“And don’t forget the change,” he says, as I am leaving.
Outside, the sky is a delicate pale yellow that makes me think of dried saffron, Caterina’s favorite herb. She told me once that it did wonders for the lungs, chest, and liver. And I said to her: “What about the elbows, feet, and ears?” She cuffed me round the head for that one. Oh, I will miss her slaps as much as her hugs.
I hand Tombi the order (Cinabrese, Giallorino, and Lac) and relate Caterina’s story from start to finish.
“How can you be so certain that you are Leonardo da Vinci’s son?” Tombi asks.
“The date of my birth, for one. My master said that I was eight years old when he found me, which means I was born in 1482—the same year as the child. Also my blond hair, which is very like Cecilia’s. And a letter from her to my master, in which she called me ‘our Giacomo.’ Are they not proofs enough?”
“Perhaps. But you are failing to answer one important question, boy.”
“Which is?”
“Why your master has never told you that he is your father.” Tombi waves his finger at me. “There’s the hole in your story,” he says. “And it’s big enough to lose all your other evidence in!”
I smile. I already know the answer to that one. I tell Tombi that if my master’s secret had been discovered, all three of us would more than likely have been murdered by the Duke for betraying and humiliating him.
Tombi nods his head once. I think he believes it, too.
“Remember one thing, Giacomo,” he says. “The truth is never given out in one piece to the seeker, like a slice of pie to a hungry man; it must be assembled from many parts.”
“Sometimes, Messer Tombi, the truth is standing right next to you.”
“And what about your contract with the Second Brother, Master Assanti?”
“Well, I have found my past now, so I do not need him to find it for me.”
Tombi looks at me. He says nothing.
“Did you hear me, Messer Tombi? I don’t need his help now.”
“You made an agreement with us, Giacomo.”
“I have not forgotten.”
“But it appears that you have, because you no longer wish to honor it.”
“Perhaps this is all for the best, my discovering the truth without the alchemist’s help. I have not been at peace with the thought that I was deceiving my master.”
Tombi nods slowly.
“May I have the colors now, sir? I must meet my master at the Last Supper.”
“Be careful, Giacomo, that the devil lurking in every man’s soul does not take possession of yours.”
“Messer Tombi, I have seen enough of devils to know how to fend them off.”
“It is the Devil’s talent that he makes everyone think that, boy.”
“Please tell Master Assanti that I offer my apologies. No doubt a man with his powers will find another way to meet the Pope.”
Tombi says nothing, and I leave.
Later that evening, the Master calls me to the study.
“Tomorrow,” he says, “I want you to take the portrait of Lucrezia to the Castle. The Duke is calling for it.”
That’s the last place I want to go. It would be like putting my head, covered in honey, into a bear’s mouth. And asking it to bite down hard.
“Master, I cannot return to the Castle.”
“Why not? You have nothing to fear from the Duke.”
“So you say. But I have failed him once already and never explained myself. He will surely want to do me some ill.”
“I already told you I would take care of the matter. The Duke will not lay a hand on you. Do you want to be of help to me or not?”
“You know I do, Master.”
“Then take the portrait of Lucrezia to the Castle tomorrow. Now off with you. I have work to do.”
“Master?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Have you yet decided who will be the face of Jesus?”
“I will decide that when it is time.”
“It would be a great honor—”
“Yes, it would. Now leave me, please.”
“Don’t be late for supper, Master. I’m making a pie.”
“So you can cook, can you?”
“Be in good time tonight, Master, and you will find out.”
So it’s back to the Castle. At least I can be sure of one thing this time: I will not be carrying the Medusa, which I know is sitting in the Duke’s gallery, slowly gathering dust.
XXXII
Early the next day the Master gives me the portrait of Lucrezia, bound in silk cloth and tied with leather bands, and I set off for the Castle once again.
Within a hundred paces I am sweating, but I cannot be sure whether that is because I fear losing the painting to some thief, or because I fear another meeting with the Duke. Whatever the reason, I clutch the painting to my side and hurry on, my eyes searching the crowd for villainous faces.
At every street corner there is one of Benedetti’s printed sheets announcing the coming war with France, and a crowd of people fighting with one another to get a closer look at the contents.
And soon I am at the Castle entrance.
“What’s your business, lad?” the gatekeeper asks. A new man, and a friendlier one than the last, thanks be to Saint Francis.
This time the gates are opened almost as soon as the words are out of my mouth. The Duke must be panting for his painting!
A man-at-arms escorts me across the Castle grounds, and once again I mount staircases and stride down hallways, until I find myself in the immense room with mirrors and tapestries.
The Duke and Lucrezia are already seated and talking softly to each other. Today she is wearing a dress of forest green, threaded with gold. Her hair is twined with tiny glittering pearls. The smell of her perfume settles over me like a soft mist, turning my legs to jelly.
I stand at attention and wait for them to acknowledge me. After some time, the Duke looks up and says: “Why did he not bring it himself?”
“My lord, the Master is hard at work on the Last Supper.”
“He is? We hear nothing of it.”
