Afterlife
part fourteen
by Go-Go Spiders
After extinguishing and collecting the candles, Ilario and Alessandro led Ezio and Federico out of the cellar and into the abandoned building they'd been using as a hideout.
It has been a beautiful home years ago, but cobwebs hung from the ceiling. The walls had been stripped of their fine curtains, oil paintings torn from walls, furniture either conspicuously missing or overturned and broken. Planks of wood covered the windows and the doors.
Federico glanced out through the thin gaps between the slats of wood over a window. The sun had almost set, leaving behind a quickly-fading strip of pale orange in the sky. Most businesses nearby had already closed for the night. There were only a few stragglers on the street packing up their goods or locking up their shops.
The guards were still patrolling the streets, and Federico could see archers circling around on the rooftops. It seemed there were more guards the closer one was to the Palazzo Auditore. Perhaps it was not just because Alberti thought Ezio would try to return home again, but to keep thieves from slipping inside the Palazzo and stripping the walls and coffers bare before his men had a chance to remove the money and other valuables from inside. He tried to not think about the empty Palazzo Auditore slowly sinking into disrepair with no one to look after it, until it resembled Ilario and Alessandro's hiding place – abandoned and decrepit, falling apart and just waiting to be torn down.
'Think of something else,' thought Federico. 'Like making sure Ezio isn't caught by the guards.'
Federico knew from years of outrunning guards that sundown was when the night guards started their shifts. There was usually a brief period between the shifts when the day guards had left for their homes but the nighttime guards hadn't yet reached their posts. That would give Ezio and the two boys a narrow window of opportunity for them to walk the streets without having to worry about being seen and captured. Unfortunately, Ezio would have to keep to the ground as long as he had the two boys with him. Taking to the rooftops was out of the question - without lengthy training, Ilario and Alessandro wouldn't be able to follow Ezio from roof to roof, and he couldn't carry both children.
A few moments later, Federico saw the first rooftop archer leave his post, sliding the arrow off the bow and into the quiver on his back.
Ezio joined him at the window a moment later. "They're starting to change shifts," Ezio said, squinting through the cracks. He raised his hood over his face.
Federico nodded. He glanced back at the empty room. "Where are the boys?"
"Gathering up their belongings," said Ezio. "Although they said they didn't have much."
"I'd be surprised if they did," said Federico. "Considering their situation."
The two brothers peered out between the slats covering the window for a moment in silence before Federico spoke up again.
"Have you thought about what you're going to do after you've killed Alberti? You won't be able to stay in Firenze after that." If the patrol of the city guard was oppressive now, the murder of Firenze's gonfaloniere would throw it into absolute chaos. With Ezio as the most wanted man in the city, he would (rightly) be accused of the murder, cementing his status as a dangerous criminal in the public's eyes.
"There's Uncle Mario's villa near Monteriggioni," Ezio suggested after a moment. " We could take Mother and Claudia there."
"That's not a bad idea," said Federico. Uncle Mario would be able to keep them safe. Monteriggioni was far enough away that if word of the surviving Auditores living there came back to Firenze, whoever replaced Alberti as gonfaloniere wouldn't be able to easily retaliate against them. Although with the backstabbing politics of Firenze being what they were, perhaps the new gonfaloniere would send Ezio a bottle of wine to show his appreciation instead.
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Ilario held a battered wooden chest under one arm, and Alessandro carried a small canvas satchel.
"Is that everything?" Ezio asked the boys.
Ilario nodded.
"Were you really talking to your dead brother again?" said Alessandro. Next to him, Ilario let out a short frustrated sigh and closed his eyes, like he'd specifically told his brother not to bring up that Ezio kept having conversations with someone who they only half-believed was there, even after Federico had taken away their weapons.
Ezio and Federico looked at each other. "Yes," said Ezio.
"Oh," said Alessandro. He caught his brother's eye, and then quickly looked down at his feet.
"We will have to be careful once we leave here," Ezio told the two children. "If I tell you two to run, you should run."
Alessandro nodded, his eyes huge. Ilario still looked vaguely distrustful, but kept silent.
