The teasing manner was gone. He was a professional now, a man engaged with, and proud of, his work. For the first time, Giulia turned her attention to the fresco. In this part of it, three disciples leaned toward one another behind the table, and a fourth sat at the table’s front, his back to the viewer, his hand outstretched to take a fig from a platter. The figures were bigger than she’d realized, several times life-size, rendered with an astonishing wealth of detail. Close to, she could see what was not apparent from a distance: the grainy texture of the plaster, the slight unevennesses of hue where color was spread over a large area. To the left, beyond the scaffold, Jesus’ face was beautiful and sad, His cloak a breathtaking sweep of Passion blue.
“How will you make them less visible?” she asked.
“I’m rubbing them with a mix of oil, tallow, a little chalk, and a few other things.”
“Won’t the tallow darken over time?”
“I’m hoping not. This is my own formula—better than my master’s, though he’d never admit it. The mold I’m washing away, though I can’t get it completely clean. Some of the stains may need to be overpainted.”
“What a shame, that so much has been spoiled.”
“Not spoiled. I’m very good at what I do. By the time I’m finished, only Maestra Humilità and I will know where the repairs were.” He looked at her, his icy eyes—which really weren’t icy at all, but bright, like stars—appraising her again, though not quite as before. “You’re really interested, aren’t you. Not just pretending.”
“Why should I pretend?”
He shrugged. “Most girls would. To be polite, or”—he smiled—“to flirt.”
“Well, I’m not most girls. I’m interested in everything about painting. In fact, I’m Maestra Humilità’s…well, I’m her apprentice.” It felt peculiar to say it—true and not true at the same time.
“Her apprentice, eh? I thought you didn’t intend to be a nun.”
“I don’t. But…but I’ve always drawn, ever since I can remember, and I want to learn, and I can learn from her. I will learn from her. As much as I can, for however long I’m here.”
It was more truth than she’d told anyone since the sorcerer.
“Your Maestra doesn’t know this, I’m guessing.”
Giulia felt a sudden alarm. “You won’t say anything, will you?”
“Never a word.” He grinned. “Although—”
He broke off, holding up his hand. From below came the sound of footsteps. They stood motionless as the steps paused, moved on, paused again, moved on again. Giulia had almost forgotten the risk of what she was doing—but now she remembered and held her breath.
The footsteps faded away. Ormanno stepped to the scaffold’s edge and peered around the canvas.
“Gone,” he said.
“Who was it?”
“One of the cooks. They come in before meals to lay the tables.” He turned toward her again. “Maybe you should be going, Giulia. I don’t want to make trouble for you. Or me either, for that matter.”
“Yes,” said Giulia. “I suppose I should.”
“You might come back and see me. Though I won’t be here much longer—the work is nearly done.”
“I’ll try. Or…you could come see me.” Giulia could hardly believe her boldness. Yet if he were the talisman’s choice, it wasn’t bold at all, but inevitable. “There’s a parlor where we’re allowed to receive visitors. You can say—you can say you’re my cousin Federico, from Milan.”
“Do you really have a cousin named Federico?”
“No. But they don’t know that.”
“You’ve got secrets, Giulia Borromeo. I like a girl with secrets.” He made a little bow. “Good-bye, then.”
“Good-bye.”
For a moment she waited. Shouldn’t there be something else? But he did not move, and the silence began to stretch, so, reluctantly, she stepped toward the ladder. He stood watching as she climbed down. Ordinary concerns, suspended while she’d been with him, began to return. How long had she been gone? Too long, probably. She would have to make up a story about getting lost after all.
“Psst! Giulia! Don’t forget your jar.”
She realized that she’d been about to walk off without the pot of charcoal. She turned to retrieve it. From above, Ormanno raised his hand in farewell. As she crossed to the refectory door, she imagined she could feel his eyes—but when she looked back, he had vanished, at work again behind the canvas.
