SEQUENCE 4 INITIATED…

THE ESCAPE

Leonardo was, as Cesare had promised, blindfolded and brought to him two days later. He told him everything Volpe and Machiavelli had coached him to say as they had taught him to say it, almost pleading and using his hands to demonstrate how he had overheard the information. As the story went, he had been called in to stich up a new recruit and, while tucked away in the corner of their hideout, had overheard Volpe arguing with Machiavelli that the Templar agent needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Cesare stood with his arms crossed and eyes heavy lidded, watching the man before him with his predator eyes, and when Leonardo finally fell silent, his fingers beat out a lazy tempo on his elbow. "How many men does this assassin plan to bring with him?"

"Two fifth rank recruits," Leonardo replied, quickly. "And seven of his own thieves for reassurance."

"Who will strike?"

"He did not specify, but one of the recruits. I am sure of it."

"Will he go himself to fight? This…Volpe? Or is he a mere overseer?"

"I believe he is to be present, but only to overlook the recruit's performance, since they are of lower rank."

Cesare stroked his neatly trimmed beard and waved his hand dismissively at Leonardo. "Very well. If your information proves true, then you will be rewarded. My men will pick you up when I have need of your information again. Until then keep your ears open."

Leonardo stood and bowed, deeply, trying to keep his shaking hands from showing. "Grazie." He did not struggle when the guards approached and pulled the bag over his head and locked his arms, dragging him away.

Leonardo spent the rest of the day flirting among his things in his workshop, his nervous fingers smearing paintings and breaking models despite every attempt to calm. Eventually he gave up and sat in a dark corner, knees to his forehead and his breaths like rattles.

What have I gotten into?

A dark haired man sat crouched in the darkness of his small, hidden cell. Every ounce of his attention was focused on his wrists, his fingers moving quickly and nimbly as they maneuvered a thin piece of metal in the lock of his restraints. His hands were bound behind his back, but it was obvious the prisoner understood the components of the locks and also knew how to undo them.

After hours of meticulous work, with a sense of finality he jerked the metal bit up and was rewarded with the gratifying sound of the lock opening. He pulled his wrist out of the harsh restraint, turning around so he could properly wield the bit of metal and open the other lock that chained him to the wall. In little time he was free, absently rubbing his chaffed wrists. Ezio smirked to himself, satisfied.

Ezio did a once over his body, grimacing at the dirty wound on his knee and barely brushing the tops of the lashes on his back, grimacing at the memory of the flogging. He was in nothing but his breeches, all armor and underclothes removed, left with only his scars and his wounds. He set himself to tearing his breeches and winding the material around his wounded knee, seemingly biding his time in the dark hellhole he had been thrown into many days ago.

Ezio might have been sitting there for hours before the echoing sounds of approaching steps reached his pricked ears. He stayed silent as the steps got louder and louder, accompanied with the clank of armor and the hiss of a torch. Through the small slit under the cell door, the prisoner could see the flickering fire and smiled, briefly, to himself.

The metal slider that covered a small slit in the cell door was opened, showing the eyes of a bored soldier as he peered into the dark cell. The prisoner had positioned himself in the darkest corner of the cell where their torchlight would not touch, and had purposefully left the empty manacles in the dead center of his cell.

The soldier cried out and snapped at his companion, "The prisoner! He's escaped!"

The other soldier said, "How did he get out? The door is still locked!"

"Go check inside," the first one ordered. "I'm going to the others to see if they saw anything!"

"Or if they're still alive," the other replied grimly as he fumbled with his keys and opened the cell. The first soldier ran off into the distance, down the hall to where the other soldiers on guard must have been located. The prisoner stayed silent as the door was opened and the scantily armored guard stepped into the threshold, bearing a torch and a sword in the other hand.

He didn't even get a single second to cry out when the assassin lunged suddenly out of the darkness, covering his mouth as he used all of his strength to snap his head around and break his neck. Ezio snatched the sword out of the air before it could clank on the stones. He grinned to himself and knelt down, stripped the body of his armor and helmet, quickly buckling the clothes and metal plates onto his body and capping his dirty head with the helmet.

He dragged the body further into the cell and closed the door behind him as he slipped out. Ezio struggled to hide his limp, but did so nobly as he approached the guard post that was the only entrance to the cell he had been held in.

Three soldiers, all bearing their weapons, turned to him and one barked, "Well?"

Ezio shook his head, forcing his voice lower than his normal one in an attempt to mimic the guard's voice, but only after hearing a few meager sentences the impersonation was not very accurate. "He's gone," he said, continuing forward with only the slightest of limps. "No sign of anything, just gone. Maledetto assassino! I'm going out to see if the others saw him."

The other guard started to speak amongst themselves as he hurried away, only daring to limp when he was out of their sight. He could still hear their conversation, however.

"How could he have slipped past us? We were here the entire time! Not one strange thing happened!"

"Check the cell again!"

"What if the assassini really can walk straight through walls…? Travel through the shadows?"

"The assassini are mere men! Do not let superstitions cloud your mind. He must have gotten past us somehow in the past four hours."

"Or maybe…he got past us just now…?"

"What are you saying, Tolomeo?"

"Didn't Folco have a torch?"

Ezio began to run then, as quietly as he could. But with his injured knee it was near impossible. He found himself at the base of a dark column of steps, which he took two at a time. Glancing around when he reached the top, Ezio found himself in a familiar dank room, the staircase he had used craftily hidden behind several crates and racks of weapons.