“The Master will send for you and the Lady Lucrezia, my lord. Very soon.”
“Good. And tell him that I will require a demonstration of his flying machine.”
“I believe the flying machine awaits your pleasure, sire.”
“Now show me the painting.”
I undo the ties, the silk cloth slips off, and Lucrezia sees her face looking back at her.
She raises a hand to her cheek (not a good sign, oh dear), then rises from her seat and comes towards the painting.
She stops in front of it. I hold it up, the better for her to see. It is not a large painting, just a wood panel, unframed, an arm’s length in height and three-quarters that in width.
She turns to the Duke.
“I do not like it. Your painter has made me look like a German.”
“But, Lucrezia, Leonardo has bestowed on you every quality a woman could ask for: grace, elegance—”
“He has given me a parrot’s beak for lips! And why am I looking upwards, as if I were watching the clouds? I told your painter that I wanted to look directly ahead, so that my eyes would be always meeting yours, Ludovico. He has disobeyed me—worse, by disobeying me, he has disobeyed you!”
“Come now, Lucrezia, your face is tempting enough to make a priest break all his vows and run to—”
“And he has painted shadows on my neck—it makes me look as if I have three chins!”
“Nonsense, Lu—”
“It is an entirely new method, Lady Lucrezia, invented by my master,” I say, “a blending of color and shadow that makes the subject’s flesh look as natural as in life.”
“I do not want to look natural—I want to look perfect!”
She turns away and walks back to the Duke.
“I will not look at it. Take it away. I will not look at it ever again. Never!”
“Lucrezia, my precious, my angel—”
“I told you I wanted Capponi and Felloni. You gave me Leonardo. He has never liked me. I told you he would try to humiliate me. And now he has. If I ever see this painting again, my lord, do not think of coming to my bed.”
She rises and walks out of the room without another glance at him or me.
The doors close behind her.
The Duke looks as if he has just had his stomach removed. But he soon recovers his senses and turns to me, saying: “Ha ha! This is what I love about her—her passion. When you are older, boy, you will see how sweetly a fiery temper lends itself to lovemaking. Desire and anger are the most potent of mixtures, and when they meet, they burn with a force no comfortable love can match. I will go to her room now and console her.”
“What about the painting, my lord?”
“Take it back to—no, go with my captain to the gallery and lodge it there. And, while you are there, now I think on it, find the Medusa and return it to your master. We have tried to look at it; we cannot. There is something more than evil in that face. It stares at us as if we have committed some crime! Take the Medusa, boy, take it far from the Castle, and leave the portrait of Lucrezia in its place.”
I wrap the painting in its cloth once more.
“Now then, I must go to my love before she cools.”
The Duke signals to the guards standing by the doors, which are instantly held open for his departure.
“One thing more, my lord,” I say. “Now that my master is well advanced in painting the Last Supper, will you honor us by dismissing Michelangelo from the Castle?”
The Duke laughs. “He was never here, boy. I put it about to hasten your master’s progress. Leonardo is not the only one who can play tricks, you know!”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“And,” the Duke says, “do not think I have forgotten that you never made your report to me concerning Leonardo’s invention.”
“Sire, I—”
“Never mind. I obtained it from another source. You are forgiven. Now that the flying machine is mine.”
At the door the Duke speaks to the captain and then disappears from sight. I take the portrait of Lucrezia and follow this fellow until I once more arrive at the entrance to the Duke’s gallery. The captain looks to his ring of keys and, after several attempts to find the right one, succeeds in opening the lock.
“In you go, boy, and be quick about the Duke’s business.”
“Are you not coming with me, Captain?”
I can feel a bead of sweat work its way down between my shoulder blades.
“Do I look like someone who would enter the Duke’s gallery? I have no business with art, nor it with me. All paintings are an affront to God’s eyes, and if He will not look at them, neither will I. So, in you go, lad, leave whatever it is you’re leaving and take whatever it is you’re taking, as the Duke commanded. I’ll be waiting.”
And I won’t be delaying.
Once more I enter the tomblike room. This time I know how to find the curtains, and I only trip once before I succeed in opening them.
First, unwrap the Lucrezia and set it down somewhere. On that easel. Now to find the portrait of Cecilia. When the Master and I were here before, it was on the wall opposite the windows, near the center. But it no longer seems to be there.
I cast my eyes up and down, right and left.
“Have you finished in there, boy? They’re ringing the bell for me.”
Where in the name of Saint Peter is it?
But what’s that empty space halfway up the wall, a square without dust?
Of course! The nail has come out of the wall and Cecilia has fallen on top of a stack of paintings. Ah, there she is, face down. You should never be facing the earth, dearest Cecilia—your beauty was meant to bedazzle the heavens!
Now to wrap it up in the cloth, tie the bands, and hope that nobody wants to inspect it before I leave the Castle.
And nobody does, thank God.
I walk down the Sforza Way with the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani tight under my arm. I have rescued Cecilia! The Duke can keep his Medusa, like it or not (I hid it behind a stack of other panels), and Cecilia will have her youthful likeness returned to her.
