Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (12 page)

Hunger stabbed her. She pushed away from the tree and limped toward the camp. One of the men, tending to a horse, spotted her and raised his lantern.

“Who’s there?”

“A traveler,” Giulia said, or tried to say. Her throat was as dry as dust, and the words came out as a croak. “Please, could you let me have something to eat?”

“We’ve nothing to spare for beggars,” the man said, not unkindly. He was young, with dark hair to his shoulders. “There’s a farmstead not too far back. They may help you there.”

“I’m not a beggar.” Giulia’s head seemed to be floating somewhere above her body. “I’m a painter. I met with—with bandits, they stole everything I had. Please, signor—I’m so hungry.”

“What’s the matter here, Bernardo?”

A woman had emerged from the nearest tent. She was clad in a flowing garment of some kind, her hair loose over her shoulders.

“Another vagrant,” said the young man. “Begging for a meal. You needn’t trouble yourself.”

“But he’s only a boy. Can we not spare a crust of bread? And did I hear him say he is a painter?”

“He might as well have said he is a duke,” Bernardo replied. “There’d be as much chance it was true.”

The woman came forward. In the light of Bernardo’s lantern, Giulia could see that she was beautiful and that her hair was coppery gold. The wrapper she wore, almost the same color, showed the unmistakable luster of silk.

“Is it so, boy? Are you a painter?”

“Yes, madonna,” Giulia said faintly. “There’s an apprenticeship waiting for me in Venice. If I had paper and charcoal, I could show you.”

“I have paper and pen. Will that serve?”

“God’s bones!” Bernardo exclaimed. “What’s the point of this?”

“Hush, Bernardo. It’s a dull journey. Don’t begrudge me a little diversion.”

He shook his head, irritation clear on his face, but did not interfere as the woman rustled back to her tent. Giulia, not sure what would happen next, found that her legs no longer wanted to support her. She sank to her knees.

The woman emerged after a few moments, carrying a portable writing desk. She set it down before Giulia. A sheet of paper lay ready on its wooden surface.

“Give me the lantern, Bernardo.”

He sighed and did so. The woman placed the lantern beside the desk. “Draw,” she said, holding out a quill.

Numbly, Giulia took it. “What should I draw?”

The woman tilted her head and smiled, keeping her lips closed. The skin around her eyes crinkled, and Giulia realized that she was quite a bit older than she had first appeared.

“Whatever you like.”

Giulia dipped the quill into the inkwell set into the top of the desk, holding the paper still with her bandaged hand. The incident had taken on the feeling of a dream—surely she could not really be kneeling on the cold ground, preparing to make a drawing for the entertainment of a woman she’d encountered in a camp by the roadside. She was shivering, and her hand was shaky, and she did not try for fine detail as an impression of the woman’s face emerged upon the paper—hatched with shadows, mysteriously smiling, with those telltale creases at the outer corners of her eyes.

“It’s finished.”

The woman took the drawing, holding it to the lantern. For a moment she was silent.

“I have been told,” she said at last, “that in candlelight I appear no more than twenty-five. I am well aware that this is flattery. There are few who are willing to give an aging woman the truth—except of course for Bernardo, who never flatters anyone.” Her eyes flicked up. “You are not a flatterer either, young man.”

Giulia knew then that she was about to be sent back into the night. “I’m sorry. I draw . . . what I see.”

The woman rose to her feet. “If you are to make a career as a painter, you must learn to draw what others
wish
you to see.” She regarded Giulia. “I am Sofia Gentileschi. This frowning beast is my son, Bernardo. What is your name?”

Her
son
? Giulia had guessed the woman was not as young as she looked, but she hardly seemed old enough to have a grown son.

“Your name,” the woman—Sofia—repeated.

“Giu—” Giulia caught herself. “Girolamo. Girolamo Landriani.”

“And you say there is an apprenticeship waiting for you in Venice, Girolamo Landriani?”

“Yes.”

“I am Venetian, born and bred. What is your master’s name? I may have heard of him.”

Giulia drew a breath. “Gianfranco Ferraldi.”

Sofia regarded her, a clear, assessing look that seemed to reach beneath the skin. Giulia was certain her deception must be written on her face, but she was too exhausted to care.

“Come,” Sofia said. “I will give you something to eat, and a new dressing for your hand.”

“Mother.” Bernardo caught his mother’s arm. “This is folly. Give him some bread if you must, but then send him on his way.”

“Where is your charity, Bernardo? He is alone and injured. It would be cruel to banish him into the dark.”

“You know nothing about this boy. You cannot assume he is what he claims.”

“Then you will have to keep watch, will you not, my beast?” Sofia smiled into his frowning face, then turned and beckoned to Giulia as she might have to a child or a pet. “Come, Girolamo.”

Giulia climbed to her feet. The image of the brothers flitted through her mind, and she wondered if she were walking into some new danger. But she was at the end of her strength. She had nothing for anyone to take anyway—she truly was a vagrant. A beggar, as Bernardo had named her.

“Come,” Sofia repeated. She was holding aside the flap of her tent. The interior glowed gold, a promise of warmth Giulia could almost feel. “Don’t be frightened.”

On wobbly legs, Giulia moved toward the light, leaving the night behind.

CHAPTER 10

SOFIA GENTILESCHI

The opulence of Sofia’s tent made Giulia wonder if she were dreaming. Straw mats hid the ground. A patterned rug lay atop them. A cot heaped with crimson covers stood against one wall, a pair of painted chests along the other. Candles glimmered inside glass globes strung from the roof frame, filling the space with trembling light.

