Leonardo's Swans (32 page)

She grabs Ludovico’s right hand as it waves in the air, squeezing it. It is surprisingly cool to the touch. “I’ll take care of it, my dear,” she says to his frantic eyes, forcing herself to offer him a calm smile.

She has her family locked inside the Rocchetta, that great sanctuary within the sanctuary of the Castello, with armed men to ensure that no one gets in or out. She sends messengers to each of the nobles, who just a week ago had publicly pledged their loyalty, asking them to assemble at the Castello without delay. She meets with them, delivering the news about Louis’s aggression and sending them off to secure their areas of the city. When she is asked about Ludovico’s whereabouts, she makes up a story on the spot: the duke is meeting in secret with his generals to plan a counteroffensive.

She summons Bernardino del Corte, one of Ludovico’s oldest friends, who this winter was appointed warden of the treasury of the Castello. In Beatrice’s own apartments in the Rocchetta, del Corte had sworn his lifelong fealty to the duke and duchess, and vowed with his very life to protect their assets. Now he repeats that pledge to her, and rushes off to fortify the Treasure Tower in case of attack. She holds a meeting with the commander of the guard in charge of the five hundred soldiers who protect the Castello around the clock, putting him on alert.

She sends word to Galeazz, who is already on the move to Novara with a good-size army. She calls for Bianca Giovanna, whom she keeps by her side so that the girl does not fall into panic, with her father ill and her husband heading a dangerous mission. She sends letters to their allies across Italy, and one to Emperor Max, explaining the treachery and asking for reinforcements to come to Galeazz’s aid. If Galeazz is not able to contain Louis and his army, they will appear at the gates of Milan. What could hold back Louis’s ambitions now? At night, she sleeps with an arm around each of her sons, reminding her of how, as a girl, she used to sleep with two puppies to keep warm and to feel safe. Now, she is taking precautions should she have to reenact Leonora’s midnight flight from invaders.

Bianca Giovanna, whose groom has been wrested by war from the marriage bed, insists on sitting by her father’s bed late into the night, holding his hand and talking sweetly to him when he rouses from his slumber or his fits. The girl has begun to look fatigued, her preternaturally white and flawless skin taking on a pearlescent glow. After Ludovico falls asleep, some nights Bianca Giovanna goes to the family’s private chapel at the Castello, praying until dawn for her husband. One morning Beatrice comes in at daybreak to say her prayers, finding the girl on her knees at the altar. She has not been to sleep. The tall tapers in front of which she kneels in prayer have burned to the wick. Beatrice sees heavy circles resting like dark, sinister smiles under the girl’s bleary eyes.

“You must sleep, Bianca,” Beatrice says. “What good will you be to your father or your husband or to me and the children if you wear yourself out?”

“But I often spend the night in prayer,” the girl confesses. “God has been so good to me. I was born illegitimate, but yet treated so tenderly and generously by my father after my mother passed away. He married me to the most gallant man in Italy. If I spent my life on my knees, could it be enough acknowledgment of Our Lord’s goodness?”

The girl’s earnestness is palpable. Not wishing to discourage her devotion, Beatrice holds out her hands to her, lifting her, and sending her off to her room to sleep an hour or two, promising to wake her if there is a change in Ludovico’s condition.

A week passes. Every day Ludovico improves slightly; he can almost squeeze his left fist again. Words come easier. General Bernard Contrarini of the Venetian forces arrives in Milan with a mercenary army of two thousand Greeks to help safeguard the city. Beatrice receives daily reports from Galeazz, who is skirmishing with the French at Novara’s walls. Beatrice hides from Ludovico the contents of the letters.

Though we are able to hold Louis of Orleans inside the city of Novara, I am spending far too much time convincing my troops to refrain from deserting. Madame, they have not been paid in recent weeks, and it is getting increasingly difficult to rouse them to fight. The quartermaster himself has empty pockets and is threatening to join the other side.

