A Bolt from the Blue

I grabbed up a scrap of paper and composed a long note, which I left upon his table, weighed down by the clay horse that Rebecca had admired. Then, fastening my father’s cloak around my neck, I hurried out the door.

I stopped by the main workshop long enough to gather a few supplies of my own before going to the chapel to make our excuses to Davide. The senior apprentice asked no questions of me, for the rule was that we always had leave to follow the Master’s orders, strange as they might sometimes be. And I’d not yet heard of any apprentice being caught in a lie, for no one wished to risk his hard-won post for nothing more than a day of freedom from work.

Obtaining the food had proved more difficult. Marcella-the brash young woman who had long ago taken a fancy to “Dino”-no longer worked in the kitchens, having secured a better position attending one of Il Moro’s mistresses. With her gone, I was forced to find someone else who might be sympathetic to a young man’s plight. I’d finally bargained with one of the newer girls, who agreed to my promise to sketch her portrait in exchange for some bread and cheese.

A short while later, I was standing at the Master’s door, impatiently wondering what had become of my companions. Tito appeared a few moments later, arms laden with blankets and a few stoppered jugs of water. He gave my bundles an approving nod and glanced about.

“What has become of the washerwoman? See, I told you it was a mistake in judgment to trust her.”

“You’re wrong, Tito,” I hurried to assure him. “Rebecca may not speak with honeyed words, nor is she a likely candidate for a priory, but I am certain her loyalty is above question.”

“Perhaps,” he replied with a dark look, “but it seems odd that she, of all people, discovered your father’s lost cloak and then happened to be wearing it just as we were lamenting his disappearance. Besides, why would a washerwoman want to help us find the flying machine?”

I had no answers for his questions. And, though I had instinctively trusted the brash woman, I was dismayed to realize that Tito’s words now put a small arrow of doubt into my heart. For surely someone of Rebecca’s humble position could easily be seduced by coin. Did she know more than she was saying about this unsettling situation… and was she even now prepared to lead us into a trap?

Even as I considered this possibility, a harsh shout and a snap of reins cut short these bleak thoughts. I looked up to see a battered if serviceable two-wheeled cart hauling a pair of baskets, each large enough to hold Tito or me. The cart was pulled by a sturdy brown mare whose graying muzzle betrayed her age, though her shiny coat bespoke years of fond care.

Rebecca perched proudly upon the splintered bench that served as a seat. Her wimple had begun to unwind, the white length of cloth that wrapped her hair and swaddled her throat flapping with her every movement like a small flag of surrender. But there was nothing of defeat in her expression as she pulled the cart to a halt and gestured us over.

“Load up, boys,” she commanded. “Put your supplies under the seat. Dino, you are smaller, so you can sit beside me. Tito, you can sit behind us.”

We made haste to stow our gear and then clambered into our assigned spots. “What are the baskets for?” Tito wanted to know as he maneuvered his long legs around them.

The washerwoman grinned.

“Laundry,” was her succinct reply. She gave the reins a snap, and we started off through the quadrangle toward the castle gates.

We made our way past the guards with little fanfare, save for a ribald dialogue between Rebecca and the blond-mustachioed captain, who had strolled over at her approach. The burly captain’s heavy accent made most of his coarse if genial comments unintelligible to me, though Rebecca seemed to have no trouble understanding him.

While the pair bantered, I wrapped my father’s cloak more closely about me and slumped in my seat lest the soldier recognize me. For it had been this same mercenary who, at Leonardo’s direction, had carried my limp form from the castle to the sanctuary of Signor Luigi’s tailor shop the night of that terrible fire. I deemed it unlikely that he would recall me-I had been costumed in a page’s finery, my face blackened from smoke and soot-but I could not take that risk.

Reflexively, I reached a hand for my pouch, where I usually kept my notebook. But I had deliberately left the half-fi lled volume behind in my trunk, lest our mission end with Tito and me being tossed into the duke’s dungeon or worse. I dared not risk losing the sketches into which I’d poured my grief and pain, for they were the tangible memories of my lost love. As with the other two volumes whose pages already overflowed with notes and drawings, that small book held a piece of my heart.