by Alana White
“Having Leonardo around sounds a good arrangement for you both,” Amerigo said. “His help is a boon to you, Andrea, and it keeps him off the streets.”
Hot color crept into the flesh of Leonardo's delicate countenance, and his smile faded. He adjusted the front of his tunic, pulling the hem tighter beneath the wide leather belt encircling his hips, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Andrea looked appalled. The silence was deafening.
“Don't mind him,” Guid'Antonio said, wanting to throttle his nephew. “Amerigo's memory is sharp when it comes to his grandfather.” Amerigo's comment had been a neat double slur, referring both to the public charge of sodomy an unidentified accuser had made against Leonardo a few years back, and to the long ago afternoon when Leonardo chased Amerigo the Elder through town, whispering to himself and drawing hastily in his sketchbook to capture the frightened old man's ancient likeness on paper.
Leonardo relaxed a bit. “I knew my fascination with his grandfather displeased your nephew, Messer Guid'Antonio. That's why I gave one of those rough sketches to him. Though I thought he might tear it up in retaliation.” He offered Amerigo a conciliatory smile. “Better than a knife in the heart, I suppose.”
“No,” Amerigo said, his anger diffused, though his cheeks still appeared warm. “The drawing was much too good to destroy. I still have it.”
Andrea looked around from one to the other of them, tapping his fingers on the table, clearly wondering what in hell the Vespuccis were actually doing in his shop.
“Leonardo, you're from Vinci,” Guid'Antonio said.
“Born there, yes. But I've lived in Florence almost twenty-eight years, since I came here as a boy.”
“What do you know of Jacopo Rossi da Vinci?”
“Jacopo? Oh. The father of the girl—”
“Who is still missing, yes,” Guid'Antonio said, leaning forward, motioning with his hands.
“Never met the man,” Leonardo said. “Nor the girl, either.”
Guid'Antonio grunted his disappointment, aware Andrea and Leonardo were staring at him. He didn't care. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. But my uncle Francesco da Vinci might know Jacopo,” Leonardo said. “Francesco's still on the farm where I spent my early years. If it's information about Jacopo Rossi you want, I'll send Francesco a message asking what he can find out about him.”
“No. Or, anyway, not yet.” Guid'Antonio must go to Vinci himself. Soon.
Then what? Leonardo's eyes asked, and Andrea cleared his throat loudly. He had work to do. So did Leonardo.
“Leonardo, how would you go about making a painting weep?” Guid'Antonio said.
Andrea stepped back. “The Virgin Mary in Ognissanti? Surely, the hand of God has been in that.”
Leonardo's mouth quirked. “I could find a thousand ways.”
“I'll settle for one.” Guid'Antonio turned back to Andrea. “The hand of God, you say? You believe the tears, intermittent as they are, are an indictment of Lorenzo?”
“Of course not. No,” Andrea del Verrocchio, a craftsman commissioned by the Medici for decades, said.
“Apply a dry compound of a dead animal's blood to the eyes, then squirt the painting with liquid,” Leonardo said. “Or—”
“Wouldn't that make tears of blood?” Guid'Antonio said.
“Absolutely,” Leonardo said.
“God's knees, don't think it,” Amerigo said.
“But if it's translucent tears you want?” Leonardo raised his brow questioningly.
“I don't want them, but I have them,” Guid'Antonio said. True, the Virgin Mary hadn't wept in well over a week, but who knew when the tears might begin again, and him no closer to exposing the perpetrator today than on the Monday he first heard about them?
Smiling, Leonardo said, “I understand.”
“He'll be inside Ognissanti this very night studying the painting from every angle known to man,” Amerigo said, leading the way back toward the Unicorn district through shadowed stone passages and skinny side streets.
“Let us hope,” Guid'Antonio said.
“Did you notice the emblem 'broidered around the neck of his tunic?”
“I did.” Leonardo's emblem was a plow in an oval setting with the motto Impedimento non mi piega. No obstacle will stop me. Guid'Antonio prayed not. He heard Dog panting behind him. “Go on,” he said. “Get back.”
“The tunic was made of fine cotton, too,” Amerigo said. “But then, his family's wealthy and cares not he's a bastard. God, it's hot today.”
