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

got a chance to rest from posing. The apprentice put down his tools. He dropped things and was upset at being questioned. He stuttered that he really didn’t know, he didn’t think that he could tell us much.

      I demonstrated what Hungarian sounded like. Yes, said the nervous youth, that might have been it. But he wasn’t really sure. He had never talked to the girl much and didn’t know her name. True, he had picked her up in a tavern, and brought her here for some modeling, but you gentlemen know how that goes—excuse me, perhaps you don’t —but a man doesn’t always learn their names. No, he didn’t know where she was now. She had seemed unhappy—she had gone off—

      It seemed to me that there was more to be learned from this man, but he was not mine to question as I willed. He was probably a valuable worker here. Perhaps later, I thought.

      “Let us talk to the servants, then,” said Lorenzo, still effortlessly maintaining the pose of a small bet to be settled. “And to the other apprentices.”

      The few servants were soon casually processed. I allowed them to get away with knowing nothing whatsoever, at least for the time being. As for apprentices, Verrocchio informed us that he presently had only three. The second, a somewhat younger and handsomer lad than the one we had already spoken to, was called in from the yard where he had been mixing pigments. This one, acting not too bright, only giggled slightly and glanced nervously at his master when I asked him how well he had known the woman; he did confirm, though, that my Hungarian sounded like the language the young woman had muttered to herself in when she was upset.

      “What was she upset about?”

      The youth made an eloquent gesture with both arms, that seemed to take in all of life.

      “I have only one more apprentice, gentlemen. He lives at home, but is due to arrive here at any time now. Will you honor me by waiting?”

      “It is we who are honored by your company, maestro,” said Lorenzo, and sat down again for some more leisured conversation about Art. The staff went back to work. Presently the lad we were waiting for appeared. He looked to me no more than about twelve years of age, though quite tall and strong for his years. He was better dressed than either of his older colleagues.

      Lorenzo, beginning to put a question to him, paused in mid-sentence. “Stay, I think I know you. Your father is Ser Piero the notary, is he not? Yes, of course, and how is he?”

      “Father is well, signore.” Again we went through our list of questions. This time Lorenzo, as an acquaintance, did most of the talking.

      “The girl perhaps talked to you about herself? Your good master here says that you spent more time drawing and painting her than any of the others did.”

      “Yes, she modeled for me many days. But we did not talk very much.”

      “Perhaps,” I put in, “you have a drawing, at least a sketch, some good likeness of her that you can show me?” I realized that our fiction about the bet was by now too tattered to be of any other further use. “Since you say you put in so many hours at it. Can you draw well?”

      The boy looked at me. There was something intrinsically cold, withdrawn, about him. “I can draw. I threw some of my sketches away, but I think there is something. I will see what I can find.” He turned away.

      “Stay,” commanded Lorenzo. “The important thing is, do you know where she is now?”

      “Yes, signore, I think I may know.” We all stared at him. “In the palazzo Boccalini.”

      This obviously meant something to Lorenzo and Verrocchio, who exchanged looks. Then the master of the studio demanded of his young apprentice: “How do you know this?”

      “I saw her on the street, two days ago, arguing with two young men of that family. They were starting to pull on her arms, and laughing. She was not laughing. And she has not been back here since.”

      Verrocchio looked all about him, as if calling on witnesses to this strange behavior. “Yet you said nothing to anyone here about this? Why?”

      “No one asked me about it, until now.”

      Verrocchio glanced at us, then waved the youth away. When he was gone, Lorenzo said to me: “The Boccalini are no friends of my family. And what the boy said may be true, for they have a bad reputation of taking advantage of undefended young women. If she went with them, it may well have been unwillingly. I believe the older men of their family are still at their summer villa, leaving the young gallants unsupervised in town. We will do what we can to find out for certain whether she is there.”

      Verrocchio, chewing on his lip, had moved a pace or two away; he was not anxious to take part in these intrigues. At this point the young boy came back, lugging a fairly large wooden panel. “The little sketches are all gone,” he said laconically.

      His master took the painting from him and held it upright on a table, in good light. A twelve-year-old has done that? was my own first reaction, even untutored as I was in the difficulties of the art. For once, I think, Lorenzo’s judgment was the same as mine; he scowled intensely and murmured something. Verrocchio, who must have seen the panel before, still sighed faintly with what sounded very much like envy. He snatched up a small brush from the table, and hastily flicked in his signature across a lower corner where part of the background had been finished.

      He sighed again. “Yes, this is she, Signore Ladislao, an excellent likeness. From this you may know her. If she is where the boy says she is, I pray Jesus and San Lorenzo that you may bring her safely out. If that is what Your Honor really wants to do.”

      Lorenzo was still