A Bolt from the Blue

Leonardo would have been familiar with the place, too; thus, it was with some surprise that I saw his expression was untroubled as he strode along the informal stone path that wended its way through the soft, clipped grass. I made my way most reluctantly, unable to forget what had happened the last time I set foot here in this spot. Indeed, how could I not remember the garden where, soon after my arrival at the castle, I twice had looked upon the frightening countenance of Death?

My first encounter had taken place while the rest of the court was being entertained by a living chess match that Leonardo had arranged at the duke’s command. I had been on an errand for the Master, bidden to search out Il Moro’s cousin, who was inconveniently absent from the festivities on the playing field. I had all but stumbled across that missing man’s body sprawled on the lawn not far from where I now stood, a bloody knife protruding from his back.

Though the greater misfortune obviously had been the conte’s, that had not stopped me from cursing my own bad luck in finding him… That was, until later. Unsettling as the discovery had been, in the long run it had proved oddly fortuitous for me. Had someone else of the court discovered the dead man, I would never have become the Master’s confidante while we investigated together in an attempt to expose a brutal killer and prevent another murder.

Still, I suppressed a small shiver at the memory. In trying to stop that assassination, I had almost become a victim myself. One dark night soon after, I had confronted another knife-wielding assailant in this same garden in hopes of preserving an old man’s life.

Foiled in one attempt, that would-be killer had decided I should instead be the one to join the luckless conte in death. I had escaped that most dire fate because of the Master’s timely intervention. With such a history, I told myself, the garden should surely seem to me a place of dread and horror.

Instead, the place wrapped me in an embrace of unexpected tranquillity. The breath I had been holding as I followed after the Master slipped from me in a relieved sigh. Truly, there was nothing frightening at all about the garden, I told myself as I gazed about.

Above me and clinging to the rough stone walls were the same twisted olive trees in whose limbs Tommaso and I had hidden that memorable night, watching for the assassin. No longer draped in shadows, they bent quite benignly over the garden, gaps in their branches allowing a cheerful dappling of sunlight to brighten the ground beneath. Nearby was the familiar pair of turf seats, cleverly formed from packed dirt and covered by a velvety layer of grass to create a bench where people could take their ease. Spreading palms swayed in all four corners, while a series of informal flower beds made for bright isles of blooms amid the lush green sea of grass.

I paused at the tiny reflecting pool, a low stone trough filled with pink and yellow water lilies into which trickled a steady stream from a hidden pipe. Not far from it in the lawn protruded the flat boulder where a mysterious figure had rested that same dark night that Tommaso and I had stood guard. Now, however, Leonardo had opened his leather sack upon the granite’s smooth surface and was neatly arranging what appeared to be a dozen or so wood dowels as long as my arm.

He gestured me to join him. “Come, Dino; set the craft here while I arrange our test area.”

In a matter of moments, he had fastened the dowels together to form two poles a little taller than he. With my father’s assistance, they settled both into the ground so that they stood half the width of the garden apart from each other. Between them he strung a tight wire. Then, retrieving the model from its wrappings, he tied one end of a long leather cord to that small craft and looped the other end around the wire. The result was that the flying machine dangled at about chest height from the line.

“Come; we shall begin our tests.”

With those words, Leonardo took up another dowel almost as thick as my finger. Using it as a crank, he manipulated the wooden figure atop the model so that its legs moved in a pumping motion, causing the craft’s wings to move up and down. Even that small demonstration left me impressed, so that I was eager to see more.

For the next hour, he and my father took turns with the model. One would run alongside it while cranking away at the wooden man, so that the craft made wobbly progress along its prescribed path; the other would call out observations. While the resulting motion appeared more like that of a startled bat abandoned to the daylight than an eagle’s smooth glide, after a few adjustments the model did undeniably fly!