Knives Don't Have Your Back: Chapter XV
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Rated: R (NC17 overall)
Word Count: 6,295 / 90,339
This is the second-to-last chapter! The final chapter and the epilogue will be posted simultaneously on Monday. Thank you to everyone for your continued support--I can't believe we're almost at the end!
Check out the new Fanart page! The coding has been fixed now, sorry about that!
Knives Don't Have Your Back
† XV †
Malfatto came back that night.
Teodor returned from his meeting with Cesare to find Malfatto’s shop dark and empty. Donato, as promised, was gone. Teodor stood in the darkness of the patient room and let it fill him. At some point he moved to one of the cots, exhausted, and slept fitfully in Nanette’s clammy embrace.
A knock at the door woke him. Half-asleep he barely remembered to grab his épieu on the way to answer it. When he finally yanked it open, the welcome sight of Malfatto sliced through his unhappiness like a beacon.
The reprieve was short-lived. Malfatto was favoring his left side, his right hand clamped on his left elbow, an arm tight across his belly. The white mask looked up at the sight of Teodor and his body uncurled, pitching forward as he took a step towards him.
Teodor braced himself just in time to take the weight. Slumped against him, Malfatto smelled of blood and leather. Teodor’s arm, wrapped around Malfatto’s back to steady him, grew damp.
“Fiora has defected,” Malfatto whispered.
Fiora has defected. Three words like the tolling of a bell.
“What happened?” Teodor said, a panic beginning to storm inside him.
Malfatto’s knees buckled, the white mask tipping to the stars as his head lolled against his shoulders. He didn’t reply.
“No,” Teodor breathed out. “No, no, don’t even think about it,” he told Malfatto’s body. Sighting some passing guards, he yelled for them to send for help. He dragged Malfatto inside with a single-minded focus. Crises were common for enlisted men and Teodor’s training took over even as fear poisoned his heart.
He managed to muscle Malfatto down the hallway and into the back room of the shop. With his backside wounded, Teodor dared not carry him. Malfatto pushed his feet along as Teodor dragged him. One of the operating tables was cluttered with vials and various experiments, the other home to Malfatto’s neat line of severed hands and feet.
“I’m sorry,” Teodor said, grabbing his épieu with his free hand and using it to push the jars off the surface. They flew into the far wall, the glass shattering noisily, and the smell of alcohol bloomed in the air. He propped Malfatto against the side of the operating table and with quick, gentle hands took off his hat and mask.
Malfatto flinched instinctively as the mask came off. Teodor caught his face in his hands and forced Malfatto to look at him. His blue eyes were nearly black, his skin the palest Teodor had ever seen on a living man.
“Hey, hey,” Teodor said in a hushed voice, hands running nervously through his hair and around the sides of his face, keeping Malfatto’s attention on him. Malfatto’s eyelashes fluttered, blinking rapidly at the pain. “Stay with me, listen to me. I need you to tell me what to do.”
“My...back,” Malfatto said, his voice slow and thick.
Teodor nodded his head encouragingly, cupping Malfatto’s chin in one hand and using the other to begin unbuttoning his long coat. “That’s good. What’s next?”
“...Pack...the wound,” Malfatto said in the same slurred tone.
There was a loud pounding at the front door. Teodor called for help and a second later two doctors in leather overcoats were sprinting into the room. Shock washed over their features at the sight of Malfatto’s wounds.
“He’s hurt,” Teodor whispered loudly, a hint of fear in his voice. “I need your help, I need his coat off,” he said.
“What you need to do is step aside,” said one of the doctors in a stern, gentle tone. Teodor glared at him. “You need to let us work, Signore,” the doctor said, unimpressed.
Malfatto groaned, shaking in Teodor’s grip. Malfatto’s chin was hitched over his shoulder. His speech, slurred by pain, was indecipherable. The only word Teodor could make out was his own name.
Teodor let go.
The doctors swooped in. Together they maneuvered Malfatto up onto the operating table, cutting through his clothing with a long pair of menacing shears. Blood sluiced over the table when Malfatto’s clothes were finally pulled away and Teodor gasped at the sight of the wounds. Malfatto must have drugged himself to the gills just to make it home. The left side of his back had been ripped open, a ragged cut curving inwards from his bottom rib, running dangerously close to his spine before swooping back out just above the swell of his left buttock. There was a gash on his left arm, just above the elbow.
He had been hit from behind, then. Teodor suspected a crude dagger until remembered Fiora’s metallic fan. Again, he regretted not killing her and Baltasar the second he’d had the chance.
It was dizzying work, trying to save someone’s life instead of end it. It took two doctors four hours to cut Malfatto out of his clothes and sew him back together. Teodor didn’t bother to learn their names or process what they were doing, too busy promising the death of their loved ones if Malfatto died. He cleaned up the glass and severed body parts from the floor, wordlessly depositing them in new jars so that Malfatto would have something to look forward to. The doctors, perhaps due to their occupations, said nothing.
Late into the evening, surrounded by six bloody hands, Malfatto’s blue eyes flickered back to life. Unmasked, naked beneath his bandages and a light blanket, Malfatto cringed at the sight of the two unfamiliar faces.
“There he is,” the first doctor said, a note of triumph in his voice. He bent over Malfatto and offered him a kind smile. He examined Malfatto one blue eye at a time, using a candle to gauge his reaction. Malfatto made a weak attempt to cover his face with the blanket. The doctor chuckled good-naturedly, gently pulling the blanket free. “No need to be shy.”
“It’s okay, Malfatto,” Teodor said. He took Malfatto’s wandering hand in his, feeling the thready pulse under the skin.
“More than okay, I think,” the second doctor added, clearly pleased with his work.
Malfatto said nothing.
“Will he be alright now?” Teodor wanted to know, catching Malfatto’s panicking gaze.
“Infection is a concern, so is the blood loss,” the first doctor answered.
“He’ll need some food eventually. Do you have any broth?” asked the second doctor.
Instead of answering, Teodor took a nearby scalpel and neatly slit their throats. As they fell twitching to the floor, Teodor bent over the table and cupped Malfatto’s face with two hands.
“You’re safe,” he said, and kissed him.
Malfatto sighed against his lips. “Not yet.”
Over the next few days reports rolled in-Baltasar’s shop had been attacked by the assassins. He was presumed dead. Rocco Tiepolo, the leader of Cesare’s select mercenary division, was struck down. Fiora had given the assassins the name of every inside man under Cesare’s hand.
Malfatto’s death was unconfirmed. Teodor buried the murdered doctors in the back garden, but he couldn’t remember the names of the guards he had sent to fetch them in those first panicked minutes at the shop.
In between drug-induced snatches of sleep, Malfatto described how he had underestimated Fiora and botched her kidnapping. Fiora was already angry about the butchered courtesans, but now Malfatto had made it personal. If there was any rumor that he had survived, she and her new hooded friends would try again.
Not to mention Teodor was guilty of angering her once or twice.
With this in mind and with time running out, Teodor concocted a plan. He waited until Malfatto once again jammed his own syringe into his neck, pushing a small dose of pain reliever into his veins so he could sleep. He took with him Malfatto’s mask and long coat and rode to the prisons. Thieves and mercenaries were usually easier to obtain than purchasing a prisoner from a crooked guard, but considering how deep the assassins had infiltrated the Roman underbelly Teodor dared not try his luck.
The man he picked was older than Malfatto, maybe late thirties, but his blond hair, blue eyes and tall frame were close enough to suit his needs. Fiora might not know what Malfatto looked like, but Cesare did. After an unhealthy amount of florins had been liberated from his person, Teodor flung the coat and mask at the man’s feet and instructed him to put it on. It was surprisingly easy to convince him to do so-Teodor thought the man suspected him to be a sexual deviant-but Teodor had a bag full of money and lies built like a chain to bind him with.
