Everyone, even Francesco, began to regard catching the thief as a game. There was laughter as they all turned around to face the wall. San Severino counted slowly, and when he reached thirty everyone turned around expectantly, but the table was bare. Disappointed, but determined to remain cheerful, San Severino said, “All right, all right, that was just a trial. Now I want everyone to quietly search for the missing money. This time we will turn around after the count of thirty-five.” They all turned to face the wall again.
While they were turned, they heard someone walk up to the table very quietly. There were two thieves present, Salai thought. Then he got mad; someone else got part of Francesco’s money. This time everyone fidgeted until San Severino finished his counting.
Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four Thirty-five.
Everyone swung around and saw a piece of paper in the middle of the table. San Severino swaggered over and, smiling, picked it up. Everyone looked at the spot under the paper. Empty. San Severino looked at the paper, turned it over and grabbed the seat of his pants. Francesco reached for the paper and read it: “Don’t turn your back on us again, Severino. Your pants are ripped.”
The theft and the game dissolved into laughter, and Francesco did not recover his wallet. Salai felt relieved to know that there was not another thief in the place.
As they walked home, Leonardo said, “You took Francesco’s wallet, did you not, Salai?” “I, sir? No, sir.”
“Confess now. I will not reveal you to the crowd. I shall quietly return it. By messenger. They will never know. I would simply like the truth from you. Confess, Salai.”
“I did not take it, Master Leonardo.”
“I think you did, Salai.”
“Far be it from me, sir, to argue with what the greatest mind in all of Milan thinks.”
“Don’t offer hollow compliments, Salai. When you sound like San Severino’s friends, you earn only my contempt. Did you take the wallet, Salai.”
“No, Master.”
“Well, perhaps Francesco deserves to be a little embarrassed.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
SALAI waited until the day that Duchess Beatrice was to enter the city of Milan to spend his ill-gotten money. The streets were jammed. It was like a carnival, but better, because nothing was worn out or being used for even the second time. Leonardo had had new clothes made for him: a gold brocade vest and parti-colored hose. He stood before his master, and Leonardo reached for a comb and rearranged his curls. There was no detail involving beauty that was too small to command Leonardo’s attention. He lay the comb down, studied the effect, his head tilted, then he took a few stray curls in between his fingers and placed them behind the boy’s ears. He turned the young man around and pointed him toward the door. “Go, Salai. See it all.”
The boy wandered alone through the streets. He found a vendor of sweets on the street of the armorers and bought from him his entire supply of anise comfits. He silently thanked Francesco when he noted that he still had some coins left.
Salai, dressed in his very best, surveyed Milan, dressed in its very best. Walls and balconies were hung with satin in bright colors and brocades woven with threads of gold. Chains of ivy were draped over doorways and wrapped around columns. But the best street of all was the one where Salai walked, the street of the armor-makers.
Both sides of the avenue were lined with straw men on wooden horses. They were dressed in chain mail and plates of steel. The straw men carried lances, and Salai was more pleased than if they had been alive. For now they stayed still and Salai could entertain himself by examining the engraved pictures on the steel breast plates. He thought that if they were laid end to end they would tell the story of every battle of every war. Even the wars of the gods of ancient Rome. Salai considered it far better to learn history from such scenes than from reading. Reading took a lot more effort.
He ambled along the street of the armorers, eating his sweets, trying to limit himself to one cake per stop, but some of the men in armor were so interesting that he stopped for a long time, and he allowed himself two, sometimes three. From the street of the armorers he walked to the piazza in front of the castle. There the crowd was thick. He could easily have worked his way to the front of the crowd, using the techniques he had learned in his days of picking pockets. But the smell of the crowd held him back like a harness. Only months before he would never have noticed that the people had an odor at all, but living with Leonardo, he had grown accustomed to sweet smells. For his visits home he had begun to carry a perfumed handkerchief to sniff.
He reached in his sack for more cookies and found that they were all gone. He felt relieved that they were. Had there been more, he didn’t know if he could bear the responsibility of finishing them. He tried to penetrate the crowd again when he heard a hundred trumpets. The crowd called, “She comes! She comes!” Everyone pressed closer toward the edge of the piazza, and Salai felt the weight and smell of the mob create a force that propelled him from the center. He gave up hope of seeing the duchess arrive.
Then Francesco, the absent Francesco, came to his rescue. Salai reached in his pocket and took a coin from it. He poked the tallest man within range of his arm. “I’ll give you this if you let me stand on your shoulders,” Salai said. The man took the coin and boosted Salai up.
Ludovico and his bride stopped at the entrance to the castle. All the nobles were waiting there for them. The duchess was lifted down from her carriage, and as she was, a hush seemed to pass through the crowd.
Salai looked at the new duchess from his perch upon the man’s shoulders. “Why, she’s small and dark and perfectly plain,” he said. And after pronouncing judgment, he drew in a deep breath and was overwhelmed by nausea.
His throat slid upward, and he spilled his cookies all over the man in front of him as well as the top of the man whose shoulders he had rented.
