Passion Blue
Authors: Victoria Strauss
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 by Victoria Strauss
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Request for permission should be addressed to:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strauss, Victoria.
Passion blue / by Victoria Strauss. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In fifteenth-century Italy, seventeen-year-old Giulia, a Count’s illegitimate daughter, buys a talisman hoping it will bring her true love to save her from life in a convent, but once there she begins to learn the painter’s craft, including how to make the coveted paint, Passion blue, and to question her true heart’s desire. Includes historical notes and glossary.
ISBN 978-0-7614-6230-9 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-7614-6231-6 (ebook)
[1. Self-realization—Fiction. 2. Convents—Fiction. 3. Nuns—Fiction. 4. Artists— Fiction. 5. Talismans—Fiction. 6. Magic—Fiction. 7. Italy—History— 15th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S9125Pas 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011040133
Editor: Melanie Kroupa
First edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C
HAPTER
9 The Repairer of Frescoes
C
HAPTER
11 Pigments and Horoscopes
C
HAPTER
12 Plautilla and Alessandro
C
HAPTER
13 The City of Painters
C
HAPTER
16 To Wield the Rainbow
C
HAPTER
20 The Altarpiece of San Giustina
C
HAPTER
25 The Great and Beautiful Gift
The Talisman
CHAPTER 1
The Summons
Milan, Italy, Anno Domini 1487
The clouds broke apart and sunlight flooded down, burnishing the rough bark of the apple trees and tossing their shadows across the grass. Giulia caught her breath at the sudden beauty of it, her charcoal stick racing across the paper on her knee as she tried to capture the moment before it vanished.
“Giulia!” The shrill call was as sudden as a slap. Giulia jumped; the charcoal slipped, botching the line.
“Giuuuuuulia!”
Giulia pressed closer to the tree she was leaning against, hoping it would hide her, but it was already too late. She could see Clara stomping toward her
between the trunks, her fat moon-face flushed with exertion and annoyance.
“What are you doing out here?” Clara planted her hands on her hips, scowling.
“What does it look as if I’m doing?” Clara was the daughter of the cooking woman who had taken Giulia in after Giulia’s own mother died. She never missed a chance to try and make Giulia miserable.
“I’ve got better things to do than chase around trying to find you, you know,” Clara said. “You’re s’posed to be in the sewing room making shirts, not outside with your stupid pictures.”
Giulia sighed and closed her sketchbook on the spoiled drawing. She’d finished her sewing quota early and had slipped away to the orchard, braving the chill of the mid-April day for the pleasure of some uninterrupted sketching time. At least, that had been the plan.
“What do you want, Clara?”
“
I
don’t want anything.” Clara looked smug. “I’ve been sent to fetch you. The Countess’s maid is waiting in the
cortile
. She says the Countess wants to see you.”
It took all Giulia’s self-control not to betray what she felt. For weeks she’d been dreading this summons—ever since her father, Count Federico di Assulo Borromeo, died of a fall from his horse, plunging the whole of the household into mourning.
“Well? Don’t just sit there like a lump. She’s been waiting nearly half an hour, that’s how long it took to find you.”
The sun had gone away again and the grayness had
returned. Carefully, for she didn’t want to give Clara the satisfaction of seeing her hands shake, Giulia stowed her sketchbook and her charcoal stick in the pouch at her belt, then got to her feet and shook out her skirts. She began to make her way back through the orchard, toward the great bulk of Palazzo Borromeo that rose beyond.
“Are you scared, Giulia?” Clara trotted along beside her. “I’d be, if I was you. Everyone knows the Countess hates the sight of you. Think she means to throw you out, now the master’s gone?”
Giulia, who feared exactly that, did not reply.
“I hope she does. I can’t wait to have the bed all to myself.”
“You’ll need it, as fat as you’re getting.”
“I’d rather be fat than a beanpole like you! A man likes something he can get hold of.”
“Yes, but he also likes his hands to meet round the back.”
Clara hissed. “I hate you, Giulia. Always so high and mighty, with your nose in the air and your stupid drawings, like being the Count’s bastard makes you better than the rest of us. Well, you’re a servant just the same as we are, and your ten drops of noble blood won’t fill your stomach when you’re on the street begging for pennies, or maybe doing other things to stay alive. And it will serve you right!”
Clara stopped following when they reached the
cortile
, the paved court at the heart of the palazzo, but Giulia could feel the other girl’s malevolent gaze as she went to meet the Countess’s maid, who was waiting
by the fountain. The maid led her toward the marble stairs that rose to the palazzo’s upper floors, where the Borromeo family lived in a series of magnificent suites and chambers. The stairs were for the household and its guests, not for servants or for bastards. Never before had Giulia set foot on them.
The maid left Giulia in an unfurnished anteroom with faded frescoes of hunting scenes on the walls. It seemed a very long time before the Countess entered, in a swirl of velvet and brocade.
“My lady.” Giulia dropped a low curtsy. Too late, she realized that her fingers were stained with charcoal. Rising, she tried to hide them in her skirt.
“My husband made me the executor of his estate and will.” The Countess’s voice was as icy as the marble of the antechamber’s floor. “It is my word that rules here now.”
“Yes, my lady.” Giulia had felt this woman’s hatred many times over the years, but she could count on the fingers of both hands the number of sentences the Countess had ever addressed to her.
“You are—what, sixteen?”
“I turned seventeen in March, my lady.”
“My husband made provision for you in his will. Three hundred ducats, to be used for a dowry.”
Giulia gasped. She looked up before she could stop herself, into the Countess’s hard dark eyes. Hastily she looked down again.
“I see you are surprised. As was I. My husband did not share this intent with me.”
“My lady—I never knew—that is, I never expected—”
“No matter.” The Countess waved Giulia’s words away with one ring-heavy hand. “I have arranged a chaperone, as is proper. At noon tomorrow you will leave for Padua, where you will begin your novitiate at the convent of Santa Marta.”
Convent?
“My lady…I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite simple. My husband intended that you marry. Well, I have arranged for you to become the bride of our Savior Jesus Christ. Your dowry is small, but even so the nuns have accepted it, as a favor to my family. For as you know, Padua is where I was born.”
“But—” Giulia couldn’t seem to get her breath. “My lady, I don’t want to be a nun.”
“And what possible difference could you imagine that makes to me? This is
my
house now. And
I
say: Leave my house!” The Countess’s rigid self-control cracked. Rage strained her voice. “Did you think this day would not come? Did you think, when he died, you would continue as before?”
Of course Giulia hadn’t been so foolish. Her mother, the most skilled of the household’s seamstresses, had also been the Count’s favorite mistress, and he had protected Giulia for her sake—arranging for Annalena, the cooking woman, to take Giulia in after Giulia’s mother died, seeing that Giulia had her mother’s place in the sewing room when she grew old enough, summoning Giulia every year to ask if she was content. Giulia knew well that his protection ended at the instant of his death. Even so, she’d
hoped she would be allowed to stay. Life in Palazzo Borromeo wasn’t always easy, but it was the only home she knew.
She’d tried to prepare herself for the worst. But never, in her most awful fantasies, had she imagined this. Not the Count’s bequest. Not the fate the Countess had just decreed for her.