Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (10 page)

“My husband says yes. These clothes for a portrait of me and my little Carmela.”

“Truly?” Giulia could hardly believe it. “I mean, good. That’s good.”

She took one of the smaller sheets of blank paper and a stick of charcoal from the bundle, and also the Alberti manuscript, which had a leather cover that would do for a drawing board. She was grateful it was her left hand she’d cut rather than her right.

The wife cleaned her daughter’s face with a corner of her apron and smoothed the little girl’s curling hair. “What should I do?” she asked.

“Just stand and hold her. Turn your head a little, to look at her. There, that is exactly right.”

Giulia examined them, assessing the light and the angles. Then she set charcoal to paper. Drawing was the one thing in
her life she was always certain of; but what she was doing now was new and strange, and her hand was shaking. She pressed too hard on the first stroke, snapping the point of the charcoal stick.

“Sorry,” she muttered, fumbling out her knife to sharpen it. Her cheeks were burning. Any moment now the wife would see through her pretense, would realize she was not a painter but only a runaway novice with no idea of what she was doing. But when she looked up, the wife was still waiting, her head turned as Giulia had instructed, as serene as a saint. The little girl, Carmela, had laid her head on her mother’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

This time Giulia’s hand did not falter. She roughed in the outlines of the two figures, a linked geometry of shapes and angles, then began to add detail, crosshatching the shadows and smudging them with her fingers to blend the strokes. She finished quickly. In the workshop, she would have spent much more time on such a drawing, accenting the highlights with white chalk, adding dimension to the shadings with ink wash. But for what it was, it was a good effort, an excellent likeness that captured something deeper: the little girl’s utter trust as she dozed against her mother’s shoulder, the mother’s radiant love for her child.

She held the drawing toward the stallholder’s wife. The wife caught her breath.

“Is that—is that really me?”

“To the life,” Giulia said.

“And Carmela—oh, it is exactly like her! What a wonder, to see her there on the paper!” The wife reached out, took the drawing from Giulia’s hand. “I had a little boy,” she said. “Jacopetto, we called him, after my husband. He died of the fever this winter past, and it’s growing hard to remember his
face. But now I’ll have Carmela with me always.” She raised her eyes to Giulia’s. They were shimmering with tears. “What is your name?”

“Giulia,” Giulia said, knowing she should use a false name but unwilling to lie in the face of the wife’s sadness. “Giulia Borromeo.”

“You have magic in your hands, Giulia Borromeo. Wait there a moment.”

The wife went to lay Carmela, still dozing, on a heap of blankets in a corner of the stall, placing the drawing carefully beside the little girl. She piled the things Giulia had chosen on the mantle she’d selected, then reached under the trestle. When she straightened, she was holding a pair of boots.

“For your brother,” she said. “My husband won’t mind, once he sees Carmela on that paper.”

She placed the boots on top of the clothes and tied everything up in the mantle.

“May God bless you,” she said, pushing the bundle toward Giulia. “And your brother too.”

“Thank you for your kindness.”

Giulia had taken no more than a few steps when she felt a hand on her arm. She jumped, startled.

“I saw what you did for that rag seller there.” It was a woman in a sober gown of good cloth, her neatly dressed hair covered by a veil. “Could you do the same for me?”

“You wish me . . . to draw you?”

“My sons.” She gestured to the two boys who stood behind her. “They’re to travel with my husband on business, and I would like to have a likeness to look at while they are gone. I’ll give you a soldo to show them both on one paper.”

“I—well—that is, yes. Yes, I’d be glad to.”

Near the boundary of the piazza, where there were not so many people, Giulia seated herself on the edge of a fountain, balancing the Alberti manuscript on her knee and the drawing paper on the manuscript, her charcoal scratching as she sketched the two boys, trying to capture the edge of mischief in the face of the younger, the older’s watchful seriousness.

