A Bolt From the Blue (12 page)

“
Constantin’s murder!
”

Wrapping my blanket about my shoulders—I dared not take time to don my corset beneath my tunic—I hurried after Tito through the darkened workshop. I judged from the cold hearth and the angle of the moonlight seeping through the windows that it was well after midnight. None of the other apprentices stirred; nor, when we slipped out of the workshop door and into the chill night air, did I see a light burning anywhere near.

My heart pounded like a smith’s hammer in my chest as I followed Tito across the shadowed quadrangle. What reason he might have had for killing our friend, I could not fathom. Nor could I guess where he might have found the crossbow to do the deed, save that he stole it from the armory.

I bit back a groan. Saints’ blood, why was I the one he had chosen to unburden himself to, rather than the Master? And what would happen once he made his act of contrition? Would he walk meekly to the guard post and give himself up to justice? Or, his conscience relieved on that account, would he murder me, as well, to keep his secret safe?

I glanced up at the parapets that ran along the tops of the walls enclosing the castle grounds. I knew that Il Moro’s men patrolled there both day and night, keeping watch for intruders. Given the current political climate, those patrols had recently been redoubled. If I cried out for help, surely the sound of my fearful appeal would carry across the silent grounds and reach the soldiers.

The question was, would they be able to respond to my summons in time to preserve my life?

Tito halted at a spot near the kitchens, not far from where we took our daily meals. The cool night breeze brought with it the sharp, sour odor of rotting garbage from the nearby pile where the kitchen’s leavings were routinely discarded. As the sharp odor wafted over me, my already queasy stomach lurched.

With an effort, I suppressed the sick feeling and faced my fellow apprentice, blanket wrapped about me as much for security as for warmth. Perhaps I’d been a fool to follow Tito like this, but my need to know the truth of Constantin’s murder had outweighed my good sense. Besides, he carried no weapons that I could tell—surely a crossbow could not fit unnoticed beneath his tunic!—and I was swift enough of foot that I could outrun him, if need be. And so I would hear him out, and then decide what to do next.

Tito, meanwhile, leaned against the wall of the outbuilding, not noticing—or else not caring—that the stone was damp and the night chill. His arms were crossed over his chest, while his head dropped in resignation. I waited for him to speak; then, when he remained disinclined to say his piece, I forgot my earlier uneasiness and succumbed to annoyance.

“Tito, it is late, and I am cold. Quickly, confess your crime and be done with it,” I snapped, my patience at an end.

He looked up, startled.

“Crime? I did not murder Constantin, if that is what you are thinking!” came his sharp protest.

Now it was my turn to look surprised.

“I do not understand. What is it that you have come to confess, if it is not that you cruelly murdered our friend?”

He did not answer at once but spared a glance around us. Seemingly assured that no one would step from the kitchen at this untoward hour to scrape out the cooking pots, he answered, “I did not wish to tell anyone, not even the Master, but my conscience would not let me rest. I thought perhaps if I talked to you . . .”

He paused to take a deep breath, and then went on. “Yesterday, I spoke with Constantin after our morning meal. He appeared upset over something—nay, almost frightened—and I was concerned, for he’d been in that state for several days. But he refused to say what ailed him, no matter that I prodded him for answers. Finally, I grew angry.”

His tone grew more somber. “My words were harsh as I parted company with him, but I did not care. I watched him walk toward the garden where you and your father labored with the Master, while I started back to the chapel where the rest of us were working. That was the last time I saw Constantin alive.”

I sighed.

“If that is all that weighs upon your conscience, then you have no cause for guilt,” I replied with a sympathetic shake of my head. “No matter that your last words with him were spoken in anger, Constantin would have known that you did not mean your unkindness, that you were truly his friend.”

“But if I had been his friend, Dino, I would not have let him go alone to his death.”

His gaze was level with mine now, and his tone was thick with condemnation . . . but whether that emotion was for me or for himself, I was not certain as he spoke again.

