Passion Blue (18 page)

“Giulia.”

The voice, soft and urgent, came from behind her. It startled her so much that she jumped to her feet, letting out a yelp of fright.

She turned, and froze. Standing only a few steps away was the repairer of frescoes, Ormanno Trovatelli, whom she had never thought to see again. She stared at him, thunderstruck.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

They were the words she’d spoken to him, the first time they met. “What are you…” She tried to catch her breath. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here.”

“Here?”

“Of course.” His hair curled around his face just as she recalled. His pale eyes were just as bright. “I’m a journeyman painter in Maestro Moretti’s workshop.”

She felt the talisman, hard against her palm. Later, it would seem to her that everything had gone clear, the way it had when she first put the necklace on: edges sharper, colors deeper, light more vivid. “You never said.”

“Maestra Humilità always calls on her father’s workshop for help when there’s work she can’t do herself. I assumed you knew.”

“I thought…I just thought you were some sort of artisan.”

“Well, I am. All painters are.” His gaze slid away from hers, to the drawing that had fallen from her
lap. “You dropped—” He bent and picked it up, then paused, his brows drawing together. “You’ve put in the harness he’s hanging from. And the apprentices.”

“I wanted to draw what’s actually there. Not the story it’s supposed to tell.”

“It’s good.” He sounded surprised. “You’re good.”

He held it toward her. She took it. They looked at each other. She felt a breathless tension, like a tightening wire.

“Listen, Giulia.” Ormanno’s words came in a rush. “I’ve been thinking about you ever since we met. I know what you said about not wanting to be a nun, but still, you’re a novice, inside convent walls, and I knew I should forget you. But I couldn’t and that’s the truth. When I saw you with your Maestra in the courtyard today, I had to try and talk to you again. I thought maybe you felt the same, but if I’m wrong, if I offend you by being here, just tell me and I’ll go.”

Giulia’s heart had begun to pound. “You don’t offend me.”

“I’m glad.” He seemed to hesitate. “You said…that day…that I could visit you. Did you mean it?”

Giulia’s head was spinning. How long had she been waiting for this? Now it was happening, really happening. She felt as if she were tumbling downhill, too fast to think, too fast to stop. And she did not want to stop.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then I will. I’ll ask for you in the parlor. I’ll say I’m your cousin Federico.”

“You remembered.”

“Of course.”

“There’s a chaperone. And there’s a grille, you’ll have to be on the other side of it. But…”
But the bars are far enough apart that hands can touch
. “We’ll be able to talk to each other.”

The intensity of his gaze burned across the space between them. “I wish there was a way we could meet like this. Without bars, I mean, or others watching.”

And like a door opening in Giulia’s mind, there it was. Benedicta’s story.

“I know a way.”

“Tell me.”

“There’s a break in the wall at the back of the convent, where it runs along the canal.” Giulia had a sense of events slotting into place, as the panels of the San Giustina commission had slotted into their scaffolds. “It leads into the orchard. You could climb in that way, at night after everyone has gone to bed. I could meet you there.”

“Is it safe?”

“The orchard is big, and it’s well away from the main buildings. And the nuns sleep through the Great Silence. They don’t get up in the night for Holy Offices. No one will know.”

“And you? Can you leave your bed without being discovered?”

Giulia thought of the sleeping novices, of her bed directly below the open window, of the convent corridors, nearly deserted during the hours of the Great Silence. Of the spirit inside the talisman, bound to her heart’s desire. “I think so. Can you?”

“I go as I please, night or day.” He grinned with the teasing humor she remembered. “I’ve slipped out a few midnight windows, and climbed a wall or two in my time. But this will be a new adventure. I’ll come tomorrow. Eleven o’clock.”

“Eleven o’clock,” she echoed.

“Giulia.” His mobile face was serious again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

Somehow, the distance between them had vanished. Their fingers met and clasped. His touch sent her blood racing; she felt the heat of it in her cheeks, her throat, the whole of her body. She imagined what it would be like to lean into his arms.

