‘Yet when we met he did not tell me my true identity,’ I said.
‘You were a very young boy. He probably thought it wiser to keep the secret and allow me, your father, to be the one to tell you.’
‘The priest did insist I carry the seal,’ I said. ‘And I think that was how he had arranged with Sandino to tell him that I was indeed a Medici. For when we arrived at our rendezvous point Father Albieri kept his hand on my shoulder and spoke distinctly to Sandino, saying, “I’ve brought you that which you sought.”’
‘And as soon as he had uttered those words his life was forfeit,’ said Jacopo dryly. ‘Sandino had no further use for him.’
‘I should have guessed there was some subterfuge being played out,’ I said, ‘for the lock I had to open was very simple. And although I did not think anything of it at the time, the priest, Father Albieri, asked me to kneel for a blessing. When I did so, he put his hands on my neck and parted my hair at the back. I believed he was giving me absolution for my sin of theft, but he was confirming that I was your son.’
‘He commented on these marks when he baptized you at Castel Barta,’ said JacQpo. ‘Though anyone with close familiarity with the Medici would see that your bloodline is apparent by the set of your eyes.’
I put my hand to my face.
Jacopo noticed and said, ‘It is very obvious to me that you are Jacomo, my son.’
The set of my eyes.
There was one man who had looked most intently at my eyes. Leonardo da Vinci. In the monk’s refectory in Milan he had used his fingers to encircle them. At that time he had said, ‘You will find your own truth, Matteo.’ Now I had found the truth – or rather it had found me. And it was confusing, exhilarating, and profoundly disturbing.
‘Because of me Father Albieri lost his life,’ I said.
‘He sent word to me that he was meeting my agent Sandino and would escort you and the seal into my presence. I knew at once that Father Albieri’s life was in peril for I had not employed any agent called Sandino to look for you, as I believed you to be dead.’
‘Sandino murdered the priest,’ I said. ‘He battered his head until his brains spilled out of his skull.’
Jacopo nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see why. Sandino would need to kill Father Albieri to prevent him from coming to tell me that my son was found and that Cesare Borgia had the Medici Seal.’
‘I saw Sandino do it. It’s why I ran from him.’
‘You did well to escape. Sandino would have murdered you for his own gain without a moment’s thought. When Father Albieri disappeared, I realized that I must meet cunning with cunning. I made it known that I wished to employ Sandino, and that I would pay double what any other person offered if he brought you to me alive.’
‘I think that saved my life,’ I said.
‘I am glad that I have been of some value to you.’
I acknowledged his point with an inclination of my head.
‘My instructions to Sandino were that he must keep me informed at all times as to his progress,’ said Jacopo. ‘And I also let your description be known throughout the gypsy community, and asked them to contact me if they had any news of you.’
‘So that was how you came to be pursuing me in the forest near Lodi!’
‘You must tell me how you eluded capture on that occasion.’
‘It is to do with the length of cloth required for the habits of monastic orders of the Church.’ I thought of myself hiding under Eleanora’s skirts. And then I thought of what I had been doing earlier that day at the farm with Elisabetta and Paolo, and all the events that had entangled my life with those of the Dell’Orte family came rushing into my head.
‘I see that I have given you much to think about.’ Jacopo de’ Medici had been watching my face.
‘In avoiding capture over the years I have brought trouble and mishap to those who helped me,’ I told him. ‘There are people to whom I am obliged.’
‘Then it is your duty to honour the debts you owe in the best way you can,’ he replied, ‘and as your father I will help you to do this.’
So I raised my hands and, for the last time, lifted the corded pouch from round my neck. I placed the worn leather bag on the desk and opened it up. From inside I took the Great Seal of the Medici and I gave it into the hand of my father.
He held it up so that the sunlight slanting through the window shutters shone on its surface. ‘You have done well to keep it safe for so long.’
In truth I did not know whether I was pleased with this praise or not.
Jacopo de’ Medici then rubbed his fingers across the raised matrix of his family’s coat of arms. ‘My cousin, the cardinal, will be especially glad this is back in safekeeping. He may wish to use it to authenticate his first Papal Proclamation.’
‘He is only a cardinal,’ I said in astonishment. ‘I do not think our present Pope would let anyone to make a Papal Bull on his behalf.’
‘Pope Julius is dying,’ said Jacopo. ‘In the Vatican, before long, there will be a Medici.’
Jacopo returned the seal to its pouch and placed it around his own neck. Then he took me by the shoulders and stared into my face.
‘My son,’ he said softly. ‘Before you leave to go about your business, I would like you at least once to call me father.’
‘Father.’ I tried the word. It did not sit easily on my tongue.
Chapter Ninety-One
THERE WAS ONE man whom I regarded as a more true father.
