“Good evening, Giacomo,” Tommaso says. “Taking the air?”
“Giac, Giac, Giacomo!”
“Shut up, Filippo.”
I reach for my dagger.
By all the Saints, it’s not there! I forgot to wear it today!
I stand up, my back to the tree, and wait for my enemies to draw closer.
I will not go wherever I am sent, be it Heaven’s bright halls or Hell’s burning fires, without a fight.
“What is it you want?” I say.
“Only what you owe,” Marcantonio says. “Your life.”
“I owe my life to God alone,” I say.
“Your death is what God will get,” Tommaso says. “A suitable gift from a peasant who will never have anything else of value.”
The cold night air rakes a claw across my cheek, but I am sweating, either from fear or eagerness to start the fight, although I suspect the former.
“Kneel, Giacomo,” Simone says. “Kneel and take your punishment.”
“Never.”
“If you don’t do it willingly,” Tommaso says, “you’ll do it anyway.”
“I prefer to die.”
Filippo says: “Oh, you’ll die, all right. But not until we say so.”
At a nod from Tommaso, they rush me. I land a solid blow under Filippo’s jaw with the flat of my hand. He falls away. Simone, the half-wit, starts laughing at that; I use the moment to kick him between the legs. He gasps and doubles over. Tommaso has crept behind me and now catches hold of my arms, but he has come too close and I butt him with the back of my head, grazing his chin—
He lets out a roar of dismay.
“You urchin!” He wraps a forearm around my neck and pulls tight. “I’ll make you hurt for that.”
Though I can scarce breathe, these words fill me with alarm and set me to work swinging and kicking with all my might. Little use in that, however; with Tommaso on my back they have soon pulled me down to the ground. My arms and legs are held apart like a staked animal.
I cannot move.
The wine they have already consumed comes off them in hot, foul-smelling gusts. Marcantonio’s face floats above me; he wrenches back my head until I think my neck will break. I twist and spit in his eye. Got him! He slams my head to the ground.
“Tommaso, I want him dead—now,” he says, wiping his face.
“Somebody—help! Help!” The only response is the sound of a window being shuttered. “Summon the Nightwatch!”
My fear is gaining mastery over me, my legs and arms have lost all their strength. I twist and turn, but they have too many hands. A heavy knee comes down like the blacksmith’s hammer on my back.
“Someone! Some—”
A kick to my side and my ribs twang like lute strings, knocking the breath out. There is no more struggle left in me. I am done. I lie still.
“Pull him up, boys, and let’s see him beg for his life,” Tommaso says.
Filippo and Simone take hold under my arms and haul me onto my knees.
Dear God, forgive me for my sins and for all my—
“Leave him be, you sacks of toad venom!”
Eh? I raise my head. Instead of letting me die, God has sent me a vision of my friend Renzo. I blink once, twice. He’s coming towards me. It is him! My friend is here to save me!
Tommaso’s cronies are so taken aback that they drop my arms and freeze. Meanwhile, I get to my feet and, clutching my sides, stagger towards Renzo.
Tommaso recovers first. “Draw your rapiers, gentlemen,” he says, “and let us skewer these pieces of rough meat!”
“No weapons,” Renzo says. “Fight hand to hand, like men, if you are men, which I am not yet inclined to believe, when you can set four onto one and call it sport.”
“Well, well—we’ll sheathe,” Tommaso says. “Simone, give me a hand breaking the head of this villainous clown. Marcantonio, you and Filippo stifle Giacomo until I am ready for him.”
Renzo curses and spits. “Remember Saint Michael’s Day, Giacomo,” he says, “and show them that servants are made of stronger stuff than they know!”
Tommaso shouts: “Come, gentlemen, for the Duke and our family honor, let us send the peasants crawling back to their sties!”
We meet them in the middle of the square, man on man, and they are more than us, but we are many in spirit.
Marcantonio roars at me and charges, but I know him now for a rash opponent and quickly move aside, giving his thigh a furious kick as I do. He cries out and falls. Filippo, who already received a jaw blow from me, is more wary. He picks up a stone and moves in a circle, waiting to strike.
But a more thrilling fight is taking place a few paces hence.
Tommaso is as well-proportioned as a thoroughbred horse. Renzo is tall and skinny, a human ferret. When they have at each other, Tommaso has the sinew and the straight back, but Renzo has the quick and unerring strike of the rat killer. After exchanging several glancing blows, they set to grappling. Tommaso tries to twist Renzo’s head off his shoulders, Renzo answers that with an elbow in Tommaso’s gut—he staggers—Renzo turns, and without further hesitation calmly jabs his thumbs into Tommaso’s eyes—sending him backwards, screaming.
Simone waits neither to help Tommaso nor to see what tortures Renzo may have in store for him; he turns and runs like a proper gentleman, which is to say, like any fearful peasant.
Renzo laughs. And that makes me smile. I haven’t smiled for hours, and it feels exceedingly good. My friend is back!
As soon as Marcantonio and Filippo see what has happened to Tommaso, they too retreat like whipped dogs and, each taking a separate point of the compass, disappear into the shadows.
Tommaso, meanwhile, is on his knees, still cupping his eyes.