Footsteps sounded on the balcony stairs. They sprang apart just as the curtain across the doorway twitched aside. Matteo Moretti came through, followed by Humilità.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Humilità stopped short.

“I’m sorry, Maestra Humilità,” Ormanno said, turning smoothly to face her. “Your apprentice dropped her drawing over the railing. I was just returning it.”

“Is this so, Giulia?”

“He gave me back my drawing, Maestra.” Giulia’s cheeks were burning. She couldn’t meet her teacher’s eyes.

“Well, it is highly improper. I would expect you to know better, Ormanno, given that you have only recently been inside the walls of Santa Marta.”

“Apologize to my daughter for your forwardness,
boy,” Matteo said harshly. “And to her apprentice.”

“I apologize, Maestra,” said Ormanno. “And to you, miss. Truly, I meant no offense.”

“Now back to work.” Matteo clapped his hands, as if dismissing a servant. “You’ve wasted more than enough of everyone’s time.”

Ormanno bowed, his face unreadable, then headed toward the curtain. He pulled it aside and was gone, leaving Giulia feeling hollow, as if something had been scooped out of her. She put her hand to her chest, over the lump of the talisman.

Anasurymboriel
.

“He has a roving eye, that one. I will speak to him, Violetta, you may be sure of it.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself, Papa. It seems no harm was done.”

“The conduct of my journeymen reflects on me. If I bring him with me on a commission, I don’t want to fear he’ll steal off to pester the daughters of the house.”

Humilità and her father had finished their business. They escorted Giulia to the floor of the workshop, where she was introduced to Humilità’s brothers: Gianfrancesco, a younger version of his father, and Tiberio, whose hollow cheeks spoke of his recent illness. Then Matteo walked them through the kitchen, where the workers clustered around again to say good-bye, and down the passage to the door.

“Write me about the progress of that commission,” Matteo said. “I only hope you have not taken on more than you can fulfill.”

“You needn’t fear, Papa.” Humilità’s tone was sharp. “And you’ll let me know of any difficulties with the frame.”

“It is only a frame, Violetta.”

He drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead. He gave Giulia a little bow; she curtsied and thanked him for his hospitality. Then she and Humilità stepped out into the street, as the door fell closed behind them.

Most of the afternoon had gone, and shadows lay long across the cobbles. Giulia felt as if she were walking an inch above the ground.

“Giulia,” Humilità said after a few minutes. “You told the truth, didn’t you? About that young man. He wasn’t disturbing you?”

“No, Maestra.”

“Because there are men who are…drawn to nuns. Some find allure in the fact that we are forbidden. Others imagine convents as secret brothels, with salacious doings behind their walls. Last year Madre Damiana had to summon the city watch to remove a man who was making lewd approaches in the visiting parlor. Unfortunately, there are nuns who encourage such behavior, whether it’s because they are bored, or bitter, or lax in their vocation.”

Giulia was glad it was dim under the arcade, so Humilità couldn’t see her blushing. “It wasn’t that way, Maestra. Really.”

“Good.”

“Maestra…” Giulia hesitated. “Do you think he…
the young man…do you think he’s like that? Like those men?”

“I found no fault with his conduct when he was helping me repair the fresco, beyond a certain…inquisitiveness about my work, which I think perhaps was just a natural curiosity, given”—her tone became dry—“that in many ways I
am
a curiosity. Of course, four weeks is not a long acquaintance. But he did not strike me so. And he is very talented.”

Questions pressed against Giulia’s lips, but to ask them would be to give herself away, so she held her tongue. She saw Ormanno’s face again, his long hair and his smile, his icy-bright eyes. Roving eyes, Matteo Moretti had said—but did that matter, now that his gaze was fixed on her?
Surely the talisman wouldn’t bring me anyone like those men, those twisted men who dream of the forbidden
. She thought of the strange horoscope she had cast when she first found the astrolabe, the one that told her she already had her heart’s desire. She’d thought her interpretation must be wrong, but it hadn’t been, it hadn’t been, for she had already met Ormanno in the refectory.

“What did you think of my father’s workshop?” Humilità said.

