Spinning about, he booted it high upfield.
Simone jumped and caught it. In the next instant Leonardo and Sandro disappeared under an avalanche of bodies. Crushed beneath the weight, Leonardo fought for breath in the sweat-soaked darkness. Somewhere amid the grunts and curses he heard a pained yelp from Sandro.
Then a raucous bellow of triumph sounded across the field.
Simone had scored the winning goal.
One by one the players were dragged off the heaving pile, freeing the two victims at the bottom. Leonardo was hauled dizzily to his feet, flushed and gasping. The goldsmiths flocked around him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back. The unexpected pleasure of finding himself a hero banished – for the time being – all thoughts of his ruined clothes.
“Come on, Sandro, we’ve won!”
But Sandro was still curled up on the ground, clutching his right wrist. He groaned. “No, no, no, I’ve lost. I’ve lost everything!”
Back at the Botticelli house Sandro’s mother wound the bandage tightly around his injured wrist, tutting and muttering to herself all the while. He flinched as she gave it a final tug before standing back to regard her handiwork. Wrapped inside the bandage was a poultice of stewed nettles and vinegar that gave off a pungent odour.
“Now you keep that arm rested,” the old woman instructed. “I’m going to the kitchen to mix you a broth of leeks and pig’s trotters. That will put the colour back in your cheeks.”
Sandro stared mutely at the green-stained bandage and wrinkled his nose.
“I’m sure it will be a help,” Leonardo said politely, adding to himself, if he survives drinking it.
The old lady scuttled off, leaving the two young men alone for the first time since the end of the football game. Having completed his apprenticeship with Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro had only recently set up as an artist in his own right. Until he could afford to open his own workshop, his father had allowed him to turn one of the storerooms at the back of the house into a temporary studio.
That was where they sat now, surrounded by sketches of saints, centaurs, Madonnas, satyrs and angels that were spread all over the walls.
“It’s a rotten bit of luck, your arm getting stepped on like that,” Leonardo said sympathetically.
Sandro raised his blue eyes slowly, as if unwilling to look upon a world that could be so cruel. “Who knows how long it will be before I can use a paintbrush again?” he moaned. “I took my first step on the ladder of success and the rung has snapped beneath my foot.”
Leonardo felt a pang inside. Seeing the normally jolly Sandro brought low like this was like seeing the sun blotted out by an eclipse. “Can’t Lorenzo just wait a bit longer for his portrait?” he suggested.
“I told you, he wants it before he leaves for Naples next week,” said Sandro, “and wealthy families like the Medici are accustomed to getting what they want.”
Leonardo nodded slowly, understanding the problem. He knew from his own father that it did not pay to inconvenience rich and powerful people. “There will be other clients, Sandro.”
“Do you think so? For an artist who has broken his very first contract? No, this is ruin for me. I should have stayed behind in the Piazza della Signoria and taken my chances with Pitti’s ruffians.”
The mention of the confrontation in the square suddenly jogged Leonardo’s memory. Something had been nagging at the back of his mind but events had been moving too fast for him to give it any thought.
“Sandro, didn’t Simone say the Medici supporters called themselves the party of the Plain?”
“Plain, lake, mountain – what difference does it make?” Sandro sighed.
We shall bring destruction down on the plain, Silvestro had said. And Leonardo was sure it had something to do with the machine he was building.
He closed his eyes and visualised the scene in Silvestro’s studio. As far back as he could remember, Leonardo had had a gift for recalling exactly any image he had seen. Now he placed himself back in that room, walked over to the desk. There was the diagram before him, each detail precise in itself, but its purpose still elusive. In order to study it properly, he would have to make a copy of his own.
Rising from his stool, he sidled towards a stack of drawing paper and fingered the topmost sheet. “Sandro, could I borrow some of this paper?”
“Helpyourself,” groaned Sandro, rubbing his injured wrist.
Leonardo took the sheet and laid it flat on a table by the window. Grabbing a stick of charcoal from a nearby pot, he quickly began sketching. A cog here, a wheel there, a cord, a weight. Yes, that looked right. As the machine took shape on the page, so a plan began to form in his mind.
When an opportunity comes your way, grab it with both hands before somebody steals it, his father had told him more than once.
“Sandro, you know that ladder of success you were talking about? Instead of climbing up rung by rung, how would you like to fly straight to the top?”
Sandro looked up with doleful eyes. “What do you mean?”
Leonardo picked up the paper and held it in front of Sandro.
“Look, I’ve made this copy of a diagram I saw at Maestro Silvestro’s today. He’s involved in some sort of plot against the Medici – I’m sure of it.”
Leonardo repeated all he had overheard and described how he had seen the stranger again in the Piazza della Signoria.
Sandro squinted at the drawing. “But this is just a lot of sticks ands wheels,” he protested. “It’s no threat to anybody.”
“Look, Sandro, suppose the Medici are in some sort of danger. Wouldn’t they be more than grateful to anyone who could warn them of that? Wouldn’t they reward them with a lifetime of well paid work? There would be no more broken ladders for you.”
And no more drudgery in the workshop for me, he thought. He could trade the gratitude of the Medici for a commission of his own!
“And why would they listen to either of us?” Sandro objected. “You are a mere apprentice and I’ll be lucky if they don’t throw me in jail for breach of contract.”
“You give in too easily, Sandro,” Leonardo scolded him. “The contract isn’t broken yet. There must be something you can do.”
Sandro pondered for a moment then brightened. “You’re right, Leonardo,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I will go to church at once, to the Chapel of the Innocents. I will pray for Lorenzo to come down with a fever until I have recovered. But no.” He struck himself on the brow with the flat of his hand. “What manner of Christian am I to wish such a thing on my patron! No, a brief falling out between him and Lucrezia, that would be enough.”
Leonardo folded up the drawing and tucked it away inside his tunic. “Sandro, you’re being totally impractical – as usual. All you really need is someone to help you finish the portrait.”
“You
