The Girl With the Painted Face (4 page)

‘And the number of unnecessary syllables you stuff into every one of your endless sentences is as astonishing as ever, Agostino,’ Vico says with a quick grin. ‘I mean it, anyway. They’re good, yes, the Gelosi. They’re wonderful, in fact. But so are we.’

Cosima smiles at him. ‘Bless you, Vico. We are. We’re as good as the sum of our parts, are we not?’

Vico pecks a nod in agreement.

‘Mmm – and if it’s of any interest to anyone, I’d like to say that I’m in agreement with the general consensus…’ A tall, bearded man of about forty walks up from the wagons and sits down next to Agostino.

‘Thank you, Federico, and I’m sure you know that we are equally delighted that you chose to come and swell our ranks.’ Smirking smugly, Agostino pats the newcomer on the knee. ‘What is it – two months since you joined us?’

‘Yes, about that long.’

Agostino looks from Federico to Beppe, Vico, Cosima and Lidia, who has settled herself just behind Vico, saying, ‘But I feel I should remind you that the only way we will sustain this burgeoning success is if
all
the various parts of the whole bother to rehearse sufficiently.’ His smirk fades and an expression of soldierly determination takes its place. ‘So,’ he says, ‘listen to what I want from you all tomorrow.’

Beppe leans back on his arms. Agostino’s instructions are clear, concise, demanding… and humorous, and by the time he has finished, everyone is smiling, but nobody is in any doubt as to how exhausting the following day is likely to be.

Agostino jabs a finger towards each of his company, saying, ‘Go on then, off to bed, the lot of you. Poor old Giovanni Battista is already dead to the world, bless him, and I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of Angelo for at least a couple of hours, so I bloody well hope he’s asleep too. Someone will have to fill him in first thing tomorrow.’

Beppe sees Vico and Lidia exchange glances.

Agostino says, ‘I want you all up and ready to start by first light. Do you hear that – all of you? We make our entrance into Bologna at midday, we perform in the afternoon, and I want us to have run through the whole play at least twice here before we set off.’

Vico stretches and groans. ‘First light? Twice? God, Agostino, you’re a bloody slave driver!’

Lidia puts her arms around Vico and kisses his cheek. ‘Stop complaining and come to bed.’

Getting to his feet, Beppe laughs softly. He raises a foot and nudges Vico in the shoulder with his heel. ‘You won’t get a better offer than that,
amico
. I’d make the most of it, if I were you.’ He turns to Cosima. ‘Shall I douse the fire?’

‘No, leave it,
caro
. It’ll burn itself out within the hour. Be off with you, and get some sleep.’ She reaches out to Agostino, who takes her hands and pulls her to her feet. Kissing her, he drapes an arm around her shoulders and she leans in against him affectionately.

Beppe yawns. Patting Vico on the shoulder, pecking a nod to Lidia, he collects his and Agostino’s soup bowls and spoons. Throwing them up one by one, he juggles with them for a moment, then catches them deftly and walks away towards the wagons, the dog at his heels, his footsteps soundless on the thick grass.

In the darkness over on the far side of the wagons, a young man with a perfect profile is leaning against a tree, a flask of grappa in one hand. Angelo da Bagnacavallo has been listening to Agostino’s exhortations and rolling his eyes in irritation, shaking his head scornfully. On hearing his own name mentioned, he checks, holding his breath, listening to see if anyone is aware of where he has been. Quickly satisfied that his whereabouts still seem to be a mystery to all, however, he drains his flask, blinking a couple of times against the strength of the spirit, and prepares to wait another few minutes until the rest of the troupe have settled for the night.

He has no wish to enter into conversation with anyone.

