The Girl With the Painted Face (42 page)

Standing, he begins to juggle.

Beppe has always been calmed by the utter absorption this takes. And, as the balls now start to circle, his breathing does indeed slow and the tight band of tension which has been gripping his head like a garrotte for hours loosens its grip. For some ten minutes he juggles, evenly to begin with, then flipping one ball up higher than the rest each time, then passing another behind his back and into the circle again. For some ten minutes he remains unaware of anything but the rhythmic flipping of the whirling circle between his hands, then, throwing each one high, he catches them all, and sits back down.

To his astonishment, there is a spatter of applause.

‘That was clever.’ Three small boys are clapping, their eyes wide with admiration.

Beppe nods his thanks.

‘Do it again, will you?’

On the point of shaking his head and walking away, he sees the longing in their eyes and, with a resigned grin, obliges, throwing in a couple of extra tricks for good measure. The boys are as delighted with the reprise as with the original performance and their applause is, if anything, even more enthusiastic.

‘Could you teach us?’

Beppe shakes his head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t have the time, I’m afraid. I’m glad you enjoyed it – but it takes a fair bit of time to learn to do this. And I’m… I’m very busy. I’m looking for someone.’

‘Who?’

‘A girl.’

‘A
little
girl? What does she look like?’

A flicker of hope flares again in Beppe’s chest. ‘Not little – she’s a grown-up girl. About that high.’ He holds up a hand, palm down, at about the height of his own chin. ‘Thin. Dark hair – very curly.’ He holds his hands up a few inches out from either side of his head to indicate the bulk of Sofia’s wild hair. ‘And she might be with a dog. Scruffy brown and white dog.’

The boys look at each other.

One of them says, ‘Does she have a yellow dress?’

Beppe holds his breath as he nods.

The boy shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches. There is a certain swagger to his stance as he scuffs at the dust with one foot and says, ‘Mmm. Saw a girl with big curly hair and a dog like that – brown and white – day before yesterday. In a yellow dress.’

‘Where?’

‘Market.’

‘What time? Where is the market? What was she doing?’ The breathless questions pour out, tumbling over each other.

‘Early. Market’s that way.’ He points. ‘She bought sausage and bread. If it was her, that is.’

Beppe stuffs the juggling balls back into their pouch and pushes the pouch back into the bag, which he swings up onto his shoulder. Reaching out, he clasps a hand on either side of the boy’s face and kisses the top of the child’s head. Then, grinning at the boys, one of whom is now rubbing his hair with a look of astonished disgust on his face, he pulls a few coins from a pocket and presses them into one grubby and nail-bitten hand. He starts to run in the direction the boy indicated, calling out thanks. Overwhelmed with excitement at the thought that Sofia might even still be there, in the market – that he might see her within minutes, he cartwheels over into a handspring, turning head over heels in mid-air. The leather bag falls to the ground; he scoops it up as he rights himself and runs on.

The three small boys whoop and clap behind him.

‘But you must be mistaken. I cannot imagine Beppe ever saying such a thing – or even thinking it! I know how he feels about —’

Sofia interrupts. ‘I heard him, Niccolò. I heard him as clearly as I’m hearing you now.’

Niccolò frowns and shakes his head, tutting with his tongue as he considers this. ‘Tell me again about what happened at… where did you say it had happened?’

‘The Castello della Franceschina.’

‘Yes, yes… Franceschina. Oh dear heavens, this is all so terrible. I can’t believe all this has been happening whilst I have just been ambling about here picking plants and thinking about nothing.’

Sofia explains it all for the second time. ‘… and now the troupe has been banished from Emilia-Romagna, and they’ve lost all their territories and I’m responsible for ruining everything for them. I’m not surprised he wishes he’d never met me.’

