Passion Blue (24 page)

“Really? You never mentioned him.”

Giulia left the workshop and hurried down the main hall of the convent’s north wing. The choir nuns were all in church singing None; she saw no one but a pair of
conversae
, raking gravel in one of the courtyards.

She passed the mouth of the short corridor that led to the chapter room, where the choir nuns met monthly to discuss and vote on the affairs of the community. Giulia had never been inside the chapter room, but she’d walked by it several times with Angela, on their way to the parlor when Angela’s brother, Alberto, came to visit. Candles in niches lit the main hall, but side passages like this one, whose rooms were not in use, were dark.

A flicker of motion caught her eye. Then there were running footsteps, and she understood what was
about to happen an instant before the hands fell on her. Her captors yanked her into the corridor, then ran her down its length and slammed her against the chapter room door. She managed to turn her face aside just in time. Pain burst across her cheek.

“That’s for yesterday,” Alessia hissed from behind her. “For blabbing to Suor Margarita.”

Giulia tried to struggle, but there were three of them, and they had her held fast. In the dimness over her shoulder she could see Alessia’s fury-twisted features, and also the pale face of Nelia. The third captor, she guessed, was Elisabetta. Costanza, who’d botched the attempted humiliation of Lisa, would be out of favor just now.

“You don’t belong here,” whispered Alessia. “A nobleman’s bastard with a commoner mother, a
conversa
who thinks she’s as good as a choir nun. I’ve known it from the day you arrived.”

Giulia held her breath, refusing to let them see her fear.

“You’ll never take vows at Santa Marta. Never, do you hear me?” Alessia set the point of her elbow between Giulia’s shoulder blades. “I’m going to see that you’re thrown out of here with nothing more than the clothes you stand up in. And it will happen sooner than you think.”

She ground her elbow viciously into Giulia’s spine. Giulia could not help herself; she gasped.

“And if you
ever
interfere with me again, or with any of my friends, I’ll make you sorry. I swear it. Do you understand me, tattletale? Well, do you?”

“Yes,” Giulia whispered.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes!”

Alessia leaned in harder; it felt as if her elbow would go right through Giulia’s back. Then she stepped away.

“All right. Let her go.”

The prisoning hands fell away. Giulia’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor. She stayed there, huddled against the chapter room door, as the girls’ footsteps receded, as silence returned and her heartbeat began to slow.

She could still feel the imprint of Alessia’s elbow between her shoulder blades, a knot of pain lingering like an echo.
Stupid
, she thought, in time with the throbbing in her cheek.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. She’d known Alessia would retaliate. The oddness of the summons, brought during a time when the convent corridors were mostly empty, should have made her suspicious.

You’ll never take vows at Santa Marta
. Giulia shivered at the memory of that vicious whisper. The joke was on Alessia, though. In a week, maybe two, Giulia would indeed be gone—but by her own choice, not Alessia’s.

Giulia pushed herself to her feet, smoothed her dress, and straightened her kerchief. She touched her cheek. It was swollen—there would probably be a bruise. She’d have to make up some kind of explanation.

At least Ormanno didn’t come. At least nothing’s gone wrong
.

When Giulia arrived back at the workshop, Domenica,
Perpetua, and Humilità were intent on the San Giustina commission. Benedicta sat at her lectern, and Angela was immersed in her practice painting. Lucida, at the drafting table working on one of her miniatures, was the only one who glanced up as Giulia entered.

“Saints’ mercy, Giulia! What happened to your face?”

Giulia cupped her hand over her swollen cheek. “I tripped and banged my face on the floor.”

“Let me take a look.” Lucida put down her brush and came to Giulia’s side. “Oh! I can already see a bruise! You must go to the infirmary and get a poultice.”

The others left what they were doing and crowded around, exclaiming. Giulia, embarrassed by their concern, told them that she didn’t need a poultice, just to sit down for a little while.

“Very well,” Humilità said, “but you must have something for that cheek. Angela, fetch a bowl of water and a cloth.”

Angela obeyed. The other artists dispersed back to their work. Giulia brought a stool over to Angela’s lectern and waited as Angela returned with the bowl, balancing it carefully against the dip and halt of her limp.

