It was summer, one of those summers of endless promise, when I first read about it. I was 12, I think, and more than the smile of La Giocanda, more than the intimate hush of Il Cenacolo, it burned its way into my mind: an inconspicuous footnote claiming that Leonardo kept a large sculpture of Anubis in his studio.

So often since I would imagine the old man toiling under the dead watchful stone-eyes of the dark, ancient demon, its perverse arcaic stringence mocking the impotent refinement of his Vitruvian man. How brave a man to wander, to wonder and to work next to that horrible jackal-man of Death as old as the World; everyday he walked before him, ‘He who counts the hearts’; looking at his tusks, unafraid; looking at his animal head the colour of gangrene, unafraid; but horrified to look at the scales in his hands.

See, when the dead made their way to Duat, the Underworld, Anubis would take their hearts, take out his balance scale, and place a heart on one side; then turn to a young woman, Ma’at, the goddess of justice, and borrow from her the lightest of feathers, the feather of justice to place on the other side.

How heavy is your heart? The doctrine of Ma’at was lengthy and demanding. I have not uttered lies. I have made none to weep. I have not acted with arrogance. I have wronged none. On and on, 42 confessions. If the heart was light and unburdened, the dead would leave Duat for paradise to live forever. But if the vices of a lifetime added up to more than the weight of a feather, a creature of nightmares would crawl out from the shadows: Ammut, The Eater of Hearts, her body part lion, part hippo, her face all terrifying crocodile. And she would eat the heart, as eaters do.

I’m sure some nights Leonardo looked at the canine-headed statue as he blew out the lights in the studio, looked at him proudly, I have wronged none, I will live forever. And other nights, he would feel his heart sink under the weight of his vices.

But I don’t think I ever really understood why he wanted this dog of death, not until I met you, you my Anubis. Sometimes I look at you with the lightest of hearts. I have not wronged you today. I have not made you to weep. I will live forever. And sometimes, when I see the sum of my vices in your eyes, my heart is too heavy for any scale.

And as Leonardo, I end each day just hoping I will get one more, one more day to make it lighter.