“I know it was not bandits who killed Constantin, as the Master claimed. No, do not try to persuade me otherwise,” he added when I opened my mouth to protest. “You see, I regretted my words almost as soon as they were spoken, and so I went after him to beg his pardon. I had just reached the garden, when I heard his cry for help.”

“Tito, do you mean that you witnessed what happened?”

He shook his head, dashing my fledgling hopes that this crime might now be solved.

“I heard him call out; then, when I saw no one nearby, I decided I must have imagined it and thought simply to wait for him. A few minutes later, I saw you and the Master and your father rush from the garden. But when Constantin did not follow after, I grew alarmed. The gate to the garden was locked, and so I climbed the wall for a look.”

He paused again, and then his voice broke. “I—I saw Constantin lying on the ground, dead, and I knew it was my fault. I knew he had been frightened of . . . someone. If I had put aside my anger and insisted on coming with him, perhaps none of this would have happened. Or, at the very least, perhaps I would have glimpsed the villain responsible.”

He fell silent at that last, and for a long moment no words passed between us. Now I understood his odd reaction when the Master had told us what had happened. Like me, he had felt grief . . . but, like me, he had not been surprised at Leonardo’s words, for he already knew that Constantin was dead. His anger had reflected his struggle with his own feelings of guilt at what he had—and had not—done.

“Tito, listen to me. You could not have known what would happen,” I assured him. “The fault lies only with the foul murderer, and no one else. You should not take on blame, any more than should I.”

“I—I cannot help it,” he shot back, swiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “And I don’t understand why the Master pretends that Constantin was killed by bandits, rather than there in the garden.”

I hesitated, tempted to explain the Master’s reasoning as best I could, given that Tito already knew the truth of much of what had happened. But recalling the vow of secrecy that my father and I had taken, I stubbornly shook my head.

“Tito, you know I cannot speak of things that the Master has told me in confidence.”

“Bah, it does not matter,” he softly cried, “for I know what this is about. All of us apprentices know that he and your father are secretly building a flying machine. What else can be happening but that someone is trying to steal Leonardo’s plans for it and sell them to Il Moro’s enemies? I’m right, am I not? And, somehow, Constantin was caught in the middle of it.”

His chin jutted toward me, his manner now at once fearful and aggressive. Unwilling to engage him while he was caught in the throes of such emotions, I wrapped my blanket more tightly about me and turned on my heel.

“I can say no more, Tito,” I called back to him. “Now, let us return to the workshop, and tomorrow you can ask whatever you wish of the Master.”

I did not look to see if he followed after me. Indeed, I hoped he did not, for I needed time to consider what he’d revealed. The fact that Tito claimed that Constantin had been distraught for several days was telling. Certainly, it was something that the Master must know.

As I approached the darkened workshop again, I glanced at the windows of Leonardo’s private quarters. As when Tito and I had first stepped out into the night, no light burned there. I pictured my father fast asleep within and wondered if the Master had ever returned from whatever errand had taken him from us. He had said he was to arrange for Constantin’s burial, but surely that had taken only a brief conversation with the priest.

Despite myself, I could not help a niggling sense of worry. While I knew that Leonardo could hold his own in a fight—to be sure, I had seen firsthand his surprising competence with a blade—that did not mean he could not be taken unawares. As I climbed back into my own bed once again, I could only pray that he was ensconced safely somewhere and not in the grip of the mysterious robed figure who might well be Constantin’s killer.

 

 

The next day passed soberly as we spent the morning putting the first layers of plaster upon the chapel walls. To my relief, Leonardo had appeared in the main workshop as we were climbing from our cots. I was glad to see his midnight excursions had not brought him any harm, for he looked hale and hearty; still, the solemn set to his features reflected the grief we all were feeling. He himself took on Constantin’s role of assigning tasks and directing our progress, wisely leaving us no leisure to dwell upon our loss.

