A/N: "Why the fuck did this take six months? You said a week!" - A!A was sadly too optimistic. While this chapter was actually mostly complete, and a mere three pages, A!A checked up on a few things, and all of a sudden realised that the event contained in this chapter was an event that deeply affected Leonardo for the rest of his life. Originally, it was just a little bit of exposition tagged onto the end of the last update; but after the revelation of how traumatising this had been, A!A decided to massively rewrite the chapter to pay proper attention to this. Which included a bunch of research (and realising how few people agree on things), and sadly coincided with a fucking ton of stuff that left A!A with literally no time on their hands to write. Add to that that A!A found out multiple times that they had gone and Dan Browned the research, well...
This is only the first half. Second half goes up once A!A is done screaming at the screen (if anyone volunteers as beta, the job is open and would mostly be to keep A!A from getting distracted by all the pretty prompts that have popped up while A!A has been busy, and endure being randomly rambled at about game inconsistencies, idiotic historians, and hats).
Firenze, April 8th, 1476
When Leonardo awoke, it was in his own bed, with no recollection of how he had ended up there - and a headache that made him long for the peaceful oblivion of sleep. But with both bladder and stomach putting up too much of a fuss, he instead found himself spending the morning being even more unproductive than usual; alternating between nursing his hangover and cursing friends with too much wine; the noisy city; his own inability to say no; and the world in general.
Come midday, his mood had not improved much, though his headache had at least lessened to the point where it no longer hurt merely to think, and when someone decided to start hammering at his door, Leonardo found his normally considerable patience stretched thin.
“Madre Dio,” he grumbled under his breath, “I’m coming, I’m coming!” and wrenched the door open with his best scowl and a snarled “What?!”
Two of the three fully armed guards outside took half a step backwards in shock, though their leader remained unfazed. “Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci?” he asked, scowling in return.
Leonardo swallowed, sudden panic clawing at his gut. “Si?”
“You are hereby under arrest by the order of Gli Ufficiali di Notte, under the accusation of engaging in sodomy.”
And just as that, the clawing sensation became that of his entire world falling to pieces around him. He only vaguely registered himself putting on a hat and cape, slipping the sigil ring of the Teplar order over his finger, stepping from his workshop, and started the walk towards le Stinche, the three guards falling into step beside and behind him. He felt sick; the urge to vomit lurking just beneath the surface, and he could practically feel how the people upon the street looked at him with thinly veiled disgust as they passed through piazza del Duomo - he might as well carry a sign around his neck with how he felt their gaze.
His mind, ever busy, churned as he tried, desperately, to find out where he had taken a misstep. Had Paola betrayed him or some reason - money? Threats to shut down her brothel? Or had it perhaps been one of the young boys there. A client scorned, an accusation made against the worker, and, to save himself, a counter-accusation listing several clients and thus Leonardo's name had ended up with the Officers of the Night. Perhaps it was a personal attack against him; someone envious of his social climb.
Leonardo brushed his hands over his clothes, palms clammy and cold despite the fever pitch in his body. Oh, he knew fully well that accusing each other of sodomy was a favoured tactics among the nobility; founded or unfounded accusations. Leonardo was but a notary's bastardo; it could well be that it was it his patronage with the Medici that had roused some anonymous person's anger. Or was he merely a safe target; a demonstration of power and risk to people of a higher standing, without him being able to do much in retalitation without losing whatever thin scraps of dignity and patronage he could possibly cling to after this?
So busy was his mind with these thoughts that he only noticed they had reached via del Mercantino when he heard a nearby herald loudly declare that the Piazza della Signoria would bear witness to the hanging of an enemy of the state the next morning. Swallowing thickly, trying not to imagine the noose around his neck, Leonardo was half-followed, half-led by the three guards accompanying him further down the via del Palagio and to the low, narrow doorway that led into the bowels of the mighty Stinche.
The five guardi in the small office to the immediate left looked up with a bored expression, and Leonardo wondered if that was because he was not screaming or struggling or even in chain as most other arrivals probably were. The city guards that had delivered him grumbled something, signed a few papers, and then Leonardo was led further into the prison. There was a rank stank in the air; of fear and anger and unwashed bodies and lavatory buckets that were emptied just a few times too few.
