Passion Blue

by Strauss, Victoria

  Giulia pushed herself to her feet, smoothed her dress, and straightened her kerchief. She touched her cheek. It was swollen—there would probably be a bruise. She’d have to make up some kind of explanation.

  At least Ormanno didn’t come. At least nothing’s gone wrong.

  When Giulia arrived back at the workshop, Domenica, Perpetua, and Humilità were intent on the San Giustina commission. Benedicta sat at her lectern, and Angela was immersed in her practice painting. Lucida, at the drafting table working on one of her miniatures, was the only one who glanced up as Giulia entered.

  “Saints’ mercy, Giulia! What happened to your face?”

  Giulia cupped her hand over her swollen cheek. “I tripped and banged my face on the floor.”

  “Let me take a look.” Lucida put down her brush and came to Giulia’s side. “Oh! I can already see a bruise! You must go to the infirmary and get a poultice.”

  The others left what they were doing and crowded around, exclaiming. Giulia, embarrassed by their concern, told them that she didn’t need a poultice, just to sit down for a little while.

  “Very well,” Humilità said, “but you must have something for that cheek. Angela, fetch a bowl of water and a cloth.”

  Angela obeyed. The other artists dispersed back to their work. Giulia brought a stool over to Angela’s lectern and waited as Angela returned with the bowl, balancing it carefully against the dip and halt of her limp.

  “Who was your visitor?” Angela sat down and began cleaning paint from the brush she’d been using. “Was it your cousin, as you thought?”

  Giulia wrung out the cloth and held it to her cheek, feeling the relief of the cool wetness. She’d intended to say the summons was a mistake and she’d arrived in the parlor to find no one there. Instead, she found herself telling the truth.

  “It was a trick. Alessia and her friends were waiting for me. They wanted revenge for yesterday.”

  “Oh, that awful girl!” Angela dropped the brush and the cleaning rag on the little table that held her jars of pigment and other tools. She knew all about Alessia’s bullying, and Giulia had told her about the incident with Lisa. “So you didn’t fall? She did that to you?”

  “Her and Nelia and Elisabetta. At least I think it was Elisabetta. I couldn’t see.”

  Angela reached to place a paint-stained hand on Giulia’s arm. “I know you asked me not to speak to Madre Damiana about those girls and the way they torment you. But I could talk to the Maestra. Something needs to be done. You haven’t been yourself these past few weeks. You’ve been trying to hide it, but I can tell.”

  “No, Angela.” Giulia couldn’t meet the young nun’s eyes. Was she really doing such a bad job of pretending? “Don’t say anything.”

  “But they’ll just keep making you miserable,” Angela said, distressed. “And once Alessia takes her vows, she can do much worse. Speak against you in chapter meetings, even.”

  “Please, Angela. It would only make her angrier.”

  Angela sighed. “Very well. But if you change your mind, you must tell me.”

  “I will.”

  Angela took up her brush again. Then she paused, her face brightening.

  “I know what will make you feel better. How would you like to work on my painting?”

  “I’m not supposed to be painting yet.”

  “Yes, but I know how much you’ve been wanting to. The Maestra’s in another world right now.…” Angela glanced toward the scaffold, where Humilità was intent upon the central panel. “She won’t notice, and if she does…well, if she does, I’ll just tell her that I think you’re ready. After all, I’ve been training you as much as she has, and…oh, Giulia, I meant to wait till a better time to tell you this, but your horoscope came true! The Maestra told me this morning that she’s going to let me paint the angel in the second thief panel, and if I do a good job she’ll declare me a journeyman.”

  “Angela, that’s wonderful.”

  “My first commission!” Angela’s eyes were shining. “So you see, I’m as qualified as anyone to say you’re ready to paint.”

  Giulia doubted that Humilità would agree. But her fingers were burning with desire, hotter than her bruised cheek. “Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin it.”

