Leonardo's Swans (33 page)

“And that is not all,” Ludovico says, looking conspiratorially at the painter–cum–weaponry wizard. “The Magistro has alternative plans for defeating the French.”

“Your Excellency, I have demonstrated to the duke how we might burn the enemy en masse, flood them out, besiege them, or, in a last resort, repel their scaling ladders with fire and oil as they attempt to take the Castello, sending their scalding bodies plummeting one on top of the other to the ground.”

The men’s faces are luminous, scenarios of destruction igniting fire in their eyes. Beatrice wonders how someone like Leonardo—who is known to be so sympathetic that he buys tiny sparrows in the marketplace only to set them free, who will not partake of the flesh of animals of any kind, and who has put creations of unmatched beauty into the world—can experience such joy in the destruction of whole battalions of human beings.

“I am surprised to find you so gleeful over these gruesome inventions,” Beatrice says to both men. “How is it that an artist may so easily turn his creative nature toward destruction?”

“Your Excellency, warfare is one of the greatest arts. What nobler pursuit than devising ways to preserve the lives of one’s countrymen?”

Ludovico looks extremely satisfied with the Magistro’s answer. “Do come back to see me tomorrow. We will conspire the more, you and I.”

Beatrice walks with the Magistro to the door. “Thank you for reviving my husband’s spirits,” she says quietly.

“It was not I, Your Excellency, but the magic that occurs when the blood is stimulated.”

When the Magistro leaves, Beatrice asks her husband if he needs to rest.

“Oh not at all,” he says. “I am myself again.”

Ludovico reaches up to Beatrice, guiding her face toward his. To her disappointment, he kisses her forehead rather than her lips. “Thank you for acting when I could not. Few men are blessed with such a wife.”

That is all the intimacy she receives, and she leaves his rooms feeling more puzzled and lost than before.

For days and days, Beatrice looks out of the window of the Rocchetta first thing in the morning to make sure that no one is yet draining the moat. What if Ludovico has lost his mind and starts to approve the Magistro’s wilder schemes? What if the Magistro is indeed a conjurer who can take advantage of a man not entirely in control of his faculties? What if Leonardo has been waiting for such an opportunity all along? What would be next? Beatrice imagines great heaps of coin being barreled out of the Treasure Tower to finance the building of giant wings for each foot soldier in the army. Would she have to sell her own jewelry to finance the efforts?

Fortunately, news soon arrives that renders the aquatic bunker unnecessary.

On July the seventh, a stifling day of hot sun and still air, Count Caiazzo, extraordinary knight and brother of Galeazz di Sanseverino, comes riding like the devil into Milan with a report from the battlefield. He tells Ludovico and Beatrice that the armies clashed, with the two generals, Charles and Francesco, transformed into fierce warriors, each setting astonishing examples of valor and conviction for his troops. Francesco fought relentlessly, while three horses were killed beneath him. Charles’s men were exhausted and suffering from heatstroke, their numbers diminished by constant desertion on the forced march from Naples up through the mountainous body of Italy. But the king rallied them with reminders of French honor, leading the charge time and again to inspire his troops.

“He kept crying out, ‘Die with me!’ while he brandished his sword above his head, riding like a wild creature into enemy lines,” the count says. “You should have seen him on his white charger, with great purple-and-white plumes rising out of his helmet. I tell you, the king was transformed from a freakish little toad into a hero.” Caiazzo went on to explain that by sunset, it was difficult to declare who had taken the day. But Francesco managed to capture the French baggage train, replete with ammunition, weaponry, and a good deal of the French king’s booty from Naples.

“The marquis walked the battlefield in tears, looking at the bodies of his brave knights, some cousins, some friends from childhood, declaring a victory that was had at a tremendous price. I have never seen a man fight so well, or shed so many tears over fallen comrades. Charles and his army were horribly battered and reduced, but they escaped, and are headed for Asti as we speak. I am sure they have reached the city by now.”

Beatrice collapses in relief. “Then my sister’s husband is not wounded?”

