The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,178

ideas and passions for these things he had made. By the twang of his Latin I knew him for a Tuscan. I knew that this must be the engineer from Vinci that Brother Guido had mentioned the night before. In another moment I knew more, for he was presented to my mother as Signor Leonardo da Vinci. As the two men talked and my mother listened, I wondered briefly why I, who had been kept in the dark deliberately by my mistrustful mother was now being shown such things. My mother played me at cards but was showing me her hand—she was as good as admitting that a war was planned and that she was a part of it, and this new war, with this new army, would be fought in a new way. Fought with machines that burgeoned from the fevered imagination of this little Tuscan engineer, whose ideas swelled and burst like birthing sacs, to spew forth blood of innocent soldiers devoured by his machines. My mother turned to me and echoed my thoughts in a low voice.

“These are engines of death. Whosoever has such things cannot lose a war. Do you understand me? Cannot lose.”

Now I knew the reason for disclosure. More threats.

I met her eyes. “I understand that. What are you really telling me?” I noted the duke and his engineer had stopped their discourse to listen.

“That it is useless to resist what is coming. It is as inevitable as the seasons.”

The little Tuscan added a Latin saying (which was actually destined to be the third Latin tag that I know): “Ver fugo hiberna.”

And they all laughed together. I hated them all, traders in terror, dealers in death.

“And now, let us retreat from warlike sights and enter instead the realms of love and marriage,” said my mother, wrapping one arm around my shoulder.

“Mars greets Hymen, eh?” Ludovico barked. “ ‘Tis true. Lady, be glad.” He looked fondly at me, as if he were a favorite uncle, not my jailer. “For tomorrow, we greet at court your betrothed, Lord Niccolò della Torre of Pisa.”

I almost dropped to the floor. “Lord Niccolò? Here? Tomorrow?” I piped as loudly as I could, so that Brother Guido might hear.

“Yes.” My mother smiled down on me, indulgently. “Is that not joyous? He comes to join our party and reacquaint himself with you, the queen of his heart.”

I felt sick and could only hope that this information had reached Brother Guido at the back of the ranks. We all moved to leave; I hung back to fiddle with my shoe until my friend had caught up with me, then at the foot of the stair I stumbled and threw out an arm to Brother Guido to steady myself. It worked.

“You—help the signorina up the stair, she is faint with the news that her lover comes!” And Ludovico laughed, his booming voice ringing up the spiral.

Brother Guido and I had six turns, perhaps, to say what needed to be said. It took less.

“I’ll come to you tonight, as we planned,” he murmured so low I could hardly hear above the footsteps, “between Vespers and Compline.”

“But did you not hear? Niccolò is expected tomorrow! He will know you at once.”

He seemed startled, recovered quickly. “But I will be disguised by numbers, he will not note the footsoldiers.”

There was not time to state that my mother had seen him but once at the Medici wedding, but Niccolò had grown up with him, boy and man. I went straight to the poniard’s point. “Let me tell you,” I hissed. “I’ve known fellows of your cousin’s tastes before, and the one thing they like doing best is looking at footsoldiers.” We were nearly at the door. “Moreover, from tomorrow I am to be under the watch of my father’s guards this time. And they know their business.”

That did it. “Very well. Then we must go tonight. Be ready.”

I nodded quickly. One turn to go to the light, one more question. “What did the Tuscan engineer say in Latin?”

He looked at me once. “He said, ‘Spring chases the winter.’ ”

The rest of the day I spent in an ague of anticipation. I recognized the symptoms well from the day before my intended flight from Venice. My appetite disappeared and I was a weathercock spinning from excitement to terror. My cheeks burned and my eyes flamed, such that on the way to mass in il Moro’s litter my mother asked if I had a fever. At which Lord Ludovico