Has A!A mentioned that they really fail at posting things correctly? Because they do. Really, really fail at it. Ah, well, C’est la vie. See the post above to read the first chapter.
Also, A!A expects that there will be an update roughly once or twice a month.
Firenze, May 1473
Leonardo found there were several advantages to being near Lorenzo’s court - one was that the young Il Magnifico enjoyed surrounding himself with bright, artistic, and philosophical minds, and as such Leonardo had met several men with interests like his own - granted, he had to find roughly eight men to fully cover his myriad of hobbies - and often spent hours lost in discussions, arguments, and collective tinkering. While Verrocchio did try to encourage Leonardo to focus on one or at most two topics at a time, the younger polymath found that to be an impossible task; and it had become somewhat of a game among the other artists to guess what Leonardo’s latest project was.
That, really, was why he was carrying the heavy box home, darting this way and that while muttering his apologies, trying to find a clear path through the crowd without losing his tentative grip on the frail, wooden box in the process. He had, earlier that morning, found himself without the required know-how to continue his project, and, thus, had sought the help of the more skilled metalworkers and woodworkers of Lorenzo’s court.
Something that had had half a dozen people cooing and chatting admirably as they discussed uses and functions and improvements, until, eventually, he had been sent to the northeastern part of the city, where the smith there had the skills and tools to aid him. The smith, too, had been most interested in the project, though he had declared it nigh useless for anything but ornamental purposes, but had willingly given Leonardo a brief lesson in metalworking.
All learnings of the day combined, the artist found his head buzzing with a thousand ideas brought on by his new knowledge of tensile strengths and metal hollows and wood fibres - which did not exactly help on his focus while trying to navigate a busy, generally distracted crowd. Turning into one of the smaller alleys near La Rosa Colta - while it was a detour - Leonardo had only just managed a sigh of relief and allow his mind to temporarily mull over a specific kind of filigree he wanted to add to his project, when he walked straight into another person. His grip on the box slipped, and the container fell to the ground with all of the stealth and grace of a box full of wooden parts and metal.
“Scusami, Madonna,” Leonardo quickly, and immediately moved into cursing under his breath, scrambling to pick up the many bits and pieces from the flagstones - the only good thing about the current situation being that the box itself had survived the fall.
“No harm done, Messere,” the woman replied, and Leonardo was - for a fleeting moment - distracted by the rich, gold pattern in her skirt, and how the stiff cloth shifted when she squatted next to him, painted hands picking up pieces as well.
“Grazie,” he muttered, and followed the trail of small gears that had rolled a small distance away.
When he turned, though, he spotted that the woman had picked up the prototype he had worked on, and was inquisitively turning it this way and that. Inspecting the tiny crossbow with, he instantly spotted, an unexpectedly skilled eye.
“You have interesting tastes, Messere,” the woman said with a peculiarly warm smile as she passed him the fist-sized weapon. “You are an engineer?”
“Just a painter with odd hobbies, Madonna,” Leonardo replied, carefully placing his project back in the box along with the bits and pieces that could be used to construct several more - with some additional work.
“Please, call me Paola,” Madonna Paola said, with a longing glance at the box. “Are you building this for a patron, Messere?”
“Leonardo,” Leonardo said, hefting the box back into his arms, and found Paola moving forward, helping him get his hands properly under the vessel, so that he would be less likely to drop it if jostled. “I’m... ah, grazie. And no, Madonna, this is merely a project of mine. It… doesn’t have the power to kill a man at any distance. Even at point blank, it would take a fair amount of luck to do much more than stun. Not to mention that at this size, the trigger is too small for any man to pull...”
“So it incapacitates, but does not kill? A strange weapon indeed, ser Leonardo,” Paola said, and looked at him with her arms crossed and an enigmatic smile. “Perhaps you would be willing to sell it to me? I run La Rosa Colta, and there are plenty of men who become… rowdy. A weapon small enough to be hidden in a skirt would be a great asset to my girls. Perhaps you would even be willing to make a few more of these little balestra?”
Leonardo gaped for a moment, surprised that anyone would be interested in his miniature crossbow, and then his mind immediately raced down new paths, quickly making the rudimentary first plans for a courtesan armed to the teeth with invisible, fully hidden weaponry. He was not even aware that he had given his enthusiastic agreement before Paola laughed and took him by the arm, leading him towards the brothel.
Firenze, July 1473
“Oh, but monsieur Leonardo, this is fantastique!” the girl chirped, her french accent garbling her Italian into something that the artist supposed made her seem exotic to the customers.
“Si, si, now hold still,” he muttered, finishing the last adjustments to make sure that the delicate weapon would not go off by accident from where it was nestled in the courtesan’s corset. “There. Done, signorina.”