The courtesan was the hard part. Teodor needed one that was separated from her sisters but not entirely alone. The doppelganger, as Teodor thought of him, no doubt grew convinced of Teodor’s supposed deviant sexual appetites as he observed a few courtesans go about their work from the shadows. Finally, one courtesan was a little too slow to return from a go in a nearby alleyway and Teodor neatly buried the blade in her stomach. She screamed, deafening him, and Teodor twisted the weapon up and into her heart.
Shock kept the doppelganger in line for a crucial minute. With a grim face Teodor pulled out a sharp knife and slit the body open like he’d seen on others before. He could never mimic the precision of Malfatto’s work, never wanted to, thankful for his soldier’s tolerance for gore in a way he never had been before. Still, it was abhorrent work, and Teodor didn’t blame the doppelganger for trying to run when he regained control of his senses.
“Wait,” he said, catching the man by the arm and jabbing him lightly in the side with the épieu. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down. Teodor shoved him. “Take off that mask, and I’ll do to you what I did to her. Now run. Run!”
The doppelganger bolted. With a tinge of regret, Teodor took a last look at the familiar mask and slipped away as the other courtesans came to investigate. They saw the dead woman, the fleeing doctor, and everything fell into place.
It was a risky plan, one that depended on the efficiency and totality of the assassin network. Still, Teodor didn’t see a downside to it-even if the assassins didn’t take the bait, Malfatto’s gear would still be out there and anyone who dared wear it would be an unwitting decoy. On the off chance it failed and the assassins learned someone had tried to trick them, it wasn’t like they weren’t already trying to kill Malfatto anyway.
As he hurried away, Teodor heard the flurry of footsteps along rooftops. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of a white hood and heard a man’s voice rumble in the night.
Teodor heard news of Malfatto’s death before he made it back to the shop. The serial killer had been taken out by the assassins. The soldiers on patrol shared their knowledge with him with whispered fervor, not knowing whether they should feel relieved or upset they hadn’t been the ones to catch the bastard.
“I want that body burned,” Teodor said in his best commanding voice. “You can at least rid Roma of that pestilence once and for all.” With a sharp salute, the men marched off to complete their special task, pleased to share in what little glory they could. When Cesare discovered Malfatto’s corpse had been burned the soldiers would most likely be executed for their initiative.
Malfatto was half-asleep when he returned to the shop, a pale strip of skin before the fire. Teodor had resorted to building him a nest out of the old straw pallet in the back room, the same one he himself had laid upon when Malfatto had brought him to the shop that first time. Malfatto couldn’t be moved with his injuries, forced to lay face down while his backside healed.
Teodor knelt to adjust the blankets around Malfatto, his gloved hand smoothing over the tension in his freckled shoulders. Malfatto stirred at the touch, blinking tiredly.
“It’s over,” Teodor whispered. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
Malfatto’s lips twitched, eyes bright. He was silent for a long time, thoughtful.
“I prefer roses to lilies,” Malfatto said eventually.
Teodor paused, bewildered.
“For the funeral,” he explained. “Do you think a lot of people will come?”
† † †
After learning of his death, Malfatto slept for three days. He awoke briefly only to eat and drink, but was more withdrawn than Teodor had ever known him to be. He suspected Malfatto was dealing with the ramifications of his orchestrated demise and left him to mourn the loss of his masked persona and Cesare Borgia in peace. Everything Malfatto had ever been was lost to him now. While Teodor had pushed to leave Roma for good, Malfatto had never wanted to abandon the city and now Teodor had made staying impossible.
If Cesare had any reaction to the news of Malfatto’s death, Teodor didn’t see it. The intimate strikes on Cesare’s shadow army had sent the man into a tailspin. He demanded Teodor move on the Rosa in Fiore as fast as possible. Teodor heartily agreed with him, and did no such thing. Teodor, already an outsider when it came to the military, gave up any attempt at pretending otherwise. He offered no aide to the city guards and the correspondence from the campaigns went unanswered. His commanding officers assumed he was busy with the raid and left him to his own devices.
“Why not switch sides completely?” Malfatto asked one night, finally woken from his long slumber.
Teodor had entertained the thought before. He didn’t answer at first, choosing to focus on ladling a thin soup into two bowls for their supper. He handed one to Malfatto who was awkwardly propped up on an array of pillows, half-sitting, half-lying on his right side.
“I’m not sure, exactly,” he said finally, settling down beside Malfatto in front of the warm fire.
Malfatto waited patiently, eyebrows furrowed as he focused on bringing the spoon from the bowl to his lips and back down again with his weakened left arm.
“After the Borgia have fallen, by either Ezio Auditore’s hand or someone else’s, another Pope will be elected. Roma will remain as corrupt as she ever was, and the assassins will have killed a lot of men for no reason,” Teodor explained between mouthfuls of soup. “The citizenry only helps the assassins because they dislike the suffering that comes from constant war. Cesare lacks a conscience for his people, but it makes him impressive in his ambitions. Italia will never be united if Ezio Auditore has his way.”
“And yet you would see Cesare fall,” Malfatto said in soft accusation.
“I would rather stay alive and watch one ruler replace another,” Teodor said with a shrug. “But I am tired of fighting and scheming for other, more powerful men.”
Malfatto considered his words, but his only response was a slight nod. Teodor was glad to drop the subject. Even if he had been inclined to join the assassins in their quest, they would never allow it and would likely kill him for his trouble. With Fiora on their side, it was almost inevitable they would. They finished their meal in silence. Afterwards Teodor cleaned his weapons in front of the fire and Malfatto read one of the journals Teodor had found amongst the possessions of the doctors he had killed, occasionally remarking on what he read.
The fire began to die down as night rolled in, casting shadows under Malfatto’s eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks. Teodor watched him slowly succumb to the exhaustion that accompanied healing. When Malfatto’s eyes slid closed Teodor reached out to catch the journal as it fell from his fingers. He gently eased him back down onto his stomach and smoothed the blankets up over his shoulders.
“You...make a good wife,” Malfatto murmured, and Teodor laughed so loudly he forgot the world for a moment.
As always, his amusement was fleeting. The sound of laughter coming from inside a dead doctor’s shop was something of a tactical error, as well as the smoke that rose from the chimney. Few people knew the location of Malfatto’s practice, most of them now dead, but Teodor’s luck never ran the way he’d like. Ten minutes after Malfatto fell asleep, something outside scraped by the door, followed by the unmistakable sound of a lock being jimmied.
Malfatto stirred at the sound, but Teodor put a hand between his shoulder blades and kept him still. Teodor selected his épieu from the row of half-cleaned weapons on the ground and stood.
“Go back to sleep,” Teodor told Malfatto, and went to investigate. On silent feet he approached the door, expecting at best a sick patient and at worst an assassin. After a moment’s hesitation, Teodor slid the bolt free from the door and opened it with his weapon at the ready.
Donato’s brown eyes were owlish in his surprise, his sword half-raised to block the attack. Teodor cursed and jerked his épieu back before it could land the blow.
“What are you doing here?” Donato demanded. He was in a regular guard’s uniform and unarmored, leaning heavily on a wooden crutch. The crutch explained the scraping sound Teodor had heard.
“What are you doing here?” Teodor retorted. A few passing citizens glanced their way and Teodor sneered openly at them.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Donato snarled. Teodor glared back in response. Realizing they both still had weapons trained on each other, Teodor stiffly retracted his épieu and hooked it on his belt. It was useless for Donato to threaten him, given his state, and Teodor had no interest in causing Donato any more harm than he already had. Still, his presence here was a problem.
“Go away, Donato,” he said in a calmer voice, trying to diffuse the tension. “In case you haven’t heard, the doctor is dead. There’s nothing for you here.”
“I know that, that’s why I came,” Donato snapped. For the first time Teodor noticed the two long-stemmed flowers in Donato’s free hand.
“Lilies,” he breathed.
I prefer roses to lilies, Malfatto said. For the funeral. Do you think a lot of people will come?
