The show is over now though, and the crowd is dispersing. Beppe cannot help himself: as the piazza empties, he wanders up to the edge of the staging and stares critically at the intricately painted hangings draped across the back of the trestles. They’re good, he admits now, running his fingers along the edge of the trestle boards and examining the street scenes. The perspective works perfectly – they’re lovely.
Two young boys appear – each about eleven or twelve years old – looking self-consciously important. Standing back a pace or two, Beppe watches as they begin to collect props and carry them off the stage, away to where four large and beautifully painted wagons stand side by side a little way to the left.
‘Yep, Simone’s in with them now,’ one of them says. ‘So Francesco said. And God knows what changes they’re planning. It’ll be us that’ll have to remember a thousand new things by tomorrow, of course. Same as usual.’
‘But who is she?’ The other boy is frowning. ‘This girl. Why are they making changes? When did all this happen?’
‘When?’ The first boy puffs a laugh. ‘Not “when did it happen?” It’s happening now, Bernardo, it’s happening now. I don’t know – some girl turns up, spouts some story or other, and all hell breaks loose.’
‘Who? That girl who came through just now? She was pretty,’ Bernardo says. ‘She smiled at me.’
The first boy laughs. ‘Ha ha! You think she’d be interested in you? It’s not only Arlecchino who’s gone to the bloody moon – you have and all.’
A few paces away, unnoticed, Beppe is staring at them, hardly breathing.
‘What story, anyway?’ Bernardo says. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘Not sure of all of it. Francesco didn’t say much… which makes a change. Just that she’s an actress, anyway, according to him. Er…’ He pauses, frowning as he recollects Francesco’s proffered snippets of news. ‘Er… he said that… she didn’t do a murder they said she’d done – well, thank God for that, I suppose, seeing as she’s over there in the wagon with the Andreinis – but someone else thought she had, and… what was it? Oh yes. Some man she was in love with said he didn’t want her any more, so she’s come here instead. Or something like that. They’ll be at it all night, I reckon. And, tell you what, I’ll bet she comes with us when we go to France. If she’s any sort of actress, I’ll lay a wager they’ll want her. They need someone fast – Prudenza’s not far off the size of a buffalo now, isn’t she?’
Beppe’s heart is racing so fast now he feels almost light-headed.
35
The early-morning light is pushing its way in around the edges of the shutters in Marco da Correggio’s bedchamber, its silvery bleakness contrasting with the yellow glow of the single candle on the table by the bed. Marco is on his knees, roughly folding a second doublet; he pushes it into a large leather saddlebag, into which he has already stuffed two shirts, a tangle of hose, a spare pair of boots and a bag of coins; then, muttering to himself, he opens another chest and rummages through the contents, pulling out pieces of clothing and discarding them higgledy-piggledy across the floor.
‘Bloody thing – why do I never seem able to find a damn thing I’m looking for?’ he says, slamming down the lid of the chest.
Abandoning his search, he snuffs the candle and grabs the saddlebag by the straps, rough-fastening it as he leaves the room. Closing the door to his apartment, and taking the stairs two at a time, he leaves the building by the street door. His horse, stabled nearby, is saddled within minutes without recourse to the elderly stable-man, who remains deeply asleep in his little bed above the stalls, unaware of the activity below him, and before many people are awake in Bologna, Marco is on the road, heading north towards Verona, with his breath hanging in clouds around his head in the chill early air. The horse’s hoof-beats ring out clear in the stillness.
Over in the Villa Castellino, Maddalena di Maccio is lying on her back beneath heavy woollen blankets, staring up at the canopied cover of her bed, her hands splayed protectively around the swell of her belly. Beside her, old Paolo di Maccio is asleep, his mouth agape, his breath harshly regular. She turns her head to look at him; the jut of his beaky nose and the wet gleam of his sagging lower lip, just visible in the early light, repulse her. Staring at him with nauseous dislike for several long seconds, she then turns away from him, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, pressing the side of her head into her pillow.
She will not think of it.
Cannot.
She cannot think of much, anyway – the yearning need for a dose is beginning to overwhelm her again. Her skin is crawling and her mouth is dry as she contemplates the flooding relief she knows even a few drops will bring. That part-empty bottle – the one she took from Sebastiano’s bloodstained pocket – is within reach in the small chest in the ante-room. She would be unlikely to wake Paolo. Once he is snoring like this, he is hard to rouse, thank God.
The child within, roused perhaps by Maddalena’s now wildly racing heartbeat, pushes softly at the wall of her belly with some indeterminate limb, but Maddalena ignores it. Her mind is fixed now upon the little bottle. Edging towards the side of the bed, careful not to lift the blankets, in case the influx of cold air should rouse Paolo, she slides out from under the covers and pads across the rush-strewn chamber floor towards the ante-room.
Under the window in the ante-room is a painted wooden chest; Maddalena lifts the lid. The bottle is in a box, hidden beneath several dresses. Her heartbeat now filling her throat and thudding in her ears, she pulls out the box and removes the bottle, holding it up to her lips and pressing it there a moment. The child in her belly stirs again, but she once more ignores it.
