Leonardo's Dragon: Da Vinci's Cases - An Adventure of Young Leonardo
Da Vinci's Cases, Volume 7
Published by Cassiopeiapress/Alfredbooks, 2017.
Title Page
Leonardo’s Dragon
Copyright
Chapter 1: The Ambush
Chapter 2: Gunpowder Steam and Gunfire
Chapter 3: Who is behind it?
Chapter 4: Back in Florence
Chapter 5: The Creepy One
Chapter 6: The Serious Side of Life
Chapter 7: Apprentice Leonardo
Chapter 8: The Sinister V
Chapter 9: Kept Promises
Chapter 10: Flying dragons
Chapter 11: The Man in the Shadow
Chapter 12: Chased!
Chapter 13: In the palace
Chapter 14: Crash
Chapter 15: Go to the Toads Gorge!
Chapter 16: Return
Further Reading: Da Vinci's Cases: Three Adventures of Young Leonardo
Also By Alfred Bekker
About the Publisher
Da Vinci's Cases
by Alfred Bekker
The scope of this book is 148 pages paperback.
The young Leonardo da Vinci is to learn the craft of painting in Florence. As soon as he arrived, he prevents an assassination attempt on Piero de Medici, the City Lord of Florence. He gets an insight into precious, old documents and discovers design drawings of flight kites, which he imitates immediately enthusiastically. But suddenly the assassins emerge again in the city and look for Leonardo. Will he find a way to escape them?
Alfred Bekker, born in 1964, writes fantasy, historical novels, criminal novels and books for young readers. His historical adventures for young readers are full of suspense, stuff which even kids who hate reading cannot resist.
The German-language print editions appeared in 2008/2009 in the Arena Taschenbuchverlag;
Translations are available in Turkish, Indonesian, Danish and Bulgarian.
© by Alfred Bekker
© 2017 of the digital edition AlfredBekker/CassiopeiaPress
A CassiopeiaPress E-Book
www.AlfredBekker.de
www.postmaster@alfredbekker.de
In the year 1465 ...
From the crest of the hill you could look over the whole country. In the distance the star-shaped walls of Florence rose. A convoy of armed riders had just emerged from one of the city gates. Banners fluttered in the wind.
"Our City Lord Piero de 'Medici and his entourage," Leonardo noted. "Look, a ride into the countryside ..."
"Just tell me, you can see everything from here," said Clarissa mockingly, rubbing a strand of hair from the sweat-covered forehead. The climb had been quite exhausting.
"No, I know it from my father, who, after all, works for the City Lord," admitted Leonardo. Then he suddenly stopped. There was something moving near a tree group. Several men, armed with crossbows and arquebuses, went into position there. Exactly where the convoy would pass ...
Preparations for an attack! This thought flashed through Leonardo’s mind.
"Come on," Leonardo said. "If we hurry, we can catch the horsemen. The road goes a wide curve, and you have to take the bridge over the river before passing the roadmen."
"Wait, Leonardo!" Clarissa shouted.
They were both thirteen years old. Clarissa had dark brown, long hair, which she had braided to a loose plait, which hung her to her waist. She wore a dress almost reaching the knees and not really suitable for climbing. "From the beginning, I should not have agreed coming here with you," she said. "Leonardo, wait, for heaven’s sake!"
"No, it must go fast!"
He wore dark trousers, a leather vest, and a white shirt. Since his father had become a highly respected, rather wealthy personality in Florence, he insisted that Leonardo should wear shoes all the time. Previously, when he had lived among the peasants in the village of Vinci – a day trip away –, Leonardo had almost always walked barefooted. And so the shoes were still very unfamiliar to him. They made him more slowly, so he felt about it.
He stumbled and slid down the slope more than he ran. When he had arrived at the ground, he tore his shoes off his feet and threw them aside. If the City Lord of Florence could be warned in advance of an attack, this was definitely more important than a pair of shoes!
Clarissa had fallen behind him. She'll find me, he thought.
Actually, they had come here to observe animals. Above all, the flight of birds interested Leonardo. The hill was a good place to have a look at them. Swallows, crows, pigeons, sometimes a hunting eagle or a buzzard. The way they used their wings fascinated him each time anew. Leonardo had noticed that they were very different. Some kept the wings quite calm and could be carried simply by the winds. Others fluttered wildly. One day, as Leonardo had planned, he would fly, too. And since the human being could not simply grow wings, you had to build a machine for it!
