The tears Sofia has been holding back begin to fall then, hot on her skin between her face and Beppe’s. As they touch his cheek, he pulls back, wiping them gently away with the edge of his thumb. ‘Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry, cara – we’ve left the place now. It’s all over. We don’t ever have to go back.’
‘But…’ Sofia begins. ‘… but what if that man… what if he wants to have you charged with assault? You hit him so hard…’
Beppe snorts. ‘I’d have hit the snivelling bastard a bloody sight harder if I could have done.’
‘But… but he might not care about that, he might —’
‘Oh, I reckon he’ll be too embarrassed to do anything about it at all. An arrogant sod like him, admitting he was floored by a draggletail actor? I don’t think so, do you?’
‘Oh God, Beppe, I hope not.’ Sofia puts her hands over her face. Speaking through her fingers she says, ‘It’s all my fault. I’ve wrecked everything.’ She looks up at Beppe. ‘You’re all going to wish you’d never met me, and —’
‘Now you stop it. Right now! I said before: none of this is your fault. You’ve done nothing – nothing at all. No one is angry with you.’
‘And Ippo – his leg…’
‘Look, that’s not your fault either, is it? Daft dog got out and must have caught that leg on something. It’s a nasty little cut, but it’s strapped now and he’ll do. He’s not even limping. So stop worrying.’
‘Beppe’s right.’ Giovanni Battista, perched uncomfortably on Sofia’s other side, pats her knee, then grips it briefly in reassurance. ‘None of us is angry. None of us is blaming you for anything. Why on earth should we?’ His voice is warm and slow.
‘I’m just sorry you had to be frightened like that,’ Beppe says. ‘I should have guessed that… that stinking pile of offal would try something of the sort – it was written all over his face at that table. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine. I should have been with you.’
‘We all should have seen it coming,’ Giovanni Battista says quietly. ‘We’ve been in the company of men like him often enough.’
‘And thank God that boy saw you with him and spoke up when I was searching for you. I’d not have known where to look otherwise.’
Sofia leans in against Beppe and puts her head on his shoulder, jolting back and forth with the movement of the wagon. Pulling her in close, he grips her arm, tipping his head sideways to rest it lightly against hers. Her hair tickles his cheek. Giovanni Battista draws in a long, uneven breath and puffs it out again.
The blackness is still almost absolute; beyond the dirty little patches of light from the wagons’ lanterns, to either side of the road and out behind them all is impenetrably dark; only far ahead does the low line of the approaching city show like a pale smear on the horizon.
‘Not long now,’ Beppe says.
As if in echo of this sentiment, Sofia hears Agostino’s voice far ahead, calling back to them. ‘That’s Bologna ahead. We should be there in about an hour.’
Two men on a pair of heavy Franceschina horses head north towards Verona, two take the Modena road while another three make their way towards Bologna.
One of the three on the Bologna road kicks his horse and increases his pace, muttering darkly about the inconvenience of being forced out onto the road in the small hours of a cold morning (though significantly failing to hide his excitement at the thought of a possible imminent arrest). His companions speed up too, to maintain their position abreast. The light from the little lanterns hanging from each pair of stirrups flickers over the stones beneath the three horses’ feet and the fitful moonlight throws the road ahead into piebald relief.
‘Where do you reckon they’ve gone?’ the first horsemen says, his voice jolting in rhythm with his gelding’s gait.
‘God knows.’
‘Do we even know what we are looking for?’
‘Three big wagons. No idea other than that. Piero said he saw a girl in the corridor outside the study with the signore, and —’
‘Bloody hopeless, if you ask me. Waste of time. Hardly any moon, no chance of seeing anything – added to which, we don’t even know what they look like. We could be riding right past them all and we’d be none the wiser. I hate bloody riding in the dark.’
‘I’d say anyone out on the road at this time of the morning needs to be stopped and questioned,’ the youngest of the three says. ‘But Leonardo says it’s the girl we need to take. Very young, Piero says. Load of curly hair. He saw her clearly. The dirty old lecher had her by the arm, he said – I’m not surprised she whacked him one, to be honest. She’s the one we are to pass on to da Budrio, if we catch them.’
The first horseman shakes his head, screwing up his mouth as he considers the situation. ‘Poor bitch won’t stand a chance against da Budrio. The man’s a bloody Tartar. Doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body, so I’ve heard.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ The second horseman puffs out a breath. ‘He’s been in power too long, I reckon. There was bloody nearly a riot last month when he had that poor boy sent off to the galleys. Remember?’
‘What – the one who was supposed to have raped that farrier’s wife?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I know the boy’s uncle. He said there wasn’t a chance the lad was guilty – just in the wrong place at the wrong time with a face that fitted for some reason.’ He trots on in silence for a few seconds, then adds, ‘Bastard. Da Budrio, that is.’
‘Bastard he may be, but he’s a fool, I reckon. If he goes on like that for too long, they’ll not stand for it – the Bolognese. There’s a lot of bad feeling in the city right now. Very bad. People don’t like being kicked around and it’s been going on for years. And it’s only getting worse.’