Back in the bedchamber, Paolo di Maccio is still deeply – and loudly – asleep. From a table near the window, Maddalena picks up one of several small red Murano glasses, each of them no more than twice the size of a large thimble. She pours water from a silver pitcher into the glass; she is careful, but the jug is both large and full, and a glittering splash of it slops out onto the front of her night-shift. Gasping at the cold, she flashes a panicked look across to her husband, fearful that she will have woken him, but the noise of his ragged breathing rasps on.
The tiny cork makes a faint, high-pitched, musical ‘pop’ as she draws it. She has no spoon to measure the dose, but, reluctant to wait any longer, she holds the bottle up for a moment, before slowly lowering it first to the horizontal, then downwards, and letting what she intends to be a spoonful fall into the little red glass. Her hand slips, and she fears that more of the liquid than she had planned might have fallen into the glass; it is too dark to see clearly, however, and she is not prepared to waste any by throwing out the dose and beginning again.
It will have to do.
Will it banish the memories she is beginning not to be able to bear? The sight of Sebastiano ogling the little actress after the performance that night and the knowledge that her time with him was truly at an end. The sickening shock of seeing him dead. The sickly-sweet iron smell of the curdled clots of blood in his hair, the dark-stained doublet collar, his hand – still warm when she touched it – outstretched on the wooden floor. Her own voice, muttering to him: So someone’s finished you off, you bastard. Don’t fool yourself – I’m glad. But I’m having the bottles. I know where they are and I’m having them. Her heart races as she remembers holding her breath, then pushing beneath the inert mass of his body, burrowing into his pocket, to find his key. She touched his hair by mistake as she pulled her hand free with no key, too nauseated to have searched properly. There was blood on her fingers. Then, turning, she had seen the three bottles on the study table, one tipped onto its side.
Deliberately slowing her breathing now, with both hands cradling the little glass, she stares down at it, breathing in the spice-scented tang of the laudanum; then, holding her breath, she tips the contents of the glass into her mouth and swallows it in one. It tastes much stronger than usual. Restoppering the bottle, she tucks
it deep under her pillow.
She cannot have been out of the bed for more than a few minutes, but the sheets are already chilled as she slips back under the covers. Turning her back determinedly upon her still-sleeping husband, she draws her knees up again, feeling the warmth of the dose spreading through her. For the first time in days, the racking tension that has been gripping her begins to loosen its hold, and she closes her eyes. The faintest ghost of a smile twitches at the corners of her mouth.
A few minutes later, though, her eyes snap open again, as an unexpected wave of nausea grips her. Holding her breath, she waits to see if it will pass, but the giddiness grows more intense and the room begins to move around her as though she were at sea. The child within her begins to kick frantically as though in a panic and she sits upright. ‘Paolo,’ she says, and her voice sounds like a stranger’s. ‘Paolo, help me…’
36
‘And then, after that, I’ll turn to the audience and start haranguing them, yes? But only at that point,’ Simone da Bologna says, stabbing down with a finger onto the paper where the new lines have been roughly scribbled down. ‘There, look: after Colombina has said, “Someone has the truth festering within them like a tumour, I’m sure of that.” I’ll make some sort of foolish remark, as though I haven’t listened to a word of what she’s been saying, then I’ll —’
‘Then you’ll drop the idiocy and do your best to unearth the truth.’ Isabella smiles at Simone, then, turning to Sofia, says, ‘Is that the sort of thing you were hoping for?’
Sofia cannot answer. She nods.
‘Shall we run through? Here, in the wagon – I don’t want the risk of anyone overhearing before we are ready to unleash this at the performance.’
‘Good thought, Bella.’ Simone stands and, linking his fingers, stretches his arms out before him, cracking his knuckles. Wincing, he hunches and rolls his shoulders. ‘God, it’s only when you try to move that you realize just how long you’ve sat still in a cramped wooden box like this bloody wagon. I’ll need to sleep for a bit before we perform. We all will.’
Sofia stands too. Privately surprised at Simone’s complaint, as to her, this wagon is luxuriously large, she eases out the stiffness from each arm and leg.
‘Here,’ Simone says to Sofia. ‘Come and sit here. I’ll read over your shoulder.’
Sofia can feel colour flooding into her face. ‘I… I, er…’ she stammers. ‘I don’t read very well, but I remember what’s been put together. I’ll… I’ll say it from here. If I may.’
Neither Simone nor Isabella show any sign of surprise at Sofia’s admission.
Then the back flap of the wagon is pulled aside and Francesco Andreini’s face appears. ‘Bella, can you spare me a moment?’
‘Of course, caro. Come in. We’ve just finished cobbling it all together, and are on the point of running through.’
Simone says, his face and voice distorting as he smothers a yawn, ‘I could do with a piss, as it happens. I’ll just go now, seeing as we’re pausing.’
Sofia watches him push aside the back flap and vault, almost as nimbly as Beppe might have done, out of the rear of the wagon.
