“Cheers match jeers,
As do tears and fears.”
If Leonardo had been a young child instead of a young man, he would have clapped his hands with delight at the sight of the apothecary shop on the Ponte Vecchio. Its flap was up and secured on poles, its door a wide open and inviting maw. Just nearing it, one could smell the tang of herbs, the perfume of berried potions, and the sharpness of linseed oil. It was all there, especially artists’ supplies.
Leonardo doffed his brimmed beretto, squinting into the dark and crowded interior. He sighed at the onslaught of aromas—so familiar, so beloved.
“Leonardo! You are here. How wonderful!”
“And happy I am to be here!” Leonardo returned the joyful greeting, spotting Dario Barbieri behind the counter. The chubby man’s face split by a wide grin, yellow teeth exposed all the way to the back of his mouth, arms thrown wide.
The two men embraced as if they had not seen each other in an age. They held each other but an arm’s length apart and, for the moment, simply rejoiced in the survival of the other.
“All is well with you?” Dario asked, just a hint of concern tainting the polite question.
“I am quite well, Dario, have no fear.”
“But you are still living in the palazzo, sì? How is it with Il Magnifico?” This last the man asked with not a bit of subterfuge, his sadness for Lorenzo de’ Medici laid bare.
Leonardo shook his head. He still inhabited the small rooms Lorenzo had made available at the time of his troubles, but he had seen the man only twice since the death of Giuliano, once to convey his tear-filled condolences, the other at the funeral services. They had said no more than a few words to each other.
“I do not believe he has begun to heal,” Leonardo said the truth quietly. “Hate possesses him utterly.”
Dario pursed his lips, scratching the back of his nearly bald pate. “As well it should.”
Leonardo merely tilted his head.
“You do not agree?” Dario recoiled.
“I think hate can be the ruin of us as much as our enemies.”
“You are too wise for your age, Leonardo. You need to have more frivolity in your life.”
Leonardo whipped out a short parchment filled with a long list from within the pouch of his tunic. “My work, my studies, these are my joys. Now prepare yourself, Dario, I have need of much.”
For the next hour, the two men scoured every nook and cranny of the well-stocked apothecary. By the time their gathering was over, Leonardo could barely see Dario behind the pile heaped upon the counter.
The proprietor stood on tiptoes to stare at his friend. “So much, Leonardo, are you sure?”
The learned man, more than a painter or sculptor or philosopher or scientist, nodded with great spirit. “I am sure, my friend, quite sure.”
Dario boxed up the goods, calling a young boy to bring a handcart to the front of the shop. “You have enough here to paint the whole of the city. What is it you work on?”
Leonardo offered the small grin so particularly his, shy yet full of knowing. But he gave no answer. In lieu of words, he placed in the merchant’s hand two gold florins, each with the face of Il Magnifico engraved upon them.
The sight of Dario’s bulging eyes did much to hearten Leonardo, and did everything to stifle any more questions from the curious seller.
“I wish you the best of days,” Leonardo called over his wide, bony shoulders as he dipped out of the shop.
“And you, dear Leonardo. Many thanks!” Dario called back.
Even as Leonardo began his walk off the bridge pulling the small cart, he could hear the call of “mille grazie” reaching him from within the apothecary’s shop and he treasured the small grin it gave him as a gift.
Gifts.
That is what these women were to him, those anxiously awaiting his presence.
• • •
It took them so very long to settle down, to stop crowing with pleasure, to stop touching everything with coos of delight. It did not evade Viviana’s notice, in the color rising on Leonardo’s cheeks or his sparkling eyes, Leonardo’s pure gratification in the giving she glimpsed each time she glanced at him. She shared his gratitude, not only for his gifts, but for the gift of his very presence.
Once they had calmed, once the women had distributed the goods proportionally and genially, they set to work.
Leonardo brought them before the large, prepared canvas, and they studied its surface.
“Do we agree it is dried thoroughly enough?” he asked and all concurred as they touched and smelled the overlay.