The first horseman nods agreement. Setting his jaw and tightening his reins, he kicks on again, hoping more than ever that it will be he and his companion who encounter this unknown killer. Then a thought strikes him: a killer? They are in pursuit of a murderer. He might be in danger himself. They all might, he and his friends.
‘What if they turn on us?’ he says, reining in a little. ‘What if this girl goes for us, like she’s done to him – the signore?’
The second man glances across, slowing his pace. ‘Do you think…?’
The third man shrugs. ‘We’ve got our orders, haven’t we?’
‘That’s as may be,’ the first man says, his expression mutinous. ‘I do what I’m told, like we all do, but I’m not prepared to die for him, the foul-tempered son of a strumpet. I say if we see them, we keep quiet and get the sbirri on to them. We’ll do better to leave it to that bunch of bloody thugs to arrest them.’
‘The sbirri?’
The first man shrugs, picturing in his mind Bologna’s black-clad, law-enforcing heavies: always intent on achieving arrests, and rarely concerned with the rights and wrongs of the methods they employ to achieve them. ‘Why not?’
The three men trot on, silent now, each immersed in their own thoughts. The horses’ hoof-beats fall into and out of time with each other and the darkness gradually becomes imperceptibly thinner and paler as the minutes slip past.
The word comes back from Agostino and Cosima at the front of the line. ‘We’re almost at the city walls. We should pull in and stop for a rest.’
‘Is it safe to stop?’ Sofia says, anxiety thudding back up into her throat again.
Beppe pushes his fingers through his hair. ‘Safer than going on. All the marketeers and the travellers will start coming and going in and out of the city soon, and then we can slip in unnoticed. If we go in now, someone will be sure to remember us. We’ll be safer in the city centre in a crowd. We can take the wagons out to the space behind that big piazza where we put them after that performance before.’
‘I’d jump down and stretch your legs, my dear,’ Giovanni Battista suggests. ‘And if you can give me a hand, I’ll do the same.’
Fastening the reins, Beppe vaults down onto the g
round and hands first Giovanni Battista and then Sofia from the cart. The old man frowns in discomfort as he eases the tension of the journey from his back and shoulders; in this grey dawn light the lines and creases in his face are deeply shadowed, the hollows in his cheeks more pronounced than usual and he looks almost ancient, Sofia thinks. She stretches too, yawning, hunching and rolling her shoulders, twisting her head from side to side, spreading and curling her fingers.
Agostino comes hurrying towards them. ‘Beppe,’ he says, arms slightly raised, his face a mask of compassionate concern. ‘Are you all managing back here? Sofia, my dear… oh, come here, you poor girl! I haven’t had a moment to tell you how sorry I am that you had to endure something so terribly and unreasonably unpleasant…’ He throws his arms wide and pulls Sofia into a hug which quite knocks the wind from her. ‘I’m so sorry. We should never have chosen that venue. It quite threw you into the way of that man, and —’
Sofia pulls back. ‘Don’t be silly – you couldn’t have known,’ she says, shaking her head.
Agostino sighs. He lifts Sofia’s hands to his lips and kisses her knuckles. ‘Maybe not, cara, maybe not… but we all should have noticed when he took you away from the banquet, and we all feel horribly responsible, and —’
He breaks off at the sound of approaching hooves. Sofia gasps. Grabbing her hand, Beppe pulls her close, wrapping an arm around her shoulders; she grips a handful of his doublet. Three men on horseback are slowing their pace. Their stares are frank and appraising as they walk their mounts between the wagons and the roadside ditch, looking down on the huddled group standing quietly in the half-darkness.
‘Broken down?’ one of them asks; all three have slowed to a halt. ‘A problem with a wagon? Need any help?’
‘No, no, no, no,’ Agostino says, with a creditable pretence at cheerful levity. ‘Thank you, but no. We’re heading into the city – just giving the horses a moment’s break and stretching our legs. We’ve been on the road some time.’
The man raises his eyebrows and lifts his chin in acknowledgement; then, gathering up his reins, he and his companions walk on past without further comment.
Sofia puts her hands over her face.
Beppe pulls her into a hug. ‘God,’ he says. ‘I thought they were from —’
‘So did I,’ Agostino says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘Santo Cielo, so did I! Let’s get on into the city straight away – I don’t feel comfortable being out in the open like this.’
Beppe helps Giovanni Battista back onto the wagon as Agostino walks away, then turns to Sofia. ‘Get into the cart now, will you?’ he says. ‘I think I’d rather you weren’t seen. Just in case.’
Sofia nods. Climbing up into the cart, skirts hitched inelegantly in her arms as she scrambles over the tailgate and edges across the interior of the little wagon to the untidily piled bunk, she pushes aside several baskets, a couple of brightly coloured doublets and a bag full of hose and laces to make room to sit down.
