'My poor innocent crystals, which had done them no manner of wrong,' mourned the friar! Reached the piazza before the castle, they saw a young French dandy attended by a numerous suite on the drawbridge.
'Maître Gilles!' cried Fra Luca overjoyed; and he explained to Leonardo that this was a considerable and authoritative personage; his title, 'Whistler to the woodhens,' his office, to teach the finches, magpies, parrots, and thrushes of the most Christian king their feats of singing, talking, dancing, and other performances. Rumour asserted that the 'woodhens' were not the only bipeds who danced to the piping of Maître Gilles; and altogether Fra Luca had long felt that he must be presented with his books (richly bound) De Divina Proportione and Summa Aritmetica.
'Fra Luca,' said Leonardo, 'do not lose your opportunity—attend Maître Gilles. I can manage my own case.'
'No, no,' said the other, somewhat ashamed, 'I can wait; or I will just fly to him for an instant and learn whither he is going, and in a trice I will be back with you—go you on towards Monsieur de la Trémouille.'
And gathering up the skirts of his brown habit, his bare feet shod with clattering wooden pattens, the nimble monk ran after the 'Whistler to the Woodhens'; while Leonardo crossed the drawbridge and entered the inner court of the castle.
IV
The morning mists were rising, and the watch-fires already dying down. The courtyard was crowded with cannon, ammunition, camp equipage, stable provender and refuse. All around were movable booths and cooking-spits, empty barrels serving as card-tables, hogsheads of wine, barrows of provisions; great noises of laughter, curses, quarrelings in many tongues, blasphemies, drunken shoutings and songs. At times an interval of sudden stillness when officers of rank passed. At times drums beat and brazen trumpets gave signal to the Rhenish and Suabian lanzknechts, or Alpine horns were blown from the walls by mercenaries from the Free Cantons of Uri and Unterwalden.
Making his way through the crowd of men and things, Leonardo reached the centre of the square and found that the Colossus, the happy labour for years of his maturest art, was still intact. The great duke, conqueror of Lombardy, Francesco Attendolo Sforza, with his bald head, in form like that of some Roman emperor, and his expression of leonine cruelty and vulpine cunning, erect as ever, still sat his huge plunging charger and trampled on his foe.
A great crowd of archers of various nationalities surrounded the statue, disputing each in his own language, and gesticulating. Leonardo gathered that a contest was imminent between a French and a German marksman, who, after drinking four tankards of wine were to shoot at a distance of fifty paces at the birthmark on the cheek of the great Sforza. The paces were measured; lots were drawn as to who should shoot first; the wine was poured out. The German drank the fill of a tankard without drawing breath, another, and another, and another. Then he took his aim, bent the bow, launched his arrow, and missed the mark. The arrow grazed the cheek, and took off the tip of the left ear, but did no further damage. It was now the turn of the Frenchman. He had brought his arbalist to his shoulder, when a commotion arose among the onlookers. The crowd divided, making space for the procession of a knight and his escort of resplendent followers. He rode past, not heeding the marksmen.