They were sitting on stools together as I entered the studio.
The Maestro called me over, and taking me by the chin he studied my face. ‘His features do remind me of some painting or other,’ he mused. ‘Your brow has depth, and your lips full rounded out. The cheekbones are well set, which is good, as that will define your look as you mature. I think you could aspire to be haughty, Matteo, if you so wished.’
I lowered my head and tried to escape his grasp but he led me to a large mirror which he had placed against one wall of the room. He had set this mirror at an angle opposite the window so that no matter where he worked in the room he could see the outside view. This seemed to please him, but having this reflective glass indoors uncovered, and having to pass back in front of it, made me uneasy.
I was not comfortable in the sight of mirrors. It was something that my grandmother and I had disagreed upon. ‘You have superstitious blood in your veins,’ she chided me when I insisted that we kept any mirror we owned covered up.
But I had listened to the stories round the campfires of the other travellers and I knew that a person’s soul could be lost within their reflection.
My grandmother laughed at this belief. ‘A mirror is polished metal shaped for the purpose, or a piece of glass with liquid metal painted on behind it and left to dry. It is a simple thing: some elements have this property. Water, which is the source of all life, is one of them. On a still day if you look into a lake you will see yourself and the sky.’
‘But,’ I replied, ‘see what happened to Narcissus who, looking into a pool of water, saw himself and mistook it for another person of great beauty. He fell in love with this reflection and would not leave the image and spent the rest of his days there waiting for this hopeless love. And being for ever unrequited, he pined and died and flowers grew up at that place.’
My grandmother shook her head. ‘This is a tale invented by the ancients to explain why the flower called narcissus often grows beside water.’
But I was not convinced. There must be some truth in the tale, that the water acted as a mirror and pinned Narcissus beside the lake. Why else would such a story be conceived?
‘Because we do not understand everything, Matteo,’ my grandmother answered. ‘And being human we always seek to try to do so.’
I remembered now that he, the Maestro, had said this too: We strive to understand.
‘And when we cannot do so,’ my grandmother continued, ‘then we make up stories to explain what we think is unexplainable. In the olden days we thought of the sun in those terms. Men told the tale that light came to earth from the great god Ra, who was born each day as a child and died at night as an old man, and was carried in a golden chariot across the sky. We know now that this is not true. So also do we know that there is nothing to fear from a reflected image.’
In the case of a mirror, though, I was not convinced that there was not a charm therein. The story of Narcissus is one of many told about those who become trapped for ever behind a looking glass. So, as the master led me to look at myself, I only glanced in the mirror. That is, I only meant to glance briefly, but my attention was caught by the figure there.
I stared.
The boy in the mirror stared back.
I did not know him. His appearance was both strange and familiar, with ears sticking out, huge eyes and his face full of sharp angles.
The Master must have seen my look of alarm.
‘Don’t fret,’ he said. ‘You’re in the awkward stage of being neither child nor fully grown. Your baby fat is gone, but you have yet to become adult. It is a difficult time. But I believe that when you fill out in manhood you will make ladies’ hearts flutter.’
I pulled my brows together in what I hoped was an ugly frown.
He laughed at me and patted my head. ‘If you are trying to be repulsive then you are failing in your ambition. It makes you more interesting when you are fierce, Matteo. When you glare so angrily you have a dangerous air of menace that women will find very attractive.’
I scowled even more and pushed myself away from him abruptly.
‘Matteo,’ said Graziano kindly, ‘you must learn to accept a compliment.’
I had retreated to the furthest corner of the room from where I snapped a reply. ‘I did not know that it was a compliment.’
‘Even if it wasn’t, you mustn’t respond to something that displeases you by stamping off and coiling in on yourself,’ Felipe pointed out.
‘Or by striking out with your hand on a dagger,’ said the Maestro.
My breath caught. Was he thinking of the time he saw me put the point of a knife to Paolo’s throat?
‘You must learn not to react in emotion.’
‘Then that is not being true to one’s self,’ I said.
‘One is living in society,’ said Graziano mildly.
‘There are rules of behaviour,’ said Felipe. ‘Manners help us get along together, even if one knows some of these courtesies to be a little foolish.’
‘All the more reason to keep to one’s own way of thinking,’ I said stubbornly. ‘What you feel here’ – I placed my hand on my heart – ‘is what is true, and you should act on that.’
‘But wouldn’t it be better,’ said the Maestro, ‘if you were in charge of your emotions, rather than them being in command of you?’
‘Does that not mean then that they are no longer your emotions?’ I asked him.
They laughed but he took my point seriously, as he frequently did.
‘I agree that this is hard to determine, especially in youth, when being loyal to oneself is a matter of great importance. And indeed should remain so. But understand me, Matteo, it is not your feelings that we are denying, it is the application of action consequent upon your feelings that we question. Unrestrained action can be disastrous. For yourself and others. Can you appreciate that?’
I mumbled a yes.
‘Better to think carefully and then act,’ he added. ‘It is much more impressive, and effective.’
‘That could be a motto for the Borgia,’ murmured Graziano.
Felipe glanced his way and at once he was quiet.
Chapter Fourteen
THE ONE PART of my old clothing that I did not discard was the thin belt with the pouch that I wore under my tunic.
It was not on display, and with my heavier clothes it was well concealed. I had decided, if questioned, to say that it had been a special gift. Although the small weight I carried at my belt was a constant reminder of Sandino, I had not thought of him for some time. We were miles from Perela, south of Bologna and away from Sandino’s territory.
My master was working on military things. And so, in addition to etiquette, I acquired information relevant to soldiering and conflict. I learned that one hand’s span from the collarbone is a most vulnerable part of a man’s body. Situated on the neck is a long blood-carrying column which is vital to life. If it is severed, the blood flows away very fast.
‘A knife,’ said the Maestro, ‘a sharp knife, or sword, applied here’ – he placed his hand at the side of my neck – ‘would effect death in seconds. It’s why I have changed the underclothes of the soldiers.’
He showed me his new design for the chain-mail necklets which hung down from their helmets. While the castle armourers were busy making these the Maestro watched the soldiers training, and stood discussing tactics with the bombardiers in charge of the cannon. He had plans for an immense cannon and was calculating the dimensions and weight of the barrel. It was a puzzle to me that he could love nature yet construct instruments of death. But his salary was not secure. He was not a legitimate son and therefore could not call on any rightful allowance from his father. His whole existence and that of his household relied on the patronage of others.
He still managed to go out into the countryside on occasion and he was interested in the plant lore that I could tell him. He sought to learn each intimate thing about the world we live in. He asked me more about my grandmother and
her herbal skills and he wrote down the preparations I could recall. But I did not have all my grandmother’s recipes inside my head. Her book had been buried with her goods when she had died.
One day when we were riding a good way beyond the castle wall of Averno, Graziano, who had been groaning and holding his stomach since morning, called on us to stop. He had seen a plant growing by the side of the road. We dismounted and he plucked a leaf and made to eat it. As Graziano had knelt to do so he was on a level with me as I stood beside him. Without thinking I snatched the leaf from his hand as you would from a child about to put some dangerous object in their mouth.
‘You must not eat that,’ I said.
‘It is mint,’ he protested. ‘It will help my stomach ache.’
‘It is not mint,’ I replied.
‘What have you found?’ The Maestro’s voice quickened in interest.
Graziano laughed and said, ‘I am being given instruction by a boy. Matteo says if I eat this I will die.’
‘You will not die,’ I said. ‘But you would have bellyache before sunset and for many days afterwards.’
‘I’ve taken this mint for a long time because I have constant bellyache.’
‘It is not mint,’ I repeated. ‘It looks like mint, but it is not.’
The Maestro took the plant in his hand and studied it.
‘How do you know, Matteo?’ He looked at me curiously. ‘What makes you say this?’
This was a feature of our relationship. He asked me this not in any way sarcastically. He did not scoff that I, a boy, might know more than he knew.
‘It is similar to mint but it grows in a different place,’ I told him.
‘There are many types of mint,’ the Maestro said slowly, ‘of different hues, from emerald to almost yellow, and a type called dittany with little flowers, which comes from Crete. Is this not just another variety?’
‘No, because the underside of this leaf is patterned in a way that the true mint is not.’ I searched around until I found a mint leaf. ‘See?’
‘I do see, Matteo.’ He took the leaf from me. ‘Variegated.’ He said it again slowly so that I could absorb it. ‘Variegated.’
I nodded to show that I had retained the new word.
‘That means there is a difference of colour there within the leaf.’ He turned it over in his hands. ‘It must have mutated from the mint . . . or did mint evolve from it? This is most interesting.’
‘Mint has been used in cooking since before Rome was ancient,’ said Graziano stubbornly. ‘Its properties to aid digestion are well known.’
‘This one unaids digestion,’ I said equally stubbornly. ‘We would give it to animals to bring on vomiting if we thought they needed to relieve other sickness within them.’
‘Graziano,’ said the Maestro, ‘remind me if you would. When did you first have bellyache?’
‘Do we need reminding?’ joked Felipe. ‘The whole world knows when Graziano is unwell!’
‘I was ill with the summer sickness from the plains around Milan more than two years ago,’ said Graziano. ‘The weather was humid. I was recommended to chew mint leaf, which helped me. Thereafter I take it as I find it.’
‘You’ve been plagued with bellyache ever since then,’ said the Maestro. ‘Don’t you see what’s happened? You were ill and were prescribed mint, which does help, but then, as we have been travelling, you have picked up this false mint and, far from easing your stomach, it has made it worse.’
‘Also you eat too much,’ I added. Which was the truth. I had seen him do it late last night. ‘If you overfill your stomach just before going to bed then in the mornings you will feel sick.’
‘Speak plainly, Matteo!’ Felipe roared with laughter.
The Maestro joined in. I looked from one to the other. I was not aware I had made a joke.
The Maestro clapped me on the shoulder. ‘A child sees with the eyes of truth!’
Graziano hung his head in mock contrition. ‘I cannot deny that I enjoy my food.’
‘Enjoy less of a meal at night and you may enjoy breakfast more,’ advised Felipe.
‘Let me take a moment to sketch this,’ said the Maestro. His friends exchanged indulgent glances as he sat down upon a rock. He looked up at them. ‘It will only take a moment.’
‘Like Graziano’s meals,’ quipped Felipe. But he said this softly so as not to disturb the Maestro, who had already begun to draw.
One of the items that Felipe brought when he returned from Florence was a supply of notebooks. These were made up by the bookbinders to the Maestro’s precise dimensions so that he could carry one always at his belt. He could fill a notebook within one day, covering the pages with drawings and writings. So, although he never forgot a drawing or a note he had made, and all who worked in his studio knew that each sheet of even the roughest drawing must be kept carefully, it was tremendously difficult to keep any count or order to his manuscripts. His brain accumulated knowledge of every kind and he poured it back out in his sketches, stories, fables and many, many notations.
He quickly became absorbed – not just with this one plant but with others in the shady place where we had stopped. In the end we spent the day there. Felipe and Graziano kept loving and watchful eyes upon him. The Maestro laid out leaves or flowers or plants when he had finished drawing them and they would pick them up and press them carefully between special sheets of paper. They made sure that food was close by, some bread and a bottle containing wine mixed with water. I did what I could to help, grazing the horses, taking them to drink at the river, searching under the trees a little way off to seek out any unusual specimen that I could discover. Finally he raised his head. He called me over.
‘Do you know this plant?’
‘I know it. We call it—’ I began. Then I stopped. I must learn not to say ‘we’ when referring to my people. ‘In the countryside it is called the Star of Bethlehem.’
He showed me the page. It was a wonderment to me. He had very accurately drawn the leaf, the stalk and the tiny fibrous hairs that curled underneath.
There was something else lying beside him.
He saw my glance and asked, ‘What do you make of that, Matteo?’
‘It is a fossil, an animal that lived long ago.’
He turned the pages and showed me where he had drawn it too, and also drawings of rocks of differing shapes and sizes.
‘Maestro,’ I said, ‘as an engineer, you are under a commission from Il Valentino, Cesare Borgia, to improve his castles to withstand attack. I know you are also a painter, but that is not the only reason you dissect and anatomize for you seek medical knowledge. Now you declare an interest in plants and rocks. What is your field of study?’
‘All.’
‘All what?’
He laughed. ‘I seek to know about everything. I have an enquiring mind.’ He placed his finger on my forehead. ‘As I note that you have too.’
I recalled being at the dissecting table with him one time and leaning closer to watch what he was doing. He had paused, moved his hand to one side and said, ‘Look then carefully, Matteo, and see what you can discover for yourself.’
He was examining the tongue under a magnifying glass. When we returned to his studio in the castle he had searched among his drawings for one of a lion and shown it to me. He then related how when he had worked for the Duke of Milan there was a lion kept in a pit in the castle there. One day he had sat and watched the beast, by using only its rough tongue, lick the skin off a lamb before eating it. He pointed to his drawing and said, ‘The lion’s tongue is particular to that purpose.’
Thus he educated me in many things and in return I gave him my knowledge of plants. I had no schooling but I knew what could cure and what could kill. I knew the herbs that healed and I knew the poisons.
I knew the poisons very well.
But that day, seeing then that the light was fading, the Maestro closed his notebook.
We packed up his botanical specimens and returned
to Averno. Awaiting us at the castle was a summons from Cesare Borgia. Il Valentino had sent a message from his winter quarters at Imola. He wished Leonardo da Vinci and his household to join him there without delay.
Chapter Fifteen
BY THE EVENING of the next day we were in Imola.
The braziers burning on the castle walls lit up Cesare Borgia’s black and yellow pennants fluttering from the towers. A swarthy man with a flaming torch came to meet us as our horses clattered across the bridge and under the flag with the emblem of the grazing bull.
‘Messer Leonardo,’ he said, ‘I am Michelotto, personal henchman of Prince Cesare Borgia. His lordship, Il Valentino, wishes to speak to you immediately you arrive.’
‘I am at his command.’
The Maestro glanced at Felipe, who nodded slightly and said, ‘I will see to the accommodation and the unpacking of our things.’
‘Let Matteo take my satchel and come with me and I can send him to you to fetch any further drawings or models the prince may require.’
We followed after the man called Michelotto as he conducted us through the corridors into the presence of the most feared man in Italy. When we entered the room on the first floor of the castle, Cesare Borgia rose from his seat behind a table and came to greet us. Not yet thirty, he was tall and walked with grace and determination. Despite his face being marked by what was called the French disease, he was darkly handsome with shrewd eyes. He wore a black tunic, finely stitched and corded, black breeches and long black leather boots. The only colour on his person was in the form of a ring upon the middle finger of his left hand. A heavy gold ring set with an enormous single ruby, red as blood.
‘We have a crisis, Messer Leonardo.’ He grasped the Maestro by his shoulder and led him to the table. ‘My spies’ – he inclined his head, and it was then that I noticed two men standing in the shadows of the room – ‘have forewarned me to prepare for a siege.’ He laughed, and somehow the sound of this laugh was more terrifying than a shout of anger. ‘In this castle, here in Imola, I, Cesare Borgia, am to be attacked by my former captains. Therefore, with urgency, I need your advice on defence and military installations.’
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