Milan, province of Lombardy…1483

As court engineer to the Duke of Milan, Leonardo da Vinci turns his superior mind to a variety of pursuits—from advances in painting to solving the occasional murder. While preparing the festivities for a masquerade, Leonardo and his apprentice Dino find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy…

  Death has come once again to the court of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. To prevent any unwanted attention, the Duke instructs his unofficial sleuth-in-residence, Leonardo da Vinci, to investigate the apparent suicides of two female servants. Da Vinci decides to put a “man” on the inside and instructs his favorite apprentice, Dino, to dress as a lady and enter the service of the Duke’s ward Contessa Caterina, who values her dog and her tarocchi cards more than the lives of her servants.

     Of course, Dino has no problem with his assigned role, give that “he” is in reality Delfina, a young woman secretly masquerading as a boy in order to serve as da Vinci’s apprentice.

     While investigating the deaths, Delfina unexpectedly finds herself under the attentions of Gregorio, the handsome captain of the Duke’s guard who has unseemly connections to both the deceased women and the Contessa herself. Delfina is soon torn between her loyalty to da Vinci and her growing feelings for Gregorio.   

But if what the Contessa’s tarocchi cards foretold is correct, Delfina might be destined to lose her heart…and perhaps her life.

An excerpt from "Fire and Sweet Music," featured in ENCHANTMENT PLACE...

     The blond man wandering the essential oils aisle was different from her usual clientele.  That was saying a lot, considering the sort of people who normally frequented La Flamme du France Perfumery.  

     Claire Delacourt followed his progress through her small establishment by means of his reflection in a baroque-framed mirror upon the opposite wall.  Her uneasiness was growing, though why this man should raise her figurative hackles, she was not certain.  After all, she was used to dealing with customers who were not quite ordinary.

     For the perfumery was located smack in the middle of Enchantment Place, Chicago's premiere shopping destination for everything magical.  As for her clientele, it included magical humans as well as various otherworldly beings in need of a special scent.  Of course, that number was interspersed with those of the mundane persuasion who simply appreciated goods with a magical flair. 

     Not that Claire technically possessed any particular magic, herself.  What she did have was a "nose"...an ability to distinguish a far greater number of scents than the average person could.  Along with that talent was the well-honed skill that allowed her to blend said scents into evocative custom perfumes. 

     While her core business was custom scents, the shop carried expensive incenses and oils, as well as the more typical soaps and candles.  One moment, she might be offering braided smudge sticks to a tourist from Kansas City; the next, she was demonstrating the benefits of perfumed accessories to a pungent-smelling ghoul trying to pass as human.  She'd also come up with a line of scents with her Wiccan clients in mind.  In fact, several magic practitioners had confessed to using her various perfumes to jumpstart their rituals on difficult days. 

     Maybe not magic, her witch pal Jessica often joked about those products, but they're the closest you can get straight out of a bottle.

     But this man, she sensed, was not looking for some simple eau d' enchantment.

     Claire glanced at the oversized sports watch strapped to her wrist.  Its digital display showed seven-thirty...half an hour past her closing time.  Perhaps she’d only thought she had locked the shop’s sole door and turned the hand-lettered sign in the display window.  But why had she not heard the tinkle of the tiny brass bells hanging from door's knob, which should have announced this man’s arrival?

     As if hearing that last unsettling thought, he glanced up and locked gazes with her in the mirror. 

copyright 2008 © by Diane A.S. Stuckart

An excerpt from "Thirty-Two Bullets in Twenty-Three Seconds," featured FRONT LINES...

     He wasn’t supposed to be here…not today.  Halfway to town, he’d stopped and wheeled his horse around, telling himself he should forget trying to interfere and go back to the ranch.  He’d even ridden a few lengths back in that direction, before he pulled up the bay gelding a second time and resumed his original direction.  Tomorrow, he might regret what he was doing, but something inside him insisted that he had no choice.  Now here he was, crouched atop the splintered porch behind Fly’s Boarding House, watching and waiting for something that might not even happen.

     Jack Allister frowned and tugged his stained grey Stetson lower on his brow.  From his vantage point on the roof, he could see a portion of dusty Fremont Street beyond, and the usual bustle of townspeople milling past the open lot.  As always, it was a varied procession…weary cowboys in stained chaps and broad-brimmed hats; natty gamblers in crisp white shirts beneath black vested suits; respectable ladies bonneted and in bustled gowns; sober shop-owners in gartered shirtsleeves and pressed trousers.  They had no idea they were being watched, that he was privy to these few careless seconds of their lives spent crossing that gap from one building to the next. 

     And, if all went well, they’d never have to know.

copyright 2008 © by Diane A.S. Stuckart

An excerpt from THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT...

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
—Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus

MILAN, PROVINCE OF LOMBARDY, 1483

     Crimson flowered against the alabaster brocade, the vivid hue spreading and dulling to claret along its petal-like edges. A splattering of cordovan had laid a random pattern around that ruby bloom, as if a paint-dampened brush had been flicked a time or two in its direction. My artist's eye approved the contrast of whites and reds displayed to advantage against the verdant lawn. Were I to re-create this scene upon my easel, I might add a handful of bright spring leaves against the weighty fabric, perhaps sketch a pearly dove atop the nearby boulder.