Another guard waved him along, with a second taking up the rear with a sword held ready, and Leonardo was led along the wide cooridor that followed the inside of le Stinche's tall walls. Wide enough, in fact, that it would allow two guards to wrestle an unruly prisoner along and still leave room enough for another person to slip past without being in the way. All along the wall were doors to the cells; solid oak wood, with small bars at an even tinier window through which food and messages could be passed. Leonardo knew, having passed by le Stinche several times, that each cell had another barred window to the streets outside, where one may recieve alms from passerbys, or simply find a soul to speak to. Or, as some, to plead their case and hope that a noble would take on their cause and save them from a death sentence.
His breathing caught at the thought, and he tried once again not to imagine the tightening of the noose around his neck; or, god forbid, the crackling of the pyre that many had been condemned to over the years. His over-active imagination was only too quick to supply the feel of flames licking against his skin; not in a brief, painful caress of sticking one's hand too close to the fire, but relentlessly eating at flesh and cloth until there was nothing but ash and pain...
Thankfully, the small cell he was led to was empty and happened to have a view of the more deserted part of Via del Luvio, and he found himself with nearly two hours to calm his thoughts and his nerves. Much of that time was spent pacing the few feet of space he had; nervously looking out of the barred window, hoping desperately not to see anyone he knew, and feeling his fingers itch and twitch with the urge to do something until he realised he had picked at the hardened skin of his palms until they bled. And still he had not come to a conclusion of who could have laid the accusation against him - and his mental list of people who could be behind it in one way or another was by now up to around half the city's population.
Pacing another round through the cell - eleven by eight feet, twelve of the floor bricks laid slightly higher than the others, a third of the bricks made from different clay than the others, and Leonardo was certain that the mortar had crushed seashells in it - he tried to calm his mind. The old grime on the cell walls and the all-permanating stench in the air made him long for clean water. Even though most of the dottori insisted that cleaning oneself only made the body more suspendible towards catching disease, Verrocchio had been strict in forcing his apprentices to wash their hands and forearms after painting or sculpting - pointing out that dirty hands would spread unwanted pigment or clay to whatever work was being made, leaving unsightly cracks in paint, smears of colour on sculptures, or faults in cast metal. Leonardo had grown used to washing his hands five or more times daily, and now felt his skin positively itch with the need to be clean.
Pausing, staring at the cracked skin of his palms and the beads of dried blood there, he wondered if he was already going insane. Certainly there was no other reason that his primary concern right now was the woeful access to clean water, when he had plenty of other reasons to be worried. His brain helpfully and immediately supplied the mental image of a pyre around him, and Leonardo shunted away that thought with a shudder.
His musing were interrupted when the guards reappeared, calmly informing him that he was to see the magister. Trying not to wring his hands, settling for twisting the heavy ring on his finger instead, and wishing that he had put on better clothes before he had left, Leonardo meekly followed after the guards - praying, desperately, that the judges would be of the kind persuation as he was once more led through the city to the Palazzo della Signoria. It did not help the panicked flutter of his heart when he saw the large platform for the public hangings dominating the piazza.
What he had not expected, however, was to enter the anteroom and find Tornabuoni and Bacconi there among the eight-odd others, looking up and appearing just as surprised to see him as he was with them.
"Well, at least now we know for certain that the accusation is due to us spending time together," Tornabuoni said, as Leonardo took a seat on the bench between him and a morbidly overweight man with several chins wobbling in quiet anger and a large wart on his nose (or, possibly, a small part of Leonardo's mind mused, a nose on his wart). "But who made the accusation against the four of us still escapes me," Tornabuoni continued, unaffected by the sheer quantities of chins in his vicinity, "perhaps you have come up with an idea within your bright mind, piccolo Leonardo?"
Leonardo shook his head briskly, feeling claustrophobic as well as frustrated within the tiny antechamber, and not helped overly by the intense stink of nervous people. "Bartholomeo is here?" he asked, not trusting his vocal cords with longer sentences.
He had hardly managed to finish the sentence before another four guards arrived, bodily dragging a struggling, scowling, and swearing Bartholomeo between them - and, of the four of them, he was the only one still in shackles. The man wrested free of the obviously hard grasp, spat at the ground, and went to sit next to Bacconi, grumbling under his breath all the while. Much to Leonardo's relief, the four guards retreated after that, leaving behind but the original two guards near the door to the courtroom. Within, there was an ever-growing chorus of agitated voices as whoever was currently on trial vehemently disagreed with current verdicts, although the thickness of the door made it nigh impossible to understand anything of what was being said.