Already in Vinci, where he had lived with his grandfather, Leonardo had made dozens of drawings of such flying machines. It was, however, much more difficult to build such a machine than thinking it over. Leonardo had noticed that quickly. And yet he was not willing to give up. One day, he would manage it. He had only to watch the birds closely enough, because, after all, they could fly and therefore had somehow discovered this secret.
Clarissa had come with him because she was bored, and also because Leonardo had enthused over all the things which were to be discovered there. There was something else Leonardo had been looking for on the hill. Where the rock came out of the grass and the moss on the ground and where small crevices and caves could be found, also many lizards and salamanders lived. They scurried across the floor or paused with a calm which impressed the boy, then moving with an extraordinary sudden. The living lizards were often too fast to be caught. At least Leonardo had hardly succeeded in catching them. But now and then you found a dead animal. And this little carcass could then be cut apart and examined closely.
But all this was not important at the moment.
Leonardo ran through a small forest to the place where a narrow wooden bridge crossed the river. The road then passed the other bank, and finally passed the place where Leonardo saw the robbery lurking. Just good, that none of them had turned around. But that was not surprising, because their eyes were concentrated on the road, and they were probably looking towards Florence now, because they could hardly wait for their victim coming in reach of their arquebuses and crossbows.
Leonardo continued to run. He fought his way through the undergrowth of a small forest, and then had reached the bridge where Piero de 'Medici and his followers would come along. From there, the road ran along the bank, twisted several times, and finally reached the place where the ambush had been laid.
Leonardo had just arrived in time. The group of riders had not really hurried. Just before the bridge, they stopped again. Piero de 'Medici – to be recognized at once by his brocade-studded, very precious jerkin, and the plate-shaped, velvet-colored cap on which a pheasant feather was pinned – was shown a map by one of his companions. Both men gestured with outstretched arms in the area and sometimes made far-reaching movements. Probably it was about who owned a piece of land in the area. Here, the Medici family also had a lot of land. Maybe something should be sold or they were looking for a good location for a villa in the country where you could spend the hot summer. In the narrow streets of Florence it often smelled a little rotten when the wind was unfavorable. In the case of drought, the River Arno, flowing through Florence, caused only a small amount of water, and when too many of the waste water from the craft workshops and toilets entered the river, an unpleasant smell hung over the city. In addition, there were frequent plagues in the city – and then the rich were happy to go back to take shelter in their country houses outside the walls.
Leonardo placed himself in the middle of the bridge.
One of the armed attendants of the City Lord came forward to meet him. The hooves rattled on the wooden planks. The man carried a sword at his side. The harness glittered in the sun. It was one of the mercenaries of the Medici family, which was recognized by the stripes sewn on the sleeves of his shirt called livery. Only very rich families could afford to dress their mercenaries, servants, or other staff in such uniforms. And the Medici family was by far the richest family in Florence. It was not without reason that their chief was also lord of the city. Nothing happened here without the will of Piero de 'Medici.
The mercenary restrained his horse which whinnied loudly, for a moment even standing on its hind legs.
"Are you crazy, boy? Go to the side!" cried the mercenary.
"Not further!" Leonardo shouted back. "If you follow the road along the river, there are bandits lying in wait for you!"
The mercenary had now brought his horse back under control. "What are you talking about?" he asked.
"They are waiting for you to attack the City Lord – robbers, no mile from here. You must not go further! There are at least two dozen men with arquebuses and crossbows – and you are not half of them."
"What's going on there?" Piero de Medici now shouted.
The Lord of Florence pressed his knees in the horse's sides, and pushed it forward to the bridge.
Leonardo passed the somewhat perplexed mercenary, straight to the noble lord. Then he gestured a bow.
"Greetings, honorable Ser Piero de 'Medici," said Leonardo.
Piero frowned, then glanced at Leonardo's bare feet, which had been quite dirty by barefoot walking through the forest with its dark, damp ground, and frowned even more.
"I know you from somewhere," he said. "I've seen you somewhere, even if I cannot remember such dirty feet."
