The Girl with the Painted Face

by Gabrielle Kimm

  Agostino opens his mouth to reply, and at this, da Correggio lays a hand over Sofia’s. ‘Signorina,’ he says in little more than a whisper, ‘if your friends will excuse you, I have a mind to show you a treasure. A tapestry – one of the Correggio heirlooms, which I am sure will interest a gifted needlewoman such as yourself. Come with me now and I promise you you’ll be astounded…’ Taking her hand, he stands.

  ‘Oh… Signore, forgive me, but…’ Sofia tries to excuse herself, tries to pull her hand from his, but da Correggio seems not to hear her and his grip is strong.

  ‘Ago —’

  But Agostino is now engaged in vociferous debate with Federico and Giovanni Battista, and the three men, their voices raised, are distracting Vico and the two women. Nobody seems to hear her and she dares not speak more overtly. Beppe is still nowhere to be seen. Angelo is the only other member of the troupe she can ask to help her; staring hard at him, she wills him to say something, but he is picking at the skin on the side of his thumbnail with his teeth and seems to be deliberately avoiding her eye.

  Gripping her hand almost painfully, Signor da Correggio leaves the banqueting hall and hurries Sofia through two other large and beautifully appointed rooms towards a flight of stairs. He appears to be about to climb them, when a deep voice sounds out from above, and he checks.

  ‘Servants,’ he says. ‘Damn them. Perhaps we’ll have a look at my study first.’ He looks hard at Sofia and runs his tongue over his lips. ‘We can go back upstairs later.’

  Sofia’s eyes widen. ‘Later? But, signore, I have to —’

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ he mutters, more to himself than to her. ‘Come on!’

  They walk fast together, and the signore is now gripping Sofia’s wrist, rather than her hand. Through another painted room, out into a plain, brick-floored corridor, where both she and Signor da Correggio stop dead. A liveried servant – young and slightly built and with a heavily laden tray in his hands – backs awkwardly out of a door and starts at the sight of them, gasping audibly. The stump of a candle he has in a candlestick on the tray sends wobbling shadows up and around his face, and even in the almost-darkness, Sofia can see that he is flushing deeply. She wonders whether she should call to him to help her, but before she can speak, da Correggio snaps at him.

  ‘What the hell are you staring at? Go on – get lost!’

  The boy pushes back through the door without a word.

  ‘Damn them! Damned servants, getting in the way wherever I turn.’ He takes hold of the handle of yet another door a few yards further along. ‘Here. In here – you’ll like this. My study. The walls are hung with silk my father brought back from a trip out east many years ago.’

  The room is unlit, but moonlight is flooding in through a wide casement, and as Sofia gazes around, she sees that it is richly furnished. A set of deep shelves is busily filled with books, rolls of paper, pots, rows of bottles of different sizes – several of them very small – a feathered hat and a number of painted wooden boxes. A long, ornately carved table stands in the centre of the room; it too is littered with many smaller objects Sofia cannot determine in the darkness and a heavy iron candlestick stands, unlit, at each end. A ladder-backed chair sits neatly in front of the table, a doublet draped across the upright. Several other chairs have been pushed back against the wall with the door in it; over on the far side is a small bed, hung with drawn-back curtains.

  A bed.

  At the sight of this, her heart now thudding uncomfortably, Sofia is rocked by a wave of nausea. Muttering to herself, breathing heavily, she tugs once again at her hand. The signore, however, holds fast. Putting his other arm around her back, pressing in flat-palmed, he draws her in close, and his sour wine-breath is strong in her nostrils. She feels him take hold of her chin again with his finger and thumb; he tilts her face up towards his. Straining backwards with both palms on his doublet-front, gritting her teeth, she struggles to push him away from her, swearing under her breath.

