Clutching her throbbing cheek, Giulia fled.
—
Giulia returned to the workshop. She tried her best to hide her distress. But when Domenica decided that the quills she’d just sharpened were not satisfactory and ordered her to recut them all, she startled herself and everyone else by bursting into tears.
“Go into the courtyard and compose yourself,” Domenica snapped. “And don’t come in until I summon you.”
Domenica did not call Giulia back, and she sat on the edge of the fountain for the rest of the afternoon. She was aware of the sympathetic glances of the other painters, but no one was brave enough to intercede.
At last the bell rang for Vespers, and the workshop emptied. Giulia hurried inside and stood over one of the braziers, trying to get warm. Her teeth were still chattering as she began the nightly ritual of putting away the artists’ materials. Everything she touched seemed to be made of lead. The very air weighed on her. She wanted to fall to the floor and howl with desperation and despair.
The bell was tolling Angelus when Angela appeared, her pretty face determined.
“Sit down this instant,” she commanded, “and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Oh, Angela, it’s just . . . Domenica, you know. I’m tired today, and those quills . . . it was too much.”
“No.” Angela shook her head. “There is something you’re not telling me. I can see it, Giulia. Don’t pretend, not with me.”
Giulia hesitated, but only for a moment. She let it all pour out: Humilità, Passion blue, Domenica’s ultimatum, Madre Magdalena’s order. After so many days of keeping the truth to herself, it was an incredible relief to share it.
Angela listened without interrupting.
“So,” she said at last. They were sitting side by side at the drafting table. The curtains were still open, and candle flames dipped and swayed in the drafts from the courtyard. “You lied to me about Passion blue.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you. I wanted to, but then Domenica threatened me. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Domenica’s behavior is disgraceful. Still . . . Giulia, I can understand why she’s angry. She must feel terribly slighted.”
“That is not my fault.” Someone had left a pot of pigment open—azurite, Giulia could tell from its song, like a silver hammer tapping against a cymbal. She reached for it and corked it, silencing it.
“I know. But Giulia, there is something to what she says. Maestra Humilità created Passion blue. She had the right to keep it for herself. But she’s gone now, and we must carry on her legacy, all of us together. I don’t want to say she was wrong in giving it to you, but I think it was . . . unfair. Passion blue should belong to the workshop, not to one person.”
“But that’s not why Domenica wants it.” The blood was hot in Giulia’s cheeks. She had expected Angela to understand. “I think she wants it for herself. And I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid that if I give it to her, she’ll dismiss me anyway.”
“No, Giulia. I know there is no love between the two of you, but you can’t think she would be so base.”
“Angela, Domenica despises me. She called me a whore. She accused me of lying to the Maestra on her deathbed in order to get my hands on Passion blue. She said the Maestra should never have let me back into the workshop.”
Angela stared at her. “She said that?”
“That and more.” Giulia realized she was still clutching the pigment pot. She loosened her fingers and put it down. “Even if she allows me to stay, Madre Magdalena may not—she said as much today. And oh, Angela, that’s not all. The Maestra’s father has asked that I be allowed to visit him—to share memories of the Maestra, he says, but that’s a lie, and Madre Magdalena has said I must go, and I can’t be in his house again, I can’t—”
“Wait, wait! What do you mean, a lie?”
“There’s something else you don’t know, Angela. Last year when Ormanno Trovatelli kidnapped me, I told everyone I never found out who hired him to steal the Maestra’s book of secrets. But I did find out. It was the Maestra’s father.”
“Signor Moretti? Giulia, are you sure?”
“Ormanno brought me with him when he went to collect his pay.”
“But why?” Angela’s eyes were huge. “Why would Signor Moretti do such a thing?”
“Because of his greed for Passion blue. You know how he pressed the Maestra to share the recipe. He could no longer bear that she refused him, so he took matters into his own hands. Of course, once he got her book of secrets he couldn’t read the cipher, and when I swore I couldn’t read it either, he did not believe me. He locked me in his attic—to question me, he said.”
