late, while carrying out a mounted reconnaissance, to take part in a snowy skirmish of more than ordinary stupidity against a Turkish patrol similarly occupied. From this brawl I escaped with my honor and my life, my horse and my sword, the dagger which had once been left on a pillow aimed at my head—and a slow-healing thigh wound that temporarily made any further martial activities on my part out of the question.
I rested in camp until I felt able to sit a horse again, then set out for Buda, progressing by slow stages through a landscape that grew more familiar as I went. I had not been invited to present myself before the king; but then I had not been forbidden to do so, either. Indeed, I had heard nothing at all from Matthias since my leaving Pisa. So I judged that some kind of a personal report was necessary, though I did not look forward to delivering it.
It was already the early spring of 1465 when at last, still hardly able to stand, I appeared before His Majesty in his palace. Matthias looked older; kingship and the Turks were aging him rapidly. He received me in private as before, but with a lack of warmth that was immediately noticeable.
'Where is she, Drakulya? Word reached me months ago that you had lost her.'
It was I who had sent him that word, of course. 'I do not know where she is, sire.' I tried to explain the circumstances as best I could.
He cut me off with a gesture. 'I see you have a wound there that prevents your fighting. But you can travel, or you would not be here. So take yourself to Italy again, and find her. It would have been wiser for you to have stayed there last year and seen to the matter. She is your wife now, and I hold you responsible.'
Such are the ways of kings, and the difficulties of trying as loyally as possible to serve them. We dissolve now to a shot of me galloping madly right-to-left over the Alps. No, of course in actuality it was not that quickly done. This time the king was not so eager to provide me with letters and with gold. But eventually he had to admit that if I were to go, it were best that I succeed; and if he wanted me to succeed he had better give me all the help he could; and by the time he was convinced of this my leg was better, well enough to try the mountains.
Officially, you understand, I was all this time still imprisoned in the Tower of Solomon. And in truth there were a few moments during this epoch when I might have been tempted to settle for a return to my comfortable cell. But in fact, by the early summer of 1465, I was again on my way south to Italy. This time I was traveling as an officially nameless member of a delegation from Matthias to the new Pope, Paul II. Leader of the delegation was Janus Pannonius, who was what is now called a humanist, and also a poet, of about my own age. Pannonius and his uncle Janus Vitez had long been on good terms with their ruling kinsmen, the Hunyadi family. In a few years both Januses were to be entranced by an ill-starred conspirator into a revolutionary intrigue, and Matthias was going to have them killed; but in 1465 their prospects were still bright.
By the summer of that year, Matthias had somewhat revised his earlier thinking on the subject of papal crusades. If he, the King of Hungary, was going to have to make a career out of fighting the Turks anyway, then he might as well have all the help he could scrape up, well organized or not. Pannonius and his delegation were in fact going to Rome to plead for a new Crusade.
Having gone to school in Italy as a youth, Pannonius spoke the language well, and with his help I brushed up on my own Italian during the journey. En route our leader entertained the rest of the party with songs of his own devising, verses about the difficulties of politics, the perils of dealing with the infernal Turks, and the pains of life's personal tragedies. When he warbled about a cuckolded husband, he seemed oblivious to the fact that I gave him close attention, and so I wisely restrained my reactions, judging that my own history was not known amongst my companions. All in all, Pannonius blended show business and politics in a way you might have thought startlingly modern, could you have heard and understood his yodelings. For my part, at the time I was little in sympathy with either art. And my mind was filled with affairs more personally important. When at last our little party reached Florence, I quietly dropped out.
* * *
Piero had grown a little goutier since I had seen him last, and a little older under the burden of his new responsibilities as head of Medici Enterprises. Still he welcomed me more warmly than my own liege lord had at Buda. I think it was during this second trip that I first began to fall in love with Italy. And the merchant chief listened sympathetically to my problems. Yes, he had been instructing his people to keep their eyes and ears open everywhere they went. But unfortunately he still had nothing to report of Helen's whereabouts. She had perhaps, he thought, gone very far away this time.
I had to agree, though in the past she had demonstrated an affinity for Italy. And perhaps, I thought to myself, this time the Medici were really not so very interested in trying to help me find her. Well, they could scarcely be blamed. They had done much for me already, and they certainly had plenty of other projects to keep them busy, for example trying to make a living, and keeping a complex city-state going in a difficult world. It must have been plain to them that my marriage was a lost cause, even if my bride could be found again; and that Matthias was unlikely to be pleased however the situation turned out now.
As he strolled beside me through the cavernous rooms of the
'I doubt it. But I will talk to him. And one thing more, Signore Piero, if I may try your patience. Remember the painting that I had sent to you from Pisa? Would it be possible to have some of your people look at it before they depart on trading missions.' I said this partly, I suppose, to impress Piero with my unflagging determination.
He nodded vigorously, as if pleased to be bothered with still one more request. Probably he had little intention of honoring it anyway. 'The painting is very beautiful, and I thank you for its loan. I have kept it where my eyes can fall on it every day.' And with a little beckoning gesture he led me into another room and showed me the Magdalen above a fireplace. We both regarded it for a few moments in silence.
Then Piero went on: 'I will have it moved to your room, if you like . . . of course you are going to stay with us, while you are in Florence.'
'Thank you, Signore Piero. Your hospitality and generosity are more than a poor soldier like myself deserves.' I was about to add that I had no wish to find the painting gazing at me each morning when I awoke, when a new idea struck me, what I considered to be a really clever thought. 'And yes, I would like it in my room. Though I trust that my stay will not be long.'
To implement my new brainstorm, I paid a visit that very day to Verrocchio's studio. This time I went alone —Lorenzo, I should perhaps explain, was out of town on business at the time.
The studio had been transformed in the year since I had seen it last. There were at least half a dozen apprentices in sight, all of them busy shoveling sand, mixing and grinding pigments, hammering boards together into a platform, sweating and sending up a haze of dust from all the drudgery that lies behind serene fine art in metal and stone and paint. None of these youths recognized me, nor I them. But one went promptly to inform the master of my arrival, and returned in a moment to lead me to another room.
The very structure of the building had been changed considerably during the last twelve-month. A neighbor's stable had been taken over, and built into the growing complex. Raw timber walled some rooms completely new. But though the place was much enlarged, it was still crowded by its new production; business was booming tremendously.
I was conducted to where Verrocchio was at work, in one of the newly added rooms. The master, who had not changed noticeably, was not really glad to see me, though he made me welcome with effusive words.
'Messer Verrocchio,' I began, 'I suppose you have seen or heard nothing of the Hungarian woman since the last time I was here?'
'Nothing. Well, that is, only that she . . .' Verrocchio broke off, looking embarrassed.
'You mean you have heard of my marital difficulties with her, and that she has run away again.'
He nodded.
'Be sure and let me know if you hear more. You know where I can be reached. But it is really a painting that I have come to see you about today—a painting, and this young fellow who did it.'
Verrocchio proved willing enough for me to hire away his apprentice and model for what I said would probably be a few days' work. He probably thought that his powerful patrons were still more interested in helping
