Blood and Gold (29 page)

There was no doubt in my mind, after this studious examination, that I could mimic mortal work to some extent, but I could not hope to surpass it. And I feared what I would accomplish. And I resolved to keep my house closed to all but the boys and their instructors as arranged.

Taking to my bedroom study, I began a journal of my thoughts, the first I had ever kept since the nights in old Rome.

I wrote of the comforts I enjoyed. And I chastised myself with more clarity than I did in my mind.

“You have become a fool for the love of mortals,” I wrote, far more than you ever did in the ancient nights. For you know you have chosen these boys so that you might instruct them and mold them, and there will be loving in it and hope in it, and the intention of sending them on to be educated at Padua, as though they were your mortal children.

But what if they should come to discover that you are a beast in heart and soul, and they run from your touch, what then? Will you slaughter them in their innocence? This is not ancient Rome with its nameless millions. This is the strict Republic of Venice where you play your games, and for what?

For the color of the evening sky over the piazza that you see when you are first risen, for the domes of the church beneath the moon? For the color of the canals that only you can behold in the starlight? You are a wicked and greedy creature.

Will art satisfy you? You hunt elsewhere, in the surrounding towns and hamlets, or even in distant cities, for you can move with the speed of a god. But you bring evil to Venice because you are evil, and in your fine palazzo, lies are told, lies are lived, lies may fail.

I put down the quill. I read over my words, forever memorizing them, as if they were a foreign voice speaking to me, and only when I’d finished did I look up to see Vincenzo, so polite and humble, and so dignified in his new clothes, waiting to speak to me.

“What is it?” I asked gently so as not to make him think I disapproved of him for coming in.

“Master, only let me tell you . . .” he said. He looked quite elegant in his new velvet, rather like a prince at court.

“Yes, do tell me,” I said.

“It’s only that the boys are so happy. They are all in bed now and sleeping. But do you know what it means to them that they have plenty to eat and decent clothes, and are learning their lessons with a purpose? I could tell you many stories, too many I think. There’s not a dullard among them. It’s such luck.”

I smiled.

“That’s very good, Vincenzo,” I said. “Go have your supper. Enjoy as much wine as you wish.”

I sat in the stillness after he had left me.

It seemed quite impossible that I had made this residence for myself, and that nothing had stopped me. I had hours before dawn during which I might rest on my bed, or read among my new books before making the short journey to another place within the city where a sarcophagus had been hidden in a gold-lined chamber in which I would sleep by day.

But I chose instead to go to the great room which I had designated as my studio, and there I found the pigments and other materials ready for me, including several wooden panels which my young apprentices had prepared as directed for me to paint.

It was a small matter to blend the tempera and I did it quickly so that I had a wealth of colors at my command, and then glancing over and over again into a mirror which I had brought into the room with me, I painted my own portrait in quick exact strokes with little or no correction until it was complete.

As soon as I was finished, I stood back from my creation, and I found myself staring into my own eyes. It wasn’t the man of long ago who had died in the northern forest, or the frantic blood drinker who had taken the Mother and the Father out of Egypt. Nor was it the starved and dogged wanderer who had slipped soundlessly through time for so many hundreds of years.

It was a bold and proud immortal who looked at me, a blood drinker who demanded that the world at last give him some quarter, an aberrant being of immense power who insisted that he might have a place among the human beings of which he had in former times been one.

As the months passed, I discovered that my plan was working quite well. In fact it was working marvelously!

I became obsessed with my new clothing of the period, velvet tunics and stockings, and marvelous cloaks trimmed in rare fur. Indeed mirrors were an obsession with me now as well. I could not stop looking at my own reflection. I applied the salves with great care.

Each evening, after sunset, I arose fully dressed with the requisite disguise on my skin, and I arrived at my palazzo to a warm greeting from all my children, and then dismissing the many teachers and tutors, I presided over a good banquet with my children where all were delighted to have the rich food of princes, as music played.

Then in a mild manner I questioned all my apprentices as to what they had learnt that day. Our conversations were long, complex, and full of wonderful revelations. I could easily surmise which teacher had been successful, and which had not wrought the effects I desired.

As for the boys themselves, I soon saw which of the boys possessed the greater talent, who should be sent off to the University of Padua, and who should be schooled as a goldsmith or a painter. Of failures we had none.

You understand, this was a transcendent enterprise. To repeat, I had chosen all of these boys by means of the Mind Gift, and what I offered them in these months, which soon stretched to years, was something they would never have had if I had not intervened.

