Passion Blue

by Strauss, Victoria

  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 h
eart 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.

  Just for a moment. I’ll just catch my breath, and then I’ll move on.

  She didn’t know how long she crouched there, the noise of the city swirling around her. Something splashed her from a passing cart; someone kicked her, uttering a curse. In her dazed, exhausted state, it all felt distant and unreal. But at last she became aware of a voice, saying the same words over and over.

  “Girl. Girl. Girl, wake up.”

  With enormous effort Giulia opened her eyes. Bending over her was a tall woman in a dark cloak, with a pale face and hair like spun gold, braided in a coronet around her head.

  “Girl,” the woman said again. “Have you lost your way?”

  Giulia tried to answer, but her mouth was too dry. She nodded.

  “Here.” From her sleeve, the woman produced a flask. “Drink this.”

  The flask held cider, crisp and delicious. Giulia drank it all.

  “Thank you.” She offered the flask back to the woman. “I was…very thirsty.”

  The woman slipped the flask into her sleeve again. “Where is it you wish to go?”

  “Might you be able to tell me the way to the market? Or possibly the convent of Santa Marta?”

  “The convent.” The woman smiled. “I know it well. It’s not far from here, but the way is complicated. Better that I show you.”

  “I don’t want to put you to the trouble—”

  “No trouble.” The woman’s eyes fell for a moment to the book, still clutched to Giulia’s chest, then shifted back to Giulia’s face. “Rise now, girl, and follow me.”

  She waited as Giulia scrambled to her feet, then set off at a measured pace. Giulia limped after her. The cider had given her back some strength; she was still exhausted, but at least she could walk. After a little while she smelled the odor of the canal—and then suddenly they were in a street she knew. She could see the church of Santa Marta in the distance, and beyond it, the long red snake of the convent wall.

  “Here we are.” The woman turned, still smiling her enigmatic smile. She stood under the first sun of the new day, her golden hair gleaming like gossamer. Her eyes, Giulia saw, were the blue of summer skies.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry to have taken you out of your way.”

  The woman inclined her head. Without another word she started back in the direction in which they’d come. As she walked by, her cloak parted for a moment and Giulia glimpsed her gown—blue like her eyes, but deeper, more lustrous. Then she was past, walking at that same steady pace. She entered the shadow of an arcade and vanished from Giulia’s sight.

  Slowly, Giulia made her way down the avenue and stopped before the wooden door that marked the entrance to Santa Marta. Beside it was the grate that covered the opening to the wheel, through which the nuns brought the things of the world into the convent without breaching their sacred space. How easy it would be to slip the book through that opening, where it would be discovered the next time the wheel was turned. Humilità would have her secrets back. Giulia would never have to face her, or admit what she had done.

  But then Humilità would never know the full truth of what had happened. She’d see Matteo’s copy of the cipher and guess he was responsible, but she would never realize how profoundly her father had betrayed her.

  No matter what I do, the ending is the same, Giulia thought. She could put the book into the wheel and walk away. Or she could ring the bell and confess—and then, surely, be thrown out again. Santa Marta is lost to me.

  Painting is lost to me.

  She bowed her head over the book she held so tightly. For the first time since Ormanno had kidnapped her, she allowed herself to truly understand.

  She raised her face at last and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve. Only one thing was left: after so much lying, to tell Humilità the truth. She could never make things right. But she could at least tell the truth.

  She crouched down and opened the book to the page for Passion blue. The square of color caught the light, impossibly brilliant, as if the sun were shining not on but through it.

  I’ll never see Passion blue again.

  She removed Matteo’s copy of the cipher and folded it, then unfastened the talisman and her horoscope fragment from around her neck and thrust them, with the paper, inside the bodice of the red dress. She closed the book and rose.

  The bell rope hung by the door. For an instant, she was seized by a vivid memory: of herself, standing before the sorcerer’s gate on the day everything began. It seemed a lifetime ago. She hardly recognized that girl, the girl she had been then—a girl who thought to bend the stars to her will, careless of the consequences. A girl who did not know her heart’s desire, and so had lost it.

  She stepped forward and rang the bell.

  CHAPTER 25

  The Great and Beautiful Gift

  Once she realized who Giulia was, the doorkeeper fairly dragged Giulia inside. But it was not Humilità she summoned, as Giulia requested, but Suor Margarita.

  “What have you done, you wicked girl?” The novice mistress had come running; her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing hard. “Where have you been?”

  “I need to talk to Maestra Humilità,” Giulia said.

  “Oh no, my girl.” Suor Margarita put her hands on her hips. “I’m the one you’ll talk to. Confess this instant where you have been these last two nights.”

  “I…I was kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped? Is that what you call it? Don’t take me for a fool, Giulia Borromeo. I know all about your midnight excursions. Alessia has told me everything.”

  Alessia. Giulia had forgotten her. “It isn’t what you think.”

  “Is it not? Look at you, got up like a harlot! And now your young man has ruined you and abandoned you, and you think you can come back to us as if nothing had happened!” Her eyes fell on the book. “What is that you’re holding? Give it to me at once!”

  “It’s for Maestra Humilità—”

  “Do you dare defy me?” Suor Margarita stepped forward and slapped Giulia across the face, then wrenched the book from her grasp. Instinctively Giulia reached after it, but the gatekeeper seized her shoulders and held her back.

  “Send for Suor Veronica,” Suor Margarita instructed the gatekeeper. “Tell her I need her to open a discipline ce
ll.”

  “Please.” Giulia’s face throbbed from the blow. “Just let me talk to Maestra Humilità—I can explain everything—”

  “Oh, you’ll explain. You will indeed.” Suor Margarita tucked the book under her arm and took hold of Giulia’s wrist. “Now come, and quietly, or I’ll slap you until your ears ring.”

  Suor Veronica, the bursar, was already waiting when they reached the discipline cells. She selected a key from the ring she carried and unlocked one of the doors. Suor Margarita thrust Giulia through it.

  “Are you ready yet to tell me the truth?”

  “I have told the truth.”

  “Have it your way, then, stubborn girl. I shall return tomorrow and ask again. Use the time to pray upon your sins.”

  “Give the book to Maestra Humilità!” Giulia cried, as the door began to close. “Please! She needs it back!”

  The key scraped in the lock. Giulia heard the two nuns’ footsteps, fading away.

  She stood staring at the iron grate set into the heavy oak of the door, dazed. Ten minutes ago she had been free, standing in the street. Now she was a prisoner again. But Humilità would come to her, once Suor Margarita gave her the book.

  Surely she’ll come.

  She turned. The discipline cell was tiny—perhaps twice the width of her outstretched arms, and only a few steps longer than the bed that was its only furnishing. A chamber pot stood in one corner. A crucifix hung below a grated clerestory window.

  She was shivering. A blanket was folded at one end of the bed; she shook it out and pulled it around her, then lay down on the thin straw mattress. The sun reached through the window, casting a rectangle of light on the whitewashed wall opposite. She could hear her heartbeat in the silence, until sleep took her and she heard nothing at all.

  The sound of the lock roused her. For a moment she did not know where she was, but then came the rush of memory. She sat up just as the door swung open.