Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (14 page)

At last Sofia yawned. Over the past days, Giulia had discovered why she kept her lips closed when she smiled: Her teeth were discolored at the front and gapped at one side, the only part of her that was not beautiful.

“Is it enough, Girolamo? I am tired.”

“Yes,
cla
. . .” Giulia caught herself, but then thought,
Why not?
“Yes, clarissima. Thank you.”

“Good.” Sofia extended her arms above her head, stretching like a cat. “Sleep well, Girolamo.”

No
, Giulia thought as she passed from the tent’s warm illumination into the chill blackness of the night. It wasn’t horror or disgust or pity that she felt now that she knew what Sofia was. It was only what she’d felt before: curiosity. And respect.

CHAPTER 11

LA SERENISSIMA

The distant mountains rose higher as the caravan approached the coast, their peaks now crowned with snow. Fog gathered during the night, muffling the campsite at dawn, burning off later in the day. Giulia’s blanket was always damp when she climbed out of it in the morning.

She was growing used to her disguise. Her exposed legs no longer felt so naked, and she was beginning to enjoy the freedom of not being encumbered with long skirts. She was even starting to appreciate the convenience of shorter hair, which she could simply untangle with her fingers and tuck behind her ears, rather than spend the time to comb and braid and bind it up.

But there was so much to remember. Lowering her voice. Walking with her shoulders back and her eyes focused boldly
straight ahead. Sitting with her knees apart. The binding around her breasts was a constant irritation—too tight and it was hard to breathe, too loose and she worried it would slip. She was becoming anxious about her monthly courses, though they were not due for another couple of weeks. She borrowed Maria’s knife again and cut another strip from the bottom of her mantle, wrapping it around her waist under her doublet to have it ready.

And then there were her several-times-daily excursions away from camp. She tried to leave only when others were not watching, but that was not always possible. Sofia had noticed—Giulia was aware of her gaze sometimes as she returned, the cool regard that seemed to perceive so much yet revealed so little. The merchant’s teenage apprentice and son had noticed also. They’d begun to tease her, whistling and making rude comments.

On a gray afternoon, with only two or three days remaining in the journey, the caravan halted to water the animals, and Giulia made use of a handy hedgerow. When she came back, the two boys were waiting for her, a little distance beyond the gathering of carts. The minute she saw them, she knew she was in trouble.

“If it isn’t the whore’s charity case,” the merchant’s son drawled. “Have a nice walk?”

Giulia ducked her head and kept going. If she ignored them, perhaps they would let her pass. Instead, they moved to block her.

“Think you’re too good to talk to us?” the apprentice demanded.

“Too good to piss alongside us, that’s for sure,” the merchant’s son sneered.

“I don’t want any trouble.” Giulia’s heart had begun to pound.

“Maybe he’s not pissing,” said the apprentice, making a lewd gesture at his groin. “Maybe he’s doing something else.”

“Four times a day? He doesn’t look the type.”

“Let me by,” Giulia said.

“Let me by
,” mimicked the merchant’s son. “I know what it is. He’s ashamed. He’s got a tiny little prick, and he doesn’t want anyone to see.”

“Maybe he’s one of those whatdoyoucallits, the ones that get cut,” said the apprentice. “Maybe he’s got no prick at all. Maybe he has to piss like a girl.”

“Come on then.” The merchant’s son stepped toward Giulia. “Let’s have a look.”

“Leave me alone.” To Giulia’s horror, her voice cracked. The apprentice grinned like a wolf.

“Grab him!”

They rushed at her. Giulia sank to her knees, folding in on herself, protecting the parts of her body that could betray her. But when rough hands seized her arms, searing memories came over her—of the brothers and their cart, of all the times in her childhood when she’d been bullied for her bastardy. She wrenched free, scrabbling along the ground, staggering to her feet. Wildly she struck out, the side of her fist connecting solidly with the apprentice’s face. He howled and leaped away. The merchant’s son darted in and punched her in the ribs. All the air went out of her. For a moment the world went dark.

“What’s this?”

Giulia discovered that she was on the ground again. She heard someone gasping: herself, she realized, clawing for breath. Bernardo stood nearby, holding the merchant’s son by the back of his doublet. The apprentice was crouched on
his haunches, moaning, his hands covering his nose. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

“Two against one, is that it?” Bernardo shook the merchant’s son like a puppy.

“Just having a bit of fun. What’s it to you?” The merchant’s son tried to twist away. “Let me
go
!”

“Go on then.” Bernardo pushed the boy so hard that he stumbled to one knee. “You too.” Bernardo aimed a kick at the apprentice, who scuttled out of reach. “Get back to the carts.”

“I’ll tell my father you laid hands on me,” the merchant’s son said, climbing to his feet.

“And I’ll tell him you enjoy beating younger boys.”

“Whore’s son!” the merchant’s son yelled, backing away. “Bet you don’t even know your father’s name!”

He turned and ran. The apprentice stumbled after him, still clutching his face.

“Blood will out,” Bernardo said quietly, though the merchant’s son was by now too far away to hear. “Whether or not it has a name.”

He smoothed his clothes and shook back his hair, then turned and held a hand down to Giulia. “Come. Get up.”

She tried to push herself up on her own, but pain burst like fire along her ribs, and she subsided to the ground again, gasping. Before she realized what he meant to do, Bernardo stooped and gripped her under the arms, heaving her easily to her feet. She cried out, with shock this time as well as pain, pulling free and staggering back, hunching over as she did, for the sudden motion had caused the binding around her breasts to slip.

