The Competition Read online

  Leonardo took a step closer to her. “You are called to a higher purpose than painting, Viviana.” How rarely he called them by name. How deeply he could see into their souls. “Come,” he said, breaking his spell upon her, “come show me your mama.”

  They stood before the rendering, maestro and apprentice; Viviana memorized every comment, every suggestion he made. For those few moments, she forgot everything but the thrill of creation. Such private tutelage did not last long.

  The women soon began to arrive. Viviana studied them with the same intensity as she and Leonardo had been studying her work. She could read little on any of them save Isabetta; Isabetta she understood without effort.

  They gathered together. She held her breath.

  “Patrizio has slept in a separate bed for the last four nights.” Fiammetta broke the pregnant silence, sliced it with a sharp-edged knife.

  Viviana felt her heart fall to the pit of her stomach.

  “He is furious with me, with all of us, especially you, Viviana.”

  Viviana rolled her eyes; she was quite certain she had been made to be the villain in Fiammetta’s story far more than she truly was. Her head dropped, chin to chest.

  “But he is astounded by us, by what we have done. What we are going to do.”

  “Going to do?” Viviana dared to ask.

  Fiammetta nodded, pudgy cheeks waggling. “So it would seem, Viviana. I not only have his permission, I have his pride.”

  Viviana threw her arms around the robust woman, squeezing her tight. If Patrizio agreed, surely they all must have.

  Fiammetta chuckled, put Viviana an arm’s length away. “There are conditions, however.”

  “Such as?”

  The woman ruminated on it. “I am not exactly sure, to speak plainly. I think much will depend on public opinion, on what it will do to his position, his standing.”

  “It is the same for me,” Natasia chirped, as was her way, graceful fingers fiddling with her bodice ribbons. “Pagolo was shocked beyond words. For hours he said nothing after I told him of what happened after Guiliano was murdered, what we did.” She turned to Fiammetta. “He slept beside me still, though I didn’t sleep at all. And not for the good reason.”

  The women giggled; Leonardo snorted.

  “He worries most about what it will do to his family name, to our standing in society,” she continued. “But the day after I told him, when I revealed that the unsigned painting in our bedchamber, his favorite in the whole house, was of my creation…” Her plump cheeks grew florid. “Well, he rewarded me then, and quite nicely too.”

  As if the room filled with chirping birds, so too did it fill with more twitters.

  “I too have my husband’s cautious permission,” Natasia said.

  “My mother has pronounced me hopeless, a lost cause,” Mattea said, a dour declaration, yet spoken with a spark of merriment. “And it is true, I am hopelessly in love. I don’t think that can ever—will ever—change.”

  Lapaccia offered a fey smile to the woman who could be—would be—her daughter-in-law, if Andreano could only find some way to return to the city.

  “Her great concern is that I shall never find a suitor. As I am not looking for one, it makes little difference.” She gave a shrug, tossing off her mother’s concerns as she would a stray leaf that landed on her, weightless.

  “I have only myself to answer to,” Lapaccia spoke last. Her chin rose, but not without a quiver. “I will do what I can, as much as I can.”

  Viviana knew it was a matter of her health, as did they all, she was sure. Her asthma had plagued her more often since her months in the cold, damp convent. Lapaccia said nothing to disabuse them of the notion.

  A somber shroud of reality fell upon them. It was a flashing, blinding moment and, like the lightning it mirrored, not one without apprehension.

  “We need to make a plan,” Viviana said, knowing the best way to dispel worry was to work through it.

  “I have already thought of one,” Fiammetta declared. “What?” she blustered, discovering every skeptical gaze had fallen upon her. “Yes, I may have been initially opposed, but now, if we are going to dare this, then let us dare.”

  Viviana longed to embrace the woman again; so often the contessa’s haughty attitude annoyed her, it was true. Not in that moment.

  For the first time that day, Leonardo spoke to the group; he did not waste words. “It has long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

  “Exactly!” Fiammetta exclaimed. “I will pay a call on the Serristori family, this Antonio. The man is such an upstart, I am sure his delight at my appearance will catch him off guard.”

  Viviana stifled a cynical bark. And there it was again: Fiammetta’s pretension. In this case, however, it would indeed work to their benefit. Viviana had no doubt that, under the glare of the contessa, the man would be willing to spill all, slice a vein if impressing her meant a step up the social and political ladder he strained to climb.

  “I will find out as much as I can of what he plans, when he will put the commission out to bid, and when he hopes for the work to begin.”

  “See if you can ferret out his ideas as well, what the fresco itself will entail,” Lapaccia added, to which Fiammetta nodded.

  “Yes, I will wring him of every tidbit, I assure you.”

  Not a one of them doubted it.

  “What of your brother, Natasia, what trouble will he incur?” The young Mattea revealed her aged wisdom. They had yet to consider what it would mean to Father Raffaello, not only Natasia’s brother but also the parish priest of Santo Spirito. Without his help and support, their studio behind his church would not exist; without his willingness to smudge the truth, they would have been caught long ago.

  “Do we ask too much of him?” Viviana feared for the priest, for whatever the Vatican may to do him if they won the commission, if women painted openly in his church. She chided herself silently for her selfishness.

