Afterlife

part seven

by Go-Go Spiders

"That went about as well as it could've, I think."

Ezio shot his brother a questioning look as he stepped out from the brothel's small scullery. "I had to tell them you, Father and Petruccio are dead. Mother is still in shock, and Claudia thought I'd gone mad when I started talking to you. That was torture."

"It could've gone worse," Federico pointed out. "At least nobody started screaming."

Ezio shook his head as he opened the doors leading to the brothel's courtyard. Just as Annetta had said, Paola was waiting there, sitting on a stone bench beneath a tall tree.

"You wanted to see us, Paola?" said Federico.

"Yes," she said, standing up. She approached the two brothers, laying a hand on Ezio's arm. "I have some things to discuss with the two of you, but first things first - how are Maria and Claudia?"

"Heartbroken," said Ezio, dropping his head. "Although I think Claudia wants Alberti's head on a pike as much as I do."

One of Paola's eyebrows shifted upwards. "Are you that surprised? He did betray and kill half of her family," she said. "Of course she wants vengeance against him as well."

Ezio sighed, nodding in agreement. "And Mother..." he trailed off. "Mother is the same as the last time I saw her. No change. She seemed to understand what had happened to Father, Federico and Pettrucio when I told her, but Claudia said she still hasn't spoken a word to anyone."

Neither of the brothers were sure what exactly she thought of Federico being a ghost. Unlike the news of the hangings, where she'd cried, she hadn't seemed to react at all to the revelation that her eldest son's spirit was still present.

"How long has Mother been like that?" asked Federico quietly.

"Since the night you, Father and Petruccio were taken from the Palazzo Auditore," said Ezio. His mouth screwed up in a sudden burst of anger. "Alberti is the root of all our family's suffering, that traitorous pig!" He turned to Paola. "I am tired of waiting for my revenge. That bastardo needs to die."

"I have taught you how to approach the enemy without being seen," said Paola. "Now all we need to do is find you a suitable weapon."

Ezio looked puzzled for a moment before he gave an almost petulant frown. "I'd wring Alberti's neck with my bare hands if I had to."

Federico snorted. "I thought the same thing before I died."

"I would not advise that," said Paola. "The guards Alberti surrounds himself with would be on you in a moment, and fists against swords would be a very quick fight. Now, I can see you carry a great deal of weaponry, but do you actually know how to use any of it?"

Ezio grimaced, looking down at the throwing knives attached to his belt. He slowly shook his head. "I have a little training with a sword, but I lost the one I had with me. What would you suggest I use?"

Paola grinned. "Ah, but you have another weapon." She removed the broken pieces of Giovanni's hidden blade from behind her back, along with the rolled-up scroll Ezio had found with the rest of his father's belongings inside the hidden chamber.

"Father's blade and bracer!" Ezio stared at her for a moment, and then looked down to the leather cuff around his wrist where the hidden blade had been attached only a few moments ago. "Did you see her take those?" he asked Federico.

Federico shook his head. "How'd you get them?" he asked Paola.

"Boys, really. I've been lifting purses since before either of you were born," said Paola with a slight smirk. She handed the broken hidden blade to Ezio. The blade was completely separated from the rest of the bracer, snapped cleanly in two. It'd been damaged in battle only a few days before, and Giovani had died before he'd gotten a chance to find someone to repair it. For something so seemingly simple, the hidden blade was a surprisingly complicated weapon. Its complex inner workings were beyond what its owner was capable of repairing themselves.

"But what good is a broken weapon?" asked Federico as Ezio reattached the hidden blade to the leather cuff. "He can't fight with it like that."

"It's not exactly in working condition," Ezio agreed with a nod, struggling to slide the broken silver blade back inside the mechanism hidden inside the bracer. With a grunt, the blade finally clicked into place. He looked down at the bracer and frowned. "I'm not quite sure how it would work even if it wasn't broken."

"You'd flex your wrist and the blade would spring out," said Federico, thinking of the few times he'd seen Father use the hidden blade. "Again, and the blade would retract."

"The blade can be fixed, but a weapon this unique needs someone special to repair it," said Paola. "Not just any blacksmith will be able to do that."