A little crowd gathered as she worked. As the woman, delighted, pressed a silver soldo into her hand, a young man came forward with his sister, and then a father with his son. Giulia heard her own voice, as self-assured as if she’d been selling sketches on the street for years; she watched her own hands flying over the paper. Inside herself, she was amazed.

I can sell portraits all the way to Venice. I can support myself while I look for Ferraldi. I won’t have to sleep in the gutter, and I won’t starve.

Could it really be that easy?

She might have had customers all morning. But she knew her absence would have been discovered soon after sunrise; by now Madre Magdalena might have searchers out combing the streets. Already, she had stayed too long. She accepted the father’s soldo, then packed up her things and hurried away from the market, back into the winding avenues.

At the end of a dark and malodorous alley overlooked by blind walls, she dragged off her dress and chemise and, standing naked and shivering, bound her kerchief tightly around her breasts to flatten them, glad for once that she wasn’t better endowed.

She put on the garments she had bartered—first the shirt, then the doublet, then the hose, tying the points, the laces at their top, through the holes at the doublet’s waist to hold them up. A good thing she had been trained as a seamstress before
she came to Santa Marta: She knew how men’s clothing went together, as a more privileged girl might not.

The boots the stallholder’s wife had given her were too big, but better than the sandals she had been wearing. She pulled the tunic over everything, belting it with her own belt, and wrapped the mantle over that. She’d already stowed the money she had made that morning in the pouch sewn into the inside of the doublet, counting it first: twenty soldi, six piccoli—four soldi earned by her own labor. A good sum with which to start a journey.

There was just one thing left to do.

She took the knife she’d brought from Santa Marta and leaned forward so that her braid fell over her shoulder. Not giving herself time to think, she set the knife to her hair, sawing at the thick rope of it.

The knife was sharp. The braid came off quickly. What remained of her hair swung free, just touching her shoulders. It had hung below her waist, thick and waving and glossy black, the one thing about herself that she considered beautiful. She felt its loss like a wound.

Stop it,
she told herself.
It’s only hair. One day you can let it grow again.

She sheathed the knife and stowed it in her boot. Using a stick, she poked her severed braid and her novice clothing under the piles of rubbish that heaped the alley’s corners. She settled the cap on her head and slipped her bundle over her arm.

At the alley’s mouth she paused, bracing herself. Then she stepped into the street, into the light of the sun—no longer Giulia Borromeo, fugitive novice, but Girolamo Landriani, apprentice painter. Landriani for her mother, whose family
name it was, Girolamo because it was close to her own real name.

Girolamo Landriani. A boy.

—

Taking those first steps was one of the most difficult things Giulia had ever done. The tunic covered her to midthigh, but still her legs felt as exposed as if she were naked. The binding around her breasts was uncomfortably constricting, and her shorn head felt strangely light. She’d been reasonably confident that her height, her strong features and level brows would pass for a boy’s—but now she felt utterly ridiculous, an obvious imposter. Surely anyone looking at her would immediately see through her absurd attempt at disguise.

But no one looked at her. She realized this once she found the courage to raise her eyes, which at first she’d fixed on the cobbles of the street. The tradesmen, the beggars, the young men lounging under the arcades—all were busy with their own affairs. Most didn’t spare her a glance, or if they did, their eyes slid across her and then moved on. She had actually attracted more attention earlier, when she’d still been dressed as a girl.

She felt a burst of confidence. This morning she’d had nothing, nothing but her plan. Now she had the disguise she needed, money that would see her on her journey, and the means to earn more.

I can do this.

Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon. She bought roast mutton from a man selling skewers from a brazier, and devoured the greasy meat. Then, boldly, she stopped a passerby and asked how she might travel
to Venice, trying to deepen her voice so it would seem more masculine.

“Best way to go’s by river.” The man’s eyes lingered on her face, but there was no suspicion in his gaze, only ordinary curiosity. “If you’ve got the price of passage.”

Giulia shook her head. She wanted to save her money if she could. “I don’t.”

