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"Leonardo!"
Ezio leapt inside the bottega from the ledge of the window, his voice filled with a mix of fear and uncertainty that he wanted to desperately hide and bury inside himself. He had already knocked more times than he cared to and every passing moment of silence had filled his mind with nauseating thoughts concerning his best friend's safety.
He finally breathed in a sigh of relief, eyes losing their golden glow as the world coloured again. He lowered his hood down at the peaceful and somewhat familiar sight. Leonardo was sitting on the floor with his back to Ezio, peering right into the fireplace with papers strewn all around him.
Ezio was just about to cross the way towards him when he felt something near his boot. Lowering his gaze, he was met with the most peculiar sight. Multitudes of vessels, new and old, from vases to cooking pots, earthen to bronze, covered any and all available surface of the bottega be it down on the floor like the one that had caught his attention or covering Leonardo's desk. The only thing that all of them had in common were the flowers in them, all in various stages of dying and none fresh the way they were supposed to be, not even the potted ones.
At first Ezio thought this to be part of some new experiment of his friend. "Leonardo." But the answering silence made him sure that there was something wrong, very wrong. Even with his back to him he knew Leonardo wasn't doing well.
Ignoring the stale air, Ezio walked over, not particularly trying to be silent before he placed a light but firm hand on his friend's shoulder. "Leonardo."
Leonardo looked around and Ezio had no problem seeing the dried tear stains over his face. Instead of being shocked though like he usually was when Ezio pulled such stunts on him, Leonardo only smiled amicably.
"I had thought you would think me asleep. Of course if I had enough energy to reduce the fire, I would have opened the door as well."
Ezio wanted to say how it wouldn't have mattered, that even with his best efforts Leonardo wouldn't be able to get rid of him. But the lack of any emotion in his friend's words made him rethink. Leonardo wasn't one to turn away a needy guest, so for him to have spoken those words immediately let Ezio know that his friend probably wished to be left alone. But he couldn't quite bring himself to leave yet. Not when he knew firsthand the importance of a sympathetic ear and a firm shoulder only a friend could lend.
"Am I intruding?" Ezio squeezed his shoulder to reassure him, keeping his words barely above a whisper, as if afraid to break the silence of the room.
"No," Leonardo said flatly before looking back at the fire.
Ezio smiled, determined to lift his friend's mood before he took out a few scrolls from inside his robes. "I have something for you, mio amico." They were after all his reason to visit Milano, having found almost a handful of those enigmatic codex pages all around Monteriggioni, one even hidden in their own villa. That and to spend a few quiet weeks in Leonardo's company, away from all the violence, all his responsibilities. Also, the Milanese women were feisty from what he had heard and Ezio was more than looking forward to enjoying their hospitality for himself.
Leonardo didn't even look up. "Place them over the desk." Pushing himself off the floor as he stood up, he finally met his eyes, the ever present smile missing from his face. "Do you need a place to stay?"
Ezio's eyes travelled all the way from Leonardo's mud laden boots to the top of his matted head, lacking his ubiquitous red beret. He looked haggard, beard untended creases and stains on his long tunic from more than just the usual oil, charcoal and pigments. And the smell! Leonardo, though not an organised man, loved to remain clean and presentable despite the kind of work he sometimes did.
Ezio realised that he had been too busy in his own observations because Leonardo turned away from him at the lack of an answer. "You need to leave."
Just as he was turning around though, Ezio grabbed him by an arm, more shocked than anything by his blunt words. "What happened?"
Leonardo looked straight at him without any hesitation. "Do you remember Lamberto?"
"Ma certo. Your assistant." Ezio distinctly remembered the young apprentice, the receiver of all of Leonardo's affections be it those of a mentor or of a lover. The two had been inseparable ever since Leonardo took the orphan under his guidance three years earlier, right around the time he started under his new patronage in Milano.
"Si. The plague…. in Milano." Leonardo looked away to the fires again and Ezio could distinctly make out the glimmering tears making their way at the corner of his eyes, reflecting the hearth's warmth. "They took his body away yesterday. To…." His breath hitched, Leonardo hastily looking away before wiping his tears. "to the mass graves outside of the city. I haven't got around to cleaning the….the workshop. Like I said, you should leave the city. The outbreak is getting worse. I will send the pages when it is safe." Looking up, he finally added, "Mi dispiace, Ezio, but right now I don't think I would be a very good comp-."
Without needing to think twice about it, Ezio wrapped his arms around Leonardo before he could even finish his words. Memories of Leonardo having done the same for him for when he needed a friend the most beginning to flood his memories. Unlike all the other times, however, Leonardo stayed unyielding under his grip as Ezio rubbed his back. Even his arms were hanging beside him instead of returning the hug like he loved to. Ezio knew how much the boy had grown to mean to his best friend during these few brief months.
"Mi dispiace."
"I know." Leonardo nodded his head against Ezio's before patting his back and reluctantly letting go.
Everything made so much more sense now. Even the dead flowers, placed as such to get rid of the miasmas. Looking down, Ezio narrowed his eyes, realising a few of the sketches were drawings of Lamberto. Leonardo must have followed his gaze because he began to hastily collect them and put them away. And only then did the fact that Leonardo was probably still in mourning truly dawned on him.
