Quattrocento Read online

  “No, I like it,” Matt said, crunching the drops, and swallowed. “Interesting flavor. Some kind of nuts?” he guessed.

  “Candied locusts,” Rodrigo replied, taking another handful. “I love them, and no one ever serves them anymore.” He tilted the bowl in Matt’s direction.

  “Thanks,” Matt demurred. “I’m all right for now.”

  “Suit yourself,” Rodrigo replied with a shrug. “Leandro’s the heir apparent, unless Federico remarries, which is always possible.”

  “What about Guidobaldo?” Matt asked, curiosity winning out over his desire to seem disinterested, which didn’t seem to be working anyway. He realized that it was silly, in any case; he wanted to know as much as possible, and who better than Rodrigo to guide him through the maze of court intrigue? In this case, what he was saying was basic, and known to anyone. As a natural son—a bastard—any dynastic hopes Leandro had would yield to those of a legitimate heir.

  Rodrigo, his face suddenly closed, sat back.

  “Guidobaldo’s the heir,” Matt said.

  “Was,” Rodrigo said in a fierce undertone, with a quick look around to be sure they weren’t overheard. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”

  “Sorry,” Matt replied. What did Rodrigo mean by “Was”? Guidobaldo’s life was well known. He would be about Orlando’s age. Matt had assumed that was why the duke was going to Mantua—to visit his son at the famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where the duke had as a child himself been so deeply imbued with the precepts of a nascent humanism. Assuming the dukedom when his father died, Guidobaldo had married and lived to an old age. If the locusts had not been quite so crunchy and sweet, or the beds he and Rodrigo had slept in on their journey here so uncomfortable and flea-ridden, Matt might have thought he was dreaming the whole thing. A woman who stepped out of a painting being courted by a man who never existed, himself supplanting a rightful heir who had vanished before his time. But Matt knew he wasn’t dreaming. For one, he never would have dreamed Anna with a husband, much less a suitor, too—particularly one so formidable as the one sitting right now at her left elbow.

  “Where is the count, anyway?” Matt asked, exasperated. Orlando, Anna’s son, sat in the place his father should have occupied, to the right of the duke Federico. He wore his coat—blue, with floral patterns embroidered in gold on the sleeves—with an authority far beyond his years. He might be a child, but under the soft contours of youth Matt could already see the outlines of the man who would soon emerge to claim his inheritance.

  “Bedridden,” Rodrigo answered. “The doctors say it’s a wasting disease of an Oriental nature that they are helpless to treat. The truth, if you’d care to know, is that he discovered the infinite pleasure of a moving object that has allowed itself to come to rest. Soon—very soon—Lethe will gather the willing lover into her gentle arms and whisk him across the river Sharon to a welcome oblivion.”

  Leandro glanced over at them. Matt averted his eyes, but it was too late. Pushing back his chair, the powerfully built man rose to his feet.

  “Wonderful,” Rodrigo said as Leandro edged around the table and headed for them. “Didn’t I warn you? But you wouldn’t listen.”

  Matt fought off panic as he felt the looming presence of the knight grow closer. He had not the slightest idea of what to expect or what he might do in response. He flinched, a large hand appearing in the air above and behind him, but it landed on Rodrigo’s shoulder, not his.

  “Rodrigo,” Leandro growled.

  Relief, as refreshing as a wave, washed over Matt.

  “Your Excellence?” Rodrigo asked.

  “Did you bring them?”

  “Yes, Your Excellence,” Rodrigo replied. “That was the cause of my delay. Finding an effective seal was more difficult than I thought it would be.”

  Matt jumped, feeling something cold and wet and hard poking into his side like a used knife that hasn’t been wiped clean. He looked down to find the broad head of Leandro’s mastiff sniffing at his lap.

  “But you did,” Leandro said.

  “Yes. I think we solved the problem with the gas leakage, too.”

  The dog shook his head and snuffled, leaving a trail of warm spit on Matt’s tights as he explored further.

  “Good boy,” Matt said as he pushed the animal’s head aside. Growling, it backed off.