“Oh, Giulia!”
“I’d never been so terrified. I’d learned too much, and if he could betray his own daughter so, what would he not dare do to me? But Ormanno came in the night and set me free. I stole into Signor Moretti’s bedchamber and took back the book.”
“And the Maestra knew this? You told her?”
“Yes. She was ashamed. She didn’t want it known that her father had betrayed her and so I promised to keep it secret. But now she’s gone, and I’m the only one who knows what he did. What he’s capable of. And he wants Passion blue as much as ever. Do you remember last week, when I had a visitor?”
Angela nodded.
“It was him. The Maestra made me swear an oath never to give him the recipe—I tried to lie, but he didn’t believe me. And now I must go to him. I must be in his house again . . . What if he gets me away on some pretext and locks me up again? Oh, Angela, I’m so frightened. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to stop myself from giving him the secret, no matter how I try.”
“Giulia.” Angela reached to take Giulia’s hands. Her face was grave, her brown gaze steady. “You must talk to Madre Magdalena. You must tell her everything.”
“I tried, this afternoon. She wouldn’t hear me.”
“Then we’ll go to her together. I’ll vouch for you.”
“But all you can say is what you heard from me, and she thinks I’m a liar.” Giulia felt the burn of tears behind her eyes. Something terrible was expanding inside her chest, a choking storm of dread and desperation. “Oh, Angela, I never wanted to be a nun. I never wanted to renounce the world and live behind walls and never know what it was to . . . to love a man. But I was willing to take vows if it meant I could paint, if it meant I could be the Maestra’s pupil. But the Maestra is gone, and if I can’t . . . if I can’t paint . . .”
“No, Giulia. I can’t believe Domenica would dismiss you. Not if you give her Passion blue.”
“You’re wrong. Maybe if I’d given it to her at the start . . . but I’ve left it too long.” Giulia recognized the truth of it even as she said it, a stony certainty beyond any possibility of denial. “She’ll never forgive me now.”
She pulled her hands from Angela’s. There were words in her mouth—words she had never imagined saying, words she’d never even allowed herself to think before. Yet now, this moment, she understood they had been inside her for weeks, waiting to be uttered.
She drew a breath and set them free.
“Angela. I don’t know if I can take my final vows.”
The shadows, the candle flames, the draft-stirred curtains—all for an instant seemed to go completely still.
“What do you mean?” Angela’s voice was hushed.
“If I take vows . . . and I lose the workshop . . . I’ll be trapped. Trapped at Santa Marta for the rest of my life. I’ll be a servant, a conversa, despised even by other conversae for what they all think they know about me: the girl who ran away with a thief and came back without her virtue. I’ll never paint, I’ll never even draw unless it’s with a charred stick on a whitewashed wall. I’ll never—” Hear the colors singing. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“No.” Angela was shaking her head, her black veil moving on her shoulders. “No, Giulia, I know you have doubts—”
“More than d
oubts.” It was terrifying, and yet strangely exhilarating, to admit it. “Angela, I have no vocation. Not for religious life. My vocation is for painting. Only for painting.”
“But how will you paint if you leave Santa Marta? The world does not allow such things to women. Where would you go? You have no family, no friends outside these walls. How would you survive?”
The fantasy woken by Gianfranco Ferraldi’s letters whispered an answer. I’d disguise myself as a boy. I’d go to Venice and find Ferraldi. I’d talk him into taking me as an apprentice. I’d have a real teacher then, not an angry enemy who hates the sight of me. And Matteo Moretti . . . Matteo Moretti couldn’t touch me, because he wouldn’t know where I’d gone.
“You see?” Angela was angry now. “You have no idea. What do you know of the world, the wicked world that has so many dangers in it? Santa Marta is your home. We are your sisters, we painters. You’re my best friend, Giulia! You can’t throw away all the Maestra’s hopes for you just because you are frightened of something that may never happen. And if Domenica does do what you fear—and I don’t think she will, I don’t, but if she does—I will help you! I’ll bring you paper and charcoal and brushes and paint. I’ll teach you myself! And Lucida will too, and Perpetua, because they love you, Giulia, just as I do.”
