A Bolt from the Blue

What further words of comfort the Master might have given us, I could not say. Before he could speak again, the workshop door flew open with a crash.

Framed by the sunlight pouring in from the doorway was the same robed and hooded figure that had shadowed me since my father’s arrival in Milan. Barely did I have time for a gasp, when the figure stepped forward and shoved back its concealing hood, revealing an all-too-familiar face.

Now my gasp became a moan of disbelief. I could but stare in return, praying with fervor that I was still befuddled by the herbed wine and that this was but a terrible dream.

My prayers, however, went unheard. I stood helplessly by as, with lifted hand pointing dramatically in my direction, the figure cried out, “This is an outrage! Signor Leonardo, I demand that you return my daughter, Delfina, to me at once!”

26

*

When many winds strive together, then the waves of the sea have not a free course…

– Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus

At her cry, the other apprentices stepped away from me, so that I was left standing in the center of the ring that they formed. Miserably, I glanced from face to face. Some stared back at me with wary expressions; others wore looks of outraged disbelief. Vittorio was gaping in openmouthed astonishment, while Davide merely gave his head a gentle shake, his expression one of private vindication.

Bernardo was the first to speak up.

“You mean that Dino is truly a girl?” he squeaked, curls bobbing and cheeks flushing as he pointed at me. “But it can’t be. A girl cannot paint!”

By way of response, my mother tossed aside her cloak and shoved through the ring of stunned young men. Her dark blue skirts swishing like an angry feline’s lashing tail, she advanced on me and seized me by the arm.

“Yes, Delfina is a girl,” she declared in outrage, “though one would hardly know it, to look at her. Of course, this is all her father’s fault, allowing her to run away from a perfectly fine marriage.”

Her fiery gaze promptly landed upon my father.

“You thought you could fool me, Angelo, pretending you had no idea where our daughter had gone,” she cried as he gazed miserably down at his feet. “I found the missives she sent you, and I guessed that you had a particular reason for accepting a commission in Milan. That is why I followed you here, to see if my suspicions were correct. But I never expected this!”

Taking in my disheveled appearance from head to foot, she went on in a heated tone. “I could not believe my eyes, at first, that one of those boys was in truth my own daughter. And before I could confront her, you and she disappeared. I had no choice but to pay for a squalid room in town and wait until the guard I bribed brought me word that you had returned.

“I don’t know what the greater scandal is,” she went on, barely pausing to draw breath, “the clothes she is wearing or the fact all of you were too blind to see the truth. And what is this?” she demanded and gestured at my bandages. “Have you injured yourself?”

“It is of no account,” I replied, pulling my arm from her grasp and drawing myself up with as much dignity as I could muster. “I was shot with a crossbow and hurt my head when I crashed the Master’s flying machine. And do not blame my fellows for my deception, for I took every care to keep them from learning the truth.”

“Pah, and what of Signor Leonardo?” she countered with a derisive gesture in his direction, more concerned with that question than my litany of wounds. “Surely a man who has spent years painting both men and women must know a female when he sees one.”

I had opened my mouth to defend Leonardo, when his gaze abruptly met mine. Instead of surprise, I saw in his dark eyes a glimmer of wry knowledge. Stunned, I clamped my lips shut again and felt the blood drain from my face.

It cannot be, I thought, sending him a pleading look in return. But rather than deny the accusation, he gave me the faintest of nods. I felt my insides plummet, as they had when the flying machine had fi rst leaped into nothingness.

Saints’ blood, he knows… likely has always known!

I shut my eyes against the sudden tears that threatened. I had been the blind one, not he. All these many months I had thought myself so clever, so careful, and yet in the end I had not deceived him. But knowing the truth, why had he allowed my dangerous masquerade, when its discovery would have brought equal censure down upon him?

Swept up as I was in my own misery, I barely heard him snap a command to my fellows.

“Draftsmen, take the canvases you just stacked, and carry them back outside. Use your blades to scrape every bit of paint from them, so that they look new again. And when they look new, scrape them yet again.”