We applied ourselves to the work with great diligence, and not just because the Master was supervising our labors. Instead, it seemed an unspoken agreement that we should do our very best work upon this particular fresco. In that way, Constantin would be proud should he gaze down on us from the heavens in between plastering and painting his very own portion of eternity.

We halted our work earlier than usual, pulling on clean tunics to make the sad journey by foot along the rocky path to the churchyard outside town. It was a familiar trek to a spot that held far too many grievous memories for me. How many more times, I bitterly wondered, would I be forced to make this journey while I lived here in Milan?

Paolo, Davide, Tommaso, and Vittorio shouldered the bier upon which Constantin, wearing his apprentice’s tunic, lay wrapped in a simple shroud. The rest of us, along with Leonardo and my father and those castle servants who’d also been Constantin’s friends, followed after. I smiled a little through my tears, however, when I glanced back and saw that a final mourner had joined our sad procession.

The small hound, Pio, had roused himself from his usual afternoon nap and now trailed a short distance behind us. He seemed to understand both the solemnity and the purpose of the occasion, for he did not indulge in his usual antics. Instead, he marched with the high-stepping grace characteristic of his breed, keeping dignified pace with us as we headed in the direction of the burial grounds.

As Constantin had no family in Milan to witness this final stop in his earthly journey, we apprentices and Leonardo stood in for his siblings and parent. It was a short service, little more than the bored muttering of the priest who had been pressed into service at the cost of a few coins. Even so, I was swept by melancholy as I listened to the familiar Latin prayers and unashamedly clutched my father’s hand. I had come to regard Constantin as a dear friend during these past many months, and I would sincerely mourn his absence in my life.

But it wasn’t until we returned to the workshop that the finality of Constantin’s death was made clear. Calling us together, Leonardo announced that he had chosen a new senior apprentice to take Constantin’s place.

“I have decided upon Davide,” he said, giving that youth an encouraging nod.

Davide squared his shoulders and stepped forward. “Master, I am humbled by your trust in me,” he replied as the rest of us murmured our approval, “and I shall endeavor to be as fair and diligent in my duties as our fallen friend.”

“I have every confidence in your abilities,” Leonardo answered with a small smile. “And now, your fi rst job shall be to lead your fellows to the evening meal, after which there are many tasks here in the workshop to finish before you take to your beds this night.”

We obediently gathered up our bowls and spoons and, led by Davide, trudged from the workshop toward the kitchen. By then, the pall that had hung over our emotions had begun to lift, so that we managed a bit of conversation over our stew. Then Paolo shared a humorous anecdote about Constantin, which ended with the latter getting the better of Paolo by the end of the tale.

Paolo’s self-deprecating account broke the stern wall of silence we’d unconsciously erected around our friend’s memory. One by one the rest of us spoke up with an amusing story or quip about him, with our tears now ones of hilarity as much as sorrow. Thus, by the time our meal was done, our spirits were far lighter than they’d been at the day’s start.

But I’d not forgotten my conversation with Tito the night before. Seemingly, neither had he, for he’d managed to keep his distance from me all of this day, avoiding my gaze every time I looked his way. And when I would have spoken to him now as we were gathering our empty bowls for the return to the workshop, I realized he was no longer among our number.

“Tito left some time ago, while Bernardo was telling the story about Constantin stepping into a bucket of plaster,” Vittorio said when I questioned him about the other youth’s absence. “He told me he did not feel well and that he was going to return to the workshop.”

I frowned as I licked my spoon clean and set it into my bowl. I did not wish to doubt Tito, for I knew he had been greatly affected by Constantin’s death. Perhaps our return to merriment had happened too quickly for him. And so I kept my suspicions to myself, even when Tito proved not to be in his cot or anywhere about the workshop. It was not until Davide was snuffing the evening’s ration of candles that Tito rejoined us, slipping past the door unannounced as if he’d merely been gone to take a piss.

And it was not until morning that I learned just where Tito had been and what he had done while he was gone.

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