“Ah, sì, good.” He stepped away, returning swiftly with a ball of string. “What I am going to show you now, though in truth I cannot believe I do so,” this last he muttered like an old woman protesting the vagaries of life to no one but life itself. “Well, I do not recommend you ever use it again. I care not if Botticelli considers it a great tool. I deem it a fine cheat.”
At this the women eyed each other, more than a little intrigued by the gossipy nature of the allusion. They watched with curiosity as Leonardo used the string to form squares on the back of the canvas, creating, at the end, a perfect twelve square grid. Each segment was perhaps a little more than a foot in size, four across and three down. But when Leonardo turned the canvas back around, the grid disappeared.
“But how—” Mattea began, stilled as Leonardo held up a long hand.
From another table, he captured two lit candles, one in each hand, and stepped behind the canvas.
“Would you look at that?” Isabetta exclaimed.
By gridding the canvas with string and by placing the candle behind it, the shadows of the strings perfectly portioned the painting surface. One could now apposite which items belonged in which grids, giving a greater guide to positioning as well as proportion.
Leonardo stepped out from behind the canvas, saw the success of his work, and saw the surprise and elation on the faces of his women. He pointed a harsh finger at them all.
“I apply the method only as you are reproducing, not creating. You will promise me you will never use it in your own work or I will help you no more.”
“We promise,” a few said aloud with wonder, while others simply nodded, speechless.
“Very well,” Leonardo accepted with a decisive if dubious nod. “Then it is time to make all those sketches,” he pointed to the women’s gather of parchment—the haphazard conglomerate of ill-matched drawings—set upon the table, “into one. Mattea, will you begin?”
Viviana felt the young woman beside her hesitate. Yes, she was the best at sketching among them, but she had yet to accept it, to believe and own it. Viviana placed a gentle hand on the small of her friend’s back and pushed her forward.
Mattea picked up her favored piece of sharpened charcoal, setting herself before the primed canvas. With a last look at the women, her other family, she set the tip to the artist linen. It had begun.
• • •
Each took a turn, imitating Mattea’s style at the guidance of Leonardo, but implanting and infusing what they thought were the most vital elements of the painting. But not a one ever worked alone; with the women beside them, at their back, whoever wielded the charcoal was tutored in technique, placement, and items.
With Isabetta at the helm, she added the small snake to the picture. It could barely be seen, hidden as it was, disguised as one of the tie-backs for the curtains on one of the three windows behind the table of men.
Viviana leaned forward and squinted at it. “I did not see it at all. Are you sure?”
Isabetta nodded. “Quite,” she affirmed without hesitating in her work.
“The snake is the symbol for the Sforzas,” Fiammetta said from Isabetta’s other side.
Isabetta’s hand hesitated then, like a single stutter, but continued on. She felt no need to mention it was the Sforzas causing so much of her troubles with the store, with their “regulations” on the selling of meat raised on their lands.
“May I?” Viviana held out a hand to Isabetta, one begging silently for the charcoal. With a few swift strokes, she embedded the smallest of daggers onto the picture, sitting untouched, almost hidden on one of the back corners of the table.
Standing back to scowl at her contribution, she handed the implement back to Isabetta.
“There was no knife in the painting, was there?”
Isabetta shook her head, as did Fiammetta on the other side of her.
Viviana cocked her head. “It is there, though. In all my sketches, I have placed it there.”
“It is your trope,” the male voice came from behind.
“My t—trope?” Viviana stumbled on the unfamiliar word.
Leonardo stood beside her. “You saw the evil in this picture, somehow you saw it. A trope is a metaphorical expression of what we want to say but cannot truly say, what we see but cannot name. For you, it is that dagger.”
“Do we leave it in?” Isabetta queried with a whisper.
“It is so small, I do not think anyone but the artist would notice it. I think it has a rightful place. It is the signature of this group upon this work,” Leonardo answered. Isabetta returned to her work, the small implement remaining.
