A Bolt From the Blue (34 page)

Frantic, I weighed my options. My diversion had worked; of that, there was no doubt. But if I gave up my assault, the soldiers would return to their original mission of tracking down the apprentices. Though I’d bought them a few precious minutes’ head start in their retreat, it was not enough time to assure my friends sufficient lead on their pursuers to make good an escape. I would have to continue my tactics in order to gain them more time.

Feeling quite vulnerable now, I grimly turned the flying machine about for another pass over the soldiers. And that was when I heard the unmistakable sound of canvas ripping.

The source of that chilling noise was immediately apparent. With each flap of my wings, wind had caught at the fabric damaged by the wayward bolt and further weakened it at that spot. Finally, the canvas had given way, resulting in a tear that stretched between two of the wing’s largest ribs. Air poured through the gap while the craft, unbalanced, began to waver, so that it took all my efforts to hold it steady.

And, once again, I was drawing within range of the crossbows. Another tear in that wing could send the craft spiraling out of control. A direct hit on its body might splinter a support or cut through a cable, resulting in the same outcome. And if the bolt hit me . . . Saints’ blood, that did not bear thinking about! But what other choice did I have?

Though my legs had begun to burn with the effort, I redoubled my pedaling in hopes of increasing my speed and gaining some altitude. I could see a group of the soldiers preparing for my return, crossbows raised as they stood in tight formation. The horsemen, meanwhile, had dismounted and wrapped cloaks over their steeds’ eyes to settle them, so that they would remain quiet during the attack. The remaining foot soldiers stood at the ready, doubtless charged with effecting my capture should the others bring down the flying machine.

I had no illusion that I would make it through unscathed in what likely would be my final pass. My only hope was that most of the bolts would miss their targets, and that any hits did but minor damage . . . to me or to the craft! Unless the flying machine proved too crippled in that aftermath, my plan was to continue flying north for as long as my aching legs would endure. When I could go no farther, I would attempt a landing and—should I crawl from the wreckage in one piece—make my way on foot back to Milan.

I could think ahead no further than that.

A barrage erupted below me, perhaps a dozen bolts releasing skyward. Tied as I was to the craft’s frame, I could do nothing but hunker in place and squeeze my eyes shut as the deadly arrows chased after me. In quick succession, I heard three, then four, then five of them pierce the frame, the sharp crack of wood like small explosions in my ears. A second volley followed the first, these bolts slicing through the wings. And then a flare of pain burned through my thigh, as if someone had slapped a glowing poker from the Master’s forge upon my flesh.

I screamed in equal parts agony and fright, and the craft gave a sickening lurch. For a moment I feared I might faint, but my head cleared enough for me to pull the flying machine level again. I glanced back to see how badly I was injured, almost swooning again at the sight of the heavy bolt that had ripped through the wooden frame and pierced my leg.

No, not pierced it, I amended with a relieved gasp . . . merely grazed the flesh. Though the bolt had torn through my trunk hose to hold me skewered like a bird on a spit, I found that I could still move my leg. Still, the bloody stain that was rapidly widening along that leg was alarming, as was the searing pain. But I was still in one piece and able to keep flying . . . That was, assuming that the craft remained intact.

More canvas abruptly rent, and the flying machine dipped and turned back in the direction from which I’d come. I gave the rudder a frantic pull, but the lever broke loose in my hand, the tail drooping like that of a defeated cockerel. I was headed down, and I would crash there amid the soldiers. My best hope was that I manage to take a few of those brutal men with me as I splintered apart.

My vanity made me pray that my corpse survived the impact in one neat piece.

As when I’d taken off, time slowed so that I was privy to every detail. From the distance, I heard the blare of trumpets sounding a charge . . . odd, because they seemed to echo from the forest and not the castle. Then, in a flash of silver, I saw bursting from the castle gates a magnificent chariot pulled by two black horses and carrying two dark-haired men, while whirling blades around them sang of victory and death. And, most strangely of all, the scores of painted soldiers that we’d set up among the trees the night before came abruptly to life, pouring onto the field on foot and on horses, their numbers far superior to the Duke of Pontalba’s men.

I smiled, the pain of my injured leg forgotten and any fear of death left behind. Certainly, this must be but a final trick of my now-fevered mind, I told myself as I calmly watched the ground rushing up to meet me. Still, I would die happily, knowing that, at least in my imagination, Leonardo had won the day and my father was free.

And afterward, when I moved from darkness back into light, surely Constantin would be waiting to greet me, his smile proud as he stood alongside his father and welcomed me home.

24

—Leonardo da Vinci,
Manuscript I

 

 

 

 

 

M
uch to my surprise, I did not die, after all.

Instead, I awakened sometime later to find myself lying upon a soft pallet in one of our wagons, wrapped once again in my father’s cloak. His expression anxious, my friend Vittorio hovered over me.

From the canopy of trees above him, I guessed that we were back in the makeshift camp where we apprentices had gathered the night before. No longer did I hear the sounds of shouting men and clashing arms and frightened horses. Now the whisper of breeze was broken by a lark’s cheery song and the occasional call of one apprentice to another as they gathered up pieces of the Master’s stage setting.

“You’re alive,” Vittorio exclaimed in satisfaction, adding with greater relief, “and none too soon for me. I have needed to piss for a good hour, but the Master charged me with keeping watch over you until you woke up, lest you sink away altogether and breathe your last!”

