Quattrocento Read online

  “A hippogriff, more likely,” Bonifacio interjected. “They’re more common to these parts.”

  “You see a lot of them around here?” Rodrigo asked.

  “Me? No. I’ve never seen one. But Virgil mentions them several times.”

  “I see. Well, that makes sense. His cave would make an excellent vantage point for seeing anything in flight. Pheasants, doves, eagles. Hippogriffs.”

  “The race of griffins originated in your part of the world, I believe,” Federico said to Kamal, seated next to Leandro at the head table.

  “Yes, indeed. They were found in Scythia, where they guarded the gold mines against the depredations of the Arimaspians. But these were enormous animals, much larger than a horse. A griffin was quite capable of carrying off a team of oxen. I have seen the claw of one made into a drinking horn—it was easily as long as my arm. What you saw was more like the Simurg. Or the Senmurv, as some call it. That beast was half dog and half bird. It made its nest in the Tree of Life, and its seeds, which it scattered over the entire world, were a cure for evil.”

  “Orlando,” Federico said. The boy looked up at him. “Your description sounds like the dragon that was slain on the island of Rhodes a century ago. That was also the size of a horse. And it had a dragon’s head and wings.”

  “A serpent’s head, I believe it was,” Tristano said.

  “Not a dragon’s head?”

  “No, a serpent’s. But it did have wings. And claws, and scales, and a crocodile tail. But it had a mule’s ears. Did your beast have mule’s ears?”

  “I don’t think so,” Orlando said. “No. I don’t remember seeing any ears.”

  “It was not a dragon, then.”

  “It was a manticore,” Orlando insisted. “It had a lion’s body but the head and tail of a dragon, and green wings, and it made a sound like a peacock.”

  “That’s not a manticore,” Leandro said.

  “It is where I come from,” Matt said.

  “And where might that be?” Kamal asked, as Leandro, expressionless, stared at Matt.

  “You’ve seen one?” Federico asked.

  “No.”

  “Has anyone else here seen a manticore?” Federico asked. The gathered company looked at each other, but no one responded. “Or a dragon? A griffin? What about a hippogriff, or a simurg? No? Well, then. Since Orlando’s the only one who has ever actually laid eyes on a manticore, I would say he is the authority on the subject.”

  “On what he saw, perhaps, but not on what it was,” Tristano objected. “I cannot call a giraffe a parrot because I have seen one and no one else has. Is not the name of something an inseparable part of the thing itself?”

  “Are you saying that it does not exist until we name it?” Federico asked. “What would happen if we choose the wrong name? Does it then have a false existence?”

  “But a manticore is well known,” Leandro said.

  “By whom?” Federico asked.

  “History has innumerable accounts,” Bonifacio said.

  “People see many things,” Anna said. “All very real. But some, I think, are more real than others.”

  Federico laughed. “If Orlando says that what he saw was a manticore, I believe him. How can we say he is wrong, if no one else has ever seen one?”

  “I think we should find this creature and see for ourselves what it is like,” Leandro said. “The Belvedere Wood, you say. You will come with us,” he added, speaking to Matt.

  “I’m not a hunter.”

  “But the chance to see a manticore? I don’t know how a man with your varied interests could pass it up. It’s settled, then. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, perhaps, but now it’s late,” Anna said, standing. The dinner over, the rest of the company rose as she left, soon to follow.

  Luna da cacciatore, Matt thought, watching the huge orange moon descend westward, toward the horizon and somewhere far beyond the sleeping sea: the hunter’s moon. How could something so huge pass so silently? he wondered, walking across the patio, the fountain throwing arcs of fractured silver into the dark. He was wide awake, even though the first slight paleness of dawn would before long begin to drain the color from the night.

  “Do you hear it?” Anna’s voice surprised him from the shadows. Sitting on a bench, she seemed to float on the soft night air, her cape merged with the dark.

  “The music of the spheres?” he answered. “No. Do you?”

  “Sometimes I think I do,” she replied. “When it’s late, and no one else is awake and the stars are brightest and it seems so close. But I think it’s just my wishing that makes it so.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Matt said.

