Caterina waved dismissively. Looking da Vinci in the eye, she asked, “What brought you from Florence to Milano, Maestro? Was it the pope's war with Florence?”
“The pope made war on Florence?” Nicola's voice was incredulous.
“Not this pope—the previous one,” da Vinci explained. “Pope Sixtus appointed an archbishop who conspired with the Pazzi family to take power from the Medici. Lorenzo Il Magnifico and his brother Giuliano were knifed at the high altar of the cathedral, during mass. Giuliano died, but Lorenzo escaped and rallied his followers, who seized the new archbishop, hung him, then tore him to pieces, along with many of the Pazzi. That is why the pope declared war.”
“Was there really a family called Pazzi? 'Crazies?'” asked Nicola in wonder.
“Some called them the pazzi Pazzi, for what they did,” said her mother. The pope and his nephew may have pushed them into it, though, as the price for their business. They were a rival banking family to the Medici.”
“'Were' is right. The Medici eradicated them.” Leonardo watched Nicola’s face, wondering how a girl raised in a Roman nunnery would react to rumors of papal corruption. She seemed unsurprised, even bored.
“My exit from Florence had nothing to do with the Pazzi conspiracy,” he continued, responding to Caterina's earlier question. “The Medici were my patrons. Lorenzo Il Magnifico sent me to Milano to bring a gift to Il Moro—a silver lute of my own design, in the shape of an horse’s jaw. Milano was wealthy and stable then, so it seemed wise to stay when Il Moro invited me. That is how I came to be hired as a court musician.”
“I would love to hear your silver lute, Maestro da Vinci,” Nicola said wistfully, as she traced her finger along a line in the music. “Zia, you should commission the monks of St. Sebastian to sing these masses for your husband’s soul, so that you can hear them!”
“Why can't I commission the nuns here to do it?” Caterina asked.
“The masses are written for male voices,” explained da Vinci, “but perhaps I can transpose them.”
“Maestro da Vinci,” said Caterina, in a tone that reminded him of his first stepmother,“you must stop spending your time visiting printing presses and transposing music! What if the murderer strikes again?”
“There are no more Borgias here to murder, Madonna,” da Vinci replied, keeping his voice gentle and patient.
“You and Rudolfo are employees of Cesare Borgia. You may be safe from poison, but you are not safe from the garrote.”
“You are suggesting that someone might garrote me in a nunnery?”
“The first murdered nun was not a Borgia--and she was garroted, not poisoned.” Nicola responded.
“A second nun was murdered?” Why had no one told him this?
Nicola explained, and also summarized her concerns about Rudolfo Giamatti, who had once loved Sister Annaluisa. While she did, da Vinci thought rapidly. As part of his strategy to display as little competence as possible to Lord Valentino, he had sought to delay discovery of the murderer as long as possible. If the murderer might strike again, however, this was irresponsible. Particularly if he himself might be the next victim. He had witnessed hangings and dissected the cadavers afterwards, during the years when he was preparing illustrations for a work on the human body that he never got around to publishing. The hanged corpses were grotesque. They haunted him still. Strangulation was certainly not the way he wanted to die.
“Other things have happened here, too.” Nicola said, as an afterthought.
“What? What are you talking about?” Caterina said sharply.
Nicola told them matter-of-factly about stones that had come close to hitting her, and mysterious treats she threw away for fear of poison.
“Nicola, why didn’t you tell me this before?” Caterina asked, alarm written on her face.
“I never told anyone. I might have been imagining things. Also, nothing has happened in years—not since Lucrezia Borgia asked us to stop investigating.”
“You might have imagined things, but still—“
“You are not alone, now, Nicola,” da Vinci said firmly. “A roomful of people heard Lord Valentino put me in charge of finding the person who murdered his sister, and tried to murder him. If anyone is likely to be attacked now, it is me. I had not considered the possibility of another murder. Now that I see this possibility, I will give the matter my full attention--or at least, as much attention as I can, considering Lord Valentino's other demands on me.”
