Da Vinci's Cases

by Alfred Bekker

  "Very funny," growled Ruggero. His face turned dark red. He turned back to the boy: "Go, disappear!"

  "But Master Flavio ..."

  "Master Flavio does not have time for you. Hurry up to get lost, otherwise I let come true what my friend has told me ..."

  Carlo already took a step back.

  But Leonardo, apparently, did not want to give up yet. "We want to let us recruit as rag pickers. And as at the moment, all paper mills are in desperate need of rags to keep their level of production, I think that Master Flavio will be interested in our visit!"

  Ruggero grimaced.

  Before he could answer, the men's attention was distracted, because at that moment three riders arrived galloping. They were well dressed and armed like the others and seemed to belong to their group. One of them wore an arquebus on a strap over the back, another a crossbow and a third one was equipped with a longbow.

  The arquebus shooter reined in his horse. In the left hand he held up a dead hare. Obviously, he had killed the animal when Leonardo and Carlo were hearing the shots.

  "Here, folk, soon there is something to eat!" cried the arquebus shooter. The others cheered.

  Leonardo and Carlo were now barely observed. But not all were in the enthusiastic chorus. Some of them were also grumbling. "You couldn’t probably find a smaller animal, could you!" sneered one of the mercenaries and another said, "We will especially enjoy each of these small bites!"

  The riders dismounted and although most of the men would have certainly wished a more abundant prey, they nevertheless looked forward to the meal.

  "Now what?" asked Leonardo. "May we speak to Master Flavio? He will be certainly happy if his stock of rags does not run out."

  "Well," growled Ruggero. "Should the paper miller himself decide what he thinks about it."

  Leonardo triumphed internally.

  His plan had worked. The leader of the mercenaries naturally wanted to avoid anything that could delay the production of paper. And the most important thing of course was a sufficient stock of rags. Ruggero put his sword back. "Come with me!" he ordered. Leonardo followed him. Carlo first hesitated. Leonardo pulled his sleeve. "Come on, now we have been so successful ... And you'll see Flavio will be thrilled when two additional rag pickers supply him in future!"

  Carlo swallowed and nodded.

  "If you think so ..."

  "Certainly!"

  They followed Ruggero inside the mill. The mercenary flinged open the heavy wooden door quite impetuously. Inside the mill there was the same noise that the two boys were meanwhile accustomed in paper mills. The rags pounder thundered incessantly and an apprentice hung finished sheets on a leash for the final drying.

  A man with a brown apron held one of the sheets into the light and narrowed an eye.

  "Master Flavio!" cried Ruggero.

  The man with the apron turned. "Ah, well, that you are just there, Ruggero! Look at this! The first finished sheets! In my view, the result is excellent! And if you consider the watermark ..."

  Leonardo saw the watermark of the Medici Bank shimmering in the hanging sheets – sometimes more and sometimes less clearly, depending on how the light fell through. I was right!, thought Leonardo. So far he had had nothing but conjectures, now he found the tangible proof that in this mill paper was made with the watermark of the Medici Bank!

  And that could only be done for one purpose!

  They wanted to produce fakes. Leonardo wondered where this should be done. Again here, in the mill – or perhaps at a different location, where the paper had to be transported to. He looked around. He watched one of the journeymen how he raised his pumping sieve from the pumping basin. The watermark-form wire could clearly be seen for a few moments. Master Flavio handed Ruggero one of the sheets. "Look at it yourself! The quality should be sufficient ..."

  Obviously, Ruggero was not so interested in the sheet. He quickly glanced on it before he gave it back to Master Flavio.

  "I cannot judge."

  "Then bring it to the Noble Lord, Ruggero, and ask him if we can continue like this. I simply have to know this."

  "One of my men is on the way to him, and will fetch him," said Ruggero.

  The Noble Lord, Master Flavio said. Leonardo actually could only imagine that this name covered the mysterious and hitherto unknown contractor of the gang.

  "These two children want to serve you as rag-pickers," Ruggero said addressing to Master Flavio. "And since your mill already now has difficulties in maintaining the production because of too less rags, I thought you were maybe interested ..."

