“Y-yes,” I choked out, the word rough with tears that I did not bother to hide. “He is our senior apprentice, Constantin.”

I stared down at Constantin’s white face, his half-open eyes staring sightlessly over my shoulder, and did not need to ask if he was dead. Still, disbelief filled my heart. How could he be alive one moment and his life cruelly snuffed in the next? Surely it was not possible!

Leonardo was the fi rst to stir from the momentary paralysis that gripped us.

“Quickly, we must run the assailant to ground. The murder weapon was a crossbow, which means the killer likely was near the garden wall when he shot Constantin. There is still a chance we may catch him fleeing his crime!”

Barely had the words left Leonardo’s lips than my father was sprinting toward the open gate with a speed I never knew he possessed. I scrambled to my feet and rushed after him, my own feet hardly touching the ground in my haste.

It occurred to me as I ran that perhaps I should be fearful. Constantin’s murderer would have had time to span his crossbow with a new bolt and could easily fire upon me or my father once he saw us in pursuit. But any fright I might have felt at my own potential danger was consumed by the righteous fury that seemed to roar through my veins.

I burst past the garden’s gate to see that the quadrangle before me bustled with court activity, as usual. Panting while my ribs struggled against my confining undergarment, I halted for a sweeping glance across the expanse of green lawn, looking for a man in flight. The only one moving at a rapid pace, however, was my father. He was headed toward the main gate but in pursuit of no one in particular, though several people had stopped in their tracks to stare after him. I gave a despairing little groan. Had the killer already escaped us?

Or was he instead strolling about in plain sight among the servants and nobles, his deadly crossbow hidden beneath a cape or tucked into a sack?

I allowed myself a swift, grim nod. He could not have fled so quickly, not without drawing attention to himself, as my father unwittingly had proved. Thus, he had either slipped into an outbuilding or else was masquerading as one going about his everyday business.

“He must still be upon the grounds,” Leonardo echoed my thoughts, appearing at my side. His gaze swept the grounds with its intersecting graveled paths, just as mine had.

“We will leave your father to question the guards at the gate,” came his swift decree, “while you and I keep our search to the quadrangle and the outbuildings.”

“B-but what of Constantin?” I choked out, for I’d not thought the Master would abandon the dead youth. “We cannot leave him unattended in the garden.”

“I have settled him there decently, and the gate is locked so that no one other than I may enter again.”

I nodded and poised myself to begin the hunt. Before I could take another step, however, the Master put a stilling hand upon my shoulder. The movement mirrored my father’s earlier comforting gesture, but Leonardo’s expression was filled with cold purpose.

“I shall not let you go, Dino, until I have your promise that you will attempt no heroics. If you see someone who appears suspicious, do not draw attention to yourself. Follow him at a distance and see where he takes refuge.”

He paused, and his grip on me tightened.

“But under no circumstances are you to confront any man, no matter that you see a spent crossbow dangling from his hand and guilt written upon his face. I have already lost one apprentice this day, and I will not lose another.”

My gaze dropped to the splash of fresh blood-Constantin’s blood-across the Master’s tunic, and I felt my features harden into the same cold mask of determination that he wore.

“I promise, Master, that I shall confront no one… but I vow that I shall find who struck down my friend and bring him to justice.”

“Then, quickly, to work.”

We parted on those words, each taking a different direction across the quadrangle. Despite my urgency, I kept a restrained pace, aware that I had the advantage in this search. Being both young and humbly garbed, I was likely to be overlooked by almost everyone I encountered. Leonardo, on the other hand, garnered attention simply because of his handsome features and confident air. The fact that he was well-known here at the castle made it more difficult for him to wander about unnoticed.

But while I might have drawn little scrutiny, no one escaped my gaze as I walked past him… or her. I dared not assume that a woman could not have been Constantin’s assassin. After all, I had already encountered more than one murderous female in my time here at Castle Sforza, so that I knew full well how deadly the fairer sex could be. And a crossbow was a light enough weapon that most women could capably handle one.

Still, what could have driven anyone, male or female, to murder someone whose kindness to his fellows was surpassed only by his talent with a brush?

I gave a furtive swipe at my damp eyes, willing away the tears. Later there would be time enough to grieve him. For the moment, I must set aside my sorrow and search out the one responsible for this tragedy.

But after many minutes of fruitless searching, I feared that the killer had slipped through our grasp. I had stared into the faces of both servants and nobles, some of whom I saw daily and others who were unknown to me. I’d peered into privies and stables, startling more than a few men and beasts but finding no likely suspects.

Once, I thought I glimpsed the same robed figure that I’d suspected of watching me at the parade grounds, and my heart began to beat faster. Barely had I begun my pursuit, however, when the swaddled form vanished behind a columned portico. But even as I cursed my bad luck, the figure reappeared a moment later at the public fountain.

Aha, I have you, I thought in triumph and rushed in that direction. But by then the concealing hood had slipped back to reveal an old woman’s crinkled face, and a fragile, bony hand reached to cup a bit of water for drink. Shaking my head in mingled dismay and relief-for, in truth, what would I have done if the figure had proved to be a burly man with a crossbow wrapped in disguise?-I decided further searching was fruitless.

Leonardo and my father must have had the same thought, for I found them waiting for me at the garden gate. “How did you fare, my boy?” Leonardo asked at my approach.

“I was quite diligent, Master, but I fear I bring no news. I discovered no one out of place, nor anyone who hinted by his actions that he was guilty of murder.” With an anxious look at my father, I asked, “Did the guards notice anyone trying to flee the castle grounds with undue haste?”

“It would seem I was the sole one the guards observed behaving oddly,” he replied with no little chagrin. “So intent was I in trying to discover that poor boy’s assassin that I did not realize my own actions might be looked at with suspicion. The captain of the guard questioned me thoroughly himself.”

My father gave a wry snort at the memory.

“An unpleasant fellow, he was… foreign, and quite large, with blond mustaches,” he proclaimed, describing the man I knew as the new captain of Il Moro’s guard. “At any second, I expected the point of his sword to appear at my throat and for him to lead me away. I had to invoke Signor Leonardo’s name several times before he was content to leave me be.”

With a sidelong look at the Master, he added, “I fear that I misled him with my reasons for my haste. Since I am but a visitor here in Milan, I hesitated to speak the word murder aloud when I did not have you there to bear witness in my behalf. Instead, I told him that one of your apprentices had been sent on a fool’s errand, and that I was trying find the boy before he wasted a day wandering about the city looking for a merchant who did not exist.”