  “Let us ask him, shall we?” Natasia announced with little worry, dashing away, only to return with the ever more rotund priest.

  “Buongiorno, fair ladies, Signore da Vinci,” Father Raffaello greeted them cordially.

  With economy of words, Viviana told him what they planned to do, what they hoped they would be allowed to do.

  When she finished, Father Raffaello met her words with a small chuckle and an even smaller shake of his head. “You astound me. All of you. I am surprised to even be surprised.”

  Relieved sighs sluiced the air like a caressing summer breeze.

  “Will you suffer for it, if we somehow make it through the labyrinth ahead of us, if we are, indeed, allowed to do this thing?” Viviana interrogated him; she had to be sure. “Will you be criticized—chastised—by the Vatican?”

  The priest did not answer her. He stepped away, walked a small circle, and then stopped. “The man has paid for the chapel, paid a great deal, much of which went into the Vatican’s hands. It is his to do with as he wishes.” It was the truth as well as the priest’s excuse. “I am overcome by his insistence on having you ladies create the fresco.”

  Natasia rose up on tiptoes and kissed her brother’s cheek. “Thank you, Tomaso. We need not keep you any longer. I shall stop in to see you before I leave.”

  “Of course,” the priest replied. “I am, as ever, at your service madonnas, signore.”

  With a nod of his large, tonsured head, he bid them goodbye and left.

  Viviana trembled with excitement; she gathered herself as best she could, though she could not stop moving, walking from table to table, touching the tools of their craft.

  “I know not what will come of this, whether we will even be allowed to make a bid, let alone if we will win the commission. But in the very trying, we will accomplish so much, I feel it, I know it.”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious. They began to talk, all and at once, of what it
would mean to women artists everywhere.

  Only Leonardo remained quiet. When he spoke, Viviana wished he had remained so.

  “And what of Lorenzo de’ Medici?” His deep, flat voice threw a thick blanket over their joyous conversation.

  “What of him?” Fiammetta bleated crossly. There went her fists upon her hips yet again.

  “Antonio di Salvestro will have to obtain Il Magnifico’s permission for such an uncommon undertaking.” Leonardo stated the case flatly, far too succinctly. “You will have to receive permission simply to make the bid.”

  Viviana’s head fell back on her neck, and she reproached herself for not thinking of it, this truth. Like a stooping bird, her spirits plummeted.

  “You know him best,” Lapaccia quietly said. “What do you think his response will be?”

  Leonardo’s head shook almost imperceptibly. “Times have changed much for the man. Those who were once his most loyal supporters have turned against him and the actions he has taken toward Naples and the Vatican. The evidence of it has been made quite public. Remember the Frescobaldis?”

  Some of the women nodded sadly, others grunted with disgust.

  Just a short time ago, members of three families—the Frescobaldi, the Baldovinetti, and Balducci clans—actually confessed to a plan to murder Lorenzo de’ Medici, thinking they were already found out, hoping their confession would find them mercy. It hadn’t. They all hanged.

  “Now he has looked elsewhere for support, to the lesser elites.”

  “Yes,” Fiammetta huffed, “even from the popolo. His grandfather rolls in his grave.”

  “True,” Viviana agreed, “but isn’t Antonio di Salvestro just such a man? Surely that will serve our cause.”

  Viviana did not think Il Magnifico’s political movements were quite that egregious, though it was odd to see such men like Bartolomeo Scala, the son of a miller, as the Standard Bearer of Justice. Many like him were filling highly ranked positions, more and more as the months and years of Lorenzo’s reign passed.

  “Il Magnifico grows ever more paranoid,” Natasia ruminated. “I heard Pagolo and my father speaking of it just the other evening. My uncle is ever more excluded because he is deemed too powerful. He whines about it incessantly. Rather rude of him considering our family has never reached the same lofty heights as my uncle. The fabrications that…” She blinked, eyes shifting quickly among them, words shifting just as quickly. “Lorenzo is turning to those he believes he need not fear.”

  “He also looks to the very common for support,” Mattea chimed in. “I heard just the other day of the butcher’s son being made part of the Seventy. What better way to make regular citizens love him than to go against what the elite would want?”

  “It is unseemly,” Fiammetta snorted.

  “Perhaps.” Leonardo addressed Fiammetta’s disparaging vehemence diplomatically. “But in this instance, it may work to your favor. These new men have new ideas. They know what it is like to rise up, to work to gain respectability. If we make Lorenzo see that you are only trying to do the same, that you may be looked upon with approval by such men, things may go well.”

  “I shall go to speak to him.” Viviana said the words, the thought still flitting in her mind.

  “You?” Lapaccia balked. “But your…”

  “History?” Viviana supplied. “Yes, Il Magnifico and I have a history, a connection. It may not be the best, but any connection is better than none. Yes, I will go.”

  “And I,” Isabetta declared righteously, stepping beside Viviana.

  “And I will be with you,” Leonardo said, as if he spoke of taking a stroll.

  “You will?”

  “He will see us sooner if I am with you,” the artist explained. “He will listen more closely.”