"Bastardi," Bartholomeo snarled. "They drag me in for 'disturbing the peace', and now I'm suddenly being accused of sodomy. Me! Ask any puttana within the city, and they can vouch that I prefer the [[[female parts]]] over any pene or culo wagged at me! Who made the claim, anyway?"
Bacconi merely shrugged, and, after several false starts, managed to stammer his way through, "We don't know."
"Porco dio, nobility and their idea of entertainment," the shorter man growled and all but threw himself back at the wall in a slouch. "No offence," he hastily added to Tournabuoni.
"None taken," the older man replied with a wry smile, although it did not quite reach his eyes, and two fingers were worrying the hem of his sleeve. "But I do hope that your little... 'episode' last night won't affect our trial. My nipote is dear to me, but I'd rather not need his help in this matter..."
Leonardo somehow managed to avoid having a complete panic attack at the mention of Lorenzo de'Medici, and, later, would be quite proud of that fact. He did not, however, fully manage to gather his thoughts before the large doors were flung open and a short man with an impressively large gut and an even bigger black eye stormed through, trying, futilely, to keep a hat seated upon his glistening bald head. A few others - servants, or possibly personal doctors, if one was to judge by the bags they carried - followed, pleading futilely for the nobleman to mind his temper and his health and his heart.
The guards looked remarkably tired, as if they had seen the very same sight day after day, and waved the three men inside the courtroom. Tornabuoni went first, by all apperances looking as if this was merely a dull disruption of his day. Bacconi went after him, seeming more angry than upset, and keeping his fists clenched. Bartholomeo, however, paused for a moment - no more, really, than as if stretching - gave Leonardo a quick nod and touched his own, heavy ring.
Hoping he had understood the gesture, Leonardo turned his ring, ensuring that the Templar symbol engraving faced upwards, and followed the other three into the Magister's courtroom. He was surprised, though, to find that a young man, barely out of the gangly age of adolecence, and wearing an utterly unapologetic smile that fitted his handsome, even delicate, features. Leonardo was, for just a moment, distracted by the urge to sketch that face and commit its perfection to canvas or clay. But then he turned his eyes back to the room before him, and reality forcefully pushed away any stray thoughts.
Mirror, Mirror, Which is Fairest of All? 7a/?
This is only the first half. Second half goes up once A!A is done screaming at the screen (if anyone volunteers as beta, the job is open and would mostly be to keep A!A from getting distracted by all the pretty prompts that have popped up while A!A has been busy, and endure being randomly rambled at about game inconsistencies, idiotic historians, and hats).
Firenze, April 8th, 1476
When Leonardo awoke, it was in his own bed, with no recollection of how he had ended up there - and a headache that made him long for the peaceful oblivion of sleep. But with both bladder and stomach putting up too much of a fuss, he instead found himself spending the morning being even more unproductive than usual; alternating between nursing his hangover and cursing friends with too much wine; the noisy city; his own inability to say no; and the world in general.
Come midday, his mood had not improved much, though his headache had at least lessened to the point where it no longer hurt merely to think, and when someone decided to start hammering at his door, Leonardo found his normally considerable patience stretched thin.
“Madre Dio,” he grumbled under his breath, “I’m coming, I’m coming!” and wrenched the door open with his best scowl and a snarled “What?!”
Two of the three fully armed guards outside took half a step backwards in shock, though their leader remained unfazed. “Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci?” he asked, scowling in return.
Leonardo swallowed, sudden panic clawing at his gut. “Si?”
“You are hereby under arrest by the order of Gli Ufficiali di Notte, under the accusation of engaging in sodomy.”
And just as that, the clawing sensation became that of his entire world falling to pieces around him. He only vaguely registered himself putting on a hat and cape, slipping the sigil ring of the Teplar order over his finger, stepping from his workshop, and started the walk towards le Stinche, the three guards falling into step beside and behind him. He felt sick; the urge to vomit lurking just beneath the surface, and he could practically feel how the people upon the street looked at him with thinly veiled disgust as they passed through piazza del Duomo - he might as well carry a sign around his neck with how he felt their gaze.
