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Sandro remained paralysed, the grasping hands of the woolworkers almost upon him. With hardly a moment to spare, Leonardo snatched the ball from his friend. Spinning about, he booted it high upfield.
Simone jumped and caught it. In the next instant Leonardo and Sandro disappeared under an avalanche of bodies. Crushed beneath the weight, Leonardo fought for breath in the sweat-soaked darkness. Somewhere amid the grunts and curses he heard a pained yelp from Sandro.
Then a raucous bellow of triumph sounded across the field.
Simone had scored the winning goal.
One by one the players were dragged off the heaving pile, freeing the two victims at the bottom. Leonardo was hauled dizzily to his feet, flushed and gasping. The goldsmiths flocked around him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back. The unexpected pleasure of finding himself a hero banished – for the time being – all thoughts of his ruined clothes.
“Come on, Sandro, we’ve won!”
But Sandro was still curled up on the ground, clutching his right wrist. He groaned. “No, no, no, I’ve lost. I’ve lost everything!”
Back at the Botticelli house Sandro’s mother wound the bandage tightly around his injured wrist, tutting and muttering to herself all the while. He flinched as she gave it a final tug before standing back to regard her handiwork. Wrapped inside the bandage was a poultice of stewed nettles and vinegar that gave off a pungent odour.
“Now you keep that arm rested,” the old woman instructed. “I’m going to the kitchen to mix you a broth of leeks and pig’s trotters. That will put the colour back in your cheeks.”
Sandro stared mutely at the green-stained bandage and wrinkled his nose.
“I’m sure it will be a help,” Leonardo said politely, adding to himself, if he survives drinking it.
The old lady scuttled off, leaving the two young men alone for the first time since the end of the football game. Having completed his apprenticeship with Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro had only recently set up as an artist in his own right. Until he could afford to open his own workshop, his father had allowed him to turn one of the storerooms at the back of the house into a temporary studio.
That was where they sat now, surrounded by sketches of saints, centaurs, Madonnas, satyrs and angels that were spread all over the walls.
“It’s a rotten bit of luck, your arm getting stepped on like that,” Leonardo said sympathetically.
Sandro raised his blue eyes slowly, as if unwilling to look upon a world that could be so cruel. “Who knows how long it will be before I can use a paintbrush again?” he moaned. “I took my first step on the ladder of success and the rung has snapped beneath my foot.”
Leonardo felt a pang inside. Seeing the normally jolly Sandro brought low like this was like seeing the sun blotted out by an eclipse. “Can’t Lorenzo just wait a bit longer for his portrait?” he suggested.
“I told you, he wants it before he leaves for Naples next week,” said Sandro, “and wealthy families like the Medici are accustomed to getting what they want.”
Leonardo nodded slowly, understanding the problem. He knew from his own father that it did not pay to inconvenience rich and powerful people. “There will be other clients, Sandro.”
“Do you think so? For an artist who has broken his very first contract? No, this is ruin for me. I should have stayed behind in the Piazza della Signoria and taken my chances with Pitti’s ruffians.”
The mention of the confrontation in the square suddenly jogged Leonardo’s memory. Something had been nagging at the back of his mind but events had been moving too fast for him to give it any thought.
“Sandro, didn’t Simone say the Medici supporters called themselves the party of the Plain?”
“Plain, lake, mountain – what difference does it make?” Sandro sighed.
We shall bring destruction down on the plain, Silvestro had said. And Leonardo was sure it had something to do with the machine he was building.
He closed his eyes and visualised the scene in Silvestro’s studio. As far back as he could remember, Leonardo had had a gift for recalling exactly any image he had seen. Now he placed himself back in that room, walked over to the desk. There was the diagram before him, each detail precise in itself, but its purpose still elusive. In order to study it properly, he would have to make a copy of his own.
Rising from his stool, he sidled towards a stack of drawing paper and fingered the topmost sheet. “Sandro, could I borrow some of this paper?”
“Helpyourself,” groaned Sandro, rubbing his injured wrist.
Leonardo took the sheet and laid it flat on a table by the window. Grabbing a stick of charcoal from a nearby pot, he quickly began sketching. A cog here, a wheel there, a cord, a weight. Yes, that looked right. As the machine took shape on the page, so a plan began to form in his mind.
When an opportunity comes your way, grab it with both hands before somebody steals it, his father had told him more than once.
“Sandro, you know that ladder of success you were talking about? Instead of climbing up rung by rung, how would you like to fly straight to the top?”
