And before I know it I am once more outside the main Castle gates.
XVI
Whatever I dream of that night passes through my head like a bird through a roofless house, and the next thing I hear is—
“Giacomo! Wake up, lad!”
“Mmm?”
“Hurry up, you’re late. He’s waiting for you in the kitchen!”
“Caterina? Where am—?”
“Still in your bed, but you’d better be out of it soon enough, unless you want the Master to shake you out of it!”
“Oh, Caterina, I have slept too much!”
“You have drunk too much, that’s the fault of it! Here, eat this crust. Now hurry!”
What happened last night?
Oh yes. Oh dear. Oh God.
I had stumbled towards home, but instead of going straight there I went to the Seven Knaves for a cup of wine. One became two, three, four. Well, I was all shaken up by the Duke and his threat. Shaken up? The business with the Medusa had petrified me. After the third cup I was about ready to make a run for it and leave Milan behind forever. But then I thought of the Master. I couldn’t just leave him—not now, when he needs me here more than ever. But I have to find his invention and inform the Duke. Great Heaven, I have only a week to do it!
I make haste to dress, falling over twice in the attempt, and when at last I have managed to put on my shirt the right way round, I run to the kitchen. The Master is there and ready for work in the old hose and shirt that he uses for painting. He looks cheerful, well rested, and with a clear brow. I hate him for all of that.
“Now then,” he says, “you are late. But I will say nothing about that.”
“You just did, Master.”
“Don’t answer back, boy.”
“Then I’ll speak first.” My blood is boiling now, and last night’s drink only increases the heat. “You sent me innocently to the Duke with a horrifying portrait of the Medusa. At the Castle I was beaten almost senseless by a guard. And when the Duke saw the painting he was driven to a frenzy—”
“He was? Good.”
“Good! Goooood? Master, I might have been killed for the offense!”
“The Duke will not harm Leonardo da Vinci’s servant. Do you think I would have sent you if I thought he might?”
“You don’t know everything that might happen, Master, although you may think you do.”
“What do you mean by that, impertinent boy?”
“Nothing.”
I have to sit down on the kitchen bench. My head is threatening to fall off my shoulders. Curse him, if he will not show some kindness after playing such a trick on me.
“Why did you send me to the Duke with the Medusa?” I say at last.
“Because I wished him to see it, boy.”
“The whole court knows that by now—but why?”
He sits down on the opposite side of the kitchen table. “Why? Ill tell you why, boy: for everything that has gone from bad to worse in Milan. For the humiliating way he now treats me, when before he showed me some respect. And for sending away Cecilia, and replacing her with … the other one.”
“Are those reasons enough to place me in peril?”
“I did not think it would be so, or I would not have sent you.”
“The Duke is furious with us both.”
“If the Duke is not furious with someone once a day, he considers the time ill spent. Never fear. I will deliver his Lucrezia, take back the Medusa, and all will be well.”
“Master, the Duke is not planning to return the Medusa to you.”
“No? So much the better. Let him look on her and contemplate his folly. Now then, the day is wasting. You seem well enough, in spite of last night’s drinking. Get you to Messer Tombi with the order I have left on my table and meet me at Santa Maria with what you receive from him.”
The Master sets to work on the food in front of him.
“And bring me some carrots, while you’re at it,” Caterina says, coming in too quickly. She was listening to everything outside the door.
Is that all he has to say to me? No apology? No sympathy? Not an ounce of feeling? Very well, then, I’ll do the Duke’s bidding, with no regrets and in good time, too.
“Master …”
“What now, boy?”
“That invention you were working on—”
“Which invention?”
“The one the thieves came to our house looking for.”
“I told you, Giacomo, I do not know what they were looking for.”
“Have you given it to Maggio for safekeeping?”
“There is nothing to keep safe.”
“But you dispatched certain boxes to him.”
“Old models, too many of them to keep here. Now, off you go.”
“And remember my carrots, Giacomo, two pounds.”
“You already told me, Caterina.”
“Well then, so I did. And don’t forget my carrots.”
Two pounds of carrots, one pounding on the head, and six ounces of nothing for my pains. Is it because I am his servant that he treats me like a fool, or because I am me?
I enter his study and take the first paper I see on the table. Only when I am outside the house do I learn that I have made a mistake. It is not an order for Tombi, it is a letter—and the seal is broken. I open it, and instead of seeing the names of colors, I am reading a letter to my master … from Cecilia Gallerani.
Leonardo, dearest friend—
I write to tell you that I will come to Milan in early spring, while my husband is traveling in the south. It Will bring me such joy to see you again after so many years; we have much to talk about. And I do want to see the progress of our Giacomo! He must Be a young man by now, a fine young man, if he has had the benefit of my Leonardo’s stewardship.
I have a request, dear Leonardo, and beseech you to fulfill it for me. I very much desire to take possession of my portrait. It is more than a painting—it is both a memory and a part of me that must be reunited with. I am hopeful that you will persuade the Duke to part with it freely and without conditions. I need to have the painting near me, Leonardo, where I can see it every day. I cannot explain why, except to tell you that I find I can no longer live without it.
