The Girl With the Painted Face (31 page)

‘Oh God, Beppe, what have I done? I’ve ruined everything…’

‘
You?
You’ve done nothing, my lovely girl, nothing at all! It was that fucking whoremonger out there!’

Sofia is startled by the vehemence of his words, but he pulls her into a tight hug, then holds her face and kisses her, saying, ‘Get into the smallest cart and hide while I go and tell the others, then we’ll hitch the cart up and get ourselves out and back on the road to Bologna.’

‘But what if he —?’

‘I’ll not be more than a moment. Ippo will stay here with you.’ Beppe kisses her again, orders the dog to stay and guard, then turns and runs back in through the door.

23

An hour later

Stumbling across the room and crouching next to the sprawled figure, the young black-clad servant reaches out towards the back of his master’s blood-soaked head; as his trembling fingers touch a sticky wetness and he feels the softened sag of a shattered skull, he recoils with an open-mouthed gasp, retching and wiping his hand quickly on his breeches.

He pushes himself back upright and backs away from the body; the ground sways unsteadily under his feet. ‘Quick!’ he shouts out, his voice thickened with shock, stumbling backwards, scrabbling like a monkey out into the corridor. ‘Quick! Somebody get help! The signore – oh God, quick!’

‘What? What is it?’

‘What’s the noise about?’

‘What’s going on?’

Three, four, five people appear from different doors, every face wearing the same expression of fatigued bemusement – it is well past midnight. The oldest and largest of the new arrivals frowns at the boy, shaking his head in irritation. ‘Giuseppe Palmieri, what on earth are you doing, boy, making such a commotion so late at night?’

Giuseppe, leaning now against the wall, closes his eyes as the floor beneath him continues to buck and heave. He flaps a hand out sideways, muttering, ‘In the study – go and look. It’s the signore.’ And then he bends double and splatters vomit onto the brick floor.

It is clear from the outset firstly that Signor da Correggio is dead, and secondly that the bloodstained iron candlestick by the side of the body was the weapon responsible. As the shocked gaggle of servants raise lighted torches and look with horror at the sight of their master sprawled face down across the crimson-blotched floorboards, the candlestick lies, clearly visible, some few feet to one side of his head – where it has apparently been dropped by whoever wielded it with such devastating effect. The shadows from the torches shift about it, bobbing and wobbling as the torch-bearers move; the flamelight has the curious effect of making the iron sconce appear to dance with an entirely inappropriate sense of levity.

One man feels for a pulse. Finds none. Seeing enquiring faces, he shakes his head. Several people gasp; others cross themselves. One man falls to his knees, his lips moving in silent prayer.

‘We should alert the authorities,’ the oldest and largest servant says. ‘Whoever did this can’t have got far – the body’s hardly chilled.’

‘Someone ought to search the castle – or get out on the roads and see if they can see anyone.’

Two men hasten to volunteer, looking around at their companions, cheerfully smug at the thought of the importance of their new role in the impending adventure. Seeing this, another, younger man offers to accompany them, and, clapping him on the back and nodding their approval, the two volunteers accept.

They hesitate by the door as a thin boy says timidly, ‘I saw something earlier. A girl. Here in the corridor, she was with —’

Somebody interrupts. ‘Who was it, Piero?’

‘One of those bloody actors, I expect,’ comes another voice. ‘They’re the only strangers here tonight. Nothing but criminals, they are, in general, actors. Was it, Piero? An actor?’

‘How should I know?’ Piero says. ‘I hardly caught more than a glimpse. It was a girl, that’s all I know. Just a girl. A curly-haired girl. In a yellow dress. She was with the signore. And then —’

He is interrupted again. ‘We need to wake them all up. The actors. Find out if anyone’s missing.’

A thickset man with a twisted face says, ‘But they’ve already gone.’

‘What?’

‘Heard them out the back by the stables, not half an hour since. Harnessing up their horses. Thought they’d just decided not to stay. Didn’t think to talk to them.’

‘One of them…’ Piero tries to speak, but nobody listens and, shrugging, he closes his mouth again.