Donato’s eyes narrowed at Teodor’s stunned silence, glancing down to the flowers in his hand and then back up to him.
“The doctor saved my life. I came to pay my respects,” Donato explained, in a less combative tone.
Teodor felt like he was going mad.
Donato’s bushy eyebrows wrinkled into one long line. “Teodor?”
Teodor turned away and walked back inside the shop. He didn’t close the door, and after a moment of confusion Donato followed.
Donato’s hobbled footsteps came to a halt when Teodor pushed back the green curtain that hung at the end of the hallway. Malfatto hadn’t moved from the floor, stretched out inside his cocoon of blankets by the low fire. Teodor crouched beside him and put a hand to the back of his neck, rousing him.
“Malfatto,” he said softly. “You have a visitor.”
Malfatto’s face was frank in his confusion, but he allowed Teodor to help him into a semblance of a sitting position, breathing deeply through his discomfort once he took in the sight of Donato standing in the entrance of the hallway.
“Donato, this is Malfatto,” Teodor said, and stepped away.
Donato glanced nervously from Teodor to Malfatto, expression warring between confusion and outright disbelief. Still, he came forward, ungainly with his crutch.
“You’re the doctor,” Donato said, openly looking Malfatto over from head to toe, no doubt trying to reconcile the man before him with the masked physician he had known. “The one who’s supposed to be dead?”
“Yes,” Malfatto said simply.
Donato pursed his lips, then said with conviction, “I thought you would be much uglier.”
Malfatto’s pale eyebrows arched, then he looked thoughtful. “Why?”
“Why else would you wear that mask all the time?” Donato explained as if it were obvious. Teodor held back a smile. Malfatto only cocked his head to the side in agreement. His blue eyes zeroed in on the two tightly held flowers in Donato’s grip, then he glanced to Teodor.
“Oh,” Donato said, noticing Malfatto’s look. He held the flowers out to Malfatto, looking strangely embarrassed. “I came to pay my respects, but you are not dead...so...I will say thank you. For saving my life.”
Malfatto didn’t seem to notice Donato’s awkwardness, only reached out with his good hand and took the offered blooms. “Arum lilies,” he commented, examining one waxy white petal with a finger. “Very expensive, very rare.” He looked up at Donato and paused as if a sudden realization had taken hold of him. “I’ve never been offered flowers before.”
Donato blinked, taken aback at such a thing. Teodor felt a tinge of bitterness, remembering at least four occasions where Donato had personally given him a bouquet for no apparent reason except that he wanted to. It had always struck him as silly, one of Donato’s more whimsical quirks, and now he suddenly wished more than anything he could go back to one of those instances and receive them with more grace than he had. He had not once returned the favor.
Teodor distracted himself from his thoughts by filling a nearby beaker with water for the flowers.
“You shouldn’t be on that knee,” Malfatto said to Donato after a moment, eyes still fixated on the lilies in his hand.
“You’re welcome,” Donato replied smartly, but a wide grin broke out across his face.
The bitterness was back. Teodor plunked the beaker down on the ground next to Malfatto. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he said softly, catching Malfatto’s eye. “I’ll just be outside.”
Taking a lantern and a bottle of wine with him, Teodor slipped out onto the back porch, leaving Donato and Malfatto to talk. He stretched out on the floor, propping himself on one elbow so that he could drink from the bottle. He stared out across the garden and listened to the low rumble of voices inside the shop. The fact that Donato was engaging Malfatto in conversation was a miracle in itself, but then people always seemed to talk to Donato. Teodor tried to not be jealous of the warmth he heard in Donato’s voice, the familiarity of his laughter. Teodor thought he had broken Donato’s exuberant spirit-he was relieved it wasn’t the case but it didn’t make him feel any better.
Eventually the conversation inside died down. Teodor turned his head as the back door opened and Donato stepped out onto the porch. Teodor arched an eyebrow at him.
“He’s asleep,” Donato said, answering Teodor’s unasked question. He hobbled over to where Teodor sat and gingerly lowered himself to the ground. “He’s hurt pretty badly, isn’t he?”
“He’ll survive,” Teodor said, handing Donato the bottle. “It was a near thing.”
“And yet I heard there was a body to burn,” Donato said. They stared out into the garden together. “You did something terrible again, didn’t you.”
“I did several terrible things,” Teodor said flatly, eyes drawn to the two uneven lumps of earth amongst Malfatto’s immaculate garden rows.
“God forbid you decide to save anyone else,” Donato commented, and handed the bottle back to him.
There was a lull for a minute or two, the only sound the sloshing of the wine as each of them drank from the bottle. Then, suddenly, Donato turned and punched Teodor in the shoulder.
Teodor nearly tipped over, grunting with surprise. He gaped at Donato as he righted himself, trying to form a response.
“So you slept with his wife, did you?” Donato said, a ghost of a leer across his lips.
It took Teodor a moment to remember the reference; that cheerful day on the training ground seemed like a lifetime ago. Once he found the memory he realized what Donato was alluding to.
Unable to stop it, Teodor felt a blush crawl across his features.
“Well, it’s good to know you can still do that,” Donato said, which didn’t help Teodor’s predicament. “Mio dio, I cannot believe I didn’t realize it sooner. I thought you were just horribly French.”
“What?” Teodor said, trying to sound affronted, but his voice cracked slightly.
Donato’s head tipped back and his laughter bloomed into the night. Feeling ridiculous but unable to help himself, Teodor began to laugh as well.
“All those outrageous stories you told me,” Donato said between chuckles. “For not having the slightest interest in women you are a dirty, knowledgeable man.”
“You would know. Half the things I told you were things you had told me,” Teodor scoffed, taking a hasty sip of wine. “You have no idea how very dull yet informative soldiers can be when they sit around the camp and regale everyone with their stories.”
Donato laughed. “I still can’t believe you never said anything.”
“I was scared to,” Teodor admitted, a hollow note in his laughter. “It seems so stupid now, considering.”
Donato wrenched the bottle away from Teodor, taking a swallow to steady himself. “It certainly explains a lot. All those lingering looks you sent my way, all the times you threw yourself at me.”
Teodor laughed so hard he snorted, which only started Donato up again. “You are...very handsome,” he managed. “I...couldn’t help myself.”
He also couldn’t finish his sentence, swearing loudly as Donato cracked him in the arm with the wine bottle as he handed it back. After that it was over, the two of them unable to do anything but giggle like children for a moment. It wasn’t true laughter, the kind born of honest hilarity, but rather the only reaction left to them in the wake of the past month. Still, Teodor couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so much, going to the point where tears were beginning to prick his eyes and his ribs hurt from the effort.
The laughter subsided as the wine ran out, leaving them breathless on the cold wooden porch. Teodor was lying on his back, staring up at the blank overhang that blotted out the stars above. Donato was curled forward on himself, one hand lightly massaging his healing knee.
“Teodor?”
“Hm?”
Donato’s voice floated through the air. “...Did you really kill your sister?”
For a moment Teodor was instantly furious, not wanting to let go of the fragile peace between them. How Donato could doubt that one piece of information after Teodor had nearly beaten him to death spoke of a kind of hope Teodor couldn’t understand.
He could lie. That was Teodor’s next thought. Donato was giving him an out. He could lie, give him what he wanted.
“Yes,” he answered.
Donato’s head dipped slightly, acknowledging something he’d already known to be true. Teodor braced himself for condemnation, but none came.
“What happened?” Donato asked instead.
“I told you what happened,” Teodor murmured, bristling slightly.
“No,” Donato said. “You told me what you did.”
Teodor waited for waves to roll in, for Nanette to pull him down. Instinctively, he looked for her, checking each and every shadow. Nothing.
“Two weeks after my fourteenth birthday plague came to Torino,” Teodor began, his voice slightly unsteady. “We lived with my mother and my uncle outside of the city. We thought we would be safe, but within a few days almost all of the servants were ill. My uncle died within a day.”