As with any gathering, the work was not undertaken in silence. Between remarks on the work came the idle chatter of a group of friends. It began with Fiammetta’s simple remark of regret.
“I missed Calendimaggio yesterday, very much. Would it not have been good for the city to have a little gaiety?”
Viviana harrumphed, “Perhaps. But it surely would have been the height of impropriety to the deceased Giuliano and his grieving family.”
“Of course,” Fiammetta snipped, turning her back on she who dared to correct her.
“There was a…a festival of a sort,” Leonardo said, no more than a shamed mumble.
“A festival?” Mattea cocked her head to the side.
Da Vinci shrugged. “Perhaps it is the wrong word, but it was an event for certain. But first I must tell you, I spoke to Lapaccia’s houseman.”
“You did?” Viviana squawked, bright eyes darkening. “Why?”
“What did he say?” Fiammetta demanded.
Leonardo turned azure eyes toward Viviana, their outside corners drooping. “Please, madonna, do not think I mistrust or fail to believe you. I simply…well, I needed to know the situation at her home. To feel it. Capiesce?”
“I do understand, signore.” She assured him.
“He said, ‘she is not in residence.’”
“That’s it?” Isabetta grumbled.
“That’s it,” Leonardo confirmed, “but then, as I thought to make for a tavern…” Leonardo shook his head, dark clouds crossing his face, “then things truly became interesting.”
With this intriguing introduction, the artist launched into the tale of the previous day’s adventures.
“It was the most astonishing of things I have ever seen.” Dropping his long form into a chair, Leonardo took a deep draught of watered wine, not caring whether the chalice was his or not.
Isabetta took her place again as artist. She began to draw the figures themselves. Natasia, standing at her wing, began to giggle, and the loveliness of it drew them all to the work.
Without guile or timidity, though Leonardo joined the group, or perhaps because he did, Isabetta allowed her strokes to pay particular attention to the formation of the men and their most manly parts. As she turned her attention to one man, Fiammetta began to laugh.
“You do him far more justice than he deserves,” she chortled. “He has nothing near that kind of…wealth.”
The cackling was joyous.
Viviana struck an incredulous pose, her eyes gleaming. “And just how would you know how deeply his pockets fall?”
The question only ignited more laughter.
Fiammetta shrugged a shoulder with feigned though superior nonchalance, proclaiming the truth with the drama it deserved. “I saw it with my own eyes. In my own home!”
With brows so high on her forehead, they almost reached her plucked hairline, Isabetta scoffed, “You and this man?”
Everyone in the room knew who he was, who he used to be, for he was one of the first executed. Piero Felici was a diplomat of some sort, from the court of Urbino. He was very young, very thin, and very unimposing. The thought of him and Fiammetta, together, brought the most fanciful of images to mind.
“Do not be silly, Isabetta. You really must get hold of your priapic thoughts,” Fiammetta quickly disavowed them of the ridiculous notion. “I actually walked in on him, and some woman, during a ball in my home.” She shook her head and tutted, “It was so rude.”
This time the women kept their giggles contained, for Fiammetta’s sake.
“Besides,” she leaned in and squinted, “if I were to forsake my vows to Patrizio, it would be with someone with much more to offer.”
That did it, the gales returned. Isabetta began to draw again. As she gave life to another, a taller man this time, with a long, almost delicate face none recognized, she gave him the same bounty of certain parts as she had before, expecting a similar response.
“Surely not!” Viviana squawked. With only her husband as a gauge, she found such abundance difficult to accept. If it was true, if a man could be built thusly, she was doubly deprived in life.
Isabetta just smiled, but this time Leonardo answered.
Leaning in, peering over Isabetta’s shoulders, he pulled back with a slim smirk.
“Oh no, that one you most certainly can leave as it is.”
The women’s jaws dropped as if in concert. Viviana put a hand on his arm, a gesture full of her pleasure that he felt safe to speak so plainly with them. Only Isabetta failed to join in; she turned quickly away and began to sketch another man.