  “You won’t ruin it. It’s just the grass, anyway. I can always paint over it if you make a mistake. Here. Sit on my stool. I’ll watch over your shoulder, but I won’t say anything unless you ask.”

  Giulia put down the bowl. The girls switched places. From the little table, Giulia took up Angela’s palette and the brush Angela had cleaned, curling her fingers around the smooth wooden shaft of the brush, slipping her thumb through the hole in the palette. The tools felt both strange and known—known because she had often practiced holding them this way; strange because she had never before held them in preparation to paint.

  Angela’s painting was propped at an angle on the surface of the lectern. It was oil, not tempera, and the figures of Madonna and Child were already complete, lacking only the gold leaf for their haloes. Angela was filling in the background, a forest clearing with spring trees just leafing out and grass starred with white violets. Over the underpainted monochrome of highlights and shadows, she’d laid the first layer of color—yellow ochre for the grass, bone black for the leaves of the violets, and lead white for their blossoms. The greens and browns and lavenders of the final color layer were mixed and ready on the palette.

  Giulia dipped the brush in the lightest shade of green, turning the handle so that the bristles spun to a point. Angela had not told her which color to choose—but she’d watched the painters so many times, listened so carefully to old Benedicta’s wisdom. She knew instinctively that this exact hue, laid thinly over the black, would produce the depth and darkness of living leaves.

  She held her breath. She set the brush to the panel, working tentatively at first, then with growing assurance—choosing paints, changing brushes, combining pigments when one of the mixed shades did not seem quite right. As she did, the workshop began to vanish. She forgot the pain in her cheek and back, forgot Angela beside her, forgot everything but the panel and the color blooming under her brush. She hadn’t fully understood how different painting would be from drawing. Drawing caught the edges of things, the lines and the angles that separated one thing from another, but with painting there was no separation—only color blending into color, form laid upon form, light shading into shadow and back again. Yet what she was doing did not feel new. It was as if she were rediscovering something that her conscious mind had lost, even as her hands and heart and soul retained the memory. Beneath her brush, a world was born—grass and flowers, leaves and earth—as if, like God Himself, she possessed the power of creation.

  She had to stop at last, for she had run out of green. She sat back on the stool, realizing as she did how cramped her arms and shoulders felt.

  “Well, Angela.” Humilità’s voice came from behind. “It seems you have taken some authority upon yourself.”

  Giulia felt as if the bowl of water she’d been holding earlier had been poured over her head. She twisted around. Humilità was standing a little distance away, her arms folded across her paint-stained apron. Her wide mouth was a straight line and her black eyes were narrow, but she did not look angry, exactly.

  “I’m sorry, Maestra,” Angela said softly. “Her cheek was hurting, and I wanted to help her forget it. I didn’t think there’d be any harm, just for a little while.”

  “Hm.” Humilità stepped closer, leaning in to look. Giulia turned toward the painting again. For the first time she saw, really saw, what she had done. It wasn’t perfect, not by any means. The grass looked stiff rather than soft, especially where she’d begun, and some of the finer details seemed amateurish. But the violet blossoms—she’d gotten them just right. And the rosette of their leaves, pale color smoothed over dark to create a hue that was more than just the sum of black and green…that was perfect.

  “Hm,” said Hum
ilità again. Her expression was unreadable. She straightened and stepped back. “It appears you’re feeling well enough to get back to work, Giulia, so that is what I suggest you do. You too, Angela. You’ve had quite enough time on your own today.”

  “Well, she didn’t reprimand us,” Angela said, as Humilità disappeared into her study. “That’s a good sign, I think.”

  Giulia began to clear away the painting things. She was aware of the pain in her back and cheek again, but the thrill of the past half hour was still with her—though it stung that Humilità had made no comment on her work.

  “Angela, I know I made a muddle of your painting, but it was wonderful. More wonderful than I ever imagined. Thank you.”

  “You didn’t make a muddle. I’ll have to do some overpainting, but not very much.” Angela hesitated. “What you did was amazing, Giulia.”