At this, Donato made a sound of sympathy. Teodor shrugged. “He had never recovered from war, it wasn’t surprising. My mother survived, but she was sick for a very long time. Nanette and I were fine, or at least I thought so. All I remember is Nanette falling ill around the time my mother was getting better. I’m not sure if it was the plague or something else, but her fevers were...extreme.”
His speech was stilted as he spoke, hurried and low. “Nanette recovered, eventually, but she wasn’t the same. Well, sometimes she was, but other times she couldn’t even recognize me. She was violent. She would attack the servants, convinced they were trying to kill her.”
“She was mad,” Donato whispered.
“Maybe,” Teodor said, casting another look around. Nanette was nowhere to be found. “My mother thought she could hear the word of God, that it was divine guidance. But,” Teodor shook his head, “Nanette had never been devout and her revelations rarely had anything to do with God. I think it was my mother’s way of dealing with it.”
“Where was your father?” Donato wanted to know.
“In the French court, of course,” Teodor said. “He’s not important. He couldn’t have helped.”
Donato looked like he was about to disagree, and Teodor pressed on.
“By the time she was twenty she rarely spoke to anyone. She wouldn’t stay in the house and would hide in the forest for days. When I found her out in the woods one day she attacked me. I don’t remember a lot of it-she hit me over the head with a rock and then tried to carve out my lungs with a knitting needle-obviously I survived, I was fine, and the first time she was lucid she couldn’t believed what she had done.”
Teodor glanced over to Donato. The pity was evident on his face and it burned into Teodor like poison. He hurried to finish the story.
“She was better, Donato. For two years, she was better. Not a single moment of violence. She had moments of confusion, but that was it. I thought she was cured. I even took her back to France on holiday.”
Donato still had that look on his face. Teodor’s anger surged and he glared into the darkness.
“When we returned to Torino I had to go into the city for a day. By the time I made it back to the estate Nanette had killed two serving girls and nearly blinded our mother,” Teodor explained, impassive. “I found her by the river, bloody and screaming her head off. She was crying, she didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what she had done. So I told her everything would be fine, and then I pushed her off the dock and held her under the water until she drowned.”
Donato flinched. Teodor felt a small thrill of satisfaction run through his veins.
“I told you before,” he said, voice hardening. “I didn’t have to kill her, but I did it anyway because I wanted to.”
“You didn’t want to,” Donato said, clearly fighting for an even tone.
“Yes I did,” Teodor insisted. “I loved her, Donato. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved her and I wanted to kill her and so I did.”
Donato shook his head. “No, Teodor. You wanted it to stop. You wanted to stop being tormented by your mad, older sister. You wanted to protect your family.”
“None of that matters because I didn’t have to kill her. I didn’t want to lock her up, I didn’t try to send for more help, I didn’t try anything because I wanted her dead,” Teodor said in a dull voice. “I can’t explain it any other way.”
“You’re not the only one who ever loved someone and wanted to kill them,” Donato said pointedly.
“The difference is that I actually did it,” Teodor replied.
Donato went rigid at the words, hands going to his injured knee, his healing face. Teodor gritted his teeth as guilt washed through him, twice as awful as before. He could never seem to find a place dark enough to escape the consequences of all his sins, only enough shadows in which to commit them.
“Was it worth it?” Teodor asked Donato as the silence dragged on. “Did you find out what you wanted?”
“I don’t know,” Donato whispered, absently rolling the empty wine bottle along the stones. “I thought maybe I would either stop hating you or finally hate you enough and then my life would be easier.”
“If it helps, I murdered three people last week,” Teodor said darkly. “Four, if you count the one I sent to die.”
Donato paused, then looked exasperated. “Which you did to save Malfatto,” he argued. “You’re more ruthless than most, Teodor, but I don’t think you are an evil man. Sometimes you want to kill the people you love and sometimes you kill for them.”
Teodor balked slightly at the sentimental tone in Donato’s voice. “I’m not nearly romantic enough for that to hold.”
“Oh Teodor,” Donato said, tsking. “I watched you cart a butterfly back to Roma all the way from Senigallia. I thought you were using the doctor’s weird journal as an excuse to bring a gift to a beautiful woman, but it turns out you actually meant the bit about the weird doctor.”
Teodor felt the tips of his ears begin to burn. “He’s not that weird.”
“You are completely ridiculous,” Donato countered evenly. He flicked Teodor’s ear and smiled knowingly. “And there were hands in jars in there. Weird.”
Teodor rubbed his ear. He didn’t know how to respond, keenly aware of the thin, tenuous connection between him and Donato. He wasn’t forgiven, but for the first time he could hope that maybe things weren’t beyond repair.
“Roma’s not safe anymore,” he said to Donato after a minute. He told him about Fiora’s knowledge of Cesare’s agents, about how she had defected to the assassins. Donato knew some of what had transpired, but not how far the repercussions could ripple.
“She might not come for me,” Donato mused. He waggled his eyebrows. “When we talked before the races I’m pretty sure she found me charming.”
Teodor snorted. Donato slowly rose to his feet, using his crutch to pull himself up. Teodor stayed seated, head tipped back to look at him.
“You should think about what I said. I meant it when I said you needed to leave the city. As soon as Malfatto can travel we’re going to leave. For good.” Teodor hesitated, not really having the right to ask, but he suggested it anyway. “You could come with us.”
A shadow passed over Donato’s face. He took a few steps to the door and for a moment Teodor was afraid he was going to leave. Then Donato stopped, turning to look to him.
“I don’t think I could do that, not yet,” Donato said in a serious tone. “And not just because of you and me. I no longer have my men, but I still have family in this city and I won’t abandon them.”
Teodor was struck. He’d never known Donato had family in Roma. “I didn’t know that.”
“You never asked,” Donato said simply, then pulled the door open. He hesitated before leaving. “Maybe you can ask me about them the next time I see you,” he offered, then slipped back into the shop, heading back into the night.
Next time. Teodor smiled at the promise of a future visit. A short while later, soggy with drink and relief, he made his way back inside. Malfatto was fast asleep, the beaker with its two lilies not far from his golden head. Careful not to knock it over, Teodor put another log on the fire before stripping out of his clothes and joining Malfatto inside the blankets.
Malfatto’s skin was warm against his and Teodor pressed against him as much as he dared. Next time. It echoed in his head, resonating until it became a soothing hum that sent him off to sleep.
The next day, Teodor received a package that contained a dead, half-smashed beetle. To start your own collection read the note, signed in Donato’s loopy script.
Teodor laughed for a full minute. He spent the next hour scrounging around the nearby countryside and garden boxes, liberating a wide array of flowers for a bouquet. With a bit of paste he found inside the shop, he stuck the beetle in the heart of the largest bloom and sent it back.
Malfatto watched the exchange, such as it was, with quiet bewilderment.
Teodor didn’t hear from Donato at first. Two more towers burned, sending each captain in the guard to high alert, and Teodor was waylaid when De Valois decided to mount a full assault against Bartolomeo d’Alviano and requested his input. Teodor warned him against an all-out battle, but he hadn’t counted on De Valois kidnapping the man’s wife. It was a bold move, one Teodor appreciated. For all of De Valois’ concerns with classes the man had a keen mind. It would have been a fine plan, had D’Alviano not been allied with the assassins.
Three days after De Valois’s death Donato contacted him. Still in Roma? read the note pinned to Malfatto’s door.
Teodor glanced at Malfatto who was neatly bent at the waist, finally able to study his jars of severed feet. Not for long he wrote. Hurry. He checked the front door the next morning, and the one after that, but there was no immediate reply.
Two weeks later, Donato Mancini was shot in the head by Ezio Auditore after challenging a local merchant to a horse race.
It took five hours to catch Donato’s spooked horse and retrieve the body. The horse would never recover, crippled and dying from exhaustion. When Teodor arrived on scene the first thing he did was hack off its head with an ax.
Everyone there agreed it was the right thing to do.