I was not sure if that final observation was meant to spur me to health or simply to warn me that my prospects were dire. Assuming the former, I shot him a wry look and managed to reply, “Fear not; you don’t have to stitch my shroud just yet. And I will do my best to keep breathing, so take yourself off to piss with my blessing.”

While Vittorio rushed off to find an accommodating tree, I gingerly took stock of my physical state. Despite my assertions to the contrary, breathing proved more difficult than I expected, for my ribs ached with every inhalation. I put an experimental hand to my throbbing head to find it bandaged, with the cloth over my forehead sticky with drying blood. But my greatest alarm came when I realized someone had cut away one leg of my trunk hose in order to bind up the gash on my thigh.

By now Vittorio, still adjusting his tunic, had returned to my side. I gestured him nearer and indicated my bandaged leg.

“Who—who did this?” I asked in no little trepidation, all too aware that the required surgery upon my garb might have revealed a certain lack of my supposed anatomy to anyone observing the procedure.

Vittorio snickered. “Don’t worry; no one save your father saw what dangles between your legs, for he insisted on bandaging you himself. Novella gave him some of the same salve that Signor Luigi prescribed for Rebecca, but he made her look away lest you be embarrassed later.”

He snorted at my sigh of relief, unaware that it was the preservation of my disguise and not my modesty that comforted me. Then, at my request, he told me all he knew of what had happened while I lay unconscious after my dramatic landing in the midst of what was briefly to become a battlefield.

I had not imagined the glorious sight of Leonardo and his chariot charging out onto the field of fi re, my father at his side. The pair had escaped Nicodemo’s dungeon with relative ease, given that Leonardo had had the foresight to hide in his tunic a ring of keys, each being the master to a different style of lock. As for the painted army come to life, the truth had been equally prosaic if no less a marvel.

For the soldiers I’d seen rushing from the forest in great numbers to clash with the Duke of Pontalba’s men had not sprung from our canvases; rather they had been Ludovico’s own army. Leonardo’s message to the duke had met him but a day out from Milan. How he might have worded his entreaty, no one save he and the duke knew, but apparently the note was sufficient to spur Il Moro into dispatching his troops posthaste. Thus, the army had been almost on our heels as we traveled to Pontalba.

It had been my father, Vittorio explained, who had braved the battle around me to rush to my side and carefully extricate me from the flying machine’s wreckage. With equal valor, he had dodged flailing swords and thrusting spears from both sides to carry me to the safety of the trees, not knowing at that point if I still lived or not.

The fighting, meanwhile, had continued, but not for long. During the initial clash, a group of Ludovico’s men had gained control of the castle’s gate before the unsuspecting guards could lower the portcullis and raise the drawbridge. The remainder of the duke’s army had quickly subdued Nicodemo’s smaller force and commenced an orderly invasion of the castle.

As for the remaining apprentices, they were all safe. They had taken cover beneath the wagons and watched the action on the field with the same enthusiasm as if it had been a feast day pageant. Though my dramatic diversion had ultimately proved unnecessary, Vittorio staunchly reassured me that it would have gained them much crucial time had not the soldiers from Castle Sforza fortuitously arrived.

“You know how Davide is,” he reminded me with a grin. “He worries like an old woman. He saw the flying machine atop the castle and feared the Master’s plan had gone wrong. He had already given the order to mount the horses by the time the gate opened. Had Il Moro’s men not appeared to protect us, we would have ridden off. We would have been far ahead of the duke’s soldiers by the time they finally tired of watching you flap about the skies like an old hen.”

Of course, they had all thought me dead when they saw the flying machine gracelessly tumble to the ground. I was gratified to learn that my presumed demise had quite dampened their earlier enthusiasm for battle, and that spontaneous cheers had arisen once they saw that I remained among the living. Later, after the fighting had ended, the Master had examined his battered craft. He had opined that it had been the leather bladder, intended to facilitate a landing upon the water, which had ultimately cushioned the impact enough for me to survive with but minor injuries.

The gash on my leg, though painful, had already stopped bleeding by the time my father rescued me. More troubling, Vittorio explained, was the blow to my head that I’d suffered. After evaluating the damage to his invention, the Master had checked on the welfare of its luckless pilot. He had taken one look at my unconscious form and instructed that I was to remain unmoving for the remainder of the day and through the night, lest I do further damage to my battered head. Assured that I likely would survive, he and my father had returned to the castle where the captain of Il Moro’s guard was busy interrogating the Duke of Pontalba.

Wisely, Nicodemo had not mounted any further defense once it was apparent that his men were outnumbered. Instead, he had played the role of aggrieved noble, protesting that he had been duped by Leonardo into believing that Milan was prepared to lay siege to Pontalba. With the same vigor, he had claimed that he’d only just learned about the kidnapping of my father and theft of the flying machine. That plan, he assured the true captain of Ludovico’s guard, had been solely the idea of his nephew, who had acted on his own and apparently had fled the castle in all the commotion.

It was not until much later that someone had noticed Tito’s broken body lying at the castle’s foot, hidden in the grass.

Vittorio’s words confirmed what I’d already guessed, but to hear Tito’s fate pronounced with such finality dimmed the small triumph I had felt at realizing that the duke had not prevailed. There was more, of course. By now, word had spread among the apprentices that Tito had been no common youth, like themselves, but the Duke of Pontalba’s nephew. They knew, as well, that his true purpose in Milan had not been to serve in Leonardo’s workshop but to act as his uncle’s spy.

His expression uncertain, Vittorio paused in his account. “Is what they said about him true, Dino? Did Tito steal the flying machine? Because, if he did, I fear that he also must have murdered Constantin.”