chapter 13

“A perfect day,” Leandro announced. Perched on his glove was a large falcon with the distinctive gray and white banding of a peregrine. He carried the twenty-pound weight of the mature bird as lightly as Matt might have worn a watch.

I can’t argue with that, Matt thought; it is a perfect day. Nothing is lacking. And what a glorious country. It had seeped into him like the summer heat, dry and penetrating, becoming a part of him. These were his clouds, his fields of grain, rippling green and silver under the sun; his horse, sweaty, shaking its head and tugging the reins as it reached for the long grass. These are my hands, he thought, and this light that molds them, mine, too. It was a land of infinite possibility, and there was nowhere else in this world or any other that he would rather be than right here, sitting astride this horse, in this field, under this sun.

“She’s magnificent,” Matt said, looking at the hawk.

“The best hunter I’ve ever had,” Leandro replied, lightly stroking the falcon’s ruffled chest with the side of his forefinger. “Athena is her name.”

“A haggard,” Matt ventured. Although he had never been hawking, his studies over the years had left him well versed in the most popular sport of the time. The haggard, a fully grown falcon trapped in the wild, had a style and ferocity that a bird hatched from an egg or taken from the nest could never equal. Training one took infinitely more skill and patience, and the bird often disappeared when at last set free, but Matt had seen enough of Leandro to know that he would never have flown anything else but a haggard.

“Yes. It took me three weeks to break her, but it was worth every minute. Last week she brought down a heron all by herself.” The tufted plume of feathers on the falcon’s hood tossed as she cocked her head this way and that. “What do you hunt?” Leandro asked Matt.

“I don’t,” Matt replied.

“You don’t hawk?” Leandro asked in astonishment.

“In my country it’s just not done.”

“Then what do you do?”

“For sport?”

“Yes.”

“We golf.”

“Golf?” Anna asked, shifting her gaze to Matt from the thicket where the servants had disappeared with their guns to flush the game. She sat next to Leandro on a mare as pale as milk with a small gray hawk, a rare kestrel, resting lightly on the thick yellow glove that protected her arm. Her cape, a shade of blue verging on violet that made Matt think of Mantegna and the frescoes in Mantua, was thrown back on her shoulders. With no belt under the bodice, her dark red dress fell in open folds from the square neck, the sleeves slashed and tied to show the white chemise underneath. “I’ve never heard of golf. What is the quarry?”

“There isn’t any. You use a club to hit a ball around a course of holes. Each person has their own ball and set of clubs. The one who uses the least number of strokes to get his ball in the holes wins.”

“That’s a sport?” Leandro asked.

“How far apart are the holes?” Anna asked.

“About the width of this field, sometimes more. There are eighteen of them.”

“Why eighteen?”

“I don’t know,” Matt replied. “Tradition.”

“Which is saying the same thing twice,” Anna said. “Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly—when does the humble ‘I don’t know’ metamorphose into the much grander and infinitely more respectable ‘tradition’? Do women play?”

“It’s a game that requires patience, concentration, finesse, and extraordinary physical poise and control. Women excel at it.”

“I’d like to try,” Anna said.

“It sounds like a pleasant diversion, well suited to women,” Leandro said.

Their horses stood in a large field that had been left fallow, the grass long and patched with wildflowers. The duke, on the other side of Anna, listened to the man on the horse next to him, who gestured with one hand as he spoke. Hair falling straight and black to his shoulders, the man also had a pointed beard, which accentuated his narrow aquiline features. His hat was a coiled satin snake, bands of brilliant red and blue topped by a gold tassel. Dressed in the flowing long white robes of an Arab prince, Kamal al-Rashidiyah, as Rodrigo had explained to Matt, was an emissary from the king of Persia to the pope. He had stopped in Urbino to confer with the duke before continuing on his journey to Rome. Behind the duke sat his honor guard, pennons stirring fitfully from the points of their silver lances in the light breeze.

As a series of bangs erupted from the nearby wood a bright bundle of feathers burst from the copse. The thrumming of a pheasant’s wings could be heard from where they sat as it began to rise into the air. The duke quickly swept the hood from the massive bird resting on his glove and unhooked the leash. A gyrfalcon, largest of the species, the hawk blinked its huge eyes, a bottomless yellow, as it arched its wings. With a powerful stroke it was airborne, pushing away from the duke’s extended arm. Leather jesses dangling from its feet, it rose slowly at first and then with increasing speed circled higher and higher, in seconds a mere speck against the sky.

The pheasant was halfway across the field, heading away from the group that sat still upon their mounts, watching the sky intently, their hands shielding their eyes. Just as Matt found the gyrfalcon, pivoting in a tight circle around one feathered wingtip, the bird folded its wings and began its stoop. Faster and faster, growing larger as they watched, it plummeted like an avenging angel toward the pheasant winging desperately for the safety of the far wood. The hawk hit with a slam that they could hear from where they sat, streaking past in a flash of white and then pulling immediately up. Its strong wings pulled it skyward as the pheasant tumbled out of control toward the green field, a few loose feathers drifting behind. And then, before they could even blink, the gyrfalcon hit it again, a death blow that caused the pheasant to drop like a stone, its bright feathers vanishing into the wildflowers. One of the servants ran to retrieve the fallen bird.

