Oil and Marble

by Stephanie Storey

  He picked up his tools and dropped to his knees next to the wall. He felt around the edge until he found a loose stone that probably wasn’t supporting much of the church’s weight. It was large. If he removed it, his whole body would fit through the opening. He snatched up his hammer and, picturing Leonardo’s face, pounded furiously.

  After a few swift blows, the rock was free. Michelangelo pulled out the stone, and mud poured into the mortuary. The hole was right at ground level, but it had rained a lot over the last few weeks, so the earth was soft. He reached his arm through the hole until his hand hit fresh air on the other side. It wasn’t far. The mud felt cold and slimy, and it carried the stink of decay, but if he could hold his breath and wriggle out, in less than an arm’s length, he would be free.

  Closing his eyes, Michelangelo ducked his head into the hole. The thick sludge filled his nostrils and ears and oozed down his neck. He coughed and yanked his head back out. Gasping for air, he wiped the mud off his face and spit out a mouthful.

  Dusky gray light was already beginning to filter in through the upper window. Dawn would break soon, waking the priests. Regardless of the mud, it was time to go.

  He took a few long breaths; then, holding his nose, he dove back into the mud, cursing Leonardo the whole way. The mud poured down his tunic, but he forged onward, rotating his shoulders to fit through the opening and pushing off the floor of the mortuary with his knees and feet. His feet scrambled against the slick floor. With his heart thundering and his lungs burning for air, he pushed out from under the wall. His head surfaced. He coughed up mud, and then gulped in fresh air. Still half-buried, he lay down and took several long breaths as the sun rose overhead.

  Finally, he wriggled his hips out of the hole and pulled his whole body to the surface. As he did, something hard jabbed into his thigh. He reached down into the mud and pulled out a human arm bone. He had dug his hole right through someone’s grave. Yet another spirit he had angered in his quest for greatness.

  Leonardo

  “But then I accidentally kicked that damned broom over and …” Leonardo said, laughing so hard he had to sit up to breathe. “He was so frightened I had no choice but to reveal myself.”

  Salaì pulled Leonardo back into bed. “Don’t lie to me. You planned all along to lock him in there.”

  “Honestly, I was only going to spy on him, find a weakness or a strength to exploit. But when I had the chance …” He waved his hand as if flinging a door closed.

  Salaì laughed.

  “I have learned the value of fear,” Leonardo said. “With it on your side, you can destroy your enemies even before the first shot is fired.”

  Salaì’s expression turned serious. “You were gone a long time.”

  What kind of hardships had Salaì endured while he was away? He had found his assistant still living in a small room in the friar’s quarters of Santissima Annunziata, receiving room and board in exchange for helping to maintain the sanctuary’s art and polish the silver. It had been over a year since Leonardo had seen him. He appeared thinner and his clothes were tattered, but he still had those same fine features and expectant brown eyes.

  “For the last year, I have been a sailor frantic in a storm,” Leonardo said, “clambering about the ship, trying to steer the sail, tossed around like hail before the fury of a hurricane. But then, luckily, I grew a pair of wings and flew away. Now I am back. Safe and alive.” He touched Salaì’s smooth chin. “I do think it was good, though, to surprise Michelangelo with my return, instead of him hearing about it naturally. Choosing the time and place gave me an advantage. Niccolo would be proud.”

  “Who’s Niccolo?” Salaì asked testily.

  “Machiavelli.”

  Salaì raised an eyebrow.

  “He was Florence’s envoy to Borgia.” Leonardo waved his hand dismissively. “And I’m glad I chose to walk around last night instead of immediately alerting the city to my return.” Arriving at the gates of Florence as darkness fell, he’d pulled his hood down over his eyes and wandered the streets—until he saw that candle burning in Santo Spirito’s mortuary. “It gave me a chance to re-familiarize myself with my territory before anyone started whispering behind my back about my traitorous turn. Do people talk much?”

  Salaì shook his head and looked away, all the proof Leonardo needed that Machiavelli had been telling the truth. Florentines no longer talked about him. They talked about someone else.

