Free The Girl With the Painted Face by Gabrielle Kimm

Andreini?’

Sofia nods.

‘And very… excitable… and passionate. I think the duke might just have been swept away by her story and… well… decided to do whatever he thought might please her the most.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Mmm. Not that it matters, though. All that matters is the commission. Come on, let’s go and tell Agostino.’

44

    The Castello Estense, Ferrara, December
    It has been an unusually cold December. Everyone in Ferrara is talking about how long it is since there has been such a freeze in the city and, since this morning’s particularly hard frost, the Ferrarese have only been venturing out when they absolutely have to, bundled in as many layers of clothing as they can gather together. Snow began to fall a couple of days ago, and now most of the city’s roofs are smoothly white. Many of the narrower streets have already been trodden into dirty grey ruts, but the piazza outside the front of the Castello Estense has been deliberately roped off and still lies pristine white, its surface broken only by the tiny three-toed prints of birds and one single child-sized boot-print, daringly placed inside the cordon, right at the far western edge.

Within the castle walls, in the great central cortile , the snow – undisturbed here by wind and scuffed by no more than the occasional passage of feet – lies thicker than elsewhere: each bare twig of the dozen or so potted cherry trees is plumply white, every sill of every window seems pillowed with snow and tiny scuffs of the stuff are clinging to each minute irregularity in the bricks of the massive castle walls, giving them an unusually soft, speckled appearance.

It is five days before Christmas. The afternoon light has not yet begun to fade, but the many lanterns and torches burning within the castle are already shining out into the shadowed cortile , and their yellow light is casting vivid blue-purple shadows across the snow into the darker corners.

Inside, at the far end of the long North Hall, below where a pretty wooden gallery stretches across the width of the wall, a stage is being set. Above the gallery is a fresco – a huge, vividly painted, beautiful depiction of a mythological scene – and all along the gallery’s balustrade, candles in little glass pots have been placed ready to be lit when the light finally fades.

The trestles are in place, the backcloths have been thrown up and over their tightly stretched ropes and three people are crouched on the ground in front of the trestles, busily hooking up the drapery which conceals the below-stage area from the audience’s view. Sofia, Beppe and Niccolò are making their way along the row of hooks, Sofia at one end of the stage, Niccolò at the other, working in towards where Beppe is busy in the centre.

‘What’s left to do?’ Niccolò asks, sitting back on his heels.

‘Not much.’ Beppe pushes a hand through his hair. ‘Vico’s dealing with the props and Agostino will put the scenario board with the canovaccii up in a moment. We’re almost ready.’

‘Can you believe this?’ Sofia says, staring around the enormous room, where a dozen or so servants are busily setting out chairs and benches, refilling rushlight holders with oil and setting branched candlesticks out on the many windowsills. ‘Look at it all – look at us ! Can you believe it? The Coraggiosi, performing at the Castello Estense?’

Beppe grins at her. ‘I told you right at the start that you’d bring us luck, didn’t I?’

‘Did you?’

Frowning, Beppe considers. ‘I think I did. Well, if I didn’t say it, I thought it.’

Sofia is smiling at this when a tall, thin, elderly castle servant, dressed in black, with a shock of thinning white hair and a worried expression on his rather furrowed face, approaches the stage, looking, Sofia thinks, like a rather nervous and aged heron. Clearing his throat, he pecks a bow towards the actors.

Beppe stands and nods a bow in return.