The hairs prickled on the back of Guid'Antonio's neck, a warning to take care. Why? He glanced over his shoulder before starting with Amerigo across a sunny piazza. Despite the heat, alms seekers loitered near the shops, stretching their hands out to passersby. People with wooden buckets crowded toward the public well, sweating, fanning themselves, and awaiting their turn at the spout.
There was something menacing here. Something hit Guid'Antonio in the back, hard. In the next instant a warm breath brushed his cheek, and a familiar voice whispered urgently in his ear, “Brother Martino, and him still gone!”
“Uncle!” Amerigo whipped around, brandishing his knife. A woman screamed. People scattered. Empty buckets struck the ground and rattled across the square.
Dog had already launched his massive body toward the darkdraped figure hurrying toward a nearby alley. “You! Dog!” Guid'Antonio shouted. “No!”
The animal jerked around, looking askance at him, confused. “Good dog! Stay! It's only Brother Paolo,” Guid'Antonio told Amerigo, excited, his heart beating rapidly. “He meant no harm. He had something to tell me.” Amazing. In the blink of an eye, they were alone in the square. So much for people coming to their rescue. He glanced at the cane corso Italiano. The dog's attempt to protect him was pure instinct on its part, nothing more.
“Never. How do you know? That it was Paolo, I mean.” Amerigo sheathed his weapon, breathing hard. “That fellow was uncommonly tall, but his cowl did hide his face.”
“His voice,” Guid'Antonio said.
Perplexed, Amerigo said, “Paolo didn't care if you understood it was him? Why risk having me knife him rather than just coming out with—what was it, by the way?”
“He said, ‘Brother Martino, and him still gone!’ With an exclamation point.” Guid'Antonio raised his eyebrows, thinking about this as they started walking, quickly now.
“But we knew Martin was gone,” Amerigo said. “Didn't we? He's the lout who plowed into us in Ognissanti and kept running the first day we were back in town.”
“Indeed. But we didn't know he hadn't come back, did we? And Brother Paolo risked everything to tell me that. Why, Nephew?”
“The mind reels,” Amerigo said.
They threaded south toward the Arno through the Ox and the Black Lion districts, stepping every so often into a piazzetta where sunlight illuminated the buildings, transforming their ochre facades into russet and gold stone. Thoughtfully, as they passed into a bleak passageway, Amerigo said, “In church last week the novice Ferdinando Bongiovi swore—”
“The Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta is weeping for Martin's sins, yes, yes. But now the question is where Martino may be found. And why he ran from church in the first place.”
“I think we're sidetracked,” Amerigo said.
“Then don't think,” Guid'Antonio said.
“If I were you, I'd be asking why chatty Brother Paolo didn't tell you Brother Martin's whereabouts rather than continuing this game of hit and run.”
“Because clearly Brother Paolo doesn't know and is hoping I'll find out.”
Outside Ognissanti Church, street urchins played and dogs scavenged for vegetables and fruit oozing with flies. Guid'Antonio opened the church door, glancing sideways down the street, watching Amerigo unlatch the Vespucci courtyard gate and disappear into the garden. Meanwhile, Dog lay curled into a huge ball at the church entrance with his nose resting on his massive paws, prepared to snooze and wait for Guid'Anto
nio to come back out.
What persistence. Stepping inside the church, Guid'Antonio breathed deeply and glanced around. The sanctuary was quiet, with only three or four people praying at the main altar. Behind him, the door opened, admitting a crack of light. The two women who entered craned their necks for a better view of Sandro's Saint Augustine before continuing past Guid'Antonio to the church front. A figure swathed in black crept toward him through the shadowed nave. It was Brother Battista Bellincioni, the doughy almoner of the church, and him ever on the prowl.
Guid'Antonio narrowed his eyes. Was Bellincioni the culprit who had manufactured the tears? If so, why had he stopped? On orders from Abbot Ughi, who feared they might get caught, now Guid'Antonio Vespucci was on the case? He smiled to himself, acknowledging his own sense of self-importance.
“Messer Vespucci,” Brother Bellincioni said, sneering. “You again.”
“And you. You look undressed without the collection box in your hands.”
“You look undressed without your costly red cloak,” Bellincioni said.
