Coming downstairs from the attic of the Palazzo Boccalini, Helen walked in front of me. Her hands were behind her back, her wrists looped with the thin chain, whose free end rested lightly in my grip. Her torn shift perforce gaped shamelessly. She looked as if she might be on her way to execution.
On the second flight of stairs we met the fat cousin, Allessandro, on his way up, candle in hand. He stopped at once, eyeing us inquisitively; evidently he had been impelled upstairs by curiosity as to just what games I might be playing with my gift.
'I have thought of a sport that needs some room,' I told him, answering his quizzical look.
'In the courtyard,' he suggested.
'Not room enough.' It was not the Medici palace. 'We will need the street.'
Allessandro looked doubtful at that, but said nothing as he followed me down again. When we reached the ground floor I hailed the first male servant who came in view and gave bold orders for the front door to be opened. The masters of the house were already beginning to gather round, and looked at one another doubtfully. Watching them, the servant hesitated. But Helen was right on cue, displaying alarm at the prospect of being taken outside— the tall foreigner must at least have hinted to her, upstairs, what this new sport was to be like—and my adoptive cousins immediately warmed to the idea.
'Come on!' I roared. 'Bugger the watch and the curfew. You don't mean to let them cheat you of some fun?'
Once I had put it in those terms, there was only one reply red-blooded youth could give. So far, at least, everything had been almost too easy. The night outside in the street was dark as tar, except for one feeble torch in a servant's unenthusiastic hand. 'More lights!' I demanded, wishing for a distraction, and for some delay to let whatever Medici agents might be watching get themselves ready for action.
A manservant went back into the house for lights, reducing the odds minimally. I did not wait for his return; as soon as I had Helen facing the dark street in the direction I wanted, where there should be running room at least, if no active help, I gave two quick tugs on her chain. In a moment she had slipped her hands free of its loops and was off at top speed, running in desperate silence.
Watching the startled faces of the men around me, I tarried for a quick count of three and still got off in pursuit ahead of any of the others. My intent was to appear to be chasing Helen, at least until it became necessary to do more.
Helen ran with better speed than I had counted on, her white figure staying a little ahead of me in the darkness, maintaining a lead my long legs did not overcome. My drawn sword in my hand slowed me a little. I had taken off belt and all on entering the house, as a twentieth-century visitor might have doffed his hat, but then had routinely buckled the weapon on again as I came out.
Before I had run ten strides, shouts shattered the night behind me. A great alarm was going up, drunken voices, in which merriment was still the dominant tone, bawling for more torches. But not everyone, unfortunately, insisted on waiting for more light. Two pairs of feet were pounding after us, and one of these pursuers was already getting uncomfortably close. Meanwhile, ahead of me, Helen's first burst of speed was faltering. Fear indeed lends wings, but chaining and hunger are not the best of training regimens.
No use trying to delay what must now be done. I stopped and turned abruptly and cut at the nearest sportsman, aiming low for the legs. My blade bit bone, and with a loud cry he went sprawling. My second pursuer was drawn and ready for me when he came running up. He was evidently an armed professional retainer of some kind, and managed to delay me in masterly style, our swords conversing almost invisibly in the near darkness, whilst he bawled for help. But his allies behind him still dawdled, clamoring for their precious torches.
At last I got him with a thrust to the midsection, and was able to turn and run away again. Behind me the cries of my latest victim went up alarmingly, mingled with a new uproar from dogs safe behind stone walls. There was no hope now of avoiding a pursuit in deadly earnest. But of course I very soon had to slow my flight, begin to grope my way slowly, meanwhile calling the girl's name loudly as I dared. I added in her own language such assurances as I could think of, and prayed that she had had the wit and nerve to stop and wait for me, or else that some of the Medici men had come to her aid.
There were actually, as I later learned, no Medici men on hand. Their sole spy on the scene had stayed prudently where he could keep a good watch on the Boccalini. But fortune and the saints smiled upon us anyway. Helen's voice, a ghost-whisper of softness, replied at last to one of my more urgent hisses, and presently her small hand came reaching out of darkness to touch mine. I sheathed my sword and took it. 'Can you find the way,' I whispered, 'to the workshop of the artist called Verrocchio?'
'Yes.' She paused as if surprised. 'Yes, I think so.' A moment more to get her bearings, and she tugged at my hand and we were off. Helen had been in the city longer than I had, had walked in it much more, and so had greater knowledge of its streets. More dogs awoke behind the walls surrounding us; but behind us the enemy was still organizing, perhaps suspecting some trap, at any rate not ready to dash recklessly off into the dark.
We turned corners; the sounds of their preparations fell behind us and disappeared. I began to breathe a little easier.
'Why are we going to Verrocchio?' The king's sister was not shy of asking questions.
'They know us there, and are friendly. It has been arranged.'
Helen said nothing more at the time, but led me through alleys and narrow ways, until we emerged upon a broader street almost at the painter's door, having met no one en route. It took a minute of rapping with my dagger hilt to get any answer at all from within the studio, and somewhat longer than that to get the master of the house roused and brought to the door. Then, however, it was opened for us promptly enough. Verrocchio, candlestick in hand, alarm showing in his heavy features, his gross body wrapped in a fine robe, motioned us hastily in; we were already past him. After one last fearful glance into the darkness, he closed the portal quickly behind us.
'Send word at once that we are here,' I ordered him, thinking it unnecessary to specify to whom word should be sent. Then turning to the gaping servants and apprentices, I demanded: 'Bring decent garments for this girl at once.' The help all stumbled away hastily under my glare, wrapped in whatever oddments of bedcovers and clothing they had grabbed when the alarms began, the younger apprentice tugging the bearded one by the arm to get him moving. Leonardo, who slept at home, was of course not in the group. Helen meanwhile stood quietly at my side, waiting for whatever might happen next.
'What happened?' Verrocchio blurted to me, then looked as if he did not really want to know. He turned his head and called after his retreating staff: 'Perugino, there is a message you must carry!'
I took the candle from the master's shaking hand, and set it on a table, and seated myself there. I did not bother to answer his question. Helen, at my gesture, seated herself next to me.
The bearded apprentice was back in a few moments, fully clothed. As he was unbarring the front door again, ready to go out, I detained him with some words of caution. If he should have the bad luck to be collared by the watch for breaking curfew, he was to say that he carried an urgent business message for the Medici, and demand to be escorted to their house; and if it should become necessary to tell the watchmen any more than that, he could add that the message concerned a painting of the Magdalen. He gave me a look of fear and desperation mingled, and hurried out as soon as I released his sleeve.
Verrocchio and I barred up the door again. When I turned back to the table, Helen was gone—into a back room to change her dress, an old woman servant assured me. I sat down again to wait. In a minute or two Helen was back, and as she re-emerged into the light of the candle on the table I rose unconsciously to my feet. What they had given her to put on was the very gown of the painting.
'It's all we have that really fits her, sir,' muttered the old woman, a little perturbed by my reaction.
'Never mind . . . it is all right . . . it is beautiful. Now, bring us something to eat and drink. Biscuits, wine, whatever.'
Again Helen, my unknowing bride-to-be, sat down with me at the table. The dress that had appeared glorious in dim candleglow at the far side of the room was not as glorious seen close up. Faded, somewhat worn, a little dirty here and there, tired with the flesh of many models.
Paintings, stacked in racks along the far walls of the room, regarded us with dim eyes. Verrocchio, still
