A Bolt from the Blue

22

I had several minutes to prepare for my bold flight, I was certain, for it took time to ready so many soldiers all at once. And Nicodemo’s men would surely feel no great haste, knowing now the nature of their opponents.

Rope in hand, I began dragging the flying machine upward toward the chimney. The task proved harder than it looked, for the incline was steep, but soon enough I had tied the craft off so that its nose pointed down the slope.

Next came the task of strapping myself onto its frame. . and, once again, I felt my courage quail as I contemplated that step. Large as the craft was, there still was little there to support me, so that it would be like climbing onto the back of an immense bird and clinging to its feathers for dear life. How could I consider trusting so fragile-looking a frame?

“Father would do it,” I sternly told myself. “And the Master would not be afraid.”

Besides, my inner voice reminded me, what was there to lose? If I did not make this attempt but simply waited for my own capture, I likely would end up dead alongside my fellows.

“Far better to die like a hawk than as a mouse,” I softly proclaimed and settled myself facedown upon the framework.

My last task would be to strap myself in. First, however, I spared a moment to test each pedal and lever, amazed that my lightest touch moved the great wings with ease. I had feared that I might not be able to reach those controls, designed as they’d been for a man of the Master’s height. Fortunately, they were positioned in such a way that they could be reached from various angles. All I would have to remember was the proper sequence of pedaling and flapping to keep the craft aloft once it was airborne.

All I would have to remember, indeed!

The commotion from the courtyard was growing louder. I knew, however, that I must take my cue from the now-familiar squeal and rattle of heavy chain that would signal the portcullis being raised. For the soldiers would not pour from the gate like ants stirred from a hill; rather, they would ride out and arrange themselves into formation first, before charging toward the tree line beyond. It would be at the moment when they began the assault that I would let loose the rope and sail the flying machine from the castle roof.

I managed a weak smile at the thought of the chaos I would cause. The sight of me gliding hawklike above the field would cause no end of consternation among the soldiers, while striking terror among the horses. Surely many a frightened steed would unseat his rider. . and surely many a superstitious man would drop to his knees in the belief that he was about to be visited with divine retribution.

Once aloft, I would remain airborne for as long as I could, giving my fellows the time to make their escape while the duke’s men were thus distracted. And afterward, if my strength and the winds allowed it, like Daedelus, I would pilot the craft on to safety, perhaps as far as Milan.

But, if my fate instead mirrored that of the luckless Icarus, at least my spectacular demise when I hurtled to the ground should prove an equal distraction.

Knowing I could not put it off any longer, I reached for the first strap, which would go around my torso and fasten beneath me. My nerves were stretched as taut as the canvas on my craft’s wings, while sweat had begun to trickle from my brow. And still, the gate had not risen. Saints’ blood, how long did it take to gather arms and saddle horses and be off?

I paused in fastening the belt and sat back upon my heels, craning my neck in hopes of a better look. From the angle where the craft was poised, however, it was impossible to see the activity below. Still, the hum of preparation continued, and I lent my ear to that activity as I once more settled upon the frame and reached for the harness. Indeed, so carefully did I focus my attention on those sounds that the soft scrape of footsteps was almost upon me before I realized I was no longer alone on my rooftop perch.

I turned to gaze with dismay but not much surprise at the richly dressed youth standing before me. Knowing what I now did, I could see some small resemblance between him and his uncle that proved the relationship. Perhaps it was the hint of fleshiness beneath his eyes and chin that hinted at a different profile to come as he aged, or perchance the similar watchful look in his dark eyes. Or maybe it was that look of disdain as he surveyed me, for all purposes helpless before him as I lay sprawled atop the flying machine’s frame.

Almost without meaning to, I glanced at the knife that hung from his belt. . the same knife he’d hidden under his tunic before. Dressed as a young nobleman, he could carry the weapon as it was meant to be displayed. He caught the direction of my gaze, and a smile flitted across his lips as he lightly touched the knife’s hilt. I shivered, all too aware that I was stretched before him like a lamb ready for sacrifice. With a swift thrust of that blade, he could dispatch me before I had time to drop the harness’s loose end and scramble to my feet.

