Passion Blue (21 page)

Yet, watching the artists bring scenes to life, she was often shaken by a profound sense of recognition—as if this were not new knowledge, but understanding that had always existed in some till-now undiscovered place inside herself. With all her desire and all her strength, she wanted to do as the painters did: to set brush to panel. To abandon chalk red and charcoal black, and wield the rainbow. To pluck moments from the flow of time and make them eternal. To pour her soul out onto the stark white of gessoed panels and bring another world to life.

I can do this
, she thought at such times, feeling the familiar burning in her fingers.
I must do this
.

Now, watching the face of a Roman guard appear in monochrome under Humilità’s expert brush, she thought of the question she had asked today, and heard again Humilità’s judgment:
For you, there is only here, with me
. But she also sensed the stirring of the idea
that had woken in her last night, under the changed stars that had guided Ormanno to her. Humilità was wrong. There
was
another way.

She felt the twisting of a familiar guilt. She’d been deceiving Humilità from the start—not by choice, though that didn’t make the lie any less. But she knew now how she would escape—or at least, with whom. From today, she would truly be living a double life, lying not just by her intentions but by her actions.

In a way it was no different. But in another way it felt much worse.

I’ll work harder than ever. I’ll give everything I can. There will be nothing false about my work
.

It was the same silent promise she had made on the night Humilità claimed her as an apprentice. This time, it felt hollow.

She turned away, and went to clear up the preparation area.

When Giulia reached the wall on Friday night, her heart racing with both anticipation and the fear that Ormanno might not have come, he was already waiting. He had brought wine again, and heavy dark grapes.

“Does Lorenza ever notice the things you steal from her kitchen?” Giulia asked.

He laughed. “Lorenza notices everything. But she always forgives me.”

“Doesn’t anyone wonder where you go at night?”

“They just assume I have a sweetheart.” He reached to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “And
they’re not wrong, are they?”

His touch stole her breath. “You’ve had many sweethearts, I’m guessing.”

“None I’ve risked prison for.”

“Prison?”

“Giulia, don’t you know the penalties for men who corrupt nuns? Fines, prison, flogging. Sometimes all three.”

Giulia was aghast. “I had no idea.”

“Don’t worry.” He waved away her distress. “I’ve a mate on the city watch, he’d see me right if ever there was a problem. Besides.” He smiled his teasing smile. “I don’t mind a bit of danger. It makes it more exciting, don’t you think?”

It was true. She laughed, exhilarated.

“Name the stars for me,” Ormanno said. “The way you did the other night.”

So she traced the constellations for him, and explained the spheres, and told him why the sun and moon revolved around the Earth. He seemed younger as he listened, his face upturned, his eyes following where she pointed.

When he grew tired of looking up, he stretched out in the grass. She lay down beside him, her shoulder touching his. Her heart beat high and fast. She was aware of his warmth, of his smell of wine and walnut oil and the faint tang of his sweat. The sky arched black and huge above them, the stars like diamond chips, the moon a misshapen silver coin. When he raised himself on one elbow and leaned down to kiss her, she closed her eyes and let herself fall into those
depths, up and up, passing through the spheres as she did in dreams.

“What’s that?” His hand, caressing her throat, had encountered the oval of the talisman beneath her gown.

“Just a necklace. Something I brought with me from home.”

“Didn’t you say they took all that away from you?”

“Yes. I smuggled it in.”

He laughed softly. “I can see you were never meant to be a nun.”

He kissed her again, more insistently this time, opening her mouth with his tongue. His fingers moved from her throat to her breast, and she gasped against his lips. He traced the swell of her hip, the length of her thigh. But when he stroked the fabric of her dress above her knee and slipped his hand beneath it, she tensed and caught his arm.

“No,” she whispered.

He drew back at once. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s just…” She sat up, pulling away from him. “I don’t…I mean I’ve never…”

“No. It’s my fault. The girls I’ve been with…well, they weren’t like you. I forgot that. It won’t happen again.” He held out his arm. “Come. We’ll just lie together in the grass.”

