Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) (7 page)

Giulia didn’t know how long she knelt there. Her knees were numb by the time she got up and began to set things to rights. She was still shoving straw back into her mattress when Suor Margarita came to lock her in.

The next day was Sunday. Giulia passed it in a daze of misery and uncertainty, imprisoned in her cell as she always was when the workshop did not open. On Monday morning she arrived at the workshop to find a servant nun waiting for her,
with a summons from the abbess, Madre Magdalena. Light-headed with dread, she made her way to the abbess’s office.

“It was I who ordered the search of your cell yesterday.” Madre Magdalena paced back and forth before her desk. She was a small, gaunt woman with pinched features and a dislike of being still. She’d been elected just two months earlier, after the sudden death of the previous abbess, Madre Damiana. “I think you know why.”

Giulia swallowed against the dryness of her mouth. How could she have been so foolish as to think the struggle would remain between herself and Domenica? That Domenica, her patience at an end, would not look beyond the workshop for help?

“A bundle of letters was found, left to you by Maestra Humilità. I’ve only glanced at them, but I believe I am correct in guessing that they do not contain what we seek.”

“No, Madre Magdalena,” Giulia whispered.

“Tell me now, and do not think to lie. Where is the recipe for Passion blue? Where have you hidden it?”

Giulia felt the tiny weight of the pouch at her neck. “It’s somewhere safe, Madre Magdalena.”

“Somewhere safe?
Somewhere safe?
Do you dare answer me so slyly, girl?”

Giulia stared down at the red tiles of the floor, biting her lips against the tears that wanted to fall. Even if she’d wished to surrender the recipe, she could not reveal the existence of the pouch, for then she would lose her horoscope fragment too.

“I order you to produce it without further delay,” Madre Magdalena said. “I am giving you this one last chance to do your duty willingly; but willing or not, we will have that recipe. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Madre Magdalena,” Giulia said, because there was nothing else to say.

“I have no wish to dishonor Maestra Humilità’s memory, but her actions in this matter defy comprehension. The workshop is the glory of Santa Marta, not only for the beautiful paintings it gives the world, but for the income it contributes to our community. And the reputation of the workshop is built largely upon Passion blue. To give so valuable a thing to a mere apprentice, a girl of questionable character, is scarcely less disgraceful than your defiance.”

“I’m sorry, Madre Magdalena,” Giulia whispered.

“God knows what is truly in your heart. I do not. Whatever discipline Maestra Domenica decides for you, you should know that I myself will be evaluating whether it will be possible for you to continue in your current situation once you take your final vows.”

Giulia’s head snapped up. The abbess had paused in her restless motion. Her lips were pinched together, her gaze deeply cold.

“You understand me. Good.” Madre Magdalena began to pace again. “Now, there is something else I wish to discuss with you. I have had a letter from Signor Matteo Moretti.”

Giulia gasped.

“He wishes to share with you reminiscences of his daughter, whom he loved so dearly, as a comfort for his grief. He has asked that you be allowed to visit him occasionally in his house, as his daughter used to.”

“Visit him?”

“As you may imagine, I am not inclined to grant you any privileges. But Signor Moretti is a generous donor to this convent, and he has just suffered a grievous loss. I do not feel I can
refuse his request. Accordingly, I have arranged for you to go to him on Friday.”

“
This
Friday? But—Madre Magdalena—please, I can’t!”

Madre Magdalena wheeled around, fixing Giulia with a flinty glare.
“Can’t?”

“He’s not . . . Signor Moretti is not my family.” Giulia trembled with desperation. Madre Magdalena, like the rest of the convent, knew of Ormanno’s theft of Passion blue and Giulia’s part in it; but the truth about Matteo, and what had happened to Giulia in his house, had been Giulia’s and Humilità’s secret. “It isn’t proper for me to be . . . to be alone with him.”

“Don’t be foolish. I shall make sure you have a chaperone.”

“It won’t be enough! Please, Madre Magdalena, he’s not the man you think he is. He’s lying about why he wants to see me—he only wants to force me to give him Passion blue—”

“Wicked girl! Matteo Moretti is a leading citizen of Padua, a man of reputation and piety, a famous painter in his own right. How dare you slander him so?”