  ‘What’s this? Well, well, well! Not quite the lady I took you for, it seems. Did the actors teach you that language or did you know it before? What’s the matter, carissima? I just wanted to show you my study. I thought you might like to…’ He ducks his head, takes a handful of her hair, and puts parted lips onto hers before she can get away from him, probing into her mouth with his tongue, sliding his free hand up and onto her breast, but Sofia twists her head away, feeling her scalp burn. His mouth slides wetly across her cheek towards her ear.

  Taking her by the upper arms then, pulling her upwards, almost off her feet, he starts walking her backwards towards the bed. ‘What’s the matter?’ he says as they stumble together across the room. ‘Not just a stage virgin, then, but virgo intacta in the bedchamber as well? Is that it?’

  ‘Let go of me…’ Sofia mutters through her teeth, trying helplessly to twist her arms out of his grip. ‘You bloody bastard, let go, and…’

  ‘Oh, I am disappointed… very disappointed. I had thought you might have relished the idea of spending tonight with me,’ da Correggio says indistinctly, and his wine-sour words are hot against the skin of her face. ‘It’d be a night you’d not forget in a hurry. I had thought actresses in general had fewer moral scruples than you seem to possess… but no matter —’ He interrupts his own sentence, tugging Sofia in close again. Pushing her down onto her back and covering her mouth with his own, he silences her protests, but she twists her head away once more, and a ragged scream spills out of her – hot against da Correggio’s cheek.

  The door bangs open.

  ‘Hey! You! Leave her alone!’

  Beppe’s voice.

  Da Correggio is blocking her view of the room; Sofia cannot see Beppe, but she hears him banging past the furniture, hears Ippo’s scrabbling claws and panting breath.

  ‘Get off her, you bastard!’

  And then he is there, pulling at da Correggio, dragging him to his feet, knocking him off balance so that he releases Sofia’s arms. She scrambles out from under him. Ippo is snarling and barking. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Beppe says, squaring up to da Correggio, tugging him around, grabbing fistfuls of the embroidered doublet and pulling him away from Sofia. Stumbling backwards, she almost trips over a chair; gasping, she throws her arms out sideways to keep her balance.

  ‘Keep your hands off her!’ Beppe’s voice cracks. He shoves at da Correggio’s chest with the heels of both hands.

  Da Correggio staggers, then rights himself. ‘What the hell —?’

  Beppe stands square now between da Correggio and Sofia, who begins edging backwards towards the study door. ‘I think you’ll find… signore,’ he says, his voice thick with anger, ‘that the lady has no wish for your company. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to stand away and let her – and me – go back to our wagon.’

  ‘You fucking little reprobate, how dare you!’ Da Correggio’s face is distorted with rage. Jaw jutting, his cheeks blotched darkly, he raises clearly practised fists, elbows angled, but Beppe stands his ground, his hands balling too.

  Sofia’s gaze flicks from one man to the other, breath held, wide-eyed.

  Da Correggio takes a step towards Beppe, who does not back away. ‘I think you’ll find, you ignorant little shit,’ he says in a carrying whisper, ‘that this is my house, and that I can invite whom I choose into my bed – and when.’

  ‘It’s usually thought to be good manners to accept a refusal after issuing an invitation, though, isn’t it?’

  Da Correggio swears and punches out at Beppe, who ducks nimbly; straightening, he lets fly with a fist. The blow cracks hard against da Correggio’s jaw, and the nobleman grunts and staggers backwards, tripping over a wooden chest and sprawling on his back onto the floor.

  ‘Quick!’ Beppe turns, grabs Sofia’s arm and drags her towards the door. ‘Before he gets up again!’ Half running, half falling, the two of them – followed by the dog – stumble across the room and out of the door; da Correggio slurs out another
vitriolic oath, then slumps back to lie groaning next to the bed.

  Beppe’s hand is tight around Sofia’s wrist as they bang the door shut behind them; they run together, with the dog, back through the castle and out, out towards where the wagons have been parked near the meadow at the back of the building. Both gasping for breath, chests heaving, they lean against the side of the yellow wagon for a moment; Beppe hugs Sofia and holds her close, then stands away from her, a hand on each of her arms. ‘We have to get out of here, cara,’ he says. ‘Right away from here. He’ll be after us as soon as he can alert the servants, I’m sure of it. I’ll run in and tell Agostino and Cosima. I think we’re all going to have to go – tonight. The whole troupe.’