I had become a magician for them, aiding them to realize accomplishments of which they hadn’t even dreamt.

And there was no doubt that I found immense satisfaction in this achievement, for I was a teacher of these creatures, just as I had long ago wanted to be the teacher of Avicus and Zenobia, and during all this time I thought of Avicus and Zenobia. I could not help but think of them and wonder what had become of them.

Had they survived?

I could not know.

But I knew this about myself: I had loved both Zenobia and Avicus because they allowed me to be their teacher. And I had fought with Pandora because she would not. She was far too finely educated and clever to be anything but a fierce verbal and philosophical opponent and I had left her, stupidly, on that account.

But no amount of such self-knowledge caused me to not long for my lost Zenobia and for Avicus, and to wonder what paths they’d taken through the world. Zenobia’s beauty had struck a deeper note in me than the beauty of Avicus, and I could not relinquish the simple recollection of the softness of Zenobia’s hair.

Sometimes, when I was alone in my bedroom in Venice, when I sat at my desk watching the curtains blow out from the windows, I thought of Zenobia’s hair. I thought of it lying on the mosaic floor in Constantinople, after she had cut all of it so that she might travel the streets as a boy. I wanted to reach back over a thousand years and gather it up in my hands.

As for my own blond hair, I could wear it long now for this was the style of the period, and I rather enjoyed it, brushing it clean without resentment, and going out to walk in the piazza while the sky was still purple knowing people were looking at me, wondering just what sort of man I was.

As for my painting, I went about it using a few wooden panels with only a handful of apprentices in my studio, locked off from the world. I created several successful religious pictures—all of the Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel appearing to her, because this theme—The Annunciation—appealed to me. And I was rather amazed at how well I could imitate the style of the times.

Then I set upon a major undertaking which would be a true test of my immortal skill and wits.

18

L
et me explain what this undertaking was to be:

There was a chapel in Florence that existed within a Medici palazzo, and on the walls of this chapel was a great painting by a painter named Gozzoli of the Procession of the Magi—the three wise men of Scripture—coming to visit the Christ Child with their precious gifts.

Now it was a marvelous painting, full of rampant detail. And it was worldly in the extreme, in that the Magi themselves were clothed as wealthy Florentine citizens and there followed behind them a huge gathering of similarly clothed men and churchmen so that the whole was a tribute to the Christ Child and to the times in which the painting had been done.

This painting covered the walls of this chapel, along with the walls of the recess for the place where its altar stood. And the chapel itself was quite small.

Now I was taken with the painting for many reasons. I had not fallen deeply in love with Gozzoli as I had with Botticelli, but greatly admired him, and the details of this painting were fantastic in the extreme.

Not only was the Procession itself enormous, if not actually never ending, but the landscape behind it was wondrous, filled with towns and mountains, with men hunting and animals running, with beautifully realized castles and delicately shaped trees.

Well, choosing in my palazzo one of the largest rooms, I set out to duplicate this painting in the flat mode on one wall. What this meant was that I had to travel back and forth between Florence and Venice, memorizing parts of this painting, and then render it with all my supernatural skill.

To a very large part I succeeded in my task.

I “stole” the Procession of the Magi—this fabulous depiction of a procession so important to the Christians and especially to the Florentines and I laid it out in vivid and exact color on my wall.

There was nothing original to it. But I had passed a test which I had set for myself, and as no one was to be admitted to this chamber, I did not fancy that I had truly robbed Gozzoli of anything he possessed. Indeed if any mortal had found his way into this chamber which I kept locked, I would have explained that the original of this painting was done by Gozzoli, and indeed when the time came for me to show it to my apprentices, for the lessons it contained, I did so explain.

But let me return for a moment to the subject of this stolen work of art. Why did it appeal to me? What in it made my soul sing? I don’t know. Except that it had to do with the three kings giving gifts, and I fancied that I was giving gifts to the children who lived in my house. But I’m not sure if that is why I chose the painting for my first excursion into true work with the brush. I’m not sure at all.

Perhaps it was only that all the details of the work were so fascinating. One could fall in love with the horses in the Procession. Or with the faces of the young men. I shall now leave the subject as puzzled about it as I tell my story, as I was then.

Immediately after confirming my success with the copy, I opened a spacious painting studio in the palazzo and began to work on large panels late at night while the boys slept. I did not really need their help and I did not want them to see the speed or the determination with which I worked.

