio's uncontrollable rage. It was not long before he could hear the familiar sound of labored breathing from the horse combined with a general slowing of hoof beats. He allowed the creature to walk, watching as Ezio galloped on ahead. Let the boy run, Altaïr thought. He could find his own way.
Ezio was trotting back to him just a few moments later.
"What are you doing?" Ezio asked sourly while Altaïr dismounted and walked alongside the horse.
"You will run them dead before we make it halfway there," he said plainly. He stopped and watched quietly as the horse nibbled on a few threads of grass and a splash of yellow flowers lining the dusty road. Ezio snorted in distaste.
"We are going to Forli first, idiota," he spat. "It is much closer. They will live."
"You go," Altaïr answered. He refused to give the hotheaded boy even a glance for the sake of refusing him attention. He heard a second displeasured sound from Ezio's direction, followed by a loud cry that urged the horse into a gallop. Altaïr's horse looked up from the ground expectantly, perking its ears toward its disappearing companion. It neighed mournfully. i"Fear not, my friend,"/i he said in his native language, patting the horse's neck. i"We will rejoin him soon enough. Unfortunately."/i
The town of Forli did not appeal to Altaïr from the moment he spotted it on the horizon. The sky had turned a chilled, leaden gray overhead, and he knew it meant rain. Cold gusts of air easily weaved trails through the thinner fabric of his new clothing. It occurred to him how much he wished things were normal. He was not quite homesick as much as he was simply sick of it all.
He left the horse in the care of a stable boy at the gate and walked hesitantly inside. His first observation was that the town reeked, and more so than Venice at that. He did not care to pinpoint the precise reason for the stench, but he suspected it was a combination of rotting food and rotten people. Weaving his way through the crowd, he found Ezio soon enough. He could not understand the white-lettered sign on the front of the building, but judging from the attire of the women standing before it, he assumed he knew what it was. Ezio had just disappeared inside when he approached. He rolled his eyes and chose to leave immediately. There was nothing there that appealed to him.
Two of the girls ran up to him, motioning towards him and speaking in that rapid-fire tongue he was beginning to detest. Clad in pale pinks and blues like summer flowers and with hair teased to resemble cats' ears, they appeared harmless enough, but he wanted nothing of their kind. He politely shoved them out of his way and continued walking. One of them began to shout curses at him, but a single glance silenced her. They shrunk back towards their building, careful to leave him alone, and he noticed that they were warning others around them to do the same. Altaïr found a bench nearby and sat down to wait.