CHAPTER 17 #3
Michelangelo, with a complicated expression, followed Da Vinci as they left the Doge's Palace in a carriage. By the time they returned, he was almost on the verge of tears.
Hedy, understanding his discomfort, patted him on the shoulder. He even tried to shy away from her touch.
"Master, if you knew what I’ve touched," Michelangelo said with red eyes, "you’d probably never want to come near me again."
Such an act—was nothing short of sacrilege!
Hedy blinked, and Botticelli, who was helping to carry the shrouded body, casually remarked, "She’s an alchemist. She’s legally allowed to handle such things."
The young man was stunned for a moment. "You mean—?"
"Most of Leonardo’s anatomical knowledge came from her. What do you think?"
Michelangelo, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, sprang away, not daring to look at her again.
Though he verbally rejected and resisted, once it came to the dissection, the artists surprisingly entered into the process with a shared enthusiasm.
Hedy handed Raphael a glass of orange juice and asked him to help her sketch the shape of the grapevine diseased branches. Then, she sent Dechio to watch over the children while she went down to the underground ventilation chamber to assist them.
The strictness and attention to detail that artists have for certain aspects of their work are things that outsiders often fail to understand.
No one understood this more than Hedy.
When Da Vinci once took an order for a portrait of a noblewoman, he designed everything from her facial contour to her hair and eye color with great precision. However, the process dragged on for almost four or five months, and he even considered abandoning the piece altogether at one point.
The reason sounded somewhat laughable—
He didn’t know how to depict the necklace that fell across her neck.
Such a small detail might seem like something that could be done casually, but Da Vinci, in his typical fashion, went so far as to bring in several books on mathematics to perform complex curve calculations to figure out how to accurately portray the necklace’s fall.
Hedy had long given up on the grand idea of having more famous paintings in the Louvre and simply gifted him a similar necklace so that he could spend an entire afternoon in the studio examining it.
Now, the four of them were together in the dissection room. While they all gagged to varying degrees due to the smell or appearance of the body, none of them wanted to leave.
The three artists were, of course, filled with countless questions in their minds. They could easily spend the whole afternoon and evening studying a single muscle of the thigh.
As for Hedy, she was there more out of concern for Michelangelo’s mental state—
After all, he was still quite young.
Boys in this era might marry and have children as early as thirteen or fourteen, but to her, they were still children.
From the moment Michelangelo got on the carriage to the time they reached the basement, he was continuously repenting, even preparing himself mentally for a flogging.
But over the past couple of days, he had found himself flipping through Da Vinci’s manuscript over and over again, so much so that he was too excited to sleep until dawn.
Even just a single page of analysis of bones and textures was enough to multiply his understanding of art and the human body by many times.
Had he only relied on the mechanical repetition of work in his studio, or tried to figure things out on his own over time, it might have taken him thirty or forty years to understand such details and problems.
This felt like a divine blessing, and when he held the manuscript, he almost wanted to stand outside Da Vinci’s door and sing hymns of praise all night long.
The gentleman, though somewhat overdressed and seemingly a bit arrogant in his manner of speaking, was undoubtedly a master—unparalleled!
Da Vinci didn’t notice the addition of a small, ever-admiring follower by his side, still lost in his thoughts and various disconnected questions.
“So, where should we start?” Botticelli asked, having donned his mask, with his pale gold shoulder-length hair tied back with a ribbon.
He had accompanied Da Vinci a few times before, gradually becoming accustomed to the dim lighting and the sharp odor of the room.
“From the thigh root?” Da Vinci opened the tool kit and, turning to Michelangelo, explained, “We’ll begin by slicing the epidermis, removing some of the fat, and then observing the muscles and bones underneath.”
The young man quickly nodded, avoiding looking at the body but clearly excited.
“This is your first time, so you might not be familiar with the tools. Just observe from the side for now,” Da Vinci said, pausing midway and noticing Hedy standing by his side. He instinctively emphasized, “—And make sure to wash your hands. Three times.”