The wagon jolts and creaks, and Sofia hugs her knees, feeling her heartbeat thudding against her bodice-front. Ippo, curled in his basket, lifts his head and rests his muzzle against the edge of the bunk. Reaching out, Sofia scratches him between his ears, sightlessly staring at the far wall of the wagon.
The patch of ground behind the piazza is perhaps some fifty feet square, surrounded on all sides by the blank back walls of buildings; one narrow entrance leads on to the piazza, just wide enough for the largest wagon. Underfoot it was probably once a neat arrangement of cobbles, but now most have broken and cracked, weeds have pushed up between the uneven stones and the whole area has a dilapidated and neglected air. Though last time the troupe had parked here it had been stacked with barrels and boxes, today it is virtually empty and there is room aplenty for all three of the Coraggiosi’s vehicles. Beppe steers the little cart up to sit beside the others and pulls the pony to a halt. Jumping down, he helps Giovanni Battista down from his seat, then hurries around to the back. Sofia is already climbing out.
‘Come on,’ Beppe says, taking her hand. ‘We need to get the horses unhitched, at least for now, then we’ll all have to discuss what best to do – where we should go.’
Cosima and Lidia appear as Beppe begins to unbuckle the first of the harness straps, both their faces taut and pinched with anxiety. Cosima pulls Sofia into a hug and murmurs her apologies; Lidia too embraces Sofia and Beppe is touched at the sight of the tenderness in both women’s faces. Watching intently, he sees them lead Sofia away to one side of the little patch of ground, where they all sit down, Sofia in between the other two, on a broken section of wall. He can no longer hear what they are saying, but Cosima’s vehement gesticulations and Lidia’s frowning nods illustrate clearly their sense of outrage at their erstwhile host’s behaviour. Sofia, Beppe can see, looks exhausted. He doubts she slept at all on the journey. Her eyes are bigger and darker than usual; pinkish-brown shadows stand out beneath them, and her hair has tendrilled into a tangle of wild ringlets. She looks from Cosima to Lidia and back, nodding again and again, though saying not a word.
Every few seconds, she glances over towards where he is still unhitching the pony, as though to reassure herself that he is still there, and every time he catches her eye, his heart turns over, and fury at da Correggio’s treatment of her blazes again in his guts.
Holding the mare’s reins up under her chin, Beppe clucks his tongue at her as he begins to encourage her out of the shafts. She is tired and tetchy, though, and, tossing her head irritably, baulks at being moved, scraping her hoofs on the cobbles and stamping. Tightening his grip, Beppe walks slowly backwards, edging the pony out, murmuring endearments and encouragements. With one final angry toss of her head, the stocky little mare consents to being moved.
But as she steps forward, several things happen at the same time.
A group of perhaps half a dozen men, dressed in dirty black doublets, bursts wordlessly through the entrance to the patch of waste ground, brandishing heavy wooden sticks. Several paces behind are three anxious-looking men in servants’ livery. They look vaguely familiar.
A blade flashes in the light.
Beppe’s horse shies, going up onto her back legs and tugging the reins almost out of his grip.
Sofia cries out.
Agostino shouts, ‘No! What in heaven’s name…? What do you think you are doing?’
Both the other horses, startled, bang noisily against the wagons as they swing around sideways.
One of the liveried servants points and shouts, ‘That’s her!’
Three of the men shove their way past Beppe; two of them knock Cosima and Lidia out sideways, the third grabs Sofia by the wrists, pulling her to her feet.
Sofia screams.
‘No!’ Beppe lets go of the horse’s reins and runs around behind the wagons, launching himself at the man holding Sofia. ‘No! Get off! Get off her!’
But even as he drags the man’s arm backwards, one of the other new arrivals swings out wildly with his wooden club: it catches Beppe across the side of his head. Lights flash in front of his eyes and a pain like a whip-crack shoots through his head down into his neck. He crumples to the ground, hearing Sofia scream again – screaming this time for him – and is only dimly aware of a chaotic confusion of dark-clad limbs, incomprehensible shouts, and a jumble of patches of colour and dancing light.
24
Sofia presses herself back against the stone wall of the small room, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. Her eyes are swollen and hot, stiff with shed tears, and the skin around them feels puckered and tight. Wisps of hair which stuck to her soaked cheeks while she was sobbing earlier have dried there – scratching them now, they peel away, like tiny shreds of woodshavings. She tucks them behind her ears. One wrist is burning from where it was held so roughly by the man who pulled her from where she was sitting next to Cosima and Lidia, and, though it is too dark in this room to see clearly, she is sure that she has a sizeable bruise on her upp
er arm. It hurts even to touch the place where she fell against the table several hours ago.
But all she can think of is Beppe.
The image of him, staggering back and falling, hands clutched to his head – the sight of the wooden club swinging – fills her mind now, terror at the thought of what might have happened to him blotting out any fears she knows she should be feeling for herself. Signor da Correggio is dead – they shouted as much right into her face as they dragged her down the steps and pushed her in here, shoving her so hard that she tripped and fell against the table.
He is dead, and they think her responsible.
They think her a murderer.
The Girl with the Painted Face Page 25