Passion Blue (29 page)

“What will you do?” he asked. “Santa Marta will never take you back now.”

She looked away from those words, down at the flickering candle flame and Lorenza’s keys.

“I want you to go, Ormanno. And I want you to leave me the key to your master’s study.”

“Surely you don’t think you can get back your
Maestra’s book.”

“You’ve no reason to care one way or the other.”

“True enough, though I’d enjoy knowing he got cheated in his turn.” Ormanno shook his head. “But you can’t do it. Even if you could get into his rooms without waking him, the book is probably hidden.”

“I have to try,” she said.

“If he catches you…Giulia, I don’t know what he’d do.”

“Give me the key, Ormanno. You owe me that much.”

Reluctantly he picked up the ring and sorted through the keys until he found the right one. He snapped open the ring and handed her the key.

“And don’t think to wait for me outside so you can steal the book again and try to sell it to someone else,” she said.

“What an opinion you have of me.” He looked pained. “No. I am finished here. Finished with my master and his schemes, finished with thieving, finished with Padua, finished with my past.” He smiled, with a flash of his old sly humor. “From now on, I’m a new man.”

He got to his feet.

“Give me a head start,” he said. “An hour to get well on my way, in case things go wrong for you.”

She nodded.

“I never meant for this to happen, you know.” He gestured, indicating the attic.

“Good-bye, Ormanno.”

He hesitated, as if he wanted to do or say something
more. “Well…good luck, then.”

He turned away. Pain stabbed her briefly as she watched him leave, piercing the part of herself that had thrilled to his touch all those nights under the summer stars.

He did not look back. And then he was gone.

After Ormanno’s footsteps on the stairs had faded, Giulia huddled in her nest of dustcloths and began counting, just as she had on the nights she stole out to meet him. In the airless attic, the candle burned with a steady flame, though it could only push the darkness back a little way. She watched it as she counted, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped tight around them. She tried not to be afraid.

When she had finished her third count of a thousand, she untied her sandals, her fingers clumsy with nerves. She knotted the laces and hung them around her neck, then got to her feet, the key clutched in one hand, the candle in the other. She tiptoed to the door, which Ormanno
had left open, and began to descend the stairs, placing her bare feet carefully, praying the boards would not creak. Around her, the house was wrapped in a profound silence. She might have been the only living creature in it.

The stairs led down to an open porch that ran across the rear of the house, with a view of the workshop and the deserted moon-bright courtyard. There was enough light here that she could see her way, so she blew out the candle and left it on the floor. She turned to the left, passing closed doors: one, two, a third. At the fourth, she stopped. This was Matteo’s.

With utmost care, she fitted the key into the lock and turned it. The click as the lock disengaged seemed as loud as a cannon shot. She paused, holding her breath, but the quiet did not break.

She eased the door open, just wide enough that she could slip through. The unshuttered windows flooded Matteo’s cluttered study with moonlight, creating a monochrome landscape of silver highlights and impenetrable shadows, like a panel waiting for the painter’s brush. To the left, the door to the bedroom stood ajar.

In memory, Giulia heard Humilità’s voice:
He keeps his recipe book hidden under a loose floorboard under the window. He thinks no one knows
.…

But Humilità knew. And because she knew, so did Giulia.

She had to go in there now, into the room where Matteo lay sleeping, and, under his nose and within reach of his hands, locate his hiding place and rescue Humilità’s book. For a moment she could not move, paralyzed by the enormity of what she was about to do.
At last, with an effort of will, she forced herself forward.
Slowly, slowly
, she thought, as if instructing someone else.
Put your feet down softly. Don’t brush against the table. Watch out for that stool. There’s the door—careful, don’t touch it. Don’t make a sound. Not…one…sound
.

The shutters were open in the bedroom too, but there was only one window and the room was much darker. Giulia could make out the bulk of a big bed to her left, from which came the sound of snoring. Between the bed and the window, the moon plated the wide planks of the floor with silver.

There
. Somewhere in that pool of ghostly light was the board that hid Matteo’s secrets.