3

Just inside the walls of the city of Bologna, as the afternoon edges its way into evening, a steady mizzling rain is blurring the edges of the buildings, catching in starry droplets in the hair and lashes of anyone unfortunate enough to be out of doors. Sofia’s yellow skirts are clinging to her legs – a dark tidemark meanders around the fabric at knee-height – and cold trickles are running down from her hair into the neckline of her bodice. Gazing up at the heavy-bellied clouds as thunder growls softly, she hunches her shoulders and pulls up and over her head a length of sacking she found fallen from a passing cart. After two days and three nights out in the open, walking the twenty-five or so miles from Modena, sleeping in doorways and church porches, her now-broken shoes are oozing water at every step and her feet feel painfully chilled. The linen strip that Signor Zanetti so gently bound around her broken finger the other day is filthy now, and, within the sodden cloth, her fingertips have bleached and wrinkled.

Seeing a deep doorway, Sofia hurries to shelter under its low arch. A scrawny cat mews, stretches, and stalks across to rub itself against her legs. Sitting down on a dry step, and pulling her skirts in out of the wet, she strokes the top of the cat’s head with the tips of her fingers. It closes its eyes, pushing up against her touch. ‘Do you know,’ she says to the cat, ‘I’m so hungry now, I could almost eat
you
.’ The cat mews again. ‘Might you be able to catch me a mouse, little puss?’ Sofia says. The cat begins to purr. ‘We could share it, if you could.’

The cat snakes itself around her. Its fur is wet and it smells musty. ‘What am I to do, puss?’ she says, fingering its tattered ears. ‘You tell me.’ She picks a wet ringlet of hair from where it has stuck to her cheek and tucks it behind her ear. ‘Do you know, I used to have a little cat a bit like you. Once. A long time ago.’

The cat gives another plaintive little mewing cry.

Footsteps sound out some yards away. Sofia looks up. The cat stiffens, and then slips silently away. A man approaches. Thick-set, broad-shouldered, grey-haired, he is wearing a heavy cloak and boots. Sofia gets to her feet and, as the man nears her doorway, she steps forward.

‘Might you have a few coins to spare, signore?’ she says, her heart thudding with shame. ‘I have nothing to eat.’

He checks, his gaze raking her from head to foot, taking in her tangled hair, her soaked clothes and the mud-stained shoes. He runs his tongue over his lip. Sofia’s heart beats faster at the look in his eye, and she starts to feel sick.

The man’s gaze lingers on her face and then dips to her breasts. Sofia folds her arms across her front. The man shakes his head a fraction. Pushing a hand into a pocket in his breeches, he fumbles through its jingling contents; with one quick glance at the coins in his hand, he flings them at Sofia’s feet without a word. He pulls his cloak more tightly around himself and strides on, away around a corner and out of sight. Sofia does not move until he has gone, but as soon as he has disappeared, she squats down and picks up the coins, rubbing the mud from them with her thumb.

Standing, she sees that dust from the dry step on which she has been sitting has now stuck to the wet cloth of her skirts, crusting around the sodden hem; she tries to brush it off, but it clings tenaciously, so, giving up the attempt and pulling the sacking over her head, she sets off back out into the rain, heading up the Via Piella towards the city centre, clutching the coins in her good hand.

It is some minutes before she finds a likely tavern.

A yellowish light is spilling out through its part-open door to lie in glittering puddles on the cobbles. As Sofia pushes it further open and peers in, she sees some two dozen people within. Most are seated at tables, but one small group is huddled in a conspiratorial cluster by the wide fireplace, and, in an empty corner of the room, two young men are standing nose to nose, fists up, faces distorted with fury.

Sofia slips inside and stands up against the wall near the door as the huge tavern-owner pushes a massive arm like a leg of pork in between the two fighters. ‘Come on now, signori, that’s enough. Settle down now,’ he says, his voice surprisingly soft for a man of his size.

One of the young men glares at him. ‘Oh,
vaffanculo
! Piss off, Alberto – don’t get in my way!’

‘Hey, hey, hey… now that’s enough,’ Alberto says again. ‘Not in here, if you please, Pietro Goldoni. If you can’t settle down, then you can both take yourselves off outside and deal with your problems in the street.’

Scowling, Goldoni shoves at the other young man’s chest and then turns away. His companion staggers backwards, swearing in his turn; then, righting himself, he lurches back towards Goldoni, grabbing his upper arm and swinging him around. Drawing back a fist, he lets fly, catching Goldoni hard on the jaw. Goldoni grunts in pain. He reaches out and pulls the other boy in towards him by his shirt.