† † †
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author's notes | warnings
Rated: R (NC17 overall)
Word Count: 6,295 / 90,339
This is the second-to-last chapter! The final chapter and the epilogue will be posted simultaneously on Monday. Thank you to everyone for your continued support--I can't believe we're almost at the end!
Check out the new Fanart page! The coding has been fixed now, sorry about that!
Knives Don't Have Your Back
† XV †
Malfatto came back that night.
Teodor returned from his meeting with Cesare to find Malfatto’s shop dark and empty. Donato, as promised, was gone. Teodor stood in the darkness of the patient room and let it fill him. At some point he moved to one of the cots, exhausted, and slept fitfully in Nanette’s clammy embrace.
A knock at the door woke him. Half-asleep he barely remembered to grab his épieu on the way to answer it. When he finally yanked it open, the welcome sight of Malfatto sliced through his unhappiness like a beacon.
The reprieve was short-lived. Malfatto was favoring his left side, his right hand clamped on his left elbow, an arm tight across his belly. The white mask looked up at the sight of Teodor and his body uncurled, pitching forward as he took a step towards him.
Teodor braced himself just in time to take the weight. Slumped against him, Malfatto smelled of blood and leather. Teodor’s arm, wrapped around Malfatto’s back to steady him, grew damp.
“Fiora has defected,” Malfatto whispered.
Fiora has defected. Three words like the tolling of a bell.
“What happened?” Teodor said, a panic beginning to storm inside him.
Malfatto’s knees buckled, the white mask tipping to the stars as his head lolled against his shoulders. He didn’t reply.
“No,” Teodor breathed out. “No, no, don’t even think about it,” he told Malfatto’s body. Sighting some passing guards, he yelled for them to send for help. He dragged Malfatto inside with a single-minded focus. Crises were common for enlisted men and Teodor’s training took over even as fear poisoned his heart.
He managed to muscle Malfatto down the hallway and into the back room of the shop. With his backside wounded, Teodor dared not carry him. Malfatto pushed his feet along as Teodor dragged him. One of the operating tables was cluttered with vials and various experiments, the other home to Malfatto’s neat line of severed hands and feet.
“I’m sorry,” Teodor said, grabbing his épieu with his free hand and using it to push the jars off the surface. They flew into the far wall, the glass shattering noisily, and the smell of alcohol bloomed in the air. He propped Malfatto against the side of the operating table and with quick, gentle hands took off his hat and mask.
Malfatto flinched instinctively as the mask came off. Teodor caught his face in his hands and forced Malfatto to look at him. His blue eyes were nearly black, his skin the palest Teodor had ever seen on a living man.
“Hey, hey,” Teodor said in a hushed voice, hands running nervously through his hair and around the sides of his face, keeping Malfatto’s attention on him. Malfatto’s eyelashes fluttered, blinking rapidly at the pain. “Stay with me, listen to me. I need you to tell me what to do.”
“My...back,” Malfatto said, his voice slow and thick.
Teodor nodded his head encouragingly, cupping Malfatto’s chin in one hand and using the other to begin unbuttoning his long coat. “That’s good. What’s next?”
“...Pack...the wound,” Malfatto said in the same slurred tone.
There was a loud pounding at the front door. Teodor called for help and a second later two doctors in leather overcoats were sprinting into the room. Shock washed over their features at the sight of Malfatto’s wounds.
“He’s hurt,” Teodor whispered loudly, a hint of fear in his voice. “I need your help, I need his coat off,” he said.
“What you need to do is step aside,” said one of the doctors in a stern, gentle tone. Teodor glared at him. “You need to let us work, Signore,” the doctor said, unimpressed.
Malfatto groaned, shaking in Teodor’s grip. Malfatto’s chin was hitched over his shoulder. His speech, slurred by pain, was indecipherable. The only word Teodor could make out was his own name.
Teodor let go.
The doctors swooped in. Together they maneuvered Malfatto up onto the operating table, cutting through his clothing with a long pair of menacing shears. Blood sluiced over the table when Malfatto’s clothes were finally pulled away and Teodor gasped at the sight of the wounds. Malfatto must have drugged himself to the gills just to make it home. The left side of his back had been ripped open, a ragged cut curving inwards from his bottom rib, running dangerously close to his spine before swooping back out just above the swell of his left buttock. There was a gash on his left arm, just above the elbow.
He had been hit from behind, then. Teodor suspected a crude dagger until remembered Fiora’s metallic fan. Again, he regretted not killing her and Baltasar the second he’d had the chance.
It was dizzying work, trying to save someone’s life instead of end it. It took two doctors four hours to cut Malfatto out of his clothes and sew him back together. Teodor didn’t bother to learn their names or process what they were doing, too busy promising the death of their loved ones if Malfatto died. He cleaned up the glass and severed body parts from the floor, wordlessly depositing them in new jars so that Malfatto would have something to look forward to. The doctors, perhaps due to their occupations, said nothing.
Late into the evening, surrounded by six bloody hands, Malfatto’s blue eyes flickered back to life. Unmasked, naked beneath his bandages and a light blanket, Malfatto cringed at the sight of the two unfamiliar faces.
“There he is,” the first doctor said, a note of triumph in his voice. He bent over Malfatto and offered him a kind smile. He examined Malfatto one blue eye at a time, using a candle to gauge his reaction. Malfatto made a weak attempt to cover his face with the blanket. The doctor chuckled good-naturedly, gently pulling the blanket free. “No need to be shy.”
“It’s okay, Malfatto,” Teodor said. He took Malfatto’s wandering hand in his, feeling the thready pulse under the skin.
“More than okay, I think,” the second doctor added, clearly pleased with his work.
Malfatto said nothing.
“Will he be alright now?” Teodor wanted to know, catching Malfatto’s panicking gaze.
“Infection is a concern, so is the blood loss,” the first doctor answered.
“He’ll need some food eventually. Do you have any broth?” asked the second doctor.
Instead of answering, Teodor took a nearby scalpel and neatly slit their throats. As they fell twitching to the floor, Teodor bent over the table and cupped Malfatto’s face with two hands.
“You’re safe,” he said, and kissed him.
Malfatto sighed against his lips. “Not yet.”
Over the next few days reports rolled in-Baltasar’s shop had been attacked by the assassins. He was presumed dead. Rocco Tiepolo, the leader of Cesare’s select mercenary division, was struck down. Fiora had given the assassins the name of every inside man under Cesare’s hand.
Malfatto’s death was unconfirmed. Teodor buried the murdered doctors in the back garden, but he couldn’t remember the names of the guards he had sent to fetch them in those first panicked minutes at the shop.
In between drug-induced snatches of sleep, Malfatto described how he had underestimated Fiora and botched her kidnapping. Fiora was already angry about the butchered courtesans, but now Malfatto had made it personal. If there was any rumor that he had survived, she and her new hooded friends would try again.
Not to mention Teodor was guilty of angering her once or twice.
With this in mind and with time running out, Teodor concocted a plan. He waited until Malfatto once again jammed his own syringe into his neck, pushing a small dose of pain reliever into his veins so he could sleep. He took with him Malfatto’s mask and long coat and rode to the prisons. Thieves and mercenaries were usually easier to obtain than purchasing a prisoner from a crooked guard, but considering how deep the assassins had infiltrated the Roman underbelly Teodor dared not try his luck.
The man he picked was older than Malfatto, maybe late thirties, but his blond hair, blue eyes and tall frame were close enough to suit his needs. Fiora might not know what Malfatto looked like, but Cesare did. After an unhealthy amount of florins had been liberated from his person, Teodor flung the coat and mask at the man’s feet and instructed him to put it on. It was surprisingly easy to convince him to do so-Teodor thought the man suspected him to be a sexual deviant-but Teodor had a bag full of money and lies built like a chain to bind him with.