  “So what do we do next?” Salaì asked. “I’m bored with the friars.”

  “I need a commission.”

  “You could always sell your ring,” Salaì suggested, twirling the bird ring around Leonardo’s finger. “The payment could support us until you find proper employment.”

  “Never,” Leonardo said, rolling out of bed. “Besides, we need more than money.” He still had a few papal ducats remaining from his Borgia salary, although they wouldn’t last long. “I need to rebuild my reputation, and to do that, I need a patron.” Leonardo located a box of his notebooks stacked in a corner and began rummaging through it. “Where are my letters?”

  “Come back to bed. We can go through your papers later.”

  Leonardo heard rustling and a half-suppressed giggle. Salaì had probably just put a lizard in the bed to surprise him. When he was younger, he had always thought that was funny.

  Ah ha! “My letters.” He flipped through the stack until he found the right one. “The silk merchant’s wife.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman in market. Madonna Lisa Giocondo. You remember her.” He pictured her olive skin and tumbling hair. “Her husband wrote to me the day before I left.”

  “A portrait of a silk merchant’s wife? That will hardly bring in enough money to support us for a month. Two at the most.”

  Leonardo glanced over. Sure enough, a lizard was scurrying up his assistant’s arm. Regardless of how many trials Salaì survived, he would always be a boy at heart.

  “You doubt my abilities, my apprentice. I can get at least six months out of that striving merchant. Besides, within a few weeks, I’ll have charmed Florence once again and offers will rain down in a flood. Then, I’ll pick a project to solidify my legacy and show the world who is the true master of Florence.” When Leonardo was finished, no one would ever remember that young sculptor’s name. “But for now, Mona Lisa will have to do.”

  “You don’t still work for Cesare Borgia, do you?” Francesco del Giocondo asked in a hushed tone. The silk merchant glanced nervously at a noblewoman browsing the selection of chiffon, taffeta, and velvet displayed at his marketplace stall.

  Leonardo cocked a disdainful eyebrow. “Of course not. I am back in Florence. For good. Now, if you do not want a picture by my hand”—he made a point of sounding as though he would be relieved if Giocondo recanted his offer—“I would be more than happy to release you and take my services elsewhere …”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Giocondo said in a disinterested tone. “I suppose we could use a new portrait. We have recently moved into a new home on the”—he raised the volume of his voice—“Via della Stufa.” He smiled at the competing silk merchant stationed next to him. “And my wife has just given birth to another son.”

  “The ideal time for a new portrait,” Leonardo said.

  Giocondo completed a quick transaction with a servant of the wealthy Strozzi household, then turned back to him. “I would like to offer you a fair price for your skills, Master Leonardo, so I was thinking …”

  “One hundred florins,” Leonardo said.

  “A hundred florins?” Giocondo blustered like any good merchant ready to haggle with a demanding customer.

  “Oh, I apologize, signore,” he said, backing away from the stall, “I thought you were in the market for a masterpiece …”

  The noblewoman stopped browsing to watch, as the neighboring vendor smirked and leaned in to listen.

  Giocondo flushed. “What I meant was … was that price, is that just for the�
�the one, single portrait?”

  “I also accept papal ducats, if that’s helpful.”

  “I am being rude,” said Giocondo, packing up his receipts and moneybag. “Please, allow me to invite you to my home, where we can share a proper meal and some wine. I can show you my button collection. I bet you thought only fabric came over the Silk Road, but you haven’t seen anything until you have seen a button from the East. After all of that, we can discuss this most important commission in private.”

  “I would rather settle the price first, signore. Here.”

  By now, dozens of shoppers and vendors had paused to watch the negotiation.

  “Well, all right, let’s see …” His eyes darted back and forth. “For comparison’s sake … for example, for her previous portrait, I believe I paid ten …”

  “And for that previous portrait, what was the name of the painter?”

  “Well, that hardly matters,” the merchant muttered.

  “Signor Giocondo, you’re clearly a silk aficionado with the finest aesthetic eye in all of Florence”—Leonardo directed the noblewoman’s attention to a particularly beautiful brocade—“dare I say it? The best eye on the entire peninsula. Now, surely you can afford a proper portrait of your wife.”

