Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (37 page)

Giulia hurried along, her shawl pulled around her head and shoulders against the cold. No one cast her a second glance, for she was dressed not in the rich gown she had worn yesterday, but in the plain servant’s garments Matteo Moretti had given her, her hair pulled back from her face with a cord. It still felt strange to walk in skirts, but she was far more at ease in these clothes, which were similar in quality to those she’d worn when she’d lived in her father’s household.

She had to ask directions to the Rialto Bridge, but once there, she was on familiar ground. In Campo San Lio, the spit that had held the pig still stood above the remains of the fire, and the paving was littered with refuse that had not yet been cleared away.

Ferraldi’s door was opened, as Giulia knew it would be, by Alvise.

“Hello, Alvise. Is your uncle in?”

He eyed her as he might have eyed a snake, and for a moment she thought he would slam the door in her face. But then he stepped back and let her pass.

The painters, busy at their work, did not notice her at once. Lauro, at the drafting table, saw her first: He went still, his quill poised above his ink pot. Then Zuane and Antonio looked up, their bickering falling quiet, and Marin dropped his muller with a sound of ringing glass, his mouth making an
O
of astonishment. Giulia raised her chin and pressed on through the sudden quiet, looking neither to the left nor right.

“I’m working.” Ferraldi’s reply to her knock was sharp with impatience. “Can it wait?”

She pushed open the door. He was standing at his easel, palette in hand. His brush held malachite green; she could hear its acid trill. He turned, frowning, but whatever angry thing he meant to say died when he saw her.

“Giulia Borromeo,” he said in a tone that held no surprise at all.

Giulia had had a speech planned. Now as on the very first time she’d seen him, all the words flew out of her head.

“Maestro,” she blurted, “I’ve come to ask you to teach me.”

Ferraldi stood a moment without moving. Then he set aside his tools and went to sit down.

“You cannot be Girolamo again,” he said, folding his hands on the mess of rags and papers and broken quills that heaped his desk.

“I don’t want to be.”

“What are you proposing, then?”

“Maestro, I realize now that even if Signor Moretti hadn’t found me, I would have been discovered in the end. Stefano suspected—I think even you suspected—and if it hadn’t been you or him it would have been someone else. I don’t want to spend my life waiting for discovery, fearing that a single mistake could destroy anything I manage to build. Last night”—the memory thrilled through her—“I stood up before all those
people and claimed my painting—myself, as I am, without subterfuge or disguise. I never imagined I would do such a thing. I thought that outside the convent, I would always have to lie in order to paint. But last night I told the truth.”

“And precisely because you did, your painting was turned away.”

“Yes. But those who were there heard me, and some of them will remember. And if I stand up again, and again, perhaps one day I
won’t
be turned away.”

He looked at her. “Do you think you have the strength for that?”

“I don’t know. But I want to try. You said the world must change, Maestro. I don’t imagine I’ll be the one to change it. But I want to learn—not as a false boy, but as myself. As Giulia Borromeo.”

“What makes you think I would be willing to teach you?”

“Because you spoke for me last night when you did not have to.” Giulia’s heart was racing now. “Because you believe a woman can paint as well as a man. Because you’re a fine teacher. Because you know I have a gift, and
I
know that I still have so much to learn.” From her sleeve she pulled the paper she’d written earlier, borrowing materials from Sofia’s writing desk. “I don’t have money to pay you with. But I have this.”

She stepped forward and laid the paper before him. He looked at it a moment.

“Passion blue,” he said.

“That’s the recipe exactly as my Maestra wrote it. I memorized it.”

“You made it too, didn’t you. I should have realized. The Muse’s blue gown.”

“I followed the recipe. But I am not my Maestra. I don’t have her hands or her experience, and what I made wasn’t
Passion blue. If you make it, it will be your blue, not hers. But it will be beautiful.”

He did not answer at once. At last he looked up, his blue-green gaze capturing her own.

“If I am to consider this, there must be no untruth between us. I know a little of your history from Humilità, but you must tell me the rest. All of it, without exception.”

And so for the third time in as many days she told her story, standing before Ferraldi’s desk with her hands wound into the fabric of her shawl, while the gray Lenten light crept in through the window and the sounds of the workshop rose and fell outside the door. She told him everything, even the things that shamed her: her purchase of the talisman, her part in Matteo’s first betrayal. As she’d suspected, he had not known about the plot to steal Humilità’s book of secrets. He was horrified and angry—and also wounded, that Humilità had not trusted him with the truth.

Her tale was nearly done. She hesitated, her resolve faltering, then steeled herself and plunged on.

“There’s one more thing you need to know, Maestro. It is . . . very strange, and I fear you won’t believe me. But I swear to you it’s the truth, and that I am neither mad nor bewitched.”

And she told him about the color song. It was even harder than she had imagined, for she had never thought to share her strange ability with another soul, and she knew how much she was risking by doing so. But if he was to be her teacher, there could be no lies between them, not even of omission. To him, of all the people in the world, she would give the whole truth about herself. From him alone she would keep no secrets.

He was silent when she finished. She waited, her pulse sounding in her ears.

“I do not know what to think of this,” he said. “If I knew nothing else about you, I would indeed think your mind diseased. Or that you were lying, though I cannot imagine why anyone would construct such a falsehood.”

“It’s the truth, Maestro,” Giulia said again.

“Whether it is or not, I can see that you believe it. Did Humilità know?”

“No.” Giulia swallowed against the sudden tightness of her throat. “I wanted to tell her, but . . . I left it too long.”

“These past months, I have seen no sign of madness in you, other than the madness all true artists share. Perhaps you simply have a greater portion of it. But there is something I must know. You speak of talismans and spirits—but do you also pray to God, and to our Savior Jesus Christ?”