"We have already met," Leonardo said. "Namely in your palace in Florence."
"I hardly believe anyone with unwashed feet would be admitted to enter there."
"Oh, I've worn shoes! I am Leonardo di Ser Piero, the son of your notary and writer Ser Piero, who bears the same name as you. However, I am accustomed to use the name Leonardo da Vinci."
"Vinci? Isn’t that a tiny village near Empoli, about a day trip away from here?"
"That’s right, my lord. But now I implore you, do not ride on! The lunts are probably already lit and the crossbows strained. They're just waiting for you to pass the ambush and fall into the trap."
At that moment, Clarissa finally appeared at the bridge. She had picked up Leonardo's shoes and brought them with her.
"As I see, you are not alone," the City Lord emphasized. Just recently, he had become head of the Medici family and Lord of Florence, after his predecessor Cosimo de 'Medici had died at the age of eighty. The old man he had been called Cosimo, and Leonardo's father had already worked for him, too. Once, Cosimo had even granted the boy Leonardo access to the vaults of an incomprehensible large library. Leonardo remembered this with particular joy, for he had a great thirst for knowledge.
At that time they had still lived in Vinci and had only been to a visit in the big city. This had now changed, for even the grandfather, with whom Leonardo had lived until recently, had meanwhile passed away. And so he lived with his father and his second wife in Florence.
Leonardo turned to Clarissa briefly. "This is Clarissa di Stefano, a relative of my stepmother. Clarissa is currently living in our house."
"My father served your family as the head of the Medici Bank in Pisa," she said. "Since my parents died of a plague, I live in Florence."
"Then you come from good family," said Piero de 'Medici. "It is all the more surprising to me that you are wandering around here in this wilderness without anyone paying attention to you."
Clarissa crossed the bridge, pushed past the mercenary's horse and gave Leonardo the shoes. "Here you are, you should better wear them again, shouldn’t you?"
Piero de 'Medici now gave a few instructions to his mercenaries. "Ride a curve and approach the place the boy has described from the hills. Perhaps you will be able to catch at least one of the guys, so we can find out who is behind this plan."
"I am pleased to lead you to a place where they can be well observed," said Leonardo. He turned to the mercenary on the bridge. "Isn’t your name Niccolo?" he asked. "I have seen you in the palace."
"I remember you, too," Niccolo nodded. "Cosimo was still alive, and you have grown quite a bit since then."
"Leave your horses here, and then I'll lead you to the place I mean."
Niccolo turned to his master. "What do you think, sir?" he asked. "This is perhaps not a bad suggestion."
"All right," Piero de 'Medici nodded. "But take care that the boy will not be hurt!"
Leonardo knew that the City Lord’s concern did not mean him personally. The fact that Leonardo's father, as a notary and clerk, had in the meantime set up many important documents and contracts for the Medici House, did not play any great role either. More important was the fact that his stepmother came from one of the most prestigious Florentine families, who had always stood faithfully on the side of the Medici. So, any trouble should be avoided.
Several of the mercenaries now got off their horses. Some had crossbows, one even an arquebus. Apparently Piero de 'Medici had already reckoned with the possibility that he might be attacked. Again and again there were power struggles between the most important families in the city. Even after Cosimo had died, some people had thought that perhaps the right time had now come to snatch the power over the Republic of Florence away from the Medici family.
Leonardo turned to Clarissa. "Please take care of my shoes for another while," he said.
Then he turned to Niccolo. "Come! But do not make a noise, otherwise the men in the ambush will notice us."
Leonardo led the men through the small forest and then up the hill. Six men accompanied him – the rest of the squad remained with Piero de 'Medici. Surely the men in the ambush were wondering why the City Lord and his entourage had not yet arrived.
A completely different question was how they knew, that just today the City Lord would take this route. Apparently they are well informed, Leonardo thought. Perhaps there is someone in the palace who regularly provides them with information. A spy working either for one of the families hostile to the Medici, or perhaps even from another neighbor sovereign, to whom the Medici rule in Florence was a thorn in his flesh.
They climbed the hills. But Leonardo led the mercenaries in a different way than the one he himself had taken a few moments ago. It was a path leading closer to the place where the ambush had been laid. Therefore, they had to pay more attention to make no noise, and most of the time they were crouching. Behind the numerous bushes that grew here, cover could be found easily.