“Who was your visitor?” Angela sat down and began cleaning paint from the brush she’d been using. “Was it your cousin, as you thought?”

Giulia wrung out the cloth and held it to her cheek, feeling the relief of the cool wetness. She’d intended to say the summons was a mistake and she’d arrived in the parlor to find no one there. Instead, she found
herself telling the truth.

“It was a trick. Alessia and her friends were waiting for me. They wanted revenge for yesterday.”

“Oh, that awful girl!” Angela dropped the brush and the cleaning rag on the little table that held her jars of pigment and other tools. She knew all about Alessia’s bullying, and Giulia had told her about the incident with Lisa. “So you didn’t fall? She did that to you?”

“Her and Nelia and Elisabetta. At least I think it was Elisabetta. I couldn’t see.”

Angela reached to place a paint-stained hand on Giulia’s arm. “I know you asked me not to speak to Madre Damiana about those girls and the way they torment you. But I could talk to the Maestra. Something needs to be done. You haven’t been yourself these past few weeks. You’ve been trying to hide it, but I can tell.”

“No, Angela.” Giulia couldn’t meet the young nun’s eyes. Was she really doing such a bad job of pretending? “Don’t say anything.”

“But they’ll just keep making you miserable,” Angela said, distressed. “And once Alessia takes her vows, she can do much worse. Speak against you in chapter meetings, even.”

“Please, Angela. It would only make her angrier.”

Angela sighed. “Very well. But if you change your mind, you must tell me.”

“I will.”

Angela took up her brush again. Then she paused, her face brightening.

“I know what will make you feel better. How would
you like to work on my painting?”

“I’m not supposed to be painting yet.”

“Yes, but I know how much you’ve been wanting to. The Maestra’s in another world right now.…” Angela glanced toward the scaffold, where Humilità was intent upon the central panel. “She won’t notice, and if she does…well, if she does, I’ll just tell her that
I
think you’re ready. After all, I’ve been training you as much as she has, and…oh, Giulia, I meant to wait till a better time to tell you this, but your horoscope came true! The Maestra told me this morning that she’s going to let me paint the angel in the second thief panel, and if I do a good job she’ll declare me a journeyman.”

“Angela, that’s wonderful.”

“My first commission!” Angela’s eyes were shining. “So you see, I’m as qualified as anyone to say you’re ready to paint.”

Giulia doubted that Humilità would agree. But her fingers were burning with desire, hotter than her bruised cheek. “Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin it.”

“You won’t ruin it. It’s just the grass, anyway. I can always paint over it if you make a mistake. Here. Sit on my stool. I’ll watch over your shoulder, but I won’t say anything unless you ask.”

Giulia put down the bowl. The girls switched places. From the little table, Giulia took up Angela’s palette and the brush Angela had cleaned, curling her fingers around the smooth wooden shaft of the brush, slipping her thumb through the hole in the palette. The tools felt both strange and known—known because she had often practiced holding them this way; strange because
she had never before held them in preparation to paint.

Angela’s painting was propped at an angle on the surface of the lectern. It was oil, not tempera, and the figures of Madonna and Child were already complete, lacking only the gold leaf for their haloes. Angela was filling in the background, a forest clearing with spring trees just leafing out and grass starred with white violets. Over the underpainted monochrome of highlights and shadows, she’d laid the first layer of color—yellow ochre for the grass, bone black for the leaves of the violets, and lead white for their blossoms. The greens and browns and lavenders of the final color layer were mixed and ready on the palette.

Giulia dipped the brush in the lightest shade of green, turning the handle so that the bristles spun to a point. Angela had not told her which color to choose—but she’d watched the painters so many times, listened so carefully to old Benedicta’s wisdom. She knew instinctively that this exact hue, laid thinly over the black, would produce the depth and darkness of living leaves.

