me continue my own tale—I traveled with a Milanese merchant back to Milan as his chaplain, and left him at the city gate. There I saw a bill calling on all the youth of the city to enlist at the Castello Sforzesco for a new model army. I came to the gates to join up and was asked no questions, even though I was wearing the robes of a Franciscan novice. I was given this ocher cloak and sword, and this helmet with a pointed visor.” He flourished his arms and armor. “I was asked no questions of birth or experience, given pass for all that I wear the prisoner’s brand of the Bargello. See.” He held out the inside of his wrist, stamped with an ornamental B, the flesh healed but angry. “And I am not alone. Branded men, lunatics, men of the cloth, all have lined up to fight for il Moro and God knows what. They take the pay of a paghe vive soldier gladly, and every hour from that day to this we have been training to fight hard and dirty. I have been here a month and Ludovico has honed us all from a ragbag of villains to an efficient fighting infantry, ready to fight whatever war the Seven have planned.” He took my arm, hard, hurting. “And by God, or Venus, or whoever rules this earth, we’re going to stop them. Come. Let’s use the time that we have and interrogate the figure of Milan until we can divine what their purpose is.”
40
“Let us begin, as we always used to do—with the obvious,” said Brother Guido as we leaned into the painting once more. “The figure is, as we know, Botticelli, the artist himself. He wears an ocher cloak, as he did that day when he painted you. He wears a curved sword in the Turkish style, as I do now. He wears Roman sandals, as do I. He wears a pointed helmet, as do I. In short, Ludovico has modeled his army on this figure.”
“Or Botticelli has painted Mercury as one of Ludovico’s infantry.”
“Indeed. Either way, a nice little piece of military propaganda. What do we divine from this?”
I didn’t understand what he just said, so I thought it safest to recap. “That Ludovico Sforza is building himself an army with a new uniform, new weaponry, new armor—”
“And that’s not all,” Brother Guido interrupted. “He has a Tuscan engineer, some fellow from Vinci, making war machines for him—they are all here, in a huge secret chamber below the castle. Great mechanical monsters to wreak destruction. God knows upon whom.”
“All right. He’s building himself an army of men and machines.”
“Not himself an army, the Seven’s army. Just as the Seven now have new coinage, they have a navy—the fleet of the Muda from Pisa and their sister fleet in Naples. Naples also provided the meat and drink of alliance, a marriage. Semiramide Appiani not only unites the houses of Naples and Florence, but she brings her father’s lead mines as a marriage prize, a metal crucial for the waging of a war. The Seven also have papal blessing—the backing of the church for their enterprise. Each city represented in the painting we have visited has contributed something. Venice has given her expertise in coinage, and Bolzano has the silver to make those coins.”
“Doesn’t seem like Venice brought much to the party.”
“No. But they also gave a priceless treasure.”
“What’s that?”
“Not what. Who. You.” He smiled. “We should not forget there is another marriage alliance in the case. With the doge’s daughter allied to Pisa and the Seven, trade—the lifeblood of a city-state—is assured. Venice is the gateway to the Black Sea and all points east, and the Mocenigo family, even when the doge’s office is ended, is crucial to Venice’s shipping monopolies and trade routes. You, and you alone, secure them.”
My mind boggled. I could not yet think of myself in these terms. It didn’t help, of course, that I was currently sitting in a cold cell no bigger than a privy, which smelled like one too. “What about Florence?”
“Lorenzo de’ Medici is the mastermind of all—’tis his head upon the coin. And crucially—he has the Medici bank. He will underwrite the whole operation, whatever it is; he will move money between branches using his new giro system. And now, as we know, Milan is to provide an army.”
“All right. So, now that we’re here, and we see all the soldiers dressed like Mercury, it’s