Bunching up the heavy skirts of the red dress, she lowered herself onto her hands and knees. Soundlessly she crawled to the window. She started her search closest to the wall, pressing the boards to see if any were loose, running her fingers along the ends and edges in case there were any notches or catches. Bathed in moonlight, she felt horribly exposed—all Matteo had to do was lift his head and open his eyes, and he would see her.

It seemed an eternity before she found what she was looking for—a plank that gave a little when she pressed it. Feeling along its edges, she discovered a notch cut into its end. She fitted her finger to the hole and pulled, gently at first but then, when the board didn’t budge, with more force. The board came up with a pop, so suddenly that she almost pitched backward. She froze, breath held, but Matteo’s steady snoring did not pause.

She laid the plank carefully aside. The moonlight couldn’t reach into the space beneath, and as she thrust
her hand into the blackness she had a brief vision of rats or other vermin waiting to sink their teeth into her flesh. Of course there was nothing of the sort—only a cavity about a hand-length deep between two joists. Her fingers touched the rough lath that supported the plaster ceiling of the room below, then the leather cover of a book.

It was Matteo’s book, not Humilità’s. She knew that the moment she lifted it, for it was too light and had no brass catch. She set it next to the board and reached under the floor again.

The cavity was empty.

No. It can’t be
. She thrust her arm into the space, sweeping her hand back and forth, reaching as far as she could—but there was nothing, only grit and dust and splintery lath.

She sat back on her heels, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart. The book had to be here. Surely Matteo wouldn’t have hidden it outside his rooms. But if it wasn’t under the floor, where was it?

His study. Maybe he was working on it and didn’t bother to hide it before he went to sleep
.

Abruptly, Matteo’s snoring ceased. Giulia heard him grunt, heard the sheets rustle as he moved. Her muscles locked. She crouched where she was, helpless, waiting for discovery. But after a moment he began to snore again, rasping and regular.

Giulia let out her breath. With shaking hands she returned his book to its hiding place and fitted the board back into the gap. The board would not quite go all the way down, but she left it, not wanting to risk any more noise than she had to. If she were lucky,
Matteo would assume the carelessness had been his.

She crept away from the window. The relief of passing back into darkness was intense. In the study once more, she began to search, inspecting the small table where she and he and Humilità had eaten lunch that day, then the big worktable, careful to replace everything just as she had found it. She opened the cabinets and the chests; she felt along all the shelves. She checked the window seat. She even lifted the canvas that shrouded the unfinished paintings. When she had looked everywhere she could look, she looked again, fighting a growing sense of desperation.

At last she paused in the middle of the room. The book was not in the study. It was not under the floor. But there was still somewhere she hadn’t searched—or at least, had not searched fully. The rest of Matteo’s bedroom.

Her skin prickled with dread. More than anything, she didn’t want to go back in there…but she had no choice. This was the chance she had prayed for, the only chance she would ever have to atone for what she’d done. She could not leave without trying everything.

Far away in the city, bells tolled five o’clock. She didn’t have much time.

She curled her fingers around the talisman, as she’d done so often for comfort and courage during her months at Santa Marta. Once again she crossed the study and entered the bedroom. Just inside the doorway she paused, letting her eyes adjust to the deeper dark. She’d barely glanced around the room before; now she saw there were chests here too, and a shadowy mass against the wall that must be a cabinet.
And of course the wide expanse of the bed, the quilt humped by Matteo’s body, the pillows and sheets gleaming white below the headboard.

And there by the pillows, for just an instant, Giulia thought she saw something—a flash of blue. It was gone almost as she glimpsed it, and when she looked again she couldn’t find it. But something
was
there, pale against the pale sheets, partly hidden by the covers.

Could it be…?

On silent feet she stole forward. Before she reached the bed, she knew she’d found it—Humilità’s book, lying amid the tumble of linens, open to the page for Passion blue. Even with so little illumination, she could not mistake that block of writing, the blank space beneath, the swatch of color at the top—though in the dimness it did not show as color, only a featureless dark square. Somehow, when she looked toward it from the doorway, it must have caught what small amount of light there was.