“A few superficial scrapes, Your Excellency. It’s a miracle. He said to tell you that he is sending some special trinkets from King Charles’s tent to you for inspection. He thinks you will like them, though he is sure that you and your sister will fight over the best of it.” Caiazzo’s eyes glimmer as he reaches into his pocket, producing a small, bejeweled cross, which he places in Beatrice’s hand. He folds her fingers over it, and then kisses her fist. “This is just a hint of beautiful things to come.”

Where do these di Sanseverino men get their charm? Count Caiazzo looks so much like his brother, with the same insouciant wit and gallant manners, even after a long battle and a two-day ride. “If you see the marquis, please tell him that the only loot I require from this war is his safety. I am sure that is true as well of my sister.”

“Ah, but I believe that the very sword and helmet of Charlemagne are among his prizes!”

“But why did he let the French escape?” Ludovico asks impatiently. “Charles could be on his way to Milan for all we know!”

Count Caiazzo does not like the implicit accusation against a man who has risked his life from a man who has not, Beatrice can tell. She knows all of Galeazz’s facial expressions and what they mean. She is familiar with this very one now replicated on Caiazzo’s face—surprise, indignation, and a flash of anger. “The marquis cost the French army a river of blood. He decimated their ranks and captured their supplies. It was a starving band of stragglers and their king that escaped. The marquis would have annihilated them altogether but for a large company of Albanian mercenaries who disobeyed his orders and, instead of attacking, left the battle to plunder the French camp. This betrayal cost him much grief, but was not his fault. I cannot imagine a man acting with greater courage on your behalf, Your Excellency.”

Not to mention rallying soldiers who have not been paid, Beatrice wishes to add, but does not.

Still, Ludovico paces, mumbling that the French remain in Italy, and it was Francesco’s mission to force them out. Beatrice is grateful when Bianca Giovanna flies into the room, flinging her arms around the count. Beatrice knows that Bianca is doing this because she longs to embrace her husband, who is still holding back the Duke of Orleans at Novara. Caiazzo is a reasonable substitute, looking enough like Galeazz to fill the girl with the idea that her husband is just as safe at this moment as his brother.

“If only I could bring him a portrait of you just as you are at this moment, he would vanquish the French immediately, just to get back to you,” Caiazzo says to Bianca Giovanna. She wears a dusky pink dress that makes her seem to float on a soft cloud.

“Will you see him?” the girl asks, intertwining her delicately veined white arm with the count’s muscular, burnished one.

“I am going to join my brother at the walls of Novara. I’ve only stopped here to feed the men and let them rest a day or two, and then we will be off.”

“Will you give him this?” She slips a thick letter into Caiazzo’s big hand. “There is so much I want you to tell him for me.”

“Words are not everything, my dear,” Caiazzo says to Bianca Giovanna. “He knows the longing you are feeling, and believe me, he feels the same.”

“I’m happy to hear that you’re not lingering in Milan,” Ludovico says. “We cannot afford to let the French be so close to our border.”

“I know my duty, Your Excellency,” he replies solemnly. Solemn, but without the devotion that Beatrice would like to hear. “After a very brief visit with his wife in Mantua, and a ceremony in Venice to honor his extraordinary courage, the marquis will be joining us at the siege of Novara, though he will barely have had time to catch his breath.”

Caiazzo bows formally—a little too formally for Beatrice’s taste—taking his leave. She does not like the look on his face as he departs. She cannot help but think that it is some kind of warning.

B
EATRICE
has seen the pageantry and glory of a great army, and now she is a witness to its devastation. She puts her handkerchief over her nose against the stench of sickness and death. The cost of war is this: the dead and dying who lie rotting by the side of the road as she and Ludovico ride away from the city of Novara. The sight and sound of young soldiers retching and wailing make her ashamed of the victorious feelings she had basked in last month when the very army responsible for this wreckage had paid tribute to her.