  “Excellent,” Leandro said. “We’ll find out tomorrow, then.”

  “I have something else that you will find very intriguing.”

  “Surprise me,” Leandro said, and then with a final squeeze of Rodrigo’s shoulder was gone, his dog padding after him like a trail of smoke from a smoldering fire.

  The dinner had ended soon after. Matt continued his exploration of the villa. Around the corner from the dining hall he found another long room, this one also hung with tapestries that gave the space a hushed quality, as though the room itself was still asleep. He walked slowly around, going from scene to scene as Zeus descended on Danaë in a shower of gold, and then as her son Perseus freed Andromeda from her stone and married her. Matt had never studied tapestries as closely as he should have. Were these Belgian? He automatically glanced at the wall by the door, and then grinned, finding no small plaque detailing the date and source of the acquisition. About to leave, he paused, a cassone catching his eye. The painting on the front looked familiar. It couldn’t be.

  Matt bent down for a closer look. My God, he thought, it is, and dropped to his knees. Dark green, with patches of red and white, it was a confusion of activity under the arching canopy of a forest. With a verdant carpet underfoot, flowers and ferns, two horsemen waited alertly to one side as dozens of lithe greyhounds darted through the dark glade. Bright against the undergrowth, men in red and blue tabards armed with long staffs followed the dogs as other horsemen charged through the distance. How many hours had Matt spent poring over this very painting at the Ashmolean? He knew it, square inch by square inch; the paired dogs in the center, tan and black, the almost cutout appearance of the one hunter, leaning back rigid, as he pulled hard on the reins of his protesting horse; the echoed arches of the other horses’ necks, and high above, faintly inscribed through a gap in the canopy, stars and the delicate crescent of a waning moon.

  Matt, fully stretched out on his belly, his face propped in his hands, studied the man on the leaping horse to the left. Hand raised, mouth open, he was in pursuit—of what? The deer was almost invisible in the distance. What was he saying? Whom was he talking to? And the colors; Matt marveled at how rich they were, untarnished by time. The night glowed with a dark luminosity.

  “Are you all right?”

  Torn from his reverie, Matt turned and looked up, his chin still on one hand. He scrambled to his feet, the sudden rise making him dizzy. Anna was standing in the door, regarding him with a mixture of curiosity and concern. She was alone.

  “Quite all right,” Matt replied, brushing off the front of his doublet. “An interesting scene,” he said, nodding at the chest.

  “It was my mother’s,” Anna replied. With her hair pulled back in a French braid, her face was framed by the curls left free at her temples and a thin silver band set with a single pearl encircling her forehead. Her dress, blue silk embroidered in an elaborate floral pattern of gold set with pearls, fell in folds from the gold belt fastened under her bodice. The simple pin of three irises set in gold was on her breast.

  “Paolo Uccello,” Matt commented.

  “Yes,” Anna said with interest. “How did you know?”

  “His style is unique. He used the same themes in much of his work. The rider there—the one leaning back—is identical to one in the Rout of San Romano.”

  “Which panel?” Anna asked.

  “The one—” Matt stopped himself before saying “at the Louvre.” Originally in Lorenzo’s chamber of the Medici palace in Florence, the three huge panels now hung separately, at the National Gallery in London, the Louvre, and the Uffizi.

  “Is something amu
sing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Matt said, realizing he had been smiling. Now? What did that mean? Now, they were hanging in the only place they had ever been. And somewhere, right now, Piero was painting, and so was Leonardo, and Filippino Lippi, and Raphael was in Urbino, just learning to draw; and soon Bellini and Giorgione and Titian—“The panel on the left,” he finished.

  “I haven’t seen Lorenzo since last Eastertime. How is he?”

  “He wasn’t there,” Matt replied.

  “He was a strange old man,” Anna said, looking at the painting on the chest. “Uccello, I mean. More of an old crow than a little bird.”

  “You knew him?” Matt asked, remembering that “Uccello” meant “little bird” in the Tuscan dialect.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I was just a child. He came to paint a fresco in our house, but he never finished it.”

