Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) Read online

  She placed the boots on top of the clothes and tied everything up in the mantle.

  “May God bless you,” she said, pushing the bundle toward Giulia. “And your brother too.”

  “Thank you for your kindness.”

  Giulia had taken no more than a few steps when she felt a hand on her arm. She jumped, startled.

  “I saw what you did for that rag seller there.” It was a woman in a sober gown of good cloth, her neatly dressed hair covered by a veil. “Could you do the same for me?”

  “You wish me . . . to draw you?”

  “My sons.” She gestured to the two boys who stood behind her. “They’re to travel with my husband on business, and I would like to have a likeness to look at while they are gone. I’ll give you a soldo to show them both on one paper.”

  “I—well—that is, yes. Yes, I’d be glad to.”

  Near the boundary of the piazza, where there were not so many people, Giulia seated herself on the edge of a fountain, balancing the Alberti manuscript on her knee and the drawing paper on the manuscript, her charcoal scratching as she sketched the two boys, trying to capture the edge of mischief in the face of the younger, the older’s watchful seriousness.

  A little crowd gathered as she worked. As the woman, delighted, pressed a silver soldo into her hand, a young man came forward with his sister, and then a father with his son. Giulia heard her own voice, as self-assured as if she’d been selling sketches on the street for years; she watched her own hands flying over the paper. Inside herself, she was amazed.

  I can sell portraits all the way to Venice. I can support myself while I look for Ferraldi. I won’t have to sleep in the gutter, and I won’t starve.

  Could it really be that easy?

  She might have had customers all morning. But she knew her absence would have been discovered soon after sunrise; by now Madre Magdalena might have searchers out combing the streets. Already, she had stayed too long. She accepted the father’s soldo, then packed up her things and hurried away from the market, back into the winding avenues.

  At the end of a dark and malodorous alley overlooked by blind walls, she dragged off her dress and chemise and, standing naked and shivering, bound her kerchief tightly around her breasts to flatten them, glad for once that she wasn’t better endowed.

  She put on the garments she had bartered—first the shirt, then the doublet, then the hose, tying the points, the laces at their top, through the holes at the doublet’s waist to hold them up. A good thing she had been trained as a seamstress before she came to Santa Marta: She knew how men’s clothing went together, as a more privileged girl might not.

  The boots the stallholder’s wife had given her were too big, but better than the sandals she had been wearing. She pulled the tunic over everything, belting it with her own belt, and wrapped the mantle over that. She’d already stowed the money she had made that morning in the pouch sewn into the inside of the doublet, counting it first: twenty soldi, six piccoli—four soldi earned by her own labor. A good sum with which to start a journey.

  There was just one thing left to do.

  She took the knife she’d brought from Santa Marta and leaned forward so that her braid fell over her shoulder. Not giving herself time to think, she set the knife to her hair, sawing at the thick rope of it.

  The knife was sharp. The braid came off quickly. What remained of her hair swung free, just touching her shoulders. It had hung below her waist, thick and waving and glossy black, the one thing about herself that she considered beautiful. She felt its loss like a wound.

  Stop it, she told herself. It’s only hair. One day you can let it grow again.

  She sheathed the knife and stowed it in her boot. Using a stick, she poked her severed braid and her novice clothing under the piles of rubbish that heaped the alley’s corners. She settled the cap on her head and slipped her bundle over her arm.

  At the alley’s mouth she paused, bracing herself. Then she stepped into the street, into the light of the sun—no longer Giulia Borromeo, fugitive novice, but Girolamo Landriani, apprentice painter. Landriani for her mother, whose family name it was, Girolamo because it was close to her own real name.

  Girolamo Landriani. A boy.

  —

  Taking those first steps was one of the most difficult things Giulia had ever done. The tunic covered her to midthigh, but still her legs felt as exposed as if she were naked. The binding around her breasts was uncomfortably constricting, and her shorn head felt strangely light. She’d been reasonably confident that her height, her strong features and level brows would pass for a boy’s—but now she felt utterly ridiculous, an obvious imposter. Surely anyone looking at her would immediately see through her absurd attempt at disguise.