When he returns some moments later, there is an odd smile on his face, Sofia thinks, as though he is savouring the memory of a shared joke. She watches him, wondering if he has any intention of expounding on the cause of his amusement, but, after a swift glance in her direction, which seems to intensify his smile for a fraction of a second, his face straightens and he picks up the sheet of scribbled dialogue. Frowning down at it, lips moving silently and eyebrows lifting, he runs through the new lines, free hand gesticulating as he reads.
Once or twice he looks at her again and the strange, twitching half-smile returns.
Francesco Andreini edges between the others towards the back of the wagon. ‘I’ll leave you three to run through the new material. But you do agree, Bella, don’t you, that we absolutely have to do the show there? We’ve been hoping for another invitation from them for months.’ He pauses; then his face splits in a boyish smile. ‘The Castello Estense…’ he says, clenching a celebratory fist. ‘To get one invitation seemed miraculous… a second is almost too good to be true. We’ve been asked back – the ultimate compliment. Who knows, it might become an annual event!’
Simone grins and claps. ‘That’s wonderful! When did this happen?’
‘Just now. The duke sent a personal request. Written yesterday. Poor messenger must have been riding all night.’
Isabella Andreini holds Francesco’s face between her hands and kisses him. ‘Well done, you very clever man,’ she says. ‘It’s wonderful. Tell Flaminio to come by when he has a moment, will you? We’ll need to decide which show to give them this time.’
Francesco nods happily. Sofia can hear him whistling as he walks away.
‘Now,’ Isabella says, sitting back down and straightening her skirts. ‘Let’s run through what we’ve put together for this afternoon, shall we? We’ll start with Colombina’s speech. Can you remember —?’
‘Every word.’ Sofia pauses, breathing slowly for a moment, then looking up at Simone she says, ‘Misfortune? There can be none greater than this! You might say that I am a creature of misfortune – in fact, if you sliced me in half, you’d find a core of misfortune running down through me from head to toe. And what greater adversity can there be than to be… falsely accused? Falsely accused, not of an infidelity – no, they are not saying I’ve been found in someone else’s husband’s bed! Not of a petty theft – no, they are not saying that I pilfered some bunch of ribbons, or a length of lace, or even snipped a lady’s purse from her belt! No, I have been falsely accused… of…’ Sofia sucks in a short breath and holds it for a second. Pointing a finger at Simone, she says, ‘… of murder.’
‘Of murder?’ Simone’s Arlecchino sounds astonished.
‘Of murder.’
‘Who did you kill?’
‘I said it was a false accusation.’
Simone smacks himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Of course, a false accusation. So who did you kill – falsely?’
Sofia sucks in a gasp of counterfeit irritation and glares at Simone. ‘It won’t be a false accusation in a moment, it’ll be a real one, and it’ll be you lying dead on the floor, you fool, not some lecherous nobleman in his castle.’
Isabella Andreini brings her hands together a couple of times. Sofia glances at her; she is smiling widely. ‘Perfect – you’re good, you know. You have Colombina in a nutshell.’
Sofia swallows and, turning back to Simone, says, ‘That horrible man is dead, even though I didn’t kill him. But somebody did.’
‘Who, though? Did you see anyone there?’
Another sucked-in sigh of irritation, and a roll of the eyes. ‘Of course I didn’t see, you stupid, stupid man. I’d tell you who it was, wouldn’t I, if I’d seen him? And you could go and kill him for me.’
Simone’s mouth drops open and he stands up suddenly. Turning to what would be the audience, he points at himself, jabbing himself in the chest and shrugging in disbelief, then he raises both hands, palm up, as though questioning Colombina’s sanity.
Sofia grabs his arm. ‘Listen, someone out there has the truth festering within them – like a tumour – I’m sure of that. Find them for me, will you? Find out who did this? I don’t care how you do it – but find them.’
And Simone – as Arlecchino – swells with pride, grinning at the thought of being thus chosen as a champion. He rubs his hands together gleefully, but then, his smile fading comically, he looks from right to left, as though ensuring he is not being overheard, and, leaning out towards the as yet non-existent audience, he begins to speak in a thrilling, carrying hiss-whisper.
37
The walk from the little tavern the next day, back to the Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, is no more than a matter of a moment or two. As they hurry towards where the Gelosi are now putting the finishing touches to the newly set stage, Sofia wastes no time
in telling Niccolò more of the details of what she has agreed with the Andreinis. Ippo jumps up repeatedly, nosing at Sofia’s skirts; she rubs his head distractedly, hardly aware that he is there, but as he utters an impatient bark, she looks down and sees Beppe’s dog, happy to be with her, his mouth open in a wide, tongue-lolling grin, and a wash of sadness threatens to drown the excitement she has been feeling at the prospect of the impending performance. Her voice, when she speaks, sounds to her as though it is coming from the other side of a closed door. ‘They’ve asked me to go with them when they move on, Niccolò.’
‘What?’ Niccolò stops and stares at her.
Sofia repeats herself.
‘Go with them – the Gelosi? Oh, Sofia, that’s wonderful. I can’t believe it – you with the Gelosi! I couldn’t be more pleased for you. You will go, won’t you?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’
The Girl with the Painted Face Page 36