Grief was no foreign concept to Ezio. And so it came as a shock to him that he had absolutely no idea what he should have done in those moments. He usually liked to be left alone when thoughts of his childhood became unbearable. But it was also the nights of opening up to his best friend, even if it was to simply share a bottle of vino in silence that had brought him the most respite from his nightmares. Straightening up and knowing Leonardo to be an outspoken man unlike him who usually had to be pushed into his feelings, Ezio clearly asked, "Do you wish me away? I don't want to leave you alone at a time like this. But if I'm-"
"No. I would appreciate the company." Leonardo nodded sincerely before sitting back down in front of the fireplace.
Ezio did the same, except he brought along some of the bread he had carried on the road from his travel bag. Knowing that Leonardo must have forgotten about food as was the case with him on most days when his assistants were away, Ezio tore a piece of bread before handing it over. Leonardo did not object, the two of them eating in silence with their eyes focused on the flames dancing in front with Ezio thinking what he could say that could soothe his friend right now. Every word that rang in his head sounded hollow much like the many empty condolences he had himself been on the recipient of.
"If it had been anyone else, he probably would have gotten a funeral. Me? They didn't even let me don a black tunic. I wasn't even allowed to touch him because we are both men. Because our bonds were unholy. Sacrilegious. Men like us aren't even allowed to mourn our partners. What good is all of this work? This name that I've created for myself in our society if I cannot even hold a funeral for my lover. Cannot let it show how much we both meant to each other. I had to stand there at the threshold while they got the sick and destitute to carry his body in those last moments because I wasn't kin. Because I….. While men like Ludovico can bury all of his ten mistresses as he pleases." Ezio sharply turned his face to look at the other. Leonardo's eyes were still glazed but they looked less from melancholy and more from just drifting thoughts. "Orphans. Bastards. Sodomites. Not even death sees us as equals."
"You could have held a funeral. As his Maestro. As his employer. From the love of good brotherhood. It was the plague that didn't allow for a funeral at dire times like these. If the outbreak is as bad as the heralds were shouting outside then it was the disease that made him go alone without his last rites. Not your relations." Ezio argued but with utmost politeness in his tone.
"Si. And it would still all be an act. Sometimes I truly wish what it would be like. To be able to provide honour and respect to my lover. To provide them with safety like every other husband wishes for their family. To lend them my name. To know that even if I were to die someday out of something unforeseen, it would be them who would benefit from my name, my work and my lands. Not the brothers that I've not seen even once in my life. Or patrons taking me to have left without anyone there to mourn me." Leonardo shook his head, still not looking at him even though Ezio didn't take his eyes off. "I know he would have liked to be recognised for what he was to me. What I was to him."
Ezio had never seen Leonardo so dejected before. He knew it wasn't easy, being a sodomite even in Firenze, much less away from it. And he had also heard of men like Leonardo before, those who couldn't feel any passion towards a woman. All he wanted to do in those moments was to find a way to bring his friend his happiness back, even if it meant to bring back the boy who had made Ezio jealous for all his time of knowing him. But he also knew that right now wasn't the time for him to dwell on his own feelings of longing he had harboured for his best friend for years. Now was the time to be what Leonardo needed, not a lover or a distraction. But a true friend simply to be there for whatever he may need.
At Ezio's lack of words which had never before bothered him, Leonardo began to go through his sketches again. For the most part, Ezio was thankful to know that Leonardo had been creating, not destroying the works in the grasps of grief like he had first thought him doing. He was trying not to peer into them though in respect, more than a few of them having been obvious reminders of their intimate time together. But it was actually Leonardo who made him look by placing a page between his fingers.
Ezio looked down, confusion taking over at the sketches of long staircased walls that he was seeing with what looked like canals flowing underneath. To make matters worse, Leonardo had used his left handed writing, telling Ezio that not only was this a private project of his but also one of those unrelenting ideas, the ones which usually came to no fruition. Ezio was only slowly starting to read the scribbled sentences underneath, but it was apparently taking too long because Leonardo spoke first.
"It had been what I was working on." Ezio immediately looked up from his pathetic attempt of making sense of the words. "Right when he started to show signs of the infection. Tonight, I thought I could begin anew on it. Of course up until now I've managed to do anything but."
"What is it?" Ezio searched the words again as Leonardo explained it to him.
"Plans of a city. One that would show resistance to the disease and the miasmata that causes them. I was thinking of separating the working areas from the ones used for residence. A three leveled citta. Using fresh clean water from the Ticino River for transportation and sewage much like they do in the north, in Venezia. I want to make this. In his memory."
Ezio snapped his head up at the last words from his slow but now steady reading. With a smile, he nodded, "You should. I know if anyone could it would be you." Giving the paper back to be read later since he had already decided on staying for at least a fortnight, he added, "You've talked about everything. From the people's injustice to the ones of life itself. Everything except for talking about him. I remember a great friend of mine having once told me when I was reluctant to talk of their deaths, 'They only die when we stop remembering them.'"
Leonardo smiled at Ezio's words, the first one from him Ezio had seen all evening. "Perhaps not so great of a friend tonight."
Ezio tore another piece of bread before handing it over. "Go on. Tell me about him then."