  But no one looked at her. She realized this once she found the courage to raise her eyes, which at first she’d fixed on the cobbles of the street. The tradesmen, the beggars, the young men lounging under the arcades—all were busy with their own affairs. Most didn’t spare her a glance, or if they did, their eyes slid across her and then moved on. She had actually attracted more attention earlier, when she’d still been dressed as a girl.

  She felt a burst of confidence. This morning she’d had nothing, nothing but her plan. Now she had the disguise she needed, money that would see her on her journey, and the means to earn more.

  I can do this.

  Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon. She bought roast mutton from a man selling skewers from a brazier, and devoured the greasy meat. Then, boldly, she stopped a passerby and asked how she might travel to Venice, trying to deepen her voice so it would seem more masculine.

  “Best way to go’s by river.” The man’s eyes lingered on her face, but there was no suspicion in his gaze, only ordinary curiosity. “If you’ve got the price of passage.”

  Giulia shook her head. She wanted to save her money if she could. “I don’t.”

  “Well, then, go out of the city by the Porta Molino, cross the Molino bridge, and head east.”

  He gave her directions to the Porta Molino. Giulia moved on, reminding herself not to walk as a girl did—with small steps, hands clasped at her waist, eyes downcast—but like a boy: in long strides, her shoulders thrown back, her unencumbered arm swinging freely. The too-large boots flapped annoyingly at her toes—she’d have to find something with which to stuff them—and she was realizing that she needed to tie up her hose more loosely, to allow more slack in the fabric when she bent her knees. But she could attend to those things later.

  It was midafternoon by the time she reached the Porta Molino. Beyond it, the Bacchiglione River embraced Padua’s northern walls, its banks lined with flour mills. On the river’s far side a tumble of houses made a brief continuation of the city. In the distance, Giulia glimpsed planted fields.

  She crossed the bridge, joining the stream of travelers heading out of the city. Her cut palm had begun to throb, and the ill-fitting boots were raising blisters on her heels. She could feel the exhaustion of her sleepless night settling over her.

  A cart trundled past, raising a cloud of dust. She hailed it, but the driver ignored her. The next driver ignored her also, and the one after that cursed and flicked his whip, forcing her to dodge aside.

  Her feet were agony. She needed to do something about them or she wouldn’t be able to continue. She was starting to limp to the roadside when another cart overtook her—and this time the driver heeded her wave and reined to a halt. She hurried to catch up.

  “Are you—” She cleared her throat, lowered her voice. “Are you traveling east? Toward Venice?”

  “Could be.” The driver, a burly young man with a rough stubble of beard, looked Giulia over, his eyes lingering on the bundle at her elbow. Beside him sat a younger companion—his brother, by the resemblance.

  “Can you give me a ride? I can barter. I’m a painter. I’ll draw you two portraits on fine paper if you’ll take me as far as you’re going.”

 
“Portraits?” The driver turned his head and spat. “What would we want with portraits?”

  “For your parents, or your sweethearts. For remembrance.”

  “My sweetheart sees me every day. You got anything else to offer?”

  Giulia sighed. She hadn’t wanted to pay for passage, but even if she wrapped her feet, she knew she couldn’t walk much farther.

  “A soldo,” she said. “I’ll give you a silver soldo if you’ll take me as far east as you’re going.”

  “That’s more like it. Show us your money.”

  Turning her back, Giulia extracted a soldo from the pouch sewn into her doublet. She turned back to the cart, holding it up. The driver reached for it. She snatched her hand away.

  “You’ll get it when I get off.”

  “What d’you say, Santello?” The driver addressed his brother. “Will we carry this painter boy here for just one silver soldo?”

  Their eyes held, some wordless communication passing between them. The brother shrugged. The driver jerked his thumb at the back of the cart.

  “Jump in, then.”

  Giulia hesitated, suddenly unsure. The brothers’ unkemptness, the neglected appearance of their horse, the look they’d exchanged . . . But then it occurred to her that she was thinking like a girl. A girl was vulnerable to men like these. But she was a boy now. She was Girolamo Landriani. She would have to keep her wits about her—but she did not have to fear these two as a girl would.

