Leonardo and the Death Machine Read online

  Leonardo’s eyes were smarting. This had all gone horribly wrong. “I was a fool to come here,” he said.

  Before his father could voice his agreement, he turned on his heel and dashed out of the door. He stopped outside and rested his back against the wall as he fought to control his sobbing. When he looked up he was astonished to see his father had followed him.

  “Are you in some sort of trouble, Leonardo?” Piero’s tone had softened, but it was still an accusation.

  “If I were, what difference would it make to you?” Leonardo flung the words at him like a handful of stones.

  “I was worried for you. I still remember the day you ran off and threw yourself into the river.”

  “That’s not what happened. You don’t understand.”

  “Well, in spite of what you did, in spite of what you said to me, we are both alive still. But your life won’t amount to much unless you take command of it.”

  “I thought it was you who commanded my life.”

  “I have done you a favour,” his father said, stern once more. “I have given you a way to turn these fancies of yours to profit. But it will still take effort on your part.”

  Leonardo looked pointedly away, but his father kept talking.

  “Do you see, when I walk down the street, how the people bow their heads and address me in terms of deepest respect? Such a prominent position has to be earned. It takes years of hard work.”

  The words stung Leonardo. He knew that what he hoped to gain by helping the Medici was just the sort of respect his father was talking about, and that just made everything worse.

  “Is that all you want from me then, that I should go back to Florence and drudge in a workshop?” he demanded angrily.

  “I want you to take responsibility for yourself,” his father retorted with equal rage, “not to just run away from a challenge.”

  Leonardo’s stomach was churning and he could think of nothing else to say. He ran off down the path and lost himself among the olive trees. After a short while Fresina appeared beside him.

  “I was hiding behind a barrel outside the house,” she said. “I heard it all. I followed as soon as your father went inside.”

  Flushed with embarrassment, Leonardo grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off down the path after him. “We can’t stay here,” he told her in a cracked voice.

  “Then where are we to go?” she protested. “We are almost out of food.”

  “I don’t care,” snapped Leonardo, shepherding her down the hill. “I’d rather starve than go back there.”

  “Your father will not help you?” Fresina asked.

  “He has his reputation to think of,” said Leonardo bitterly. “That is all he values, that and the next pretty face he takes a fancy to. If he knew I was in trouble with the law, he would beat me soundly before handing me over to the magistrates.”

  Fresina sighed. “So we came here for nothing.”

  “There is one place left to go,” said Leonardo. “And in its own way it’s as dangerous as going back to Florence.”

  A half hour’s walk brought them to the hillside overlooking the village of Campo Zeppi.

  “You say your mother lives here?” said Fresina.

  “She was a peasant girl my father took a fancy to in his youth,” Leonardo explained grudgingly. “Even when she bore him a child, it was impossible for an important man like him to marry someone so lowly. She was allowed to nurse me for the first year of my life, but as soon as he found a more suitable bride, he sent her away. And when that well-born wife died childless last year, he quickly married another to bring him a legitimate heir.”

  He looked away so that the girl would not see the misery in his face. Fresina touched him tentatively on the shoulder. “You don’t have to hide your pain from me. I know what it is to be taken from your mother.”

  Suddenly, Leonardo dropped into a crouch behind some shrubs, pulling Fresina down beside him.

  “What is it?” she asked nervously.

  “Down there, the road beyond the village,” Leonardo said. He pointed to a rider mounted on a chestnut gelding who was trotting around the hill, his back turned towards them.

  “Do you know him?” Fresina asked.

  “I can’t see his face, but I’m sure he’s not from around here,” Leonardo replied.

  They waited until the horseman had passed out of sight behind a grove of poplars before emerging from hiding.

  “It was just a man on a horse,” said Fresina. “You act like he was an evil spirit.”

  “Never mind,” said Leonardo, glancing to where the sun was sinking behind the hills. “We must get to Caterina’s before dark.”