  “I’ve been watching and learning.”

  Angela shook her head. “It’s more than that. I had years more learning than you the first time I ever held a brush, and you should have seen the muddle I made. I got better. Perhaps even good. But I am just a painter. You…” She drew in her breath. “You will be Maestra one day.”

  “Angela—”

  “You will be, I know it. If you asked the stars with one of your horoscopes, that is what they would say.”

  In Angela’s words Giulia heard the echo of Humilità’s, that day in the market: Perhaps you, Giulia. Once again, her mind leaped toward that possible future, but this time with the memory of brush and palette burning in her hands….

  No. She shook her head, pushing the vision away. That’s not what I want. I want Ormanno. I want to go with him over the wall.

  And all at once Giulia understood, truly understood, that she was leaving Santa Marta. That today had been one of the last days she would spend in the workshop, grinding pigments, preparing paint, watching master artists at their craft. That this was one of the last times she and Angela would work side by side, talking about anything and everything that came into their heads. That soon she would never attend another of Lucida’s supper parties, or take another lesson from Humilità, or talk to old Benedicta about color lore, or be scolded by Domenica. That when the San Giustina altarpiece was completed, she would not be there to see it. For she would be with Ormanno, and they would be far away from Padua.

  Last night, that had thrilled her. But right now, this moment, it brought her not one bit of joy.

  Could it be…could it be that she was sorry to be leaving?

  Alessia’s cruelty had not made her cry. But now, suddenly, she felt like bursting into tears.

  “Giulia?” Angela was looking at her, anxious. “Are you feeling pain again?”

  “No.” Giulia scooped up some of the pigment pots. “I’ll just put these back on the shelves.”

  They worked together for the rest of the afternoon, grinding pigments and purifying walnut oil. Angela tried to chat, but Giulia replied with monosyllables, and after a while the other girl left her alone. Giulia knew Angela thought she was in pain, and she couldn’t meet the young nun’s sympathetic glances. It was a relief when the Vespers bell finally called her away.

  Anasurymboriel came into Giulia’s dream that night, the tame flame that allowed her to caress it, that danced willingly on her palm. But when she closed her hands around it, the soft thrumming suddenly changed. It battered against her hold like a moth frantic to be free. She woke gasping, with a nightmarish feeling of constriction, as if she were the one being held against her will.

  It was the first dream of the little spirit that had not been pleasant. She couldn’t guess what it might mean, or if it meant anything. She did not sleep again, lying open-eyed until the bell for Prime shattered the predawn silence.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Altarpiece of San Giustina

  By Friday night, when Giulia stole out to meet Ormanno in the orchard, her cheek was a vivid shade of purple.

  “My poor girl!” he exclaimed, when she told him what Alessia had done. He opened his arms and she went into them, turning the uninjured side of her face against his shoulder, trying to lose herself in the familiar feel and smell of him.

  “I’ve made the arrangements,” he said. “Next Friday night I’ll come for you, and we’ll shake the dust of Padua off our feet for good.”

  “Friday? No sooner?”

  “It’s not so long, my love.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  But it was long. It was an eternity. Giulia wanted to be gone, she wanted the guilt and the regret to be behind her. She wanted to stop avoiding people’s eyes, fearing they would read deception on her face. She wanted to stop lying. She wanted to confess her sins and do penance, and finally be able to pray again. She wanted to start anew, to take the first steps into the life she had dreamed of since she was a little girl.

  She felt the lump of the talisman, pushed hard against her chest by the pressure of Ormanno’s embrace. For the first time, she realized that she wanted to be free of it too.

  “Are you happy, my orchard girl?”

  “I will be, once we’re on our way.”

  “There’s not much in Padua that I’ll miss. Though I do have one regret.”

  “What is it?” She leaned against him. The September night held the chill of autumn, and his warmth was welcome.