THE WEDDING festivities went on for a week. Leonardo was called upon to do everything. He even designed the shelves for the display of the wedding gifts. These small jobs kept him from his important work, and Leonardo both loved and hated that.
Toward the end of the week, the festivities included a play for which Leonardo had designed the costumes and a revolving stage. The play was called Paradise, and it was a great success. After the performance Salai had gone to bed late and with his head pounding from having emptied the unfinished wine glasses. He awoke to a great pounding at the door and a voice proclaiming, “Prepare yourselves. Prepare yourselves.”
Salai pulled the covers over his ears. He couldn’t distinguish between the pounding in his head and the pounding on the door. Prepare yourselves could only mean that he had died (it had been a bad, bad night) and that the forces of the Devil had won the toss-up for his soul. How unfair, he thought, to be but a boy and to have the appetites of a man.
“Answer the door, Salai,” Leonardo called.
“Door? Door, master?”
“Someone wants our attention.”
“Oh, yes, master,” Salai said. He jumped out of bed into the cold room, the quickest he had ever done so. He usually poked out one toe, then one foot and allowed each knuckle to adjust to the air outside his blankets. But this morning, Salai thought, the colder the better; the colder, the farther he was from the fires of Hell.
“Prepare yourself,” the door-pounder yelled again.
It was only a fifty-second walk from his bed to the door, but that was all the time it took for Salai to change from gratitude at not being called to the Gates of Hell to annoyance at being called to the gates of the studio.
And when he looked through the window and saw that it was a page no older than himself who had ordered him to prepare himself, his annoyance became total. He opened the door just as the young man once again called, “Prepare yourself.”
“For what?” answered Salai.
“Prepare yourself for a visit from the Duchess Leonora and her daughter, the Duchess Isabella.”
The
two boys looked each other over. Salai was bothered that such a fellow should catch him in his nightshirt. His new suit, the one that Leonardo had had made for the festival, was not as fancy as the page’s but nicer.
“Who are Leonora and Isabella?” Salai asked.
“The Duchess Isabella is the sister to the Duchess Beatrice, and the Duchess Leonora is the mother to the Duchess Isabella as well as the Duchess Beatrice. That same Duchess Beatrice who is the wife of the Duke Ludovico Sforza, called Il Moro.” He lowered his nose and asked, “Did you not know that?”
“Who might this Il Moro be?” Salai asked.
The page gasped. “Is this not the home and workshop of Leonardo da Vinci? Even the stray cats of Milan know who is Il Moro, I mean Duke Il Moro.”
“The name sounds a little familiar,” Salai said. “But the other. Leonardo da Vinci…does every stray cat in Milan know that name too?”
“Even I know. I am from Mantua.”
“Mantua?” Salai asked, “Is that the street next to the sewer?”
The page gasped, “Why, Mantua is the home of Isabella, I mean the Duchess Isabella, the sister of Beatrice, I mean Duchess Beatrice—”
At that moment Leonardo came to the door. “Enough, Salai. Go get dressed.” Leonardo ran his hand over the top of Salai’s head. He then turned to the page and said, “Tell the Duchesses Leonora and Isabella that their servant Leonardo da Vinci awaits their visit. With pleasure.”
“How do you know?” the page asked.
“I am a stray cat,” Leonardo answered. “Now, go. Tell them I am ready.”
The minute the door was closed, Salai told Leonardo what he thought of stuck-up, self-important pages. “Those guys, boss, are like a collection of jewelry, only not as valuable. Did you see how fancy—I’d like to see one of them, just one, have to be an artist’s apprentice once, just once. I’d like to see one of them having to cook up glue and varnish. I’d like to see what would happen to their fancy clothes after they put in a full day’s work.”
“They do put in a full day’s work, Salai.”
“Yeah, sure. Just putting on all those clothes is a full day’s work.”
“They clean stables, Salai.”
The boy stopped short. “You mean they pitch horse manure dressed liked that?”
“No, Salai, dressed like that they tell artists and appren tices to prepare themselves. Now, suppose you do that. Suppose you get dressed. The ladies will be here shortly. When they arrive, Salai, I would like you to be beautiful and mute.”
Both duchesses were beautiful. Isabella was a younger, thinner, more delicate version of her mother. Next to the two of them, Il Moro’s new wife looked like the print of the page for which they were the colored illustrations. Poor, plain Beatrice. No wonder that Il Moro, a man greatly interested in appearances, had made Isabella his first choice.
Salai focused his attention on Isabella. She wore a semi-smile. It was not a happy smile, though; her eyes were not a part of it. Salai had seen a smile like that before. Francesco. Francesco, looking in the mirror as he had tried on his costume for the festival. Yes, Beatrice’s sister was one of those. She wore the smile of one who lived in a private bubble of good thoughts about herself.
