The Girl With the Painted Face (30 page)

A murmur of heartfelt agreement and a patter of applause buzz around the table.

Sofia is truly exhausted. The euphoria she felt immediately after the end of the show has evaporated and she now just feels heavy and woolly-headed with the wine she has drunk; her eyes are itching and the skin on her face – scrubbed clean now of the chalk and the pearl – is dry and tight. She leans wearily against Beppe, who puts an arm around her shoulders.

‘We can go to bed soon,’ he says, and Sofia smiles up at him.

‘Together?’

Beppe says quietly, ‘Yes. Why not? The others are all taking up the offer of the two big castle rooms which have been decked out for us, so that’ll leave the wagons empty. Might you prefer to…?’ He does not complete the question, but Sofia nods.

‘Yes,’ she says, smiling. ‘I think I might.’

‘Come on then – shall we go now? I think it’s late enough for us not to look rude if we leave.’

Beppe and Sofia both make as though to stand, but before they have even pushed back their chairs, Angelo, who has just come back into the room, edges behind several chairs and says quietly into Beppe’s ear, ‘You need to go out and see to your dog.’

‘What? What do you mean? What’s the matter?’

Angelo flicks a glance up the table towards where Sebastiano is sitting. Sebastiano is watching him. He nods once, then says, ‘I just went for a piss a few moments ago, nipped out to fetch something from the wagons and found several of the servants out there. The dog must have got loose and gone after a rat or something, they said – he has quite a cut on his leg.’

‘Where is he?’ Beppe is on his feet. Sofia stands too.

‘They said they’d take him into the kitchens…’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Sofia says. Beppe nods, but as they turn to leave the room, Agostino calls down the table, hand raised. ‘Sofia! Wait a moment – don’t go!
Cara
, come here and talk to Signor da Correggio before we all go off to bed. He says he’s been waiting all evening to have a chance to tell you how much he enjoyed your performance. I’ve just told him that you’ve only ever been on a stage a couple of times, and he says he is struggling to believe me. Come and tell him all about it!’

Sofia’s heart lurches, and she looks at Beppe, who shrugs.

‘Go and talk to him. I’ll find Ippo,’ he says. ‘I’ll bring him back up here, and then we can go to the wagon.’

Sofia nods. Scraping back her chair, she sidles along behind the other members of the troupe, up towards the head of the table. Signor da Correggio stands as she approaches, and snaps his fingers to one of the servants, who immediately hurries over with an extra chair: a delicately carved wooden folding stool. Da Correggio flaps it open and places it immediately next to his own seat.

‘Signorina, come and sit,’ he says, patting the stool.

Sofia follows instructions.

Leaning towards her, Signor da Correggio puts an arm around her shoulders. His breath is sour with the wine he has been drinking and Sofia swallows uncomfortably.

‘Signorina,’ he says quietly, his mouth close to her ear, creating an unwanted intimacy between them, ‘it simply has to be a blatant falsehood that this is only your third performance, that you are in fact a… not far from being a
commedia
virgin. Signor Martinelli’ – he nods towards Agostino – ‘is quite obviously telling me a pack of lies. You have been acting for years!’

‘No, signore,’ Sofia says, more confidently than she feels. ‘I promise you, he’s quite correct.’

Da Correggio’s other hand goes to Sofia’s chin: she tries not to flinch as he tilts her face up towards his and studies it for some seconds. Then, turning to a frozen-faced woman some seats away, he says, ‘There, Maddalena, what do you say now? I told you she was exquisite, did I not? Quite exquisite!’

The woman makes no response. Her features might have been carved in stone.

‘What about you, signore?’ He is now addressing a thin man with sparse hair, seated next to the woman, and seems, Sofia thinks, to be goading him deliberately. ‘Well, Signor di Maccio, do you not agree with me that this child is quite lovely? And did she not perform well? Was her pretty little Colombina not a triumph? Does the sight of such a perfect creature – seen close to – not
arouse
you, sir?’

Her skin prickling with embarrassment, Sofia’s gaze flicks from the woman to this Signor di Maccio – a sparse-haired, finely dressed nobleman – who, she sees, is eyeing her with what seems worryingly like distaste rather than admiration. Signor di Maccio turns back to da Correggio and Sofia is shocked at the naked rage in his sunken-cheeked face. The atmosphere around this end of the table has tautened and stiffened, as though the signore is somehow paralysing everyone around him with his heartily cheerful words – rendering his guests oddly lifeless. It appears to be calculated, and he seems to be thoroughly enjoying the process.