CHAPTER 10
A Golden Evening
Angela did not question Giulia’s story about losing her way. She set to work at once showing Giulia how to cook gesso—a foul-smelling concoction of water, chalk, and glue—over the workshop’s brazier, and then how to brush it, while still warm, onto the three enormous wooden panels laid out on sawhorses.
The San Giustina commission was to be an altar-piece, a triptych, with the central panel depicting the Crucifixion and the two side panels the thieves crucified alongside Christ. Applying the gesso was a painstaking process, for great care had to be taken not to introduce air bubbles. Once the gesso was dry, it must be burnished to velvet smoothness with pumice stones, after which another coat would be laid on.
“We’ll need at least six coats,” Angela said. “Maybe more. The Maestra is very particular, and this is an important commission.”
At sunset, the four choir nuns left to sing Vespers. Normally the Vespers bell was a signal for Giulia to return to the novice dormitory, but today, because of Lucida’s supper party, she waited in the workshop with Humilità and Perpetua, who as conversae were not allowed to participate in Holy Offices. She wasn’t surprised, when Lucida and Angela and Benedicta returned, to see that Domenica was not with them.
They left the workshop. Humilità led the way toward the back of the convent, setting a slow pace to accommodate old Benedicta, who steadied herself on Perpetua’s arm. They arrived at last at a loggia whose arches overlooked another garden courtyard. Dark had not yet completely fallen, and in the twilight Giulia could see winding gravel paths and flower beds massed with rose bushes and lavender. In the middle lay a round pool, from which a single jet of water leaped toward the sky. The rising moon caught the drops as they reached their apex and began to fall, like a spill of ice.
“It’s the prettiest court in Santa Marta,” said Angela. “Don’t you think so? The abbess’s residence is here, and the hereditary cells.”
“Hereditary cells?”
“They’re not really cells, although we call them that. Many of the great families have been sending women to Santa Marta for generations. Some have built their own residences.”
Humilità led them toward the courtyard’s far side, where a row of small tile-roofed houses crowded against one another like a child’s toy blocks. At the endmost house, beyond which Giulia could see the shadowy mass of trees of the convent’s orchard, Humilità knocked. The door flew open, spilling golden light.
“Welcome!” Lucida cried. Over her white habit she had thrown a sleeveless mantle of shimmering bronze brocade, lined with copper-colored silk. “Come in! Everything’s ready.”
Standing candelabra illuminated the interior of the little house. The floor was plain terracotta, the walls of undressed stone, but exotic rugs cushioned the tiles, and rich-hued tapestries softened the walls. Small footstools and dainty tables flanked pillow-piled benches. An exquisite painting of Madonna and Child stood on a shelf in a corner, with a cushioned kneeler underneath.
“Come.” Lucida took Giulia’s arm. “You must sit by me.”
Opposite the door stood a dining table, its polished boards set with glass goblets and gleaming plates. More candles burned in holders at the table’s center. Lucida pulled out a chair for Giulia, then seated herself at the table’s head.
“Maestra,” she said. “Will you give us a blessing?”
Lucida extended her hands. Gems winked on her fingers—Giulia didn’t remember, earlier, that she had been wearing rings. Around the
table the women joined hands and bowed their heads.
“Almighty God,” Humilità said, “who redeemed the world through Your Son, Jesus Christ, bless us as we partake of Your bounty this night. Make us always mindful of Your glory, which speaks to us in all things. Amen.”
“Amen,” the others chorused.
Lucida clapped her hands. Through a door at one side of the room came a middle-aged conversa, carrying a tray laden with steaming bowls.
“It’s chestnut soup,” Lucida said, taking up her spoon. “Made to a family recipe. I hope you enjoy it.”
The soup was delicious, savory with spice and thick with cream. The mixed salad with green onions, roast pigeon in puff pastry, and pasta dressed with garlic and butter were delicious too. To drink there was wine, poured by Lucida’s conversa from dusty bottles. Giulia had sampled leftovers from her father’s table, courtesy of Annalena, but she’d never consumed an entire meal of such delicacy. Nor had she known that nuns were allowed to drink wine. But then, she thought, almost everything in this house is something I thought nuns weren’t allowed. From the talk she had heard in the novice dormitory, she knew that choir nuns lived more comfortably than conversae—much more comfortably, in many cases—but she had never imagined such opulence.