His mind, ever busy, churned as he tried, desperately, to find out where he had taken a misstep. Had Paola betrayed him or some reason - money? Threats to shut down her brothel? Or had it perhaps been one of the young boys there. A client scorned, an accusation made against the worker, and, to save himself, a counter-accusation listing several clients and thus Leonardo's name had ended up with the Officers of the Night. Perhaps it was a personal attack against him; someone envious of his social climb.
Leonardo brushed his hands over his clothes, palms clammy and cold despite the fever pitch in his body. Oh, he knew fully well that accusing each other of sodomy was a favoured tactics among the nobility; founded or unfounded accusations. Leonardo was but a notary's bastardo; it could well be that it was it his patronage with the Medici that had roused some anonymous person's anger. Or was he merely a safe target; a demonstration of power and risk to people of a higher standing, without him being able to do much in retalitation without losing whatever thin scraps of dignity and patronage he could possibly cling to after this?
So busy was his mind with these thoughts that he only noticed they had reached via del Mercantino when he heard a nearby herald loudly declare that the Piazza della Signoria would bear witness to the hanging of an enemy of the state the next morning. Swallowing thickly, trying not to imagine the noose around his neck, Leonardo was half-followed, half-led by the three guards accompanying him further down the via del Palagio and to the low, narrow doorway that led into the bowels of the mighty Stinche.
The five guardi in the small office to the immediate left looked up with a bored expression, and Leonardo wondered if that was because he was not screaming or struggling or even in chain as most other arrivals probably were. The city guards that had delivered him grumbled something, signed a few papers, and then Leonardo was led further into the prison. There was a rank stank in the air; of fear and anger and unwashed bodies and lavatory buckets that were emptied just a few times too few.
Another guard waved him along, with a second taking up the rear with a sword held ready, and Leonardo was led along the wide cooridor that followed the inside of le Stinche's tall walls. Wide enough, in fact, that it would allow two guards to wrestle an unruly prisoner along and still leave room enough for another person to slip past without being in the way. All along the wall were doors to the cells; solid oak wood, with small bars at an even tinier window through which food and messages could be passed. Leonardo knew, having passed by le Stinche several times, that each cell had another barred window to the streets outside, where one may recieve alms from passerbys, or simply find a soul to speak to. Or, as some, to plead their case and hope that a noble would take on their cause and save them from a death sentence.
His breathing caught at the thought, and he tried once again not to imagine the tightening of the noose around his neck; or, god forbid, the crackling of the pyre that many had been condemned to over the years. His over-active imagination was only too quick to supply the feel of flames licking against his skin; not in a brief, painful caress of sticking one's hand too close to the fire, but relentlessly eating at flesh and cloth until there was nothing but ash and pain...
Thankfully, the small cell he was led to was empty and happened to have a view of the more deserted part of Via del Luvio, and he found himself with nearly two hours to calm his thoughts and his nerves. Much of that time was spent pacing the few feet of space he had; nervously looking out of the barred window, hoping desperately not to see anyone he knew, and feeling his fingers itch and twitch with the urge to do something until he realised he had picked at the hardened skin of his palms until they bled. And still he had not come to a conclusion of who could have laid the accusation against him - and his mental list of people who could be behind it in one way or another was by now up to around half the city's population.
Pacing another round through the cell - eleven by eight feet, twelve of the floor bricks laid slightly higher than the others, a third of the bricks made from different clay than the others, and Leonardo was certain that the mortar had crushed seashells in it - he tried to calm his mind. The old grime on the cell walls and the all-permanating stench in the air made him long for clean water. Even though most of the dottori insisted that cleaning oneself only made the body more suspendible towards catching disease, Verrocchio had been strict in forcing his apprentices to wash their hands and forearms after painting or sculpting - pointing out that dirty hands would spread unwanted pigment or clay to whatever work was being made, leaving unsightly cracks in paint, smears of colour on sculptures, or faults in cast metal. Leonardo had grown used to washing his hands five or more times daily, and now felt his skin positively itch with the need to be clean.
Pausing, staring at the cracked skin of his palms and the beads of dried blood there, he wondered if he was already going insane. Certainly there was no other reason that his primary concern right now was the woeful access to clean water, when he had plenty of other reasons to be worried. His brain helpfully and immediately supplied the mental image of a pyre around him, and Leonardo shunted away that thought with a shudder.