Beatrice speaks in secret with Ludovico’s treasurer, Messer Gualtieri, only to be told that all the coin in the realm has gone to the Italian League army. As soon as they are victorious, the soldiers will be paid out of the bounty. She realizes that defeating the French now depends not only on the military ability of men like Francesco and Galeazz but on their diplomacy in coaxing their armies to fight without salary, but for the promise of pay. A delicate situation.

Beatrice tracks Francesco’s progress in the march south to confront the French army, which marches north. She receives a letter from Isabella saying that she is spending her days with the clergy at Mantua in prayer for Francesco’s success in battle. The confrontation is imminent. The people of Naples have quickly tired of their new French occupiers—pleasure-loving Charles, who is perceived by the Neapolitans to be as dumb as a plank, caring only about bedding beautiful women; and his army, who lie about drunk in the streets, raiding houses and women’s bedrooms at will, taking whatever suits them.

Charles apparently has read the writing on the wall. The Neapolitans began rioting against the French, so Charles gathered the bulk of his army and left town, leaving in charge an officer, the Duke of Montpensier, who is Francesco Gonzaga’s brother-in-law. Meanwhile, the duke’s wife, Chiara, is being sheltered in Mantua by Isabella, who tells everyone that family is family, French and Italians be damned, and she will protect any member of her family if she chooses. Beatrice wonders if war will ever stop making strange bedfellows. Her sister shelters Chiara while Francesco marches on his brother-in-law’s king. Francesco heads an army bought and paid for by his other brother-in-law, and supported by the Venetians, who are now in Milan protecting Ludovico, who for decades had been their declared enemy. How will it all end?
Will
it all end?

I
N
the middle of the morning, Beatrice sits in her office wondering if and how she will govern the duchy of Milan when the Italian and French armies clash, while the duke who envisioned and funded the war lies in bed, an infirm man. Ludovico has continued to slowly improve, dressing daily and sitting for a time in the sun, but he is hardly in shape to command through a war. She is but twenty years old. She tries reminding herself that she is also the daughter of Ercole d’Este and the granddaughter of King Ferrante. If she must, she will be a wartime ruler. It is not impossible. History is littered with the names of such women, but would Beatrice d’Este actually join the ranks of Semiramis and Artemisia? Why not? Ludovico’s cousin Caterina Sforza of Forli is always waging war upon one kingdom or another. At only nineteen, she took up the sword and led an army into the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. Still, the idea of ruling in Ludovico’s stead at such a precarious time is making her ill. What if the Italian League army is not successful, and the French are soon bursting through Milan’s gates?

She pushes her untouched breakfast tray aside and looks up to see Leonardo the Florentine at the door of her office holding a satchel, an expression of calm concern on his face. He looks as if he needs a good night’s rest. Who let him in?

“How may I help you, sir?” she asks. Undoubtedly, he is here to request another advance on the mural.

“Your Excellency, I received a note from the duke requesting a meeting on matters of weaponry and fortification. But when I arrived this morning, I was told that he was ill and not receiving visitors.”

“The duke sent you a letter?” she asks incredulously. So it is a ploy to get more money, she thinks. Why else would he invent such a story?

“A note. Written in his own hand, expressing concern over the safety of the Castello in the event of an attack. I entered his service originally as a military engineer and weapons expert. He is calling upon those skills, these many years later.”

Why would Ludovico send for Leonardo when he will hardly see anyone at all? But Leonardo produces the letter, which is written in her husband’s hand.

“I am told it came through channels that would lead to his daughter, Madonna Bianca.”

Ah, that would make sense. Bianca Giovanna could be coerced into doing her father’s bidding.

“Your Excellency, may I speak frankly?” Leonardo asks.

“If you think it will be productive,” Beatrice answers, dreading, as usual, what the Magistro will have to say.

“I have personally dissected the tongue, and while I have found no muscles therewith intended specifically for gossip, that seems to be the primary exercise for that organ—at least at court.”

“I see,” Beatrice replies. “Then you know of the duke’s condition?”

“I do.”

“You know that he is convalescing. Why, in this weakened condition, do you suppose he sent for you?”

“He must have many thoughts locked inside his mind that he wishes to release.”

“Magistro Leonardo, allow me to speak plainly. Of all people, you are aware of how conversations between yourself and the duke can become rather heated. If something happened to disturb him, throwing him into another fit, we might lose him.”