  “I know,” she said, the remoteness and formality in her voice saying more to him than words ever could. It couldn’t be, Matt thought, and yet it was. Did he hear sadness, too? He wanted to think so. Anna stood up and walked past him to the marble balustrade that edged the patio. She looked out over the garden lying below, dark patterns sleeping in the moonlight. “I have enjoyed the time we spent together,” she said.

  “So have I,” Matt said.

  “You saved my son’s life.” She paused, as though she wanted to say more. “It’s late. I must get to bed,” she said, and turned to go.

  “Anna,” Matt said.

  She stopped. “You have to understand,” she said, her back to him. “I have obligations I cannot ignore.”

  Matt walked over to the balustrade and stood there long after she was gone. It hardly seemed possible. The gravel underfoot, the quiet splash of the fountain, the poplars, ghostly in the moonlight—it all seemed so real, as real as Anna, and yet she was gone. And there was nothing he could do or say; it was her world, not his. He began to walk, aimlessly, wherever his feet took him, across the patio and around the palazzo and then out of the courtyard, the moon following along with him on the other side of the sleeping fields of grain, slipping lower and lower, rushing to the horizon as though it had lost all interest in anything remaining behind in this world.

  The woods, dark, led him forward, the trees emerging like forgotten memories in the watery light of the early dawn. Reaching the clearing, he could see the gray bulk of the old church rising out of the dull earth. It was still almost pitch-black inside, and he felt as much as saw his way along the nave to the cloister.

  There were only a few details on the irises left to take care of; the highlights on the edge of the shelf, a touch of white on the blue petals. But he wanted to finish it. Matt worked quickly, with a few deft strokes of the brush, and then it was done, as it always happened, before he expected it. Ready to continue, he held the brush poised above the surface, only to realize that there was nothing left for him to say. The painting was complete. Like the silence heard when a piece of music ends, as full and rich as the notes themselves, it was a moment of repose, existing entirely within itself but encompassing the entire world, one that would last forever. Anna knows it, too, he thought; this is the world we share.

  Matt stood up, stretching, and then laid the brush next to the painting, jewel-like in the richness of the copper and the lustrous paint. Yes, it was done. The painting was no longer his. He picked up Anna’s painting of the swallow. This really is as good as anything I have ever seen, he thought. From any angle, the bird was alive, soaring, the clouds moving and changing. The colors, the texture, the fluidity of the brushwork—it was hard not to keep looking. He set the painting down on the shelf and went to the stack in the corner. Flipping through, he found the other two paintings and set them on the shelf. Lined up, the swallow took flight, swiftly ascending against the clouds from panel to panel. She’ll paint another, he thought, and then another; and where will I be?

  Matt reached up and took the small folded airplane from the shelf where she had placed it. He began to feel the weight of the hours pulling at him, the unbroken day settling like a heavy velvet cloak on his shoulders. It was time to go, past time to be gone. He put the airplane back and then, reaching inside
his tunic, found the compresa Anna had given him. He took it out. Holding it in his hand, it seemed so small and insubstantial, so easily lost. He laid the irises mounted in gold on the table next to his painted ones and then, with a last look around, left.

  Matt was halfway along the arched passage of the cloister when Anna turned the corner ahead of him. She was still in the gray dress she had been wearing at dinner the night before, with the cape folded back on her shoulders. Her hair was pulled back in a French knot, with curls on each side of her face, and she stood poised like a dancer in midturn, her hand lightly on the wall next to her.

  “I couldn’t leave it unfinished,” Matt said, and stood aside as she passed, the two avoiding each other’s gaze.

  “Matteo.”

  About to turn the corner, he paused and looked back.

  “Tell me again the three meanings of the iris,” Anna said, from the archway into the studio.

  “Valor, wisdom, and faith.”

  “And of those, which is the most important?” Anna walked up to him. She had the compresa in her hand. “I said you’d know when to put this on. How can you if you don’t have it?”