     Certainly, I would have forgone the sleek dagger whose handle protruded like some grisly silver stamen from the center of that bloody blossom.

      I had ample time to analyze the composition of the unsettling still life, given that I was the first to find the dead man. He lay sprawled here within the high-walled garden that was but a small enclave amid the vast grounds of Castle Sforza. The palace was the ancestral home of the acting duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, also known as Il Moro for his dark complexion and by other appellations far less polite because of his unscrupulous manner. Of course, Ludovico was duke in name only, given that he had wrested the title from his infant nephew a few years previously and had not yet been formally designated as such by the pope.

     The castle was now my home, as well, though my rank was not nearly as lofty. Indeed, as apprentice to the duke's master engineer and artist, Leonardo the Florentine—also known as Leonardo da Vinci—my place in the castle hierarchy was on level with that of stableboy. Along with a score of other youths who had shown greater than usual talent with a brush, I toiled from dawn to dusk in the Master's workshop. There, I inventoried samples of fabrics, mixed pigments, and cleaned palettes…and, on some fortunate occasions, even put color to fresco or panel under the great man's tutelage.

     Luckily for the day's festivities, however, it had not been a stableboy but me—the apprentice known to all as Dino—who made the grim discovery. Otherwise, an alarm would have been raised within seconds. Within minutes, everyone from the lad who cleaned the piss pots to the duke himself would have crowded into the garden to view the body. Such an outcome surely would have put a damper upon the game of living chess being played upon the castle's main lawn this very afternoon.

     The amusement had been a last-moment addition to the week's activities in honor of the duke's current guest, Monsieur Villasse, the French ambassador. At stake was a friendly wager between the two men regarding a painting to which both had laid claim. Rather than settle the matter in a way that might give offense to either party, Ludovico had decreed that they would play a game of skill for the rights to ownership of the treasure.

     The discussion had taken place the previous morning in the Master's workshop. The duke and the ambassador stood in the center of the rough wooden floor, facing one another like a pair of sword-wielding antagonists. Both were dressed in a similar fashion, with their slashed satin doublets of reds and blues and golds trimmed in matching velvet and worn over parti-colored tights. The duke wore a soft beret of bejeweled crimson velvet, that delicate cap emphasizing the coarseness of his dark features. The ambassador's high-crowned hat was of a deep blue that contrasted to advantage against his soft gray hair and dark eyes.

     Both men's finery provided a stark contrast to the Master's simple brown tunic over dark green hose, garb similar to what we apprentices wore. He stood a short distance from the pair, seemingly unconcerned with this interruption to the day's work as he favored them with a polite smile and let the two nobles speak between themselves.

     The other apprentices and I huddled behind some half-finished panels a respectful distance away, pretending not to listen even as we strained our ears to catch a few words.

     "Chess, perhaps?" the ambassador had suggested in his heavily accented Italian in response to Ludovico's pronouncement. He wore an agreeable smile. Doubtless, he pictured the pair of them bent over a cozy board before the fire in the main hall, moving delicately carved ivory figures while drinking fine wine.

     Il Moro, however, had more grandiose ideas.

     "Chess, yes, but let us indulge in something a bit more extravagant," the duke responded. "Legend has it that two noblemen from Venice once wooed the same fair young woman. Rather than settle their dispute with swords, they held a living chess match, with members of their respective courts taking the part of the pieces. The victor of the match also won a new bride."

     He paused to indicate the object of their wager, the comely female form painted upon a recently finished panel that sat upon an easel before them. "Since we also battle over a woman, why do we not settle the matter in the same fashion?"

     "An interesting idea, Excellency," Villasse said with a shrug. "But is it possible to arrange such an event with so little notice?"

     "Certainly. You have met my court artist and engineer. He can create such an amusement overnight. Can you not, Leonardo?"

     Peering past concealing panels, I saw the Master move toward them, his innate grace obvious even in the few steps he'd taken. He stood several inches taller than both men, his lionlike mane, dark with a faint russet tint, rippling to his shoulders. With his handsome, bearded face and confident bearing, even in his simple garb he appeared to me more regal than either of the other men. His pleasant expression never changed, though I had worked under his stringent tutelage long enough to recognize the slight flicking now of his fingers that was a sign of disdain or impatience…often both.

     "Certainly, Excellency," came his smooth reply as befitted a man who knew who his benefactor was. Since the Master was in charge of the court's pageantry, which included all manner of galas and festivals, such royal whimsies were not uncommon to him. That did not make their accomplishment any less difficult, however. "All preparations will be complete for a living chess game at noon on the morrow. I presume you shall want courtiers as your playmen?"

    While the duke made a few commands neatly presented as mere suggestions, Vittorio, the youngest of the apprentices, leaned closer to me, his unruly blond curls bouncing. Eagerly, he whispered, "Do you think this chess match will give the Master a chance to display his mechanical lion?"

     "Perhaps," I murmured back with a smile, for I understood the youth's excitement.

Copyright © 2008 by Tekno Books