Passion Blue (19 page)

…nine hundred ninety and nine, one thousand
.

Giulia stopped counting and lay quiet, listening for a sign that any of the novices were still awake. She heard nothing. Suor Margarita, she hoped, was asleep as well; she’d counted to a thousand twice, slowly, after the novice mistress returned from singing Compline.

Now
, she thought.
It’s time
.

For just a moment, she could not move. She’d devised a plan, turning it over in her mind until every detail was as perfect as she could make it—but no plan was foolproof. What if one of the girls roused as she crept out the window? What if she encountered someone in the corridors? What if Suor Margarita
came unexpectedly into the dormitory and saw Giulia’s bed was empty?

She forced herself to slip out from under the covers. Each crackle of the mattress seemed impossibly loud. From beneath her pillow she drew her novice gown and sandals, which she had concealed after pretending to stow them as usual in her trousseau chest. She positioned her pillow under the sheet and blanket so that sleepy eyes might mistake it for her huddled form. If anyone realized she was gone, she hoped they would assume she’d gotten up to use the privy.

As silently as she could, Giulia climbed onto the windowsill, then dropped down into the grass. She paused to pull her gown on over her chemise, then set out at a run across the width of the lawn. The moon was just past full and the sky blazed with stars, bright enough to cast her shadow on the grass.

She entered the building again, dashing down corridors in which two out of every three torches had been extinguished for the night. Although she was now on the north side of the convent, away from the living quarters, this was the most dangerous part of the journey, for despite the special privilege that allowed Santa Marta’s nuns to sleep through the night, some of the more devout sisters rose to sing the Holy Offices anyway. Giulia paused at each turning, surveying the way ahead before racing on, noiseless on her bare feet.

She reached the loggia that opened onto the garden court where Lucida lived. All the windows of the little houses were dark, but she felt horribly exposed on the gravel paths. Then she was in the orchard,
beneath the dim shelter of the trees, with the pungent smell of windfall plums and apricots in her nostrils and the long grass damp underfoot. She paused to catch her breath and to tie on her sandals and tug her dress straight. It was unbecoming, there was nothing she could do about that, but she could at least fix her hair. She shook it out of its braid and combed her fingers through it. Should she leave it loose?
No. I don’t want him to think me wanton
. She braided it up again, leaving a few strands to curl around her face.

From somewhere in the city, a bell tolled eleven.

She’d seen the orchard from a distance, when she and the others visited Lucida, but she had never actually entered it. She picked her way through the grass, hoping she was heading in the right direction. She smelled the stagnant water of the canal; the wall appeared at last, high and forbidding beyond the final rank of trees. There was no sign of a breach, but when she looked along the wall she thought she could see a gap some distance to her left. She hurried toward it—and there it was, just as Lucida had said, a spot where damp or age had eaten away the mortar and the bricks had crumbled into the canal, leaving a wide break that an agile man could easily scale from the other side.

She settled herself to wait in the shadow of the trees. The air was hot and very still. Between the wall and the trees lay a narrow stretch of open grass, lit silver by the moon. She thought of God, looking down on her in this moment, and turned her mind away, placing her hand on the talisman instead, waiting for it to give her a sign, to warm with Ormanno’s approach.

She felt no change. But from the other side of the wall came the sound of oars, then a thud, then a scraping noise. A pause. A man’s head and shoulders appeared above the fallen section. Giulia recognized Ormanno, his expression wary as he gazed around. For a moment Benedicta’s story came into her mind: Alessandro, arriving to rescue Plautilla. Then Ormanno vaulted over the wall, effortless as a cat, and she forgot everything but him.

As if in a dream, she rose and went to meet him.

“You came.” His smile melted the tension from his face.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I wasn’t sure.” He surveyed her, as he had the first time they met. She had to force herself not to drop her eyes. “You’re much prettier without that kerchief.”

Giulia was glad of the moonlight, which washed the color from the world and concealed her blush.

“Are we really safe?” He looked around again at the trees and the night.

“As long as we stay here.”