  Master Flavio looked at Leonardo and Carlo from top to bottom. "So, you two want to collect rags. Do you have a district at all? Otherwise, it will be truly hard for you. Long-established rag pickers are not so easily chased away, believe me!

  And I've already experienced that they have beaten someone who has not respected the district ..."

  "I know that, too," said Leonardo. "Our district is the area around Vinci."

  Master Flavio frowned. "But you must be wrong, young man! The area around Vinci is used by a certain Martino! And unfortunately, he only delivers to the paper mill by Master Andrea di Marco! I have ever tried to poach him, but I did not succeed. Maybe because the way to my mill is simply too far away for him, and above all, our ways are partly quite steep. Therefore, you need quite a lot of strength and sweat to bring a cart full of rags up to this point." Master Flavio folded his arms across his chest, his forehead formed a deep furrow and his bushy eyebrows growing together over the nose were narrowing.

  He begins to suspect that something must be wrong there!, it flashed through Leonardo’s mind.

  He thought feverishly about how he could talk himself out of this matter again! If he did not succeed, it could be dangerous, because then maybe something gave Ruggero the idea that Leonardo and Carlo had perhaps come to Master Flavio’s mill for a completely different reason.

  "To be honest, I have not told you the whole truth," said Leonardo. His voice was uncertain and he stumbled twice, while he brought out these words.

  "I also got this feeling, indeed!" said Master Flavio.

  "We are, in truth, only Martino’s helpers! He says that in his district there are enough rags for two mills, but he will get in trouble with Master Andrea, if he delivers to someone else. That's why he asked us if we could do it for him ..."

  For a moment, Master Flavio startled.

  "I must admit that you have the gift of the gab," he said. "But I somehow feel that these are just excuses. Moreover, you should either be very strong yourself or have many strong friends, if you want to succeed as rag pickers, because there are often controversies concerning the district boundaries. Actually, therefore, it’s not a profession that should be practiced by children ...

  "That’s a pack of lies, you little scamp!" growled Ruggero. "Both of you are here to spy, admit it!"

  Before Leonardo could recede, Ruggero grabbed him by the collar.

  "Out with it, who sent you?"

  "Nobody..."

  "Perhaps Master Andrea? You were yesterday ..." Ruggero stopped speaking.

  "Run away, Carlo!" cried Leonardo because his friend stood there petrified. "Come on!"

  "I'll get help!" promised Carlo and stormed toward the door. Master Flavio took no measures for running after the boy. Ruggero called for his people, but they were only paying attention to the hare at the moment, being hunted by some of them. Carlo reached the door, opened it and turned about. Meanwhile, Leonardo tried to break away with all his strength. But Ruggero’s grip was so tight like a vise. Leonardo tried to free himself from the grip.

  He bit into the mercenary’s hand and kicked him against the shin with all his power. But as Leonardo was not wearing shoes, the mercenary leader, however, leather boots, the boy did rather hurt himself than would have done any harm to Ruggero.

  But this made the leader of the gang more angry.

  "You worm ... You really dare!" He grabbed Leonardo now
with both hands indeed so brutally, that the boy could hardly breathe. Ruggero's face was twisting into a grimace. Carlo stopped at the open door and looked back to his friend. He could not turn away his eyes. If he had wanted to get a chance to escape, he would now have had to run away as quickly as possible, as long as the members of the gang had not yet become aware of him.

  "I will give you a sound thrashing," Ruggero croaked at this moment.

  He took a step forward and stepped into a blob of slippery pulp, in which the rags were crushed. One of the journeymen had evidently been slipshod at work. The pulp was very slippery and Ruggero lost his balance. He let Leonardo go off, wildly moved his arms to regain his balance, but it was too late. He had had too much drive. Leonardo freed himself with a shove and Ruggero fell backwards into a tub of animal glue, in which the sheets had been bathed quite recently. This animal glue, which was obtained either from bovine skin or bovine bones, had been stirred into lukewarm water, in which the apprentices dipped the sheets. Now it splashed on to the ceiling. Glue stuck everywhere. Leonardo ran to the door, where Carlo still stood freezed.