In August, she had accompanied a rejuvenated Ludovico to Novara, where Galeazz had been laying siege since mid-June. Reinforced by Caiazzo and his cavalry, Francesco Gonzaga and the Italian League army, and a company of Swiss mercenaries sent by Emperor Max, put on a grand display for the Duke and Duchess of Milan. Italy’s great condottiere donned glimmering armor for the occasion, carrying their flags and colors. Musicians played the music of battle; drums pounded and trumpets blared as the men paraded, brandishing their weapons in the air. Beatrice had never seen such a show of swords, jousting lances, crossbows as tall as a man, shining daggers, and guns dragged by horses on wheels. The procession stopped long enough for the guns to be fired, demonstrating their power. Beatrice put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes as balls of fire and smoke shot out of the long barrels, landing with great thuds. Galeazz and his men carried all of Ludovico’s banners, which seemed to Beatrice more magnificent than the colors of either Venice or the Holy Roman Empire. She was so proud as both Galeazz and Francesco paid her special tribute. Everyone whispered that not since the days of the Roman emperors had Italy raised such an army. Beatrice let that glory wash over her. She knew the part she had played in the orchestration of this crowning moment. Ludovico was the prince who had financed and assembled this great force, the result of his efforts to forge the former rivals into the alliances of the Italian League, and she was the wife who kept the kingdom alive while Ludovico lay incapacitated during his illness. She felt that both she and Ludovico deserved the honor bestowed. If not for them, King Charles would have marched the length of the country. Instead, while he was fighting the league forces at Fornovo, her cousin, Prince Ferrante, slipped back into Naples and restored order. Now the French army was in tatters, trying to make its way out of Italy, and Louis’s forces were starving inside the very walls of Novara upon which her eyes were resting.

She imagined that Louis and the French were cowering inside those walls, getting reports from their spies about the strength and grandeur of the Italians, and making plans to surrender. It was a perfectly wonderful day, except that at the end of the procession, as Ludovico rode through the ranks inspecting the troops, his horse tripped, throwing him to the ground and all his lovely clothes were spoiled. Beatrice worried over this setback, especially because of his recent health crisis, but he did not let the incident spoil his spirits, despite the fact that some snide Venetians started to spread the rumor that his fall was a bad omen.

The next day, satisfied that the situation in Novara was under control, Beatrice and Ludovico rode to Vigevano, rather than endure the summer heat in Milan. Though it was warm, the country air was fresh and clear. The spectacle at Novara seemed to revive Ludovico’s spirits—and his desire for his wife. Beatrice was not sure exactly what had triggered the return of his affection, but she quickly remembered the bliss his attention could bring her. For one long week, they relived the earlier days of their marriage, when he had discovered her charms. They indulged in the pleasures of country life, riding, hunting, fishing, and taking big meals out to the riverbanks where they ate slowly, drank white wines cooled by blocks of ice brought down from the Alps, and one day even read the sweet love poetry of Petrarch to each other. While taking their naps in the tent set up for them after lunch, Ludovico had made love to her as the fabric fluttered around them.

At the end of September, word reached them that Charles was weary of war and had sent Philippe de Commines, the French ambassador to Venice, to negotiate a truce with the marquis. Ludovico and Beatrice rushed back to Novara, where King Charles had already arrived. They settled into a castle at Cameriano, a very short distance from Novara, where ambassadors arrived from all the allies of the Italian League to discuss the terms of the truce. Beatrice was especially proud that Ludovico spoke with the French on behalf of all parties, including her father, who came late in the week from Ferrara. She herself spoke several times in the meetings, reinforcing whatever point Ludovico was trying to make, particularly that he was anxious only to recover Novara and to escort the French out of Italy, and, of course, for Charles to force his trouble-making cousin Louis to drop his claims to be Duke of Milan.

But Louis, starving yet unflinching inside Novara’s walls, was begging Charles to break off negotiations with Ludovico and the Italians. As the week progressed, all the other ambassadors wanted to separately discuss Charles’s terms with their governments, which Ludovico allowed would take months. So he met privately with Charles and negotiated his own settlement.

“Louis of Orleans has no claim to my title,” Ludovico said.

“May I remind you that his grandmother was a Visconti,” Charles replied in his cousin’s defense.

“And may I remind you that there are thousands of bastards all over Europe with Visconti blood, but we do not seem to be investing them with the duchy of Milan.”

Beatrice interrupted before Charles could reply. “Your Majesty, let us remember that it is peace we seek. Louis’s claims over the duchy of Milan are an impediment to peace, which is simple to negotiate once it is truly desired. We desire peace, as does Your Majesty. In the interest of peace, Louis must be dissuaded from making his claim.”