She held her breath. She set the brush to the panel, working tentatively at first, then with growing assurance—choosing paints, changing brushes, combining pigments when one of the mixed shades did not seem quite right. As she did, the workshop began to vanish. She forgot the pain in her cheek and back, forgot Angela beside her, forgot everything but the panel and the color blooming under her brush. She hadn’t fully understood how different painting would be from drawing. Drawing caught the edges of things, the lines and the angles that separated one thing from
another, but with painting there was no separation—only color blending into color, form laid upon form, light shading into shadow and back again. Yet what she was doing did not feel new. It was as if she were rediscovering something that her conscious mind had lost, even as her hands and heart and soul retained the memory. Beneath her brush, a world was born—grass and flowers, leaves and earth—as if, like God Himself, she possessed the power of creation.

She had to stop at last, for she had run out of green. She sat back on the stool, realizing as she did how cramped her arms and shoulders felt.

“Well, Angela.” Humilità’s voice came from behind. “It seems you have taken some authority upon yourself.”

Giulia felt as if the bowl of water she’d been holding earlier had been poured over her head. She twisted around. Humilità was standing a little distance away, her arms folded across her paint-stained apron. Her wide mouth was a straight line and her black eyes were narrow, but she did not look angry, exactly.

“I’m sorry, Maestra,” Angela said softly. “Her cheek was hurting, and I wanted to help her forget it. I didn’t think there’d be any harm, just for a little while.”

“Hm.” Humilità stepped closer, leaning in to look. Giulia turned toward the painting again. For the first time she saw, really saw, what she had done. It wasn’t perfect, not by any means. The grass looked stiff rather than soft, especially where she’d begun, and some of the finer details seemed amateurish. But the violet blossoms—she’d gotten them just right. And
the rosette of their leaves, pale color smoothed over dark to create a hue that was more than just the sum of black and green…that was perfect.

“Hm,” said Humilità again. Her expression was unreadable. She straightened and stepped back. “It appears you’re feeling well enough to get back to work, Giulia, so that is what I suggest you do. You too, Angela. You’ve had quite enough time on your own today.”

“Well, she didn’t reprimand us,” Angela said, as Humilità disappeared into her study. “That’s a good sign, I think.”

Giulia began to clear away the painting things. She was aware of the pain in her back and cheek again, but the thrill of the past half hour was still with her—though it stung that Humilità had made no comment on her work.

“Angela, I know I made a muddle of your painting, but it was wonderful. More wonderful than I ever imagined. Thank you.”

“You didn’t make a muddle. I’ll have to do some overpainting, but not very much.” Angela hesitated. “What you did was amazing, Giulia.”

“I’ve been watching and learning.”

Angela shook her head. “It’s more than that. I had years more learning than you the first time I ever held a brush, and you should have seen the muddle
I
made. I got better. Perhaps even good. But I am just a painter. You…” She drew in her breath. “You will be Maestra one day.”

“Angela—”

“You will be, I know it. If you asked the stars with one of your horoscopes, that is what they would say.”

In Angela’s words Giulia heard the echo of Humilità’s, that day in the market:
Perhaps you, Giulia
. Once again, her mind leaped toward that possible future, but this time with the memory of brush and palette burning in her hands….

No
. She shook her head, pushing the vision away.
That’s not what I want. I want Ormanno. I want to go with him over the wall
.

And all at once Giulia understood, truly understood, that she was leaving Santa Marta. That today had been one of the last days she would spend in the workshop, grinding pigments, preparing paint, watching master artists at their craft. That this was one of the last times she and Angela would work side by side, talking about anything and everything that came into their heads. That soon she would never attend another of Lucida’s supper parties, or take another lesson from Humilità, or talk to old Benedicta about color lore, or be scolded by Domenica. That when the San Giustina altarpiece was completed, she would not be there to see it. For she would be with Ormanno, and they would be far away from Padua.

Last night, that had thrilled her. But right now, this moment, it brought her not one bit of joy.

Could it be…could it be that she was sorry to be leaving?

Alessia’s cruelty had not made her cry. But now, suddenly, she felt like bursting into tears.

“Giulia?” Angela was looking at her, anxious. “Are you feeling pain again?”

“No.” Giulia scooped up some of the pigment pots. “I’ll just put these back on the shelves.”