She hesitated, then curled up beside him. His arm closed carefully around her. His body was long and warm against her own; his chest rose and fell under her cheek, and she could hear the steady thumping of his heart. Would it matter if she let him do as he
wanted? They were meant for each other, after all. But something in her was not ready.

There are men who are drawn to nuns
. Humilità’s voice spoke inside her mind. She pushed it away.

They lay chastely until the midnight bell struck. Then he got up and helped her to her feet. She patted down her rumpled dress and hair while he packed the wine flask into his bag.

“I’ll walk you to the edge of the orchard,” he said.

“Oh. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“But everyone’s asleep, aren’t they? I just want to see a little of where my orchard girl lives.”

The endearment made her catch her breath.

She led him back beneath the trees. The moonlight fell between the branches, painting a ghostly mosaic on the grass. Entirely naturally, her hand fell into his. He was careful to keep a little distance between them as they walked.

Beneath the final rank of trees she pulled him to a stop.

“What are those buildings in front of us?” he whispered.

“The residences of the wealthy nuns. There’s a beautiful garden in the middle, with a fountain.”

“Let’s go closer.”

“No!” She tightened her grip on his fingers. “No. We shouldn’t be reckless.”

“You’re right.” He raised her hand to his lips, kissed the back of it and then the palm. “You go on, then.”

“Good night, Ormanno.” It thrilled her to say his
name.

“Good night, my orchard girl.”

She turned when she reached the other side of the courtyard. He was standing where she had left him, watching her go—she could just see the glimmer of his white shirt, the pale blur of his face. He lifted his hand. She raised hers, then slipped into the shadow of the loggia.

Before the orchard, Anasurymboriel had only touched Giulia’s dreams, never her waking hours. But now, on the nights she stole out to meet Ormanno, she felt the spirit’s magic all around her—a vibration of the air, a stirring against her skin, and occasionally, faintly, a profound sweet scent, like the flower-smell that had filled the sorcerer’s rooms on the night he made the talisman. That did not mean she was reckless—she still counted twice to a thousand before she left the dormitory, still paused at the turnings of hallways to make sure no one was about. But she trusted the spirit’s protection. As long as she took care, she
knew she would not be discovered.

Ormanno always arrived before her. As she slipped from her bed and raced like a shadow through Santa Marta’s nightbound corridors, she played a game with herself: Would he be leaning against the wall? Sitting cross-legged on the grass? Lounging against a tree trunk? Each time she saw him, she felt for an instant that she’d pulled him from her imagination, a dream-man. She had to go to him and touch him to make sure he was real.

He never failed to bring wine and something good to eat, and, as the moon waned, a candle to give them light. The little flame was too weak to illuminate very much, but it made the dark around them darker, isolating them in a tiny world of their own.

As they ate and drank, they talked, learning about one another. She told him stories of her life in Milan—though, as with Angela, she did not mention her lost horoscope or the sorcerer or Anasurymboriel. One day she would confess those things. One day, he would learn that they had not found each other just by chance. But not yet.
Not till I’m out of Santa Marta. Not till we’re married
.

She was hungry for knowledge about him too—what it had been like to be a foundling, to live by his wits on the street. The tales he told were stark with suffering and privation—the rivalry with other gangs, the casual brutality of the city watch, the times he had nearly starved to death. A hard life, as he had said, from which Matteo Moretti had delivered him. But not all the memories were bad ones. She could see that he
still felt affection for the little gang of orphan boys who had been his only family. Some of them were gone, lost to hunger or disease, but some, like him, had survived and found a safer life. He never mentioned it, but she suspected he was still in touch with them.

“I ran away from my master three times,” he told her, on the fourth night they met. “Back to my mates, back to the streets. I hated the workshop—the rules and the discipline, the other apprentices and the way they jeered at me for being a foundling. But it changed me—living in a comfortable house, eating as much as I wanted, knowing where I’d sleep each night. Finding out I could draw. In the end, I always went back.”