“That will not be the result of our meeting. Quite the opposite.” Leonardo never looked more confident, at least in her presence.

“Have you taken to fortune-telling too?” she asks, smiling.

He looks for a moment as if he is trying to formulate an honest answer to her question before he acknowledges its humor with an appreciative smile. Then he speaks. “Your Excellency, I have made an extensive study of the inside of the cranium for my book on human anatomy. I have seen the brain and how it is fed by arteries. I have witnessed the point of intersection of all the senses. I have seen the locus of thought. God’s genius is as evident in the alleys of this marvelous organ of the brain as in the rising of the sun or the birth of a child. You really should see for yourself its marvels. If I arouse the duke’s passion, whether positively or not, his heart will pump more blood, which will flood the brain and reawaken and revive it. The swift flow of blood through healthy veins is the key to longevity!”

None of this makes any sense to Beatrice. Her mind had seized upon the image of Leonardo dissecting a cranium, which then shut down her ears to anything else he had to say. But his methods could not be any worse than Messer Ambrogio’s, who lorded over his patient, switching the role between servant and master, and trying, in Beatrice’s opinion, to drive a wedge between husband and wife. Besides, Leonardo frightened Beatrice, but she trusted him. She was not afraid of Ambrogio in the same way that she was afraid of the Magistro—in that mysterious way in which one might be afraid of an angel or a ghost, though the ethereal creature would mean no harm—but she trusts the astrologer far, far less.

So that at about the same time that she estimates that Francesco Gonzaga and his army of thirty thousand are colliding with King Charles on the banks of the Taro River near Fornovo, Beatrice takes the Magistro to meet with Ludovico in his private drawing room. The duke is dressed, albeit rather simply, his lap covered with a wool blanket. He looks older since his episode. His skin seems to have slackened, especially at the eyes and throat. To his young wife, he looks more the father than the husband, but his vulnerability only strengthens her tenderness.

The duke shows no surprise when the Magistro enters the room. In fact, he smiles broadly and thanks Beatrice for bringing the great man to him. The Magistro asks nothing about the duke’s condition, but covers Ludovico’s tables with sketches and architectural drawings of various kinds of walls and fortresses. The two put their heads together over the display, forming a barrier that excludes Beatrice from their communion.

Beatrice leaves them alone to whatever games they are going to play. Perhaps a morning of Ludovico pretending that he is healthy and in control of the kingdom will bring about those very results. When she returns after one hour, Ludovico has yet more color in his cheeks.

“You must show the duchess your invention,” Ludovico says, pronouncing the words more slowly than before he had his fit, but with regained clarity.

Beatrice steps over to the table, and Leonardo brings a wide drawing of the front of the Castello and its moat to the fore. He points to a series of windows that appear to float just above the water.

“It is a secret, underwater bunker!” Ludovico exclaims.

“The moat must be drained, of course,” Leonardo says. “But the chamber can be built rather quickly, and out of materials that will resist the water. An underground passage, from the Castello to the bunker, will be built here,” he points with his long finger. “Manning the bunker will not be a problem. Only these windows will be visible above the water. Shooters can fire their weapons at eye level before the opposition will be aware of where the volley comes from. Needless to say, the men inside the bunker will be impervious to enemy fire.”

Beatrice finds that she is speechless. Leonardo and Ludovico look at her like two pups waiting for their treats after performing a series of tricks. It occurs to her that the two of them, with all their differences, are most often of one mind.

“The element of surprise is that which so often takes the day,” Leonardo adds with complete confidence.

Still, she cannot think of what to say. Perhaps this is a woman’s folly, this inability to recognize what men of vision routinely see. Perhaps she knows even less of military matters than she previously assumed. She wishes Isabella were here to pass judgment upon this fanciful thing the Magistro has presented. Beatrice can only think to ask how much it will cost, what kinds of materials repel water, and whether it is wise, in times of war, to drain the moat.

“That is dazzling, indeed,” she says, the only response she can muster. Yet the new animation in Ludovico’s face is undeniable.