I will send word again of my arrival!
Cecilia Gallerani Bergamini
Cecilia is coming to Milan! She is coming to see me—and my master, too, of course. The thought of her arrival starts a strange pulse beating in my veins. I knew it would happen one day. I knew it! A fine young man, she writes. But more than that, she calls me “our” Giacomo. Our Giacomo? What does she mean by that—what?
I spin around and head back home.
“Did you read it?” the Master says, when I have explained my error.
What’s the point in lying? “Yes, Master. Isn’t it wonderful that Cecilia is coming—?”
“The Lady Cecilia to you, boy. She calls you ‘a fine young man,’ does she not? And fine young men do not read others’ letters.”
“Master, what does the Lady Cecilia mean by ‘our’ Giacomo?”
“Eh?”
“She calls me our Giacomo.’ Why, Master?”
He hesitates. Presses his lips together. Picks up a pen and pretends to write.
“It’s a figure of speech, boy. She takes an interest in you, is all.”
“I see, Master.”
I see that you’re not telling me everything. But I will discover it, I surely will.
He hands me the order for Tombi and off I go again.
As soon as I have pulled open the heavy, iron-fretted door that permits entry to his shop, Tombi asks me whether I have found the alchemist I saw being borne to the Castle.
And I tell him that I have not, even though I have been there twice now on the Master’s business. “But I have learned that there is a French army preparing to invade us, and that must be why the alchemist has been summoned to Milan.”
“Yes, that may be it,” Tombi says.
“What will the Duke require of this alchemist, do you think?” I ask.
“A great alchemist can do many things beyond the reach of ordinary men. He may see into the future—”
“Oh, Messer Tombi, I must find him and show him my medallion. I feel sure there is an important reason I possess it.”
“You must take great care, Giacomo, should you meet this person. He will be a man of considerable power, and such men are apt to display it in unexpected ways.”
I hand Tombi the Master’s order.
“This is a long list,” he says. “Are you confident that he will pay me as soon as the Last Supper is finished?”
“So he says, Messer Tombi. On completion of the painting he will receive five hundred ducats from the Dominicans.”
“But how can I be sure he will pay me what he owes?”
And that is a question I cannot answer with any certainty.
“Because I have been thinking,” Tombi says. “If you can assure me that I will be paid first, before all the others, then I will promise something to you in return.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“If you will bring me the money your master owes, as soon as he receives it, I will help you.”
“How, Messer Tombi?”
“I will teach you my art: the art of colors.”
“Colors? What—paints?”
He nods. “I will teach you the origin, composition, and use of colored pigments.”
Is it possible? Will he really teach me about colors?
“I-I don’t know how to thank you, Messer Tombi.”
“Bring me my money, boy. That’s all the thanks I need. Let’s start today, shall we?”
He walks to the doorway leading to the interior of the house and pulls aside the heavy curtain. He beckons me to enter. I hesitate. Can I be sure the Master will give me the money he owes the apothecary?
“Are you coming, Giacomo?”
I’ll get it somehow. This is my chance. It might be the only one.
Tombi waves me through into a room I have never seen before.
The heavy curtain falls back behind me and I am in another world.
A waxy yellow light glows dimly from a large glass egg almost the size of a wine cask, squatting on a metal stand, heated from below by a wick in a bowl of fat. Inside the egg are several chambers connected by glass tubes, and in these chambers colored liquids bubble and froth.
On the large table in the middle of the room there is a set of scales, various small silver dishes filled with powders and crystals, and measuring cups.
Very curious. But I quell my desire to question Messer Tombi further, because he has already started speaking: “The seven major colors correspond to the seven major planets in the cosmos: orange, indigo, red, blue, green, yellow, violet. We must distinguish between those pigments that occur naturally in nature—in rocks, plants, and earth—and those that we must make ourselves by combining and treating minerals, salts, and other elements.”
My first lesson in paint has begun.
Some two or more hours later (I lost track of time, forgot all about Caterina’s carrots) I emerge from the apothecary’s shop in a state of great excitement. I have learned so much! For my first lesson, Tombi chose the color black. Together we made charcoal by cooking grape vine twigs in little bundles in a baking dish until they were burned, at which time we threw water on them and ground the remains.
Then Messer Tombi showed me how to “work up” a color. He brought out a square slab of veined rock that looked like marble but was red porphyry, the best stone on which to grind colors, according to him. Taking a nut-sized portion of the black charcoal we had made from the vine twigs, he then gave me a smaller piece of porphyry and instructed me to grind the color against the slab with it. And when this was done, he told me to take some water from a nearby jar and mix it with the powder, and then to continue grinding for another half an hour.
“The longer you grind the color, the more its true self emerges,” he said.
Finally, when my arm was aching from the to-and-fro, he bade me scrape the moist powder (for I was adding a small amount of water every now and then) and put it into a little jar, adding more water, until the jar was full; then I put the stopper in and lodged the jar among many others in a rack inside a cabinet.