  “You’re lucky to have known him at all. More than anyone else, he was the master of modern perspective.”

  “Are you an artist?”

  “No,” Matt replied.

  “We have met before,” Anna said.

  “People often think that,” Matt said, not wanting to contradict her. “I always seem to remind them of someone else.”

  “Perhaps I am mistaken. Orlando!” she called, hearing the sound of feet racing down the steps at the end of the hallway. “You will have to excuse me,” she said.

  Matt bowed as Anna left.

  chapter 11

  Hoping it might be time to get something to eat, Matt went back upstairs in search of Rodrigo. He opened the door to the small room, finding Rodrigo with his back to him, busy at one of the packs they had brought.

  “Found them!” Rodrigo exclaimed, and stood up. Turning around, he stopped as he saw Matt.

  “Aren’t you a bit old to be playing with dolls?” Matt asked, and then followed Rodrigo’s glance past the open door. He crimsoned in embarrassment.

  Francesca, standing by the window, finished adjusting the lover’s knot in the silver belt under the bosom of her long green linen dress. She took the two small figures, exquisitely costumed, that Rodrigo was holding. “They’re lovely,” she said. “I’ll take them to her right away. Good morning,” she added to Matt, unfazed, as she passed.

  He held the door for her and then looked at Rodrigo.

  “Don’t you knock?” Rodrigo asked, tucking in his shirt.

  “You might have warned me,” Matt replied.

  Rodrigo, reaching for his boots, plopped down on the coarse hempen sheets on the bed. Lifting his foot and pulling a boot on, he said, “We’ve got to get moving or we’ll be late.”

  “Where are we going?” Matt asked in surprise.

  “I don’t have time to explain,” he said as he tied the belt around the waist of his doublet, a bright carmine red. He reached for his hat and settled the wide pile of red and black on his head like a load of unfolded laundry. It had a rakish effect, when taken with his unruly mop of black curls and broad features, making him look even more like a prizefighter enjoying his newfound wealth. “You’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go.”

  “What about something to eat?” Matt protested.

  “Lisl will have something. We’ll eat on the way. Come on,” he commanded, as he pushed Matt out the door in front of him.

  As they walked down the grand stairs from the second to the main floor, they saw Anna in the hallway below engaged in conversation with Francesca. Anna, keeping one of the dolls, handed the other back to her lady-in-waiting. “This one,” they heard her say in passing. “C’est très charmant.” Francesca, glancing up, caught Rodrigo’s eye. Matt saw the trace of a smile touch her lips and her eyebrows rise slightly. Rodrigo grinned, and then frowned as he saw Matt’s eyes on him.

  “A waste of money,” Rodrigo said. “All the way from Paris. Fashion is a bitch goddess. Heaven help the poor souls who come under her sway. If you have any doubt about the primacy of base desire over sweet reason,” he continued, as they entered the kitchen, “then just consider the sight of an educated, intelligent, otherwise eminently practical woman confronted with the latest designs of the Parisian milliners. Lisl, my heart is yours for eternity,” he added to the cook as he gathered up a loaf of bread and a sizable wedge of cheese, adding a fat sausage before he closed the bag.

  “But it’s unfair to the fairer sex to limit the enticements of fashion to their tender souls,” Rodrigo continued as they headed for the stable. “That might be the latest style,” he said, glancing at Matt’s head, “and I have noticed that it does catch the ladies’ attention, but personally I would feel naked, like a puppy fresh from the womb.”

  Matt ran his hand through his hair, aware of the fact that he was probably the only man in Italy without bangs and with his ears exposed.

  “There’s a reason why we have hair,” Rodrigo continued, checking the straps holding the sealed box to the back of the gray horse before mounting his own. With two soldiers in the rear, the party set off. Matt fell in next to Rodrigo as they rode out of the courtyard, pleased that it felt perfectly natural to be back in the saddle. All the stiffness and aching muscles of the first week’s journey were gone. The sweetish smell of the horse, the pull on the reins as she tossed her head, followed by a whuffling snort and jingle of the tack—it had become second nature to him. He patted the mare’s shoulder, feeling the rippling muscles under her warm hide.