Bernardo stared at her, his hands still outstretched.
Please God
, she thought,
don’t let him notice anything.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

“It’s nothing.” Giulia forced herself to straighten. She pulled her mantle close, hiding in its folds. “Just bruises.”

“You should let my mother have a look. She’s sure to have something in her box of remedies that would help.”

“No! Truly, it’s not necessary.”

“Well.” He shrugged. “If you’re certain.”

“I am. Thank you for helping me.”

“I despise bullies.” His face went cold as he said it, and Giulia wondered what experience lay behind the words. “Fortunate for you I spotted what was going on.”

“I would have managed.”

“I doubt it. Though you gave a decent account of yourself, considering. That boy will be swallowing blood for some time.” He eyed her. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“I’m not a weakling,” she said, stung by his tone.

“I didn’t mean—” He stopped, frowning. There was a beat of silence. “Well. The caravan will be moving on. We’d best get back.”

Giulia found her clogs, which had come off when she fell. The bottoms of her hose were soaked. The fabric bunched uncomfortably under her feet as she began to walk.

“What was it about anyway?” To her surprise, Bernardo fell in beside her. “The fight.”

“Nothing.” It had begun to drizzle, a fine, cold spray that chilled Giulia’s hot cheeks. She drew up the hood of her mantle.

“I’ve noticed they’ve been teasing you.”

“It’s nothing,” she said again, wishing he would stop watching her, that he’d let her go on alone.

“You are asking for it, you know,” he said. “Always going off alone to do your business. Boys like that are like dogs. They can’t bear anyone who breaks from the pack.”

“I just like to be private.”

“You’d be better off—”

“I’m grateful for your help.” She rounded on him, the sudden motion making pain flare along her side. “But it’s none of your business. In fact, you’ve probably made things worse. They’d have beaten me, and that would have been the end of it. Now they’ll want revenge.”

His obsidian eyes narrowed. She turned away, more carefully this time, and trudged on. Surely now he would leave her alone. But he walked beside her in silence all the way back to Sofia’s cart.

—

Giulia feared she would have to argue with Sofia about inspecting her injury and was surprised when Sofia did not even suggest it. Instead, she prepared a draft of some sort of medicine, which made Giulia dizzy but helped her sleep. The draft had worn off by morning; she had to grit her teeth against the pain as she climbed to her feet. Later, in the seclusion of some bushes, she found that a lurid purple bruise had bloomed all down her side.

She caught sight of the apprentice when the caravan paused at midday. His nose was twice its normal size, his eyes ringed with black. It gave her a surprising amount of satisfaction to see the damage she’d done. She was wary as she left the camp, but he did not follow her, nor did the merchant’s son. She wondered if Bernardo had talked to them, then dismissed the thought. Why would he bother?

“We’ll reach the lagoon the day after tomorrow,” Sofia said that night. “Can you smell it, Girolamo? The ocean?”

“Is that what it is?” Giulia had begun to be aware of it that day: a briny, slightly sulfurous odor that she noticed when she drew a deep breath.

“Yes.” Sofia smiled, the rare full smile that showed her bad teeth. “How I’ve missed it. Have you ever seen the ocean?”

“No, clarissima. Though my tutor told me of it.”

“All the words in the world cannot compare to the reality.” Then, seeing Giulia shifting about, trying vainly to find a comfortable position: “I’ll make you another draft. Be sure you drink it all.”

The sun shone the next day. Giulia was still sore, but the stiffness had lessened, and she could move more easily.

During the noontime halt, she brought out Sofia’s portraits and laid them in front of her, side by side. She’d made two, in a combination of homemade charcoal and borrowed ink, with a gray wash she had created by diluting the ink with water.

In the first Sofia was turned slightly away from the viewer, her eyes cast down as if she were reading, her expression inward and serene. In the second she was looking back over her shoulder as though someone had called her name, smiling her closed-lipped smile, her eyes alight with laughter. In both she wore her rich silk wrapper, her hair flowing loose across her shoulders; in both, she looked exactly what she was: a beautiful woman just beginning to lose the battle against age. Giulia had hesitated over this, remembering what Sofia had said, the first night, about flattery. In the end she’d drawn the truth, as much of it as she was capable of perceiving.

The portraits were as good as anything she’d ever done. She knew that without vanity, in spite of the difficult conditions and improvised materials. But she also knew that they were flawed—criticisms that came to her in Humilità’s voice,
as if she were in the workshop again and Humilità was standing at her shoulder: the stiffness of Sofia’s bent neck in the first portrait, her not-quite-in-proportion left arm in the second. This sense of Humilità’s presence had visited Giulia often over the past days. She knew it was really only her own voice she heard, speaking her teacher’s wisdom back to her. But at Santa Marta she’d felt only the black void of Humilità’s absence. It comforted her now to feel something else—to imagine that she carried a little of her teacher with her as she ventured out into the world.

Her hand went to her neck, where the canvas pouch hid beneath her clothes.
Are you angry with me, Maestra, wherever you are, for running away? For abandoning the workshop you gave your life to? But it wasn’t your workshop any longer. And if I’d stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to save Passion blue.

With an effort, Giulia pulled her mind away from the past.

Flawed or not, the portraits were finished; she’d only harm them if she tinkered with them further. Now she needed to sign them—but how? Not as Girolamo; that felt too much like attributing her work to someone else. Yet her artist’s pride demanded that she mark them as her own. In the end she simply inscribed them with the letter
G
, the initial of both her true name and her false one.