The disguised assassin hurried forward, towards the wide stairs, but only five steps up the soldiers from below appeared from the stairs and raised the alarm.

"Assassino! There he is, in Folco's armor!"

"Cazzo," Ezio muttered, gripping his weeping knee before lunging up the steps, running as quickly as he could. Pain shot through his back and leg, making him stumble, but the assassin just grit his teeth and continued on, pushing past the pain. The guards sprinted after him, one only quick enough to barely keep his pace.

At the top of the second staircase, he was spat out into an elegant hall and wheeled around, randomly shooting to the left. He cried out and stumbled when the quick guard slashed him at his elbow, making him collide with the wall. His bloody hand—courtesy of his knee and now bleeding arm—left a grotesque print on the pale stone.

Ezio tried to run again, this time managing a few steps until another guard caught up his with quick footed companion and tackled the escapee to the ground. Ezio swore and twisted and bit like a rabid wolf, managing to bruise several of the guards and even making one of them bleed with the force of his bite.

Ezio Auditore's brief freedom ended when a harsh blow to his temple shoved blackness in front of his eyes.

"Can't I even have one peaceful day?"

"I am afraid not, Leonardo. There are no peaceful days in the midst of a war."

"A war no one is aware of."

"You are aware of it."

"Why are you here, Volpe?"

"I've come to give you these new paints, courtesy of Machiavelli."

"You're his messenger now?...why would Niccoló send me paints?"

"Perhaps he is trying to woo you."

"Ha, indeed. Well, grazie—I think—for these, Volpe. When will I—oh, you're gone already. How does he do that? Is the skill inherited only by fellow assassini? Perhaps there is a certain way of ducking behind a passerby and maneuvering away…perhaps I ought to try. Someday…Mio Dio! These paints are heavy…so much for getting more canvas…"

Grumbling, Leonardo made his way back to his workshop and left the heavy crate of paints on the nearest table he found upon entering. Rubbing his back with his grimace, he was about to wander to his easel to continue painting, but the innocent jars of paints caught his eye. The paints were normal, if a bit expensive—but the entire crate of them seemed so farfetched and ludicrous to Leonardo. Why would Machiavelli give him a crate of paints?

"What are you up to, Niccoló?" the inventor muttered, picking out a few random jars and examining them. He meticulously emptied the crate, looking at each paint one by one, then setting them aside when he found nothing out of the ordinary. Huffing, Leonardo was left with a simple wooden crate and twenty-four jars of paint.

Leonardo rubbed his face, resigning himself to the idea that Niccoló might have just sent him these paints as some kind of compensation for being the mole, and lifted the crate to toss it with the other abandoned ones. Halfway through his workshop, he stopped and looked skeptically at the crate and slowly weighed it in his hands.

"This is far too heavy," he muttered, returning to the table and tapping gently at the panes of wood and prying at the individual seams at the edges with his fingernails. He tapped at the bottom, crinkling his brow when the sound that echoed back was slightly hollow. "And there it is," he said as he pried up a false bottom of the crate and was faced with a stone that gave the crate its extra weight—placed there to alert him to the false bottom, no doubt—and a single piece of parchment pinned in place by the stone.

Leonardo picked up the parchment and read:

Tartaruga—

Two recruits one leap. Ferdinando di Napoli. Three days at dusk.

Generale Due

Leonardo frowned. "Tartaruga? Why am I a turtle?" After several long moments of contemplation, he shook his head and quickly burned the paper in his dwindling fire, watching the parchment writhe and weep.

Unsurprisingly, Cesare sent his men to collect Leonardo not four days after the impromptu attempt on the Templar agent and one day after the crate-note from Machiavelli. However, this time Leonardo was simply shoved into a carriage that was completely covered, not a slit or window to peek out of to see their destination.

Unfortunately, Leonardo was blinded before he was led out of the carriage. The cloth was removed upon entry, and Leonardo could only glance around before he was led through elegant halls and extravagant rooms. At one point, his eye was caught by a splash of red on the stone wall, and he barely deciphered it as a handprint before he was shoved into another room and away from the strange marking.

Cesare was quick with his compliment—"The information you supplied proved correct."—and continued to interrogate him with the newest bit of information he had been supplied by note, along with a spontaneous story of overhearing the two recruits speak about it. He sat in an uncomfortable silence as Cesare mulled this information over and eventually he stood with relief when he was sent off with a wave of his hand.

The blindfold was replaced and Leonardo closed his eyes as he was led away, into the carriage and brought back home. It seemed so much emptier.

I. Am so. Sorry for the wait. Seriously. This took way too long for me to write. T_T Is ashamed. I did take the Braveman and Generale Due names (codenames for Leonardo and Machiavelli) from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but it took everything I had not to use "Tinker" for Leonardo. ;_; But I nobly restrained myself. Anyways, the "one leap" in Machiavelli's note referred to a Leap of Faith, therefore an initiated assassin along with the two recruits.

Thanks all who read, alerted, reviewed and favorited! Love to you all!

Sorry for any mistakes, typos, bad Italian or inconsistencies.

Maledetto assassino! : Damn assassin!

Cazzo : Fuck

Mio Dio : My god!

Generale Due : General Two

-Spirit-