Contents
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Author's Note
Part One: Murder
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part Two: The Borgia
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Part Three: Sandino’s Revenge
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Part Four: The Sinistro Scribe
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Fourty
Chapter Fourty-One
Chapter Fourty-Two
Chapter Fourty-Three
Chapter Fourty-Four
Chapter Fourty-Five
Part Five: War
Chapter Fourty-Six
Chapter Fourty-Seven
Chapter Fourty-Eight
Chapter Fourty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Part Six: The Bande Rosse
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Part Seven: The Medici Seal
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninty
Chapter Ninty-One
Chapter Ninty-Two
Chapter Ninty-Three
Acknowledgements
Also by
Praise
About the Book
Italy, 1502
Fleeing from the murderous brigand Sandino, the boy Matteo is rescued from drowning by the companions of Leonardo da Vinci, and taken into his household.
And so Matteo is at the Maestro’s side as he carries out his work - work which ranges from the painting of magnificant frescos to experiments with flight and the dissection of cadavers.
But, at this time Leonardo da Vinci is employed by Cesare Borgia. Cruel and ruthless, the Borgia punish without mercy any who stand in his way. As da Vinci and Matteo travel across Italy on the Borgia’s business, murder, deceit and revenge follow in their trail. For Matteo carries with him a secret that both the Borgia and the Medici families would kill to obtain.
A gloriously rich and authentic story from author Theresa Breslin
‘A superb historical thriller . . . an enchanting novel about genius, and a gift to an enquiring mind’
The Times
‘A richly drawn and fascinating look at 16th-century Italy’
The Bookseller
THE MEDICI SEAL
Theresa Breslin
CORGI BOOKS
This book is for Laura
Author’s Note
Renaissance Italy
Italy, at the time of the Renaissance, did not exist as a single distinct country. The peninsula was comprised of various city states in different regions, with the kingdom of Naples in the south. This kingdom of Naples was claimed by France and Spain, which meant that armies of both these countries occupied Italian territory. On the northern border the mighty republic of Venice also sought new conquests.
In addition to spiritual matters the Pope had temporal powers, with authority over a central area which included the Romagna.
Within the Italian city states wealthy and influential families held control, one of the foremost being the Medici of Florence. The Medici patronage, particularly that of Lorenzo the Magnificent, nourished a splendid epoch of art and culture. But when Lorenzo died, it was only a few years later, in 1494, that the Medici were banished from Florence.
PART ONE
MURDER
Italy, in the Romagna, summer 1502
Chapter One
THE FIRST BLOW struck the side of my head.
I stagger, almost falling to the ground.
Sandino moves forward, stepping over the man lying dead at his feet. The man I saw him murder. Now he means to kill me.
I stumble back.
He thrusts out his cudgel, jabbing it hard into my gut.
Doubled up, I scrabble onto the rocks away from him.
He grunts in annoyance and follows.
I glance around desperately. Only the river, behind and below me, rushing in full flood.
Sandino grins. ‘No escape for you, boy.’
He raises his arm. Swings his cudgel again.
I jerk my head away to avoid his next blow. My feet slip on the wet surface.
He shouts a curse.
I am falling.
The sudden shock of cold water.
And the river has me.
The current batters my body, grabbing at my clothes, dragging my legs. I swallow great lumps of water but I force my head to the surface and try to swim. My flailing is useless against the strength of the flow as it hurtles me onwards in its greedy grasp. I must try to reach one side of the riverbank. I must.
But I am weakening. Unable to keep my head up.
Then a sound fills me with terror. A waterfall!
The noise becomes louder, the water swifter. I am seconds from death. With a last effort I throw up my arms and scream for help. I am flung over the waterfall and slammed down into the foaming, broiling torrent.
A thundering mass of churning water pounds at me, driving me under. Caught in the whirlpool, I cannot break free of its deadly force. My face is upturned, mouth stretched wide, desperately sucking for air. The falling water distorts my vision. A shattered rainbow. Beyond it is light and life. My eyes roll back, blood roaring in my brain.
Now I seem to see myself from a great height. As though my mind views my body from another plane. Removed from this Earth to a different plac
e, I look down and watch the frantic, dying struggles of a ten-year-old boy.
Clawing. Breath. None now.
Splintered light and utter darkness.
Chapter Two
TWO HANDS GRASP my head.
I see nothing. Hear no sound. No smell enters my nostrils.
But touch, yes. Long fingers under my chin and, firmly, across my brow. A mouth, oh so gently, over mine. Covering my lips with his own. Completely. Breathing life into me with his kiss.
