Which was something new for him, see? Instead of useless things, here were pictures of gears and blades and ratchets, with soldiers and horses getting cut to little pieces by them. “Giovanni,” I said to myself, “you’re looking at a fortune here!”
So I beat out the fire, and I gave Leo all the pens and paper he wanted. I went off to the kitchen and made him a nice dish of fried cheese. And while I cooked I figured, figured, all the time figured the angles.
Well. You heard of Galeazzo Sforza, eh? Duke of Milan, Lord of Genoa, the one they call il orrendo? Yes, him.
He was crazy mean. The kind of little boy who liked to pull wings off flies, and worse when he grew up. No beauty, either; eyes too close together and a weak chin. But he respected artists, signore.
The duke had only been on the throne a couple of years then, but people already knew the way his tastes ran, which is why I thought of him when I saw Leo’s pictures. So Leo wrote this beautiful letter to him, about what he could design for his dungeons and armies. I told him what to write. Such a letter we sent, signore! Such a lot of promises we made. I knew it was our necks in the halter if we couldn’t deliver, but I had faith in Leo.
Pretty soon the duke sent a letter back, too, mostly saying, “Why don’t you boys come to my palace in Milan so we can have a nice little talk?” It came at a good time, because Isabella’s papa was about to send over a couple of his boys for a little talk with me, you follow, signore? So I bundled up Leo and his books and papers and pens on one fast horse, and me on another, and away we went.
Now, one book Leo had with him was by this old Greek named Hero, full of clockwork and infernal machines. Leo studied the whole time we traveled. First, he copied the pictures. Then he made new drawings, taking all the old machines apart on paper and mixing up the pieces. Every inn we stopped at, he’d sit there at a table, drawing, while I got the drinks and talked to girls. We had to buy another horse to carry all the ideas Leo had.
We went to see the duke, in Milan. You know what he was doing, when we were shown in? He was gambling with a pretty girl. He’d bet her she couldn’t keep an egg in her open mouth from the stroke of noon until midnight. Her father’s life was the stake. She was standing there the whole time with tears in her sweet eyes, her mouth stretched wide around this goose egg, and I knew her jaws must have been aching bad. He was just ignoring her. If I didn’t know what kind of man he was before, I knew then.
But I acted big, I told him about the great machines Leo invented, that would make him powerful as Caesar, Alexander, Charlemagne! And, maybe I’m a little crude when I express myself, and I was only a country boy then and didn’t know much about impressing people. I could see the duke smiling, like he was going to enjoy sending us to the dungeon for wasting his time.
Lucky for us both, Leo had his papers with the drawings all ready, and his beautiful clear handwriting that anybody could read. Leo bowed before him and offered the sketchbook. The duke looked at the pages, and he couldn’t take his eyes away after he’d seen the picture on top. He started reading, saying nothing, turning pages. After a while he called for some wine. He didn’t give us any. We stood there, and the girl stood there too with the egg still in her mouth, staring at us. The sun slanted across the tiles on the floor and the fountain outside splashed the whole time.
Finally the duke closed the sketchbook. He asked Leo if he could really build all these devices, and I told him of course we could! Only, we’d need some of his best armorers and blacksmiths, not to mention money. “Well,” said the duke, “Smart boys like you, you’ll have everything you want!”
I thought to myself, “Giovanni, your fortune’s made!”
So you can imagine, signore, how I nearly wet myself when Leo walked over to the girl and took the egg out of her mouth. Who were we, to criticize a rich man’s fun? But the duke, he took it all right. He just laughed and said we could have the girl too.
Her name was Fiammetta. She was crazy in love with Leo from that moment. Waited on him hand and foot, in the nice rooms the duke gave us. Cooked and cleaned and brushed his clothes, which was nice for me, because I was too busy for that now.
But, signore, you should know that Leo is chaste. Eh? No, no, not like that at all. It’s all up here with him, see? So you can be sure there wasn’t nothing sinful going on. Which I’m telling you in case your king has any question about his morals.
So, I got busy. We had a whole kind of blacksmith-studio to build, and workers to hire. I got a clerk to copy Leo’s drawings and pass them out to the workers, so everybody understood what we were making. There was iron and coal to buy. Getting it all up and running was like making a big machine, too, but I’m good at that. I can run around, yell at people to get going. I push things, you see? And I pushed Leo on the job, so his mind didn’t wander. He kept wanting to change the design once he’d finished, kept having new ideas. “Leo,” I told him, “get organized! One thing at a time!”
But, once all the workmen understood Leo’s designs, he could afford to draw his little pictures. The big machine started rolling. The master smith, smart man named Marulli, such a pity he’s dead now, he really caught fire with the idea of Leo’s steam engine. He even pointed out one or two ways it could work better. Pretty soon the forges were going day and night. The workers were coming in all hours and forgetting to eat, they were so excited.
The duke himself came in to watch. I showed him all the models, and the work going on. He had the brains to appreciate good ideas. He was happy with our work, I tell you. There was a look in his nasty little eyes that was almost pure. You know what I mean? Bad men don’t love God or other men, but sometimes they love things, and that’s the closest they ever get to being human.
So what happened? The duke got himself armed for war and, sure enough, one started. The Ligurians sent in condottieri to take Pavia.
Yes, Pavia, you know the name? Famous siege. Changed the way wars were going to be fought forever after, and I should know, because I was there. You want to hear what really happened?
Pavia was defended pretty good. Il orrendo had built new walls only a little while before. The condottieri got there and saw they had one tough nut to crack. Then up came this Pavian traitor named Lazzaro Doria, and he said to them: “Say, there’s this big place called the Mirabello over there, it’s the duke’s own hunting estate with walls and a castle, and he ain’t home. If you camp there, you can starve out the Pavians from a nice defensible position.”
“Good,” said the condottieri. Pretty soon they were living high, eating venison from the duke’s own park while the Pavians were rationing food, marching out in the morning to make big threats and fire off a gun or two. At night they slept in the duke’s feather beds. One soft campaign!
Until the duke heard about it. I was there when he got the news and I saw him smile. Uh-oh, I said to myself, I sure wouldn’t want to be those condottieri.
“Barelli,” he said, “I think we’ll give our new toys a test. Load the engines; we’re going to Mirabello.”
Well, that was easier said than done, because of what-you-callems, logistics. But I’m good at pulling things together, see? All we had ready was the Horse, but I pulled Leo from playing with his models and got him to make a few changes. We finished a few other little surprises too. And on the day the wagons rolled for Mirabello, Fiammetta begged to come along. Just like a woman, eh? Crazy in love. We took her with us, in the baggage train.