Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (books to read romance .txt) 📗

conference with Morsino, in which we decided it would be better if he did not accompany me to Verrocchio’s workshop. If we were able to avoid giving notice of official Hungarian interest in the woman, so much the better. But Lorenzo volunteered to come along, and it was perfectly natural that he should do so. He was already known as a budding patron of the arts; he had visited the place before, and was well acquainted with its master. As far as anyone but Verrocchio himself might know, Lorenzo and I would be visiting only to inspect and possibly purchase some of the shop’s output. The subject of the Hungarian woman, whether she was still there or not, could arise for discussion as if by accident.

      We went through the streets on foot and without escort, which seemed to be the ordinary way for the Medici to get about in town, though Piero with his gout frequently used a litter. Every few paces, or so it seemed to me, Lorenzo was greeted by someone high or low, and as often as not he paused to exchange good wishes and bits of gossip.

      “Do you think the woman we want is this artist’s mistress?” I asked him when we seemed to have a moment clear for private conversation.

      Lorenzo paused in the middle of a narrow way, smiling and gesturing with an exaggerated flourish for an elderly woman carrying a market basket of vegetables to go ahead of him. I had been told again and again that this family of wealthy merchants who were my hosts were also the virtual dictators of Florence; never before had I seen dictators who behaved in such a fashion.

      “I do not think so,” he answered me when we were alone again. “I know Andrea’s tastes … no, I think not.”

      The workshop was a smaller, poorer place than I had been expecting. One large room, well lit by skylights and windows, took up most of the interior space in a building rudely constructed of planks and timbers. Off this large room a few doors led to smaller chambers in the rear, and to a yard. All was primitive as a stable, or very nearly so. Verrocchio its master was rough-looking too, a stocky man of about thirty with a gross face, dressed in workman’s clothing covered with various kinds of stains. He greeted Lorenzo with warmth, and told us that his poor house was ours—then grew nervous when Lorenzo whispered in his ear something of the true purpose of our visit.

      In the middle of the big room, under a roof panel open to the clear Florentine sky, an old man with rheumy eyes was posing in loose Biblical-looking garb while a single unshaven apprentice sketched him in charcoal on a prepared panel. After stammering some shy greetings to us, they both went on with the job. The door to one of the rear rooms stood open, revealing an elderly female domestic scrubbing at a pot.

      Lorenzo and I sat at one side of the studio for a while, playing the role of customers while its master spoke with us about current projects. Or, rather, the tough-looking artist spoke with his young patron who rather resembled a Mafia don of a later century, while I listened and tried to look as if I understood them or at least was interested in what they talked about. Then, with a hint from Lorenzo to guide my taste, I purchased a small, newly-wrought gold chain.

      Lorenzo then said that he had an important commission in mind; for the supposed heavy business discussion Verrocchio conducted us into the privacy of what must have been his own bedroom. The chamber was small, its walls heavily decorated with paper sketches. As the elder guest I was granted the single chair; Lorenzo perched on a chest, and Verrocchio sat on the rumpled bed, the only other article of substantial furniture available.

      Yes, signori, about that girl, of course. She had been gone for the last two days, and Verrocchio did not know where, any more than he knew from where she had come. Some weeks ago one of the apprentices had brought her in, saying that he wanted to use her as a model and that she was willing to pose for others also. So she had been, even posing naked without protest, which had convinced Verrocchio that she was a whore. A good model, though. He had given her food, a place to sleep with the female servants, and a little money once or twice. She had spoken Italian badly and with an odd accent—certainly not the Greek accent so common in Florence since the refugees from fallen Constantinople had swarmed in; but outside of that, and a certain odd beauty in her face, he had thought her no different from any of a hundred other vagrants and runaways who could be picked up in the streets and taverns. Yes, somewhat better looking than most of them, that was all. Here on the wall were a couple of sketches of her made by his apprentices, if we would like to see.

      I naturally looked with interest, but only one sketch showed the model’s face at all clearly, and it had distorted her features into such an artificial expression of heaven-sent rapture that I thought it would be useless for identification. I made no comment.

      Verrocchio talked on, nervously. He had had vague plans of posing the girl himself—yes, there was something truly lovely about her, signori— but the next thing he knew, she was gone, no one knew where.

      I asked: “Which apprentice was it who brought her round? That stubbly fellow out there?”

      “Yes. Would you gentlemen like to talk to him?”

      We went out into the large room again, where Lorenzo with his usual good humor approached the dark-cheeked youth. Would he settle a small bet? That young woman who was here until a few days ago, what language did she really speak, besides her bad Italian?

      The pseudo-prophet with the rheumy eyes