Sandro looked up with doleful eyes. “What do you mean?”
Leonardo picked up the paper and held it in front of Sandro.
“Look, I’ve made this copy of a diagram I saw at Maestro Silvestro’s today. He’s involved in some sort of plot against the Medici – I’m sure of it.”
Leonardo repeated all he had overheard and described how he had seen the stranger again in the Piazza della Signoria.
Sandro squinted at the drawing. “But this is just a lot of sticks ands wheels,” he protested. “It’s no threat to anybody.”
“Look, Sandro, suppose the Medici are in some sort of danger. Wouldn’t they be more than grateful to anyone who could warn them of that? Wouldn’t they reward them with a lifetime of well paid work? There would be no more broken ladders for you.”
And no more drudgery in the workshop for me, he thought. He could trade the gratitude of the Medici for a commission of his own!
“And why would they listen to either of us?” Sandro objected. “You are a mere apprentice and I’ll be lucky if they don’t throw me in jail for breach of contract.”
“You give in too easily, Sandro,” Leonardo scolded him. “The contract isn’t broken yet. There must be something you can do.”
Sandro pondered for a moment then brightened. “You’re right, Leonardo,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I will go to church at once, to the Chapel of the Innocents. I will pray for Lorenzo to come down with a fever until I have recovered. But no.” He struck himself on the brow with the flat of his hand. “What manner of Christian am I to wish such a thing on my patron! No, a brief falling out between him and Lucrezia, that would be enough.”
Leonardo folded up the drawing and tucked it away inside his tunic. “Sandro, you’re being totally impractical – as usual. All you really need is someone to help you finish the portrait.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Sandro sighed. “What artist worthy of the name would let his work pass under the name of another?”
Leonardo laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “An artist wouldn’t, but an apprentice might.” He added pointedly, “A very talented apprentice.”
5 A BIRD IN FLIGHT (#ulink_457ba5a1-76a3-5244-b1fa-f72131c89ca0)
When Leonardo came out of the workshop the next day, he walked straight into an ambush. He had scarcely gone a dozen yards down the Via dell’Agnolo when he was seized and hauled into the dingy alley beside the coppersmith’s shop.
Before he could cry out, a grimy palm clamped itself over his mouth. His arms were pinned to his sides from behind and a glint of metal appeared under his left eye.
It was a chisel that had been honed to a razor-sharp edge.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep quiet,” hissed a voice.
Leonardo recognised the speaker: Silvestro’s apprentice, Pimple-face, breathing fish fumes and garlic into his face. Twitcher must be behind him, holding his arms.
Pimple-face slipped his hand from Leonardo’s mouth but kept the chisel close enough to slice his cheek open if he tried to call for help. With his free hand he felt inside the leather satchel strapped to Leonardo’s belt.
“What’s he got there?” Twitcher asked.
“The usual stuff – brushes, palette knife, paint rags,” Pimple-face replied. He looked Leonardo over. “Not dressed so handsome today, are you, Leonardo da Vinci?”
“Somebody steal your fancy gear?” taunted Twitcher.
Leonardo was wearing the drab working clothes he had come to Florence in while his one good outfit was being washed and repaired after yesterday’s misadventure. Determined to protect his dignity, he responded stiffly, “I only dress up for special occasions.”
“Like visiting old Silvestro, you mean?” sneered the Twitcher.
“That’s what we come about,” said Pimple-face. “When you was visiting, you didn’t see nothing, right?”
Leonardo squirmed. “I don’t know what you mean. I only came to deliver a message.”
“Oh yes, the bill,” chortled Twitcher. “Old Silvestro was fit to throttle his own grandma when he opened it.”
“And he was even madder when we told him we saw you nosing around,” said Pimple-face. “He sent word to his client.”
“Now this client, he don’t like nosy people,” said Twitcher. “He told Silvestro to take care of it.”
Pimple-face leered unpleasantly. “So here we are.” He grabbed the front of Leonardo’s tunic and pressed the chisel against his cheek.
Leonardo swallowed hard. His copy of Silvestro’s diagram was tucked inside the tunic, perilously close to Pimple-face’s clutching fist. He had spent half the night finishing the drawing, borrowing one of Gabriello’s candles so he’d have enough light to work by.
“An artist’s work is his own private business,” said Pimple-face. “Understand?”
Leonardo couldn’t nod without cutting his face. “I understand,” he breathed.
“What did you see?”