  “I wish I could have seen your Maestra’s altarpiece. The frame is done, and I don’t think it has an equal anywhere in the city. But I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the painting it will hold.”

  “Yes. It will be a masterpiece.”

  “You could show it to me, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The altarpiece. We could go see it.”

  “Yes, and we could also grow wings and fly over the walls.”

  “Didn’t you say the workshop is on the north side of the convent, away from where everyone sleeps? And the nuns don’t have to rise for prayers, so there’s no one in the halls at night anyway? You’ve been coming to me for weeks with no one the wiser. Don’t you think it would be fun?”

  She pulled back so she could look at him. “You’re serious.”

  He returned her gaze. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” She pushed away from him, out of the circle of his arms. “Are you insane? Me sneaking out on my own is one thing, but you and I—if we were caught—”

  “We’d be careful.”

  “But what if we weren’t careful enough? You’re the one who told me about the penalties for men who corrupt nuns. Besides, the workshop door is locked at night. Even if there were no living soul in the whole of Santa Marta, we couldn’t get in.”

  He let out his breath. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I’m sorry, Giulia. It was a bad idea.”

  “How could you ask me that, Ormanno? How could you even think of such a thing?”

  “Don’t be angry. I only thought it would be an adventure. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

  They stood looking at each other. Somehow, their separation had increased; if Giulia stretched out her arm now, she would not be able to touch him. There was a pressure in her chest; something seemed to be rising between them, something that frightened her.

  Ormanno’s expression changed. He raised his head and looked beyond her, toward the orchard.

  “What—” she began, but he held up his hand. Quick and silent, he approached the trees. For a moment he stood listening, his body tense. Then he turned and came back to her.

  “I thought I heard something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Twigs snapping. Maybe I imagined it.”

  “Alessia.” Giulia felt cold.

  “The girl who hurt your face? You think she followed you?”

  Giulia hesitated, remembering Alessia’s malevolent whisper: I’m going to see you’re thrown out…. It will happen sooner than you think. But she’d been so careful. Besides, she was under Anasurymboriel’s protection.

  “
No. It must have been something else.”

  “Well, even so, it’s probably best if I go,” Ormanno said. “Giulia—I’ll be two hours later than usual on Friday. There are some things I have to do before we leave. Come at one o’clock. No earlier—I don’t want you sitting by yourself in the dark. One o’clock. Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  He took her hands. “Do you believe I love you?”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised.

  “Good.”

  He pulled her toward him and kissed her lightly on the lips. Then he turned and scrambled over the breached wall. She heard the creak of the boat, the splash of the oars. Then silence.

  She did not return to the dormitory right away. Instead, she sat down at the base of one of the fruit trees, amid the long grass that had gone dry and brittle with summer’s end. She pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees, as she had done—so long ago, it seemed—in Palazzo Borromeo, when she went up to the attic to be alone. Clouds had closed over the face of the moon; the wall in front of her was a formless blur against the lighter expanse of the sky.

  She could not shake off the pressure of the dark feeling that had risen in her as she and Ormanno stood looking at each other. She was still angry at him. His proposal—so strange, so outrageously unexpected—troubled her in a way that went beyond the thoughtlessness or the danger of it. The idea of him intruding into Humilità’s little kingdom of women made her queasy. He should not have asked. He never should have asked.

  He’d been so inquisitive about the workshop. He’d asked so many questions, seemed so fascinated by everything she had told him. The natural curiosity of one artist about another, she’d assured herself—but she had never forgotten what he’d said about Humilità: Your Maestra is a marvel not just for the paintings she makes, but that she makes them at all. An exception to the rule that women could not paint. Was that the real reason for his interest—the fascination with something that should not be?

  She thought of how he’d instantly rejected her proposal to join him in his workshop. When she begged him to think about it, he had promised he would—but there had been a pause before he answered. She remembered that now. A distinct pause, as if he’d said it just to soothe her. As if…as if he’d lied.