  "Come on, what are you waiting for!" cried Leonardo while he heard behind Ruggero cursing in the tub.

  The leader of the gang tried to get out of the tub of animal glue but initially found nowhere any hold.

  "Help me, damn it!" he snapped at Master Flavio, on whose high forehead a dollop of animal glue could be seen. Leonardo and Carlo ran outside. The door of the mill closed behind them. The men at the fire looked at one of them, who was busy in skinning the hare. They were encouraging the man to prepare the hare faster and heaped the unfortunate with a barrage of suggestions.

  "Even if I could not finish my butcher apprenticeship because my parents lacked the training money, I have noticed enough to slaughter a hare!" he defended himself. "So let me do my work in peace or you can try it yourselves!"

  Leonardo and Carlo ran meanwhile along the way they had come. But now they had to climb!

  In the meantime, Ruggero had managed to get out of the tub. He rumbled out of the mill door. His hair was matted and his clothes were soiled with animal glue. Everywhere it was dripping down on him and when touching the hilt of his sword, he was not able to pull the weapon. With a powerful heave he finally pulled it out.

  "Catch the both boys! They may not escape!" he shouted to his men. At each step his waterlogged boots which were covered with animal glue were squeaking. The men at the fire looked over to their leader. A few heartbeats no one said anything.

  Then some of the men jumped up and rushed after Leonardo and Carlo.

  Behind them, they heard the steps and the breathing of the persecutors. Leonardo and Carlo reached now the grove on the hill, from which they had first seen and observed the mill. Then the way went downhill for a while, but the men were ready on their heels.

  Leonardo felt how a hand touched him on his back. When running so fast, that was enough to lose already the balance. He stumbled, lurched forward and could eventually not prevent that he came to the ground. Under his hands he felt the dry grass.

  "I got one!" shouted a rough voice and grabbed his clothes.

  Carlo could run a little bit faster than Leonardo. But about twenty, thirty yards further he was caught and grabbed, too. Like Leonardo, he was completely out of breath.

  Leonardo was put on his feet. The man who had caught him pushed the leather hat in his neck and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  "You’re fast – but not fast enough," he growled. Then he looked back to the mill, where their leader Ruggero still stood like a drowned rat. "Although I do not know what Ruggero wants of the two toddlers, but they have led him by the nose, for sure – if you consider his look!" The man said that with a grin and some of the others laughed spitefully about their leader, who in her eyes had made himself look like a hopeless fool.

  "Well, tell me, don’t you have eyes in your head, all of you?" asked the man who fixed Carlo after having looked at his face in detail. Then he looked over at Leonardo. "These two boys were at Master Andrea’s mill yesterday."

  "Really? I’m sure you are wrong," said a third man, who was wearing a shiny leather vest, on which normally also hung his sword. But he had left it at the fire.

  "I am sure that I am right!"

  The guy with the leather vest grabbed Leonardo on his chin and turned his face towards him. Then he looked searchingly into his eyes.

  "No idea," he said. "I was not so focused on that riffraff of apprentices and rag pickers when we were in the mill yesterday. In addition, there was little light!"

  "Ask Ruggero! I bet that’s the reason why he wanted to capture both!" The man who held Carlo was certain.

  Chapter 9: In Captivity

  The mercenaries led Leonardo and Carlo back to the mill, where they were received by the rather angry leader of the gang with a torrent of insults. Ruggero tore the sticky hairs.

  "I must cut them totally, I fear," he scolded.

  "And how will I look then! Like a shorn sheep!"

  The man with the leather vest interrupted the words of the leader.

  "What are we gonna do with them?" he asked.

  "I suggest you give them a beating for what they did to you and then you let them run again," suggested one of the other men. He was barely able to suppress a grin. Ruggero just looked too ridiculous.

  "Be careful, otherwise a very different one will get that beating," Ruggero growled back toxically. He gasped for air and tried to shake off his hands some of the tacky animal glue which he had just wiped out the hair. He did not succeed. "They were yesterday in the mill. At first I thought that they might not have recognized us."