“I do, Maestro. I don’t worship demons or spirits. I turned to magic once, but I will never do so again.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear it. On my soul, I swear.”

“Well, then.” Ferraldi sighed. “Once before I let you talk me into taking you on against my better judgment, for the sake of your gift and for Humilità’s memory. It appears that I intend to do so again.”

The relief was so overwhelming that Giulia could not speak.

“Before you thank me—as I am sure you mean to do—I must tell you that I can teach you only as a private pupil. You cannot be my apprentice. If I’m to keep my membership in the artists’ guild, I can’t test convention so far. Agreeing to teach the girl who spoiled Archimedeo Contarini’s competition will be stretching it quite uncomfortably enough. Is that acceptable?”

“More than acceptable, Maestro. Thank you. Thank you!”

“You will come to me three times a week—let us say Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at four o’clock of the afternoon. You’ll supply your own materials, though I may supplement them from time to time. And”—he paused, his brilliant eyes holding hers—“you will tell me the truth. Always. About everything. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

“I don’t know what may come of this. Perhaps nothing. The world will change, but not, as Giovanni said, today. We will simply go forward and see where that takes us.”

“I could ask for nothing more, Maestro.”

“We’re agreed, then.”

He rose from his chair and extended his hand across his desk. She took it, looking into his familiar, almost-ugly face, which she’d long ago stopped seeing as anything but pleasing, especially when, as now, it was warmed by his smile.

“Thank you, Maestro. I’ll try to make sure you don’t regret it.”

The smile widened. “I think I already may. But those are often the best decisions.”

—

Alvise was lurking in the storeroom when Giulia returned downstairs. She opened the door but then, on impulse, turned back.

“I wanted to thank you, Alvise,” she said. “For telling the truth about Stefano.”

“Didn’t do it for you,” he muttered.

“Well, I’m still grateful.”

“What were you talking to my uncle about?”

“I asked him to teach me.”

“What did he say?”

“He agreed.”

“So you’ll still be here.” He swiped his hand under his perpetually running nose.

“Yes, but as a private pupil, not an apprentice. So you needn’t fear I’ll take your place.”

“But now you’ll be his special pet,” Alvise said bitterly. “I’d like to know what it’s like to be the favored one. Just once, I’d like to know.”

Giulia felt a surge of compassion for this ill-favored, ill-treated boy. “I can help you, if you like. I can show you how to draw better.”

“You?” He practically spat the word. “Why would I let you show me anything?”

“Because you have some talent, if someone would only take an interest. Think about it.”

She stepped out into the Calle del Fruttariol, closing the door softly behind her.

The San Lio church was open, and she paused there to say a prayer of thanks and to kneel before the priest and have her forehead marked with Lenten ash. Then she hurried homeward through the busy streets.
Homeward
—the word sang in her mind, for she knew now that she did not have to go away, that Sofia’s house could truly be her home.

There was one more thing she had to do.

In her room again, she knelt before one of the wall chests, on whose lid a second sheet of writing lay waiting, identical to the one she’d given Ferraldi. Beside it was a blank sheet, a quill, and an ink pot. Nearby, the Muse leaned against the wall. Between last night and today, the crystal singing of her blue had fallen silent.

Giulia thought of Humilità, of the secret her teacher had guarded for so long—the secret that, even as it was revealed, became another secret, different for each person who possessed it. She thought of the oath she had sworn and had not been able to keep—should never have been tasked to keep. She thought of Sofia’s words:
One must be strong to keep a secret. But stronger still, sometimes, to let it go.
She understood that now. In the understanding lay forgiveness, both for her teacher and herself.

And for another also.

She smoothed the paper, dipped the quill, and began to write.

To Maestra Domenica Arcello, greetings:

When I left Santa Marta five months ago, I took with me the recipe for Passion blue. Though it was bequeathed to me by Maestra Humilità of her own will, I believe now that it should not have been left to me alone. Accordingly, I am returning it, to you and to the workshop, exactly as she wrote it.

You should know that it will not only exist at Santa Marta. Matteo Moretti possesses it now, as does the painter who has consented to be my teacher. As do I. We will give it to the world, each of us in our own way, and Maestra Humilità will breathe again every time we do.

Giulia Borromeo

Giulia folded the letter and the recipe together, wrote Domenica’s name and the name of the convent on the outside, and got to her feet. She’d ask Sofia to seal the letter and send
it, along with one she’d written to Angela, letting her friend know, at last, that she was safe.

She went to the window, where the grayness of the day was brightening as the sun burned through the clouds. The window looked out onto the side of the house next door, but if she leaned close to the glass she could just see the canal, its waters sparkling in the rising light.

Beauty should not be allowed to die.
Humilità had told her that, five months and a lifetime ago. But Giulia knew now that beauty must also be shared. It had no value if it was hoarded, closed up inside a secret like a miser’s gold inside his counting room.

And suddenly she could feel it: all the beauty she would create in the years to come, all the splendor that would issue from her hand, burning in her like the light of a thousand torches, so intense that for an instant it seemed she must be consumed. Then the heat was gone, leaving behind only a tingling in the fingers of her right hand, which had closed as if to hold a brush. But the flame was still there. It would always be there.

The dull weeks of Lent lay ahead. But after them came Easter, with its promise of rebirth. She too had been reborn: no longer a bastard, an orphan, a servant, a novice, a runaway, a boy, but someone new. Someone she did not yet know, and would discover in the time to come.

Giulia breathed deeply. Then she turned to go in search of Sofia and Bernardo and tell them that she would not have to disguise herself again, would not have to call herself by any name but her own. That with her own true face, she would stand against the world.