“I’ll have you both murdered!” he shouts into the air.
Renzo laughs. “No, you won’t,” he says. And he kicks Tommaso in the behind, toppling him to the ground, where he remains.
“Leave my friend in peace,” Renzo says, leaning over him, “or I will leave you in pieces, so help me God.”
There is no sound from Tommaso, who has always loved the sound of his own voice. He is either too scared or too hurt to respond.
And then we hear—
“Hold right there, you two! The Nightwatch commands it, in the name of the Duke!”
Someone did summon them, after all. Milan is full of surprises. But they re too late to help me. As the old saying goes: The Nightwatch is never at hand when you need it, and always ready to lay a hand on you when you don’t.
They’ve brought the hounds with them, too, by the frenzied baying and barking I can hear on the other side of the square.
Renzo lifts his legs and I follow his example. We run into the darkness.
If they catch us, there wont be any excuse we can make to save our hides. All we can hope for is that Tommaso keeps his mouth shut. I think he will. He’ll say he was set upon by two robbers, rather than risk having his throat slit later by my friend.
Now Renzo is pulling my arm—Which way? Over there, then, down that alley—another twenty paces, and—a high wall. No way out!
They are almost on our backs—we can hear shouts, barks, wild oaths—
I’ll try this doorway. Come on, open up, curse you!
We put our shoulders to the door and it cracks open just as the Nightwatch enters the alley. We leap in.
Blackness.
Voices outside.
“Did they go down this one?”
“I didn’t see. Tonio, go and look.”
“Yes, chief.”
Footsteps passing by. A dog panting.
“Do you smell ’em, boy? Get em, Duke! Tear their legs off!”
Angels of grace defend us, they are on the other side of the door! The dog is barking and scraping at it with his paw—
“What’s that, eh, boy? Are they in there?”
“Have you got them, Tonio?”
“Hold on, chief! Ach, you stupid animal, leave that alone
! He’s only gone and found an old bone! Come off that, you brute!”
The dog lets out a whine. A kick in the ribs, must be. I know what that feels like now.
“Then get yourself and that idiot dog back here and let’s finish our rounds.”
“What about the lad with the bloody eyes?”
“Taken home to his father. Who knows if—”
I miss the rest; they are too far away.
We listen until the night silence has once more been restored.
Only then do we open the door.
When we are safely away, I take my friend’s hand and say: “Thank you, Renzo. If I have ever said a bad word against you—and I fear I have, God forgive me—I take them all back twice on my own head. You saved my life tonight.”
“It was an honor to be of service, my lord,” Renzo says, bowing low with a flourish.
“Can you jest so soon after a fight almost to the death?” I say.
“Why not? Life is a comedy, Giacomo. We should all laugh before we die.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that in doing you harm I did you good.”
“What? What harm were you doing me? I owe you my life!”
He looks away. “It was not by chance that our paths crossed tonight.”
“It wasn’t? Then you’d better tell me the truth,” I say.
And when he turns to face me again, I see—guilt. But for what, and why?
“The truth, then,” he says. “Though I wish it were a lie.”
The night air seems warmer now, but the sweat drying on my back wraps a chill around my whole body. My ribs are aching, and I can barely move my right arm. But I must listen. As we walk home, he tells me the story.
“I was in a tavern, couple of months ago. The Upside Down, you know it? I’d drunk too much. This girl comes up to me and we talk. Now I often get girls coming up to me, as you know, so I thought nothing of it. God’s blood, Giacomo, she was a witch or something; she had spells I could not resist. By the next day I was hopelessly in love. And I’m the one the girls fall in love with, not the other way round. We saw each other every day. She made promises to me. Lured me in until I said I’d do anything for her. And then, when she knew she had me, she told me that she worked for the Duke. And that he wanted to offer me employment. Giacomo, I was so in love—”
“You’ve been recruited to work for the Duke?”
“I have. I’m one of his men now. I’m a spy.”
“A spy? Great Heaven, Renzo, that’s a step up from servant!”
We stop at the Goldoni Fountain and Renzo scoops up some water to drink.
“And my first order was to spy on you, may God forgive me.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Because you are the servant of Leonardo da Vinci.”
“No, Renzo, no! You wouldn’t! I won’t believe it!”
“That’s how I saved you from those cowards tonight. Because I was on your tail. I’ve been watching you for weeks.”
“But—me, Renzo? My master? Why?”
“To find out what it was your master had invented. And whether he planned to sell it to the French.”
“So it was you I saw on the roof of the Lazaretto.”
He nods. “Instead of meeting you for knife practice, I followed you. And you found what the Duke was looking for.”
“You told the Duke—”
“Yes.”
“How could you, Renzo?”
“How could I not? It was the Duke’s command. Who can refuse him?”
“And you’ve been following me all this time?”
“Oh, Giacomo, you cannot know how confusing these past months have been for me. Whenever I thought of telling you—and I wanted to, every day—the girl seemed to sense it and twisted me around until I forgot everything except her. She told me she loved me. I could not resist her. I still can’t. I would die for her—even now, if she asked me. By God, I would kill myself if she told me to!”