The apothecary declared himself pleased with my work, because there were no lumps in the black, and he sent me on my way with the colors—Malachite, Indigo, Ultramarine Blue, among others—for my master. He laughed (a kind of soft growling, like a dreaming dog) when I said I did not want to go home again, but preferred to stay with him where I could learn more. He almost had to push me out of the shop.
“I will teach you all I know about colors,” he said. “But your master will have to teach you how to paint with them.”
“I will be waiting a long time for that lesson.”
“Maybe your waiting will end sooner than you know, lad.”
“Why, Messer Tombi, do you know something?”
“I know that you are a willing student,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say. “And when may I come for my next lesson?”
XVII
Today I must begin my search for the Master’s invention in earnest.
There is no evidence of it in the house, and the study door has been locked ever since the thieves paid us a visit.
Where to look?
The place to start has to be Maggio’s workshop, which sits in a street close to the main city hospital. He does a good trade in coffins. If you fall ill and are sent to the hospital, they say you won’t leave unless it is in one of Bernardo’s boxes.
I reach the workshop and throw open the two heavy doors with MAGGIO skillfully carved across them. Inside, a dozen carpenters are hard at it, sawing, hammering, and planing. All sorts of objects are being constructed: chairs, tables, cabinets, chests—three new houses are being built in Milan every day, and Maggio is as busy as he wants to be. But he always finds time to work for Leonardo da Vinci. Even if most of the work is still unpaid. Oh, Renzo is a lucky fellow indeed to be offered an apprenticeship here.
I take in everything around me, but can see nothing out of the ordinary. Maggio is in a corner of the room, bent over a large table covered with drawings, talking to two of his men. A gray cat is asleep underneath, its tail twitching now and then.
Maggio looks up and sees me coming towards him.
“Giacomo? What is it? Does your master need something?”
“Oh no, sir, I was looking for Renzo.”
He sends his men away and places a board over the drawings. And a heavy wooden mallet on top of that. There is something important under there.
“I haven’t seen him all day,” he says, “and I’ve been calling for him, too. Ever since I offered him an apprenticeship, he’s forgotten his duties.”
“He is very eager to start learning the trade, Messer Maggio.”
“Perhaps that is it. No one wants to deal with the old when the new beckons, eh?”
Then one of his craftsmen asks him to inspect a cabinet.
“Wait here, lad, I have something you can take back to your master, if you will.”
As soon as Maggio has crossed the workshop floor, I try to see the drawings he has hidden under the board. One of them is not well covered. I’ll assume an air of innocence and give the corner a tug … just a bit more … aha! It’s a drawing by the Master….
But what in the name of the martyred Saints is it?
Long and curved like an archer’s bow, filled with many thin struts, and pointed at the end—it looks like a wing, like a bat’s wing! Amazing—
“Giacomo? What are you doing?”
I nudge the cat with my foot and it leaps up.
“Oh, Messer Maggio, this—your cat has taken a liking to my legs and wrapped itself around—”
“What? Bobo? What are you doing to the boy, infamous creature? Leave him alone!”
“No harm done, sir, a lovely c
at, very bushy tail, you could clean a chimney with that tail, you could.”
Then, with a mighty thrust of its solid furry legs, Bobo jumps up onto Maggio’s table, knocking over the mallet and causing the wooden board to slip and slide its way off the table.
Maggio tries to catch the cat, and while I make a pretense of aiding him, I take a good look at the now exposed drawing.
Not one bat’s wing, two.
And beneath them, attached to them, supporting them, and in turn supported by them, some kind of open box.
With a seat.
With a man sitting in it.
“Saint Francis, Messer Maggio, you and my master—”
I clamp my lips shut. Almost let that tongue out of its trap again.
Maggio has now gathered up the drawings and secured them once more under the board.
“I and your master what” he says.
“Are the most excellent craftsmen in all Milan!”
“Indeed! Well, I thank you, Giacomo, but I prefer not to hear compliments. They are always followed by misfortune. Now, please take this piece of wood to your master and tell him it is fir tree and light enough, so I believe.”
“It is light, indeed, sir. For what purpose?”
“Oh, a new panel for a painting.”
I nod and smile. A panel for a painting. Ha! Too light for that. This wood is to be used for that bat’s wing, or I’m a pickled egg.
When Maggio opens the doors to let me out, the wind seizes its moment to enter the workshop and whip up the wood shavings and sawdust into a whirl.
The doors are swiftly closed behind me.
Two wings, one man, and no more explanation necessary.
The Master and Maggio are building a flying machine.
“A flying machine!” I say out loud.
The words sound as impossible to my ears as the drawings seemed to my eyes. How can a man rise from the earth like a bird on wings, when he is scarce able to jump more than a chair’s height off the ground? It would be necessary to create a source of power equal to that which lifts a bird, which is a creature that even of the largest kind weighs no more than a mans two legs, and whose wings are stronger than any mans two arms. The Master has been studying the flight of birds for many years. He has written hundreds of pages on the subject. This is what it was all leading to!
Leonardo’s Shadow Page 11