“Rodrigo tells me you are an artist,” Federico said to Matt.

“No, Your Excellence,” Matt replied. “I have a love of art, but that’s a far cry from being an artist.”

“Have you traveled in the Low Countries?” the duke asked.

“Some.”

“Are you familiar with the paintings of Van Eyck?”

“Very much so,” Matt said. “The one you have in your library in Gubbio is the finest I have seen.”

“Look,” one of the ladies next to Anna exclaimed, pointing up at the sky. “There it is again.”

“It’s that damned kite,” Leandro growled, looking up as a low murmur spread through the group.

Matt searched the sky. The gyrfalcon had circled higher and higher until it was once again a tiny crescent far overhead. But a second bird, even higher, was circling above the hawk. Huge and black, with long, drooping wings, it rode the updraft with a lazy menace.

“I am fascinated by the amazing depth of his colors,” the duke said, watching the sky. The gyrfalcon was climbing, trying to gain height on the other bird.

“A gorgeous bird,” Leandro agreed.

“I meant Van Eyck,” the duke said. “His pigments. I would love to know where he got them, but I am afraid the secret died with him.”

“There’s no secret,” Matt replied. “He used only the finest quality, but it’s the same ultramarine or vermilion you can find here.”

The two tiny shapes far overhead merged, only to spring apart immediately, one of them wobbling slightly. Feet extended, wings widely arched, they fell through the sky, together and apart. Steep short dives, not at all like the headlong, unbroken plummet into the pheasant, were followed by a quick beating of powerful wings as each bird clawed its way to the higher ground.

“I find that impossible to believe,” the duke said.

“Piero uses them liberally,” Matt said, referring to the duke’s court painter, Piero della Francesca. “But Your Excellence would know that, since after all you were the one that paid for his materials.”

“True enough,” the duke replied with a deep laugh. “The bill for ultramarine was outrageous. More than gold leaf, ounce for ounce. I refused to pay it. But Piero’s blue has nowhere near the clarity or glow of Van Eyck’s. None of his colors do, in fact. How did he achieve that?”

“It was in application,” Matt said.

“How so?” Anna asked. “What did he do?”

“It wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. The oil, the glazes, the ground—every step.”

The larger bird rose more and more frequently, striking the other with a growing audacity. Quiet now reigned, the group engrossed in the struggle far overhead. The kite hit the gyrfalcon a quick series of strikes. The last was enough; the white bird rolled over, wings spread wide, and cartwheeled toward the distant meadow. It grew and grew as they watched, picking up speed as it fell, pushed along by one last violent slam from the other bird. The gyrfalcon crashed to the earth, a crumpled heap of white feathers that lay motionless in the bright green grass. The kite sailed overhead, tilting almost contemptuously on one wing before lazily pumping itself back skyward.

“Please go on,” the duke said, to all appearances unperturbed by the loss of his bird.

Hearing the jingle of hawk bells, Matt looked over just in time to see Athena lift away from Leandro’s arm. The graceful wings drew, lifting her higher and higher toward the distant comma of the kite, circling idly far overhead.

“You have to think of how the light strikes the painting,” Matt said. “Tempera is opaque. The light illuminates the color and bounces off. What you see is what you get. Oil, though, is like a glass prism. Light passes through the oil and then refracts back, breaking into a rainbow of colors. It’s like the difference between a single note and a chord.”

“But Piero uses oil,” the duke said, “and his paintings look nothing like Van Eyck.”

By now the peregrine had reached the other bird. Wasting no time, the falcon engaged the much larger kite immediately, a first strike and then a quick dive. The kite recovered and followed, and the two danced through the sky, trading the lead back and forth. The peregrine exploited her greater agility, hitting the larger bird and darting away, staying close inside as the kite tried to find her. The crowd cheered, anticipating a kill.

“That’s because he’s a tempera painter. Like Botticelli, or Lippi, or Ghirlandaio. All of them use oil, but they’re tempera painters at heart. They model a figure and then use color to fill in the outlines. Van Eyck models with his glazes. With his ground. You know how bright Piero’s figures are? Or Botticelli? They leave the ground bone white and pile on the color. Van Eyck, though, colors the ground. He then layers the glazes, builds them, makes a figure out of shadow and light.”

The kite had broken off and sailed free, the peregrine following at a close distance. Suddenly the black bird thrust its wings, stalling, and wheeled on one wingtip. The peregrine, taken unawares, was on top of him, unable to stop, and the kite fell on her with all his fury. A second later the kite was circling, alone in the sky, as the tiny bundle that had been the peregrine spun earthward.

Matt glanced at Leandro. Expressionless, he watched the bird fall until it hit the ground, disappearing in the long grass on the other side of the field.

“A shame,” Anna said. “She put up a good fight.”

“Indeed,” Leandro replied, acknowledging her remark with a slight bow.

