A Bolt from the Blue

11

“What do you mean, we?” Tito cried, his expression of astonishment at the washerwoman’s words likely mirroring my own. “You’re not coming with us.”

“You cannot come,” I echoed, “for our mission will be dangerous and requires great stealth.”

“Stealth? Bah!”

Rebecca dismissed the word with the sweep of a broad hand.

“Stealth is the last thing you need. Surely you don’t expect to sneak into the duke’s castle like you’re spies sent from the pope. You boys will be lucky to make your way past the main gates before the duke’s guards catch you and string you up by your heels.”

“And you think you can get past them without being noticed?” Tito demanded, his expression growing more mutinous with her every word.

The washerwoman shrugged. “Oh, we’ll be noticed, all right. But my way, no one will pay us heed. Besides, I can see to it that we drive a wagon in fine style just like the duke himself, instead of walking like peasants.”

“If we ride, we can save a good day’s travel,” I exclaimed. “But how will you find us a wagon?”

For such conveyances were the purview of titled gentlemen or else those of the better classes who could afford the luxury of a horse or two. How the washerwoman might put her chapped hands on such a prize, I could not guess.

By way of answer, Rebecca gave her ample skirts a coy swish. “Let’s just say that I take care of the stable master’s laundry, and he lends me a cart and pony when I need it.”

She followed those words with a broad smile and a wink. I blushed as I realized that the man’s clothing was likely not all she attended to in return for such bounty. My reaction drew a ribald laugh, and she gave me an amiable pat upon the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, little Dino. When you get older, maybe I’ll do your laundry for you, too.”

While my blush burned brighter still at that last, she straightened her skirts and then assumed a businesslike mien. “You two boys find supplies, enough to last us a couple of days. And blankets, too, as we’ll be sleeping under the stars for a night or two. I’ll go get our wagon and meet you back here in a short while.”

She trudged out the door at a brisk pace, leaving Tito and me to gape at each other for a moment. Finally, he managed an indignant snort.

“Pah, what is she thinking, this washerwoman?” he demanded with a scornful air. “We do not want her company. Come; let us be off before she returns. This is man’s work, and she will only hinder us with her female foolishness.”

“What do you mean, female foolishness?” I countered, doing my best to hide my indignation. “So far, her plan seems better than any you have suggested. Where do you think you can find a wagon for us to travel in, and how do you think to storm the duke’s castle? I say we travel with her. Surely we will draw fewer comments riding with her than wandering the road to Pontalba on our own.”

Tito opened his mouth as if to protest further but then clamped his lips shut again and shook his head.

“Very well, Dino, I shall go along with you, but don’t say I did not warn you. I can think of no greater disaster than having a woman thinking she is in charge of such a mission.”

He patted the chest of his tunic under which his knife was hidden. “As for supplies, I have all that I need here,” he declared with an important nod. Then, when I frowned, he was quick to add, “But I’ll find blankets and water, if you will take care of the food.”

“I’ll get what I can from the kitchens. But I must also tell Davide that we shall be gone for a few days, lest he worry unduly.”

“Just tell him that we’re with your father and the Master conducting experiments out in the countryside,” Tito said with a careless shrug before heading out the door, as well.

It was only after he left that it occurred to me to wonder what Leonardo would think should he return while we were gone and discover the flying machine’s theft. Would he believe the worst. . that Tito and my father and I had absconded with his great invention? Or would he realize that someone else, perhaps the person who had murdered Constantin, was behind the flying machine’s disappearance.

Besides, unlike Tito, I was not naive enough to believe that we could rescue my father and recover the flying machine on our own. Even with Rebecca’s dubious assistance, such a feat would surely require the Master’s help. . and, despite our earlier protests, that of Il Moro’s army. Worse, what if Rebecca’s dire prediction came true? If the Duke of Pontalba’s men captured Tito and me before we could determine my father’s fate, Leonardo might never know the truth of what had happened in his absence.

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.

Rebecca’s exchange with the captain, however, proved mercifully brief. A few moments later, our cart was through the gates and rolling into the city of Milan. I gazed about the familiar narrow lanes, the tall buildings on either side so close together that the street below was in perpetual shadow, save for when the sun hung directly above. Lines of gaily colored laundry were strung like rakish flags from one balcony to that of its neighbor across the way, adding splashes of color to the pale stone.

We rumbled over a small bridge, which arched atop one of the city’s many canals, and I wrinkled my nose at the stench that drifted up to us. I had seen sketches of the Master’s grand design for modernizing the city, a plan he had conceived in his role as master engineer to the duke. Such changes included a more efficient system of canals and sewers, which would render Milan more pleasing to the senses. Moreover, he claimed, new plumbing would reduce the incidences of deadly pestilence, which periodically swept Milan and its neighboring cities.

Unfortunately for the local populace, Il Moro was more concerned with Leonardo the artist completing the equine monument to his father than he was with seeing the master engineer bring greater efficiency to flushing away their collective waste.

By now, we were well into the city, and Rebecca was keeping us to well-traveled streets. One particular lane was more than familiar to me, for it was along this way that Signor Luigi had his shop. Indeed, the corpulent tailor had just emptied his piss pot in the gutter when our cart rolled past. Knowing he could not help but see me, I gave him an enthusiastic wave.

“Good day, signore.”