Several of the people seated at the tables gasp. Someone pushes a chair back, scraping its legs across the stone flags.

Alberto shakes his head and puffs out a sigh. Taking a handful of Pietro Goldoni’s doublet in one hand, and a fistful of the other boy’s shirt in the other, he parts them with ease. Turning them both towards the door, and lifting them so each is almost up on his toes, he half-walks, half-drags them through the jumble of tables to the entrance without a word. Kicking the door wide open, he swings both young men out into the street; both fall forwards onto the wet ground.

Alberto pulls the door closed and brushes his hands together. ‘There – now stay out until you can sit and drink together in peace, the pair of you,’ he says loudly to the closed door, wagging a massive forefinger.

He crosses the room, shaking his head.

‘Good man, Alberto!’ somebody calls.

The big tavern-owner nods in the man’s direction but makes no comment.

Sofia follows him. ‘Excuse me, signore,’ she says as he stops and lowers his bulk onto a stool which looks far too flimsy to support him.

He raises an eyebrow and inclines his head.

‘Er… might you have a room spare? Somewhere I could stay for the night? And something to eat?’

Alberto’s gaze takes in Sofia’s filthy clothes and sodden hair. ‘You need to go and sit yourself down near that fire, signorina,’ he says, pointing towards the hearth. ‘Get yourself dry.’

‘Thank you. And the room, signore?’

‘What money do you have? I’ve just the one bed upstairs for travellers. A place in it and a blanket can be yours for half a
scudo.
And a bite to eat for fifty
baiocchi
. I’ve a stew on the fire.’

Sofia holds out her coins.

Alberto moves them about on her palm with one thick finger. ‘Not quite enough,’ he says. ‘Do you have any more?’

Sofia swallows awkwardly and shakes her head.

‘Well, perhaps…’ The big man pauses. He raises an eyebrow. ‘… you can pay the extra… some other way?’

Sofia’s mouth opens a little, but she says nothing.

Her heart races.

Alberto sucks his teeth for a moment, then he frowns and says, ‘Perhaps you might see your way to washing a few pots for me?’ He nods towards her fistful of coins. ‘You have enough there for a meal. Then you could wash a few of my dirty pots to earn a bed for the night. How does that sound? Could you do that?’

Sofia almost laughs. ‘Oh yes – with pleasure, signore.’

Alberto smiles. ‘Eat first, I think. Don’t you? Then do the pots.’

The makeshift bed in the tavern’s upstairs room is low and very wide – wide enough for at least three sleepers. Straw-mattressed, its foot-end is strewn with a jumble of shabby blankets. The one small window in the room is unshuttered, and the steep-sloped ceiling is merely the underneath of the roof-tiles; smears of lime mortar show between the tiles, and chinks of the night sky are winking through at various places above Sofia’s head. Every now and again, she feels the cold prickle of a raindrop which has found its way through into the room.

Sofia drops the big folded sheet Alberto has just handed her. It lands on the floor with a whump and the candle on the shelf gutters in the draught, then settles again.

She picks up all the blankets and the three limp pillows and heaps them on the floor. Standing at one side of the bed, she flaps out the sheet and watches as it settles across the uneven mattress. The far edge flips back on itself, and Sofia shakes it out again a couple of times until it lies flat. She works her way around the bed, tucking the sheet in under the mattress, wincing a couple of times as her damaged finger takes more weight than is comfortable.

She replaces the pillows side by side across the generous width of the bed, and turns to the blankets. There are six of them; Sofia folds four and places them neatly on the sheet at the foot of the bed, ready for any other sleepers who might come into the room. Picking up the other two, she blows out the candle, then wraps the blankets around her and lies down on the far side of the mattress, fully dressed, cocooned in the shabby wool, which smells of sweat and dust, of unwashed skin and faintly, faintly of sheep. She curls on her side, drawing her knees up. Her skirts are almost dry now, warmed through in front of the tavern fire, and her belly feels full at last – full of the mutton stew and bread Alberto has given her in return for her begged-for coins.