“Merci, ser Leonardo,” the girl tittered, battering her eyelashes, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m impressed, Leonardo,” Paola said, turning over her own version of the decorative, palm-sized container that, with a simple press of a hidden button, would spit heavy smoke and allow an attacked courtesan to make a clean escape - or, at least, so Leonardo hoped.
“I’m happy to be of help,” he replied, brushing the lip-paint off his cheek and went to take a deep swallow from the glass of wine the courtesans had provided him, trying to get the cloying scent of perfume out of his nose after spending so long adjusting the little weapons for each of Paola’s courtesans.
“Still, your work will do wonders in keeping my girls safe. I believe we owe you a reward outside of money,” Paola replied. Leonardo had only just started thinking of how he could gracefully decline the services of a girl, masking his thoughts with another deep draught from the wine, when she continued: “I do happen to know several handsome and very discreet young men that would be happy to help.”
It was only by the grace of quick reflexes that Leonardo managed to not spit his wine all over Paola’s carpet at that.
“What?!” he spluttered, once he had managed to regain his breath after several arduous seconds of coughing, simultaneously horrified and embarrassed.
“Peace, Leonardo,” Paola said, almost managing to hide the fact that she was about ready to keel over from laughter, and held up a hand to stop his stammered, broken protests. “I’ve seen you work with my girls’ corsets and skirts for two days now, and not once has your hand or eye strayed from your task. Despite, I may add, the girls’ attempts. And that kind of willpower in a man means that either he desires something different, or nothing at all.” Her smile turned wry. “And it is my experience that very few artists do not possess enough passion for their art as well as for the flesh.”
Leonardo stared for a bit longer, not entirely unlike a particularly shocked goldfish, utterly taken aback by how easily the Madonna had guessed something he was nervous about admitting to himself. While he was well aware of Firenze’s apparent leniency towards the matter, despite the Officers of the Night and the Church’s less-than-friendly view on the same, the hangings that did still happen from time to time had spooked Leonardo enough that he tried to be as subtle about his preferences as possible. To be found out this easily and quickly was disconcerting.
Paola’s smile was inscrutable; a skill likely earned through a lifetime of deception and hiding in plain sight. “Trust me,” she said, crossing her legs and made the artist’s fingers itch to sketch the way her dress folded, “my boys are very discreet. As are the clients I choose for them. The trust, after all, must go both ways.”
Mirror, Mirror, Which is Fairest of All? 2/?
Also, A!A expects that there will be an update roughly once or twice a month.
Firenze, May 1473
Leonardo found there were several advantages to being near Lorenzo’s court - one was that the young Il Magnifico enjoyed surrounding himself with bright, artistic, and philosophical minds, and as such Leonardo had met several men with interests like his own - granted, he had to find roughly eight men to fully cover his myriad of hobbies - and often spent hours lost in discussions, arguments, and collective tinkering. While Verrocchio did try to encourage Leonardo to focus on one or at most two topics at a time, the younger polymath found that to be an impossible task; and it had become somewhat of a game among the other artists to guess what Leonardo’s latest project was.
That, really, was why he was carrying the heavy box home, darting this way and that while muttering his apologies, trying to find a clear path through the crowd without losing his tentative grip on the frail, wooden box in the process. He had, earlier that morning, found himself without the required know-how to continue his project, and, thus, had sought the help of the more skilled metalworkers and woodworkers of Lorenzo’s court.
Something that had had half a dozen people cooing and chatting admirably as they discussed uses and functions and improvements, until, eventually, he had been sent to the northeastern part of the city, where the smith there had the skills and tools to aid him. The smith, too, had been most interested in the project, though he had declared it nigh useless for anything but ornamental purposes, but had willingly given Leonardo a brief lesson in metalworking.
All learnings of the day combined, the artist found his head buzzing with a thousand ideas brought on by his new knowledge of tensile strengths and metal hollows and wood fibres - which did not exactly help on his focus while trying to navigate a busy, generally distracted crowd. Turning into one of the smaller alleys near La Rosa Colta - while it was a detour - Leonardo had only just managed a sigh of relief and allow his mind to temporarily mull over a specific kind of filigree he wanted to add to his project, when he walked straight into another person. His grip on the box slipped, and the container fell to the ground with all of the stealth and grace of a box full of wooden parts and metal.
“Scusami, Madonna,” Leonardo quickly, and immediately moved into cursing under his breath, scrambling to pick up the many bits and pieces from the flagstones - the only good thing about the current situation being that the box itself had survived the fall.
“No harm done, Messere,” the woman replied, and Leonardo was - for a fleeting moment - distracted by the rich, gold pattern in her skirt, and how the stiff cloth shifted when she squatted next to him, painted hands picking up pieces as well.