His bushy brows flew up beneath his greasy fringe of black hair as he stared at me in surprise. He opened his mouth as if to shout something after us, no doubt wondering what two of Leonardo’s apprentices were doing riding about Milan with a woman of questionable repute. Apparently thinking the better of it, he clamped his plump red lips shut and merely shook his head in exaggerated resignation.

The momentary encounter cheered me. The tailor had proved a valued friend, and I had missed his company these past months. Besides, if nothing else, Luigi could bear witness to our departure, should something untoward occur on our journey to Castle Pontalba.

Rebecca turned the wagon down a side street, and before long we were out of the city. The dirt road was relatively smooth; still, we bounced about every bit as much as we had through the rough stone streets of the city. I was reminded again why even the nobles preferred to travel by horseback or on foot rather than by wagon, for I had to keep my teeth clamped firmly together lest I bite my tongue at each bump.

She pulled the wagon to a halt beside the stream where she and several other washerwomen spent a good portion of their day scrubbing laundry in the chilly waters. Half a dozen of them labored there now, skirts hiked high and arms bared as they sloshed linens about in the basinlike shallows that served as their tubs. Like Rebecca, these women were sturdy and as muscular as many men, for the constant hauling about of wet clothing required a fair amount of strength. I wondered again how Rebecca’s daughter, the fragile-looking Novella, managed such labors.

“Why are we stopping?” Tito wanted to know.

The washerwoman turned in her seat to address him. “I was late gathering my laundry this morning, so the other women were here at the river before me. They might have seen something I didn’t. Not that it was my fault for lagging behind,” she added with a sly smile. “I had a gentleman who wanted to show me the state of his linens before he would let me take them away to wash. I could hardly tell him no, could I?”

By now, I was becoming accustomed to the washerwoman’s bawdy manner, so I merely shrugged. As for Tito, he looked faintly horrified but managed to choke out something unintelligible that I assumed was agreement.

But with her usual swift change of humors, Rebecca had already assumed a businesslike manner. She gave a brisk order that Tito and I should remain in the wagon and then tossed me the reins and clambered down from her seat.

We watched as she made her way toward two women who had hauled their baskets from the water to a sunny spot of grass along the bank and now were carefully spreading the clean clothes to dry beneath the late-morning sun. Tito, meanwhile, defied her command and jumped from the cart.

“It is just as I feared,” he protested in an offended tone as he stretched his legs. “Not only has she taken over our mission, but now the washerwoman is giving us men orders.”

“Would you rather walk to Pontalba?” I reminded him, refraining with an effort from recounting the numerous instances in history when a female had led the troops. “Besides, we are only guessing that my father and the flying machine have been taken to Pontalba. Be patient, and let us see if she learns anything of value from the other women.”

Tito muttered a few uncomplimentary things beneath his breath, but I knew he could not disagree with my words. Despite my advice to him, however, I waited with barely restrained impatience of my own while the washerwoman chatted with her friends. Finally, Rebecca bade them farewell and started back to the wagon. As for Tito, for all his posturing, he quickly resumed his place among the baskets well before she reached us.

“What did they tell you?” came my anxious query as soon as the woman was in earshot.

Rebecca waited until she had climbed back onto the seat and settled heavily beside me before she replied. “We’re in luck, boys. They say a large wagon did pass this way soon after dawn. It carried something large, but it was covered by canvas. And there was at least three men that they saw.”

“I don’t suppose that the wagon was flying the Duke of Pontalba’s standard?” I asked with a sigh, knowing full well that was unlikely. “But could they tell that’s where the wagon was headed?”

“It was that direction, and they was traveling like bandits was after them. So unless the pope has set up housekeeping someplace besides Rome, the Duke of Pontalba is our man.”

“But how can we know that is the right wagon?” Tito protested. “If it is not, then we have lost many days going in the wrong direction.”

Though his concern was a valid one, I clung to my resolve. “There cannot be many large wagons journeying between here and Pontalba,” I pointed out, smoothing the edges of my father’s cloak. “I recall the Master once saying that Il Moro had made a poor choice of allies, because there was nothing to be found in that province save sour bread and sour men. Why, Pontalba doesn’t even have a grand city like Milan, just a crumbling castle on a hillside.”

“Well, they’ve got a cabinetmaker and a flying machine now,” Tito muttered, and then gave me an apologetic nod as he realized the carelessness of his speech.

Rebecca, meanwhile, favored us both with a dark look. “It’s not too late to change your minds, boys,” she told us. “We can still head back to the castle and tell my friend Fritz-he’s the captain of the guard-what happened. He’ll send his men out, if I ask him nice.”

I gave my head a stubborn shake. “We already told you, Rebecca, no one else must know what has happened. . not unless the Master himself approves it. We’ll go on to Pontalba, with or without you, and find out the fate of my father and the flying machine. Tito and I are not afraid, are we?”

That last was directed at my fellow apprentice. Tito met my questioning gaze with a sharp shake of his head and a telling pat of his chest.

“We’re not afraid,” he boldly echoed. “You can go back to your laundry, washerwoman, if you’re frightened. We don’t need you. No matter what, Dino and I are traveling to Pontalba.”

“Pah, you need me if you don’t want to wear out your shoe leather,” she said with a snort. “Now, hold tight. We’ve got a lot of miles to go before the sun sets on us tonight.”

Taking the reins from me, she gave them a snap. The brown mare rolled an annoyed eye but obediently took off at a smart clip, heading south toward the province of white hills, where I prayed that my father would be found.