Leonardo’s Shadow

by Christopher Grey

  “They have almost done our job for us,” he says. Drawing another small vial from his pouch—this time containing a blue powder—he tells me to count to twenty, and then release it into the air.

  And now he runs into the smoke.

  “Master! Take care!”

  I hear more shouts and must wipe my eyes continually to clear them.

  What is happening in there?

  Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—twenty.

  I pull off the stopper and release the contents into the air.

  As soon as the blue powder touches the cloud, it begins to disperse. Amazing! And when the fog has lifted I can see the Master standing, arms crossed, above our two adversaries, who are lying on the ground, out cold and as much entangled in the wet laundry as if they had been bound hand and foot by it.

  He removes the cloth from his face and signals for me to do the same. There is a strong smell of bad eggs. “The blue compound, when inhaled in sufficient quantities, also numbs the limbs and renders a man incapable of action,” he says, looking at me as if I would dispute the assertion.

  But I can only nod my head in wonderment.

  Then he bends down over one of them and lifts him up by his black doublet.

  “Who are you?” he says. “Where are you from? What do you want with Leonardo da Vinci?”

  The fellow’s eyes slowly open. He twists his head, tries to raise an arm. The Master shakes him.

  “Answer me!”

  But the villain’s head falls back, and once more he is senseless.

  “Help me search them, Giacomo, before the Guard arrives. We must discover what they have taken from the house and on whose orders they were acting.”

  The Master lifts the fellow once more and searches through his pockets, the purse at his belt, the lining of his cloak. I take the other. Nothing. They have been stripped of all identity.

  “If we had heard them speak,” the Master says, “the accent might have led us to their place of origin. Now we may only guess at their masters.”

  “Venetians?”

  “Perhaps. Wherever they hail from, these are no brigands, but paid agents.”

  Shouts from the end of the alley, the sounds of approaching men.

  “Come, boy, we must leave this place before we are recognized. That will only lead to more questions.”

  At the end of the alley is a fence. Several struts are missing.

  “Through there, Master, if we can make a bigger hole—”

  The Master kicks at the wood and it soon gives. We pass through—I, rather more easily than he, whose shirt brushes against the grimy, greasy wall on the other side and sets him to complaining that it will be impossible to clean.

  From there we take a roundabout route back to the house, avoiding the local folk running to the scene we have just left.

  “How did you do it, Master?” I say. “How did you create the fog?”

  He looks at me as if he did not hear.

  “Then it does work, after all,” is what he says.

  “—And the blue powder? Master?”

  “Oh, a simple combination of magnesium and—but here we are. Let us enter and inspect the damage,” the Master says.

  I pass into the house and call out: “Caterina?”

  No answer.

  While the Master goes upstairs to inspect his bedroom, I look in the kitchen.

  Caterina!

  She is laid out on the floor, a basket of laundry scattered around her.

  “Master, come quickly! Its Caterina!” I run to her and lift her head. Thank the Virgin, she is still breathing! And now she opens her eyes.

  “Giaco …”

  “Don’t speak,” I say.

  She lets her head fall back into the crook of my arm. The Master enters the room at speed and joins me at her side.

  “I did not … see them until it was too late,” she says. “One of them struck me across the head with his fist …. I fell. Forgive me, Master ….”

  “Lie quietly,” the Master says. He inspects her head. “There is a bruise, nothing that would be serious in a younger person, but you must get to your bed, Caterina, and rest.”

  “I will take her there, Master,” I say.

  I make to lift her, but she pushes away my arm and stands up on her own.

  “I’m not dead yet, boy,” she says. “Save your lifting for my coffin.”

  If her tongue has recovered, I know that the rest of her will follow soon enough.

  When she has lain down on her bed, I cover her to the chin with the blanket and say: “No more work for today.”

  “Then you must offer a prayer of forgiveness for me,” she says. “To Saint Joseph. Tell him I do not waste my time willingly.”

  Then her eyes close and she sleeps. By my dagger, I hope I will meet the one responsible for this again. I will cut more holes in him than there are stars in the night sky.

  Across the hallway, the Master is investigating the damage to his room. Everything has been overturned, and all the Master’s clothes have been pulled out of their chests. Some of them are torn.

  “Will you look at this doublet, Giacomo? Red velvet—and ruined! Where will I find the money to replace it?”

  Where will you find the money to pay for it first, Master, as I am sure you still have not!

  We descend the stairs and the Master tries the study door. Still locked.

  “Thank the Saints that your arrival prevented those devils from gaining entry to my study.”

  “What were they looking for, Master?”

  “Whatever it was, they did not find it. From now on, the front door must be kept bolted and barred at all times.”

  “Perhaps they were sent to steal your plans for the Last Supper—to delay the painting.”

  “The Last Supper is delayed well enough without outside assistance.”

  “And why is that, Master?” I couldn’t help myself. I mean, all of Milan wants to know.

  He frowns at me. Very well, I won’t persist.

  “Then will you tell the Duke, Master? He would surely provide us with an armed guard for the house.”

