Leonardo's Swans (12 page)

It was Galeazz. He bowed to the dukes and duchesses and glanced at Isabella, giving her a little smirk as if to say,
I told you I wielded the biggest lance
. He recited a poem of his own invention about Beatrice bringing the bud of youth’s first bloom to the ancient land of Lombardy—all predictable stuff—and included a couple of lines about his own betrothed, twelve-year-old Bianca Giovanna, who sat next to Beatrice and received the compliments shyly. Isabella was not in love with Galeazz, but she wished that he had included a reference to her in his recitation. She had been the muse of many poems already in her young life, and nothing thrilled her more than moving a man to take up the pen in admiration of her—unless it was a man taking up the brush to render her likeness.

By the time the last tilt came to an end, Isabella was exhausted with Galeazz’s victories. Of course he took the day, knocking dozens of men from their horses in disgrace. Beatrice presented him with his prize, a length of priceless gold brocade, and he was the guest of honor at the evening’s festivities.

Isabella congratulated the knight on his victory and on the surprise of his arrival in disguise. “The costumes of the barbarians were magnificent,” she said. “I had no idea that it was you. I was ready to run for my honor, what with the appearance of such fearsome men.”

“Just between the two of us, I stole Magistro Leonardo away from his duties decorating the Castello for the wedding to have the costumes designed for us. I paid him very handsomely, I assure you, but I believe it was worth the expense.”

“He does seem to be able to cast his genius in a myriad of directions.”

“Yes, he is incomparable in all things. I preyed upon him to do me this favor, not for myself, of course, but because nothing is too extravagant to please and impress Madonna Beatrice.”

“I sense that you have a special affection for my sister,” Isabella says.

“Indeed I do, madame. My sole purpose is to serve her.”

Did men think that because she was young and fair she could not see right through them? The perfunctory smile on his face might have been convincing to some, but to Isabella it was a mere clue that there was more to the story than he was telling.

“So you are a patron of the Magistro?” she asked.

“Indeed, as I have just said.”

“Then you must know of the painting of Madonna Cecilia Gallerani.”

“I do.” Galeazz seemed relieved to be off the subject of Beatrice, but not happy with the new topic of Cecilia.

“If you are so fond of Madonna Beatrice, then surely you want to remain in her good graces by pleasing her sister.”

“Nothing would please me more, except of course to please Madonna Beatrice, because I have made that my life’s quest.” This man was so practiced at playing the knight to ladies that his confidence exceeded that of a playactor.

“Sir, there is a way that you might please me in the extreme.”

“I was hoping you would suggest it,” he said, suddenly very alert, smile widening, anticipating her offer. Now she had him. If he were in love with her sister, would he stand so quickly at attention from the mere hint of flirtation from herself?

“I want you to arrange for me to see the portrait by the Magistro of Cecilia Gallerani.”

He did not speak. She had caught him by surprise. He just looked at her.

“Well?”

He collected himself from the disappointment of her request, fidgeting with his vest, pulling it down again and again. “Your Excellency, that is a most bizarre request, and a most indiscreet one at that.”

“I will tell you what is indiscreet. That would be the way that Ludovico has charged you, his future son-in-law, with distracting my sister with your gallantry so that she will not notice that he is still seeing his pregnant mistress. That, my dear Galeazz, is indiscreet. Arranging for me to see a painting need not be indiscreet.”

I
T
takes Galeazz less than forty-eight hours to arrange the request. Isabella knows that she should feel guilty for blackmailing this beautiful and gallant man, who is only doing his duty to his prince, by making him do her bidding in exchange for keeping his secret from her sister. Instead, she feels deliciously wicked as they sneak down the halls of the quarter of the Castello where Ludovico shares an apartment with his lover. The appropriate servant has been bribed and walks ahead of them with the large bronze key to the rooms. Everyone is having a nap after a morning of riding and eating. Madonna Gallerani is taking the noonday sun in her private courtyard, as is her habit in this late stage of her pregnancy. Isabella and Galeazz will not be noticed or missed.

