Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (2 page)

The bells were silent now. She could hear only the ordinary noise of the artists at their labor. But around her, the familiar landscape of the workshop had grown strange, as if she were looking through someone else’s eyes. She was cold, as cold as she’d been in the wind-chilled courtyard.

Am I going mad?
She put her hand to her throat, thinking of the talisman she’d worn all summer and then destroyed, of the celestial spirit that had been imprisoned inside it.
Am I being punished for the sin of putting my trust in magic?

No. They were just bells. Real bells, rung by real hands. I’ll never hear them again.

But within herself, she knew differently. And the next morning, when Humilità uncorked the pot of Passion blue and the crystal chiming rose, Giulia understood that something inside her had irrevocably changed. She would never be the same.

CHAPTER 2

A SECRET REVEALED

Convent of Santa Marta, Padua, Italy

September, Anno Domini 1488

Ten months later

Giulia paused before Humilità’s door, preparing herself. Each time she visited, she found it harder to bear the changes in her teacher, harder to pretend she was not desperately afraid.

She knocked and stepped inside, breathing the chamber’s familiar odor—medicine and sickness—imperfectly masked by the herbal infusion simmering on a brazier, a scent she had learned to loathe. As usual, the windows were shuttered and the room was drowned in shadow. The only illumination came from a pair of candles burning on a table by the bed.

Humilità lay propped on pillows, her wasted body hidden under heavy quilts.

“How are you, Maestra?” Giulia knelt by the bed and took the hand Humilità held out to her. The workshop mistress’s fingers, once so strong and capable, felt like a collection of twigs.

“Less than I was yesterday.” Humilità smiled with a ghost of her old sardonic edge. “More than I will be tomorrow.”

She had admitted to her illness in the spring, when she could no longer hide the wasting that was stealing her strength and melting her flesh away like candle wax. There was nothing the infirmarians could do. Through the summer she’d kept working, but toward the end of August she had taken to her bed. She had not left it since.

“Please don’t speak like that, Maestra.”

“Ah, Giulia. Should I lie to you when you ask me such a question?”

Giulia looked away from the knowledge in her teacher’s face. “I’ve brought my Annunciation to show you.”

“In a moment. I have something for you. There’s a paper under my pillow. Reach it out for me.”

Giulia laid her painting on the floor and obeyed. The workshop mistress unfolded the paper and smoothed it flat. She gazed at it a moment, then offered it back to Giulia.

“This is yours now.”

Giulia held the paper near the flickering candles so she could see. It was a paint recipe, written out in Humilità’s familiar script. A recipe Giulia had never seen before.

Or . . . wait . . .

She gasped. “Maestra—this is—Is this . . . ?”

“Yes. It is Passion blue.”

Giulia felt something terrifying expand inside her chest. “No.” She tried to thrust the paper back into Humilità’s hands. “I don’t want it.”

“It’s time, Giulia.”

“Not yet! It’s not time yet!”

“Don’t be foolish.” Humilità’s tone was sharp. “You are stronger than this.”

Giulia had never felt less strong. She dropped the paper on the bed and hid her face in her hands, knowing as she did how selfish it was to trouble her teacher with her grief. But the paper and the recipe it held—a secret Humilità had never shared with anyone else, ever—were too much of a shock. Normally she could hold her thoughts away from the inevitability of Humilità’s death; but now, all at once, it was a black pit right at her feet.

After a moment she felt Humilità’s hand on her head. “Hush,” the workshop mistress said. “Calm yourself. I have more to say.”

With enormous effort Giulia raised her head, using her sleeves to dry her cheeks.

“This was not an easy decision, Giulia. For more than twenty years I have kept the secret of Passion blue. It has brought me fame, but it has also brought me grief.”

Giulia nodded. She knew the grief Humilità meant: her betrayal by her father, Matteo Moretti, also a painter of fame, who had schemed to steal Passion blue for himself.

“I thought perhaps I would let the formula perish with me. But it is beautiful, this thing I created, and beauty should not be allowed to die. So I’ve chosen to let it live on, with you—with you and you only, Giulia, for you are the most gifted pupil I have ever had, and I know that you will use it well. I cannot
make you Maestra after me, as I’d hoped. I cannot give you the workshop. But I can give you Passion blue.”

“You honor me, Maestra.”

“Be truthful. Don’t tell me you did not hope for this.”

“Someday,” Giulia admitted. “When I became a master painter. Not now. Not like this.”

“Now or later, it is God’s will.”

God’s will is cruel.
Giulia looked down at the recipe where it lay on the shadowed covers of Humilità’s bed—written not in cipher, as she had often seen it in Humilità’s leather-bound book of paint formulas, but in words she could read. There was not a painter in Padua who did not covet this formula, even those who would never admit that a woman was capable of painting as magnificently as a man.
How many would give gold to see what I am seeing now?

“Does Domenica know?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“She’s not . . . angry?”

“It is not her place to be angry. It is my recipe, and my decision, and she well knows it. But she has accepted with good grace.”