  “Neither the Duke nor anyone beneath him must discover what happened here. Can I trust you for once to keep your tongue under lock and key?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Do not smirk, boy. I am more than serious. This matter must not reach the ears of anyone outside this room.”

  “Yes, Master. I mean, no.”

  “The Duke may not think so, but my inventions are worth money.”

  “What is to stop whoever dispatched these villains to do us harm, from sending more of them to do the same, Master?”

  “They will find nothing of value here. I will ask Maggio to help us move certain of my materials to a safe place.”

  But what about us. Master? Where can we be moved to for our safety?

  “Do not look so put upon, Giacomo. Our enemies are unlikely to try this again, thinking that we will be better defended in the future. So, you see, it matters little whether we are or not.”

  Little to you, Master, perhaps! But I do not have your fighting skills.

  “Where did you learn how to disarm attackers, Master? You dealt with our foes like a man much versed in combat.”

  “I am keen to expand my knowledge in all matters of human understanding, Giacomo. You would be well advised to follow my example.”

  “I’ll follow you well enough, Master. You only have to show me the way.”

  And his only reply is to nod and point upstairs to his room, where I must now set about restoring order.

  X

  Two days hence, Caterina is well recovered, by the grace of God, and is once more bustling about the house, although she has taken to asking me to look under her bed and inside the chests in case the thieves have come back and are lying in wait for her. But it looks as though the Master was right: since then, no one uninvited has come to our house—except one of Father Vicenzo’s priests, to ask why the Master had not be
en seen at Santa Maria. But I got rid of him easily enough.

  Yesterday, Maggio arrived with his cart, and he and the Master loaded it with several wooden boxes taken from the study. Because the Master did not ask for my assistance in the packing, I can only conclude that he did not want me to see what was in them.

  Caterina tells me she’ll be at the game tonight, and to look after my own supper. What game? Dice, of course. Milan’s most popular pastime, after wine-drinking, lechery, feasting, fighting, and sleeping. Is it a sin for an old lady to roll the bones? Ask her confessor, Father Cristofano, who is often seen at the same game.

  “I’ll pray for your good luck,” I say.

  “Pray for my forgiveness, Giacomo, even though I do not think the Virgin would begrudge me an hour of idle time, if she is watching. And if you are watching me, Mary, mother of us all, and I know you are because you see everything, please guide my hand to throw some sixes so that I do not lose my savings, and please forgive me before I play, because I will play (that’s for sure), and please forgive me after I play, because I will have played (and that’s for certain)—I must play, I have to buy one of those holy crosses for sale by Father Benito, the ones the Pope himself has blessed. And I know, dearest Mother Mary, that in your heart you want me to win. Because if I don’t, all the crosses will have been sold, and I believe it is a sin to say you are going to buy such a holy cross and then fail to buy it….”

  Caterina’s collection of crosses would rival any cardinals.

  Then I hear that voice again. Which I’ve been ignoring.

  “Giacomo, how many more times must I call for you?”

  Caterina clasps her hands and closes her eyes in prayer. Wherever the Madonna is, she cannot but be moved by the old woman’s entreaties.

  I hasten to the study.

  “Enter.”

  Should I go in with the broom, to make it look as if I’ve been working?

  “I said: ‘Enter’! What are you doing out there, boy?”

  No, I’ll leave it outside.

  “Master?”

  He is at his desk with the sloping top, scraping with his quill. Oh, he’s writing backwards again, from right to left, a trick he sometimes uses to conceal his most secret thoughts. Impossible to read, I’ve tried it.

  I stand at attention, waiting for him to look up. Meanwhile, I breathe in and out very quickly to give him the impression I have been working hard.

  Now he sees me. But he doesn’t seem to notice how hard I’ve been working. Ah, well.

  “I have received a complaint about you.”

  Another servant, no doubt. They’re a bitter lot, servants.

  “Ugo Trocchi’s footman claims that you stole money from his purse while he was in a tavern celebrating the Feast of Saint Michael.”

  Another servant! I knew it.

  “Have you been drinking again?”

  “Master, why listen to a footman’s story? He has his brains in his feet.”

  “I am waiting for an explanation.”

  Explanation? Messer Trocchi’s servant should be the one explaining himself, not me. The skull looks up at me with its curious grin. You’re in it again, boy!

  “Master, he spoke ill of you. I could not let it pass.”

  “Me? What have I to do with this? You are accused of stealing.”

  Master, why do you always take the word of my accusers? When one of your students claimed that I had stolen his horse and ridden it to Novara, you believed him before me. But it was not I who took the beast, it was his brother, who confessed in the end.

  “Why do you not answer, boy?”

  Why should I? You never listen.

  “Giacomo, how can I have trust in you when I receive such accusations? It is not the first time.”

  Master, how can you not trust me when every accusation has proved groundless?

  “Answer me!”

  His face betrays no feeling, but I can see his jaw working, a sure sign he is trying to control his anger. I have gone too far into this river now, and it is easier to wade to the other side than return whence I came.

  “Master”—I take a deep breath—“this footman insulted you.”

  “What? What did he say?”

  “That Felloni and Capponi were twice the painters you are, Master.”