Lucida clearly enjoyed the role of hostess and was attentive to her guests’ comfort. For Benedicta, who with her missing teeth could not chew, she had arranged a special dish of mashed artichoke hearts in citron sauce. As they ate, the women talked—about the completion of the Santa Barbara commission, about upcoming feast days and other convent affairs. Giulia knew nothing of these goings-on; amid this intimate little group, with its web of established relationships, she was an outsider. Yet, somehow, she did not feel excluded. Lucida smiled often in her direction, and Angela and Humilità broke off what they were saying to explain things for her. The wine helped too. She was only sipping, but even so she could feel it going to her head, making the strange, golden evening more than ever like a dream.
The conversa cleared away the main course and brought in plates of apricots, grapes, cheeses, and little cakes. For Benedicta, there was a bowl of stewed figs in honey.
“I’ll wager Domenica is fasting tonight, to make up for our gluttony.” Lucida selected an apricot. “I wish her joy in it, the sour old crow.”
“You should be kinder, Lucida,” Perpetua said. The light of the candles flattered her homely features, masking the disfiguring pockmarks on her cheeks. “She’s had a hard time of it.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Lucida finished her apricot and licked her fingers. “But just because she was made to suffer doesn’t give her the right to make others miserable.”
“It’s a sad story.” Angela turned to Giulia. “She was engaged to a young man, but then her father died and her uncle inherited the estate. He had daughters of his own to dower, and decided Domenica should go to Santa Marta instead of marrying. She ran away to her fiancé, but he was afraid and returned her to her uncle, who sent her here.”
Giulia, listening, felt a shudder of recognition.
“She made her vows.” Perpetua took up the story. “Not long after, she got permission to go to her nephew’s christening, with her sisters as chaperones. Somehow, she managed to escape. Her uncle’s sons went after her and brought her back. She got sick after that. Nearly died.” Perpetua shook her head. “When she was well again, she was the opposite of what she’d been. A conversion. Few now are more devoted.”
“Devoted?” Lucida made a face. “With her hair shirts and her self-flagellation and her fasting—really, it’s distasteful. Do you know, Giulia, Domenica puts bitter aloe in her food so she won’t enjoy it? My aunt Damiana has had to reprimand her for her excesses. And she’s not the only one. There’s Claudia, who sleeps without blankets in the winter, and Felicita, who puts pebbles in her shoes, and Innocentia, who wears a studded chain around her waist. Sometimes she gets infections, and Madonna, how she smells! God has given us this beautiful world for our use and enjoyment. I don’t see how it honors Him to be miserable on purpose.”
“Are there many like Domenica?” Giulia asked. “Brought here against their will, I mean?”
“Oh yes,” Lucida said. “There are too many women in the world, and what can families do with those they cannot marry off, except send them to a convent? Take me, for instance. My father was able to dower my two older sisters for noble marriages, but for me he could afford only a nun’s dowry. All my life I’ve known I must be a nun.” She pulled a grape off its stem and popped it into her mouth. “Though to be fair, I am not like some others who are put here by their families’ decree, for I never wanted to be subject to a husband’s authority. Besides, who knows what kind of odious idiot my father would have chosen for me?”
“He might have chosen a handsome idiot,” Humilità said, smiling.
“Ha! You should see my poor sisters’ husbands. One is as fat as a goose and just as stupid, and the other’s twenty years older with warts all over his face. No. I am where I was meant to be. Thanks to my father’s indulgence in hiring a drawing master for my sisters and me when we were children, I have work that delights me. My family may visit me as often as they choose, or”—she slanted a smile in Giulia’s direction—“as often as I choose. I live my own life in my own house, and need not bow to the will of my father or the whims of my brothers or the desires of a husband. I am Christ’s bride, and no human man may command me!” For an instant, her bright face was fierce. “Nor do I need to fear dying in childbed, as my mother did. I am not one of those who sees Santa Marta as a prison.” She bit into one of the little cakes. “For me, it is the greatest freedom a woman can possess.”
