“Another time would be better then, Monsieur de Brosse. I shall be honored to walk your lady back to the Chateau.”
Obviously disconcerted, but at a loss for a reply, Rene bowed, and leaned to scoop his hat from the even-cut turf. “Mademoiselle Boullaine,” he said curtly and disappeared around the hedge.
“I have not rescued a maiden in distress for years, Mademoiselle Boullaine,” Signor da Vinci said quietly, musically, and she marvelled at the way he almost sang his French. “You are the English ambassador’s daughter, are you not,” he intoned.
“Oui, Signor da Vinci. Merci beaucoup for your aid. The attentions were quite unwanted.”
“Ah, s. We will say no more of that. I was just trying to see how the craigs across the valley touch the tiny cliff-clinging town on either side when I heard you. The Loire is much like the far reaches of the Arno, you see.”
They strolled easily around the hedgerow and there was the lovely fountain and opening view where the girls had seen him earlier. He had not moved all afternoon.
“I live at Cloux in a spacious house His Majesty granted me, but the vistas here are much more pleasant and, well, more like home.” His eyes went past her, far over her shoulder and clouded beneath his bushy, snowy eyebrows.
“Florence, signor?”
“S, Firenze. But now, this shall be my home.” He sighed and motioned for her to sit next to him on the marble fountain ledge. Pleased, she did so carefully as he picked up his discarded notebook and stick of brownish charcoal.
“Is this,” he nodded his head toward the valley, “a French and Italian view only, or could it be your England?”
She gazed slowly over the misty haze of easy hills and azure sky and plunging valley. “I have seen no English view like this, Signor, but England has its lovely rivers and beautiful hunt parks. And English gardens are wonderful.” Her voice trailed off.
“You see one now, a lovely garden in the eye of your heart and you could tell me every tiny petal in it, every butterfly and sunny splash, could you not? Knowing how to see, that is the most important gift from God. ‘Sapere vedere.’”
His left hand nearly skimmed over his paper now, but it seemed he seldom lowered his eyes from the stony pinnacles beyond. She watched breathless, yet wanting to ask him what he discussed for long hours with his patron Francois, and what he thought of the wonderful man.
He finished, then, and bent his head over his notebook. His huge nose seemed to point directly at the charcoal misty cliffs and forests and towns he had drawn so effortlessly. He writes backwards, she thought as he labeled the sketch, but assumed it was merely that the Italian looked so strange.
He turned to her and seemed to stare for long minutes, but she felt totally at ease. “Has Clouet sketched you?” he questioned finally.
“No, Signor. He is the court artist.”
“And are you not of the court, Mademoiselle Boullaine?”
“No, Signor, only one of Queen Claude’s maids of honor.”
“Ah, that other peaceful and moral court,” he said and rose. “I move more in the worldly court of king’s projects,” he continued in lilting French. “I draw canals for Romartin, I sketch scenery for court masques, I keep my notebooks. I remember other kings and projects and notebooks. But enough of an old man’s whimsies.”
Mary noticed other people now meandering back across the formal gardens from the tiltyard. If only Francois himself would come along and hail his artist and then...
“I shall sketch you someday,” he was saying. “You could be a Florentine beauty, you know, fair and blonde and azure-eyed. You show your most inner thoughts in your eyes when it is an unfashionable thing to do, but how touching and how feminine. Like la Gioconda.” He smiled and his eyes were misty again. “I shall not forget you. I shall see you again, Mademoiselle Boullaine.”
He folded his notebook pertly under his brown-silk arm and bowed slowly. “Remember my motto, fairest lady. At court knowing how to see can be one’s very survival. Adieu.”
He turned and walked slowly across the terraced lawn before she could reply, and she realized she had foolishly raised her hand to wave at his retreating back.
Knowing how to see, yes, indeed. And knowing how to avoid that whelp Rene de Brosse and keep Jeanne from snickering, and Annie from prying.
CHAPTER SIX
December 13, 1518
Paris