“Bene,” said Caterina. “If we need to hire help outside San Sisto, there is gold available. Lord Valentino paid us well for the weapons he bought.”
“Benissimo,” da Vinci pronounced. “I have instigated certain inquiries outside the convent already. But Lord Valentino—like most of my patrons—has never been good about advancing expenses.” He looked at Caterina carefully. She was obviously a very intelligent woman, and there was a way they could help each other.
“I have a proposition for you, Madonna,” he told Caterina. “No, no Madonna!” he exclaimed, seeing the look on her face, “Not that kind of proposition. What do you take me for? A business proposition.”
“Perhaps we should send Nicola back to her studies while we discuss your business proposition,” she responded stiffly.
“That is best,” da Vinci agreed. “Nicola, I will lend you the manuscript of Josquin's masses. Why don't you take them to the little round nun who teaches you music, to see whether she has any interest in copying and transposing them? Your zia and I need to talk.”
“Vivos will love them!” Nicola exclaimed, snatching the music manuscript and curtseying hastily.
“Who?” asked da Vinci.
“Never mind,” said Nicola over her shoulder, as she hurried away.
Caterina and Leonardo talked quietly for almost an hour. Leonardo, who had already been charmed by the daughter of Niccolò Machiavelli, found that he was even more impressed by her aunt. He had noticed her beauty when they were first introduced, but only that. Now that grief no longer dominated her face, she had a look of determination that was a little intimidating. It reflected a practical intelligence rare in a woman. She had spotted the flaw in his design for the small cannon as soon as he put it on the table, he remembered. He should not have underestimated her.
They were interrupted by Sister Elena, who was dragging Carlo with her by the arm. “He got away from me, “ she announced. “When I found him, he was molesting Maria from the kitchens.”
“She let me!” he protested sullenly.
“You must do something about him, Madonna,” Sister Elena told Caterina.
“In truth, Suora, I could not control him even when he was a boy,” Caterina said.
“Then you, Maestro, must control him,” said Sister Elena, turning to da Vinci.
“And how am I to do that, Suora?” he protested. “The best plan was the original one—you must find a younger nun to follow him, who can keep up with him.”
“We would not let any of our younger nuns near this—person!” she replied indignantly.
Carlo had sidled up to da Vinci. “This Maria has the biggest mammelle I have ever seen, Maestro,” he whispered, gesturing in front of his chest. “You should see her. I did not mean to make her cry. All I did was. . .”
“Basta, Carlo! What you did was wrong,” da Vinci interrupted him. “If you don’t keep your hands to yourself, I will tell the priora to lock you in a closet! Lord Valentino would not mind it in the least, believe me. Come, let’s go back to the guesthouse.”
Da Vinci took Carlo by the shoulder and pointed him in the right direction, calling back to Caterina, “We will resolve these matters as quickly as possible, for the sake of all.”
Chapter 38—The Greek Woman’s Lover
Leonardo da Vinci followed La Greca out of the convent gate the following Sunday, hastening to meet her when she joined a tall, bearded man, who was dressed like a foreigner.
“Well met, Madonna! Please introduce me to your companion,”
da Vinci said to the pair, who looked at each other in surprise.
“This is Maestro Thessaloniki, who once taught me Greek, and now teaches at La Sapienza,” she responded reluctantly. “We are going to church.”
“I will join you,” da Vinci said “It is a lovely morning for a walk.” He began walking beside the Greek man, making polite conversation.
At Caterina’s suggestion, da Vinci had decided to confront Madonna Paleologus’ mysterious male visitor before she had an opportunity to warn him. He was pleased that it had been so easy to establish a connection. Now came the hard part: finding out how the man felt about the Borgia family, and whether he was in St. Peter’s Square on the day of Sister Gerolama’s death.
They followed the stuccoed walls of San Sisto around a corner, where the outermost road in the city met the Via Appia at the Appian Gate. People were bustling through the gate, many joining them on the ancient stone road that paralleled the broad brick city wall. The Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterno loomed in the distance.
