Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (33 page)

Something flickered in Alvise’s face. He hesitated, then stepped back and let the door swing wide.

Giulia’s sleeping area had been dismantled. The mattress, the makeshift curtain, her brazier—all were gone. Rolls of canvas were bundled haphazardly into the place where they had been—the disarray that Ferraldi seemed naturally to create around himself, already beginning to undo the order Giulia had made.

She crossed to the stacked planks behind which she’d made a hiding place for the things she had wanted to keep safe. Her sketches were there, neatly tied with cord, and the blue pigment. But the painting—

“It isn’t here,” she said, breathless. “My painting. It isn’t here.”

“Are you certain this is where you left it?” Bernardo asked.

“Yes. Yes. I had it out last Saturday, the day Signor Moretti came, but I put it back.”

She tossed Sofia’s mantle aside and knelt, careless of the rich fabric of her borrowed gown, pushing at the heavy bags. Bernardo came to help. It was no use. The painting was gone.

“Someone’s taken it.” Giulia stood. Her heart was pounding. The warehouse was empty: Alvise had vanished. She thought of the flicker she’d seen in his face just before he let them in. “That little snake. He must have seen me hide it.”

“Who, Alvise? You think it was him?”

“Oh saints—what if he’s done something to it?”

She lifted her skirts and ran to the stairs. Bernardo followed. The workshop was deserted—Alvise must have fled to the third floor. Giulia rounded the landing, ready to rush after him. But then something brushed the edge of her awareness—faint, almost imperceptible, like the touch of cobwebs.

She checked, holding her breath. And there it was, trembling ever so faintly at the limits of her perception: a sound of bells.

She felt her heart stop.

“What?” Bernardo said from behind her. “What is it?”

Ignoring him, she advanced into the workshop. There she paused, closing her eyes and stilling her thoughts, reaching out with the strange sixth sense that once had terrified her but now seemed as natural as touch or taste. Step by step, her eyes open just enough to see where she was going, she followed the color song, her gown dragging unheeded in the sawdust and other debris that littered the floor.

She found herself at the far wall, by the door to Ferraldi’s study. There, as in Humilità’s workshop, the apprentices had a separate area in which to store their materials and sketches and the smocks they wore while working. Giulia had never been given a space, even after Ferraldi had made her an apprentice. But Alvise, Marin, and Stefano each had his own shelf.

Wherever her painting was, it wasn’t on these shelves. That had been obvious even from a distance. Yet she could hear the glass-clear singing of her blue, faint as a memory but, to her altered senses, utterly distinct. Not knowing what she expected to find, she began to rummage among the jumble of objects on Alvise’s shelf, lifting papers, knocking brushes to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Bernardo had followed her.

She opened her mouth to reply. And then she saw it: a smear of blue on the rolled-up sleeve of a painting smock. She would have recognized its pure intensity even if it had had no voice. But the smock was not Alvise’s.

She drew in her breath, disbelieving.

A door creaked. She turned. Ferraldi stood in the entrance to his study, wearing his painting clothes, his silver hair bound back with a cord.

“Ah,” he said. In his face she saw none of the confusion Alvise had shown; he recognized her at once. “I had not thought ever to see you again.”

“Signor Moretti let me go.”

“Let you go?”

“He wanted Passion blue. I gave it to him. He had no more use for me after that.”

“What about Santa Marta?”

“They know nothing. He was never sent to bring me back—he came because you wrote to him and mentioned me, or who I made you think I was, and he guessed the truth.”

“It was my letter that brought him? My letter of condolence?”

“Yes.”

Ferraldi dropped his eyes. “Ah,” he said again.

“I’m sorry I deceived you.” The words came in a rush. “But the new Maestra didn’t want me after my Maestra died, and there was no one else to teach me. She left me your letters—Maestra Humilità did; that’s how I knew to come to you. But a girl can’t be a painter’s apprentice—I
had
to disguise myself or you wouldn’t have taken me. It was never my intent to bring trouble to your workshop, I swear it. I’d never have stolen your secrets, no matter what Signor Moretti said.”

Ferraldi did not reply at once. “Well. It is done now.” He surveyed her gown, her gold-laced hair, Bernardo standing by her. “You seem to have found a comfortable refuge.”

Giulia flushed. “I’ve been fortunate.”

“Why have you come here?”

“There are things I left behind, my sketches and my competition painting. They were hidden downstairs. But my painting has been stolen.”

“Stolen?” Ferraldi looked skeptical.

“I thought it was Alvise. But—” Giulia turned to pull the smock off its shelf, holding up the sleeve with its telltale smudge of blue. “This is my blue. I’d know it anywhere. It wasn’t quite dry, he must not have realized that when he took it—Stefano, I mean. This is Stefano’s smock.”

“Stefano? Why would Stefano take your painting?”

“To enter it in the Contarini competition.”

The three of them turned at the sound of a new voice. Alvise stood just inside the doorway.

“What?” All at once Giulia could not get her breath. “But he has his own painting.”

“Yes, but it’s rubbish, isn’t it? And yours is better. Any fool could see it, even Stefano. He wants that five hundred ducats, so he took your painting to pass off as his.”

“But . . . but he can’t do that! It is mine! It has my signature!”

“He painted over your name and put his own name on top.”

Giulia couldn’t speak. She could hardly credit that Stefano, with his overweening vanity, could be capable of perceiving the superiority of someone else’s work. But she remembered how he’d come to watch her, how he’d frowned when she mocked his angel orchestra. Alvise had no reason to tell the truth, yet she found that she believed him.

“This is a serious accusation, Alvise.” Ferraldi’s voice held the end-of-patience tone he reserved for his nephew. “Have you grounds for making it, or is it merely something you suppose?”

