IX
Next morning Leonardo, with Astro carrying sketch-books, paint-boxes and brushes, was on his way to the monastery for a day's work on the figure of the Saviour. He stopped in the courtyard to speak to Nastasio, who was busily grooming a grey mare.
'Bravo!' said the master, 'and how is Giannino to-day?' Giannino was his favourite horse.
'Giannino is all right,' answered the groom, 'but the piebald is lame.'
'The piebald?' said Leonardo, vexed; 'and since when?'
'Since four days agone,' replied Nastasio surlily; and without looking at his master, he continued curry-combing the mare's hindquarters with such energy that she changed her feet.
Leonardo, however, wished to see the piebald, and the groom took him to the stable. When Giovanni Boltraffio, a few minutes later, came to the courtyard fountain for his morning wash, he heard the master talking in loud piercing tones almost feminine in their shrillness, which he used in rare passions of sudden, violent, but not dangerous anger.
'Tell me this instant, you fool, you drunken ape, tell me who bade you summon the horse-leech?'
'I pray you, Messere, could a sick horse be left without a leech?'