“Are you pleased with the changes Pope Alexander is making at La Sapienza?” he asked the Greek man. “I hear he is bringing in many great humanists and lecturers, to make it into the best university in the Christian world.”
“That is his ambition, and I support it,” said Maestro Thessaloniki in heavily-accented Italian. He was about the same age as Madonna Paleologus, da Vinci decided. Tall and slender, he carried himself with dignity. His curly black and white beard looked like Lord Valentino’s, except for the color. However, he managed to look scholarly in it, instead of satanic.
“Did Pope Alexander appoint you as lecturer, or do you owe that honor to a previous pope?” da Vinci asked.
Here the Greek man smiled. “Iwas appointed long before Alexander became pope. He would never have supported me, because of my involvement with the Roman Academy.”
Madonna Paleologus shot her companion a warning glance, which da Vinci saw. Fortunately, Maestro Thessolaniki did not. He and da Vinci talked amiably about the Florentine and Roman academies, which had formed when the two of them were young men, to study Greek and Roman classics. It turned out they had common acquaintances among the Greek scholars who frequented the Platonic Academy in Florence.
Maestro Thessolaniki explained that he had been Madonna Paleologus’ tutor when she was a young woman, during a time when he supported himself by taking private students, while he tried to establish himself as a scholar through the Academy.
“What happened to the Roman Academy?” da Vinci asked.
“It was disbanded because of a supposed assassination plot against Pope Pius,” the Greek man said bitterly. “He had dismissed a number of humanists from Vatican appointments, and there was a rebellion of sorts. It got a number of us thrown in prison.”
“How unfortunate. Were you there for long?” da Vinci inquired politely. He himself had been jailed on anonymous charges as a young man, but only briefly.
“Four years in Castel Sant’Angelo,” the Greek man replied bitterly. “I was tortured, then forgotten about, until Pope Sixtus appointed my cellmate as head of the Vatican Library. He managed, finally, to achieve my release.”
They were passing between the ruins of the Lateran Palace and the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterno. Scores of pilgrims were lined up outside the palace ruins, waiting to climb a set of steps on their knees.
“Have you climbed the Sacred Steps yet?” asked Madonna Paleologus.
“Twice,” da Vinci admitted, somewhat reluctantly. He didn’t really believe that Jesus had climbed the steps, or that doing so himself would release him from hundreds of years in Purgatory, as the Church represented. However, the steps were only a short walk from San Sisto. He made use of the opportunity, in case he turned to religion later in life.
“Have you climbed them yourself?” he countered, wondering how the Greeks felt about the power of relics.
“We do it every week, if the line is not too long,” said Madonna Paleologus happily. “There is not time now, however.”
“Do you also work for Pope Alexander, at the Vatican?” da Vinci inquired of Maestro Thessaloniki.
“I cannot imagine Pope Alexander inviting me back to the Vatican, except possibly to put me back into Castel Sant’Angelo again. It was he who prosecuted the humanists of the Roman Academy on behalf of Pope Pius, when he was still a cardinale. I have done my best to avoid his attentions. I am too old to look for a new position.”
“He really thought you were an assassin?” asked da Vinci incredulously. “Surely not—a scholar of your caliber.” Privately, his thoughts were running in precisely the opposite direction. If the pope had imprisoned this man, there was likely a good reason for it—and four years in prison was ample reason for Thessaloniki to hate the Borgia family.
The Greek man confirmed his suspicions. “An evil man like Borgia easily suspects evil in others,” he said seriously. “He is as corrupt as Pius was—they were a pair, robbing the Roman church to get money for a crusade, then spending it to build their palaces and support their whores.” He spat suddenly. “Best not to speak of them—it is Sunday.”
“I agree,” said Madonna Paleologus, who had placed a warning hand on his arm. She again tried to change the subject. “This is supposedly the street where Pope Joan died in childbirth, while on her way from San Giovanni in Laterno to St. Peter’s.”
“Really,” said da Vinci, with genuine interest. It was an ancient street, by the look of it— very narrow, encased in thick walls punctuated by tall stone towers. “So this is the street the popes now avoid, when they come here from St. Peter’s?”
