“Well,” Maisie said.
“Yes?” Sandro asked expectantly.
“I’m a linguist.”
Sandro frowned.
“A linguist!” Maisie repeated. “I speak so many languages I can’t even name them all.”
“But Tuscan?” Signor Ficino said.
Before she could answer, the front door burst open and a dozen men infiltrated the courtyard, wielding large swords and screaming, “Revenge!”
The men around the table, along with Lorenzo’s new wife, Clarice, and Maisie, jumped to their feet and dispersed, some running through the small door to the garden, some running up the stairs to the family’s quarters.
The intruders slashed at the air with their swords, cutting down the middle of the table, sending glass and food spraying everywhere.
Maisie stood, paralyzed.
Where was Felix?
But she had no time to think. The intruders, their faces covered in black hoods, their dark robes flapping as they set about smashing everything on the table, were in a frenzy, their swords slicing the air wildly.
She needed to get away.
One sword came so close to her that she actually heard the whoosh it made as it flew past. Her fingers shot up to her neck. Close? No. It had actually nicked her. Two small dots of blood were on her finger where she’d touched her neck.
Her heart pounding in her ears, Maisie dropped to the floor unnoticed and slithered under the table, watching as the men’s black boots moved frantically back and forth.
“We should go upstairs and murder the lot of them!” an angry male voice said.
The men murmured in agreement.
“All in good time,” another man said. “We’ve let the Medicis know that the Pazzis mean business.”
Someone laughed a laugh so evil that the hairs on Maisie’s arms stood up.
“At least let’s take a souvenir,” the first man said.
Maisie heard them marching around the courtyard, trying to decide which painting to take with them.
Finally, they left in as much noisy chaos as they’d arrived.
Maisie stayed beneath the table for a few minutes after the courtyard grew silent.
When she believed they were truly gone and not returning, she slid on her belly along the marble floor and emerged from beneath the table. Her heart was still pounding, so much so that she didn’t hear the small sound of something dropping to the floor as she stood. She touched her neck again and found tiny drops of fresh blood there.
I’ve been wounded by a sword! Maisie thought, with some pride.
She wished she knew where Felix was so that she could show him, and maybe brag a little about her bravery. She had been brave, she decided. Standing amidst all those slashing swords, hiding under the table, emerging safe but bloody. The story grew even as she stood there, waiting for someone to come downstairs.
Eventually, she gave up.
Maisie had had enough excitement for one day, she decided. She would go back to Verrocchio’s studio and wait for Felix and Leonardo to return. By then, her story would be even grander.
CHAPTER 10
NON CAPISCO
Maisie went to sleep alone that night, Felix and Leonardo still not yet home. She woke the next morning alone again, but the blankets beside her were tangled and messy, so Felix had come back eventually. But he had already gone off again. Probably with Leonardo to prove some scientific theory or another, Maisie thought with a sad sigh.
She made her way through the studio, empty except for the canvases leaning against the walls and the tables lined with painting supplies.
“Hello?” Maisie called, her voice echoing ever so slightly.
No one answered.
Of course, she realized, today was the first day of Carnival. Everyone had gone off to watch jousting and parades.
Her mood shifted immediately from lonely to angry. Couldn’t Felix have woken her up? How dare he just leave her alone while he went to see jousting. Or whatever.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that in addition to being angry, she was also hungry.
In the sunny kitchen, Maisie found half a loaf of bread on a cutting board, some bright orange jam, and a bowl of figs. She helped herself to all of it, even though figs were kind of hairy inside and tasted like practically nothing. Chewing a hard slice of the bread slathered with jam, she got madder and madder. It was one thing to flee sword-wielding Pazzis—whatever that was—and quite another to simply flee.
Maisie worked herself into such a fit of anger that she almost didn’t see the note sticking out from beneath the wooden cutting board.
Well, she thought, feeling a teeny-tiny bit less mad, at least they left her a note.
She slid it out and stared at the writing on it. Immediately, Maisie recognized it as Leonardo’s strange backward scrawling. But she didn’t recognize even one word written there.
Frowning, Maisie tried to sound out the letters.
Ciao.
That was the only one she recognized because everyone knew ciao meant good-bye.