‘Oh dear God, we must hurry,’ the oldest servant says now. ‘This early departure has to be significant. We must find them. You three’ – he points to the three volunteers – ‘you set off straight away, and you too, you can go with them.’ A young man in castle livery starts at being thus singled out, but nods his acceptance of the task. The oldest servant turns and points to a red-faced man in stableman’s clothing. ‘Franco, take one of the swiftest horses now and rouse the
podestà
!’

Franco puts his hands on his hips, his expression outraged. Jabbing a finger against his chest, he says, ‘Me? Why me? Quite frankly, in my opinion, they’ve done us a bloody great favour: the opium-soaked bastard had it coming to him one way or another before long.’

There is a clotted mutter of agreement amongst the gathered servants, but the oldest servant’s mouth has dropped open in shock; his several chins are wobbling and his thistledown hair stands on end. ‘Franco! How dare you! You are a Franceschina servant, and as such your loyalty should be —’

Franco snorts. ‘Loyalty? Stuff loyalty – he had no loyalty to us. Bernadino was dismissed only last week over nothing, wasn’t he? Nothing! After – what? Twenty years’ service? And little Caterina… well, we all know why
she
left, don’t we? Poor bitch – carrying his bastard and far too many bruises, and —’

‘No! No! Stop, stop, stop!’ The oldest servant now looks near to tears. Pointing to the body with a stubby forefinger, he says in a voice distorted with distress, ‘Look at him! Our master is lying dead at our feet – we should all have more respect. And every minute we stand here insulting his memory, the further away will be those responsible.’

The three volunteers and the young man in livery clear their throats. ‘Er… should we get going?’

The oldest servant turns to them. ‘Yes! Go quickly!’

‘Which way?’ one of the volunteers asks. ‘Bologna? Verona? Where do you want us to go?’

The October night air is dank and cold – a scribble of ragged clouds has partially obscured the moon, and the chill feels to Sofia as though a thin sheet of uncooked pastry has been draped around her shoulders. She can see almost nothing in the fitful darkness; the lantern they have lit and hung to one side of the cart is illuminating little more than a few feet in any direction and the light from the moon is intermittent as the clouds scud. The bigger, yellow wagon shows only as a square block of denser darkness in front of them, with a faint, dirty glow to one side of it, while the third wagon – some way out in front – cannot be seen at all. The endless jumble of scrunching hoof-beats sounds oddly like last night’s applause. With Beppe on one side of her and old Giovanni Battista on the other, Sofia wishes she could find a way to banish the fears of the night; she cannot determine, though, whether this trembling she cannot prevent is because of the cold, or fear. As she presses in against Beppe, he gathers the reins into one hand and puts an arm around her shoulders.

‘Eh? What’s this?’ he says. ‘Oh, my lovely girl, you’re shivering. Here, take these a moment…’ Handing her the reins, Beppe scrambles back over the seat, through the little door-flap and into the interior of the cart. Sofia hears a box being opened behind her, and several small objects being dislodged and tumbling noisily onto the floor of the cart. Beppe swears several times as yet more things fall. Then a moment later he is back up next to her, flapping out a couple of blankets. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘here’s one for you, Giovanni, and now – stand up, little seamstress… that’s it…’ Tucking the blanket under her bottom, he folds it neatly around her legs, while Giovanni Battista grunts and shifts his position as he wraps himself in his.

‘There. Better?’

‘Much. Thank you.’ She hands the reins back and leans in close; Beppe’s arm is around her again. He kisses the side of her face and she turns to him, offering him her mouth, ignoring the proximity of the old man. Beppe kisses her as the horse walks along in the blackness, the wheels of the cart scrunching and clattering on the rough ground.

The tears Sofia has been holding back begin to fall then, hot on her skin between her face and Beppe’s. As they touch his cheek, he pulls back, wiping them gently away with the edge of his thumb. ‘Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry,
cara
– we’ve left the place now. It’s all over. We don’t ever have to go back.’