  “What’re you waiting for?” the driver demanded. “Get in or get gone.”

  Giulia’s burning feet made the decision for her. She hoisted herself into the cart, making a clumsy job of it with her injured hand and her too-tight hose. The brothers had been at market—she shared space with a trestle and its supports, a folded canvas awning, and a heap of rotten onions.

  I’ve done it, she thought as the cart bumped back into motion. She felt Padua falling behind her, sloughing away like a heavy garment, leaving her cold and unprotected but much, much lighter. I’m on my way.

  The sun was sinking, probing the fields with fingers of shadow. The urge to sleep was overwhelming, but Giulia knew she had to stay awake. She flexed her wounded hand, concentrating on the pain, and slipped her other hand under her mantle, closing it tightly around her purse.

  It was the last thing she remembered doing.

  CHAPTER 9

  A PORTRAIT IN DARKNESS

  Asleep in the cart, Giulia dreamed. Santa Marta had found her. Domenica’s face loomed over her, distorted with rage; she felt Domenica’s hands, tearing at her clothing. She tried to resist, for she knew Domenica meant to claw through not just her garments, but her skin and bone, to plunge her fingers into Giulia’s heart and rip free the secret of Passion blue—

  And then Giulia was awake, and for an instant dream and reality blurred, for there really were hands on her and faces above her, and she was utterly bewildered; but then she remembered where she was, and she saw that the faces were the brothers’ faces, the men who had let her ride in their cart, and the whites of their eyes were glinting in the moonlight, for it was full night now, and one of them was holding her down while the other was pawing at her doublet—

  She began to struggle. But the younger brother had her hands over her head, gripped fast by the wrists, and as she tried to whip her body to the side, the driver, the one who had offered her the ride, planted a knee across her thighs, immobilizing her.

  “Help!” she shouted. “Help!”

  The driver laughed. “Shout away, boy, there’s no one to hear.”

  He’d slit her tunic so he could get at her doublet. His fingers closed on the knot of the purse sewn into the inside. He yanked at the doublet’s laces, wrenching them loose. She heard a ripping sound, felt the purse tear free.

  “There.” He held it up, shaking it so it clinked. “I knew there was more where that silver came from.”

  He tossed the purse aside, then leaned over her, his weight crushing her thighs, his breath foul.

  “Got any more on you?” She turned her face away; he seized her chin, jerked it back. “We’ll strip you to find out, so if you don’t want to be walking to Venice naked, you’d better tell us.”

  “No,” she gasped. Her arms were stretched so high over her head she could barely breathe. “I don’t have any more.”

  “Strip it is then.” His hands went to her hose, fumbling at the ties that attached them to her doublet. Panic burst inside her; she screamed, unable to help herself. The driver laughed again.

  “Screams like a girl, don’t he?” Then suddenly he paused. “Wait a moment. Wait . . . just . . . one . . . moment.”

  His hand moved down her belly. She writhed, trying pointlessly to pull away. His fingers slid between her legs, closed hard on the tender flesh there. She gasped, every part of her desperate to escape the violation of it. He began to laugh, really laugh this time, great chortling peals of mirth.

  “Oh, so that’s the story, is it? We’ve caught ourselves a different fish than we thought, Santello. Not some soft, stupid painter boy at all but a girl. A real girl.” His free hand went to Giulia’s chest, probing. “Yes indeed, there’s tits under there, they’re bound up tight but I can feel ’em. We’re going to have us a good time tonight, and no mistake!” His fingers dug brutally between her legs. She cried out. “See, Santello? She likes it!”

  He bent forward, taking his weight off her thighs. He was grinning, the moonlight glinting off his teeth. Santello, the silent brother, was breathing hard through his mouth. Giulia could see his face upside down: his wet lips, his avid eyes. She felt his grip on her wrists slacken as the driver thrust his hand down the neck of her shirt and took hold of the binding around her breasts.

  In a moment of complete clarity, she saw that she had one chance. There would not be another.