There is freedom here, if you are willing to seek it. Madre Damiana had said that, on Giulia’s first day.
“My mother died in childbirth too,” Perpetua said. “I always had a mortal fear of it.”
“Is that why you became a nun?” Giulia asked.
“Bless you, no.” Perpetua’s smile showed her crooked teeth. “My father was a tailor, but his shop burned down in a fire and he couldn’t support us all. He brought me to be a conversa here at Santa Marta. They needed seamstresses, so they were willing to take me without a dowry.”
“So it wasn’t your choice?”
“Choice didn’t come into it, dear. It was the convent or starve. I was grateful for the shelter, and for the work that gave it to me. I’d be grateful still, even if it hadn’t been God’s plan for me to serve Him in another way. My father taught me to make pictures of the clothes he made, so patrons could see them and choose, and the Maestra who was here before our Maestra discovered I could draw. That’s how I came into the workshop.”
“I never wanted to be anything but a nun,” said Angela softly. “To give myself to God, safe and apart from the temptations of the world. Besides.” She gave a small, self-conscious laugh. “What man would want a wife with a withered leg?”
Giulia looked at Angela. She had been impressed by how little Angela’s limp impeded her, and had assumed she must not mind it. But that laugh said something quite different.
“What about you, Benedicta?” Lucida turned to the elderly nun. “What brought you to Santa Marta?”
“Oh, my dear,” Benedicta replied in her cracked old voice, “it’s been so long I’ve quite forgotten. After so many years, anyway, what does it matter?” She cackled. “That’s God’s little joke. We all come in differently, but we all go out the same.”
“That leaves you, Maestra,” Lucida said. “Tell Giulia why you became a nun.”
“My father is a painter—”
“A famous painter,” Lucida interrupted.
“He has a workshop here in Padua. He saw my ability and couldn’t bear to waste it, so he trained me like an apprentice, for all I was a girl. When I was fourteen, he arranged for me to join the workshop here. I could not have become a painter otherwise. The world does not allow such things for women. Like Lucida, I always knew I would go to Santa
Marta.”
“And it’s our good fortune that you did,” Angela said.
“By God’s grace,” Humilità replied.
“And your hard work,” said Perpetua.
“All our hard work.” Humilità smiled at Lucida. “Even yours, my willful butterfly.”
Lucida laughed. “What about you, Giulia?” She turned her dancing smile Giulia’s way. “Don’t be afraid to tell the truth. It won’t go farther than this room.”
“My father died,” Giulia said—careful, aware of the loosening influence of the wine and the danger of saying too much. “And his wife wanted me gone. I’m illegitimate, you see, and he gave me his protection, but she had no reason to continue that. So she arranged for me to be sent here.”
“To become a painter,” Angela said.
“No. She meant me to be a seamstress, the way I was at home. She hated me. She’d never have done anything to benefit me.” With effort, Giulia stopped herself. Careful, careful.
“Well, whatever her intent, God guided her choice,” Humilità said. “There is nowhere better in the world you could have come. You are meant to be here, my dear. I have no doubt of it.”
The candle flames glinted in her small dark eyes, and on the wine goblet she held. Giulia felt a chill, as if a cold hand had been laid above her heart.
From elsewhere in the convent, bells began to ring.
“Compline,” Humilità said. “We must return Giulia to her dormitory.”
“How quickly the time has passed!” Lucida exclaimed.
“Angela, would you escort Giulia, please?”
“Of course, Maestra.”
Angela got to her feet, her shoulder dipping. Giulia pushed back her chair and stood. The wine rushed to her head; she had to catch at the edge of the table to steady herself.
“Thank you so much for inviting me.”
“It was entirely my pleasure!” Lucida jumped up and came around the table to kiss Giulia on both cheeks. “We shall have many such suppers!”
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