And as I went to find Elisabetta I began to think how I might contrive a way to repay the support Leonardo da Vinci had given me during the most troubled part of my life. To him I owed a debt above all others. Without the intervention of the Maestro and his two companions I would have drowned under the waterfall. His own breath brought me back from the dead. And throughout the life that I had lived, from rough boy to manhood, I had been nourished by his guidance, his intellect and his generosity of spirit.
Elisabetta was back in the house in Prato. In part recompense for the damage to the town the Medici had agreed to replace the roofs of the buildings still standing. Donna Cosma lay on her mattress in the room on the ground floor. It was clear that she did not have long to live. I went with Elisabetta to sit in the garden and I placed a bag of coins Jacopo de’ Medici had given me on the table.
‘This money is yours by right,’ I said, ‘for the losses you have suffered. It will help you to establish an apothecary shop of your own and you may live here independently.’
‘Matteo,’ she said, ‘I am going back to Kestra.’
‘Kestra? There is nothing for you there.’
‘Baldassare is there.’
‘Baldassare?’ I said in surprise. Then I recalled the man from the neighbouring farm who was always there helping whenever I visited Paolo and Elisabetta. ‘The farmer, your uncle’s neighbour?’
‘Yes,’ said Elisabetta. ‘That is the man.’
‘He is much older than you.’
‘I know, and it is one of the reasons that I have accepted his marriage offer. He is dependable and will give me stability.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I have a deep affection and respect for him, as he has for me.’
Her face had the appearance of contentment.
‘I believe that will be sufficient for both of us,’ she said. ‘He has asked me often over these last years to marry him. I put him off because, when my uncle’s farm was lost, I felt that I had nothing to donate to the marriage. He did not care about that. It was me that he wanted. But now I have learned the recipes from your grandmother’s books and am able to make her healing medicines, I can bring this skill and income to Baldassare as my dowry.’
‘This also can be your dowry.’ I pointed at the bag that lay between us on the table. ‘I gift it to you as your kin brother. On the condition,’ I added, ‘that you ask me as a guest to your wedding ceremony.’
I wrote Eleanora a long letter.
I let her k
now my real identity, and also the things that had happened to me before we met. I asked her if she might understand the constraints I was under and be sympathetic to the actions I had taken.
I also told her my plans for the future. That I wanted to attend the medical school in Bologna, where in time I might become a doctor.
I stated that I would be happy if she would share this new life with me. That I recalled she had expressed an interest in the works of the influential thinkers and writers. That with my father’s patrimony she might pursue her interests as I continued my studies.
I told her that I loved her.
Chapter Ninety-Two
IN TIME I received a letter inviting me to call at the Villa d’Alciato to discuss a marriage contract between myself and Eleanora d’Alciato.
Jacopo de’ Medici had appointed a secretary to accompany me in order to agree appropriate terms. Eleanora’s uncle was a stout merchant with a florid face, and we sat in his office while he fussed over each detail, adding and deleting clauses here and there. Songbirds were chirruping to each other near the windows. The last time I had spoken to Eleanora we were in the garden, and I remembered how we had kissed on that occasion. Today was very hot, with the shutters drawn against the sun. I doubted if she would be outside, and I wondered whereabouts in the house she might be.
A memory came to me of us dancing together in the piazza in Ferrara, her face upturned to mine.
I stood up.
‘Please excuse me,’ I said.
Eleanora’s uncle glanced up, nodded and returned to his scrutiny of the document in front of him.
I opened the door into the hallway.
A flurry of skirts.
I ran after her and gripped her wrist.
‘You listen outside doors!’ I laughed.
She struggled to free herself and I saw that she was not amused.
‘Of course I am listening!’ she said. ‘Do you think I would allow myself to be haggled over like meat in a market and be content to know nothing about it?’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought it was by your good grace that I had been invited here to come to an agreement for our wedding?’
‘Well then you were wrong, sir,’ Eleanora retorted. ‘My opinion was not sought in the matter. My uncle read the letter you sent me and he decided that your offer must not be refused. He told me that he would take care of everything. He said the Medici had money to spare and we would have some of it.’
‘Money!’ I exclaimed. ‘This is not about money, Eleanora.’
‘Indeed it is,’ she said. ‘That, and fear.’
‘Fear?’ I repeated in bewilderment.
‘How could my uncle refuse a request from a Medici? He would be too frightened not to comply.’
‘Are you frightened of me now?’ I asked her, and as I did so it occurred to me that it might be no bad thing if this crackling, spitting Eleanora were to be a little bit frightened of me.
In answer her eyes flashed emerald fire. ‘I do not give myself to anyone for fear, or for gold.’