“I would speak with Brother Martin.”
A shuttered look closed the monk's face. “There is no Brother Martin here.”
“Not anymore, you mean.”
Bellincioni blinked. “I mean there is no such person here.”
“The novice Ferdinando Bongiovi, then.” Guid'Antonio's little talker.
Bellincioni snapped his fingers, his expression gloating. “Gone!”
A sliver of fear slid up Guid'Antonio's throat. “Gone where?” Surely they wouldn't hurt the boy.
“I wouldn't know,” Bellincioni said.
Quite possibly, this was true. Probably the worst thing that had happened to young Ferdinando was that he had been sent to another church somewhere outside the town walls, squirreled away to keep him from blabbing about Brother Martino and his whereabouts. All three young brothers of the Humiliati Order, Paolo, Martino, and Ferdinando, held the key to some secret Ognissanti did not want revealed. Guid'Antonio was certain of it now.
He hardly dared say it: “And Brother Paolo Dolci?” Could Paolo have reached here so soon after bumping into him? Yes. He would have run, run, run, timid and scared as a mouse.
“Unavailable,” Bellincioni said.
“He had better not come to any harm. Nor any of them.”
“We protect our own,” Bellincioni said.
“From what?”
“Themselves,” Bellincioni hissed.
“Abbot Ughi, then.”
“Gone. To Rome.” A smile snaked across Bellincioni's lips. “To meet with the Pope.”
Sixtus IV. This was interesting. Guid'Antonio's eyes sought and found the Virgin Mary on the distant altar. The two women who had come into the church with him were kneeling before Mary's painted image. Ognissanti and the Pope in collusion over the tears did not seem such a stretch anymore. But it was not too much to say that the Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta was Florence's most revered icon. Would Abbot Ughi dare tamper with the painting? He thought of the Pope's support of Giuliano's murder and of the abbot's frosty stare. The tears meant money in the coffers and Lorenzo's reputation soiled. Two for one, and both men benefited, abbot and Pope.
He said: “Abbot Roberto Ughi can't stay in Rome forever, although it might be best for Florence if he did. Mind this, Bellincioni, playing with the Pope can be dangerous.”
“Playing?” Bellincioni quailed. Recovering, his countenance sour and outraged, he turned without further words and scurried deep into the sanctuary.
Guid'Antonio glanced at the wall on his right side. In the gloom, the Saint Augustine—the old man's gold-and-white robe—jumped out at him. “Old fellow,” he said, noting the beseeching expression on the saint's face and how his eyes were turned toward heaven, seeking answers, “I know just how you feel.”
Near the sacristy, a shadow, watching Guid'Antonio, vanished.
Guid'Antonio's skin prickled. What would they have done with little Ferdinando? Would they have sent him home or, indeed, to another church? If Brother Paolo were still here, tucked away somewhere, did he fear some personal harm? Paolo had risked his neck by contacting Guid'Antonio out in the open just now, no matter how briefly. And where was Brother Martino? He and Camilla Rossi da Vinci disappeared. Camilla gone before the young, dark-haired monk, and then Camilla's horse, Tesoro, sent into the city.
One thing he did know: he must find Martino, if only because Brother Paolo Dolci desperately wanted him to do it and believed that he could.
THIRTY-FOUR
A beam of light shone over Guid'Antonio's shoulder.
Startled, he glanced around. A dark shape hovered within the church door, its shadowed form surrounded by a halo of golden light. He strode forward, toward whatever good or evil stood waiting for him.
“Uncle Guid'Antonio?”
“Amerigo.” Guid'Antonio closed his eyes a moment. It was his angel nephew, backlit by the sun pouring down on Piazza Ognissanti with Dog drooling at his heels.
“Luigi's fine now,” Amerigo said. “I'm happy you sent me to check on him. He was crying in his bed. What have you learned here?”
“Abbot Ughi is in Rome.”
“Rome! And now?”
“Let's—” Guid'Antonio glanced back at Sandro's fresco of Saint Augustine, frowning, his eyes traveling up the length of the painting. “Amerigo,” he said, advancing toward the church wall, “open the front door far as it will go. Yes, look there, just beneath our coat of arms.”