Finally, the unknowns lying in the ambush came in sight. Leonardo saw for the first time that the strangers had kindled torches. But it was not because it was too dark on this sunny day! They needed the torches to light the lunts of their arquebuses as soon as the situation would become serious.
For two minutes such a fuse was burning. If you did not give a shot during this time, you had to take a new fuse and attach it to the hook, with which the burning end was then dipped into the powder so that the shot went off. Leonardo also saw the remains of a camp fire.
"They are not shrubs," muttered Niccolo. "These men are mercenaries like us! Well-equipped servants of war."
"I wonder who hired them," said one of the other mercenaries, who now put a bolt in his crossbow and tightened the weapon.
"What do you think, who asked these servants to lay the ambush?" Leonardo asked.
"Stop now, and do not ask so much," Niccolo replied pretty harshly.
His whispering voice sounded like the hissing of one of the snakes one could find in this area.
Niccolo made a few gestures towards his companions. They nodded to him, probably a sign that they had understood him. The mercenaries dispersed. A few of these signs were for Leonardo. In the first moment he did not comprehend, but then he understood what Niccolo wanted from him. He should make himself small and hide behind the bushes. Then Niccolo's gaze fell to the ground, half an arm's length from the boy. Leonardo saw that the face of the mercenary had changed strangely. It now expressed deepest disgust and horror, and in the first moment the boy could not explain what that meant.
Then his eyes fell deeper and hit the ground.
Now Leonardo noticed what happened, too. A dead lizard, which he had found on the hills, had slipped out of the bundle he had laced on the side of his belt. It simply consisted of a piece of coarse jute which he had cut out of a flour sack and usually used to filter the water of rivers and streams for ponds and other floating components. He would have caught tadpoles with it, for example. And since he had been in use for a few years, it was full of stains. The blood of dead birds and mice had left their marks there as well as a number of other substances, all of which had in common that they smelled strong and bad.
In the house of his grandfather, Leonardo had had his own room, in which he had eagerly pursued various experiments. Cutting dead animals, examining their organs, and finding out how they were structured within, had been one of his favorite activities. Fortunately, his grandfather had not had such a delicate sense of smell.
Leonardo reached for the lizard, wrapped it again in the piece of jute, and tightened the bundle more firmly than he had done so far.
"That's disgusting," Niccolo whispered, shaking his head uncomprehendingly.
At that moment a scream sounded. From further above on the hills, a man appeared. Obviously, he was one of the armed servants who had planned the attack. Their leader had probably sent him up there to find out where the City Lord of Florence and his entourage remained. Now, of course, he could see Leonardo and Niccolo as well as the men who had come with them.
His scream was so loud and penetrating that the armed servants immediately turned around. One of them fired his arquebus. Powder of steam rose.
The shot went over Leonardo and Niccolo. The bullet struck a gnarled, half-dried tree which had been split by a lightning some time ago. There was a big hole on his main trunk.
A second shot was fired. Niccolo's men now defended themselves and came out of their cover. The crossbow man made the bolt he had just inserted pass through the air. The shots and the fight cries were doubtlessly also to be heard up to the bridge, where Piero de 'Medici had remained with the rest of his men.
"Stay in cover, boy!" Niccolo shouted as he drew his sword and rushed forward.
Of course, Leonardo could not stay in his hiding place. He was just too curious about what was going on.
The armed servants, who had been lying in the ambush, were now running to their horses, which they had tied in a certain distance at a group of trees. One of them waited there and began to untie them. Once again, an arquebus rattled. Then, already the first members of the gang rode away. The others also hurried to enter the saddle as quickly as possible. The horses whinnied. The crossbowman had meanwhile reloaded his weapon, which was always a bit cumbersome. By the time he had inserted the bolt, the bandits had long gone. Even the man on the hill was no longer to be seen. In the distance Leonardo heard the gallop of their horses.
"Such a crap! We will not catch any of them," the crossbowman said, and Niccolo could only agree with him.
"Let us be glad that our Lord has not been trapped," he said. "I'd like to know who sent those men."
"Maybe you can figure it out," Leonardo mixed in.