  An hour later they came in sight of a rough, stone-built cottage on the edge of the village. Fresina gazed upon the squalid dwelling with distaste. “It’s very small. Does your mother live here alone?”

  “No, she married a long time ago,” Leonardo replied. “Her husband is a lime burner named Tonio, though everybody calls him the Brawler. You’ll find out why.”

  They continued walking down the dirt track and had almost reached the cottage when a chorus of squeals erupted from inside. Four children of various ages – a boy and three girls – came pouring out the door, chasing each other and squeaking with excitement. The boy was the youngest and he was swatting one of the girls with a stick.

  “Maffeo, leave Madalena alone!” a woman’s voice shouted after him.

  She emerged into the light, the children scattering like a flock of starlings before her. As soon as she caught sight of Leonardo she pulled up short and wiped some dust from the front of her apron. She was a pretty woman in her early thirties, her long brown hair held back from her sun-browned face by a plain white kerchief that was knotted behind her head.

  She placed her hands on her hips and regarded the boy.

  “Leonardo, it’s been a long time,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She spoke in the clipped accent of rural Tuscany.

  “Caterina,” Leonardo answered. His hands were twitching nervously, as if he wanted to reach out to her, but was afraid to do so.

  Caterina clucked her tongue. “Leonardo, you can call me Mother here.” She made an exaggerated show of looking all round her. “We’re not in church or the market where someone might overhear.”

  Leonardo glanced round about at the hillside and the nearby cottages. His caution was genuine for he remembered the horseman. “Can we go inside?”

  Caterina stood where she was, blocking the entrance. “Who is your friend,” she asked, “and why is she dressed as a boy?”

  “These were the only clothes we could find for her,” Leonardo replied.

  Caterina scrutinised Fresina in a way that was curious but not unfriendly. She tilted her head towards the cottage and led the way inside.

  Only a few shafts of light penetrated the small windows, illuminating a single room with a hearth at one end and some piles of folded blankets at the other. In the middle of the room was a wooden table surrounded by a circle of stools. Along the walls were shelves filled with clay pots and cooking utensils.

  Caterina motioned her visitors to be seated at the table while she laid out some bread and fetched a pitcher of water. “You look like you’ve been travelling,” she said as she sat down on a stool and poured the water.

  Fresina drank thirstily and bobbed her head in thanks. “We’ve come all the way from Florence,” she said.

  “What? Just to see me?” Caterina joked.

  “To ask for your help,” said Leonardo. “We need a place to hide for a few days.”

  “And you thought this would be a good place?” His mother waved her hand around at the bare walls. “I suppose your father would not help?”

  Leonardo did not reply.

  Caterina laughed. “No, he wouldn’t, would he? So you are in trouble.” She looked Fresina in the eye. “Is that right?”

  Fresina nodded. “I don’t know that hiding is going to help us.”

  Leonardo
sensed that this was a slight against him. “It’s the only plan I have for now,” he said testily.

  “And who are you, girl?” Caterina asked, keeping her gaze fixed steadily on Fresina.

  “She’s a servant,” Leonardo interjected hastily. “There was some trouble in the house where she works, but she is innocent of any wrongdoing.”

  “Is that so?” Caterina queried sceptically. “Look at her face, hear the way she speaks. She is not from Tuscany, not even from Italy. And she has no proper clothes to wear. She is a slave.”

  His mother stood up and slammed her hand down on the table right in front of Leonardo. “Do you know what will happen to us if an escaped slave is found in our house?”

  13 THE BRAWLER

  Leonardo could not meet his mother’s stern gaze. He said woodenly, “All I know is, if we had stayed in Florence, she would be dead now and so would I.”

  He felt Caterina’s work-hardened fingers under his chin, forcing him to look into her face. “And what is she to you?” his mother asked.

  “She’s just someone who needs help,” Leonardo answered. “She overheard some men plotting against her master’s family. They killed a man and pinned the crime on her. I was there and helped her flee, so now those men are after us both.”