  My master’s face is now as stretched and white as dough before baking.

  I wait for him to say something. Anything!

  Nothing.

  So I add: “Because they always finish what they start.”

  He knows what I mean. The Last Supper.

  He snorts. “What they start is not worth finishing.”

  A dog barks. The Master and I stare at each other.

  “Is that all, then, Master?”

  “Did you steal the footman’s purse, Giacomo?”

  Can’t he see that the real complaint is against him, not me?

  “Yes, Master.” If that’s what you want to hear.

  “Yes? You did steal it?”

  Does it matter what I say? You always think the worst.

  “I do not believe you,” he says.

  Yes, he doesn’t believe me. No, he doesn’t believe me.

  After all this time, if he can’t see my loyalty, can’t he feel it?

  Now I wish I had stolen it. Instead of defending the Master’s name and then having to run like a hare to avoid a beating from the fat footman and his four friends. But why should I bother about his reputation, when he cares so little for it himself?

  “You are an idle, insolent, ungrateful knave, and you do not deserve to live under my roof. Now go.”

  I must say something—I have to say something. I won’t suffer any more of his insults. But, as they have done before, the words I need confound me and will not come out.

  I turn and leave in haste, almost hurtling headlong into Caterina coming out of the kitchen, and to avoid explanations—I feel now as if I might shed tears of fury—I go directly to the front door, unbolt it, and run out into the open.

  “Giacomo!” Caterina’s voice follows me down the street. “Giacomo! Where are you going?”

  Out. Away. Anywhere far from him.

  I run towards the city walls, past the fine houses of the Visconti and Ricci families—so big we call them palazzi, palaces—with their four floors and flower-filled balconies and front doors fretted in bronze and silver, and straight on to the Vercellina Gate, where there is a long line of merchants waiting to bring their goods into the city for sale.

  I slow down to a walk to watch all the activity.

  It was a wise decision by our ancient city fathers to build seven gates in the city walls, to ease the flow of people and goods entering our city. Everyone who brings merchandise for sale here must pay a tax, and everything must first be inspected and valued at one of the gates.

  Our city has more than 150,000 inhabitants now, bigger than Rome, Venice, or Florence, and we trade in everything on God’s Earth. Fine leathers from Tunis in Africa. Ivory tusks, ostrich feathers, and turtles’ eggs from the Barbary Coast. Pots and urns from Majorca. Maps from Barcelona. And Messer Boccanera, who sells animals from the lands far beyond our seas, has a monkey with white fur that can climb a tree in three bounds.

  The line leaving the city is shorter, because there are no goods to tax, and soon enough I am crossing through the gate, which has a high watchtower built above it, manned day and night. Beyond that is the bridge over the wide moat that runs the full circle of our city, filled with the green water and plentiful wriggling eels of the Ticino River.

  At last I have left the city walls behind and can breathe again.

  Blessed Nature! How may I describe the beauty of our countryside to you?

  To the north stands the great oak forest and, leading off towards the horizon, field after field in various hues of yellow and brown, the hedgerows dividing them up like squares on a chessboard, with elms and poplars standing here and there like scattered chessmen. The air is perfumed with the heavy sc
ent of wild roses, ripe olives, lush blackberries—so rich it makes your head spin. If you look up, you might see in the sky, dipping and diving between the very currents of the air, a falcon with a fiery crest. The whole valley, the whole world, seems to welcome me as a friend—just the opposite of how I feel back home.

  Autumn has carpeted the earth with red and gold, but even now the leaves are turning brown, the dull color of winter. I run directly to Santa Maria delle Grazie, which has a cloistered garden with a fountain at its center that is incomparable for soothing my distemper. The only sound is the water trickling from the head of the fountain, a fish’s generous open mouth. Carved stone benches line the walls. It is so peaceful. I breathe deeply and try not to think about my master’s accusations. But how can I not? He has been after me for imagined offenses ever since I have been his servant.

  I close my eyes and listen to the silence.

  All I want is to learn how to paint. But all he wants is to accuse me of villainy. We have a long journey ahead of us if we are to meet in the middle. If I was his son, and not his servant, would it be any different? Would he show me the skills he learned at the foot of his own teacher, Verrocchio, in Florence? Or would he still dismiss me when I asked? I must be somebody’s son. If a rat or a dog has parents, where are mine? Always the same question, but asking it never brings an answer.

  I take some paper and a stick of charcoal from my jerkin pocket and begin to sketch a rose. Drawing calms me and allows me to think clearly.

  “What are you doing here, Giacomo?”

  That voice.

  “Father Vicenzo?”

  He is standing behind me. The snake always sees you first.

  “Where is your master, boy?”

  “At home.”

  “Then why are you not there, too?”

  The prior walks round in front of me. I get up quickly.

  “Did you argue with him?” he says.

  “No, father. I came here to rest.”

  “There is no rest for the ungodly. Confess to me your sins.”

  “What sins?”

  “The sins of the flesh. One half of a young man is desire, and the rest of him is devoted to satisfying it. Have you ever had impure thoughts?”