  Matt slipped the pin back in the inner pocket of his tunic and then took her by the arms, just above the elbows, feeling her pulse under his fingers, feeling how alive and light she was. As he bent to kiss her she rose up to meet him.

  “I’ll be late for the hunt,” Matt said. Her hair, scented with lavender, was soft under his cheek as he held her close.

  “Keep an eye on Orlando for me. This is his first real hunt. He’ll be trying to impress everybody.”

  “Orlando’s going?” Matt asked. “Was that Leandro’s idea?”

  “Yes,” Anna replied. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. I’ll have to hurry to catch them.” He looked into her face, holding her by the arms. “There’s something I want you to remember, no matter what happens. It’s from the Aeneid.”

  “Are you going to start reciting poetry again?”

  “No, it’s just a phrase. ‘Amor omnia vincit.’ ”

  “Love conquers all.”

  “Yes. You’d remember that, wouldn’t you? Amor omnia vincit.”

  “Yes, of course I would, but why?” she asked. “What might happen?”

  “It’s a hunt.”

  “Well, be careful then. And hurry back,” she said, with a light kiss. “I want to start painting with the oils.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Matt said, and then he turned the corner and was gone.

  The hunting party had already left by the time Matt got back to the villa. His horse saddled, he mounted, and with a sharp dig of his spurs was off, climbing up to the ridge above the house. Down the path, past Virgil’s cave; Matt urged his mount on, galloping through the clearing where they had only the previous day had the picnic. The horse splashed through the rapids downstream, hooves striking hard on the rocks. Matt leaned forward as the powerful mare scrambled up the far bank and then pumped up the steep hill to the plateau high above. Far in the distance he heard the baying of hounds, the excited cries of men closing in on a kill. Left, right, leaning one way and then another he navigated the narrow path through the dense laurel, white blooms like starfish in the cool green light filtering down through the tall trees. Figures appeared in the underbrush, glimpses of servants and beaters, dogs straining at the leash.

  Bursting into a clearing Matt’s horse bucked and reared, frightened by the flash of light on the flat blade of a sword rising close to one side. He had the barest glimpse of a small figure in a white coat laced with gold embroidery on the ground holding his leg, bare flesh visible beneath the torn red hose. “Orlando!” he cried out, fighting to control his horse, but the reins twisted out of his grip and he was falling, motionless as the black boles of the trees spun around him until he slammed into the hard ground, unyielding beneath its thin layer of dead leaves. Scrabbling to hold on to the earth that eluded his grasp, he fought for breath. He braced himself up on his hands and then staggered to his feet, the ground angling away from him.

  The manticore, Matt thought, hearing a harsh cry like a peacock above the frantic yelping of the dogs. Sensing movement, he swung around and stopped, his eyes fixed on the polished steel of a short sword, the blade angled up, the point aimed at his sternum. Reaching for his own sword a flash of pain lanced through his arm, dangling uselessly at his side. The point of steel closed on him, at last gently coming to rest on his doublet. Digging like a talon through his shirt it tested the soft flesh, driving him back step by step until his back came to rest against the broad, smooth trunk of a tree. The point stopped, changed direction, lifted slowly up. Matt rose with it, breath held.

  Leandro came closer, head cocked, the point unyielding. With a swift swing of his free hand there was another point, cold and broad, the steel against Matt’s cheek, an inch from his eye. Impaled on the exquisite needle of white pain in the center of his chest, breathing without moving, Matt felt the cool steel on his cheek.

  “You don’t belong here,” Leandro whispered, holding Matt between twin points of steel. He stood the blade of the knife on end, poised, ready to thrust. “Do you?” Leandro murmured, leaning against Matt, the muscles of his thighs trapping him. Matt searched for Leandro’s eyes in the black slit of the visor, but found only emptiness. “Do you?” Leandro shouted. He lifted the knife from Matt’s face. Holding it straight out, he opened his hand, letting the weapon fall, and then jammed his hand under Matt’s jaw, slamming his head into the trunk, gloved fingers digging in, choking, his other hand out of sight, still holding Matt pinioned on the sharp point of the sword.