Leonardo could feel his heart pounding against the folded drawing. “Nothing,” he replied meekly.
Pimple-face released his grip and patted Leonardo on the head like a clever dog. “That’s right, you didn’t see nothing, you don’t know nothing, and you don’t remember nothing.”
With the edge of the chisel still so close to his face, Leonardo wished for a moment that were true.
At a gesture from Pimple-face, Twitcher released him. Sniggering, the two apprentices scuttled off into the crowd that was passing along the Via dell’Agnolo.
Leonardo slumped against the wall and felt his cheek to make sure the skin wasn’t broken. Things were getting more dangerous than he had anticipated. Was it worth risking his life just to gain favour with the Medici? No, only a fool would get caught in the middle of this power struggle.
He pressed a hand to where the drawing was hidden. Maybe he should burn it before Silvestro and his friends discovered he had made a copy of their design. But no, he could not help feeling that this was the key to his future, his chance to enter a wider world.
The clang of a nearby church bell made Leonardo start. He would have to sort this out later. He was already late. He darted out of the alley and ran the rest of the way to the market.
Sandro was at the agreed meeting place: beside the statue of Abundance in the centre of Florence’s Old Market.
“Where have you been?” he exclaimed when he spotted Leonardo emerging from the crowd. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”
Raising his voice above the hubbub of barter, Leonardo said, “I couldn’t leave until I finished all the chores Maestro Andrea had for me.” He had decided to say nothing about his encounter with Silvestro’s apprentices until he was certain of what to do.
They were surrounded by butchers’ stalls and the air was buzzing with insects drawn to the raw meat. Sandro swatted away a fly with his uninjured hand. “Well, it hasn’t done my stomach any good, I can tell you. Every time I think of this plan of yours, it hurts like there was a sea urchin rolling around inside it.”
He set off, awkwardly manoeuvring his way around a pair of squabbling vendors. Leonardo wove through the crowd, keeping in step with his friend.
“There is one thing we need to settle first,” Leonardo said, drawing level. “My fee.”
Sandro stopped by a fish stall where trout, pike and eels lay on the slab. The eyes of the fish were wide and their mouths agape, as if they were still surprised at being netted.
Sandro gave Leonardo an equally startled look. “Your fee?”
“Why are you so shocked? Don’t tell me you’re doing this portrait for free.”
“That’s different. I’m an artist and you’re only an apprentice.”
“Apprentice or not, this is professional work I’m doing,” Leonardo said in his most reasonable voice. “Maestro Andrea says that money is the lifeblood of art.”
“Friends should not discuss such matters,” said Sandro, walking on. “Money is the poison that blights the flower of affection.”
“What’s that supposed to be – a proverb?”
Sandro shrugged. “It’s what my brothers always say when I try to borrow money from them.”
They were passing a trader whose caged birds were stacked one on top of the other like bricks in a wall. At the top of the stack was a lark that was beating its wings feverishly against the bars of its cage. Being so close to the sky seemed to make its confinement even more unbearable.
Leonardo knew how it felt. “I’ll tell you what,” he suggested, “why don’t you give me a gift of some sort?”
“I suppose that would be acceptable,” Sandro conceded, “as long as it’s a very small gift.”
“All right – that bird,” Leonardo said, pointing.
Sandro tilted his head and gave the bird a dubious look. “It doesn’t look very clean.”
“Look, just buy me the bird and we’ll call that my fee.”
“Six soldi,” said the birdseller, holding out his hand.
“That’s outrageous!” objected Sandro.
“Do you want to spend the rest of the day arguing,” demanded Leonardo, “or do you want to get to the Torre Donati while there is still light to paint by?”
Sandro sighed and reached into his money pouch. Carefully, he counted the coins into the birdseller’s hand. “I hope you appreciate that you have made me destitute.”
“Don’t worry,” said Leonardo, lifting down the cage. “Soon you will be famous and wealthy enough to buy a thousand birds.”
He inspected the latch on the cage. It was a simple loop of wire and he easily worked it loose. The cage swung open and the bird hopped out on to his outstretched palm.
“What are you doing?” asked Sandro, aghast. “It’s going to—”
The lark took flight. Whipping the folded paper out of his tunic, Leonardo used the back of it to make some rapid sketches of the bird as it soared off. It left the market behind, arcing gracefully across the sky to disappear behind the dome of the Duomo, Florence’s cathedral.
“That’s my money flying away!” Sandro exclaimed.