“Well, then, go out of the city by the Porta Molino, cross the Molino bridge, and head east.”

He gave her directions to the Porta Molino. Giulia moved on, reminding herself not to walk as a girl did—with small steps, hands clasped at her waist, eyes downcast—but like a boy: in long strides, her shoulders thrown back, her unencumbered arm swinging freely. The too-large boots flapped annoyingly at her toes—she’d have to find something with which to stuff them—and she was realizing that she needed to tie up her hose more loosely, to allow more slack in the fabric when she bent her knees. But she could attend to those things later.

It was midafternoon by the time she reached the Porta Molino. Beyond it, the Bacchiglione River embraced Padua’s northern walls, its banks lined with flour mills. On the river’s far side a tumble of houses made a brief continuation of the city. In the distance, Giulia glimpsed planted fields.

She crossed the bridge, joining the stream of travelers heading out of the city. Her cut palm had begun to throb, and the ill-fitting boots were raising blisters on her heels. She could feel the exhaustion of her sleepless night settling over her.

A cart trundled past, raising a cloud of dust. She hailed it, but the driver ignored her. The next driver ignored her also, and the one after that cursed and flicked his whip, forcing her to dodge aside.

Her feet were agony. She needed to do something about them or she wouldn’t be able to continue. She was starting to limp to the roadside when another cart overtook her—and this time the driver heeded her wave and reined to a halt. She hurried to catch up.

“Are you—” She cleared her throat, lowered her voice. “Are you traveling east? Toward Venice?”

“Could be.” The driver, a burly young man with a rough stubble of beard, looked Giulia over, his eyes lingering on the bundle at her elbow. Beside him sat a younger companion—his brother, by the resemblance.

“Can you give me a ride? I can barter. I’m a painter. I’ll draw you two portraits on fine paper if you’ll take me as far as you’re going.”

“Portraits?” The driver turned his head and spat. “What would we want with portraits?”

“For your parents, or your sweethearts. For remembrance.”

“My sweetheart sees me every day. You got anything else to offer?”

Giulia sighed. She hadn’t wanted to pay for passage, but even if she wrapped her feet, she knew she couldn’t walk much farther.

“A soldo,” she said. “I’ll give you a silver soldo if you’ll take me as far east as you’re going.”

“That’s more like it. Show us your money.”

Turning her back, Giulia extracted a soldo from the pouch sewn into her doublet. She turned back to the cart, holding it up. The driver reached for it. She snatched her hand away.

“You’ll get it when I get off.”

“What d’you say, Santello?” The driver addressed his brother. “Will we carry this painter boy here for just one silver soldo?”

Their eyes held, some wordless communication passing between them. The brother shrugged. The driver jerked his thumb at the back of the cart.

“Jump in, then.”

Giulia hesitated, suddenly unsure. The brothers’ unkemptness, the neglected appearance of their horse, the look they’d exchanged . . . But then it occurred to her that she was thinking like a girl. A girl was vulnerable to men like these. But she was a boy now. She was Girolamo Landriani. She would have to keep her wits about her—but she did not have to fear these two as a girl would.

“What’re you waiting for?” the driver demanded. “Get in or get gone.”

Giulia’s burning feet made the decision for her. She hoisted herself into the cart, making a clumsy job of it with her injured hand and her too-tight hose. The brothers had been at market—she shared space with a trestle and its supports, a folded canvas awning, and a heap of rotten onions.

I’ve done it
, she thought as the cart bumped back into motion. She felt Padua falling behind her, sloughing away like a heavy garment, leaving her cold and unprotected but much, much lighter.
I’m on my way.

The sun was sinking, probing the fields with fingers of shadow. The urge to sleep was overwhelming, but Giulia knew she had to stay awake. She flexed her wounded hand, concentrating on the pain, and slipped her other hand under her mantle, closing it tightly around her purse.

It was the last thing she remembered doing.

CHAPTER 9

A PORTRAIT IN DARKNESS