  “The cranium is fundamentally not pleasing to the eye,” Rodrigo continued, “and nature has developed this way to shield us from its view. Likewise the ears. Or the male ears, to be specific, which are as different from a woman’s as a seashell is from that of a snail.”

  “Then why do we shave?” Matt asked, feeling his own exposed ears grow to the size of his mare’s. “Aren’t we interfering with nature’s plan?”

  “That’s free will. Male features are designed to attract the female so that we can fulfill the primary injunction of the Lord, which is to go forth and replenish the earth. Some are more attractive than others, so nature has provided us with a way of tempering the effect, if we so desire.”

  “Women don’t shave, and their features are often less than compelling.”

  “They have other features that are compelling regardless of their form.”

  “The stimulus may vary considerably but the response is the same.”

  “Well put,” Rodrigo said.

  The small party was climbing a steep path up the hillside behind the villa. The house, when Matt chanced to see it in a gap in the thick undergrowth, had grown small and toylike, a geometric paradise perched high on the edge of the valley below. The square of the villa, doubled by its shadow from the sun, still low on the horizon, and then echoed by the low rectangles of the outbuildings, was joined by the precise lines of the dark green hedges of the surrounding garden to the rows of crops that marched away across the surrounding hillside.

  Matt had no more time to take it in than it was out of sight, and they had crested the top of the ridge and were swiftly descending the other side. An hour of riding, up and down, through a clearing and across a stream and then on a narrow dirt path winding between more fields, smaller and less lush in their narrow defile, struggling valiantly to hold back the overhanging forest that was always present, waiting patiently and silently, breathing with the quiet dark rustle of deep woods and unseen beasts.

  The sharp stench of human waste assailed them as they rounded the bend of the path and discovered a large, wide clearing, a field that rose at one end to a low building with a large, smoking chimney. The sound of banging, like a giant with a bad cough, came from inside the thick earthen walls, while outside several huge vats of cast iron steamed over dancing red and yellow flames. Matt followed Rodrigo as they angled up the side of the field to stay as far upwind as possible from the drifting smoke, the sour bite of ammonia stinging their eyes and taking away their breath. Matt had gotten used to the smells of the Quattrocento—sweat and waste, exotic spices, the sweet floral scent of perf
ume doused on everything in sight, even the horses—but this was beyond anything he had imagined. A goatherd watched them pass with a dull glassy stare.

  Riding up to the building Matt caught a glimpse of a calf tethered in the shadows, dressed in the armor of a knight’s steed. The pieces of armor, much too large and made up of mismatched odds and ends, clanked and swung like a tinker’s cart as the calf shook off the flies that swarmed about. One eye peered out through a gap in a helmet that had been secured to the top of its broad, flat head. Several horses were already tethered to the rail by the building. The magnificent black charger of the duke stood next to that of Leandro, distinguished from the other only by a white blaze on its face.

  Matt dismounted and followed Rodrigo as he strode off toward the steaming vats. A short, wiry man with curly hair was gesticulating with one hand, as with the other he stirred the pot that was the source of the vile odor, the violent yellow of his short coat giving him the appearance of a parrot with clipped wings trying to get off the ground. A priest, his hands clasped behind him, nodded as the man chattered on.

  “Ah, there you are!” the wiry man exclaimed as Rodrigo walked up to him. “You were right about the urine. What a difference! I have improved upon your recipe, however. The results are fantastical. The urine of a wine-drinker, Rodrigo. But not just any wine!” He stopped. “Can you guess?” he asked.

  “How should I know?” Rodrigo replied.

  “Guess!”

  “Vernaccia.”

  “Hah!” the man waved his hands in glee. “Not vernaccia, or, if it was, that’s not what makes the difference. The padre prevailed upon the bishop, who deo gracias et profundis maximus graciously allowed us a staph of his own urine! It’s the wineskin and the wine, so it’s twice-blessed.”