“And she was more important than our friendship,” I say.
“Try to understand. Please, Giacomo.”
“But you were spying on me—and my master.”
“I had to, don’t you see?”
“No, Renzo, in God’s name, I don’t.”
“Well, don’t forget I saved your life tonight.”
“I won’t. But you might have been the cause of my death, too, if my master had been working for the French.”
Renzo just nods and hangs his head.
We walk together some more.
“And the girl?” I say.
“Gone. I was work to her, nothing more. The Duke has sent her elsewhere.”
We walk the rest of the way to Bernardo Maggio’s house in silence, and with every step I feel my resentment melting away. He is still my friend, whatever has happened.
“Tomorrow I leave Milan,” he says. “I will make my way behind the French lines, to report back to the Duke’s spymaster on their position and movements. My life is no longer my own, Giacomo. I swore an oath until death.”
“Renzo—”
“Yes?”
“I may never see you again.”
“Forgive me, then,” he says, “in case you don’t.”
“I have already. We were once the best of friends.”
“You will always be my friend, Giacomo. Don’t forget me.”
“Nor you me,” I say. “Milan will not be the same without you.”
“Oh, it will,” he says. “I am the one who will not be the same.”
It is true. Renzo’s life is changed forever. Not in the way I was expecting, but in the way that it was destined.
And what is my destiny? Is it art—or something else? Ottavio Assanti holds the answer to that, I think.
We embrace quickly, and Renzo turns away.
When the door is closed behind him, I head for home.
Our house is quiet. The Master has not returned.
And now I am tired. So very tired.
What a night.
I surrender myself to what remains of it and fall into a deep sleep.
XXXVI
“Giacomo! Giacomo? Where are you, boy? I’ve been calling forever!”
The Master!—and—yes, where am I? Still in bed. The sun is pressing soft fingers through my small window. Saint Michael, how my ribs ache.
“Coming, Master, coming!”
I run out of my room, trip over the broom I forgot to put away, and hop on one leg along the corridor until I regain my balance—right in front of the Master coming out of the kitchen.
“What games are you playing now, boy?”
“Um, nothing, Master.”
He is looking very—very—pleased with himself. A new commission, perhaps? A medal from the Duke? He’s got a smile wide enough to drive an ox and cart through.
He takes me by the shoulders, shakes me a bit.
“I’ve got something to tell you!”
“M-master?”
“I worked all night, you know!”
“You d-d-did?”
He releases me.
“Now what day is it?” he says.
“Mid-March. The fourteenth.”
“March the fourteenth, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, four hundred, and ninety-eight! What an auspicious day, what a glorious month—what a year! The Last Supper is finished! I am done!”
“Oh, Master, is it true? Really? This is the best news! When can I see it?”
“Soon, boy, soon. My trial is at an end. And I am free. Now it is up to God and the weather.”
“… God and the weather?”
“They will be jointly responsible for keeping the wall dry enough to hold the paint until we are safely out of Milan.”
“Is the Last Supper in that much danger, Master?”
“It will not stain for a few years—five, maybe ten. But by the middle of the next century, boy, it will be a bigger miracle than Jesus’ resurrection if the faces in my painting still look like faces,
let alone the faces of Benedetti, Fazio, and, and … and I am hungry, Giacomo, what do we have?”
I go to the kitchen to find food for the great Leonardo da Vinci. Margareta, that good and kind woman, left us a pie early this morning. Still warm, too. And on the table there is cheese and bread, tomatoes, apples, and pears.
He has settled in his study.
I take the pie and some fruit to him, and he is soon hard at it. I watch him eating. After a while, he looks up.
“You know, Giacomo, I had my doubts about finishing it.”
We all did, Master.
“My doubts about whether it should have been finished, I mean, given that it is not going to remain in the best condition for very long.” He sighs. “But we’ll let those who come after us worry themselves about that, eh? We have enough to think on. Oh, and—”
He puts down his knife and smiles.
“—Have you seen Father Vicenzo recently?”
“Not for weeks, Master.”
“I have. Been seeing quite a lot of him. Every day, in fact. You know why that is?”
Not until you tell me, Master.
“Because—ha! Because I have used his face as the model for Judas!”
The Master slaps the table and bursts into laughter.
I have to smile, too. It’s a fate worse than anything I could have dreamed up for him. Apart from being eaten alive by wild boars. And that might still happen, if I pray hard enough.
And now I must ask, though I fear the answer—“Tell me, Master, whose likeness did you use for Jesus?”
Did he take the Duke’s suggestion? He could not be blamed for it afterwards, having been given permission, even if it was given in jest. And it would be a way of thanking me for my efforts, without actually having to thank me, which I know only too well is difficult for the Master.
“Ah, yes, the face of Jesus.”
Is it me, Master? Is it?
He stops to cut up an apple and raises a piece to his mouth. Puts it back on the plate. Then he says: “For the face of Jesus I chose someone—someone whose true closeness to me must never be revealed.”
Whose true closeness … must never be revealed? It’s me—it has to be me! Of course! I am the Master’s son—and it must remain a secret, or the Duke will have our heads!
“I understand, Master.” Oh, I understand, at last.
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