"Then who can? Do you know someone?" asked Ezio.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Paola tilted her head slightly. "I'm sure you're both familiar with Leonardo da Vinci, yes?"

"You can't mean the painter?" said Federico in disbelief. Leonardo had seemed nice enough on the few occasions he'd bumped into him around Firenze, but he wasn't sure he trusted him to fix Father's hidden blade. If Leonardo didn't know precisely what he was doing, it wouldn't take much well-intentioned tampering to damage the hidden blade beyond any hope of repair. Why would Paola suggest he was the best person to fix it above people whose jobs were to repair weaponry?

"That is exactly who I mean. How many Leonardos from Vinci do you know of, Federico?"

"I met him a few days ago. Mother had commissioned a few paintings from him," said Ezio, sounding doubtful. "I suppose he's a skilled enough artist, but how can a painter fix Father's weapon?"

"He's not just a painter. If there's any man in Firenze clever enough to fix your father's blade, it would be him." She smiled warmly at them. "Just bring him the pieces and you'll see for yourselves."

When Federico and Ezio set out for Leonardo's workshop, there were fewer archers stationed along the roofs of the buildings, but there were still too many for Federico's liking. It wasn't like the last time they'd gone up on the rooftops, when the night had helped hide Ezio's presence from the archers. The light-colored robes in the noonday sun would render him extremely visible against the darker clay shingles, and make it more obvious he wasn't supposed to be running around on the rooftops in the first place.

When Ezio started to climb up the side of the building across the street from the brothel's courtyard, Federico stopped him. "Hold on a moment, little brother. Paola taught you how to blend in with crowds, didn't she?"

"Yes," said Ezio slowly, looking down at Federico while dangling from a windowsill.

"Show me, then," said Federico, crossing his arms. "Unless it was too difficult for you to master, of course."

It was an incredibly transparent ploy to keep Ezio off the rooftops, but it played well to his brother's pride and highly competitive nature.

Ezio rolled his eyes, but dropped back down to the crates pushed up against the wall. "It's not that difficult," he said under his breath, waiting for a large cluster of people to pass by the crates. Ezio smoothly inserted himself into the middle of the crowd, walking past a large group of armed guards without drawing any attention from them.

Federico attempted to stay as close to his brother as possible, but people attempting to walk through him or a hand or errant foot abruptly passing through him began to wear on his nerves. He drifted towards the back of the group, where he was less likely to accidentally get poked at.

Leonardo da Vinci's workshop was only a short distance from the brothel, but they still had to be extremely careful. Ezio and Federico kept moving from group to group of people, never staying by themselves for too long. A herald they passed cried out to an assembled crowd that Ezio Auditore, son of "the traitor to Firenze" Giovanni Auditore, was still at large.

Traitor to Firenze. Federico frowned, feeling a cold anger wash over him. All the respect and goodwill their father had built up in Firenze over his lifetime, everything honorable the Auditore family name stood for, had been wiped cleanly away by Alberti in only three days.

The herald then proclaimed that a substantial reward would be given to anyone with knowledge of Ezio Auditore's whereabouts that lead to his capture.

Ezio stumbled slightly, almost walking into the back of the woman in front of him.

With that unwelcome news, Ezio and Federico moved away from the crowd listen to the herald as inconspicuously as they could. The same thoughts ran through their heads: they'd anticipated that the guards would still be looking for Ezio, but if anyone in the crowd recognized him and blew his cover for the promise of a reward, he'd have most of the city guards after him in no time at all. Nobody could be trusted.

And when they were less than sixty feet from the door to Leonardo's workshop, an older man's voice cut through the noise of the crowd, shouting, "Auditore!"

I'm sure most people know this already, but Leonardo da Vinci didn't have a last name. 'Da Vinci' means 'from Vinci', which was the town where he was born, like how Ezio's sometimes called 'Ezio Auditore da Firenze', with Firenze (Florence) being where he was from. (Although unlike Leo, Ezio obviously does have a family name.) Leonardo's full name was technically 'Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci', which meant 'Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci'. That's why Paola asks Federico if he knows of any other 'Leonardos from Vinci'.

I try not to mix Italian words in too much, and originally I used the English term there instead, but it seemed wrong somehow to have Ezio call Alberti 'bastard' instead of 'bastardo'.