Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

felt, being taken from your bed at night to the jail for questioning. How you would have felt, telling your father. How you would have felt, having to rely on your connections with Lorenzo de’ Medici-asking him for help-so that you could be freed and go sleep in your own bed instead of in prison. Dante says that sodomites are doomed to wander forever in a fiery desert. I tell you, there can be no worse desert than the inside of a cell in the Bargello.” The anger left his tone; the next words came out hesitant, shy. “That does not mean I have never fallen in love with a man. Nor does it mean I have not fallen in love with a woman.”

I kept looking down at my hands. I thought of what it had been like for a young man to tell his father he had been arrested for such a crime. I thought of his father’s fury, and I flushed.

“As for Salai…” Indignance welled up in him again; the words lashed the air. “He is a boy, you may have noticed. Oh, he is your age, to be sure, though he might as well be ten years your junior; you can see for yourself that he has the maturity of a child. He is not yet old enough to know what he wants. And I am a grown man, and his guardian. To hint that there is anything more to our relationship- outside of a great deal of irritation on my part-is reprehensible.”

When I could finally speak, I said, “I apologize for my terrible words. I know what the Bargello is like. They took me there the night Giuliano died. My father was there, too. We were freed only because of Francesco.”

His face softened at once.

“Did you really believe I would bring Francesco with me?” I asked, but my tone held no heat. “To arrest Piero? To arrest you?”

He shook his head. “I did not honestly think you would. I judged you to be trustworthy. As I said, I had to test my own judgment. I have…” A glimmer of pain crossed his features. “My swiftness to indulge my instincts and feelings has led to great tragedy. I could not permit such a thing to happen again.” He stepped over to me and took my hands. “What I did was hurtful, but necessary. And I apologize with all my heart. Will you forgive me, Madonna Lisa, and accept me again as your friend?”

Your friend, he had said, but the emotion in his eyes spoke of something deeper. Before I fell in love with Giuliano, I might easily have given my heart to this man; now I was too damaged even to consider it. Gently, I extricated my hands. “You know I loved Giuliano.”

I expected the words to sting slightly, to quell the affection in his eyes. They did not. “I do not doubt it,” he said cheerfully, and gazed expectantly at me.

“I forgive you,” I said, and meant it. “But before today, I had only my son. Now I have this, too. Do you understand? So don’t deny me usefulness.”

“I won’t,” he said softly. “You can be of great use to us.”

“Piero is not here, in Florence?”

“No, Madonna. And if your husband thought that he was, he would certainly have tried to arrange for his murder.”

I refused to let the words frighten me. “So what shall I do?” I asked. “To be of help?”

“First,” he said, “you can tell me what you remember of the letter Salai was reading when you encountered him in Ser Francesco’s study.”

I told him. Told him that my husband had been ordered to collect the names of all the Bigi and to encourage Fra Girolamo to preach against Rome. Salai, it seemed, was a poor reader with a poorer memory. I would make a far better informant.

I was to search Francesco’s desk on a nightly basis, if possible, and, if I discovered anything of import, was to signal my discovery by setting a certain book from my library on my night table. I did not ask why: It was obvious to me. Isabella, who had provided Salai with entry into the study, also cleaned my bedchamber each morning and lit the fire each night. I doubted she had full knowledge of what she was involved in, or that Salai told her; she probably thought it was no more than one Buonomo spying on another.

The day after I gave the signal with the book, I was to go at sext to Santissima Annunziata, ostensibly to pray.

I was possessed of two hearts: One was heavy with grief at memories stirred by talk of the Medici; the other was light, relieved at last to be able to work toward the removal of Savonarola, the fall of Francesco from power, the second advent of Piero.

“There is a second thing you can do to be of help,” Leonardo told me. He led me over to the long table littered with a painter’s detritus. The gessoed poplar panel lay flat atop it, covered with the charcoal cartone of me. The corners of the paper were weighed down against the panel with four smooth stones; the entire drawing had been sprinkled with glittering pulverized charcoal.

“A bit of magic,” Leonardo said. “Don’t breathe.” He moved the stones aside, and very deliberately caught hold of the upper left and lower right corners of the paper and lifted it straight up off the panel. With extreme care, he moved away from the table and let the powder slide off the drawing into a bin on the floor; swirls of dark dust settled onto his face and clothing like a fine layer of soot.

I remained in front of the panel on the table, still holding my breath. There I was upon the panel’s smooth ivory surface, my features blurred and gray and ghostly, waiting to be born.

I sat no more than half an hour lest Claudio become suspicious. Leonardo carried the outlined panel over to the easel. He wanted me to sit on my stool right away, but I demanded the right to examine the tools first. The little table beside the easel now bore three slender brushes of minever fur-each with very fine points of differing size-set in a small tin dish half filled with oil. Upon a small wooden palette lay dried pellets of color, some half crushed; there were three tin dishes, one holding black, the other two each holding two values of a muddy greenish brown.

“Those are almond-shell black and verdaccio,” he said, “the black for outlining the features, the other for adding shadows. The verdaccio is a mixture of dark ocher, cinabrese, lime white, and a dash of black, just enough to cover the very tip of a palette knife.”

“If you’re painting the outline,” I asked, “why should I sit?”

He looked at me as if my question were mad. “I must see how the shadows fall. How the contours of your features are brought forward, how they recede. And I must see your face alive-with a thousand different expressions as your thoughts move-otherwise, how can I make it seem alive for the viewer?”

I let him settle me on my stool then and arrange my hands, my head, my torso at precise angles with a skilled, light touch. When he was satisfied, he went back to stand in front of the easel, and frowned at it.

“Too dark,” he said. “I am not in favor of harsh light, which steals softness, but we must have more…” He stepped over to the window and, using a pulley, raised the canvas shade all the way up. Once the degree of brightness suited him, he wondered aloud whether I might take down my hair, for he could not be sure how it now appeared-but an arch look from me silenced him. I could well imagine what Claudio would think if I returned from the chapel with my hair unruly.

At last he took up his brush. I remained still a long time, listening to the whisper of the wet fur against the dried plaster, doing my best not to scratch my nose, not to fidget. Leonardo was intense and impervious; his full attention was focused on the work in front of him. He stared at my face, seeing each curve, each line, each shadow, but he did not see me. At last I asked:

“Is this for Piero? Will you give it to him?”

He lifted a brow but did not allow the interruption to affect his concentration. “I am not yet sure whom I will give it to. Perhaps I will give it to no one at all.”

I frowned at that. At once he chided softly, “No, no… only smiles now. Think only of happy things.”

“What happy things? I have none in my life.”

He looked up from his work with a look of faint surprise in his pale eyes. “You have your son. Is that not enough?”

I gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “More than enough.”

“Good. And you have memories of your Giuliano, yes?”

I nodded.

“Then imagine…” His voice grew faintly sad. “Imagine you are with Giuliano again,” he said, with such wistfulness that I felt he was speaking to himself as much as to me. “Imagine that you are introducing him to his