“Good.” He turned, and she saw that he held a rope in his hand, its other end vanishing over the wall. He looped it around a jutting brick, tying it securely. “My boat,” he explained. “Or rather, my friend’s boat. He’d have my head if I let it drift away. I’d quite like to keep my head.” He grinned. “Shall we sit? I’ve brought something for us to eat.”

“Oh…yes. That would be nice.”

He trod on the grass to flatten it, and they sat down in the moonlight. From the bag he wore over
his shoulder he produced a flask and a folded napkin.

“Wine and nut cakes. Stolen from my master’s kitchen.”

He uncorked the flask and held it toward her. She sipped—just for courtesy, her stomach was churning too much to allow for more. She was furious at herself for being so nervous. He was star-sent, bound to her by the talisman and Anasurymboriel’s magic. Yet he was also a stranger, a man she knew absolutely nothing about—and right now, beyond the pulse-pounding closeness of him, that was what she was most aware of.

He took back the flask and drank, then smiled his teasing smile. The moon illuminated his fair hair, his crooked nose, his high forehead. It cast his starry eyes and the hollows of his cheeks into shadow.

“So tell me, Giulia. Who was it who forced you to come to Santa Marta?”

Giulia drew a deep breath. “My father’s wife.”

“Your father’s wife? Not your mother?”

“No. My mother’s dead. She died when I was seven.” Anasurymboriel had chosen him for her; nothing she told him could make a difference. Still, the truth was hard to confess. “She was…she was never his wife. She was his seamstress. I’m illegitimate.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Wrong side of the sheets, just like me.”

“You’re illegitimate too?”

“My mother left me outside the Erimitani monastery when I was a few days old. The monks say it’s mostly girls without husbands who leave their babies that way. That’s where my surname comes from.
Trovatelli. The Found One.” He tipped the flask back for another swallow, held it out to her again. “His seamstress, eh? So your father was a rich man?”

The wine tasted better this time. “My father was Count Federico di Assulo Borromeo of Milan.”

“I see.” He took back the flask, his brows rising. “A
very
rich man.”

“He died last February. He was good to me while he was alive, he gave me shelter and work, and never cast me out even though his wife—the Countess—wanted him to. He tried to be good to me after his death as well, by leaving me a dowry. The Countess was bound by the provisions of his will and couldn’t take it away from me, so she did the next best thing and used it to buy me a place at Santa Marta. That way she married me off, as my father intended, but not to a living man. And got rid of me into the bargain.”

“Saints.” Ormanno pulled his breath in through his teeth, shaking his head. “That’s hard. Did she know you didn’t want to be a nun?”

“I think that was the point.”

“What a waste, locking such a pretty girl up inside a convent!”

The blood flooded Giulia’s cheeks again.

“Didn’t you have any family who could help you? Anyone you could go to instead?”

“No. There’s no one. Now that my father…there’s no one.”

“So you’re all alone in the world. Just like me.” He nodded. His hair had fallen across his cheek; he tucked it behind his ear, a quick, practiced gesture.
“Bastards, orphans, no family, no true home—we’re two of a kind, Giulia. I had a feeling, the first time we talked. I don’t know how, but I did. I think that must be why I couldn’t forget you, even though I knew I should.”

His pale eyes held hers. The intimacy of it made her speechless. Her heart was pounding again. Her body felt light and hot.

“Here.” He offered her the napkin. “Have a cake. They’re good.”

She took one of the little cakes and nibbled at it. It tasted like dust. “You said you don’t have a true home,” she said. “But you live with Maestro Moretti, don’t you?”

“That’s a
place
. Not a home.”

Giulia nodded. She understood the difference. “How did you become his apprentice? Did you always want to be a painter?”

“Saints, no. I barely knew what a painting was before I met him. No, he found me in the street.”

“In the street?”

“I told you, I was a foundling. The monks treated me well enough, but the cloistered life, it wasn’t for me. All the rules and the walls and the prayers six times a day. Not,” he added, “that I’ve got anything against prayers. I was just tired of everything being the same, day after day.”

Giulia felt a thrill of recognition. “I hate it too,” she said. “The sameness.”