  Matt’s scalp ground across the rough bark like a glacier creeping over stone as Leandro lifted him higher. Breath hissing through his clenched teeth Matt brought his leg up and jammed his knee as hard as he could into the unyielding leather. His fist glanced off the side of the helmet as his toes left the ground.

  “I could put my hand right through you,” Leandro said. “You’re nothing but air.” The light began to turn red and then darken to purple and then blue as Matt gasped for any breath at all. “Time to go back where you belong,” he heard through the thickening air, the words followed by a laugh. As the blue turned to an oily black, closing in on him, sparkling with brilliant pinwheels of color, the laugh grew louder and louder, a raw chord that collapsed into the single note of the wolf tone. The terrible note sang through him, filling him with its harsh resonance, crowding out everything else but the endless vibration, suffocating him—

  chapter 19

  A woman in white. Matt, waking, was content to lie still and watch as she rearranged the flowers in a vase on the stainless steel table by the wall, humming a pretty tune under her breath. He drifted back to sleep, lulled by the steady movement of her hands while she shaped the rest of the blossoms into a pastel burst, purple and blue heads blossoming like languid fireworks from their long green arcs. Irises, he thought—

  When he awoke again, it was to rainbows shimmering around a glowing blue star on the bare white wall. Matt turned his head on the starched pillowcase, finding the window. Framed in silver and hanging by an invisible cord, a glass sun glowed with the warm yellow rays of late afternoon. Blue in the center, its rays, curved like tongues of fire, were made of a prismatic glass that fractured the strong light into multicolored comets on the white wall. Tongues of fire. Where had he seen them before? Matt tried to think but was too tired, just the effort making him drift off to sleep again.

  “Well, look who’s awake,” the nurse said as she bustled into the room the next day.

  “What happened?” Matt asked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

  The nurse’s laugh was as melodious as the tune she had been singing when Matt had first seen her. “Well, now, that seems to be the question of the day,” she said, sorting the flowers in the vase again, pulling out the ones that had wilted overnight, their petals crumpled and brown as though scorched by fire. “You re
member anything?”

  Matt shook his head. The last thing he remembered was telling Charles he would be right back. At the press conference. But how had he ended up here?

  “Nothing?”

  Matt looked out the window. The sky, an empty blue, glowed like melting ice.

  “I’m not surprised. You arrived here seriously concussed,” the nurse said. “And with a dislocated shoulder. They said you fell, when they brought you over from the museum. Nervous exhaustion is what it says on your chart, and I believe it. You were dehydrated something awful, the next best thing to a pillar of salt. This water has got to go,” she decided, holding the vase up to the light. “You’ve been working too hard, I’m willing to bet,” she went on, going over to the sink in the corner. “Not taking care of yourself. Nobody does anymore. They’re always worrying. And about what? Usually about working too hard, that’s what. And look at you, so young. Makes no sense to me. But I have to wonder— What on earth!” she exclaimed. There had been a loud clink as the water had poured out. She put the vase down and searched the basin. “Now if that doesn’t beat all,” she said, holding up a glass rod the size of a breadstick. “Some people have a strange idea of a joke,” she added, laying the rod down on the table next to the basin, and then filling the vase back up with water. “There,” she said, standing back to admire her work, after she had replaced the flowers and arranged them to her liking. “They’ll last another day or so. Now let me take a look at you.”

  Matt tilted his head this way and that as the nurse gently felt the bruises on his neck. Esperanza, her name tag said. Her hand felt cool and smooth.

  “My, oh my,” Esperanza said. “That must have been some fall. Looks like the floor tried to throttle you, too.”

  “I had a dream,” Matt said. Cicadas, a stream, woods; drawings and a brush, loaded with paint, poised over a copper panel. Chardin—in his mind he saw a bowl with oranges. No, they were flowers, and not in a bowl but a majolica jug, a bright yellow and green under a glaze that shone where it caught the light from the window. Irises. Or was that because of the ones he had wakened to, here in the room? No, these were others. Blue, he saw blue—a tiny bit mounded on the end of a knife, so vivid and intense, like instant sky. Just add water. He glanced over at the vase.