The courtesan was the hard part. Teodor needed one that was separated from her sisters but not entirely alone. The doppelganger, as Teodor thought of him, no doubt grew convinced of Teodor’s supposed deviant sexual appetites as he observed a few courtesans go about their work from the shadows. Finally, one courtesan was a little too slow to return from a go in a nearby alleyway and Teodor neatly buried the blade in her stomach. She screamed, deafening him, and Teodor twisted the weapon up and into her heart.
Shock kept the doppelganger in line for a crucial minute. With a grim face Teodor pulled out a sharp knife and slit the body open like he’d seen on others before. He could never mimic the precision of Malfatto’s work, never wanted to, thankful for his soldier’s tolerance for gore in a way he never had been before. Still, it was abhorrent work, and Teodor didn’t blame the doppelganger for trying to run when he regained control of his senses.
“Wait,” he said, catching the man by the arm and jabbing him lightly in the side with the épieu. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down. Teodor shoved him. “Take off that mask, and I’ll do to you what I did to her. Now run. Run!”
The doppelganger bolted. With a tinge of regret, Teodor took a last look at the familiar mask and slipped away as the other courtesans came to investigate. They saw the dead woman, the fleeing doctor, and everything fell into place.
It was a risky plan, one that depended on the efficiency and totality of the assassin network. Still, Teodor didn’t see a downside to it-even if the assassins didn’t take the bait, Malfatto’s gear would still be out there and anyone who dared wear it would be an unwitting decoy. On the off chance it failed and the assassins learned someone had tried to trick them, it wasn’t like they weren’t already trying to kill Malfatto anyway.
As he hurried away, Teodor heard the flurry of footsteps along rooftops. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of a white hood and heard a man’s voice rumble in the night.
Teodor heard news of Malfatto’s death before he made it back to the shop. The serial killer had been taken out by the assassins. The soldiers on patrol shared their knowledge with him with whispered fervor, not knowing whether they should feel relieved or upset they hadn’t been the ones to catch the bastard.
“I want that body burned,” Teodor said in his best commanding voice. “You can at least rid Roma of that pestilence once and for all.” With a sharp salute, the men marched off to complete their special task, pleased to share in what little glory they could. When Cesare discovered Malfatto’s corpse had been burned the soldiers would most likely be executed for their initiative.
Malfatto was half-asleep when he returned to the shop, a pale strip of skin before the fire. Teodor had resorted to building him a nest out of the old straw pallet in the back room, the same one he himself had laid upon when Malfatto had brought him to the shop that first time. Malfatto couldn’t be moved with his injuries, forced to lay face down while his backside healed.
Teodor knelt to adjust the blankets around Malfatto, his gloved hand smoothing over the tension in his freckled shoulders. Malfatto stirred at the touch, blinking tiredly.
“It’s over,” Teodor whispered. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
Malfatto’s lips twitched, eyes bright. He was silent for a long time, thoughtful.
“I prefer roses to lilies,” Malfatto said eventually.
Teodor paused, bewildered.
“For the funeral,” he explained. “Do you think a lot of people will come?”
† † †
After learning of his death, Malfatto slept for three days. He awoke briefly only to eat and drink, but was more withdrawn than Teodor had ever known him to be. He suspected Malfatto was dealing with the ramifications of his orchestrated demise and left him to mourn the loss of his masked persona and Cesare Borgia in peace. Everything Malfatto had ever been was lost to him now. While Teodor had pushed to leave Roma for good, Malfatto had never wanted to abandon the city and now Teodor had made staying impossible.
If Cesare had any reaction to the news of Malfatto’s death, Teodor didn’t see it. The intimate strikes on Cesare’s shadow army had sent the man into a tailspin. He demanded Teodor move on the Rosa in Fiore as fast as possible. Teodor heartily agreed with him, and did no such thing. Teodor, already an outsider when it came to the military, gave up any attempt at pretending otherwise. He offered no aide to the city guards and the correspondence from the campaigns went unanswered. His commanding officers assumed he was busy with the raid and left him to his own devices.
“Why not switch sides completely?” Malfatto asked one night, finally woken from his long slumber.
Teodor had entertained the thought before. He didn’t answer at first, choosing to focus on ladling a thin soup into two bowls for their supper. He handed one to Malfatto who was awkwardly propped up on an array of pillows, half-sitting, half-lying on his right side.
“I’m not sure, exactly,” he said finally, settling down beside Malfatto in front of the warm fire.
Malfatto waited patiently, eyebrows furrowed as he focused on bringing the spoon from the bowl to his lips and back down again with his weakened left arm.
“After the Borgia have fallen, by either Ezio Auditore’s hand or someone else’s, another Pope will be elected. Roma will remain as corrupt as she ever was, and the assassins will have killed a lot of men for no reason,” Teodor explained between mouthfuls of soup. “The citizenry only helps the assassins because they dislike the suffering that comes from constant war. Cesare lacks a conscience for his people, but it makes him impressive in his ambitions. Italia will never be united if Ezio Auditore has his way.”
“And yet you would see Cesare fall,” Malfatto said in soft accusation.
“I would rather stay alive and watch one ruler replace another,” Teodor said with a shrug. “But I am tired of fighting and scheming for other, more powerful men.”
Malfatto considered his words, but his only response was a slight nod. Teodor was glad to drop the subject. Even if he had been inclined to join the assassins in their quest, they would never allow it and would likely kill him for his trouble. With Fiora on their side, it was almost inevitable they would. They finished their meal in silence. Afterwards Teodor cleaned his weapons in front of the fire and Malfatto read one of the journals Teodor had found amongst the possessions of the doctors he had killed, occasionally remarking on what he read.
The fire began to die down as night rolled in, casting shadows under Malfatto’s eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks. Teodor watched him slowly succumb to the exhaustion that accompanied healing. When Malfatto’s eyes slid closed Teodor reached out to catch the journal as it fell from his fingers. He gently eased him back down onto his stomach and smoothed the blankets up over his shoulders.
“You...make a good wife,” Malfatto murmured, and Teodor laughed so loudly he forgot the world for a moment.
As always, his amusement was fleeting. The sound of laughter coming from inside a dead doctor’s shop was something of a tactical error, as well as the smoke that rose from the chimney. Few people knew the location of Malfatto’s practice, most of them now dead, but Teodor’s luck never ran the way he’d like. Ten minutes after Malfatto fell asleep, something outside scraped by the door, followed by the unmistakable sound of a lock being jimmied.
Malfatto stirred at the sound, but Teodor put a hand between his shoulder blades and kept him still. Teodor selected his épieu from the row of half-cleaned weapons on the ground and stood.
“Go back to sleep,” Teodor told Malfatto, and went to investigate. On silent feet he approached the door, expecting at best a sick patient and at worst an assassin. After a moment’s hesitation, Teodor slid the bolt free from the door and opened it with his weapon at the ready.
Donato’s brown eyes were owlish in his surprise, his sword half-raised to block the attack. Teodor cursed and jerked his épieu back before it could land the blow.
“What are you doing here?” Donato demanded. He was in a regular guard’s uniform and unarmored, leaning heavily on a wooden crutch. The crutch explained the scraping sound Teodor had heard.
“What are you doing here?” Teodor retorted. A few passing citizens glanced their way and Teodor sneered openly at them.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Donato snarled. Teodor glared back in response. Realizing they both still had weapons trained on each other, Teodor stiffly retracted his épieu and hooked it on his belt. It was useless for Donato to threaten him, given his state, and Teodor had no interest in causing Donato any more harm than he already had. Still, his presence here was a problem.
“Go away, Donato,” he said in a calmer voice, trying to diffuse the tension. “In case you haven’t heard, the doctor is dead. There’s nothing for you here.”
“I know that, that’s why I came,” Donato snapped. For the first time Teodor noticed the two long-stemmed flowers in Donato’s free hand.
“Lilies,” he breathed.
I prefer roses to lilies, Malfatto said. For the funeral. Do you think a lot of people will come?
