‘I see,’ I drank some wine. Salai smiled and patted me on the knee.
‘Yer will,’ he asserted.
‘Aren’t you going to get dressed?’ I asked him.
He was magnificent, sprawling on the bench. Long limbs, flat belly, perfect Vitruvian proportions. He had olive skin, dark eyes, and long, curly dark hair. He had the Grecian nose which il Maestro favoured for his angels and red, full lips. He was a workman. The state of his hands showed me that. He was pampered. His skin had been washed with expensive soap and oiled with good olive oil. He was the most beautiful human I had ever seen and my fingers itched to ... well, to sketch him, as he was probably taken and kissing him senseless might be imprudent.
‘Nah,’ he drawled in his coarse voice. ‘Master might want me and then I’d ‘ave to get undressed again,’ and he ran a gentle finger up his bronzed thigh to a drop of wine which he had spilled. He took it up, and then licked his finger. I caught my breath and he smiled lazily, pleased with the effect he was having on me.
Well, that answered THAT question. Hands to yourself, Francesco. I wrapped them firmly around my wine cup. At that moment a stocky man in a long gown clipped Salai over the ear and dropped a bundle of cloth in his insolent lap.
‘Slut,’ said the man, dispassionately. ‘Put some clothes on. You dishonour a gentleman’s house, you scapegrace. You stole the coins to buy this gown, so you might as well wear it!’
Salai shrugged his way into the gown, which was of fine indigo wool. My father imports indigo. The robe would have been very costly. And he stole the coins to buy it? From his master? Why was he still here, and not flogged in the marketplace?
‘Signor Raffaelo,’ the stocky man introduced himself. ‘Housemaster. Pay no heed to this creature. The Maestro keeps him for a pet. He has a lot of pets. We’ve almost got him house-broken,’ he added, and Salai laughed. It was a very joyous, very childish laugh, so infectious that I joined in. And that was how I met Gia Giacomogaprotti de Oreno, known as Salai.
I joined the Da Vinci household in 1506, when I was sixteen, to learn to be an artist. I was diligent and always absolutely riveted by whatever il maestro said or did. He was the most amazing man in the world. He knew everything - stars, plants, animals, people; pigments and stains and paints; carving, sculpting, building, engineering; machines, gears, wheels, ballistics, wings, hydraulics. But he flitted. He was infinitely distractable. When drawing some really important schematics for a bombard for the Duke, he caught sight of reflections in raindrops and covered a whole folio sheet with them. The Duke had not been impressed. He missed an important audience with a bishop because he was nursing three orphaned kittens and could not leave them, and would not adventure their delicate persons in journeying. And he told the bishop, when he called, why he had not come at his bidding. His voice was direct, clear and very pleasant to hear. He could sing like a lark and play a harp like King David. If he stood still under a tree, birds came and settled on his hands and shoulders and Signor Raffaelo complained about the droppings all over his gown. Again.
And he was never cruel. Occasionally he lost his temper - mostly with Salai, stealing again, tom-catting around the town, fighting, getting drunk, only a saint wouldn’t have lost his temper with Salai. But he loved that reprobate, and always forgave him after a day or two. Salai would weep, kiss his feet and promise to be good, and Leonardo would smile and forgive him, and everyone in the household knew that Salai would break out and get into trouble again in a few months’ time. Including Leonardo. Including Salai.
When il Maestro did lose his temper, all we had to do was hear him out - his oaths were remarkable, an education in themselves, he could swear in six languages - and then offer a pot of the herbal tisane he favoured for cooling, thyme and citron, sweetened with honey. And something new. Raffaelo kept a cabinet of curiosities with which to distract the master when he was despondent. He would always respond well if we bought him a cage of wild birds from the market. He would walk out into the meadow behind our house and open the lid, and cry out with pleasure as they flew away. I once brought him a perfect little nest, no bigger than a cupping glass, which a dormouse had made for her babies. They had grown up and gone, but the nest was a tiny miracle of chewed and knotted grass, lined with tufts of cat fur. This had made the master laugh with joy and earned me an approving glance from Raffaelo. There were no beatings in Leonard da Vinci’s house. He was so benevolent and wise a man that no one wanted to disappoint him. Except, of course, Salai.
The master never had a mistress, as far as I knew. But he had Salai, who lay with him and solaced him with his flesh. Salai was decorative and uncomplicated. He had never been overburdened with thoughts or worries. I think that is why Leonardo loved him. To the master, the flesh was simple. He valued love. “If there is not love, then what?” he said. “Love binds the forces of the universe together. Why else should the sun shine, if not for love of the moon?” It seemed like a reasonable question. And even though I was destined to be only a mediocre painter, I could not leave this fascinating man. I became his secretary, squeezing unpaid fees out of noble patrons, reminding them politely that to make their tower invulnerable, the architect must eat. And his numerous household, which always included the usual domestic animals, plus the master’s birds. Only in Leonardo Da Vinci’s house was the perpetual war between the creatures suspended. Cats did not hunt, dogs did not chase cats, raptors did not take mice. He was a magician. We all fell under his spell.
Except Salai, of course. I loved to look at him as he wandered around the house nude. He was utterly beautiful. I wondered what his skin would feel like, it seemed so smooth and glossy. How that curly hair would spring between my fingers if... and then I dragged my lustful mind to heel by its lead and went right back to trying to understand the mathematics of water, which are complex beyond belief. Salai knew that I desired him. Sometimes, when we went out into the town to feast on meat - Leonardo Da Vinci’s house ate no meat, except for the raptors and the cats - Salai would slide an arm around my waist, lean his head on my shoulder. He always smelt sweet and musky.
‘Yer can kiss me,’ he would growl. ‘I won’t tell.’
‘No,’ I would put him gently away, aware that my hands were trembling and my body was yelling yes yes yes yes please!
‘Yer want me,’ he would say, puzzled.
‘Of course I do,’ I would push him away from me. ‘But you belong to il Maestro. However much I want you, I will never have you. On what shall we dine? Roast pork, Salai, or roast mutton?’
He always voted for pork.
When the Duke died in 1513 we knew that we would have to leave. Only by being himself, il Maestro had alienated three quarters of the powerful men in Milan, and Ludovico’s successor was not in favour of conflict. I handled the correspondence. The best offer, agreeably unconditional, came from the King of France. So there I was, at the tail of a long mule train, my bosom squirming with kittens, Madonna Luisa their mother sitting on my saddle bow - balancing admirably with her tail - and Salai riding beside me. We had bought a salami at the last village, since we had heard that they did not make such things in France, and Salai was cutting chunks off it and sharing them with me, Madonna Luisa, and Forte, one of the bigger dogs. Forte was not all that hungry, because he had already caught and eaten a rabbit in decent privacy, out of il Maestro’s sight. Some dogs have a lot of tact.
‘‘E’s sick,’ commented Salai. I swallowed my bite of greasy, garlicky sausage.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘He’s been getting weaker for days. This will be his last journey. But he’s travelling in style in that coach the King sent. And we’re going to a fine house, they say.’
‘’E knows,’ said Salai.
‘He’s the wisest man in the world,’ I agreed. ‘Well, he’s brought all his notebooks, the paintings, the animals, the household, we’ll be all right.’
Salai snarled at me. ‘Not without ‘im!’
‘No,’ I agreed. When I looked back at him, Salai was weeping. I had wondered