“So it is said. Also that all the popes are now examined prior to investiture, to make sure they are men. Myself, I doubt there was a Pope Joan.”
“Look there,” she pointed. “That is the castello where I was raised, and my father died. The pope let our family use it when we came from Constantinople. Before the popes fled to France they used to use this palace to protect themselves from the Roman mob.”
“Ah,” da Vinci said. He was vaguely aware that the papacy had moved to France during a period of Roman unrest. Church history was one of many subjects he wished he knew better. As a bastard child he had been taught only reading and writing, and seldom taken to church. He had taught himself Latin, mathematics, architecture, anatomy—all manner of subjects. And learned much as an artist’s apprentice. But he had not gotten around to reading the classics, much less church history.
“We have almost reached our destination,” said Maestro Thessaloniki, pointing at a small church ahead of them. “The service will be in the Eastern rite—do you care to attend?”
“Thank you, no,” da Vinci responded. He decided to ask his last question. “Did you receive Pope Alexander’s blessing on Easter Sunday, during the Jubilee?” he said to Maestro Thessaloniki abruptly.
“I was there to see Theodora when he gave it, so I suppose I received it,” said the Greek man, smiling at his companion, who now took his arm as they stopped and faced da Vinci, standing together as a couple. “As far as I was concerned, though, Theodora was the one who was blessing me.”
The glance they exchanged spoke of many years’ intimacy. “We meet when we can,” Madonna Paleologus said, with quiet dignity.
Da Vinci was sympathetic. “For all these years, you have been meeting once a week? Why did you never marry? You did not take vows as a nun,” he continued, looking at Madonna Paleologus.
“I made a vow to my father, and another one to San Sisto,” she explained. “I only withheld allegiance to the Roman church. Paul was in the Castel Sant’Angelo and I did not think he would live. Anyway, my father would never have let us marry. A scholar, marry a princess? It was unthinkable.”
Now she reached out and grasped one of da Vinci ’s hands in her own. “But please believe me, Maestro—hating the Borgias is not the same as wanting to poison them. Neither of us would ever do such a thing. God has been good to us. We are content.”
The talk of poison appeared to mystify Maestro Thessaloniki. He opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but closed it again as the bells of the church began to ring. “Come, Theodora. Services are about to begin,” he said, offering her his arm.
Da Vinci followed them into the courtyard entry of a small, ancient stone church, where they rang a bell that opened a wooden turntable, exposing a key they used to unlock the door into a small chapel, off the entrance. Da Vinci entered briefly behind them, glancing at the primitive frescoes on the ceiling, which told the story of the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. Incense filled the small room, where a handful of people were sitting or kneeling in prayer, facing a bearded priest in black vestments and tall cap. After glancing around, da Vinci left.
La Greca had ample reason for hating the Borgias, he reflected. No wonder she had expressed such bitterness against Pope Alexander: even before the pope betrayed his promise to launch a crusade to help her father, he had imprisoned her lover—who was present as a potential confederate the day Gerolama was poisoned. The Greek woman had also been in the hallway outside the priora’s dining room on the day that Ugo Biaggi was murdered, he remembered. She could have been trying to kill the pope’s son. Still, she had led a quiet life for so many years, with her girls and her cats. Da Vinci liked her, despite himself. Did the Greeks engage in vendettas, the way the Italians did? Could she really be a poisoner?
He would talk it over with Madonna Biaggi and her niece, he decided. If nothing else, the love story he had heard today would delight them.
Chapter 39—Cesare Borgia's Poisoner
Sister Beatrice, at work in the infermeria, looked terrified when the priora introduced Sebastian Pinzon.
“Lord Valentino sent him in response to your letter about the poisons used to kill Sister Gerolama and Nicola’s uncle,” the priora explained. “He wishes to speak with you privately,” she added as she bowed and left.
“Lord Pinzon! I did not expect you to answer my letter in person!” Sister Beatrice stammered.
A Borgia Daughter Dies Page 19