  She whipped her legs up, twisting her body as violently as she could. Her arms came free. She bolted upright, lunging at the driver with clawed hands. Her nails raked his cheeks; he bellowed in surprise and pain, rearing back as she scrambled toward the end of the cart. One of them grabbed her foot. She kicked out and the too-large boot slid off. Then she was falling, tumbling off the cart, landing on the ground with a thump that knocked the breath out of her. Gasping, she scrambled to her feet and ran.

  “She’s blinded me!” Behind her, she heard the driver shouting. “The bitch blinded me! Go after her, Santello, you idiot, go after her and get her back!”

  Then all she could hear was her own panting, her own uneven footsteps pounding against the earth. She ran and ran, falling now and then, clambering to her feet and running on. At last she fell and could not rise. Her last thought before consciousness slipped away was to hope that the brothers, when they found her, would leave her alive.

  —

  She woke to cold. Opening her eyes, she saw an infinity of gray. Her first thought was that she’d lost her sight, but then she realized she was lying on her back, looking up at an overcast sky.

  For a moment she could not recall where she was or why. Then memory returned in a terrible rush. She gasped, sitting up, her hands flying to her hose. They were ripped at the knees but otherwise whole, still tied firmly to her doublet.

  They didn’t catch me. I got away.

  She felt a huge relief, but only for a moment.

  Where am I? How far did I run?

  She’d come to rest in a meadow. There was tall grass all around, brown and dry. Some distance away, blurred by mist, she could see a fence, and beyond it a dark mass of trees.

  She climbed carefully to her feet. She could feel the aches and bruises of her flight. The cut she’d gotten on the wall of Santa Marta, still wrapped in its dirty bandage, was hot and throbbing. She’d lost her cap, her tunic was slit all the way down the front, and she had only one boot. Her money was gone. And her bundle, the precious bundle with her artwork and the Alberti manuscript and Humilità’s rosewood brushes—that was gone too, left behind in the brothers’ cart.
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br />   I’ve lost everything. She felt a dreamlike disbelief. I’ve got nothing but the clothes on my back.

  How had things gone so wrong? She remembered her rash confidence of yesterday. What a fool she’d been. Angela had predicted this—predicted it so exactly that now that it had come to pass, it did not seem real.

  She was shivering, her teeth chattering, as cold as death. She couldn’t stay in this meadow. She had to move on—find a road, find a farm or a village, discover where she was. Beg for something to eat—for she was hungry, terribly hungry, the hollow pain of it drilling through her. And then what? Turn her face to Venice again. Pick up the pieces of her plan and resume her journey.

  But I’ve no work to show Ferraldi now. I’ve no way to earn money, for I have no charcoal or paper or coins to buy them. And my clothes are in shreds, and my hand is getting worse . . . and I don’t even have a knife to defend myself, because it was in the boot I lost . . .

  Hopelessness overwhelmed her, buckling her knees and dragging her down again onto the damp ground.

  She had no idea how long she sat, her hands loose, her head hanging. Her mind was clouded, as if the drifting mist had seeped inside her. But at last she became aware that she was thinking about turning back—back to Padua, back to Santa Marta, where the high brick walls would imprison her forever, but also promised warmth and shelter and no rough men to abuse her. Where the outside world was held away—the huge and terrifying world in which she was a speck, a mote, unknown and unregarded by anyone but herself.

  It was like a blow to the face, shocking her back to clarity. Of course she could not go back. She knew what waited for her at Santa Marta. She’d made her choice; for good or ill, it had brought her here. She could sit in this meadow and wait to die, or she could get up and continue. But she could not go back.

  One thing at a time. I’ll do one thing at a time, and see where it takes me.

  She dragged off her remaining boot, hissing as her hose ripped away from her heel, where burst blisters had pasted the fabric to her skin. Miraculously, the cloth on her bootless foot was whole. With her teeth she tore the hem of her mantle, ripping two long strips from the bottom to wrap around her feet and a narrower strip to use as a belt to hold her tunic together. She removed her doublet and shirt to rewrap the band around her breasts, then tied up her hose more loosely than before, letting them sag at the knees. The shortened mantle she draped over her shoulders.