The Duchess Isabella lost no time at all in letting Leonardo know the purpose of her visit. She would like some painting done by Leonardo. “I already have an admirable collection; your work will reside in good company. The first work I would like from you is a portrait of myself. I would like a portrait done with the same delicate shading you used in the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, but I would not like to pose with a weasel. Next I should like a portrait of a young Christ. First me and then Jesus. I shall arrange with my sister and brother-in-law for the loan of you. I cannot imagine Il Moro refusing my request. I shall pose from 10:00 until 12:00 on Mondays and Thursdays.”
Leonardo knew that he was an employee; he also knew that he was fortunate in having as an employer a man who gave him as much freedom as Il Moro did. He would not mind working for Duchess Isabella as a favor to Il Moro; he certainly owed his patron that much. But the thought of being loaned as they loaned each other dwarfs and jesters, that thought was despicable. And the thought of having to paint Isabella every Monday and every Thursday—to know that his work would be held together by two such bars of time—was to make a prison of his week. Leonardo was well schooled in the manners of the court. “My dearest lady,” he said, “I would be most delighted to do your portrait. I am certain that the Duke Il Moro will not mind my postponing my work on the model of the horse for the monument to his illustrious father. My work on the monument has been delayed many times. I am certain that the duke will not mind a longer delay. When he asks, tell him I estimate only a year and a half to complete your assignments in Mantua.”
Isabella lifted an eyebrow. “I understand,” she said. “Never let it be said that anyone understands talent better than I. If it is not possible for you to come to Mantua, I would like then some small piece of sculpture. Something you can work on in your studio here. You should be very flattered, Leonardo, that I want something from your hand. I am very selective about the works I accumulate. I think that a small bust of the young Christ would be a very nice thing to own.”
Salai knew that Leonardo did not like sculpture. The work was messy. Sculptors, he had written in his notebooks, create their work by the strength of their arms, and this is accomplished only by great sweat which mixes with the marble dust. The marble dust spreads over everything like flour, so that you cannot tell if you have in your studio a baker or an artist. A painter, on the other hand, sits before his work in a clean house, at ease, well-dressed, and listens to music as he dips his brush in delicate color. So Isabella wanted either her portrait done or a work of sculpture? Was there nothing she could propose that would have appeal? It took every ounce of Salai’s will to keep quiet.
Leonardo tried to say something, but he was not quick enough, for no sooner had Isabella proposed a small piece of sculpture, a small bust of the young Christ, than she looked around the room and lowered her eyes just enough for them to fall on Salai. “This child will do,” she said. “Come here, boy. What is your name? Never mind. I don’t want to know. If he is to be a model for Christ, it is better that he have no name. Giving him a name can only give him personal prestige. It detracts from the work, don’t you think? You see, Leonardo, I am not unversed in the arts. I do have ideas. You must come to Mantua some time so that we can discuss theories of art. It will be a real exchange of ideas.” She got up. “Come along, Mother,” she said. She paused at the door and added, “Send me sketches. My dear sister Beatrice and my beloved brother-in-law have promised to write every day. Every single day. You may use their messengers. I’ll speak to Beatrice about it. No. On second thought, I’ll speak to Il Moro. He can’t refuse me anything, it seems.”
She and her mother nodded goodbye, and they left.
Leonardo leaned back against the closed door and shook his head as if he had just come up from under water. He held his hands over his ears.
“Well, boss,” Salai said, “there is no need ever again to tell me to be mute in the presence of Duchess Isabella. My only wish is that in her presence I were also deaf.” Salai paused and added, “Are you going to pose me for the young Christ?”
“I shall start on it after all of my other duties are finished.”
“By then I shall have as great a beard as yours,” Salai said.
Leonardo smiled, and so did Salai.
FROM THE TIME of the wedding festivities until the middle of March, Il Moro shipped his young wife first to one castle and then to another. She traveled with ample company; San Severino, Francesco and their friends and her many ladies-in-waiting accompanied her. They fished and hunted during the day and played scartino and backgammon in the evenings. While Beatrice moved from home to home, Il Moro chose to stay in Milan to look after his affairs of state (and Cecilia Gallerani).
During this time Leonardo was
engaged in a study of mountains and rivers. He walked great distances in order to sketch the entire view from the mountain or a single wind-blown tree. High in the mountains he had discovered seashells that had turned to stone, and he wanted to know how they had gotten there. He wondered long and wandered far to discover the reason that seashells were on a mountaintop; and he often forgot to eat. Salai had gotten into the habit of taking him food.
Salai had packed some cheese and bread, a small bottle of wine and some fresh anise cakes for his master. There was one anise cake for Leonardo and six altogether.
On his way to the mountain to find his master, Salai walked across the inner court of the castle, his sack slung over his shoulder. He was halfway across the courtyard when he heard someone call from the far corner, “I’m over here.”
Salai stopped and saw the Duchess Beatrice sitting in the sun, her hair pulled through the open crown of a wide-brimmed hat. ’I’m over here,” she repeated, “trying to get the sun to make me blond and beautiful.”
Salai walked over. The young duchess looked him over—up and down—and announced, “You’re very well proportioned for a dwarf.”
“Yes, my lady,” Salai replied.
“That’s all right,” she said, “I have no objections to a well-proportioned dwarf. Let me see what you can do.”