“It is the truth, if you’d only let me tell you what he did last year when the Maestra’s book of secrets was stolen—”

“Be silent!” Madre Magdalena stepped forward and slapped Giulia hard across the face. “You will be fetched at noon on Friday. If I learn that you have shown Signor Moretti anything but the greatest humility and gratitude, you will have cause to regret it. Now get out. I shall expect soon to hear from Maestra Domenica that you have done your duty.”

Clutching her throbbing cheek, Giulia fled.

—

Giulia returned to the workshop. She tried her best to hide her distress. But when Domenica decided that the quills she’d just
sharpened were not satisfactory and ordered her to recut them all, she startled herself and everyone else by bursting into tears.

“Go into the courtyard and compose yourself,” Domenica snapped. “And don’t come in until I summon you.”

Domenica did not call Giulia back, and she sat on the edge of the fountain for the rest of the afternoon. She was aware of the sympathetic glances of the other painters, but no one was brave enough to intercede.

At last the bell rang for Vespers, and the workshop emptied. Giulia hurried inside and stood over one of the braziers, trying to get warm. Her teeth were still chattering as she began the nightly ritual of putting away the artists’ materials. Everything she touched seemed to be made of lead. The very air weighed on her. She wanted to fall to the floor and howl with desperation and despair.

The bell was tolling Angelus when Angela appeared, her pretty face determined.

“Sit down this instant,” she commanded, “and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Oh, Angela, it’s just . . . Domenica, you know. I’m tired today, and those quills . . . it was too much.”

“No.” Angela shook her head. “There is something you’re not telling me. I can see it, Giulia. Don’t pretend, not with me.”

Giulia hesitated, but only for a moment. She let it all pour out: Humilità, Passion blue, Domenica’s ultimatum, Madre Magdalena’s order. After so many days of keeping the truth to herself, it was an incredible relief to share it.

Angela listened without interrupting.

“So,” she said at last. They were sitting side by side at the drafting table. The curtains were still open, and candle flames dipped and swayed in the drafts from the courtyard. “You lied to me about Passion blue.”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you. I wanted to, but then Domenica threatened me. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Domenica’s behavior is disgraceful. Still . . . Giulia, I can understand why she’s angry. She must feel terribly slighted.”

“That is not my fault.” Someone had left a pot of pigment open—azurite, Giulia could tell from its song, like a silver hammer tapping against a cymbal. She reached for it and corked it, silencing it.

“I know. But Giulia, there is something to what she says. Maestra Humilità created Passion blue. She had the right to keep it for herself. But she’s gone now, and we must carry on her legacy, all of us together. I don’t want to say she was wrong in giving it to you, but I think it was . . . unfair. Passion blue should belong to the workshop, not to one person.”

“But that’s not why Domenica wants it.” The blood was hot in Giulia’s cheeks. She had expected Angela to understand. “I think she wants it for herself. And I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid that if I give it to her, she’ll dismiss me anyway.”

“No, Giulia. I know there is no love between the two of you, but you can’t think she would be so base.”

“Angela, Domenica
despises
me. She called me a whore. She accused me of lying to the Maestra on her deathbed in order to get my hands on Passion blue. She said the Maestra should never have let me back into the workshop.”

Angela stared at her. “She said that?”

“That and more.” Giulia realized she was still clutching the pigment pot. She loosened her fingers and put it down. “Even if she allows me to stay, Madre Magdalena may not—she said as much today. And oh, Angela, that’s not all. The Maestra’s father has asked that I be allowed to visit him—to share memories of the Maestra, he says, but that’s a lie, and Madre Magdalena has said I must go, and I can’t be in his house again, I can’t—”

“Wait, wait! What do you mean, a lie?”

“There’s something else you don’t know, Angela. Last year when Ormanno Trovatelli kidnapped me, I told everyone I never found out who hired him to steal the Maestra’s book of secrets. But I did find out. It was the Maestra’s father.”

“Signor
Moretti
? Giulia, are you sure?”

“Ormanno brought me with him when he went to collect his pay.”

“But why?” Angela’s eyes were huge. “Why would Signor Moretti do such a thing?”

“Because of his greed for Passion blue. You know how he pressed the Maestra to share the recipe. He could no longer bear that she refused him, so he took matters into his own hands. Of course, once he got her book of secrets he couldn’t read the cipher, and when I swore I couldn’t read it either, he did not believe me. He locked me in his attic—to question me, he said.”