Once in the salon, Isabella has to admit that the duke has had the decency to furnish his wife with more luxurious surroundings than his mistress. Cecilia’s apartment is lavishly done, with antique tapestries of the Judgment of Paris and other events leading up to the Trojan War, but Beatrice’s quarters have been decorated by the likes of the Magistro and are better still. That, Isabella thinks, is to Ludovico’s credit. Still, he has provided well for his mistress. The quarters are large, filled with grand furniture appropriate to its proportions. The remains of a lazy fire burn to embers. Isabella places her backside to the flame, lifting her skirt discreetly, allowing a rush of heat to climb up the backs of her legs as her eyes search the room.

The painting sits on a tall gilded easel. A beautiful woman emerges from dark, spooky shadows like an angel floating into this realm from the fog of a dream. Her face is luminous, her skin, translucent. Her hands are pale, her fingers, long and elegant. A white, snouted creature sits on her lap, its ears round and delicate, its claws emphatically rendered, its gaze as attentive to some unseen thing outside the frame as that of its mistress. It is as if both creatures are listening to a distant, beckoning sound.

Isabella loves the way the Magistro works the dark upon the light; loves the muted colors, and the way that he managed to paint fragile netting upon her hair, tied ever so delicately under her chin. How does one paint translucence? How does one paint skin so lustrous that brushstrokes cannot be seen? And the hair! Like an alchemist in reverse, he spins gold paint into hair. She looks at Cecilia’s long, fair hair, not nearly as lush and thick as her own, and she knows that she wants the Magistro to spin her own golden locks with his magic. He has made this woman look as if she has come from the ether, delicate, teetering between this world and the next.

Isabella realizes that she was correct about the Magistro: he is in search of the soul. The essence and mystery and beguiling qualities of not just this woman but of
woman
emerge from within, peek out just enough from the eyes and from the skin’s tiny pores to reveal a touch of the ineffable. What is it that Isabella sees? The power of the feminine? The godliness of the female?

“It is as if he has stolen a glimpse of her soul,” she says to Galeazz, who still stares though he has seen both the picture and the woman many times. “It is pouring from her eyes.”

“That is what the Magistro says, that the eyes are the window of the soul,” he replies quietly. “Knowing the lady, I must say that in this case, he has indeed captured her essence.”

“He must have used layers upon layers upon layers of thin paint to achieve this luminescent quality of the facial skin and that of the long, graceful, bony hand.”

“Madame, no one knows how he performs his miracles. After the initial sittings, he paints alone in secret.”

“She is beautiful and girlish, yet serious. She looks studious, does she not?” Isabella asks, as she cannot help but realize that she has all of those qualities. And she would like to sit for the master who might capture them in a painting.

“Yes, as is the lady herself.”

“And what is the small animal on her lap?”

“Why, you wear it next to your skin all the time. Do you not recognize the ermine in its living state?” he jokes with her.

“Does she have a pet ermine?”

Did anyone?

“No, it’s just that the ermine is one of the many symbols of Il Moro. He wanted it in the painting. Or perhaps it was the Magistro who suggested it. The ermine is a favorite of his. The legend of the animal is that being chased by a hunter, it went to its death rather than run into a hole because it did not wish to get dirty. The Magistro is a fanatic about cleanliness.”

“Perhaps he is also making the point that the duke is a bit of a weasel.”

She can see that Galeazz wants to laugh but does not. “Is that what you think of your brother-in-law?”

“I think he is many, many things.”

“The ermine is also a play upon Madonna Cecilia’s name, which is why the Magistro allowed its inclusion in the picture.
Gale
means ermine in Greek.”

“I love the cleverness of it all,” Isabella says, “no matter what it means. But I think it might mean that Madonna Cecilia has Il Moro under her palm!”

Out of the unearthly shadows of the painting’s background comes a door, leading to nothing but light. “Where do you think that door in the corner of the painting is leading? It’s strange and mysterious, is it not?” Isabella asks.

“I never thought on it. Perhaps the Magistro wanted to give her a door through which she might escape if she chose to.”