Matteo lay on his back, the mane of his hair spread across the pillow, his arms flung out. She crouched so that her eyes were level with the mattress. Holding her breath, she reached for the book. With infinite care she began to draw it toward her, listening all the while for any change in Matteo’s breathing.

Something came with the book: a sheet of paper. She set the book gently on the floor and tilted the paper toward the window and the moonlight. On it she saw writing, in what she presumed was Matteo’s hand.

A copy. Matteo had copied the recipe for Passion blue.

She laid the paper in the open book, then closed
the cover. Clutching the book to her chest with one hand, she twisted up her skirts with the other and crept away from the bed. The ten steps it took to reach the door were the worst of the night. Each second, she expected Matteo to wake and come roaring after her.

She quickened her pace once she reached the study. She’d left the key in the door; outside on the porch, she pulled the door soundlessly closed and locked it again. Let Matteo wonder, when he woke to find the book had vanished, what spirit had passed through his walls in the night.

Then she was on the stairs to the courtyard. She flew across the chilly flagstones. It wasn’t until she put her hand on the latch of the kitchen door that she remembered that it had been barred on the inside when she and Ormanno and Didoni had passed through it the other night.

She lifted the latch. The door, not barred after all, swung easily open. She saw light—the glow of a small oil lamp, burning on the big table in the middle of the kitchen. Beside it, Lorenza sat on a stool.

Giulia froze. For a moment they looked at each other. Then Lorenza got to her feet.

“Come in,” she whispered, and beckoned.

There was nowhere else to go. Giulia stepped into the kitchen, tightening her arms around the book. Lorenza came forward and closed the door, then held out her hand. “The key.”

Wondering, Giulia placed Matteo’s key on the old woman’s palm. Lorenza tucked it into her belt. She returned to the table and took up the lamp.

“Come,” she whispered again.

She led the way along the hall. In the anteroom at the front of the house, she unbarred the outside door and pulled it open.

“Go,” she said. “Give my girl back what belongs to her.”

“I will,” Giulia said. “Lorenza…thank you.”

“This wasn’t for you.” The old woman’s face was deeply weary in the yellow light of the lamp. “This was for Violetta.”

Giulia stepped into the street. At her back, the door closed without a sound.

Giulia ran. The book clutched in her arms, her skirts tangling around her legs, she raced along the dark avenues of Padua as if she were being pursued by devils. She halted at last under an arcade, gasping, her heart pounding as if it might split her chest.

No one had followed her. Behind her, the street was empty.

I did it
, she thought with dawning amazement.
I got the book. I escaped
.

She could not quite believe it.

Her breathing was calming now, her heart slowing. She pushed back her sweat-damp hair and looked around her. Dawn had broken as she fled; its gray light showed her the cobbles of the street, the arcaded buildings on both sides. She had no idea where she was—she’d run blindly, making turns at random. But if she could manage to find the market, she might be able to get back to Santa Marta on her own. She had no notion where the market was, though, or even in which direction to seek it.

I’ll just have to ask
, she thought.
I found my way to
the sorcerer’s house. I can do this too
.

She’d begun to shiver in her sweaty clothes. Her sandals still hung around her neck—she hadn’t paused to put them on. She did that now, wincing as the leather touched her feet, filthy and bruised from pounding over the cobbles. Then she set out again.

The city was waking up—housewives throwing back shutters, tradesmen with their carts or barrows, laborers with their tools. Some ignored her when she asked for directions. Some gave her instructions that she could not follow in the labyrinth of streets. One man, a stout merchant with a covered wagon, leered and offered her a coin. She hurried away, her cheeks burning.

It was almost full daylight now. The strain of the long night was settling on her, like hands pressing her toward the ground. She was hungry, and terribly thirsty. Turning a corner into yet another arcade, she realized suddenly that she could not take another step. She sank down against a column, her arms still tight around the book.