Donato’s eyes narrowed at Teodor’s stunned silence, glancing down to the flowers in his hand and then back up to him.
“The doctor saved my life. I came to pay my respects,” Donato explained, in a less combative tone.
Teodor felt like he was going mad.
Donato’s bushy eyebrows wrinkled into one long line. “Teodor?”
Teodor turned away and walked back inside the shop. He didn’t close the door, and after a moment of confusion Donato followed.
Donato’s hobbled footsteps came to a halt when Teodor pushed back the green curtain that hung at the end of the hallway. Malfatto hadn’t moved from the floor, stretched out inside his cocoon of blankets by the low fire. Teodor crouched beside him and put a hand to the back of his neck, rousing him.
“Malfatto,” he said softly. “You have a visitor.”
Malfatto’s face was frank in his confusion, but he allowed Teodor to help him into a semblance of a sitting position, breathing deeply through his discomfort once he took in the sight of Donato standing in the entrance of the hallway.
“Donato, this is Malfatto,” Teodor said, and stepped away.
Donato glanced nervously from Teodor to Malfatto, expression warring between confusion and outright disbelief. Still, he came forward, ungainly with his crutch.
“You’re the doctor,” Donato said, openly looking Malfatto over from head to toe, no doubt trying to reconcile the man before him with the masked physician he had known. “The one who’s supposed to be dead?”
“Yes,” Malfatto said simply.
Donato pursed his lips, then said with conviction, “I thought you would be much uglier.”
Malfatto’s pale eyebrows arched, then he looked thoughtful. “Why?”
“Why else would you wear that mask all the time?” Donato explained as if it were obvious. Teodor held back a smile. Malfatto only cocked his head to the side in agreement. His blue eyes zeroed in on the two tightly held flowers in Donato’s grip, then he glanced to Teodor.
“Oh,” Donato said, noticing Malfatto’s look. He held the flowers out to Malfatto, looking strangely embarrassed. “I came to pay my respects, but you are not dead...so...I will say thank you. For saving my life.”
Malfatto didn’t seem to notice Donato’s awkwardness, only reached out with his good hand and took the offered blooms. “Arum lilies,” he commented, examining one waxy white petal with a finger. “Very expensive, very rare.” He looked up at Donato and paused as if a sudden realization had taken hold of him. “I’ve never been offered flowers before.”
Donato blinked, taken aback at such a thing. Teodor felt a tinge of bitterness, remembering at least four occasions where Donato had personally given him a bouquet for no apparent reason except that he wanted to. It had always struck him as silly, one of Donato’s more whimsical quirks, and now he suddenly wished more than anything he could go back to one of those instances and receive them with more grace than he had. He had not once returned the favor.
Teodor distracted himself from his thoughts by filling a nearby beaker with water for the flowers.
“You shouldn’t be on that knee,” Malfatto said to Donato after a moment, eyes still fixated on the lilies in his hand.
“You’re welcome,” Donato replied smartly, but a wide grin broke out across his face.
The bitterness was back. Teodor plunked the beaker down on the ground next to Malfatto. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he said softly, catching Malfatto’s eye. “I’ll just be outside.”
Taking a lantern and a bottle of wine with him, Teodor slipped out onto the back porch, leaving Donato and Malfatto to talk. He stretched out on the floor, propping himself on one elbow so that he could drink from the bottle. He stared out across the garden and listened to the low rumble of voices inside the shop. The fact that Donato was engaging Malfatto in conversation was a miracle in itself, but then people always seemed to talk to Donato. Teodor tried to not be jealous of the warmth he heard in Donato’s voice, the familiarity of his laughter. Teodor thought he had broken Donato’s exuberant spirit-he was relieved it wasn’t the case but it didn’t make him feel any better.
Eventually the conversation inside died down. Teodor turned his head as the back door opened and Donato stepped out onto the porch. Teodor arched an eyebrow at him.
“He’s asleep,” Donato said, answering Teodor’s unasked question. He hobbled over to where Teodor sat and gingerly lowered himself to the ground. “He’s hurt pretty badly, isn’t he?”
“He’ll survive,” Teodor said, handing Donato the bottle. “It was a near thing.”
“And yet I heard there was a body to burn,” Donato said. They stared out into the garden together. “You did something terrible again, didn’t you.”
“I did several terrible things,” Teodor said flatly, eyes drawn to the two uneven lumps of earth amongst Malfatto’s immaculate garden rows.
“God forbid you decide to save anyone else,” Donato commented, and handed the bottle back to him.
There was a lull for a minute or two, the only sound the sloshing of the wine as each of them drank from the bottle. Then, suddenly, Donato turned and punched Teodor in the shoulder.
Teodor nearly tipped over, grunting with surprise. He gaped at Donato as he righted himself, trying to form a response.
“So you slept with his wife, did you?” Donato said, a ghost of a leer across his lips.
It took Teodor a moment to remember the reference; that cheerful day on the training ground seemed like a lifetime ago. Once he found the memory he realized what Donato was alluding to.
Unable to stop it, Teodor felt a blush crawl across his features.
“Well, it’s good to know you can still do that,” Donato said, which didn’t help Teodor’s predicament. “Mio dio, I cannot believe I didn’t realize it sooner. I thought you were just horribly French.”
“What?” Teodor said, trying to sound affronted, but his voice cracked slightly.
Donato’s head tipped back and his laughter bloomed into the night. Feeling ridiculous but unable to help himself, Teodor began to laugh as well.
“All those outrageous stories you told me,” Donato said between chuckles. “For not having the slightest interest in women you are a dirty, knowledgeable man.”
“You would know. Half the things I told you were things you had told me,” Teodor scoffed, taking a hasty sip of wine. “You have no idea how very dull yet informative soldiers can be when they sit around the camp and regale everyone with their stories.”
Donato laughed. “I still can’t believe you never said anything.”
“I was scared to,” Teodor admitted, a hollow note in his laughter. “It seems so stupid now, considering.”
Donato wrenched the bottle away from Teodor, taking a swallow to steady himself. “It certainly explains a lot. All those lingering looks you sent my way, all the times you threw yourself at me.”
Teodor laughed so hard he snorted, which only started Donato up again. “You are...very handsome,” he managed. “I...couldn’t help myself.”
He also couldn’t finish his sentence, swearing loudly as Donato cracked him in the arm with the wine bottle as he handed it back. After that it was over, the two of them unable to do anything but giggle like children for a moment. It wasn’t true laughter, the kind born of honest hilarity, but rather the only reaction left to them in the wake of the past month. Still, Teodor couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so much, going to the point where tears were beginning to prick his eyes and his ribs hurt from the effort.
The laughter subsided as the wine ran out, leaving them breathless on the cold wooden porch. Teodor was lying on his back, staring up at the blank overhang that blotted out the stars above. Donato was curled forward on himself, one hand lightly massaging his healing knee.
“Teodor?”
“Hm?”
Donato’s voice floated through the air. “...Did you really kill your sister?”
For a moment Teodor was instantly furious, not wanting to let go of the fragile peace between them. How Donato could doubt that one piece of information after Teodor had nearly beaten him to death spoke of a kind of hope Teodor couldn’t understand.
He could lie. That was Teodor’s next thought. Donato was giving him an out. He could lie, give him what he wanted.
“Yes,” he answered.
Donato’s head dipped slightly, acknowledging something he’d already known to be true. Teodor braced himself for condemnation, but none came.
“What happened?” Donato asked instead.
“I told you what happened,” Teodor murmured, bristling slightly.
“No,” Donato said. “You told me what you did.”
Teodor waited for waves to roll in, for Nanette to pull him down. Instinctively, he looked for her, checking each and every shadow. Nothing.
“Two weeks after my fourteenth birthday plague came to Torino,” Teodor began, his voice slightly unsteady. “We lived with my mother and my uncle outside of the city. We thought we would be safe, but within a few days almost all of the servants were ill. My uncle died within a day.”