My first ambitious painting was dramatic and strange. I painted a gathering of my apprentices in full fancy dress listening to an old Roman philosopher who wore only his long tunic and cloak and sandals, and this against a backdrop of the ruins of Rome. It was full of vivid color and my boys were well rendered, I give myself that. But I didn’t know if it was any good. And I didn’t know if it would horrify.

I left the door open to the studio in the hope that the teachers might wander in there by day.

As it turned out they were far too timid to do it.

I proceeded to create another painting, and this time I chose the Crucifixion—an approved theme for any artist—and I rendered it with tender care—and once again I used the backdrop of the ruins of Rome. Was it sacrilege? I couldn’t guess. Once again, I was sure of my colors. Indeed, this time I was sure of my proportions, and of the sympathetic expression on Christ’s face. But was the composition itself somehow something that should not be?

How was I to know? I had all this knowledge, all this seeming power. Yet I didn’t know. Was I creating something blasphemous and monstrous?

I returned to the subject of the Magi. I knew the conventions. Three kings, the stable, Mary, Joseph, the Infant, Jesus, and this time I did them freely, imputing to Mary the beauty of Zenobia, and glorying in the colors as before.

Soon my giant workroom was full of paintings. Some were correctly hung. Others were simply propped against the wall.

Then one night, at supper to which I’d invited the boys’ more refined instructors, one of them, the Greek teacher, happened to mention that he had seen into my workshop through an open door.

“Oh, please, tell me,” I said, “what did you think of my paintings?”

“Most remarkable!” he said frankly. “I’ve never seen anything like them! Why, all of the figures in the painting of the Magi . . .” He broke off, afraid.

“Please go on,” I said instantly. “Tell me. I want to know.”

“All of the figures are looking out at us, including Mary, and Joseph, and the three kings. I have never seen it done in that way.”

“But is it wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “But who’s to say? You paint for yourself, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” I answered. “But your opinion matters to me. I find at moments I’m as fragile as glass.”

We laughed. Only the older boys were interested in this exchange, and I saw that the very oldest, Piero, had something to say. He too had seen the paintings. He had gone inside the room.

“Tell me everything, Piero,” I said, winking at him, and smiling. “Come on. What do you think?”

“The colors, Master, they were beautiful! When will it be time for us to work with you? I’m more skilled than you might think.”

“I remember, Piero,” I said, referring to the shop from which he’d come. “I’ll call upon you soon enough.”

In fact, I called upon them the very next night.

Having severe doubts about subject matter more than anything else, I resolved to follow Botticelli in that regard.

I chose the Lamentation for my subject matter. And I made my Christ as tender and vulnerable as I could conceivably do it, and I surrounded him with countless mourners. Pagan that I was, I didn’t know who was supposed to be there! And so I created an immense and varied crowd of weeping mortals—all in Florentine dress—to lament the dead Jesus, and angels in the sky torn with anguish much like the angels of the painter Giotto whose work I had seen in some Italian city the name of which I could not recall.

My apprentices were quite astonished by the work and so were the teachers, whom I invited into the huge workroom for the initial view. Once again the faces I painted elicited special comment but so did the bizarre qualities of the painting—the inordinate amount of color and gold—and small touches I had added, such as insects here and there.

I realized something. I was free. I could paint what I wanted. Nobody was going to be the wiser. But then again, I thought, perhaps that’s not true.

It was desperately important for me to remain in the middle of Venice. I did not want to lose my foothold in the warm, loving world.

I drifted out in the following weeks to all the churches once more in search of inspiration for my paintings, and I studied many a grotesque and bizarre picture which amazed me almost as much as my own work.

An artist by the name of Carpaccio had created a work called
Meditation on the Passion
which revealed the body of the dead Christ enthroned against a fantastical landscape, and flanked by two white-haired saints who peered at the viewer as if Christ were not there!

In the work of a painter named Crivelli, I found a truly grotesque picture of the dead Savior, flanked by two angels who looked like monsters. And the same painter had done a Madonna almost as lovely and lifelike as Botticelli’s goddesses or nymphs.

I arose night after night hungry not for blood, though I certainly fed when I had to feed, but for my time in the workshop, and soon my paintings, all of them on large wooden panels, were propped all over the enormous house.

Finally, because I could keep track of them no longer, and went on to things new, rather than to perfect the old, I gave in to Vincenzo that he might have these works properly mounted as he wished.

Meanwhile our whole palazzo, though it had become famous in Venice as “a strange place,” remained somewhat closed to the world.