I dropped her wrist. ‘I thought you loved me, Eleanora,’ I said stiffly. ‘I am sorry if I was mistaken. I will go now and instruct the secretary to break off negotiations.’
‘Yes, you do that,’ she said. And as I turned away she called after me scornfully, ‘Jacomo de’ Medici.’
‘What?’ I turned back and faced her, feeling my own temper rise. ‘Why do you call out my name in such a manner?’
‘Is that not who you are?’ She pulled my letter from her sleeve. ‘It is how you signed yourself when you wrote to me.’ She stabbed her finger angrily at the paper.
‘What of it? Am I to deny my rightful birth name?’
‘I do not know any Jacomo de’ Medici!’ she cried. ‘The man I love is called Matteo!’
I stretched out and plucked the letter from her grasp and tossed it away. Then I took hold of her wrists with both my hands and pulled her to me. And we kissed until we had to stop in order to breathe. Then I held her close to me and I said, ‘For you, then, I will always be Matteo.’
Chapter Ninety-Three
‘I WILL CALL you Matteo.’
The Maestro cupped my face with his hands and he kissed me and embraced me warmly.
He had come to Florence on his way to Rome. Jacopo de’ Medici’s words had come true. Pope Julius had died and Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici was now installed in the Vatican as Leo X. And at my behest the Medici had offered artistic commissions for Leonardo da Vinci to undertake in Rome.
‘Matteo,’ the Maestro said again, and he put his arm around me and led me to sit beside him on a bench.
I was reassured by his greeting. For although I had written to him and told him all of my true life history and asked his forgiveness, I was apprehensive as to how he would welcome into his presence a person who had deceived him.
‘When I first met you, I lied—’ I began.
‘Of course!’ he interrupted me, laughing. ‘You took a name to use that was not yours.’
‘You knew from the very beginning!’
‘I surmised it afterwards. I noticed you glancing at Saint Matthew’s badge on Felipe’s cloak as you awoke.’
Truly it should not have surprised me. I had seen his sketches. The Maestro’s eye could record, by pen on paper, the motion of a bird in flight.
‘It intrigued me that you should do that,’ he went on. ‘And as the days passed, many things about you fascinated me: your speech, your wide knowledge, your directness, your general manner.’
‘It was much later that I wondered if you had some inkling,’ I said. ‘When we stood together before your fresco of the Last Supper in Milan.’
‘Ah yes,’ he replied. ‘On that occasion you were anxious lest I should be disappointed with you for losing your place at Pavia University. And you were brooding on my image of the Iscariot.’
I recalled how he had drawn my attention away from the face of Judas to that of Matthew, the Apostle, and reached out with his mind to try to ease my troubled thoughts.
‘There was always something about your eyes that was familiar to me, and seeing you there in the refectory made me think of Lorenzo de’ Medici, whom I knew as a young man.’
‘He would be my natural grandfather. By all accounts an honourable man.’
‘You have tried to be honourable, Matteo, and discharge your duty as you saw it. There is an innate truthfulness in your conduct, Matteo, despite the lies you told.’
I bent my head. ‘I apologize for any trouble I may have caused you and your household.’
He smiled. ‘You more than made up for it in interest and humour. You may wish to know that, as he lay dying, Graziano spoke of you. He fancied that Lucrezia Borgia might comment on your dancing skill at some ball in Ferrara, and that you would mention his name to her as your dancing instructor. Therefore he could boast that the most notorious woman in Europe had his name upon her lips.’
I smiled at these words.
‘So you see, Matteo, even when you were absent, you were always in our thoughts. Graziano talked about you often, and Felipe occupied himself in trying to arrange some way that you might pursue your studies. And I—’ He broke off.
I looked into his face. His eyes were on a level with my own.
‘We all do love you, Matteo.’
Ignoring his protests this time as we said farewell, I did kneel before him.
‘I forgive you any transgression most readily,’ he told me. ‘A boy must find his own self in order to become a man, and you are a man now, Matteo.’
The Maestro reached out and drew me to my feet and we embraced.
‘It is a difficult challenge for a person to find his own identity,’ he said. ‘And though you may have avoided the truth, Matteo, it followed you and found you, and now you must live it, as a good man does.’
This is how it was with him, the Maestro da Vinci. His expectations made those who knew him aspire to meet his trust.
Thus I became reso
lved to be a good doctor and a good man.
Acknowledgements
Mairi Aitken, artist
Margot Aked
Professor Susan Black
Rosey Boyle
British Institute, Florence
Laura Cecil
Sue Cook
Annie Eaton
Dr Lucio Fregonese, University of Pavia
Joe Kearney, artist
Sophie Nelson
Hugh Rae
Lucy Walker
Random House staff
Pupils of The King’s School, Worcester
The Family
And, always, and for ever, Tom
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