At first glance, the thigh appeared to be a solid mass of flesh, but once the epidermis was peeled back and the structure inside was revealed, it became clear that it was as complex as a honeycomb.
Multiple thick arteries were quite fragile under the blade, but once separated, they resembled the branches of a tree.
The transverse and longitudinal muscles were intricately positioned, and the placement of the pelvis and femur also seemed to hold great significance.
At first, there were light conversations and banter, but eventually, the entire basement was filled only with the whistling sound of the wind.
Hedy had a moment where she felt like she was sitting in on a surgical operation with a few doctors. When she came back to her senses, she was holding an oil lamp, helping them see more clearly.
Michelangelo, who had initially felt fear and disgust, was fully immersed in the task after two or three hours, analyzing the expression of the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis muscles with Da Vinci, focusing on how they could be represented in painting.
Painting, after all, was a remarkably intricate art.
The painters memorized the shapes of the bones, studied the distribution of muscles, and in the end, they concealed them with skin and clothing, rendering them into blurred outlines.
It was as if someone mastered multiple languages and hundreds of rhetorical devices, only to express a poem with a prolonged nasal tone.
During the dissection, each of them had a different style.
Botticelli was calm and meticulous, perhaps even studying the direction of veins with great care.
Da Vinci, on the other hand, was more natural and focused on the big picture. His hand moved decisively with no hesitation, and he was willing to make bold mistakes.
As for Michelangelo, although he was often quiet and reserved in front of others, at times like this, he would eagerly ask numerous questions, his attitude more proactive than anyone else’s.
Hedy stood silently by their side, holding the lamp for them, occasionally reminding Leonardo not to sever that artery again.
As she listened to their low murmurs, she would occasionally wonder when Raphael would come by.
In ten years, in twenty years, how outstanding and brilliant would these four masters become?
Luckily, the wise alchemist had remembered to bring a lunch basket downstairs. The sandwiches inside were quickly devoured, and even the water was consumed completely.
They began the work around eight in the morning, and by the time they were finished, it was already past Vespers.
When Hedy washed her hands, she scrubbed with extra soap to remove the lingering odors, then went upstairs to check on Raphael.
She really liked children.
In her previous life, she had first adopted a boy with her first husband, and then had a son and a daughter with her second husband.
As long as the child wasn’t like Sarai—stubborn and with a difficult temperament—she always had enough patience and love.
Even though the adopted child hadn’t been close to her and had even tried to harm her later, she was still able to understand and accept many things.
When Dechio saw Hedy, his expression was filled with concern.
"Raphael refuses to sleep," he explained. "He thinks you’re angry with him."
Hedy paused for a moment before quickly walking into the little boy’s bedroom.
The angelic boy was sitting at the head of the bed, holding his sketchbook.
"Lady," he said softly, "I finished drawing all the grapevines."
"You did very well," Hedy sat beside him and took the nearly filled sketchbook. "Oh—this is indeed excellent work."
The boy lowered his head, hesitated for a moment, and finally asked, "Why didn’t you want to take me downstairs?"
"Did I do something wrong?"
No, it’s because you’re too young. You’re not yet suited to see those bodies and entrails.
Hedy worried that he might have nightmares after seeing some decayed organs, so she had Dechio watch him the entire day to keep him from sneaking downstairs.
"No, my dear. Some things are meant to wait until you’re older," she said softly, letting him sleep in her arms. "We all love you so much."
"You respected our agreement today, so how about I give you a reward?"
As Da Vinci and Botticelli returned to the courtyard, they faintly heard her gentle, low voice telling a story.
They exchanged a glance and realized that Hedy was telling Raphael a bedtime story.
Michelangelo, clearly uninterested, was still absorbed in the vast amount of information he had learned that day. He shook his hands, still damp with water, and rushed back to his room to make notes and memorandums.
The other two men, however, moved closer to the window where a small light flickered, trying to listen to the entire story.
Hedy’s tale had nothing to do with the Bible or paganism.
The poor little mermaid came to the palace in search of true love, only to have her beautiful voice taken away. Each step she took felt like walking on a knife's edge.