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***
Leo's breath curls in the frosty morning as he lugs himself out to the loggia. They've forgotten to bring in the potted pomegranates, the imbeciles: the plants look bedraggled and frostbitten. What a shame.
He sighs, pulling close his furs, then waddles back to his apartments.
"Love what you've done with the place."
"What? Beg pardon?" Surprised, he whirls around, but there is no-one. Where did that voice come from? His short-sighted eyes are blinking furiously.
"That was a joke. Nobody 'round here liked the Piero della Francescas, huh?"
He gulps. Who's that talking? Is he going addle-pated now? He looks about. Years and years ago, Piero della Francesca had done the walls, 'tis true, long before Giuliano della Rovere asked Maestro Raphaello to paint them over.
He can't decide: the chill he feels – is that a draft from the windows or something more ominous?
"I used to love his Virgins, you know. Piero's. They looked so sullen."
He can't think of anything to say. As a teenager he would have run screaming, had a disembodied voice addressed him from out of nowhere. Now he is Leo the tenth of his name, he has gravitas, and he plonks his voluminous behind on a bench piled high with cushions, in the nearest window recess.
That's when he sees him. Cesare sits on the bench opposite, his legs drawn up, bundled in a pile of blankets and furs. He looks impossibly young - sixteen perhaps? He looks like he did in Pisa. He looks as if they’d forgotten him here, and Leo is starting to guess why - these used to be his rooms, after all.
"Cesare," he says softly.
Was a time he had been the butt of Cesare's jokes, but he's done with that; nobody laughs at him now. "Cesare, you can't be here."
Cesare stares at him with wounded, hostile eyes. "Why, who says that?"
He hefts himself up and changes his seat for the opposite bench, right next to his visitor. "Come," he offers his side to lean on. "Come, you must be cold." When the other doesn't move, he gently holds out a hand, touching Cesare’s hair.
That's when something breaks. Cesare shuffles a bit, rearranges his blankets, and when he, Leo, draws him closer, inviting him to rest against his bulk, Cesare doesn't fight. That, in itself, tells him it's dire.
"I don't have to tell you what a Pontiff is, right?"
"No." Cesare sniffs disdainfully. "You fucking pompous arse."
He chuckles. The air is still freezing, but his is the only breath visible. "Ready when you are."
***
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