“Maria,” Sofia said to the woman who sat sewing on one of the chests, close by a glowing brazier. “Fetch a bowl of water.”

The woman rose. Her skin was the color of burnt sienna, her hair a night-black cloud. Giulia could not help staring. From Maestro Bruni she’d learned about the dark-skinned inhabitants of Africa, but Maria was the first she had ever seen.

Sofia pushed Giulia down on the chest and began unwinding the bandage. When Maria returned with the water, Sofia
plunged Giulia’s hand into the bowl and started to clean the wound, a process that made Giulia go cold and faint.

“Put your head between your knees,” Sofia ordered.

By the time Giulia felt strong enough to raise her head, Sofia had finished with the water and was applying some kind of stinging unguent. “It only burns for a moment,” she said, tearing a strip of linen for a clean bandage. And it was true. The stinging faded, leaving Giulia’s palm feeling cool and soothed.

“There.” Sofia knotted the ends of the bandage. “Better?”

Giulia nodded.

Sofia replaced the pot of ointment in a wooden case that held other medical supplies and shook back her coppery hair. Even in the candlelight, with the lines around her eyes and the slight looseness beneath her chin clearly visible, she was one of the most beautiful women Giulia had ever seen, with smooth milky skin, a bow-curved mouth, and eyes the shape and tawny color of roasted almonds. The silk of her wrapper glistened, shadow pooling in its folds. Despite her exhaustion Giulia could not help imagining how she might paint it . . . She could almost hear the rich, slow voice of the raw umber she’d apply first, the sour, metallic resonance of the orange realgar she’d layer on top.

“How old are you, Girolamo?”

“Fifteen.” Giulia had decided on this lie before setting out, to explain her high voice and lack of beard.

“I have heard of your master, you know.”

“You have?”

“Yes.” Sofia’s lips lifted in the enigmatic, closed-lipped smile Giulia had drawn outside in the dark. “It is one of the reasons I do not share Bernardo’s suspicions of you. A mere thief might have the skill to draw a portrait, but how would
he know the name of a true Venetian painter? Where is your home, Girolamo?”

“I was born in Milan,
clarissima.
” This, Giulia knew from Maestro Bruni, was how the nobility of Venice preferred to be addressed—and this beautiful woman, with her silk garments and rich furnishings, was surely noble, or at least very wealthy.

“I would not have guessed it. You speak Veneto like a Paduan.”

“I learned from my tutor.” That much was true. “He studied at the university in Padua.”

“Your family has means, then.”

“Yes,” Giulia said, thinking of her childhood, divided between the servants’ quarters in the basement, where her noble blood had made her an outcast, and Maestro Bruni’s study on the
piano nobile
above, where her common blood had barred her from nearly all the benefits of her father’s wealth.

“How did you meet with bandits?”

“I was foolish, clarissima. I accepted a ride on a cart. I fell asleep, and when I woke they were robbing me. I had my artwork and some money—they took everything, even my boots.”

“You were traveling alone, then? A dangerous thing for a boy like you.”

“There was no one to accompany me, clarissima.”

“What of your family?”

“My parents are dead. I have no brothers or sisters.”

“Or cousins? Or guardians? Or friends?”

Giulia shook her head, uneasy under Sofia’s cool, assessing gaze.

“It seems a long way to travel for an apprenticeship. Could you find no painting master in Milan to teach you?”

“I had a master. But . . . he . . . died.” Giulia was horrified to feel her eyes filling with tears. She ducked her head, letting her tangled hair fall forward to hide her face.

“Poor boy,” Sofia said gently. “You are weary, and I am pressing you with questions. I’ll have Maria fetch you some food and find something for your feet.” She gestured to the maidservant, who got up again. “She’ll mend your hose as well, if you’ll leave them with her tonight.”

“No!” Instinctively Giulia drew up her legs. “That is, thank you, but if I can borrow a needle I can mend them myself.”

Sofia raised perfectly plucked brows. “I’ve not met many males in my life willing to do their own sewing when there’s a woman to do it for them. But very well.”

Giulia hung her head again, cursing herself. Of course a boy wouldn’t darn the knees of his own hose.

“You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t you. And not just at the hands of bandits, I think. I believe . . . yes. I believe I will bring you with me.”

“With you, clarissima?”

“To Venice. Bernardo will not approve. But he knows me well, so he also will not be surprised.”

Giulia was scarcely able to believe it. “I don’t want to cause trouble, clarissima.”

“I do not wish that either.” Sofia’s expression had sharpened. She seemed older suddenly, closer to what Giulia knew must be her true age. “Let me be plain, Girolamo. For pity, and also for the skill you showed tonight, it pleases me to help you. But you must not mistake my kindness for weakness. I know more of the world than you might think, and I am not a fool. Do you understand?”

“Yes, clarissima,” Giulia said. “Thank you. I’m more grateful than I can say.”

Maria returned with a bowl of stew and part of a loaf. Giulia ate, trying not to gulp the food as her hunger urged her to do. When she was finished, Sofia gave her one of the mats from the floor and a blanket from her own bed, and Maria led her outside and pointed her to a spot beside the tent, close to the fire.

The ground was hard under Giulia’s weary body. But the mat blocked its chill, and the blanket was thick and warm. It smelled of cedar. The scent, spicy and exotic, followed her into sleep.

—

Giulia opened her eyes on the great arch of the sky, where the gray of dawn was just overtaking the pinpoint brilliance of the stars. She smelled wood smoke and animal dung, heard the whickering of horses and the voices of men.