  ‘Oh God, Beppe, what have I done? I’ve ruined everything…’

  ‘You? You’ve done nothing, my lovely girl, nothing at all! It was that fucking whoremonger out there!’

  Sofia is startled by the vehemence of his words, but he pulls her into a tight hug, then holds her face and kisses her, saying, ‘Get into the smallest cart and hide while I go and tell the others, then we’ll hitch the cart up and get ourselves out and back on the road to Bologna.’

  ‘But what if he —?’

  ‘I’ll not be more than a moment. Ippo will stay here with you.’ Beppe kisses her again, orders the dog to stay and guard, then turns and runs back in through the door.

  23

  An hour later

  Stumbling across the room and crouching next to the sprawled figure, the young black-clad servant reaches out towards the back of his master’s blood-soaked head; as his trembling fingers touch a sticky wetness and he feels the softened sag of a shattered skull, he recoils with an open-mouthed gasp, retching and wiping his hand quickly on his breeches.

  He pushes himself back upright and backs away from the body; the ground sways unsteadily under his feet. ‘Quick!’ he shouts out, his voice thickened with shock, stumbling backwards, scrabbling like a monkey out into the corridor. ‘Quick! Somebody get help! The signore – oh God, quick!’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘What’s the noise about?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Three, four, five people appear from different doors, every face wearing the same expression of fatigued bemusement – it is well past midnight. The oldest and largest of the new arrivals frowns at the boy, shaking his head in irritation. ‘Giuseppe Palmieri, what on earth are you doing, boy, making such a commotion so late at night?’

  Giuseppe, leaning now against the wall, closes his eyes as the floor beneath him continues to buck and heave. He flaps a hand out sideways, muttering, ‘In the study – go and look. It’s the signore.’ And then he bends double and splatters vomit onto the brick floor.

  It is clear from the outset firstly that Signor da Correggio is dead, and secondly that the bloodstained iron candlestick by the side of the body was the weapon responsible. As the shocked gaggle of servants raise lighted torches and look with horror at the sight of their master sprawled face down across the crimson-blotched floorboards, the candlestick lies, clearly visible, some few feet to one side of his head – where it has apparently been dropped by whoever wielded it with such devastating effect. The shadows from the torches shift about it, bobbing and wobbling as the torch-bearers move; the flamelight has the curious effect of making the iron sconce appear to dance with an entirely inappropriate sense of levity.

  One man feels for a pulse. Finds none. Seeing enquiring faces, he shakes his head. Several people gasp; others cross themselves. One man falls to his knees, his lips moving in silent prayer.

  ‘We should alert the authorities,’ the oldest and largest servant says. ‘Whoever did this can’t have got far – the body’s hardly chilled.’

  ‘Someone ought to search the castle – or get out on the roads and see if they can see anyone.’

  Two men hasten to volunteer, looking around at their companions, cheerfully smug at the thought of the importance of their new role in the impending adventure. Seeing this, another, younger man offers to accompany them, and, clapping him on the back and nodding their approval, the two volunteers accept.

  They hesitate by the door as a thin boy says timidly, ‘I saw something earlier. A girl. Here in the corridor, she was with —’

  Somebody interrupts. ‘Who was it, Piero?’

  ‘One of those bloody actors, I expect,’ comes another voice. ‘They’re the only strangers here tonight. Nothing but criminals, they are, in general, actors. Was it, Piero? An actor?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Piero says. ‘I hardly caught more than a glimpse. It was a girl, that’s all I know. Just a girl. A curly-haired girl. In a yellow dress. She was with the signore. And then —’

  He is interrupted again. ‘We need to wake them all up. The actors. Find out if anyone’s missing.’