  "After all, we were masked", took one of the other men into consideration.

  "It may be," nodded Ruggero, "but on the other hand I just do not believe in such a great coincidence in this case, that we meet them at the mill by Master Andrea and the next day here with Master Flavio –who, in addition does not know the two rascals at all ... But now bring them to the mill!"

  When asked what should be done with them, until now there had not been a clear answer. Leonardo had the impression that the bandits were not quite positively about themselves. First they brought the boys back into the mill.

  "Master!" called Ruggero and waved the paper miller. The apprentices, who were busy mopping up the animal glue, gave way for the leader of the gang. The youngest of them were maybe twelve or thirteen years old. One of them had red hair and freckles. He stared at Carlo and Leonardo and stumbled away at the last moment.

  Leonardo had noticed him earlier. He had been at the screw press and had helped to squeeze out the remaining water from the finished sheets.

  Master Flavio came out from behind the rags pounder.

  "What do you want?" he asked, trying to drown out the hammering.

  "We need a room where we can keep these two thugs here in safe custody," demanded Ruggero. Master Flavio shrugged. "You can lock them in the cellar, Mr. Ruggero."

  "If they cannot escape from there, I will agree!" replied the leader.

  "Then follow me!" demanded Flavio.

  The papermaker went ahead and the others followed him into a side room of the mill. There, Master Flavio opened a hatch in the floor. A stepladder led down from there. Otherwise, this cellar resembled a kind of hole.

  "Sometimes I keep here stock that needs to be cooled," explained Flavio.

  "In they go, the two spies!" ordered Ruggero.

  Leonardo and Carlo were pushed to the edge of the pit. Leonardo was the first who descended into darkness. You could not see what was down there or how large this storage pit was.

  A sinking feeling manifested itself in his stomach. Finally, Leonardo had solid ground under their feet. But the surface was damp, as he could feel with his bare feet immediately. Carlo followed him.

  "And there's really no other way out?" Ruggero made sure.

  "No. Just a few ventilation holes, "said Flavio, after one of the mercenaries had nud
ged him.

  "What do you mean by ventilation holes?" Ruggero asked suspiciously. "These two rascals may not escape – under no circumstances!"

  "They cannot!" assured Flavio. "The ventilation holes are not larger than a man's arm. Nobody can escape through such a hole, even if he is as thin as a herring!"

  The men in Ruggero’s accompaniment grimaced. They would have liked to laugh out loud, but at the moment no one dared.

  "Shut the flap and pull up the stepladder!" commanded Ruggero. The man with the leather vest pulled up the ladder and before Master Flavio closed the door, he said: "You are not allowed to take something of the pickled food, do you understand?"

  Then it became dark.

  First, the two boys said nothing. Above them steps were to be heard and only when they had died away, Carlo dared to comment.

  "In a nice crap you have brought us, Leonardo!"

  "Me? Now listen ..."

  "No, now you listen to me, once! From the beginning I was against your plan that we should go to the mill. We should not have done that off our own bat, but should have searched help."

  "And where, please?" said Leonardo. "Until we would have been in Florence to alert the city guard, the guys would have been long gone with their paper. And of course, all the evidence would have been destroyed long ago. Besides, no one there would have taken us seriously."

  "I do not know what would have been the best – but worse than we stand at the moment, it could not be," complained Carlo. Secretly, Leonardo had to agree with his friend at this point, of course. It had thoroughly gone wrong. Instead of having evidence they were trapped in this dark hole and could not do anything. The bandits were able to wait in peace until Master Flavio had finished the paper.

  What happened next was even more uncertain. Maybe the bandits brought the paper to another location, where then the false documents would be produced. But it also was possible that all this happened here in the workshop and soon someone arrived who had the necessary knowledge and especially a suitable seal. Probably someone who worked for the Medici Bank or had worked there, thought Leonardo.

  He thought of the rider with the black beard whom they had met on the way to the mill and who also belonged to the gang. Perhaps it was the task to inform that mysterious person in the background or bring him to Master Flavio’s mill ...