Barely had that thought crossed my mind when he dropped to one knee beside me. But rather than slip his knife between my ribs, he grabbed me by both shoulders and unceremoniously yanked me from my spot atop the craft, tumbling me in a heap upon the slate roof. While I dragged myself back up to a kneeling position, he demanded in a petulant voice, “What are you doing with my flying machine?”

“Your flying machine?”

Surprise made me forget my momentary fear. “This is the Master’s flying machine,” I protested in no little indignation and scrambled to my feet. “He and my father built it, and you have no claim to it.”

“But it is here in Pontalba now, and so it belongs to us.”

Recalling his uncle’s treatment of him, I wondered at the fact that he claimed loyalty to the duke. Was that blood tie tighter than the bonds of apprenticeship he shared with me? I feared so, for his features had tightened into the same stubborn expression that Davide had worn earlier that morning as he tried to stop us midway to the castle.

But as Davide had wavered when faced with compelling logic, perhaps Tito might also be made to see reason. Or, if I could but give him the means to deflect any guilt from himself, perhaps I might yet retain him as an ally.

“Surely you had no hand in this unsavory plan,” I insisted in as calm a voice as I could muster. “Recall the page, who summoned you in the middle of the night? And what of the three mysterious men you told me about, the ones who held my father tied in a wagon all night while they waited for dawn to smuggle him and the flying machine past the castle guards? Surely these crimes were their fault, and not yours.”

The offer made, I waited to hear him agree that it had all been a terrible mistake. . waited to hear him confess that he had somehow been duped by his uncle. That hope, however, was extinguished with his next words.

“There was no page,” he replied and gave a snort that mocked my gullibility. “I told you that, so you wouldn’t question why I believed I’d had a message from Leonardo. And the men were three of my uncle’s soldiers, who came to the castle that day disguised as laborers.

“I even vouched for them,” he added with a grin at his own cleverness. “I told your captain of the guard that they had been hired to assist Leonardo, so that they never questioned the wagon coming in and out.”

Then his grin faded.

“It should have been a perfect plan. How was I to know that Leonardo had chosen that day to leave Milan without telling anyone but your father? I instructed the guards where to find him, told them what he looked like. Fools that they were, they never asked your father’s name but decided he matched the description that I’d given them and took him away.”

Shrugging, he added, “Of course, the kidnapping was but a last-minute solution. We didn’t really need him, not the way I’d planned it. I could have finished building the flying machine myself, if I’d still had all of Leonardo’s notes.”

Leonardo’s notes.

Full realization came to me, so terrible that it stopped the very breath in my lungs. And yet, how could it be? He had been one of us for many months, sharing the same work and the same meals, sleeping but an arm’s length from his fellows. We had given him our trust and our friendship. How could he have forgotten that sort of comradeship, no matter that he was nephew to a duke?

And how could he have betrayed us all by callously murdering the most worthy one of our number?

“It was you,” I managed when I could draw breath again. “You killed Constantin. . shot him as he was rushing to warn the Master that you had stolen his notes on the flying machine!”

“No! Constantin was the thief!”

Tito’s indignant response was all the more unsettling for its genuine note of dismay. Giving his head a violent shake, he went on. “He thought he was so clever, the way he watched me when he thought I was not looking. . the times he followed after me and pretended it was but chance that we ended up in the same place. I warned him to leave well enough alone, but he would not. And then I found him snooping about in my trunk.”

He referred, of course, to the wooden casket stowed beneath his cot, which was large enough to hold his extra garb and other personal belongings. Each apprentice was assigned one. Though none could be locked, it was a matter of honor that no boy disturbed another trunk without first gaining permission from its owner. The senior apprentice’s suspicions must have been well-founded for him to have broken that unspoken rule.