  “What are they? Thieves?”

  “Worse than that,” replied Leonardo. “They are among the richest and most powerful men in Florence.”

  “And you defied them to help this slave girl?” said Caterina. She moved her hand from his chin and ruffled his hair approvingly. “Sometimes you still act like my son, no matter what your father has done to you.”

  She walked over to Fresina and laid a sympathetic hand on her arm. “The wealthy men of Florence buy these girls to be their playthings as well as their servants. And if their wives object, they soothe their injured feelings with expensive gifts of dresses and jewels. Here in the country our wealthy men have no slaves, but they still have their pleasures.”

  “Can we stay?” Leonardo pleaded.

  Caterina sighed. “How little I see of you, my son, and when you do come, it is to place my other children and my husband in deadly danger.”

  “I would see you more often if I could,” said Leonardo. Even to his own ears this excuse sounded weak. “But it is difficult. And right now I need your help.”

  There was a shrill uproar outside and cries of, “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Tonio,” said Caterina. “You let me talk to him,” she warned sternly.

  An immense figure ducked under the doorway and for a moment it looked like he might be stuck there. Then he emerged into the room and seemed to halve its size by his mere presence.

  “Caterina, I am hungry,” he announced, as though it were the most important news in the world.

  The Brawler spent his days shovelling limestone into a furnace. In this way they produced quicklime which was mixed with sand and water to make building mortar. In times of plague, quicklime was used to destroy the bodies of the dead. The sulphurous smell of the stuff clung to the big man as he approached the table and regarded his visitors.

  Leonardo stood up respectfully and Fresina followed his lead.

  The Brawler frowned. “I know this boy,” he said.

  “It is Leonardo,” said Caterina.

  “Hello, Brawler,” said Leonardo, bowing his head.

  The Brawler wagged a thick finger. “You should visit your mother more often, boy,” he chided. “Don’t you know that she—”

  Caterina hushed him. “It is enough that he is here now, Tonio.”

  “Very well,” the Brawler agreed gruffly, “but you know how I feel about a man who disrespects his mother.” He clenched his fist by way of illustration. Then he squinted at Fresina. “Who is this other boy? I don’t know him.”

  “It is a girl,” said Caterina. She appeared to consider a moment before reaching a decision. “She is a slave. Leonardo brought her.”

  “We can’t afford to keep a slave,” Brawler grumbled. “Send her back.”

  “I’m not giving her to you,” said Leonardo. “We just need a place to stay for a while.”

  “She is in trouble and she is being pursued by wicked men,” Caterina told him bluntly.

  “As they chased us, they were cursing the name of the Blessed Virgin,” Leonardo added.

  The Brawler’s eyes flared with a sudden righteous rage. He ground his fists together like a pair of millstones.

  “If a man speaks disrespectfully of the Blessed Virgin, he tastes my fist!” he growled. “If a man blasphemes against God, he tastes my fist! If a man does not venerate the saints as he should, he tastes my fist!”

  Fresina pressed her lips to Leonardo’s ear. “He is a very holy man,” she whispered.

  “No,” Leonardo whispered back, “he’s just a man who enjoys a good fight.”

  “They need a place to stay where they will be safe,” said Caterina, “until the trouble passes.”

  The Brawler pondered a moment. “They could stay here, as long as they share our burdens.”

  “I am used to doing housework,” Fresina said.

  “Of course, we’ll do whatever we can to be useful,” said Leonardo.

  “It’s settled then,” the Brawler concluded, as though he had wrapped up all of his business for the day. “Now, when do we eat?”

  Once they were gathered round the supper table a glance from their father made the boisterous children fall quiet and bow their heads. The Brawler said a grace that sounded more like a call to battle than a prayer, then they all ate hungrily.