On this figure, she took her time, paying particular attention to all the details of his rendering. He wore a short tunic, cinched at the waist with gilded belt, and tight, multi-colored hose. His legs she sculpted with the deep lines of well-formed muscles, the torso she angled with a slim waist broadening in the chest and shoulders.
“Do you know this man?” It was Mattea who asked, Mattea who sounded skeptical.
Isabetta shook her head. “No, nor will anyone, I think. Wait for a moment.”
She continued to sketch him with fine details, but this man’s face she drew in profile. Though he stood at the back corner of the table, his body in a frontal pose, his face was turned to the side. His hair, lovely wavy locks, fell in front of his face like drawn curtains. One could see only a nicely straight nose and a strong chin, little more.
“I thought him very fine, very beautiful,” Isabetta sighed wistfully, “Such beauty is often hard to pull away from.”
Viviana frowned, knowing the yearning Isabetta felt, one seeming to stretch out like a never-ending road, one she recognized as her own.
Mattea studied the drawings but stayed at the table at the back of the room.
“Are you all right?” Isabetta called.
“We need to be very careful here.”
Mattea spun round, small nose wrinkling, lips pursed pensively.
“What do you mean?” Leonardo asked of her, though they all felt the change in the air, the change in her.
“The Medici, the government, even the common men of the street, they seek this painting to identify those who were part of this crime, yes? And we do so to save Lapaccia?” She walked toward them, pointing to the sketch as if in accusation. “But what of the other men in it?”
Every glance turned to the large canvas. The faces of those drawn in were of those already denounced and dead. Those with blank features had not been drawn, and were therefore unidentified.
“We take on a serious burden here. We cannot put anyone into this painting, this irreparable and damning evidence, who hasn’t already been arrested or executed. We could be committing them to death, whether deservedly so or not.”
It was another layer of their deception to which none had given any thought. Like the others, Viviana was stunned they had not. How could they not?
Quiet suffused the room; the gurgling of the water in the small garden fountain just outside the windows grew and took precedence.
“You may be right,” Isabetta said, breaking the brittle stillness, though gently. “But I know this man. I know his embodiment as well as I know my own. Nor can we really tell who he is, though oft times I thought he looked familiar.”
“Then you see—”
“What I see is a gathering of men so enamored of their own power, beguiled by what they perceived as their own intelligence and cunning that they chose to have this painting created. They chose to do it.” Isabetta shook her head, mouth curling grotesquely. “If he is a part of this conspiracy, it is his trouble to have.”
“Please, Isabetta, wait,” Mattea tried once more. “We have to…” But her words failed her, while those of others—voices in conversation not far from their closed door—broke in.
“Who is it?” Viviana hissed, brow furrowing, eyes bulging.
“What can I do for you, Ser Ufficiale?” It was Natasia’s brother, Father Raffaello, speaking, very loudly, and to some sort of government representative.
“Lord save us all,” Natasia whispered in prayer. “What have we done?”
“Shush,” Viviana silenced her.
Isabetta went to the door, mouth set in a hard, firm line not to be denied, even when she opened the door and tiptoed out into the corridor, closing the door behind her.
Viviana thought she would vomit, such was the clenching grasp fear had upon her. From their sweaty brows and their wringing hands, she knew the others felt the same. There was no air, nor did it matter, for not a one seemed capable of breathing.
When the door cracked open once more, they did not know what to expect. Isabetta dashed any hopes with a single finger tapping hard and repeatedly against her pursed lips as she locked the door behind her.
Silently, with exaggerated mouthing, she told the others the worst of the news. “They are coming.” Her lips formed the words while her hands swirled around to all parts of the room, pointing into cupboards and under tables. The message was clear. They were coming to search.
Self-preservation banished all fear, turned it into action. Viviana ran to the table, gathering the sketches together, wincing as the parchments scratched against each other with a sound so small, any other time it wouldn’t be heard. Leonardo snatched the canvas from the easel, shoving it into Mattea’s hands.
The voices outside the door grew louder; footsteps clattered arrhythmically.