Turning to Agostino, seated a couple of seats down on her other side, Sofia widens her eyes, pleading silently with him to be rescued. But Agostino’s big face is flushed and his goblet is empty, and he merely smiles widely at her, enjoying his host’s admiration and not registering Sofia’s distress.

‘Ago, sort out a dispute for us!’ Federico says then in a truculent voice from further down the table, and Agostino turns away. ‘Giovanni Battista says we should be thinking about performing some of Lombardone’s scenarios but
I
say the man can’t write.’

Agostino opens his mouth to reply, and at this, da Correggio lays a hand over Sofia’s. ‘Signorina,’ he says in little more than a whisper, ‘if your friends will excuse you, I have a mind to show you a treasure. A tapestry – one of the Correggio heirlooms, which I am sure will interest a gifted needlewoman such as yourself. Come with me now and I promise you you’ll be astounded…’ Taking her hand, he stands.

‘Oh… Signore, forgive me, but…’ Sofia tries to excuse herself, tries to pull her hand from his, but da Correggio seems not to hear her and his grip is strong.

‘Ago —’

But Agostino is now engaged in vociferous debate with Federico and Giovanni Battista, and the three men, their voices raised, are distracting Vico and the two women. Nobody seems to hear her and she dares not speak more overtly. Beppe is still nowhere to be seen. Angelo is the only other member of the troupe she can ask to help her; staring hard at him, she wills him to say something, but he is picking at the skin on the side of his thumbnail with his teeth and seems to be deliberately avoiding her eye.

Gripping her hand almost painfully, Signor da Correggio leaves the banqueting hall and hurries Sofia through two other large and beautifully appointed rooms towards a flight of stairs. He appears to be about to climb them, when a deep voice sounds out from above, and he checks.

‘Servants,’ he says. ‘Damn them. Perhaps we’ll have a look at my study first.’ He looks hard at Sofia and runs his tongue over his lips. ‘We can go back upstairs later.’

Sofia’s eyes widen. ‘Later? But, signore, I have to —’

‘We don’t have much time,’ he mutters, more to himself than to her. ‘Come on!’

They walk fast together, and the signore is now gripping Sofia’s wrist, rather than her hand. Through another painted room, out into a plain, brick-floored corridor, where both she and Signor da Correggio stop dead. A liveried servant – young and slightly built and with a heavily laden tray in his hands – backs awkwardly out of a door and starts at the sight of them, gasping audibly. The stump of a candle he has in a candlestick on the tray sends wobbling shadows up and around his face, and even in the almost-darkness, Sofia can see that he is flushing deeply. She wonders whether she should call to him to help her, but before she can speak, da Correggio snaps at him.

‘What the hell are you staring at? Go on – get lost!’

The boy pushes back through the door without a word.

‘Damn them! Damned servants, getting in the way wherever I turn.’ He takes hold of the handle of yet another door a few yards further along. ‘Here. In here – you’ll like this. My study. The walls are hung with silk my father brought back from a trip out east many years ago.’

The room is unlit, but moonlight is flooding in through a wide casement, and as Sofia gazes around, she sees that it is richly furnished. A set of deep shelves is busily filled with books, rolls of paper, pots, rows of bottles of different sizes – several of them very small – a feathered hat and a number of painted wooden boxes. A long, ornately carved table stands in the centre of the room; it too is littered with many smaller objects Sofia cannot determine in the darkness and a heavy iron candlestick stands, unlit, at each end. A ladder-backed chair sits neatly in front of the table, a doublet draped across the upright. Several other chairs have been pushed back against the wall with the door in it; over on the far side is a small bed, hung with drawn-back curtains.

A bed.

At the sight of this, her heart now thudding uncomfortably, Sofia is rocked by a wave of nausea. Muttering to herself, breathing heavily, she tugs once again at her hand. The signore, however, holds fast. Putting his other arm around her back, pressing in flat-palmed, he draws her in close, and his sour wine-breath is strong in her nostrils. She feels him take hold of her chin again with his finger and thumb; he tilts her face up towards his. Straining backwards with both palms on his doublet-front, gritting her teeth, she struggles to push him away from her, swearing under her breath.