  “When I was young, before I started my apprenticeship, I used to make my mother walk me through these neighborhoods,” Leonardo said, looking out a window and down onto the Via della Stufa. It was the most stylish street in Florence: old homes occupied by new money. “People always stared. We were poor, obviously from the country, and my mother was … well, I didn’t care what they thought. I dreamed of living on a street like this.”

  “I still do,” Salaì said, standing at the doorway, watching for Lisa’s approach.

  They were in Giocondo’s music room, preparing for the lady’s first sitting. The room was large and ostentatious, with crimson velvet covering the walls, a silver embossed ceiling, and a garish mosaic tile floor depicting Euterpe, the Greek muse of music, playing in a band of satyrs. Despite its grand size, the room housed only one musical instrument, an ornate gold-plated harpsichord with the Virgin Mary, surrounded by dozens of flying angels, painted on the lid. Giocondo must have thought it an attractive piece, but the figures in the painting were stiff and improperly proportioned.

  A team of assistants, hired for the day, was setting up the room. They arranged bouquets of brushes and jars of paints, tuned musical instruments, and practiced juggling. Leonardo knew such a display would impress Giocondo. Merchants, especially men dealing in indulgent commodities like silk, liked a little pageantry. It made them feel as if their money were helping them to actually become royalty, instead of just pretending to be.

  The silk merchant had placed an ugly high-backed chair in front of the room’s ostentatious stone fireplace and put a few trinkets on the seat: a blue and gold tassel, the colors of her father’s family coat of arms; a bolt of green silk to represent her husband’s profession; and a heavy gold music box. Behind the chair, he’d hung a picture of himself. In portraits, wives often gazed at pictures of their husbands, as though they could think of nothing else.

  Leonardo shrugged at the merchant’s arrangements. At this stage, it was best not to argue with the patron. Later, he could alter the backdrop to anything he preferred. That was the beauty of paint. Reality was what he made it.

  “She’s coming,” Salaì whispered as footsteps approached from down the hall. The assistants hurried through a last-minute scramble while Leonardo leaned confidently against a window. He knew the backlighting would give him a heavenly glow. As the footsteps came closer, his left eye twitched. Usually, he didn’t surrender to such base emotions, but the lady had saved his hand, cared for him when he was injured, and haunted his dreams during war. Of course he was nervous to see her again.

  Madonna Lisa del Giocondo entered wearing her hair in a tight bun on the top of her head and a long, gaudy red silk gown. Leonardo assumed her husband had chosen the garment; it reeked of the same bad taste that dominated the room. She looked older, as though the year since he’d seen her had stretched into five. Her face was still unlined, but her eyes were deeper, worldlier; her breasts and hips were fuller from the newest child; and her eyebrows were now plucked bare in the latest Italian fashion. That bald brow gave her face a fluidity and announced to the world that she was no longer an innocent maiden, but a sophisticated lady well versed on the latest styles from Europe’s most fashionable courts. Before, her lips had always attracted him; now it was her eyes that drew him in.

  “Play!” Leonardo commanded. His musician assistants struck up a lively tune, while five others began a juggling act. “Mona Lisa.” He removed his gold-threaded cap and offered a low bow. “Master Leonardo from Vinci, at your service.”

  His angel marched silently across the room and sat in a hard wooden chair overlooking the balcony. She crossed her arms defiantly.

  Giocondo flashed an embarrassed smile and then hurried over to his wife. His voice was hushed, but when she didn’t respond, his whispers grew more insistent. Giocondo was about five years younger than Leonardo, but in that moment, he looked like a doddering old man arguing with his stubborn daughter. He finally walked back over to Leonardo. “I fear the lady is not feeling well. This portrait was not a good idea …”

  Leonardo stared at the back of Lisa’s head. Why was she refusing to speak—or even look at—him? Had he, indeed, dreamed his previous encounters with her? Or was she pretending to be upset for fear of showing her true affections for him in front of her husband? Maybe her cold demeanor didn’t indicate her indifference, but instead meant her feelings ran even deeper than Leonardo had dared hope. “Signore, perhaps I can calm her, if you would allow me the most improper liberty of spending a moment or two alone with the lady …”

  “Signore!” It was undeniably improper for a wife to be alone with any man other than her husband, particularly an artist, who spent hours luxuriating in beauty. Anyone drawn to such vanity must, by definition, be dangerous.