“It’s one of these keys, I am sure of it,” Father Raffaello laughed at himself.
Both hands now free, Leonardo took Mattea’s arm in one, Natasia’s in the other, fairly dragged them across the room, shoving both of them—Mattea clutching the painting—into the single large cupboard.
Fiammetta dropped her girth behind Isabetta’s plinth and threw a paint-smattered, long forgotten piece of canvas over her, one they had used to practice creating fresco dimensions.
Only Leonardo, Isabetta, and Viviana remained exposed, vulnerable.
The grating of key after key sounded in the lock.
“Give it to me,” a disgruntled male voice insisted from the other side of the door, and the jangle announced his possession of the keys.
In the space of time, Leonardo threw remnants of cloths—most used for cleaning—over one table, turning it quickly into a tent of sorts.
“Aha!” came the cry from without.
Leonardo grabbed the women, pulled them around the back of the table, and shoved them under, crowding them in as he curled his long body into a ball beside them, head and shoulders so curled, his long face hanging squelched between raised knees. Safely hidden from the front, yet if the inquisitors walked the circumference of the room, they would soon be uncovered.
The door opened with a whoosh, followed by a stamping of feet.
“As you see, signore, it is as I said, an art studiolo.” There was but the slightest quaver in the priest’s voice; only those who knew him would hear it.
“Are you allowed such an amusement, father?” this from the same voice belonging to he who had taken the keys.
“Well, there have been many famous men of the cloth who accomplished a great deal artistically, such as Fra Filippo Lippi,” Natasia’s brother laughed nervously, perfectly fitting for this conversation. “Of course he was not of my order. Perhaps, just perhaps mind you, this work of mine would be, shall we say, frowned upon. Why do you think the door was locked?”
Viviana could have cheered for the brilliance of his words, at the lengths he would go to protect them. Even as she shared small smiles with the two crouched beside her, she knew Father Raffaello would condemn himself to many days of penance for his lies.
“Surely in these times, a painting priest is of little concern?” he continued.
She heard it then. Viviana heard the sniffle and her eyes bulged. She knew it came from Natasia. Had the men heard it too?
“It is sorry I am not to have more to show you. I have no current work in progress at the moment,” Father Raffaello performed wonderfully; Viviana almost believed he was sorry.
“Very well then,” the man grumbled with disappointment. “See to your true duties, priest. The city has great need of them.”
“I will. Oh, I certainly will. This way, gentlemen.”
Even as they heard the door shut, even as they heard the key turn again in the lock, they didn’t move. No one moved. They waited.
It seemed like an hour, but was not more than a handful of minutes before the key returned to its home and the door opened.
“It is safe. Are you here? It is safe, I swear it.” The dear priest sounded close to tears.
They came out then, each from their own hiding place. Father Raffaello rushed to his sniffling sister, cradling her in the basket of his arms. The remainder of the group came together in the middle of the chamber, each asking others, all at once in a jumble of words, if everyone was all right.
“My knees are no doubt bruised from kneeling so long,” Fiammetta groused, but it was not to be the worst thing she would say. “We must let this go.”
“What? No!” Viviana’s voice was not the only one raised in protest.
“If you were missing, if you were hunted by the authorities, would you want us to stop?” Mattea asked her with more than a tincture of her previous anger.
“It is not me,” was Fiammetta’s answer, a poor one even in Viviana’s ears.
They all began to talk at once—Fiammetta for the end, Natasia wondering if she spoke true, Mattea and Isabetta antagonistic against them. Leonardo stepped away silently.
Viviana could stand it no more.
“Silence!” she commanded. “All of you. Be still. It is not just about this painting.” Viviana’s blue eyes were aflame with righteous indignation. “It is not even just about Lapaccia. It could be any one of us, at any given time. The world has gone mad and we are more blessed than all the women out there. And I for one refuse to see it riven. To have meaningful purpose should be the challenge of everyone, man or woman. There is no price, no life more worthy than another. There is no price on loyalty.”