“That’s when Constantin found the pages you’d cut from the Master’s notebook,” I guessed, earning a careless nod in reply.

“I didn’t bother to deny it, for what good would it have done? Instead, I told Constantin who my uncle was and said that if he forgot all he’d seen and heard, I would make certain that he was well paid for his silence. He pretended to agree, but instead of giving the pages back, he ran off with them. I had to stop him. I–I couldn’t let him ruin my plan.”

He hesitated, as if regretting he’d confessed this much, before he went on. “My uncle had given me a crossbow, as well as the knife. It was lying at the very bottom of my trunk, wrapped in a cloak. I’d almost forgotten I had it, until that moment. I grabbed it up. . and I went after Constantin.”

Abruptly, as if his legs could no longer hold him, he slumped from his proud stance into a sitting position on the roof beside the craft.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said in the pat tones of one who was repeating an oft-told tale. “All I wanted was for Constantin to give the pages back, to pretend that he knew nothing. But he ran off to the garden, where I knew the Master was working. I watched him try the gate. When it turned out to be locked, I thought I was saved. But then he started climbing the wall.”

A tear rolled down one cheek as he spoke, and he swiped it away with an angry hand.

“I was too far away to stop him any other way. I–I don’t think I meant to shoot him, not really, but somehow I pulled the trigger. I saw the bolt hit him in the back, and I saw him fall. I waited for someone to come after me, but they didn’t. And so I knew he must have died before he could tell the Master what I’d done. But the worst part was that I no longer had Leonardo’s notes, and so I had to come up with another plan. And that was when I decided to kidnap Leonardo, as well.”

“But why, Tito?” I demanded, unable to hold back my own anger. “Why did you do your uncle’s bidding, when you knew it was wrong? You could have told the Master what the duke was planning, and he would have seen to it that you stayed safely in Milan and never had to return home to Pontalba again. What could your uncle have promised you in return, that you would resort to kidnapping and murder?”

At my mention of his uncle, Tito touched a reflexive hand to his bruised mouth, and his expression tightened. I recalled that his father had died when he was but a boy, so it must have been the Duke of Pontalba who had served in that role for him ever since. Unwilling sympathy momentarily cooled my heated emotions. What must it have been like for him as a child, being left with a brutal uncle whose approval he surely must have craved, while he feared the man himself?

Tito’s gaze met mine again, and he smiled a little.

“You don’t understand. Finally, I had the chance to make my uncle proud of me. He always thought me a fool and a weakling because I loved to paint. The only way he would let me join Leonardo’s workshop was if I pretended to be but a common youth so that I could act as his spy at Castle Sforza. It was my own idea to steal the flying machine and bring it back to Pontalba. When I told him my plan, my uncle promised that if I could accomplish that, I would be the first one to pilot it. And he said that once we built a whole fleet of flying machines for Pontalba, I would be captain over all of them!”

My first instinctive thought was that the duke would never have handed over such responsibility to his nephew; still, from the note of pride I heard in Tito’s voice, I knew that he had believed his uncle’s promise. Taking on such a glorious post would surely have seemed a vindication of all he might have endured at his uncle’s hands to that point.

The moment of satisfaction faded, and he turned an angry look on me.

“Most of what happened is your fault, you know. . yours, and your father’s,” he cried in an accusatory tone. “If Signor Angelo had told my uncle’s men that he wasn’t Leonardo, or if you hadn’t listened to Rebecca and insisted on coming here to Pontalba, nobody else would have had to die. But because of your interference, my uncle will have you and all the rest of them-your father, Leonardo, all the other apprentices-slain or thrown into the dungeon, just because it pleases him.”

Even as he’d made that cruel accusation, I heard the sudden familiar sound of the portcullis opening. The shouts of the soldiers drifted up to us as they put heel to flank and began moving toward the gate. Soon, the duke’s men would be riding down the ramp to the open field. They would assemble into formation there, I knew, before beginning their assault upon the handful of boys hiding in the woods.