  “The lady is nervous, that is all,” Leonardo said.

  Giocondo hesitated, fiddling with one of the gold and pearl buttons adorning his doublet.

  “Once, I saw a monkey find a nest full of birds.” He put an arm around the merchant and walked with him toward the door. “The monkey was so delighted by the birds that it took one home. The monkey loved the little bird so much that it began to kiss it and hug it, until it squeezed that little bird to death.” He let his tone take on a dark timbre. “Do not suffocate your wife, my good man. Ladies, when the men they love are watching on, can become nervous. I see it often. Their faces, right here”—he pointed to his own cheeks, right around the lips—“get very tight. It will not make for a pretty portrait, signore, I assure you. But if you give me just a few minutes alone with her …”

  “Of course.” Giocondo gave a little nod. “She is simply nervous. Come.” He ushered the household staff out of the room, and Leonardo waved his assistants, including Salaì, out with them. Giocondo took one last look into the music room and then swept the double doors closed behind him.

  A crystallized silence descended over the salon. Leonardo watched the lady from across the room, waiting for her to speak, but she did not.

  He crossed toward her, his wooden platform shoes clacking on the mosaic tile floor, but still, she did not look at him. He stopped behind her and breathed in. She smelled of primrose and apples. “Madonna? We are alone.”

  He expected her to stand, turn toward him and … But she did not move. “What is like a thing hidden beneath the winter snow, but when summer comes stands revealed?” He spoke the words in the rhythm of a love poem. Still, she did not respond.

  “A secret that cannot be hidden,” he said, answering his own riddle. He moved around to the side of her chair to look at her profile, but she turned her head away. He knelt down beside her. He didn’t dare take her hand, so he rested his fingers on the arm of her chair instead. “You must tell me your
secret, my lady,” he whispered. “Or rather, how you discovered mine. How do you know about my attempts to fly?” That question, as much as anything, haunted him. She was a domestic woman, a wife, a mother. How did she know such dreams even existed? “Tell me, dimmi, dimmi, dimmi.”

  “Bodies without souls that teach us how to live and die well,” she said, her gaze held on the window.

  She speaks! And with a riddle of her own. The lady was real, indeed. “The answer is books,” he said with a slight incline of his head. He had heard Cicero’s riddle before, but that didn’t make her delivery of it any less charming.

  “Very good.” She looked at him for the first time. Her eyes were not teasing. They were angry. “And if you read the humanists, you know that man is part divine, that he holds an eternal wisdom that will eventually lead him toward good, not evil.” She stood. “I thought you had wisdom, man from Vinci, but now I see that you do not.” She marched toward the door. “I have sons. Three of them. But you give Cesare Borgia your plans, your ideas, your hands, your time, and you help him bring his wrath down here, in Florence, my home, at the doorstep of my sons and daughters.” She paused and looked back at him. He fancied he saw more sadness than repulsion in her stance.

  He opened his mouth to defend himself and to assure her that he would protect her and her children, but he couldn’t find the words.

  “You were my hero. I thought you were perfect,” she said.

  “I am not.”

  She put her hand on the doorknob.

  “Madonna, please.” He stood up and crossed to her. “Your husband has already paid me for my work. How am I supposed to make a picture if you won’t let me study you?”

  “From memory? It doesn’t matter,” she added, before he could respond. “Even if you do paint my portrait, no one will see me, even though it is a picture of me. They will see only you and your renowned genius. They will see your brushstrokes. Your colors. People will see a great masterpiece by the great Leonardo da Vinci, but their eyes will pass over me like a ghost. And my husband”—her shoulder half turned—“well, he will imagine the portrait however he wants regardless of reality. I should know. That’s how he looks at me.” She opened the door.