Leonardo looked at his new sovereign with attention, but discovered nothing regal in his aspect. He was lean and feeble, with narrow shoulders, a hollow chest, and a face curiously wrinkled. Evidently used to suffering, it had conferred on him neither nobility nor grace; his virtues were at best of the bourgeois type.
A young man, twenty years of age, dressed simply in black, stood on the first step of the throne. He wore no ornaments except a few pearls in the looping of his hat, and the gold chain of the Order of St. Michael: his face was pale, his flaxen hair was worn long, and he had dark blue eyes, soft, but singularly penetrating and observant.
'Tell me, Fra Luca,' whispered Leonardo, 'who is that young noble?'
'Cæsar Borgia, the son of the pope, the Duke of Valentinois,' replied the monk.
Leonardo was not ignorant of the crimes imputed to this young man. There was little doubt that he had murdered his brother in order that, exchanging the cardinal's purple for the title of Gran Gonfaloniere of the Roman Church, he might himself have the chief place in the family honours. Further, the whisper ran, that the motive of the fratricide was not ambition only, but a monstrous rivalry between the brothers for the favour of their sister Lucrezia.
'That, at least, is impossible,' thought Leonardo, looking at the calm face and clear soft eyes.
Cæsar probably felt Leonardo's scrutinising gaze, for he turned and asked his secretary some question, pointing at the artist as he spoke. The secretary, a man of venerable aspect, replied in a whisper, and Cæsar in his turn looked intently at Leonardo, while a subtle smile played upon his lips.
'Nay, it is not impossible,' thought the artist, answering his own hasty judgment; 'anything is possible to that face; perhaps even worse than we have heard.'
The spokesman of the town syndics, having finished the reading of a long and tedious document, approached the throne and presented the parchment to the king. Louis accidentally dropped it, and before the citizen could pick it up, Cæsar had stooped dexterously and quickly, had lifted the roll, and placed it in the king's hand.
'He never loses an opportunity,' grumbled some one standing near Leonardo.