VI

At that moment Gian Galeazzo was being bled: according to the rules of surgery the operation was performed by candle-light, and with closed shutters. The surgeon, or rather the barber, a timid old man, was opening the vein, and his assistant held the brass basin; the physician, a man of grave and impenetrable countenance, wearing spectacles and a hood of dark purple velvet and squirrel's fur, merely watched, for to handle surgical instruments was derogatory to the dignity of a Doctor of Medicine.

'Before night he shall be bled again,' said the great man when the arm had been bandaged and the duke was restored to his pillows.

'Domine magister,' objected the barber respectfully, 'were it not wiser to wait? The patient is weakened, and an excessive drain of blood——'

But he stopped short, for the doctor looked at him with freezing irony.

''Tis time you knew that of the twenty-four pounds of blood in the human body you may let twenty without damage. I have bled sucking babes and seen them recover.'

Leonardo listened to this conversation, but reminded himself that to dispute with doctors was vain as to argue with alchemists. He held his peace till the empirics had departed and the dwarf had covered the patient and shaken his pillows. Above the bed hung a little green parrot in a cage; cards and dice strewed the table. On it was also a glass with gold-fish, at the duke's feet slept a little white dog,—all the faithful servant's last attempts at ministering to his master's amusement.

'Has the letter been sent?' asked the sick man, not opening his eyes.

'Excellency, Messer Leonardo has come. We waited, fearing to disturb your Grace's slumber.'

A feeble smile illuminated the duke's countenance. He tried to raise himself.

'Master, at last! And I had been fearing you would not come!'

Gian Galeazzo took the artist's hand in his, and a faint colour spread over his beautiful young face:—he was but four-and-twenty. The dwarf left the room to keep guard at the door.

'Friend,' began the duke, 'you have heard the slander?'

'Which slander, my lord?' asked the painter.

'If you know not which, 'tis that you have heard nothing, and it is not worth the trouble of telling you. Yet no, I will tell you, that we may have our mock at it together. They say——' He paused, looked the artist full in the eyes, and, smiling calmly, completed the phrase; 'they say 'tis you have murdered me.'

Leonardo thought him delirious, but he repeated:—

'Just that. They say 'tis you have murdered me. Three weeks ago Il Moro and his Beatrice sent me a basket of delectable peaches. But Madonna Isabella says that from the moment I tasted them I have pined away; that in your garden you have a peach-tree which bears poison.'

'In very truth,' assented Leonardo, 'I have such a tree.'

'Amico mio! can it be possible——'

'Nay; not if the fruit be really that from my garden. I can explain the reason of these rumours. To study the effect of poison upon trees, I inoculated my peach-tree with arsenic, and warned Zoroastro, my disciple, to beware of the fruit. Probably he was over hasty in relating the fact, for as matter of truth the experiment failed and the peaches have proved innocuous.'

'I knew it! I knew it!' cried the duke with relief. 'No one is guilty of my death. Yet here each one is suspecting the other, and hating and fearing him! If it were but possible to speak openly, as you and I speak to each other at this instant! My uncle is suspected of the deed; but I know him to be a kindly man, though timorous and weak. What interest could he have in my death when I myself am willing to give him my throne? I want nothing; I would gladly have left all these people and lived in retirement and liberty with a few chosen friends. I would have been a monk, or thy pupil, Leonardo. But no one will believe that I do not desire power. Why have they done this evil? Dio mio! they have not poisoned me, but they have poisoned themselves, poor blind ones! with the harmless fruit of thy harmless tree. I have grieved over perverse fate which makes me to die young, but now I am calm, I am at ease, Master, as though on a scorching day I had thrown off dusty clothes and cast myself into pure water. I know not how to tell thee, dear friend, but of a surety thou dost comprehend, thou who art thyself——'

Leonardo smiled serenely, and pressed the poor wasted hand, but did not answer.

'I knew that you would understand,' continued the invalid with animation. 'Do you remember how once you said to me that the study of those eternal laws which govern the vicissitudes of nature conducts men to humility and to great tranquillity of soul? Your phrase struck me even then; but now in sickness, in loneliness—ay, in delirium—how often do I remember thy words, and thyself, and thy countenance, and thy voice, O Master! Sometimes it seems to me that by different ways thou and I have reached the same end: thou by the way of life—I by death.'

At this moment the door opened, and the dwarf burst into the room, and announced with agitation:—

'Monna Druda!'

Leonardo would have retired, but the duke detained him, and Gian Galeazzo's old nurse came in bearing a phial of scorpion ointment. It was a precious balsam, made by catching scorpions in the height of summer, when the sun is in Cancer, keeping them for fifty days exposed to the sun, then plunging them alive into hundred-year-old olive oil, mixed with groundsel, mithridates, and snake-root. Nightly the patient must be anointed at the temples, in the armpits, on the belly, round the heart; and then the wise woman swore he would take no ill from spells, from witchcraft, nor eke from poison.

The old nurse, seeing Leonardo seated on the bed, stopped, turned ashy-white, and came nigh dropping her priceless balm.

'Santa Vergine benedetta! Defend us!' she murmured. And crossing herself, and mumbling exorcisms and prayers, she ran as fast as her old legs would carry her, to bring Madonna Isabella the terrible tidings.

Monna Druda was entirely convinced that Ludovico the assassin, and Leonardo his accomplice, had brought Gian Galeazzo to his death, if not by poison, at any rate by witchcraft and the evil eye. The duchess Isabella, kneeling in her private chapel before the most sacred image, was praying fervently, when Monna Druda, greatly agitated, rushed in to tell her Leonardo was with the duke. The lady leaped to her feet, and cried, her face scarlet with indignation:—

'It cannot be! Who has allowed him to pass?'

'Nay, Most Illustrious, who can tell how this accursed sorcerer should pass? Have I not been saying to your Excellency——' She was interrupted by a page, who knelt before the lady.

'Most Excellent Madonna, will your ladyship and your ladyship's most illustrious consort deign to receive His Majesty the Most Christian King of France?'