I’m not so sure of that.
Inwardly, Giulia sighed.

“There is something else, Giulia. I must ask something of you.”

“Anything, Maestra.”

“It has been more than a year since I’ve communicated with my father, but I doubt his greed has lessened. He will certainly suspect that I have given you Passion blue, and he may come to you to find out. If he does”—Humilità shifted, turning so she could look into Giulia’s eyes—“you must not give it to him.”

A chill rolled up Giulia’s back. “I never would, Maestra.”

“Swear to me.” In the past weeks Humilità’s gaze had become distant, as if part of her were already gone. But now she was fully present, her dark eyes blazing with all their former force. “Swear on your mother’s soul that you will never give him Passion blue.”

“I swear it. On my mother’s soul, I swear. Maestra . . . do you really think he’ll come?”

“He is not one to forget, or to relent.” Humilità settled back against her pillows. “Remember, Giulia, he is only a man. He cannot touch you inside these walls. Santa Marta will keep you safe.”

Memories unfurled inside Giulia’s mind: a dark night, a locked attic, Matteo Moretti’s face looming over her like a thundercloud. She bent her head and took up the paper, folding it again into quarters and stowing it in her sleeve.

“Do you ever think of that boy?” Humilità’s eyes were closed. “The thief, the one my father hired to steal Passion blue. Ormanno Trovatelli.”

For a moment Giulia was too surprised to answer. This was their secret, known only to the two of them, and they never spoke of it. Ormanno’s face appeared inside her mind, handsome and sly—a memory that carried a scalding rush of shame, though it had been more than a year since he had beguiled her by pretending that he loved her, then tricked her into telling him the workshop’s secrets.

“I try not to, Maestra,” she said. “I was such a fool, not to see that all he wanted was to get his hands on Passion blue.”

“Don’t put him out of your mind completely. Our mistakes shape us. We forget them at our peril.” Humilità opened her eyes again. “Show me your Annunciation now.”

Giulia bent to undo the canvas that wrapped her painting. Some of the paints were still sticky; faintly, she could
hear them singing, dwindling toward silence as they dried.
My own secret,
she thought, wishing with sudden intensity that she could share it with Humilità, as Humilità had just shared Passion blue with her. But who would believe that the paints she made and used sang to her, each with its own voice? Humilità might think her mad, or cursed. She’d never been quite brave enough to speak.

She placed the painting in Humilità’s hands and pushed one of the candles closer so Humilità could see. The painting was small, an ashwood panel only two hand spans wide, but even so, Giulia could tell that it was hard for her teacher to hold it.

“I know it needs improvement,” she said when Humilità did not speak at once.

“Not so very much,” Humilità said. “The folds of the angel’s garments hang a little stiffly, do you see? And you’ve not got the light on the Madonna’s face quite right—if your sunlight comes through the window at this angle, your shadows should slant more to the left.” She skimmed her finger above the painting’s surface, illustrating what she meant. “But overall it is a fine effort. Very fine indeed.”

“I’ll work on correcting it, Maestra.”

“Ah, Giulia.” Humilità let the painting fall and reached out both her hands. “How I wish God had allowed me to live long enough to see what you’ll become.”

Her eyes glittered in the candlelight, and Giulia realized with a shock that they were filled with tears. She had never seen her teacher weep, just as she had never heard her complain about or question or grieve her fate. She took Humilità’s hands in her own, resting her forehead on their joined fingers. Her entire body ached with the effort not to cry.

After a moment Humilità pulled gently away.

“I’ll rest now. Perhaps you could stop at the infirmary and ask Sapientia to bring me another dose of poppy.”

Giulia nodded, for she did not trust herself to speak. She wrapped her painting again, then rose and stood looking down at her teacher. Humilità’s hands were folded on her breast, and her eyes were closed. In the shifting candlelight, her face looked like a skull.

A year and a half. Only a year and a half since I came to Santa Marta and she took me as her apprentice. Yet I feel as if I’ve loved her always
.

What will I do when she’s gone?

The candle flames fluttered, their light too weak to reach the edges of the room. Giulia felt the loss that crouched in the shadows, an emptiness waiting to devour her.

—

Giulia stopped at the infirmary to relay Humilità’s request for poppy. Then, instead of returning to the workshop as she was supposed to, she headed for the little nun’s cell where she lived alone, hurrying along as if she were on an important errand and hoping none of the sisters she passed would challenge her. She closed her door and sat on her bed, and carefully pulled the recipe out of her sleeve.

Passion blue.
The color that had made Humilità famous, named for the painting of Christ’s Passion in which she had first used it. How many times had Giulia seen this formula in Humilità’s book of paint recipes—her book of secrets—written out in the incomprehensible cipher Humilità used for the most precious of her colors? How many times had she tried to imagine what special ingredient, what exotic technique, made Passion blue so luminous and alive? And here was the answer.
A list of materials—some expected, some surprising—and a detailed, exacting preparation procedure.