  A thickset man with a twisted face says, ‘But they’ve already gone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Heard them out the back by the stables, not half an hour since. Harnessing up their horses. Thought they’d just decided not to stay. Didn’t think to talk to them.’

  ‘One of them…’ Piero tries to speak, but nobody listens and, shrugging, he closes his mouth again.

  ‘Oh dear God, we must hurry,’ the oldest servant says now. ‘This early departure has to be significant. We must find them. You three’ – he points to the three volunteers – ‘you set off straight away, and you too, you can go with them.’ A young man in castle livery starts at being thus singled out, but nods his acceptance of the task. The oldest servant turns and points to a red-faced man in stableman’s clothing. ‘Franco, take one of the swiftest horses now and rouse the podestà!’

  Franco puts his hands on his hips, his expression outraged. Jabbing a finger against his chest, he says, ‘Me? Why me? Quite frankly, in my opinion, they’ve done us a bloody great favour: the opium-soaked bastard had it coming to him one way or another before long.’

  There is a clotted mutter of agreement amongst the gathered servants, but the oldest servant’s mouth has dropped open in shock; his several chins are wobbling and his thistledown hair stands on end. ‘Franco! How dare you! You are a Franceschina servant, and as such your loyalty should be —’

  Franco snorts. ‘Loyalty? Stuff loyalty – he had no loyalty to us. Bernadino was dismissed only last week over nothing, wasn’t he? Nothing! After – what? Twenty years’ service? And little Caterina… well, we all know why she left, don’t we? Poor bitch – carrying his bastard and far too many bruises, and —’

  ‘No! No! Stop, stop, stop!’ The oldest servant now looks near to tears. Pointing to the body with a stubby forefinger, he says in a voice distorted with distress, ‘Look at him! Our master is lying dead at our feet – we should all have more respect. And every minute we stand here insulting his memory, the further away will be those responsible.’

  The three volunteers and the young man in livery clear their throats. ‘Er… should we get going?’

  The oldest servant turns to them. ‘Yes! Go quickly!’

  ‘Which way?’ one of the volunteers asks. ‘Bologna? Verona? Where do you want us to go?’

  The October night air is dank and cold – a scribble of ragged clouds has partially obscured the moon, and the chill feels to Sofia as though a thin sheet of uncooked pastry has been draped around her shoulders. She can see almost nothing in the fitful darkness; the lantern they have lit and hung to one side of the cart is illuminating little more than a few feet in any direction and the light from the moon is intermittent as the clouds scud. The bigger, yellow wagon shows only as a square block of denser darkness in front of them, with a faint, dirty glow to one side of it, while the third wagon – some way out in front – cannot be seen at all. The endless jumble of scrunching hoof-beats sounds oddly like last night’s applause. With Beppe on one side of her and old Giovanni Battista on the other, Sofia wishes she could find a way to banish the fears of the night; she cannot determine, though, whether this t
rembling she cannot prevent is because of the cold, or fear. As she presses in against Beppe, he gathers the reins into one hand and puts an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Eh? What’s this?’ he says. ‘Oh, my lovely girl, you’re shivering. Here, take these a moment…’ Handing her the reins, Beppe scrambles back over the seat, through the little door-flap and into the interior of the cart. Sofia hears a box being opened behind her, and several small objects being dislodged and tumbling noisily onto the floor of the cart. Beppe swears several times as yet more things fall. Then a moment later he is back up next to her, flapping out a couple of blankets. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘here’s one for you, Giovanni, and now – stand up, little seamstress… that’s it…’ Tucking the blanket under her bottom, he folds it neatly around her legs, while Giovanni Battista grunts and shifts his position as he wraps himself in his.

  ‘There. Better?’

  ‘Much. Thank you.’ She hands the reins back and leans in close; Beppe’s arm is around her again. He kisses the side of her face and she turns to him, offering him her mouth, ignoring the proximity of the old man. Beppe kisses her as the horse walks along in the blackness, the wheels of the cart scrunching and clattering on the rough ground.