Quattrocento Page 25
Asleep in the chair next to him, Anna stirred, but relaxed again as the note faded away. Her dress, damascene silk the color of ivory, fell in soft folds from the golden belt tied in a lover’s knot under the bodice. A light blue cape, turned back to show the black lining, was draped over her shoulders, and holding her hair was a braided silver cord set with a single pearl mounted in gold.
Matt, as Anna slept, put aside thoughts of what lay ahead. At supper he would talk to Rodrigo about the project for the pigments, and there were other plans to be made, but for now it was enough just to enjoy the view out across the valley, the deep green of the hills on the other side infused with gold in the early evening light.
Anna stirred again, and awoke. She smiled at him, her eyes still filled with sleep. “You’re back,” she said. “Is it late?”
“No, it’s barely evening. Have you been asleep long?”
“I don’t know. After you left, I tried to work on the painting, but I was just so tired. I didn’t get any sleep last night, you know.”
“I’m glad you had a chance to rest.”
“I had the strangest dream while I was asleep. I was in a theater and people were singing.”
“What? ‘Miracolo d’Amore’?”
“No.” Anna laughed. “It was music I had never heard before. And you were there, too.”
“What happened?”
“There was a storm, and it got dark. I couldn’t see. The worst was the silence. But then—it must have been our talking about it at dinner—I saw the manticore. It was walking on the sea. And then I heard a trumpet. It was the most beautiful sound, like a rainbow.”
“And then?”
“I woke and you were here.”
“The hunt’s over. The manticore got away.”
“I’m glad.” Anna leaned over and touched the compresa pinned to his shirt. “And Leandro?”
“There is no Leandro. He’s gone.”
“You had no way of knowing, and I couldn’t tell you. The count died yesterday. That was why last night— I was afraid of what Leandro might do when he found out and knew his way was clear.”
Matt put his hand over hers, still resting on his shirt. “I missed you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I did,” Matt said, and kissed her palm. He stood, and she rose, too, her hand still in his as he drew her close. She was light, as he put his arm around her and lifted her, and so was the kiss, as light as the sun reflecting off water.
“I want to have your portrait done,” Matt said, his arm around her waist as they walked back up the path toward the villa.
“You can paint it.”
“I wouldn’t be able to do you justice. I think I’ll stick to flowers.”
“Who, then? Piero?”
“I was thinking about that Florentine, the one Rodrigo knows.”
“How delightful,” Anna replied. “He just painted my cousin Ginevra.”
Acknowledgments
This book would not be in your hands if Bill Thomas, editor in chief of Doubleday, had not taken such a risk and shown so much faith in an incomplete manuscript by an unpublished writer. I can’t thank him enough for his constant support and encouragement. My agents—Chris Calhoun, at Sterling Lord Literistic, Agnes Krup, and Jody Hotchkiss—transformed a dream into a reality, and a writer into an author. My family and friends—Jane, Betsy, both Charlies, Tricia, Claire, Jack, George, Sandy, and Julie McGowan, David Lusterman, Mary VanClay, Jovanina Pagano, Yung and Chao-mei Chin, Andy and Rachel Kuhn, Mark and Lorna LaRiviere, Bob and Nancy Mazzoli, Fiona Pixley, Guy Rabut, and Jamie Dettmer—were unstinting in their enthusiasm and belief in this endeavor during the many long years before it came, at last, to fruition. Dr. Eric Canel deserves a special thanks for so patiently explaining the concepts of quantum physics to me; I still have the restaurant napkins with his sketches illuminating how it could be possible that Schroedinger’s cat both did and didn’t die. The Greenwich Public Library, in the depth of its collection and the always friendly and helpful staff, afforded everything I needed in my research, while the Metro North Railroad has over the past fifteen years provided me with the best office in the world—safe, dependable, and with conductors who were quite understanding as to how on occasion a laptop might be remembered but a ticket left behind.
Lastly, it is with the utmost gratitude, admiration, and affection that I thank my editor on this book, Amy Scheibe, who helped me center the note.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 2003
Copyright © 2002 by James McKean
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. First published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2002.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
McKean, James N.
Quattrocento : a novel / James McKean.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-4000-7591-1
1. Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 2. Art restorers—Fiction. 3. Time travel—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Tuscany (Italy)—History—1434–1737—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.C55 Q38 2002
813′.6—dc21 2002512614
Author photograph © Chia Messina
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