“So I ran away. After a while I fell in with some other foundlings. There was an older boy, he taught
us how to beg and how to steal. He protected us. We were like brothers. It wasn’t an easy life, but it wasn’t the worst life either.” He paused a moment, and she could tell he was remembering. “Then one day I tried to steal Matteo Moretti’s purse. Instead of calling the watch, he brought me to his house. I was just a dirty street animal, all rags and scabs. He cleaned me up, gave me a bed and a place in his workshop. Training, once he saw I could draw. I’ve been with him…let’s see, I was ten then. So nine years.”

He’s nineteen
. She’d thought him older. “That was good of him, to take you in.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you.” He gave an odd little laugh. “He’s gotten the worth of it, believe me.”

Giulia remembered how Matteo had spoken to Ormanno on the balcony, as if he were a servant. “Is he a hard master?”

“You could say that.” Ormanno shrugged. “He is a good teacher, though. And his name is known, and not just in Padua either. I could leave here and go anywhere, even to Rome itself, and any workshop would take me on, once they knew I was trained by Matteo Moretti.”

“Are you planning to leave Padua, then?”

“One day. I want a workshop of my own. I’m not like some of the men I work with, content to sit in their master’s shadow, never to shine with their own light. My—well, a girl I used to know, she always told me that I had a good place and should be content. It was foolish to strive for more, she said, and risk losing everything. But I think it’s better to try and lose than to
spend your life wanting and waiting. You’ve got to take the chances when they come to you.”

“Yes,” Giulia said. “I know.”

“Oh?” He was teasing again. “You’ve taken a lot of chances in your life, then, have you?”

“Enough,” Giulia said, stung. “Being here tonight, for one.”

“Oh, I’m stupid.” He was instantly contrite. “Forgive me, Giulia, my tongue sometimes runs ahead of my brains.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. Must be the wine.”

“You haven’t drunk so much.”

“Haven’t I?” He took a long swallow from the flask, then looked at her, tilting his head to one side. “What about you? You don’t want to be a nun, but what
do
you want?”

“I want to marry,” Giulia said boldly. “And have children. And paint.”

“Paint?” His eyebrows rose.

“Women can be painters. Look at my Maestra.”

“Hm,” he said. “But if you leave Santa Marta, you’ll have to leave your Maestra. How will you paint then?”

“I’ll think of something.” In fact, she already had. An idea had been born in her tonight, but she couldn’t tell him that. Not yet.

“What’s it like, anyway?” he asked. “Being the famous Maestra Humilità’s pupil? In her secret workshop?”

“It’s not secret.”

“Oh, but it is, for no man has ever seen it.”

“Well, I suppose, if you put it that way….”

“How did you come to be her apprentice?”

“There was a chest I brought with me. They took it away when I arrived, but one of my drawings was inside. The abbess found it and gave it to Maestra Humilità. She decided she wanted to teach me.”

“Is she a good teacher?”

“Yes. I’ve learned so much, even in just two months. Although it’s hard sometimes. She can be…harsh, if she thinks I’m not trying hard enough.”

“I got a sense of that, when I was working for her. Like her father.” He paused. “Do you think she really painted it? The fresco, I mean?”

“What? Of course she painted it.”

“It’s just…well, there are rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“Well, she’s a woman. And no one has ever seen her paint. Some people say that my master has a hand in her work, though of course he swears it isn’t true.”

“Well, it’s
not
true.
I’ve
seen her paint, and I can tell you that for certain.” Giulia was surprised at how indignant she felt. “She’s a master. A true master. You can take my word for it.”

“Then I will.”

He offered her the flask. She drank, feeling the warmth of it in her throat and belly. A breeze had sprung up, stirring the heavy air. She drank again.
Careful
, she thought, aware that she was starting to feel tipsy.

“How bright it is tonight.” Ormanno was gazing up at the moon, his face and throat exposed to the silver light.

“It’s harder to see the constellations when the moon
is near-full.” Giulia watched him. She felt breathless again; she wanted to touch his skin, to trace the crooked line of his nose, to tuck his hair behind his ears. It was brazen, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.