Niccolo pocketed his sword and put his arms on his hips. "Well, you seem to be a know-it-all! How do you want to manage that?"
"Perhaps these men have left traces, from which one can conclude who is the boss in the background. Let us look!"
Leonardo did not even wait for an answer, but just ran off.
Niccolo turned to the crossbow man again. "Cristian, go with him! The others get the horses."
Leonardo scarcely noticed that Cristian, the crossbowman, had followed him. Therefore, he was jerking when noticing him.
"Unfortunately, the guys were not so friendly to leave us a revealing document," said Cristian mockingly. "Several horses' apples lie where they had tied their horses, but otherwise they have not left anything important."
Leonardo scratched his chin. A torch, stucking in the ground and still burning, interested him. He pulled the shaft out of the ground. The pitch was almost completely burned. "They have been waiting quite a long time here," said Leonardo. "Or they had to save the pitch for the torch."
"Indeed, pitch isn’t really cheap," Cristian replied. "Oh, boy, it's always the same. If they were ordinary thieves, they would have had scarcely any arquebuses. No, they were assassins! Murderers who wanted to kill our Lord."
"Who could be considered for such an act?" Leonardo asked. "And above all, who would profit from Piero de 'Medici with a bullet in his head?"
Cristian laughed roughly. "I think our Lord Sir Piero knows best!"
"Really, does he?"
"Probably the families whose representatives are most friendly to him in the Senate, and always agree with his proposals." He shrugged and strapped his crossbow on his back. "Most of the time, it’s like this. If a man rules, he is surrounded by false friends, who cannot wait in truth that the one who is at the top will fall."
"In any case, these men were not very skilled at dealing with the arquebuses," Leonardo said.
Cristian frowned.
"How do you know that? Are you a clairvoyant?"
"No, but that is quite clear! If they had really been skilled, they would have gone to cover the other side of the road, and they would have laid in ambush there."
Cristian did not understand Leonardo’s idea. "What can be said against this place? They could well hide here."
"But the wind would have given the arriving riders the smell of the burning lunts. If they had been skilled shooters, they would have thought of that."
Cristian nodded. "Yes, may be that you are right. I personally do not trust these new firearms. They are too cumbersome to me, and before you could say Jack Robinson they are exploding in your hands."
"Only if you take too much powder!" Leonardo informed him.
"How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"I would not know an army that would take such gnats. How do you know all that?"
"Oh, not so important," said Leonardo. He had no desire to tell this mercenary of all the experiments he had done in recent years. He had always been interested in nature, but also the construction of machines and how one could use the forces of nature as a fuel for machines – all this fascinated him. What kind of substances burned, which ones did explode and which ones couldn’t be damaged by fire at all and why? These were questions which were as interesting to him as the stomach contents of a dead mouse, or the way in which wasps made of scraped wooden crumbs a paper-like material with which they built their nests. Once, in one of these experiments, he had lit by a hair’s breadth the house of his grandfather, whereupon his father’s father had strictly forbidden him to do anything with fire. Of course he had not kept his promise to do so. He had only become more cautious.
Once, soldiers had camped near Vinci. Of course Leonardo had not missed the opportunity to observe how they handled their arquebuses and what was to be considered.
But he had already had the experience that people who did not know him so well often found it displeasing when he told them about his studies. Some were simply disgusted when he talked about the intestines and bones of dead animals he had dissected. When it dealt with fire, they all thought it too dangerous and began to warn him. But as soon as he spoke of his own machines, most of them thought he was crazy. He had designed dozens of machines in his imagination and made pencil drawings. Flying machines, war machines, machines that could swim and dive in the water, and so on. Even a whole city he had constructed after he had made a visit to Florence with his father at the stinking summer time and had been annoyed with the fact that one had to take care in the streets everywhere, not to get into any dirt. Consequently, he had imagined a town with sewage canals and a system of pipes which could be used to send mail to any house, and he had produced drawings about this town on not less than twenty sheets of paper, which had to be placed side by side to form a complete picture of the new Florence.
His grandfather had let him do as he liked. At least when there was not any danger concerning the things he did. But Leonardo had also had to realize that he was regarded as a crazy nerd by many other people and sometimes it was better not to talk so much about all the ideas and thoughts he was toying with.