At this, Donato made a sound of sympathy. Teodor shrugged. “He had never recovered from war, it wasn’t surprising. My mother survived, but she was sick for a very long time. Nanette and I were fine, or at least I thought so. All I remember is Nanette falling ill around the time my mother was getting better. I’m not sure if it was the plague or something else, but her fevers were...extreme.”
His speech was stilted as he spoke, hurried and low. “Nanette recovered, eventually, but she wasn’t the same. Well, sometimes she was, but other times she couldn’t even recognize me. She was violent. She would attack the servants, convinced they were trying to kill her.”
“She was mad,” Donato whispered.
“Maybe,” Teodor said, casting another look around. Nanette was nowhere to be found. “My mother thought she could hear the word of God, that it was divine guidance. But,” Teodor shook his head, “Nanette had never been devout and her revelations rarely had anything to do with God. I think it was my mother’s way of dealing with it.”
“Where was your father?” Donato wanted to know.
“In the French court, of course,” Teodor said. “He’s not important. He couldn’t have helped.”
Donato looked like he was about to disagree, and Teodor pressed on.
“By the time she was twenty she rarely spoke to anyone. She wouldn’t stay in the house and would hide in the forest for days. When I found her out in the woods one day she attacked me. I don’t remember a lot of it-she hit me over the head with a rock and then tried to carve out my lungs with a knitting needle-obviously I survived, I was fine, and the first time she was lucid she couldn’t believed what she had done.”
Teodor glanced over to Donato. The pity was evident on his face and it burned into Teodor like poison. He hurried to finish the story.
“She was better, Donato. For two years, she was better. Not a single moment of violence. She had moments of confusion, but that was it. I thought she was cured. I even took her back to France on holiday.”
Donato still had that look on his face. Teodor’s anger surged and he glared into the darkness.
“When we returned to Torino I had to go into the city for a day. By the time I made it back to the estate Nanette had killed two serving girls and nearly blinded our mother,” Teodor explained, impassive. “I found her by the river, bloody and screaming her head off. She was crying, she didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what she had done. So I told her everything would be fine, and then I pushed her off the dock and held her under the water until she drowned.”
Donato flinched. Teodor felt a small thrill of satisfaction run through his veins.
“I told you before,” he said, voice hardening. “I didn’t have to kill her, but I did it anyway because I wanted to.”
“You didn’t want to,” Donato said, clearly fighting for an even tone.
“Yes I did,” Teodor insisted. “I loved her, Donato. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved her and I wanted to kill her and so I did.”
Donato shook his head. “No, Teodor. You wanted it to stop. You wanted to stop being tormented by your mad, older sister. You wanted to protect your family.”
“None of that matters because I didn’t have to kill her. I didn’t want to lock her up, I didn’t try to send for more help, I didn’t try anything because I wanted her dead,” Teodor said in a dull voice. “I can’t explain it any other way.”
“You’re not the only one who ever loved someone and wanted to kill them,” Donato said pointedly.
“The difference is that I actually did it,” Teodor replied.
Donato went rigid at the words, hands going to his injured knee, his healing face. Teodor gritted his teeth as guilt washed through him, twice as awful as before. He could never seem to find a place dark enough to escape the consequences of all his sins, only enough shadows in which to commit them.
“Was it worth it?” Teodor asked Donato as the silence dragged on. “Did you find out what you wanted?”
“I don’t know,” Donato whispered, absently rolling the empty wine bottle along the stones. “I thought maybe I would either stop hating you or finally hate you enough and then my life would be easier.”
“If it helps, I murdered three people last week,” Teodor said darkly. “Four, if you count the one I sent to die.”
Donato paused, then looked exasperated. “Which you did to save Malfatto,” he argued. “You’re more ruthless than most, Teodor, but I don’t think you are an evil man. Sometimes you want to kill the people you love and sometimes you kill for them.”
Teodor balked slightly at the sentimental tone in Donato’s voice. “I’m not nearly romantic enough for that to hold.”
“Oh Teodor,” Donato said, tsking. “I watched you cart a butterfly back to Roma all the way from Senigallia. I thought you were using the doctor’s weird journal as an excuse to bring a gift to a beautiful woman, but it turns out you actually meant the bit about the weird doctor.”
Teodor felt the tips of his ears begin to burn. “He’s not that weird.”
“You are completely ridiculous,” Donato countered evenly. He flicked Teodor’s ear and smiled knowingly. “And there were hands in jars in there. Weird.”
Teodor rubbed his ear. He didn’t know how to respond, keenly aware of the thin, tenuous connection between him and Donato. He wasn’t forgiven, but for the first time he could hope that maybe things weren’t beyond repair.
“Roma’s not safe anymore,” he said to Donato after a minute. He told him about Fiora’s knowledge of Cesare’s agents, about how she had defected to the assassins. Donato knew some of what had transpired, but not how far the repercussions could ripple.
“She might not come for me,” Donato mused. He waggled his eyebrows. “When we talked before the races I’m pretty sure she found me charming.”
Teodor snorted. Donato slowly rose to his feet, using his crutch to pull himself up. Teodor stayed seated, head tipped back to look at him.
“You should think about what I said. I meant it when I said you needed to leave the city. As soon as Malfatto can travel we’re going to leave. For good.” Teodor hesitated, not really having the right to ask, but he suggested it anyway. “You could come with us.”
A shadow passed over Donato’s face. He took a few steps to the door and for a moment Teodor was afraid he was going to leave. Then Donato stopped, turning to look to him.
“I don’t think I could do that, not yet,” Donato said in a serious tone. “And not just because of you and me. I no longer have my men, but I still have family in this city and I won’t abandon them.”
Teodor was struck. He’d never known Donato had family in Roma. “I didn’t know that.”
“You never asked,” Donato said simply, then pulled the door open. He hesitated before leaving. “Maybe you can ask me about them the next time I see you,” he offered, then slipped back into the shop, heading back into the night.
Next time. Teodor smiled at the promise of a future visit. A short while later, soggy with drink and relief, he made his way back inside. Malfatto was fast asleep, the beaker with its two lilies not far from his golden head. Careful not to knock it over, Teodor put another log on the fire before stripping out of his clothes and joining Malfatto inside the blankets.
Malfatto’s skin was warm against his and Teodor pressed against him as much as he dared. Next time. It echoed in his head, resonating until it became a soothing hum that sent him off to sleep.
The next day, Teodor received a package that contained a dead, half-smashed beetle. To start your own collection read the note, signed in Donato’s loopy script.
Teodor laughed for a full minute. He spent the next hour scrounging around the nearby countryside and garden boxes, liberating a wide array of flowers for a bouquet. With a bit of paste he found inside the shop, he stuck the beetle in the heart of the largest bloom and sent it back.
Malfatto watched the exchange, such as it was, with quiet bewilderment.
Teodor didn’t hear from Donato at first. Two more towers burned, sending each captain in the guard to high alert, and Teodor was waylaid when De Valois decided to mount a full assault against Bartolomeo d’Alviano and requested his input. Teodor warned him against an all-out battle, but he hadn’t counted on De Valois kidnapping the man’s wife. It was a bold move, one Teodor appreciated. For all of De Valois’ concerns with classes the man had a keen mind. It would have been a fine plan, had D’Alviano not been allied with the assassins.
Three days after De Valois’s death Donato contacted him. Still in Roma? read the note pinned to Malfatto’s door.
Teodor glanced at Malfatto who was neatly bent at the waist, finally able to study his jars of severed feet. Not for long he wrote. Hurry. He checked the front door the next morning, and the one after that, but there was no immediate reply.
Two weeks later, Donato Mancini was shot in the head by Ezio Auditore after challenging a local merchant to a horse race.
It took five hours to catch Donato’s spooked horse and retrieve the body. The horse would never recover, crippled and dying from exhaustion. When Teodor arrived on scene the first thing he did was hack off its head with an ax.
Everyone there agreed it was the right thing to do.
† † †
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