  As much as Viviana loathed acknowledging that their femininity would delay things, that only a male presence could erase, she was grateful for it.

  “Thank you, maestro.” She dipped her head.

  They all thanked him; their devotion to him grew with their gratitude.

  “Might we practice a bit?” Mattea asked quietly as she sidled up to him. “We have not had a lesson in so long.”

  The painter looked down at her as a father might, with amusement and pride in his small grin and his glowing eyes.

  “Of course, picolina. Why do we not begin at the beginning? Let us make some arriccio, shall we?”

  The women were no longer women, but artists dedicated to their craft, to learning more of it, to perfecting it. They gathered round da Vinci as he measured out the one part limestone and the two parts sand that made for the best arriccio, the undercoat of plaster first applied to any wall to be frescoed.

  His tutelage consumed Viviana, enthralled her, as always, but not so much that she did not notice Natasia’s quick and quiet retreat from the studio. She gave it little thought, knowing the girl intended to visit her brother. Viviana turned away from the closing door, and turned back to where her soul belonged, to her art.

  Chapter Seven

  “One cannot truly learn, if one does not share such knowledge.”

  It was a day not any one of them wished to end. It was a day replete with invigorating triumphs and startling discoveries.

  They had all remained in the studio long past their usual time; not a one knew where their path would lead them, but each knew that the tutelage they received that day—if they received nothing else—was worth taking the first step.

  Viviana jostled along in her carriage without noticing which streets they took, who they passed, or how long it took to arrive home. She knew only that she must keep the knowledge fresh in her mind until she could render it immortal on the page.

  At her home, she flew from the carriage before the driver could open the door for her. She flew inside her palazzo, up her steps, and into her salon.

  “Mona Viviana? Is that you?” The call from Jemma came from the kitchen above.

  “It is, Jemma. I am home.”

  “Do you wish your supper? You are very late. You must be quite hungry.”

  “Thank you, no. I have no appetite.”

  Not for food, was her thought.

  Upon her knees now, Viviana ruffled through her forziere, the leatherbound trunk like that found in every household, in every room. Her fingertips brushed against them, grabbed at them, the journals of Caterina dei Vigri, her deceased cousin.

  Viviana sat back, rubbing an open palm gently upon them, caressing the words they held, the freedom they had given her. These journals had started it all, the words, the tutelage found in them. She would pay them, and Caterina, homage. She would continue her cousin’s work. Now it was her turn to add to the tutelage Caterina had begun. In that moment, it became her duty to continue to chronicle all she had learned, all she was learning.

  Jumping up, she took herself to her desk, took up quill and ink, and turned to the first blank page in the last of Caterina’s journals.

  Leonardo da Vinci taught his disciples the art of creating a sinopia this day.

  The words came, gushed from her like wine from an overturned pitcher, vigorous and sweet. Long into the night Viviana wrote; she wrote as Jemma came and lit the candles, kept writing when Jemma brought her food, she wrote as she ate.

  Her hand cramped; her fingers became splotched with ink. But she did not put her head to her pillow until the words were upon the pages. Only then did she feel her work for the day had truly been finished.

  As Viviana finally lay her head to rest, she knew this was not the last night she would spend at such a task, merely the first.

  Chapter Eight

  “Beginnings do not always begin at the beginning.”

  “Jemma, the gold candlesticks, if you please,” Viviana called out as she circled the large table in the Sala dei Pappagalli. It had been a long time since she had set the table in the family dining room with such thought and care. The best crystal goblets for the wine, polished pewter trenches, pewter knives, and two-tined f
orks with red jasper handles brought out the brilliance of the red parrots on the wall. The fresco that named the room, once faded from neglect, had been reborn under her brush.

  Never had one of her boys brought a guest to Sunday dinner. Oh, there had been many times since Orfeo’s death that they had dropped in on her, a rakish group of hungry friends with them. Bringing a guest to a Sunday meal was something different entirely, something exhilarating and worrying and buoyant, all at once.

  “Really, Mama, must it be this fancy?” Rudolfo stood in the doorway, leaning against it in that boyish, manly way of his.

  Viviana went to him, kissed his cheek, then spun him round. “Sì, it is. And it will be the same for you.”

  She stepped back, critical eyes scouring him from head to toe. “Could you not have put on something less roguish?”

  Rudolfo’s head flew back in laughter. His mother was not so amused. Rudolfo’s black leather farsetto was of the much shortened, newer style; his tightly fitted breeches displayed his thighs and more—Too much more, Viviana thought—and black leather ankle boots were more for the tavern than for the Sunday table, no matter the fineness of the silk camicia beneath.

  She pushed him. “Go. Go to your room, and see if you cannot find something better.”

  “Dio, Mama,” he pouted like a little boy, “there will be nothing to fit me.”

  “Just try.” Viviana shooed him away with her hand, shaking her head with a laugh as he stomped off to his room. Some things never changed, and how glad of it she was.

  Tempting aromas filled the house: roasting veal, sautéed peppers in stewed tomatoes, baking tortes, and dough in the shape of pinecones—one of Marcello’s favorites—frying in olive oil. Only the best would do for today. Viviana hoped for only the best.