Niccolò’s daughter Anna is sitting quietly on a chair by the fire, a loose bundle of wool fibres in her lap; she is picking at it, teasing the threads out and straightening them, feeling her way across it, thread by thread. Her gaze is on her father and Sofia. The latter is uncomfortably aware of being watched, and flicks a glance across towards Anna every now and then; Anna has not spoken to her yet, but the watchfulness in her gaze does at least seem, Sofia thinks, to be kind. There is something of Niccolò in her face: a certain gentleness in her eyes.

Niccolò says, ‘And you have no idea who actually killed this man?’

‘Of course not. I don’t think anyone has. He was definitely alive when Beppe and I ran away from him.’

Even the phrase
Beppe and I
hurts to utter.

Anna clears her throat.

Both Niccolò and Sofia turn to look at her.

‘I’d want to know.’

‘To know what?’

‘Who did it, Papa. I’d want to know who did it.’

Sofia stares at her. ‘What are you saying?’

Sofia glances across at Niccolò, but he is staring at his daughter.

‘Too many people are accused of things they haven’t done and nothing is ever done about it. Go and find out who did it. Make somebody do something about it.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,
cara
,’ Niccolo says quietly. ‘Sofia, we could go together. To Bologna.’ He pauses. ‘Anna, what do you think? Will you mind if I leave again so soon?’

There is no sign of her in the market. Beppe’s soaring hopes have fast receded, leaving him feeling faintly nauseous. But she was here, he is certain of it. Several marketeers seem to recall serving a girl of her description.

‘With a dog, you say? Black curly hair?’

‘Yes. Very curly. Wild, really.’

‘Brown and white dog ’bout that high?’ A palm held out a couple of feet from the ground.

‘Yes.’

A nod. ‘Saw someone of that description – ooh, perhaps day before yesterday. Sweet girl. Pretty smile.’

‘Is she still in the town?’

A sceptical grimace and a shake of the head. ‘I wouldn’t know, my love, I just wouldn’t know. She’ll know, though – that woman over there.’ The stall-owner points to a bread stall nearby. ‘See her? Short woman with a cloth wrapped round her head? She knows everything that happens around here.’ A snort. ‘
Everything
. Interfering old besom. No one in Lugo can so much as fart without
her
passing comment.’

Beppe raises a hand in thanks and makes his way over to the bread stall. He repeats all the now too-familiar questions.

The bread-stall owner confirms a sighting.

‘Would you know if she is still in town, signora?’

He watches, his heart racing, as the woman shakes her head slowly.

‘No, my lover, I don’t think she can be. That was day before yesterday, and I’ve not seen her since. I particularly noticed her – had a look of my daughter – and I’d have remembered seeing her again. If she needed food, she’d have been here – only place to get decent food around the town, this market. And I sell bread, do I not? So she’d most like have come to me. My guess is she was just passing through. Most strangers do. Not much to keep them here, in Lugo.’

Beppe stifles a frustrated sigh. ‘Where might someone go from here, do you think?’

The marketeer puffs her ignorance and shakes her head. ‘Oh my word, I can’t imagine. Ravenna, perhaps. Ferrara. Or Bologna.’

Trying to force a smile of thanks, Beppe steps back from the bread stall, but the woman purses her lips in concern. Quickly stepping out from behind her heavily laden table, she puts herself in front of him and, somewhat to his surprise, she grips him by both upper arms, her fingers splayed like bunches of fat little sausages around his doublet sleeves. ‘Bless you, boy,’ she says, looking up into his face. ‘I hope to God you find her. Here.’ She reaches out, snatches up a small loaf, and presses it into Beppe’s hands. ‘A little something.’

Touched, Beppe mutters his slightly confused thanks, and moves on, his thoughts in turmoil. Where now? She has been here – that’s something. He was right to have been certain she would not have gone south, so perhaps, he reasons, he should trust to his instincts again, and just try once again to think through the possibilities – to think with Sofia’s mind and work out where she would choose to go. Sitting himself down on a piece of broken wall near the edge of the market square, he starts to tear small pieces off his loaf, pushing them into his mouth and chewing with no real awareness of taste or texture.