‘What’s this? Well, well, well! Not quite the lady I took you for, it seems. Did the actors teach you that language or did you know it before? What’s the matter,
carissima
? I just wanted to show you my study. I thought you might like to…’ He ducks his head, takes a handful of her hair, and puts parted lips onto hers before she can get away from him, probing into her mouth with his tongue, sliding his free hand up and onto her breast, but Sofia twists her head away, feeling her scalp burn. His mouth slides wetly across her cheek towards her ear.

Taking her by the upper arms then, pulling her upwards, almost off her feet, he starts walking her backwards towards the bed. ‘What’s the matter?’ he says as they stumble together across the room. ‘Not just a stage virgin, then, but
virgo intacta
in the bedchamber as well? Is that it?’

‘Let go of me…’ Sofia mutters through her teeth, trying helplessly to twist her arms out of his grip. ‘You bloody bastard, let go, and…’

‘Oh, I
am
disappointed… very disappointed. I had thought you might have relished the idea of spending tonight with me,’ da Correggio says indistinctly, and his wine-sour words are hot against the skin of her face. ‘It’d be a night you’d not forget in a hurry. I had thought actresses in general had fewer moral scruples than you seem to possess… but no matter —’ He interrupts his own sentence, tugging Sofia in close again. Pushing her down onto her back and covering her mouth with his own, he silences her protests, but she twists her head away once more, and a ragged scream spills out of her – hot against da Correggio’s cheek.

The door bangs open.

‘Hey! You! Leave her alone!’

Beppe’s voice.

Da Correggio is blocking her view of the room; Sofia cannot see Beppe, but she hears him banging past the furniture, hears Ippo’s scrabbling claws and panting breath.

‘Get off her, you bastard!’

And then he is there, pulling at da Correggio, dragging him to his feet, knocking him off balance so that he releases Sofia’s arms. She scrambles out from under him. Ippo is snarling and barking. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Beppe says, squaring up to da Correggio, tugging him around, grabbing fistfuls of the embroidered doublet and pulling him away from Sofia. Stumbling backwards, she almost trips over a chair; gasping, she throws her arms out sideways to keep her balance.

‘Keep your hands off her!’ Beppe’s voice cracks. He shoves at da Correggio’s chest with the heels of both hands.

Da Correggio staggers, then rights himself. ‘What the hell —?’

Beppe stands square now between da Correggio and Sofia, who begins edging backwards towards the study door. ‘I think you’ll find…
signore
,’ he says, his voice thick with anger, ‘that the lady has no wish for your company. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to stand away and let her – and me – go back to our wagon.’

‘You fucking little reprobate, how
dare
you!’ Da Correggio’s face is distorted with rage. Jaw jutting, his cheeks blotched darkly, he raises clearly practised fists, elbows angled, but Beppe stands his ground, his hands balling too.

Sofia’s gaze flicks from one man to the other, breath held, wide-eyed.

Da Correggio takes a step towards Beppe, who does not back away. ‘
I
think
you
’ll find, you ignorant little shit,’ he says in a carrying whisper, ‘that this is
my
house, and that I can invite whom I choose into my bed – and when.’

‘It’s usually thought to be good manners to accept a refusal after issuing an invitation, though, isn’t it?’

Da Correggio swears and punches out at Beppe, who ducks nimbly; straightening, he lets fly with a fist. The blow cracks hard against da Correggio’s jaw, and the nobleman grunts and staggers backwards, tripping over a wooden chest and sprawling on his back onto the floor.

‘Quick!’ Beppe turns, grabs Sofia’s arm and drags her towards the door. ‘Before he gets up again!’ Half running, half falling, the two of them – followed by the dog – stumble across the room and out of the door; da Correggio slurs out another vitriolic oath, then slumps back to lie groaning next to the bed.

Beppe’s hand is tight around Sofia’s wrist as they bang the door shut behind them; they run together, with the dog, back through the castle and out, out towards where the wagons have been parked near the meadow at the back of the building. Both gasping for breath, chests heaving, they lean against the side of the yellow wagon for a moment; Beppe hugs Sofia and holds her close, then stands away from her, a hand on each of her arms. ‘We have to get out of here,
cara
,’ he says. ‘Right away from here. He’ll be after us as soon as he can alert the servants, I’m sure of it. I’ll run in and tell Agostino and Cosima. I think we’re all going to have to go – tonight. The whole troupe.’