My lids open up. The face of a man looks down on me.
‘I am Leonardo da Vinci,’ the man says. ‘My companions pulled you from the river.’
He tucks the folds of a cloak around me.
I blink. The colour of the sky sears my eyes, cold, and painfully blue.
‘What is your name?’ he asks me.
‘Matteo,’ I whisper.
‘Matteo.’ His voice curls round each syllable. ‘That is a fine name.’
The features of his face blur. I cough, vomiting water and blood. ‘I am going to die,’ I say, and begin to cry.
He wipes my cheeks with his hand. ‘No,’ he replies. ‘You are going to live, Matteo.’
Chapter Three
HE CALLS ME Matteo.
This is because, when he rescued me from under the waterfall, although half drowned, I had enough wit not to give my real name, and Matteo was the first one that came to hand.
Like the name, almost everything else I told him about me after that was a lie.
On the day of my rescue they made a little campfire there, he with his two companions, beside the waterfall, to try to dry me off. I would have liked to put as much distance as possible between myself and that place but I had no choice. My head was cracked from Sandino’s blow and I could scarcely stand, let alone walk away. They wrapped me in the fur-lined cloak and laid me near the fire they had built. It was late summer. The weather was not very cold, but the days were growing shorter and the sun swung lower across the sky.
‘Zingaro?’
The fatter of his two companions spoke their word for ‘gypsy’ as he put kindling on the fire.
I closed my eyes as the one called Leonardo glanced in my direction. ‘He has the look of those people, and yet . . .’
The third man, whose cloak I was lying on, shook his head. ‘It could be he’s one of a group travelling south. The nomads have now been banned from entering Milan, accused of all sorts of theft and chicanery.’
‘There is a gypsy encampment at Bologna,’ said the fat man. ‘That’s not so far from here.’
I tensed as I heard them say this. Bologna was where my people would settle to pass this winter. If these men thought me Gypsy then they might decide to take me to them. If that happened, then I would be recognized, welcomed and brought in. But I did not want to go to Bologna. It would be one of the first places that the brigand Sandino would look for me if he thought there was a chance I was still alive. Indeed he might have already sent someone ahead on the road to catch me in case I sought refuge there. He would surmise I had nowhere else to go, so some of his own vile men would be dispatched with instructions to bring me to him, their leader, if I appeared. I shivered as I recalled the blow Sandino’s great cudgel had struck me, which had caused me to fall into the river and be swept away.
The man Leonardo, who had breathed on me to force the water from my lungs, said, ‘The boy is small-formed, but then that might be due to malnutrition. It will become clear soon enough if he is one of those proscribed when we listen to what he says when he awakens.’
I knew then not to tell them my origins. They might be sympathetic to a drowning boy, but their minds were already set against my race.
Travelling people are known in many lands. We have a reputation as good farriers, skilled basket weavers and metal workers, and the gift of being able to foretell the future. This latter talent is suspect, but if requested, with payment, to tell a person’s destiny, then a gypsy, like anyone else, can make a fair guess as to what that person’s future might bring.
My grandmother was very good at it. She practised the art of conversation, so that anyone who spoke to her soon found that they had told her much more about themselves than they imagined. Then she would fit her advice to the situation, as a tailor cuts cloth to suit the customer. But my grandmother was a true healer. She understood sickness of the body, and of the spirit. Often it was the ache of humanity that troubled people – unrequited love, loneliness, the fear of growing old.
Many came to her for remedies. It was not mystical insight that allowed her to discern what ailed a person, but simple observation, as straightforward as studying the sky to predict the weather, or the trees to tell the seasons of the year. One only had to look with attention and interpret what one saw.
A person whose eye-whites were tinged with yellow had sickness of the liver or the kidneys and needed an infusion of parsley herb to purify the blood. For someone showing sleeplessness and anxiety, she recommended camomile for relaxation, and the milky juice extracted from lettuce as a sedative. She could tell if a woman was barren by the condition of her neck. Dry skin gathered there, or folded wrinkles, indicated an empty womb. The woman would be in awe of my grandmother, who knew her request without being told, and would go away with new hope, holding a purge made from rue and juniper berries to clear the pathways to the womb.
Young girls often wanted a means to tell the identity of their true love. They were given stalks of yarrow to place under their pillow and some words to recite before going to sleep:
By the feet of Venus thou dost grow,
O herb whose true name is Yarrow,
Let me dream of my true love,
Ere I wake tomorrow.
My grandmother knew all these things and many more secrets of country lore.
She also knew the time of her own dying.