I had to act as they began that march but before they reached the trees.

“Tito,” I pleaded, kneeling beside him and grabbing his hand. “There is still a chance for you to make amends. Let me take the flying machine as I planned. If I can keep it airborne, I will use it to distract your uncle’s men while the other apprentices make their escape. I can do nothing for my father or the Master, but perhaps I can save some of them.”

“Pah, why do you care what happens to a handful of common apprentices?”

“They are my friends, Tito. . just as they were yours.”

Not waiting for an answer, I released my grip on him and hurriedly lay atop the craft again, tightening the belt with shaking hands. Tito remained where he sat beside the craft, watching me with an unreadable expression. The strap fastened, I reached a hand for the end of the rope that held the flying machine tied in place. A single jerk would pull the knot free, and the rope would slip back through the ring as the craft made its descent down the roof.

I shot another anxious look at Tito. Slowly, he stood, and for a frantic moment I feared he would somehow try to stop me. But instead he said, “If I let you do this, you must swear if they capture you that you never saw me here, that I came too late to stop you.”

“I swear by all the saints,” I softly cried as I heard a shout from the duke’s captain of the guard and the answering rhythmic clop of hooves drift up from below. They were moving down the ramp and would momentarily be in formation. “Let me do what I can to save them. . please, for Constantin’s sake.”

By way of answer, he stepped back from the craft. I gave him a grateful nod and made another hurried check of the pedals and levers. Lightly, I began to flap the wings, feeling with that tentative movement a slight lift of the craft’s frame. The momentum coming down the slanted roofline would be sufficient to keep me going as I reached its end, but I would swiftly plummet back to earth if I did not pedal fast enough to keep the wings moving at a quick pace. Yet if I flapped too hard as I cleared the roofline, I risked catching the wingtips upon the slate, causing me to lose control.

The rumble of hooves upon the ramp had ceased. I knew they were spreading their mounts into formation, with the foot soldiers taking up their positions to the rear. In another moment, the captain would give the signal to surge forward. . and that would be my signal to take flight.

Any fear that I had earlier felt was gone, replaced by an oddly calm sense of purpose. No longer was I concerned with what might happen if I fell from the sky. All that mattered was staying aloft long enough to disrupt the ranks and give my friends time enough to flee. I barely had time for a half-murmured prayer to whatever saints might be listening to keep me strong, when another shout drifted up from below.

Taking a deep breath, I yanked the rope.

For an interminable moment, the craft remained motionless, so that I feared the rope had become tangled in its frame. But an instant later, and with swiftness far greater than I could imagine, it began rolling forward.

Though my descent down the ramplike roof must have taken but a few seconds, time slowed to the point that I took in every instant with an almost languorous clarity. I began to pedal, inwardly counting off each stroke, one, two, one, two. The canvas-covered wings rose and fell with the graceful precision of a dove taking flight, while their soft whoosh reminded me of a night owl’s hushed pursuit of its prey. My confidence grew, for surely this design so closely mimicked a bird’s anatomy that it lacked only feathers!

But as a thrill of triumph shot through me, I heard an anguished shout. I glanced back long enough to see Tito running after me, arms outstretched and face twisted in anger as he cried, “No! Stop! It’s mine!”

Stay back, I tried to shout, but the words lodged in my throat. All I could do was pray that he would come to his senses, though I knew with sudden certainty how this must end.

For I was moving too fast for him to catch me; moreover, the break in the parapets was but a few lengths ahead of me. In the space of a few more seconds, the flying machine would be airborne. And still I heard the cries as Tito continued his pursuit, seemingly heedless of what lay ahead beyond the castle’s edge.

Yet I could not worry about him anymore. All I could do was keep pedaling while praying that Leonardo’s grand design would prove to be no folly but a triumph of genius. Ahead of me was nothing other than sky, cloudless and far bluer than any I could ever recall seeing.

And then, abruptly, the ground dropped out from beneath me.