His musing were interrupted when the guards reappeared, calmly informing him that he was to see the magister. Trying not to wring his hands, settling for twisting the heavy ring on his finger instead, and wishing that he had put on better clothes before he had left, Leonardo meekly followed after the guards - praying, desperately, that the judges would be of the kind persuation as he was once more led through the city to the Palazzo della Signoria. It did not help the panicked flutter of his heart when he saw the large platform for the public hangings dominating the piazza.
What he had not expected, however, was to enter the anteroom and find Tornabuoni and Bacconi there among the eight-odd others, looking up and appearing just as surprised to see him as he was with them.
"Well, at least now we know for certain that the accusation is due to us spending time together," Tornabuoni said, as Leonardo took a seat on the bench between him and a morbidly overweight man with several chins wobbling in quiet anger and a large wart on his nose (or, possibly, a small part of Leonardo's mind mused, a nose on his wart). "But who made the accusation against the four of us still escapes me," Tornabuoni continued, unaffected by the sheer quantities of chins in his vicinity, "perhaps you have come up with an idea within your bright mind, piccolo Leonardo?"
Leonardo shook his head briskly, feeling claustrophobic as well as frustrated within the tiny antechamber, and not helped overly by the intense stink of nervous people. "Bartholomeo is here?" he asked, not trusting his vocal cords with longer sentences.
He had hardly managed to finish the sentence before another four guards arrived, bodily dragging a struggling, scowling, and swearing Bartholomeo between them - and, of the four of them, he was the only one still in shackles. The man wrested free of the obviously hard grasp, spat at the ground, and went to sit next to Bacconi, grumbling under his breath all the while. Much to Leonardo's relief, the four guards retreated after that, leaving behind but the original two guards near the door to the courtroom. Within, there was an ever-growing chorus of agitated voices as whoever was currently on trial vehemently disagreed with current verdicts, although the thickness of the door made it nigh impossible to understand anything of what was being said.
"Bastardi," Bartholomeo snarled. "They drag me in for 'disturbing the peace', and now I'm suddenly being accused of sodomy. Me! Ask any puttana within the city, and they can vouch that I prefer the [[[female parts]]] over any pene or culo wagged at me! Who made the claim, anyway?"
Bacconi merely shrugged, and, after several false starts, managed to stammer his way through, "We don't know."
"Porco dio, nobility and their idea of entertainment," the shorter man growled and all but threw himself back at the wall in a slouch. "No offence," he hastily added to Tournabuoni.
"None taken," the older man replied with a wry smile, although it did not quite reach his eyes, and two fingers were worrying the hem of his sleeve. "But I do hope that your little... 'episode' last night won't affect our trial. My nipote is dear to me, but I'd rather not need his help in this matter..."
Leonardo somehow managed to avoid having a complete panic attack at the mention of Lorenzo de'Medici, and, later, would be quite proud of that fact. He did not, however, fully manage to gather his thoughts before the large doors were flung open and a short man with an impressively large gut and an even bigger black eye stormed through, trying, futilely, to keep a hat seated upon his glistening bald head. A few others - servants, or possibly personal doctors, if one was to judge by the bags they carried - followed, pleading futilely for the nobleman to mind his temper and his health and his heart.
The guards looked remarkably tired, as if they had seen the very same sight day after day, and waved the three men inside the courtroom. Tornabuoni went first, by all apperances looking as if this was merely a dull disruption of his day. Bacconi went after him, seeming more angry than upset, and keeping his fists clenched. Bartholomeo, however, paused for a moment - no more, really, than as if stretching - gave Leonardo a quick nod and touched his own, heavy ring.
Hoping he had understood the gesture, Leonardo turned his ring, ensuring that the Templar symbol engraving faced upwards, and followed the other three into the Magister's courtroom. He was surprised, though, to find that a young man, barely out of the gangly age of adolecence, and wearing an utterly unapologetic smile that fitted his handsome, even delicate, features. Leonardo was, for just a moment, distracted by the urge to sketch that face and commit its perfection to canvas or clay. But then he turned his eyes back to the room before him, and reality forcefully pushed away any stray thoughts.