I have done for her what my master’s painting skills could not—set her free, at last.
I’ll hide the panel under my bed. It won’t leave my room. Cecilia is coming soon! Cecilia, my own dear mother!
The next day, the Master says to me: “Was the Duke pleased with my Lucrezia?”
“Oh yes, Master, most gratified.” She wasn’t, but I’ll let that rest.
“I dare say the lady had some complaints, eh?”
“Why, Master—”
“I wanted her to see herself as I see her: a vain, sensual, proud temptress.”
“Nonetheless, Master, for all Lucrezia’s faults, you did not neglect to show her beauty.”
“Giacomo, what is the difference between a beautiful woman and an ugly one?”
And before I can answer, the Master says: “It is not the way she looks, but the way she is seen. I painted them both as they are in life. But, to me, Cecilia is an angel from Heaven, and Lucrezia was sent here from the other place.”
You haven’t had your brow mopped by her, Master, or you’d soon change your mind about that.
XXXIII
What time is it? Still dark. Morning has advanced no nearer than night has retreated.
I had a dream. Nothing strange in that, but it was a strange dream, as many are. Even as I try to recapture it, it eludes me—away it flies, away, on soft wings, lighter even than a thought. All that remains is the feeling that something was about to happen, something was—somebody was—
Somebody is—in my room!
“Who’s there?”
I sit up—where’s my dagger? Where? Have the two intruders returned to the house to put an end to me? Where is the Master?
A solid black shape, no more than an arm’s length from my bed. Growing bigger, blacker, blooming, spreading, unfurling, a blackness enveloping me—
“Master? Master, no!”
“Your Master is not here.”
“Wh-who are you?”
“Have you forgotten me so soon?”
Is it him—the alchemist, Master Assanti? I can see nothing through the dense blackness.
“Do not be afeared.”
Yes, it is!
“But, how did you enter—?”
“Tombi tells me you wish to cancel our contract.”
His voice fills my head. How near is he? Near enough to strike? The air grows heavy around me and it takes all my strength to remain upright.
“Well, boy? Does he speak truly?”
“Master, I did not—”
“Do you feel the air around you pressing down? I could crush you like chalk between my fingers, if I so wished. Turn you to a powder and mix you into a potion to cure forgetfulness. You made an agreement with me, boy. Nobody dismisses Ottavio Assanti.”
I can hardly breathe. He’s taking away the air—he’s going to suffocate me! Saint Catherine, have mercy!
“Master—” I gasp.
“You will help me to my audience with Pope Alexander.”
“Yes.”
“And willingly.”
“Yes, Master.”
“And you will be rewarded for your part. I will teach you a secret that only I can give you, and only you will ever receive.”
“Yes, Master.”
“It will be something given only once in a lifetime,” he says. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
The air seems less dense, easier to breathe. Whatever spell he cast on me is lifting.
“Now tell me when the Pope will visit the Last Supper,” he says.
“Before he leads the Easter Mass on Holy Sunday at the Cathedral. We are still to learn the day and time.”
“When you kno
w, you will straightway inform Tombi. Say nothing to your master—nothing, do you hear—or you will never learn from me what I have to teach you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are a servant, Giacomo, but what you will become is something only I am aware of. And it is more, much more than you may imagine.”
“Will I become a great artist?”
No answer.
The room grows lighter. The black turns to gray.
The alchemist is gone.
I lie back down on the bed, trembling.
Can I trust this alchemist? I have no choice. Tombi warned me that a man as powerful as Assanti might act unpredictably. I have seen proof of that now. But he has promised to tell me a secret, something that only I may know. Yes, Assanti means to do me some good if I please him, I am sure of it. I must carry out my part.
If only I could tell the Master. But that is not possible. Assanti would certainly discover it.
What can I do but follow the course I have already set and pray to God that all will be well.
XXXIV
The great work is slowly taking shape.
And the Master, though he might delay and delay when he is not ready to begin, when he is, he will not move from his task for hours or days, his hand moving over the painting like a bird in flight, only the light around him changing, while he remains constant.
When I come at midday with bread and cheese, he holds the brush in one hand and feeds himself with the other. In the afternoon I bring him a drink of water. He takes a sip and sends me away. When it is time for his evening meal, he tells me to leave it on the kitchen table. He often returns after I have gone to bed. And some nights he does not come home at all, taking his rest on the platform in front of the Last Supper.
The landscape of trees and meadows and sky seen through the windows behind our Lord is finished. The ceiling above Jesus and the Disciples is also done (the Master has chosen to paint it in the guise of wood panels). The table and cloth on which sit the bread, plates, dishes, and glasses—all are close to completion. There is still much to be done on the walls to the right and left of the table, and, of course, on the Disciples themselves.
In between working on the background and the table, the Master has been painting the faces of the five merchants who were successful in bidding for their places in the Last Supper. But will it be done before the Pope arrives? Though the Master works without cease, we have no more than seven weeks left.
Leonardo’s Shadow Page 21