She was so passionate, so certain. Giulia looked down at the scarred surface of the worktable, at the litter of materials she still had to clear away.
“Here’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow morning I’ll go to Madre Magdalena and tell her everything you’ve told me. I’ll beg her to rescind permission for the visit to Signor Moretti. And you’ll give Domenica Passion blue—and, Giulia, you will give it to her as if she had never threatened you. You will beg her to forgive your defiance. You will promise to renounce your pride. You’ll convince her she has won—and you will go on convincing her for as long as she is Maestra.” Angela’s eyes were filled with tears. “You must save yourself, Giulia. Domenica won’t be Maestra forever. Your day will come. I promise it will.”
Giulia leaned forward and put her arms around her friend, feeling Angela embrace her tightly in return. She was suddenly conscious of how tired she was, weary to the bone.
“It’s late.” Angela pulled away, raising her hands to wipe her eyes. “You go. I’ll finish here.”
Grateful, Giulia slid off her stool.
“Don’t worry.” Angela took up one of the candles, holding it so that her face seemed to be lit from within. She looked like a resolute angel in one of Humilità’s paintings. “We’ll make things right.”
CHAPTER 7
THE ORCHARD WALL
Despite her exhaustion, Giulia lay open-eyed after Suor Margarita locked her in her cell. She could feel the fearful thing she had admitted to Angela spreading through her like ink on wool, transforming everything.
I have no vocation.
It was to Humilità she’d been willing to swear herself. Humilità and the workshop and all she could become there. Not Santa Marta. Not religious life. Deep inside herself, she’d known it all along. She’d just never allowed herself to admit it. There had been no reason to do so until now.
She thought of Ferraldi’s letters, which she hadn’t had the courage to ask Madre Magdalena to give back. She’d dismissed the idea they’d woken in her as fantasy. But was it really so impossible?
She could escape through the orchard, the same way Ormanno had crept in a year ago. She’d need a boy’s disguise, but surely she could manage that—steal washing from a line, perhaps. She knew Venice lay east of Padua and that the two cities were not terribly distant from each other; maybe the journey would not take so very long. Once in Venice, she’d convince Ferraldi to apprentice her. And if he refused—well, Venice was a city of painters, or so Ferraldi had said. Surely there was an artist who would take her.
Of course, she had no experience of travel. She hadn’t grown up cosseted and sheltered, not as a noblewoman did, or a girl like Angela, who had been born into a wealthy merchant family—she’d always had to fend for herself. But she’d never been entirely alone before, had never been without a home to return to. She had no money, not so much as a single soldo. And though a boy on his own was safer than a girl on her own, even a boy was vulnerable to thieves, and sickness, and starvation, and a hundred other possibilities that threatened life and limb.
But you’ve done impossible things before, her rebellious imagination whispered. Had she not found her way to the house of an astrologer-sorcerer and paid him to make her a spirit-haunted talisman? Hadn’t she escaped from Matteo Moretti’s attic and crept into his rooms by moonlight, and taken the secret he had stolen from under his very hand?
Wasn’t Santa Marta dangerous for her also, as long as Matteo knew she was inside it?
You’ve made mistakes before too. Ormanno’s smiling face appeared in her mind. And all at once her thoughts turned, and she saw her plan through Angela’s eyes—as the madness it really was, the daydream of a desperate girl. At Santa Marta there were some certainties—if nothing else, of shelter and of Angela’s support. Outside it there were no certainties at all, not even that she would reach Venice safely.
She heard Angela’s words again: You can’t throw away all the Maestra’s hopes for you just because you are frightened of something that may never happen.
“What should I do, Maestra?” she whispered. “What would you want me to do?”
Of course there was no answer—only her own thoughts, turning and turning in the dark.