“Grazie,” he muttered, and followed the trail of small gears that had rolled a small distance away.
When he turned, though, he spotted that the woman had picked up the prototype he had worked on, and was inquisitively turning it this way and that. Inspecting the tiny crossbow with, he instantly spotted, an unexpectedly skilled eye.
“You have interesting tastes, Messere,” the woman said with a peculiarly warm smile as she passed him the fist-sized weapon. “You are an engineer?”
“Just a painter with odd hobbies, Madonna,” Leonardo replied, carefully placing his project back in the box along with the bits and pieces that could be used to construct several more - with some additional work.
“Please, call me Paola,” Madonna Paola said, with a longing glance at the box. “Are you building this for a patron, Messere?”
“Leonardo,” Leonardo said, hefting the box back into his arms, and found Paola moving forward, helping him get his hands properly under the vessel, so that he would be less likely to drop it if jostled. “I’m... ah, grazie. And no, Madonna, this is merely a project of mine. It… doesn’t have the power to kill a man at any distance. Even at point blank, it would take a fair amount of luck to do much more than stun. Not to mention that at this size, the trigger is too small for any man to pull...”
“So it incapacitates, but does not kill? A strange weapon indeed, ser Leonardo,” Paola said, and looked at him with her arms crossed and an enigmatic smile. “Perhaps you would be willing to sell it to me? I run La Rosa Colta, and there are plenty of men who become… rowdy. A weapon small enough to be hidden in a skirt would be a great asset to my girls. Perhaps you would even be willing to make a few more of these little balestra?”
Leonardo gaped for a moment, surprised that anyone would be interested in his miniature crossbow, and then his mind immediately raced down new paths, quickly making the rudimentary first plans for a courtesan armed to the teeth with invisible, fully hidden weaponry. He was not even aware that he had given his enthusiastic agreement before Paola laughed and took him by the arm, leading him towards the brothel.
Firenze, July 1473
“Oh, but monsieur Leonardo, this is fantastique!” the girl chirped, her french accent garbling her Italian into something that the artist supposed made her seem exotic to the customers.
“Si, si, now hold still,” he muttered, finishing the last adjustments to make sure that the delicate weapon would not go off by accident from where it was nestled in the courtesan’s corset. “There. Done, signorina.”
“Merci, ser Leonardo,” the girl tittered, battering her eyelashes, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m impressed, Leonardo,” Paola said, turning over her own version of the decorative, palm-sized container that, with a simple press of a hidden button, would spit heavy smoke and allow an attacked courtesan to make a clean escape - or, at least, so Leonardo hoped.
“I’m happy to be of help,” he replied, brushing the lip-paint off his cheek and went to take a deep swallow from the glass of wine the courtesans had provided him, trying to get the cloying scent of perfume out of his nose after spending so long adjusting the little weapons for each of Paola’s courtesans.
“Still, your work will do wonders in keeping my girls safe. I believe we owe you a reward outside of money,” Paola replied. Leonardo had only just started thinking of how he could gracefully decline the services of a girl, masking his thoughts with another deep draught from the wine, when she continued: “I do happen to know several handsome and very discreet young men that would be happy to help.”
It was only by the grace of quick reflexes that Leonardo managed to not spit his wine all over Paola’s carpet at that.
“What?!” he spluttered, once he had managed to regain his breath after several arduous seconds of coughing, simultaneously horrified and embarrassed.
“Peace, Leonardo,” Paola said, almost managing to hide the fact that she was about ready to keel over from laughter, and held up a hand to stop his stammered, broken protests. “I’ve seen you work with my girls’ corsets and skirts for two days now, and not once has your hand or eye strayed from your task. Despite, I may add, the girls’ attempts. And that kind of willpower in a man means that either he desires something different, or nothing at all.” Her smile turned wry. “And it is my experience that very few artists do not possess enough passion for their art as well as for the flesh.”
Leonardo stared for a bit longer, not entirely unlike a particularly shocked goldfish, utterly taken aback by how easily the Madonna had guessed something he was nervous about admitting to himself. While he was well aware of Firenze’s apparent leniency towards the matter, despite the Officers of the Night and the Church’s less-than-friendly view on the same, the hangings that did still happen from time to time had spooked Leonardo enough that he tried to be as subtle about his preferences as possible. To be found out this easily and quickly was disconcerting.
Paola’s smile was inscrutable; a skill likely earned through a lifetime of deception and hiding in plain sight. “Trust me,” she said, crossing her legs and made the artist’s fingers itch to sketch the way her dress folded, “my boys are very discreet. As are the clients I choose for them. The trust, after all, must go both ways.”