She might want to go home, he says to himself. To Modena. Whoever it was who accused her of theft that time will no doubt have forgotten about it by now. She might well be thinking it’s safe to go back. He tries to order his thoughts, laying them out in front of him on the dusty ground as though they were a pack of
tarocchini
cards. He stares down at his boots. ‘She ran away for a reason. What was it?’ Thinking through everything that happened that evening, the argument with Angelo comes back into his mind. A drench of cold sweeps down through him as he remembers his own words, almost shouted at Angelo in his anger –
I made a mistake. I hate to admit it but she’s trouble. I should never have got close to her
. What if she had heard that? What if she believed it? He says aloud, ‘Oh dear God, what if she thinks I’ve stopped loving her?’ Swallowing uncomfortably, he closes his eyes for a second. Thinking through the things he had said and done over the day or so before Sofia’s departure, and imagining her perception of his manner, Beppe squeezes what remains of the little loaf tightly in his fist; a flurry of flakes of the crust break away and fall over his knees and around his feet. Leaving aside this all-but-unbearable thought, he tries a more practical slant. ‘She knows that the authorities in Bologna still probably believe she killed that man. So why would she go there, when they put her in prison and then told her she’d been banished? No. She’ll not go there. She’ll go to Modena. I think she’ll go to Modena.’

Beppe pulls his purse from his breeches pocket. Tipping the contents into one palm, he counts his coins. Fifteen
scudi
and a handful of
baiocchi
: enough to get him to Modena. He could hire a horse. Perhaps even buy one.

The mare is stolid and stout, but her eyes are gentle and the long forelock which hangs from between her ears gives her a pleasing air of calm femininity; Beppe takes to her instantly. Scratching her between the eyes, he watches as she puckers her muzzle and half closes her eyes, showing her teeth.

‘Aye, she likes that. She likes you.’ The old man pats the mare’s neck, his gaze on Beppe’s face. ‘She’ll do well for you – but don’t take her more than thirty miles in a day. Her legs won’t stand for it.’

‘I won’t. I’ll take good care of her. Thank you.’ Beppe hands over the coins, and the old man nods without comment as he pushes them about on one palm with the forefinger of the other hand, counting them. He looks up. ‘I’m sorry I have no saddle for her, but —’

‘It’s no trouble. I’m just as happy without,’ Beppe says. Checking the straps and buckles of the mare’s bridle, he winds the straps of his leather bag around his shoulders so that it hangs on his back, then turns and vaults nimbly onto her back. With the reins gathered and tautened, he turns her and, hand raised in farewell to the old man, he kicks the mare on. She begins to walk away, head nodding back and forth in rhythm with her steps.

32

Outside the walls of Bologna

A young woman is standing near the back of a large and beautifully painted wagon, on the steps of which is seated a man of some thirty years. He is in shirtsleeves and breeches, with a flute held loosely in one hand; she is in shift and skirt. She is holding a bunch of paper flowers clasped close to her heart, and her eyes are shut, her face tilted up towards the sky.

‘Once more, Isabella, if you will,’ the young man says, pointing at the woman with the flute. ‘I need to hear that edge of
desperation
. This is
eating
at you from the inside out and you’re in
agony
.’ He makes an impassioned gesture with both arms, fingers splayed on one hand, the flute clutched tight in the other. ‘Let us feel it with you.’

Opening her eyes, Isabella smiles at him and nods. ‘From the beginning?’

‘From the beginning.’

Sucking in a long breath, she says, ‘
And the more deeply I am in love, the more fiercely am I jealous.
’
She stares for a moment at the flowers. Then, throwing them from her and clenching a fist, she says, ‘
My jealousy burns inside me every moment, like the very embers of hell – those fires of love which have blazed so brightly for so long have been entirely consumed by the ravaging flames of distrust and suspicion. Like a furious fever, it rages hot within, whilst I am frozen without.
’ She looks over to the young man and smiles sweetly. ‘Better?’