This was not because she had second sight. More that she had knowledge of how the heart should beat, and became aware that hers was becoming weaker.
These divinations are not magical and do not require any special gift – that is, unless the absence of stupidity is deemed a gift. But such skill arouses jealousy in others and this was why we could never rest in one place for long. The town guilds and other businessmen did not like any kind of competition. And such is the prejudice against us that, without having been convicted or even accused of any wrong, being gypsy alone can mean death.
So I decided that I would lie. I began to prepare a story to tell my rescuers as I watched them from under half-closed lids.
They certainly weren’t mercenaries for they carried no arms. Their horses were of fine stock, with sturdy haunches rather than for show, built for covering distances more than for speed. No hunting equipment was attached to their saddles; their food consisted of basic items: cheese, bread, fruit and wine. I deduced that they must travel each day and rest in accommodation of some kind by night.
I tried to puzzle the purpose of their journey. The saddlebags were bulky, but not with goods or cloth. It was books and papers they held. But these three men were neither merchants nor traders, and between them rank did not seem to matter much. They were at ease in each other’s company, yet they deferred to the man Leonardo da Vinci, he who had pronounced my name so carefully.
From the beginning I called him Maestro. I was corrected later by one of his companions to use the term Messer, which, in some ways, is of greater status, but at that time he interrupted and said, ‘If it pleases the boy to call me Maestro, then so be it. Let him call me Maestro if he wishes.’
In my mind he is always Maestro.
Chapter Four
IT WAS PAST midday, and they warmed themselves by the fire and took out food to eat.
The fat one, who was called Graziano, saw that I was awake and offered me some. I shrank back. The Maestro stopped eating, held out his hand and told me to come nearer. I shook my head.
‘Then we will wait until you do.’ He set his food aside and took up a book. I watched to
see what would happen. No one disturbed him.
His two friends talked quietly as he read. Their food lay on the grass. I was very hungry. The chill from the water had entered my bones. So I came to the fire and sat down.
The Maestro put down his book and handed me a piece of bread. ‘We eat together in this household,’ he said.
I looked around at his companions. They chatted with each other, passing food and drink to me as though I were an equal.
‘We should move on,’ Graziano said, ‘if we’re to reach our destination before nightfall.’
‘Is your family home near here?’ the Maestro asked me.
‘I do not have a family. I am an orphan. I work as a stable boy when I can get work, or with the harvest.’ I had the sentences ready to reply at once.
‘Where’s your place of work? Surely they’ll be looking for you now that it’s getting dark?’
I shook my head. ‘No, they will think I have moved on. And that is what I was doing,’ I added quickly. ‘They kicked and beat me and didn’t give me enough food, so I will go and find another place to work now.’
‘Yes,’ said the thinner man, ‘it’s obvious that you’ve not eaten in a while.’ He laughed and indicated the large amount of bread I had consumed.
I flushed and dropped the piece in my hand.
‘Hush, Felipe,’ his master chided him. ‘The boy is hungry.’ The Maestro picked it up and gave it back to me. ‘Felipe is making a joke,’ he said.
‘A boy like that is always hungry,’ said Felipe gloomily.
I was to find out later that Felipe was responsible for buying supplies and food, and it required all his accounting skills to ensure that the Maestro and the rest of his entourage could work and live with sufficiency.
‘Do you want to travel with us to our next stop?’ the Maestro asked me as they made ready to go.
‘Where is that?’
‘We cross at the bridge downstream and go back up country on the other side to a place called Perela.’
I tried to think of what Sandino might be doing at this moment. He would want to find me – not that he cared whether I drowned or not, but for another reason altogether. I had something he desired, a precious object that he’d deceived me into stealing for him.
Months ago he’d turned up at the gypsy camp where I was living after my grandmother’s funeral. From my earliest memory my grandmother and I had travelled the roads together by ourselves, my mother having died when I was a baby and my father being unknown. Mostly we kept separate from any other band of gypsies, until my grandmother, realizing that she was very ill, took her wagon to a camp north of Bologna so that I would not be on my own when she died. Sandino claimed some kind of kinship with my grandmother. She, being dead, could not agree or disagree. I went with him, because he promised me the life of a pirate and I’d been enchanted with the idea of sailing across the ocean. To be a buccaneer, as he described, appealed to me. But taking me on a ship was not his true intention. Sandino had heard of my dexterity in opening locks, and he, in the pay of others, had a murderous plan which required my skills. I was the person he thought could help him, and in part I had. Except that I had not handed over the thing I had stolen on his behalf. I still carried it with me.
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