The painter told Machiavelli about his interview with the duke. When he spoke of the maps of the Florentine territory Messer Niccolò grew thoughtful.
'What? You? A citizen of our republic, for our bitterest enemy? Do you know, sir, that for this you may be accused of treason?'
'Really?' said Leonardo, astonished: 'I don't wish to think so, Niccolò. I am no politician, but obey like a blind man.'
Silently they looked into each other's eyes; and each recognised the profound difference between them. The one might be said to have no country: the other loved his country, in Cæsar's phrase, 'above his own soul.'
XII
That night Niccolò went away, leaving no word as to the Whither and the Why.
He returned next day, weary and frozen, entered Leonardo's room, bolted the door, and announced that he wished to speak on a matter of profoundest secrecy. Then he began a narrative.
Three years ago, one winter evening, in a deserted corner of Romagna between Cervia and Porto Cesenatico, a body of cavalry was escorting Madonna Dorotea, wife of Battista Caracciolo, captain of infantry in the service of the Serenissima Signoria of Venice, and her cousin, Maria, a fifteen year old novice in an Urbino convent, from Urbino to Venice. Horsemen armed and masked fell on the party, seized the ladies, put them on horses, and carried them off. From that day they had not been heard of. The Council and Senate of Venice, considering themselves outraged in the person of their captain, appealed to Louis XII., to the King of Spain, and to the pope, openly accusing the Duke of Romagna of the abduction of Dorotea. However, they could not prove their case, and Cæsar replied mockingly that, having no lack of women, he had not occasion to steal them by highway robbery. Reports began to be current, moreover, that Dorotea had quickly consoled herself, and that, having forgotten her husband, she followed the duke in all his campaigns.
Maria, however, had a brother, Messer Dionigi, a young captain in the service of Florence. When all the complaints of the Florentine Signoria, before whom he had laid the matter, proved as vain as the representations of the Venetians, Dionigi determined to act on his own authority. He presented himself before the duke under a feigned name, gained his confidence, obtained admission to the dungeon of the Castle of Cesena, found his sister, disguised her as a boy, and made his escape with her. But at the Perugian frontier the fugitives were overtaken, Dionigi was killed, and Maria haled back to her prison.