“I caught him doing it. The night after they took
that one
away.” Alvise pointed at Giulia, as he might have to an animal in a menagerie. “I know you think I’m an idiot, Uncle. But I saw what I saw. When I asked how he thought he’d get away with it, he said you and Lauro were the only other ones who knew who’d really painted it, but neither of you were going to be at the competition, and even if you were you wouldn’t say anything because then he’d tell everyone that the workshop had harbored a runaway convent girl in man’s disguise.”

“God’s death,” Ferraldi swore. “And you are only informing me of this now?”

“He said he’d beat me senseless every day for a month if I told. I wasn’t going to say anything, especially not to
that one
.” Alvise’s eyes flicked to Giulia’s face. “But you’ve already figured most of it out, haven’t you? Stefano is a shit, Uncle. He manages things so you and Lauro don’t notice, but Marin will tell you the same if you ask him, and I’ll bet
that one
will too. I know he’ll hurt me, whatever you decide to do. But it’ll be worth it if he gets what he deserves.”

“He cannot do this.
He cannot.
” All Giulia’s fear and uncertainty were gone, swallowed by a high, clear rage. She turned to Bernardo. “You said you’d vouch for me before Contarini and the others. Will you still?”

Bernardo’s gaze was steady. “I will.”

“What do you plan to do, storm Palazzo Contarini Nuova?” Ferraldi said. “You have neither a painting nor an invitation—you’ll be turned away, and not kindly. I will deal with Stefano myself when he returns. I will get you your painting back.”

“No! It is my work. It is
my
hand,
my
eye,
my
colors that I mixed myself. It is . . .” Giulia heard Humilità’s voice:
You are the sum of your work.
“It is the sum of me. I know I am merely a girl. I know it will cause a scandal. But I have to stop him. I
cannot let him take what I have made and claim it’s his.
I will not!
”

The words rang through the quiet room. Ferraldi regarded her. She met his eyes, challenging that vivid gaze.

“You will not gain admittance on your own,” Ferraldi said. “But I have an invitation—which, fortunately for you, I did not discard.”

Giulia caught her breath. “You will help me?”

“Against my better judgment—yes, I will.”

“Thank you, Maestro. I swear I will say nothing about you or my time here.”

“If I were a gambler, I’d wager you won’t get far enough to say anything at all.”

He returned to his study. Giulia could hear him rummaging among his papers. He emerged after several moments with his mantle over his arm and the invitation rolled up in his hand.

They headed for the stairs. When Alvise would have followed, Ferraldi gestured him back.

“You’ll remain here, Alvise. The city will be wild tonight. Someone needs to watch the house.”

“But, Uncle—”

“Do as I say.” Then, in a kinder tone: “You did right to speak up. I’ll make sure Stefano doesn’t touch you.”

“It won’t matter,” Alvise muttered. “He’ll get me anyway.”

They left him standing at the head of the stairs. Giulia looked back once; he scowled when he saw her turn, but not quickly enough to hide the misery in his face.

CHAPTER 25

GAMMA ME FECIT

On the Grand Canal, Bernardo turned the gondola north, toward the Rialto Bridge.

The afternoon was waning. In the west, the falling sun had set the sky on fire. Lanterns swung from gondola prows and shone from felze enclosures, and all along the quays bonfires had been kindled, their smoke hazing the dimming air. In the black water, a mirror-world of light stirred and shimmered, mocking the solidity of the world above.

The bridge was a bright necklace across the throat of the canal, with torches for jewels. Giulia barely saw it as they passed beneath, was barely aware of Ferraldi beside her or of Bernardo on the gondolier’s platform, deftly manipulating the oar. She willed the gondola to move faster, her hands closed on the edge of the seat, her fingernails digging into the wood.

“There it is, ahead,” Bernardo said. “The one that looks as if it’s on fire.”

Giulia saw it at once, climbing three stories above the canal’s right bank. Every window blazed, as if an entire city’s worth of candles had been set alight inside. An army of torches flared along the water floor; more torches lit the water of the canal itself, raised up on long stakes. In the gathering dusk, it really did look as if Palazzo Contarini Nuova were burning—both the high house above and the reflection-house below.

Mooring poles bristled before the water steps, already crowded with gondolas. As Bernardo steered toward them, Giulia gazed up at the palazzo’s vast façade, each story faced in a different kind of marble and densely embellished with balconied arcades and decorative stonework.
Am I really here—I, Giulia Borromeo, nobleman’s bastard, convent runaway, preparing to steal into the palace of one of the richest men in the richest city in the world?
Like so much else in these past days—these past months—it seemed to be happening to someone else, someone larger and braver and more determined, while the real Giulia, small and frightened, crouched in a corner and looked on.

Bernardo found an empty mooring post. They crossed from boat to boat to reach the palazzo’s broad landing, Giulia holding up her skirts so she would not stumble.

“If anyone asks, I’ll say you are my niece and nephew,” Ferraldi said as they approached the liveried servant who was inspecting invitations. Giulia nodded. Her heart beat high and fast. She could feel the heat of all those torches licking at her skin.

The servant waved them into an immense entrance foyer, where more servants waited to receive the guests’ cloaks. An imposing flight of stairs led up to the pòrtego. Emerging into
it, Giulia could not help gasping. But for the churches she had visited, it was the vastest interior space she had ever seen, the ceiling soaring so high she thought a forest might fit under it, the walls enclosing an area the size of a small campo. On the patterned marble floor, more than a hundred of Venice’s high nobility paraded in all their finery: older men in long black or crimson robes; young men in daringly short doublets; women in gowns of every color, their throats and hair wound with jewels, tottering on their high chopines. The air rang with conversation and with the music of the chamber orchestra seated opposite the stairs.