‘But…’ Sofia begins. ‘… but what if that man… what if he wants to have you charged with assault? You hit him so hard…’

Beppe snorts. ‘I’d have hit the snivelling bastard a bloody sight harder if I could have done.’

‘But… but he might not care about that, he might —’

‘Oh, I reckon he’ll be too embarrassed to do anything about it at all. An arrogant sod like him, admitting he was floored by a draggletail actor? I don’t think so, do you?’

‘Oh God, Beppe, I hope not.’ Sofia puts her hands over her face. Speaking through her fingers she says, ‘It’s all my fault. I’ve wrecked everything.’ She looks up at Beppe. ‘You’re all going to wish you’d never met me, and —’

‘Now you stop it. Right now! I said before: none of this is your fault. You’ve done nothing – nothing at all. No one is angry with you.’

‘And Ippo – his leg…’

‘Look, that’s not your fault either, is it? Daft dog got out and must have caught that leg on something. It’s a nasty little cut, but it’s strapped now and he’ll do. He’s not even limping. So stop worrying.’

‘Beppe’s right.’ Giovanni Battista, perched uncomfortably on Sofia’s other side, pats her knee, then grips it briefly in reassurance. ‘None of us is angry. None of us is blaming you for anything. Why on earth should we?’ His voice is warm and slow.

‘I’m just sorry you had to be frightened like that,’ Beppe says. ‘I should have guessed that… that stinking pile of offal would try something of the sort – it was written all over his face at that table. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine. I should have been with you.’

‘We all should have seen it coming,’ Giovanni Battista says quietly. ‘We’ve been in the company of men like him often enough.’

‘And thank God that boy saw you with him and spoke up when I was searching for you. I’d not have known where to look otherwise.’

Sofia leans in against Beppe and puts her head on his shoulder, jolting back and forth with the movement of the wagon. Pulling her in close, he grips her arm, tipping his head sideways to rest it lightly against hers. Her hair tickles his cheek. Giovanni Battista draws in a long, uneven breath and puffs it out again.

The blackness is still almost absolute; beyond the dirty little patches of light from the wagons’ lanterns, to either side of the road and out behind them all is impenetrably dark; only far ahead does the low line of the approaching city show like a pale smear on the horizon.

‘Not long now,’ Beppe says.

As if in echo of this sentiment, Sofia hears Agostino’s voice far ahead, calling back to them. ‘That’s Bologna ahead. We should be there in about an hour.’

Two men on a pair of heavy Franceschina horses head north towards Verona, two take the Modena road while another three make their way towards Bologna.

One of the three on the Bologna road kicks his horse and increases his pace, muttering darkly about the inconvenience of being forced out onto the road in the small hours of a cold morning (though significantly failing to hide his excitement at the thought of a possible imminent arrest). His companions speed up too, to maintain their position abreast. The light from the little lanterns hanging from each pair of stirrups flickers over the stones beneath the three horses’ feet and the fitful moonlight throws the road ahead into piebald relief.

‘Where do you reckon they’ve gone?’ the first horsemen says, his voice jolting in rhythm with his gelding’s gait.

‘God knows.’

‘Do we even know what we are looking for?’

‘Three big wagons. No idea other than that. Piero said he saw a girl in the corridor outside the study with the signore, and —’

‘Bloody hopeless, if you ask me. Waste of time. Hardly any moon, no chance of seeing anything – added to which, we don’t even know what they look like. We could be riding right past them all and we’d be none the wiser. I hate bloody riding in the dark.’

‘I’d say anyone out on the road at this time of the morning needs to be stopped and questioned,’ the youngest of the three says. ‘But Leonardo says it’s the girl we need to take. Very young, Piero says. Load of curly hair. He saw her clearly. The dirty old lecher had her by the arm, he said – I’m not surprised she whacked him one, to be honest. She’s the one we are to pass on to da Budrio, if we catch them.’

The first horseman shakes his head, screwing up his mouth as he considers the situation. ‘Poor bitch won’t stand a chance against da Budrio. The man’s a bloody Tartar. Doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body, so I’ve heard.’