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Hedy listened for quite a while, suddenly realizing he was singing Petrarch's sonnet.
At that moment, a long gust of wind passed through the hall, lifting the pages of the manuscript on the table, and the faint scent of hyacinths lingered in the air. The sound of the lyre wrapped around them, as if the song had entered her very soul.
She looked up at him, and in her surprise, she suddenly understood many things.
He was not just the Leonardo da Vinci of the Louvre.
He was the designer of stage effects, the creator of war machines.
He drew blueprints for city designs in his notebooks, eagerly studied the anatomy of human muscles.
He could create entirely new instruments, play and sing ancient ballads, and have a profound reverence for both nature and science.
While others were still immersed in the dark, present world constructed by the Bible, living mediocre lives solely for the hope of reaching heaven after death, he was, right before her eyes, so vividly, fully, and fearlessly alive.
He probably didn’t even need a lover.
Later generations speculated that he might have been asexual or suspected him of being homosexual, but those were just rumors without any concrete evidence.
Yet this Leonardo, even if he lived for decades alone, probably lived a happier life than countless others.
From medicine to science, from nature to music, his endless exploration and discovery of each field brought him sheer contentment.
When the song "At This Moment, Silence Falls" ended, Leonardo looked up at her, smiling and waving the bow.
"How was it?"
Hedy snapped out of her reverie and instinctively started clapping. "It was beautiful."
"I was once invited to Milan to be a court musician, but there’s work to be done here in Florence too." Da Vinci put the lyre away, stroking his chin. "Whenever you’re tired of being here, would you like to come with me to visit other cities?"
Hedy’s eyes brightened, and she smiled, nodding. "That depends on when you finish this painting."
Otherwise, I might be visiting you in prison.
Da Vinci belatedly remembered that he had signed a contract and, once again, delayed his work for the day. He quickly sipped some wine to steady himself before starting his egg temperapainting.
The boy had already changed into his clothes and came over to examine the outlines on the sketch, smiling and greeting her.
"Call me Atalante," he said, "You’re really beautiful—will you come by here often?"
The Italians sure have a way with words, their mouths as sweet as honey.
Hedy chatted with him for a while, listening to him explain when he started learning to play the lyre under Da Vinci’s guidance. They also worked together on mixing egg tempera paint, talking about old stories along the way.
One time, several artists had gathered together and invited a few male models to discuss the human body and its contours, only to be reported to the night watchmen.
Their actions were falsely accused of sodomy, but later, with the help of friends, they managed to settle the matter. The case was dropped due to insufficient evidence.
The two of them continued chatting as they moved from painting to playing music. Though Da Vinci was applying paint, he kept his ears perked, listening to their conversation.
"By the way—" he turned around, "You mentioned before that you could make something that plays music by itself?"
Hedy remembered the conversation and nodded. "Yes, an automatic piano."
"What’s that?"
Wait, this era didn’t even have the piano evolved yet...