“It’s very different. So much bigger and noisier.”

“An artist’s workshop is the reflection of his soul. My father never does just one thing at a time—he is always going in ten directions at once.”

Giulia thought of the tranquil order at Santa Marta, where nothing was hurried and everything was controlled. “The tableau was interesting,” she said.
“With the angel in the harness.”

“My father is known for composing the scenes he paints whole, rather than in parts or from studies. We don’t have the space for that at Santa Marta. But a small workshop has its advantages. I’m always glad to return to my little kingdom. Which reminds me, I must rise early tomorrow. I must have a good supply of Passion blue on hand for the San Giustina panels.”

For a little while they walked in silence. The sound and motion of the busy city swirled around them.

“It was an accident, you know.” Humilità spoke so low that Giulia had to strain to hear her.

“What was, Maestra?”

“Passion blue. I was experimenting—I’m always experimenting with one thing and another. But finding the ingredient that makes the color what it is, that makes it more than simply blue—that was an accident. Even then, I knew I had created something extraordinary. That blue, my blue, more precious than other blues, which are the most precious of all colors.” Humilità was quiet for the space of several steps. “Beware secrets, Giulia. All painters have secrets, but few are important enough for others to covet. Those that are, however they begin, always end as burdens.”

Giulia felt the resonance of those words.

“Each time I see my father, he presses me. At first, I imagined it was a game between us. Now I wonder if it ever really was.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think I should have given him the recipe when he asked me first. After all, I know his secrets, so in a way it would be a fair exchange.
But I did not, and that was my choice. And I will not give up Passion blue now—no, not to anyone.”

The bitterness was there again, the same as in Matteo Moretti’s study.

They walked on in silence. Giulia did her best to savor her last moments of freedom, but too soon the convent’s high brick wall came in sight. Humilità knocked; the doorkeeper peered through the grate, then pulled the door open onto the dimness within. Giulia breathed deeply and thought of the talisman, and of the promise she had seen in Ormanno’s smile. Those things kept her calm as they passed through the saint’s door, back into Santa Marta.

That night, Giulia dreamed more vividly than ever before of the little blue flame. This time it did not flee, but hung trembling on the air, as if, like a true flame, it were pinned in place. When she reached toward it—slowly, as she might have done to capture a butterfly—it let her fold her hands around it.

She woke abruptly, the talisman heavy on her chest, Ormanno’s face blazing in her mind’s eye. She sat up, turning so she could lean her arms on the sill of the window above her bed. She no longer doubted that the dreams were real—that the flame was Anasurymboriel, speaking to her in her sleep. Not so very long ago, this might have frightened her. Not now. The sorcerer’s promise was coming true. On that day in May when she climbed the ladder and stepped onto Ormanno’s scaffold, her stars had already been turning toward a new pattern.

And yet.…An unwelcome tendril of doubt snaked its way into her mind. She had no experience with sorcery, no way to know what magic felt like when it was working. What if she were wrong? What if there was no magic? What if Ormanno’s interest in her was no more than Matteo Moretti had said—a roving eye?

But then she thought of how the talisman had burned at his approach, and of the difference in her dream tonight. Of how they had encountered each other at Santa Marta three separate times—too many, surely, to be coincidence. Of the horoscope that told her she already had her heart’s desire, and the one that predicted she would soon leave Santa Marta. Of the timing of Benedicta’s story.

There are too many pieces, and they fit together too perfectly. It’s the magic. It has to be
.

Above her in the sky, a sliver of moon swam amid a sea of stars, frosty pinpoints against the blackness of the cosmos. She picked out the constellations: Lyra, Scorpio, Cygnus the swan. She could almost feel it, the great web of connection that bound everything together—the stars, and the planets, and the crystal spheres they rode upon, and the celestial spirits that inhabited them, and the Earth, and the beings who walked on it. And herself, one small stitch in a great tapestry, pulling against the grain, tugging the threads around her into a new configuration.

“It’s happening, Mama,” she whispered, imagining her words rising upward, like sparks. “It’s really happening.”

Part 3
Under the Summer Stars