Undoubtedly my hired teachers spoke of their days and evenings in the company of Marius de Romanus, and all our servants gossiped, no question of it, and I did not seek to put an end to such talk.

But I did not admit the true citizens of Venice. I did not lay out the banquet table as I had done in the old nights. I did not open the doors.

Yet all the while I was longing to do it. I wanted the fashionable world of the city to be received under my roof.

What I did instead of extending invitations was to accept those I received.

Often in the early evening, when I didn’t want to dine with my children, and long before I needed to begin painting furiously, I went to other palaces where feasting was in progress, and I entered, whispering my name when asked, but more often being received without question and discovering that the guests were eager to have me among them and had heard of my paintings and of my famous little school where the apprentices hardly did any work at all.

Of course I kept to the shadows, spoke in vague but gentle words, read minds well enough to make the most clever conversation and in general almost lost my wits so great was this love to me, this convivial reception of me which was nothing more than most of the noblemen of Venice took for granted every night of their lives.

I don’t know how many months passed in this way. Two of my students went on to Padua. I went out into the city and found four more. Vincenzo showed no signs of ill health. I hired new and better teachers from time to time. I painted fiercely. So on it went.

Let me say a year or two had gone by before I was told of a very lovely and brilliant young woman who maintained a house always open to poets and playwrights and clever philosophers who could make their visits worth her while.

Understand the payment in question was not a manner of money; it was that one had to be interesting to be admitted to this woman’s company; poems had to be lyrical and meaningful; there had to be wit in conversation; one could play the virginal or the lute only if one knew how.

I was fiercely curious as to the identity of this creature, and the general sweetness of the reports of her.

And so passing her house, I listened, and I heard her voice threading through the voices of those around her, and I knew her to be a mere child, but one filled with anguish and secrets, all of which she concealed with immense skill behind a graceful manner and a beautiful face.

How beautiful, I had no idea, until I mounted the steps, entered her rooms boldly and saw her for myself.

When I came into the room, she had her back to me, and turned as if my arrival had made some noise which it had not. I saw her in profile and then completely as she rose to greet me, and I could not speak for a moment, so great was the impression on my mind of her form and face.

That Botticelli hadn’t painted her was a mere accident. Indeed he might well have done so. She looked so very like his women that all other thoughts left my mind. I saw her oval face, her oval eyes, and her thick wavy blond hair, interwound with long strings of tiny pearls, and the fine shape of her body with exquisitely molded arms and breasts.

“Yes, like Botticelli,” she said, smiling as if I’d spoken it.

Again, I could say nothing. I was the one who read minds, and yet this child, this woman of nineteen or twenty years seemed to have read mine. But did she know how much I loved Botticelli? That she could not know.

She went on gaily, reaching out for my hand with both of hers.

“Everyone says it,” she said, “and I’m honored. You might say I dress my hair this way on account of Botticelli. You know I was born in Florence, but that’s not worth talking about here in Venice, is it? You’re Marius de Romanus. I was wondering how long it would be before you came.”

“Thank you for receiving me,” I said. “I fear I come with nothing.” I was still shocked by her beauty, shocked by the sound of her voice. “What have I to offer you?” I asked. “I have no poems, nor clever stories about the state of things. Tomorrow, I shall have my servants bring you the best wine I have in my house. But what is that to you?”

“Wine?” she repeated. “I don’t want gifts of wine from you, Marius. Paint my picture. Paint the pearls interwound in my hair, I should love it.”

There was soft laughter all around the room. I gazed musingly at the others. The candlelight was dim even for me. How rich it all seemed, these naive poets and students of the classics, this indescribably beautiful woman, and the room itself with all the usual splendid trappings, and time passing slowly as though the moments had some meaning and were not a sentence of penitence and grief.

I was in my glory. I realized it quite suddenly and then something else struck me.

This young woman was in her glory too.

Something sordid and evil lay behind her recent fortunes here, yet she displayed nothing of the desperation she must surely feel.

I tried to read her mind and then I chose not to do it! I didn’t want anything but this moment.

I wanted to see this woman as she wanted me to see her—young, infinitely kind, yet utterly well defended—a companion for the night’s cheerful gatherings, mysterious mistress of her own house.

Indeed, I saw another great drawing room adjacent to this one, and beyond it a marvelously decorated bedroom with a bed made of golden swans and gold-threaded silk.

Why this display if not to tell everyone that in that bed, this woman slept alone? No one was ever to presume to cross that threshold, but all might see where the maiden retired of her own accord.