“Oh, Giulia!”

“I’d never been so terrified. I’d learned too much, and if he could betray his own daughter so, what would he not dare do to me? But Ormanno came in the night and set me free. I stole into Signor Moretti’s bedchamber and took back the book.”

“And the Maestra knew this? You told her?”

“Yes. She was ashamed. She didn’t want it known that her father had betrayed her and so I promised to keep it secret. But now she’s gone, and I’m the only one who knows what he did. What he’s capable of. And he wants Passion blue as much as ever. Do you remember last week, when I had a visitor?”

Angela nodded.

“It was him. The Maestra made me swear an oath never to give him the recipe—I tried to lie, but he didn’t believe me. And now I must go to him. I must be in his house again . . . What if
he gets me away on some pretext and locks me up again? Oh, Angela, I’m so frightened. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to stop myself from giving him the secret, no matter how I try.”

“Giulia.” Angela reached to take Giulia’s hands. Her face was grave, her brown gaze steady. “You must talk to Madre Magdalena. You must tell her everything.”

“I tried, this afternoon. She wouldn’t hear me.”

“Then we’ll go to her together. I’ll vouch for you.”

“But all you can say is what you heard from me, and she thinks I’m a liar.” Giulia felt the burn of tears behind her eyes. Something terrible was expanding inside her chest, a choking storm of dread and desperation. “Oh, Angela, I never wanted to be a nun. I never wanted to renounce the world and live behind walls and never know what it was to . . . to love a man. But I was willing to take vows if it meant I could paint, if it meant I could be the Maestra’s pupil. But the Maestra is gone, and if I can’t . . . if I can’t paint . . .”

“No, Giulia. I can’t believe Domenica would dismiss you. Not if you give her Passion blue.”

“You’re wrong. Maybe if I’d given it to her at the start . . . but I’ve left it too long.” Giulia recognized the truth of it even as she said it, a stony certainty beyond any possibility of denial. “She’ll never forgive me now.”

She pulled her hands from Angela’s. There were words in her mouth—words she had never imagined saying, words she’d never even allowed herself to think before. Yet now, this moment, she understood they had been inside her for weeks, waiting to be uttered.

She drew a breath and set them free.

“Angela. I don’t know if I can take my final vows.”

The shadows, the candle flames, the draft-stirred curtains—all for an instant seemed to go completely still.

“What do you mean?” Angela’s voice was hushed.

“If I take vows . . . and I lose the workshop . . . I’ll be trapped. Trapped at Santa Marta for the rest of my life. I’ll be a servant, a
conversa,
despised even by other
conversae
for what they all think they know about me: the girl who ran away with a thief and came back without her virtue. I’ll never paint, I’ll never even draw unless it’s with a charred stick on a whitewashed wall. I’ll never—”
Hear the colors singing.
“I couldn’t bear it.”

“No.” Angela was shaking her head, her black veil moving on her shoulders. “No, Giulia, I know you have doubts—”

“More than doubts.” It was terrifying, and yet strangely exhilarating, to admit it. “Angela, I have no vocation. Not for religious life. My vocation is for painting. Only for painting.”

“But how will you paint if you leave Santa Marta? The world does not allow such things to women. Where would you go? You have no family, no friends outside these walls. How would you survive?”

The fantasy woken by Gianfranco Ferraldi’s letters whispered an answer.
I’d disguise myself as a boy. I’d go to Venice and find Ferraldi. I’d talk him into taking me as an apprentice. I’d have a real teacher then, not an angry enemy who hates the sight of me. And Matteo Moretti . . . Matteo Moretti couldn’t touch me, because he wouldn’t know where I’d gone.

“You see?” Angela was angry now. “You have no idea. What do you know of the world, the wicked world that has so many dangers in it? Santa Marta is your
home.
We are your
sisters
, we painters. You’re my best friend, Giulia! You can’t throw away all the Maestra’s hopes for you just because you are frightened of something that may never happen. And if
Domenica does do what you fear—and I don’t think she will, I don’t, but if she does—I will help you! I’ll bring you paper and charcoal and brushes and paint. I’ll teach you myself! And Lucida will too, and Perpetua, because they love you, Giulia, just as I do.”