—
Hollow-eyed and exhausted, Giulia made her way to the workshop on Tuesday morning. Angela arrived late; as she’d promised, she had gone to Madre Magdalena to speak on Giulia’s behalf.
“You were right,” she told Giulia in a quiet moment that afternoon. “She said I was not a witness to the events you described. And with no corroboration, she could give no credence to such an accusation, or insult Signor Moretti by denying his request.”
“I told you.” Foolishly, Giulia had allowed herself a sliver of hope that Angela might succeed.
“Wait, I’m not finished. You must still go to him this coming Friday, but Madre Magdalena will give you two chaperones, not just one, and she will instruct them never to leave your side. So she did heed me, at least a little.” Angela was smiling, pleased with her accomplishment. “Do you feel better now, Giulia? There’s surely nothing that can happen with two chaperones watching over you.”
Giulia did not have the heart to tell her friend that all the chaperones in the world would not make her feel safe.
“She said I was to remind you of her command.” Angela was serious now. “Have you talked to Domenica yet?”
Giulia shook her head.
“Oh, Giulia! You must! You must do it at once!”
But by the close of the workday Giulia still had not spoken. She hurried through her tasks, managing to get back to her cell before Vespers ended and either Angela or Domenica could return. For a long time she stood at her unshuttered window, gazing at the sky. She’d prayed for guidance and had received none; the stars could not help her either. She was so confused and weary she hardly knew what she was thinking any longer.
She did not expect to sleep. But almost as soon as she closed her eyes, exhaustion claimed her. She was back in Milan, where she had grown up, in Maestro Bruni’s study in her father’s palace. Maestro sat behind his untidy desk, dressed in his shabby velvet robe and felt cap, his quill scratching across a sheet of paper. He rose when he saw her, smiling his sad smile. “You have a question for me, child?” Giulia realized that she did have a question, and she spoke it, though as the words left her mouth they lost their meaning and she had no idea what she had said. Maestro shook his head, looking grave. “There are no stars. I cannot take a sighting for your horoscope.” He gestured to the windows of his study, through which the sun streamed gold. Giulia was puzzled, for he could have taken a sighting on the sun. But then his face brightened and he reached toward her, plunging his h
and into her chest. There was no pain, only a coolness like the kiss of water on a hot summer’s day. He pulled back, smiling. In the cup of his palm were stars—not diamond white, but lapis blue, pulsing with indigo brilliance, shedding sapphire sparks. “I can take a sighting after all,” he said, and tossed the stars up in the air so that they came down again in a rain of cobalt, singing as they fell, the icy, unearthly song of Passion blue.
And then Giulia was awake, her eyes wide open in the darkness of her cell. Blue shadows swam at the edges of her vision. She could still feel a little of the coolness of Maestro Bruni’s dream-touch.
She thought of the question she had asked in her dream, the question she hadn’t understood as she was speaking it. And all at once it was as if a wind blew through her, sweeping away the clutter of question and doubt, leaving only the hard, flat clarity of truth behind.
Angela was right. If she surrendered Passion blue, Domenica might not banish her. Yet what she’d said to Angela was also true. Too much had passed between them ever to be healed. In Domenica’s workshop, she would labor each day under a woman who despised her. Who looked at her gift, the fire at the core of her being, and saw only something ugly and unnatural. Who would never teach her how to become the painter God had created her to be.
That was not what Humilità had wanted for her. It was not what she wanted for herself.
What, then, will I win by staying at Santa Marta? Only the safety of my body. While outside in the world, the wicked world with all its dangers, I may lose that and more . . . but possibly, just possibly, I may have everything to gain.
The bed seemed to tilt, as if the Earth had shifted underneath it. Terror swept her. For the rest of the night she lay open-eyed, her heart beating and beating, the dark around her like the impossible distance between stars.
—
When Giulia rose on Wednesday morning, she was still terrified. But something inside her had changed. She could feel it. It was as if she’d crossed the border into another country.
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