“And he always took you in again.” Giulia reached for a handful of the almonds he had brought. Rain had fallen earlier in the day and the grass was damp, the stars obscured by clouds.

“Not from charity,” Ormanno said. “He knew my talents. He had plans for me.”

“What kind of plans?”

“Just…plans.” He gestured to his paint-marked shirt, which spoke his craft as clear as words. “The third time I came back, he told me I had to choose—him or the streets. I chose him. Or rather, I chose what he could offer me. It seemed a fair exchange.” He took a swallow from the wine flask. “I don’t regret it. I might be dead now if he hadn’t found me. He gave me my life’s work—I’d never have known I could paint if it wasn’t for him. But…”

“But?”

“But I am tired of being at his command. Of working
to his rules. We journeymen can do nothing of our own. We must use only his recipes, only his techniques, even in our own paintings that aren’t part of the workshop’s official commissions. And we aren’t supposed to solicit private commissions for ourselves. Of course,” he added, “that hasn’t stopped me, though he’d be furious if he knew. But I have my own ideas, my own recipes, so many things I want to try—how else can I test them?”

He’d told her about his experiments with unusual lighting and unconventional angles in the portraits he had painted, as well as his fascination with the technical aspects of the painter’s art—formulating new pigment and gesso and lacquer recipes, working out methods of purifying oils so they did not darken too much in drying. She loved this glimpse of the intelligence that lay beneath his off-hand manner. She was also growing to understand his intolerance of obstacles, his blazing impatience with anything that held him back.

“Like your formula for removing fresco stains,” she said.

“Exactly. One thing I’ll say for your Maestra, she is not afraid of trying something new. But for my master, the old way is always the best way. Take oil, for instance. If I had my choice, I’d use nothing else—it dries more slowly, so you can work bigger areas, and it blends more readily, so you can create more subtle color effects. It’s impossible to paint like that with tempera. But unless a client demands it, my master won’t have it. Tempera it must be, or at most, tempera
with oil overglazes.”

“The Maestra says that in twenty years no one will use tempera at all anymore.”

“And she’s right!” Ormanno flung down the wine flask. “He is jealous, too. To keep our places, we must never let him guess we might become his equals. Can you imagine what it’s like to always hold yourself back? To never really know what you’re capable of because you can never explore the limits of what you can do? To always be pretending to be less than you are? Can you even
imagine
it?”

“Is it truly that bad?”

“Yes.” His voice was bleak. “It truly is. Time was I didn’t mind so much. I owed him, after all, and that was fair, even though he never let me forget it. But it chafes me now, oh, how it chafes me! I need to move on. I want to belong to myself. I want my own workshop, with my own patrons and my own pupils and my own methods, and no one to tell me how to paint or what subjects to choose. I’m saving every penny I can. But it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough.”

“You’ll find a way.” Giulia reached across the candle, put her hand on his arm. She could feel the tension in him, the frustration. “You’ll have your workshop. You were born to be a painter, Ormanno.”

He shook his head. “How can you know that? You haven’t even seen my work.”

“You’ve told me so much about it. I don’t need to see it to understand how much you love it. Besides, the Maestra said you’re very talented.”

He frowned. “She said that?”

“Yes.”

She’d meant to please him, but he only pressed his lips together and changed the subject—which was odd, because he seemed fascinated by Humilità and her workshop, and was normally eager to ask question after question. Now and then Giulia remembered what Humilità had said about his curiosity, but she could see no harm in answering—he was a painter, after all, so why should he not be curious about another painter’s workshop, especially one as unusual as Humilità’s?

She was careful never to mention the pigment recipes she and Angela compounded, or the formulas and techniques described in Humilità’s leather-bound book. But she spoke of old Benedicta’s marvelous color wisdom, Lucida’s lovely miniatures, Humilità’s demanding lessons, the workshop’s unhurried work routines. When he wondered how women could manage the heavier physical tasks, she told him about Domenica and her carpentry, and described the elegant scaffold the stern nun had built for the San Giustina altarpiece.