The door was half off its hinges, and nearly fell over when Ezio gave it a small tug. Wooden boards were nailed haphazardly over the door's frame, but there was a gap near the bottom just wide enough for a child to wiggle through. It was much too small for Ezio.
Ezio sighed and gave the bottom boards a good kick, breaking them off and widening the gap so that it was just barely big enough for him. Federico passed through the wall as Ezio crawled through the gap. The two children followed Ezio out a moment later.
The streets and the rooftops nearby were entirely deserted, not a guard in sight. Federico let out a relieved sigh, but still kept an eye open. He was not surprised when Ezio lead the two boys in the direction of Leonardo's workshop.
Federico hoped Ezio knew what he was doing. He looked down at the two children in front of him. Ilario was holding his younger brother's hand tightly, keeping his eyes on Ezio's back. There was only a thin sense of trust there - Ilario looked ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
'Smart child,' thought Federico.
Leonardo was standing outside his workshop's door talking to someone, a boy only a few years younger than Ezio in a hooded traveling cloak, apparently locking up his shop for the night before he left for Vinci. Leonardo smiled when he spotted Ezio and the two boys following behind him. "Ah! Ezio! Federico! Good to see you again!" He gestured towards the boy he had been speaking to. "We were just talking about you."
Ezio and Federico glanced at each other. It didn't seem like Leonardo to gossip about him with a stranger. "You were?" said Ezio warily. "Why?"
The boy pulled down the hood of his traveling cloak, and revealed himself to not be a boy at all.
"Mio Dio," said Federico. "Claudia?"
"Becuase, Ezio, I was trying to figure out where you'd gone, and why you hadn't come back to Paola's brothel," said Claudia, putting her hands on her hips. "Her informants said you hadn't been caught by the guards, but when the sun began to set and you still weren't back from Leonardo's I began to worry..."
Ezio stared at his younger sister for a moment. Instead of the fine dress he'd last seen her in, she was clothed in a boy's tunic and riding boots underneath the cloak. But the boy's clothes weren't the most obvious change. "Claudia, what happened to your hair..."
His sister's fingers reached for where a few hours ago there had been long hair wrapped in a snood. Her dark hair had been chopped off into a short, boyish look. "Paola wouldn't let me go out to look for you without a disguise," she said haltingly. "This was the best one I could think of. It looks horrible, I know."
"Paola let you go out on the streets of Firenze alone?" said Ezio. "Unarmed?"
Claudia jerked a thumb to a trio of Paola's courtesans standing at the corner of the street, and a cluster of thieves lurking in an alley nearby. One thief waved at Ezio. "Not completely alone," Claudia said. She pulled a thin knife partially out of a sheath at her belt, allowing Ezio to see the sharp blade before letting it slide back down. "And not completely unarmed."
Ezio's jaw dropped as he stared at the knife.
Federico laughed. "That is amazing! Ezio, her disguise is almost perfect. She looks just like a messenger boy."
"I was telling her that you left my workshop more than an hour ago when you showed up," said Leonardo, snapping Ezio out of his stupor. Leonardo's glance fell upon the two boys standing behind Ezio. "Are those the reasons for the delay?"
"Partially," said Ezio, shifting slightly on his feet while Federico snickered behind him. "Leonardo, Claudia, this is Alessandro and Ilario."
Alessandro glanced up at Leonardo and Claudia, the picture of innocence. Ilario glared at the two of them sullenly, clutching his wooden box to his chest protectively.
"Buona sera," said Leonardo to the two children with a smile. The two boys remained silent.
"I was hoping you might be able to help these two, Leonardo," said Ezio.
"Of course, my friend," said Leonardo graciously. "What do they need?"
"Take them back with you to Vinci tonight," said Ezio. "Give them a meal, find them a place to stay. The streets of Firenze isn't safe for them."
"I can certainly do that. I was just on my way to the stables when Claudia found me," said Leonardo. "Come, walk with me and we will discuss this."
Turns out organizing and putting on a yard sale is really time-consuming. I've been working on this chapter on and off during my free time since the last one went up, but only finished it today. But the yard sale went really well! I made a surprising amount of money selling off my old books and clothes. c: