I did not think. Of course she would have kissed others.
‘Matteo’ – Felipe, entering the studio, interrupted the banter – ‘the Maestro intends to make a trip sometime very soon and he has informed me that you are to go with him.’ He looked at me, taking in my clenched face, and raised an eyebrow. ‘It will be good for you to get out of Milan for a little while perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ I responded eagerly. ‘I will prepare at once.’
‘With women pursuing him on all sides you’d think he’d be keen to stay,’ said Salai. ‘Unless of course our Matteo is afraid of females.’
Like the taunts of many bullies Salai’s words had a stratum of truth within their seam. Although I seldom met girls, when I did so I was more awkward with them than other young men of my age.
‘Take your schoolbooks with you and enough clothes for several months,’ Felipe went on. ‘The Maestro is planning to spend some time in Pavia.’
Although I had never been there with my grandmother I knew approximately where Pavia was. A town much smaller than Milan, it sat on a main road more than twenty miles away to the south.
‘Is there a particular reason for choosing Pavia?’ I asked.
Felipe nodded. ‘A friend of the Maestro teaches at the University of Pavia. Messer Marcantonio della Torre is a doctor who conducts a school for medical students there. I expect that the Maestro will take the opportunity to catch up with his own anatomies.’
My interest quickened. It had been many months since I had accompanied my master to a dissection. For the last years he had been concentrating his studies on the terrain of the surrounding countryside, and how the geology of the area could lend itself to land irrigation and the construction of canals for transport and providing clean water. The idea of once again being party to his observations on the workings of the human body appealed to me. But if I was to leave Milan for some months then there was something I wanted to do first.
‘By your leave then,’ I said to Felipe, ‘if I am to be away for so long I would ask permission to visit my friends at their farm in the countryside to say farewell.’
Felipe nodded. ‘You may take tomorrow off to do so. But after that make yourself available to me. In addition to seeing to your own luggage I will need you to help pack particular things the Maestro might want to bring with him.’
I glanced at Francesco Melzi, who still sat at the breakfast table. It had become the custom for him to look after the Maestro’s materials and so I did not want to intrude on duties he considered his own.
But Francesco Melzi was not like Salai, who was always watchful and jealous. He had a pleasant and graceful manner.
‘It would be good to have you take care of that, Matteo,’ he said readily. ‘Now that you devote more time to your studies I think the Maestro misses your assistance when he is working. He complains to me when I have left something out of place and scolds me, saying that Matteo would not have done so. He told me that you devised an order for laying out his drawing equipment and he holds to it as the most efficient method.’
I took childish satisfaction from these words. If Francesco had made up the compliment then it was pleasant thing for him to do. If he hadn’t, and it was true, then it was gracious of him to acknowledge me in such a way.
The next day I went to the stables in the castle of Milan to beg the loan of a horse so that I might ride out to Kestra, where the dell’Orte’s uncle had a small farm.
Since we arrived in Milan I had renewed my friendship with Paolo and Elisabetta. Their uncle’s farm was situated to the south-east of the city and I was able to go and see them from time to time. Their uncle was old and cantankerous and kept both his niece and nephew under strict control. It had been months since I had seen them but I knew they would welcome my visit as a respite from the hard work and austerity of their present life.
At the stables I met the head groom, with whom I had formed an acquaintance as I had prepared a physick for a favourite horse of his when it had been suffering from colic. Whenever I wanted to visit the farm at Kestra he would lend me this horse for the day. As I led the chestnut mare from the stable the groom told me that one of the young French officers, a Charles d’Enville, recently recovering from battle wounds, wanted to exercise his own horse this morning and was looking for company. This groom also appointed a stable lad to ride with us.
So the three of us left Milan in the early morning of a clear summer’s day. We rode across the castle parade ground and under the arch of the Filarete Tower. Although damaged by the French soldiers shooting at it, the curved snake of the Sforza family coat of arms was still evident on the wall under the cupola. Duke Ludovico Sforza had ruled the duchy until driven out by the French almost ten years ago. The French king claimed this part of northern Italy but Ludovico’s son, Massimiliano, in exile, plotted to regain Milan just as the Medici plotted their return to Florence.
Milan had the same excitement and bustle as the streets of Florence. The King of France extended patronage to the artists here, and the ateliers and studios thronged with young men seeking apprenticeships. Soldiers and their ladies strolled and gossiped, servant boys ran errands, traders did business around the bulk of the duomo, as their stalls were flooded with booty from the returning troops.
But I’d rather be in the countryside than in the city. When out under the sky my head cleared and my spirits lifted. The farm where Paolo and Elisabetta dell’Orte were now living was a little distance from Milan so we set our horses to gallop and enjoyed our ride.
Riding was one skill in which I needed no instruction. We sped along together hooves thundering, horses’ manes flying. We would be at the farm before noon – in good time for the midday meal.
An hour passed. We turned off the main road bearing east. The landscape around us changed. Lush fields and vineyards gave way to rocky outcrops and clumps of rough vegetation. We were now a few miles from the crossroads where we would go onto a lesser road that would eventually lead us to the farm track. The land was lightly forested and our pace slowed to accommodate the change of road surface. We chatted as we went, the stable lad and myself mainly listening to Charles, the cheerful French captain, telling us of his exploits at the battle of Agnadello, where France had trounced the Venetian army and its huge contingent of Swiss mercenaries. We were trotting along when, on a turn in the road, we came suddenly upon a Romany camp. A kettle was hanging over burning embers near their shelter beneath some trees in the lee of a little hill.
‘What have we here?’ The French captain reined in his horse.
‘Gypsies,’ the stable lad said at once. And he spat on the ground.
I felt my heart unsteady.
‘They have no right to make camp next to the public highway,’ the lad declared. ‘There is an edict. They must ask permission from a landowner and that can only be granted under certain conditions.’
‘I would hardly call it a camp as such,’ said the French captain.
To make a rough shelter they had bent over some poplar saplings and thrown a covering over the stooped branches.
‘They are not allowed to build a dwelling place,’ the stable lad insisted.
The captain shook his head. I think he would have ridden on, except that now the stable lad had called attention to the situation he could not be seen to be lacking in authority by not dealing with it. He walked his horse forward and called out. A man came from the tent, followed swiftly by two ragged waifs. I hung back. I did not recognize this man from any campsite or gypsy gathering I had attended, but that was not to say that, even after all these years, he would not recognize me.
Since I had left Florence I had lived in peace in Milan. For the first year or so I had been with the da Vinci household, ensconced within the castle of the governor of Milan. So disturbed had I been at the fate of the Sinistro Scribe that in all that time I had not ventured beyond the castle grounds. Felipe found me a tutor among the castle staff to begin my lessons, so there was no need for me to go abro
ad. Then I heard news of the fate of Cesare Borgia. Over the last years Il Valentino had tried to raise his own army to fight to regain his dominions in the Romagna. But while doing this, the Borgia had become involved in a dispute and had died in an ambush while fighting in Navarre. His attackers left him lying naked in a ravine with twenty-five stab wounds in his body, a violent death for a man who had himself shown no mercy to others. Thus, when the Maestro eventually set up his studio in another district in the city, I felt safe enough there. I was sure that Sandino had not followed my trail to Milan, else I would have known it by then. I guessed also that Sandino would have work enough to keep him busy now. There was a plenitude of spying and intrigue between the factions of this war, enemy on enemy, ally upon ally. So, during this year, as the Pope secured most of the Romagna and allied himself with the French against Venice, my mind had rested more easily. The leather pouch around my neck had weathered until it was part of me. I never took it off. Neither did I think much of it, or what it held.
Until now.
‘They are a sorry-looking bunch of gypsies,’ the French captain said in an aside to me.
A young girl drew back the curtain and stood at the opening of their shelter.
‘Not so sorry,’ commented the stable lad, eyeing her figure.
She noted his look and stepped back into the shadow. I felt her humiliation at being appraised in such a way.
Her father made a very slight move towards the fire.
He had sensed danger and was seeking a weapon. I saw the long metal rod that held the kettle suspended over the embers. And then I saw something else.
A red scarf tied outside their shelter.
I urged my horse a few steps closer to the captain and spoke quietly. ‘He has been forced to camp here,’ I said. ‘His wife is in childbirth.’
The gypsy’s eyes flickered to my face.
From the tent came the piercing cry of the new born.
‘My wife . . .’ The Romany spoke haltingly in French. ‘She has just been delivered of a child.’
The French captain smiled. ‘A son, I hope?’
‘A girl.’
‘You have named her?’
‘Dalida.’
Dalida. A gypsy name. It meant woodland, a group of young trees by water. I looked around me. A small brook ran near the roadside. This child was well named for the place she had been born.
Suddenly I realized that the Romany was watching me. He saw that I understood the meaning of his baby’s name, in addition to the significance of the red scarf at the door of the tent. I ducked my head from his glance.
‘A girl can be as much of a blessing as a boy.’ The captain, who was not an unkind young man, took a coin from his purse and threw it down at the man’s feet. ‘Use this for her dowry.’ He glanced at the stable lad and then, conscious of his rank, he added sternly, ‘Now be gone from here. Do not be at this place when I pass this way again.’
I could hardly bear to look to see the gypsy grovel down to retrieve the money.
But he didn’t.
His two little boys ran to where the silver gleamed in the mud.
‘Leave it,’ I heard him say in his own language. He gave me a steady look. Then he raised his hand to the captain and spoke again in Romany.
The captain tipped his hat to acknowledge what he thought was the man’s thanks.
But I, who understood the man’s words, knew that he had not thanked the captain. He had laid a curse on the Frenchman for the discomfort his wife must suffer at having to move on. I turned my horse’s head away at once.
‘Thieving rabble,’ said the stable lad as we rode on. ‘They should be exterminated like the vermin they are.’
And to my own dishonour I did not disagree.
I glanced back and saw the man gather his children and go inside his tent. Within the hour they would be gone but I knew this Romany would have taken in everything about us, including the age and the markings of our horses.
He would also not forget the face of the young man who had understood his tongue and customs.
Chapter Forty-Nine
WE ARRIVED AT the farm in Kestra in the late forenoon.
Elisabetta was coming from the house carrying a basket of wet washing to hang on the drying lines. She put down her load and ran to greet me, kissing me on both cheeks as I dismounted.
I introduced her to Charles d’Enville as the stable lad took our horses to water. The French captain doffed his feathered officer’s hat and bowed with a great flourish. Then he took Elisabetta’s hand in his own and, bending his head, kissed her fingertips.
‘For shame, Matteo!’ he exclaimed. ‘To keep such a beautiful flower as this growing in the countryside when her radiance should be blooming at court in Milan.’
I looked with his eyes at the girl I had always considered as a sister and saw that with the passing years Elisabetta had grown in her beauty. Her golden hair gathered loosely at the back of her neck revealed the contours of her face, and her figure was maturing into full womanhood. Her eyes, though shadowed still, were bright beneath strong eyebrows.
At the Frenchman’s words two spots of colour came into Elisabetta cheeks. I wondered how long it had been since any man had paid her a compliment. She took us to where her uncle was talking with the owner of the neighbouring farm, a man called Baldassare. They shared an irrigation system to bring water onto their land from the river. They had their sleeves rolled up and were trying to find a break in one of the water supply pipes. Baldassare was of middle age, thick set, with a kindly open face and pleasant manner. Elisabetta’s uncle was much older, stooped and worn with hard work. They both stopped digging with their shovels as we approached.
‘Uncle’ – Elisabetta raised herself on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his leathery cheek – ‘Matteo is here to visit us and he has brought a friend who rode out with him. I would like to invite them to share our midday meal.’
Her uncle growled his agreement.
‘He does not mean to sound surly.’ Elisabetta apologized for her uncle’s lack of manners as we walked back towards the farmhouse. ‘He’s lived alone for most of his life and is awkward with visitors.’
As we sat down to eat I thought how different this would be for Charles, accustomed to the formal and ornate manners of the French court.
‘You were with the French army at Agnadello?’ Paolo had come in for his dinner. As soon as he knew the history of the stranger at the table he began to quiz him eagerly. ‘Did you see action?’
‘One does not see action,’ Charles replied seriously. ‘When one is in battle it is a more visceral experience.’
They waited for him to go on.
His gaze encountered that of Elisabetta and he hesitated.
‘You may proceed with your tale, monsieur.’ She returned his look with courage. ‘I have had some experience of such, things. My father’s keep was attacked, my parents and baby brother killed. My sister, who later died, and myself suffered grievously at the hands of the attackers.’
She had set out her life experience quite plainly for him, and waited to see how he would respond.
The chivalrous French captain did not disappoint.
‘During war men can behave like beasts,’ he said. ‘On behalf of my sex I apologize to you most sincerely. There is no need for that kind of behaviour. One can defeat, and even kill, an opponent with chivalry.’
‘Yes,’ said Paolo. ‘A knight fights for a true cause with honour.’
My friend Paolo’s mind still hankered after his boyhood ideals of the glory of combat.
Charles d’Enville sighed. ‘Alas,’ he said, ‘my experience is that true causes are rare. Men fight for greed, not glory, and fighting with honour is still a messy arid bloody business.’
I thought of my master’s fresco of the battle of Anghiari. His central scene depicting the Struggle for the Standard and the men therein. The figures straining. The warriors’ faces twisted in their death throes.
‘In a
proper war men fight nobly,’ said Paolo.
‘But it is quite horrific,’ Charles replied. ‘Although we won at Agnadello, we were lucky. I was with the cavalry under our Seigneur de Chaumont, Charles d’Amboise, and we knew the enemy army had split into two divisions as they marched to engage us. The first Venetian commander took up position on a ridge above the village. We were ordered to attack uphill and we could not breach their lines. It was raining heavily and our horses were hampered by the mud. Then our king arrived with the remainder of the French army and we fought a bloody battle, killing over four thousand of their troops and routing their cavalry. When news of this reached the other Venetian commander his mercenaries deserted.’ Charles looked at Paolo seriously. ‘If these two men had managed to combine their forces against us, we might not have prevailed.’
‘But a great victory then,’ said Paolo. ‘To defeat so many at once.’
‘Each man died a singular death,’ Charles replied gently.
‘You have brought a rarity to our table, Elisabetta,’ her uncle commented. ‘A Frenchman who talks some sense.’
Charles inclined his head. ‘I will take that as a compliment, sir.’
‘You may take it how you like,’ Elisabetta’s uncle replied shortly. He rose up from the table. ‘Now I must go and do some work.’
Elisabetta hung her head in embarrassment but Charles affected not to notice and said to Paolo, ‘I do not wish to cast gloom upon you, but I feel it only fair to warn you that a soldiering life is hard. The casualty rate is very high.’
But Paolo was not deterred by the sobriety of Charles’s comments on war. ‘You yourself were wounded and survived,’ he said. ‘Was it a most terrible wound?’
Charles stood up. ‘I see that there is nothing for it but to show you my battle honours.’ His eyes were full of mischief. He pulled open his shirt. A great ragged scar ran across his abdomen. Against his tanned flesh the scar blazed white.
Elisabetta put her hand to her mouth.
‘My battle wound never fails to impress the ladies.’ Charles winked at me.
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