“Where? Oh, some lines scribbled in the saint's geometry book. In the shadows, I hadn't seen them before.”
“I had. But in shadow, as you say.” Guid'Antonio squinted. And read the lines aloud.
“Is Brother Martino anywhere about?”
“Brother Martino just slipped out!”
“Slipped out where?”
Where, indeed? Guid'Antonio hardly dared breathe, lest he wake to find himself not in Ognissanti, but home, swimming up from a dream featuring clues painted at the top of frescos, and how ridiculously improbable was that?
Hoping against hope, heart pounding rapidly, he read the fourth and final line:
“Through the Prato Gate for a breath of fresh air!”
Martin had been running in that direction, yes. “Amerigo,” Guid'Antonio said softly, “Alessandro Botticelli could hold the key to Brother Martin's whereabouts. Please God, we'll find our neighbor in his house.”
Those golden eyes.
“You've discovered the writing,” Sandro said, fixing Guid'Antonio with a wide yellow stare. “It was lightly meant, with no harm done to the commission.”
“Clever, too,” Guid'Antonio said.
“I knew if anyone ever saw those lines, it would be you.” Sandro cocked an eyebrow. “It was only after including them I realized my little jest might seem inappropriate.” He smiled.
Amerigo said: “Or even sacrilegious.”
“Even that,” Sandro said.
“Is that why you were nervous when we came to your shop the other day?” Amerigo said.
Sandro conceded the point with a nod of the head. “Amerigo, you are a sharp knife, as always.”
“What did you see the last day you were employed in Ognissanti?” Guid'Antonio said.
Sandro glanced at his apprentices, three boys gilding, drawing, tracing. “I was almost finished with your wall when this monk, a certain Brother Martino as it turned out, came flying from the sacristy, feverish and yelling.”
“Yelling?” Guid'Antonio said.
“That he had defiled Ognissanti. He didn't want to live.”
“Defiled Ognissanti?” Amerigo straightened. “How?”
“What else happened?” Guid'Antonio said.
“He fell before the Virgin, sobbing, claiming he had brought God down on our heads. By ‘our,’ I took it he meant Florence. He said he was Satan's brother.”
“That is a bit much,” Amerigo said.
Sandro's puckered brow indicated he disag
reed. “Brother Martin believed everything he said. The word murder flew from his lips.”
“Murder?” Guid'Antonio and Amerigo said.
“Who was murdered?” Guid'Antonio said.
Grim-faced, Sandro shook his head. “That he did not say.”
“Why didn't you tell Palla about this? Or me?”
“You didn't ask. How should I know it was important? Anyhow, the boy was overwrought, no more, no less. Murder? No.”
Guid'Antonio massaged his temples, thinking. “The other monks chased him—Paolo Dolci and little Ferdinando.”
“They did.”
“What did they say? Besides the exchange you jotted down for all posterity to read?”
“You mean till someone paints over the fresco or cuts a door in the wall?” Sandro laughed sourly. “They called loudly to him, or rather, Brother Paolo did: the tall, pretty one with the silver hair. Tonsured, sadly. Paolo seemed to think Martino had committed some particularly vile sin. His concern appeared to be that if Brother Martino ran off, the abbot would have his head.”
Amerigo snorted. “Most like he already did.”
“So,” Guid'Antonio said. “Martin thought, or thinks, he committed some grievous wrong. Paolo does as well, but you don't?”
“I don't want to think it,” Sandro said.
“The question remains, run where?” Guid'Antonio said. “Pisa? Lucca? Straight into the sea? I saw Martino run toward the Prato Gate, but that particular gate leads everywhere.”
A light dawned in Sandro's eyes. “That's what you want to know? Where Brother Martino went that day?”
“Yes.”
Sandro glanced at his apprentices' bent heads and the candles burning around the shop, adding a whisper of light to the dim illumination offered by the open windows. “Seems smaller to me every year. Messer Guid'Antonio,” he ventured softly.
“Yes.”
“I want to go to Rome.”
“Yes, yes, to paint the chapel for the Pope.”
“You remember.”
“I remember everything. Including the new building in the Vatican. And its naked walls.” And you—and Leonardo da Vinci—nattering about how it is the end of the world if you don't go there immediately and leave your painterly marks upon them.