  After the meal Caterina tucked her little ones into their beds of straw, then sat down at the hearth beside Leonardo. “I heard your father had sent you to Florence to be an artist.”

  “He never cared for my drawings,” Leonardo recalled. “Then one day, a peasant who works on our farm arrived with two rabbits he had snared. He was a good hunter and he was usually paid in coin for the game he brought. This time, however, he recognised his own cottage in one of my drawings. He said he would take that in payment for the rabbits instead of money.”

  He noticed that the Brawler was paying no attention to his tale. The big man was seated in the corner carving a simple doll from a piece of wood. He held it at arm’s length and admired the crude strokes that were meant to represent the eyes and mouth. Leonardo wondered absently which of the children this gift was intended for.

  “So what happened then?” Caterina prompted.

  “When my father found out about this, he took me to see Maestro Andrea del Verrocchio in the city and showed him my drawings.”

  “And he was impressed?”

  “If he was, he didn’t show it,” said Leonardo. “He just told my father that if I came to work and study with him he would pay me an allowance of four lira per week. Anything else would have to be provided by my family or by my own efforts. My father accepted the offer. And so got me out of the way of his new wife.”

  Caterina spat into the fire. “It is not just slaves who are bought and sold,” she observed. “You say you came by boat?”

  “Yes, I tied it up under the shelter of some trees.”

  “If they are looking for you, they will find it,” Caterina stated decisively. “First thing in the morning, you must go down to the river and set it adrift.”

  Leonardo shifted uneasily. “Father knows that I have returned to Anchiano, though I did not stay in his house long. I told him I had come for money and then I ran off.”

  Caterina laughed and waved aside his concern. “It will never occur to him that you came here.”

  “It wouldn’t have occurred to me either before today,” said Leonardo.

  “And why not?” Caterina demanded, her eyes flaring. “Are you too proud to enter your mother’s poor house?”

  Leonardo bowed his head, conscious of a new humility. “No,” he said softly, “it’s because I have no right to ask you for anything.”

  A long silence passed between them before Cater
ina spoke. “Yes, you do,” she told him firmly. “You are my son.”

  Leonardo and Fresina were given a sleeping space and some straw to soften the packed earth floor beneath them. As silence descended upon the house, Leonardo wrapped his thin blanket around himself.

  He felt Fresina edging closer to him. “Your mother is much like you,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her eyes. They see what is really there.”

  “Is it true what she said?” Leonardo asked her in a low voice.

  “Is what true?”

  “That your master bought you to be his…plaything?”

  Fresina rolled away from him and pulled the threadbare blanket over her head. “A slave must be many things,” he heard her mutter, “and she cannot complain of any of it. My young mistress, Lucrezia, she took me for her maid to keep me from her father. I think kindly of her for that.”

  Leonardo heard an uncharacteristic hint of gratitude in the girl’s voice.

  As he drifted off to sleep, Leonardo remembered the day last year when his first stepmother, Albiera, had died of a fever. His father had ordered him to cease his weeping and behave like a man. Unable to control his tears, Leonardo rushed from the house to stand on the rocky promontory that hung out over the River Arno, wishing he could escape his pain.

  And now he dreamed he was spreading his arms like wings to fly away to some far-off land. Then, suddenly, the rocky edge crumbled beneath his feet and he went tumbling down into the water. The waves closed over his head and the current roared in his ears like a ravenous beast.

  He awoke with a frightened gasp and gazed around the dark room. The awful noise thundered on and for an instant Leonardo thought they must be in the path of an approaching landslide. Then he realised it was just the Brawler snoring. No one else appeared to have been disturbed and he supposed they had become used to the din, just as they had accustomed themselves to so many other hardships. Fresina also slumbered on, too exhausted to be woken.

  Leonardo lay down and drifted back to sleep, this time free of dreams.

  There were still stars showing dimly through the windows when Caterina shook Leonardo gently awake. She led him to the table where she had already laid out a breakfast of bread, milk and fresh fruit.