Al-Rashidiyah leaned forward and spoke to the duke, who nodded. Turning to his assistant, the Arab snapped his fingers.

The man ran to the covered cadge and fetched a bird, bringing it back and handing it up. The falcon settled on the man’s arm, and he spoke to it soothingly as he drew off its hood. Almost as large as the gyrfalcon, it was a speckled dark brown, banded with black, with piercing eyes that glared around the assembled company, searching for prey.

“A sacre,” Orlando exclaimed. Matt turned to the boy, seated with his friend Cosimo on their smaller mounts behind the main group. Both boys were wide-eyed, their faces shining with excitement. Orlando held a small goshawk, hooded and quiet on his wrist. “The great desert falcon,” he explained to Matt, proud to display his knowledge.

“I’ve always wanted to see one,” Matt replied, careful not to let on that he had already known what a sacre was. Turning back, he saw Leandro’s gaze also on the boy. Leandro, sensing Matt’s eyes on him, shifted his gaze to meet his, smiling at the boy’s naïve enthusiasm, but not before Matt had had a glimpse of what had been in his face. He had looked just like the sacre, sizing up his prey.

The large hawk shifted its feet, flexing the long, curved talons as it arched its wings. Opening its cruelly hooked beak, it uttered a harsh cry, and Kamal unhooked the leash from the braided black jesses. With a quick spring the bird was gone, racing skyward.

“You seem to know an awful lot about painting,” Anna said. “For someone who is not an artist.”

“Thank you, Contessa,” Matt replied with a bow. “But knowing and doing are worlds apart. I also know how birds fly, but I can’t do it myself.”

“There’s no mystery there,” Leandro said. “We have legs, they have wings. Anyone knows that.”

“I’ve always wondered how they soar,” Anna said. “Look at the kite—it’s not moving its wings, and yet it stays aloft. It can even rise higher, without any effort at all. How is that possible?”

“It glides,” Leandro replied. “Like a leaf blown by the wind.”

“The kite, I think, is a bit heavier than a leaf,” Anna said.

“No, he’s right,” Matt said. “A bird rises on updrafts. Columns of air heated by the sun. But that’s not how it stays aloft, like the kite is doing.”

“And how is it able to do that?” Anna asked.

“It’s the shape of the wing and how the air flows over it,” Matt said.

“How do you mean?” the duke asked, looking down from the birds to rest his good eye on Matt.

“The wing is curved,” Matt said. “Like this.” He cupped his hand. “The air flows around it. It takes longer for the air to travel over the top. This creates a vacuum here, underneath; more air rushes in, like water under a boat, and it lifts it up.” Matt wasn’t sure if he had it exactly right—it had been a long time since high school physics. But it was close enough, and he doubted there would be an aerodynamic engineer anywhere within earshot to contradict him on the fine points.

“A vacuum,” Leandro said. “Sounds like another name for witchcraft.”

“Not at all,” the duke replied. “A vacuum is an absence of a material. An imbalance which nature tries to correct. I have a text of Archimedes from Alexandria, translated from the Arabic”—he nodded to the prince, who bowed in return—“which explains the phenomenon. It’s the basic principle upon which hydraulics is founded.”

The sacre had reached the kite. It rose higher, circling toward the sun, the kite describing larger arcs as it kept pace. Without pausing, the sacre wheeled into the kite, striking it point-blank. It stayed close, using its wings to pivot into the larger bird again and again, breaking off to swing underneath and appear again out of nowhere. The kite struck back, hard, vicious blows that even from that great distance jarred the watching crowd, but the sacre was relentless, always attacking. Struck, it would fall away, only to wheel and come back to rake the other bird and then fall again, the two following each other lower and lower. The sacre suddenly broke away and began circling higher with quick strokes of its tapered wings. The kite rose, too, but slower, the sacre slowly outstripping it, the kite working to keep up. Higher and higher they rose, the sacre leading the way, farther and farther in the lead, and then with one last powerful stroke the falcon folded into a stoop and dropped on the kite, hitting it with full force and knocking it sideways as it rocketed past. The kite struggled to regain its balance, but before it could, the sacre hit it again, even harder, and it was done for. The long wings slumped, the neck went limp, and the black bird, now a shadow on the sky, spiraled downward.

The sacre swooped low overhead, circled, and then landed on the branch of a nearby tree. It waited, shifting its feet and arching its wings, as the party clustered around the prince, congratulating him. Looking past the group Matt saw Leandro galloping away across the meadow. He watched, curious where the knight was going. Reaching the far end of the field, Leandro wheeled his horse around and then, quickly dismounting, disappeared from sight momentarily. He appeared again, on foot, carrying something in his hand as he led the horse by its reins to a towering maple on the edge of the wood. There was a quick glint of steel, and then the prince remounted and spurred his horse back toward the group.

Matt stared at the tree, trying to make out across the distance the pale form that Leandro had left pinned to the dark bole. White, speckled with brown, as limp as old clothes hanging to dry—the carcass of the peregrine, he realized, and looked back to the group, searching out the knight. Startled, he found Leandro staring straight at him. The knight gave a quick glance back at the tree and smiled.