What a startling observation, she thinks. Would her sister have such an exit? That was both the joy and the sorrow of the life of a mistress. You could leave. But you could also easily be told to leave. Now that Galeazz has put the idea in her mind, she is certain that the Magistro inserted this irony into his painting. Finally, she says, “Sir, I believe you are even more brilliant than meets the eye.”

“We must go now,” he says. “She will be back at any moment for her afternoon rest.”

“Ah, but there is the second part of our arrangement, the viewing of la Gallerani herself.”

He sighs. “If we are lucky, she is in the garden below. She is in confinement, you know.”

“Is that because my sister and everyone in Europe is here for the festivities?”

“No, that is because she is about to deliver a child, though I hardly think that Il Moro would be parading her around during the celebrations for his marriage.”

Galeazz leads her by the arm to a window. They do not approach it directly so as not to be seen. He puts her behind him, and leans into the side of the window, gazing below. “We are in luck.” He takes her by the elbows and places her in front of him, but still aside the window, holding her closer than she thinks is necessary, but it adds to the daring of the moment. He is bigger than her husband, bigger even than Ludovico. She feels that she could fall back into him and be in bliss. Does he know how he is making her feel? Taking a deep breath, she sticks to the task at hand.

“Be quick about it,” he warns.

She leans forward so that she can see below into the yard. A woman with the same golden hair walks awkwardly, hands low on her hips, great belly jutting out, leaning slightly backward as if to balance herself. She is wrapped in a scarlet velvet cloak lined with fur and her elbows stick out like ungainly wings. She is enormous. She looks up, and Isabella almost darts away from the window, but the woman is merely trying to point her face to the sun to catch its weak January rays. Her face and neck are swollen, whether with childbirth or with age or with weight gain, Isabella cannot know. But even at this distance, in the stark midday light, she can see that bags have crept under Cecilia’s eyes, and that her skin is no longer the quality that it was at the time she was painted. Or perhaps the Magistro was generous in his portrayal. He did, after all, have to please both the subject and the powerful patron who commissioned the piece. Cecilia blows all the air out of her puffy cheeks and into the heavens as if exasperated by some thought or condition. She does not look happy.

Isabella leans back into Galeazz, wishing to remove herself from the window before she gets caught in her spying, but also to feel his strong body once more within the boundaries of propriety.

“I have seen enough,” she says.

Once they are safely down the hall, she asks if Cecilia was ever as lovely as she was in the painting. “Did the beautiful maiden transform into the cow with her pregnancy, like some mythological creature, or did the Magistro transform the cow into the beautiful maiden for the picture?”

Again, he wants to laugh, but his gallantry would not allow anything more than making a smile at her as if she is a mischievous and evil child. “I suppose it is a bit of both, though the painting was done some ten years ago when Cecilia was just your age. She was lovely, though the Magistro performs his magic well.”

And yet she is immortalized as the beauty of ten years ago. No matter what she does from this time forward, she will always have that painting, rendered by a genius, that shows her at the pinnacle of her attractiveness.

Immortal. Was Cecilia aware at the time that the way to immortality was gotten not by being just another mistress of a powerful man but by being painted by the master of masters?

Isabella must have that prize, no matter what it takes. What if the same fate that has befallen Cecilia happens to her, only sooner? What if by this time next year, she is puffed up with Francesco’s baby and has lost her figure forever? What if Francesco planted his seed last night and she is already with child? The idea that once would have made her happiest now makes her shiver with fear. Their mother had been slender and beautiful before the birth of her children too. Now she is still handsome, but portly. No, Isabella wants to be frozen in time now, right at this moment when all men stare at her with that same look of admiration and desire; that gaze of absolute longing to know her and to possess her. This is the very second in time that she wishes preserved, and not just by any court painter no matter how skilled. She must have Leonardo.

Perhaps Galeazz can make that happen for her, be her aide-de-camp in the mission.

Isabella stops walking, turns to Galeazz, and takes both of his hands. She looks up into his eyes, which seem to await her every desire. “I want to meet him.”