Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle

Author:Elizabeth Fremantle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

PART II

You will find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman.

Artemisia Gentileschi

19. The Handkerchief

Zita moves slowly. The air is thick and foetid in the narrow streets, heat radiating off the cobbles. The market vendors slump by their stalls waving fans, their produce wilting faster than it can be sold. Luca is a dead weight, mewling on her hip. She stops to buy milk. It is warm as blood and will be half curdled by the time she gets home.

As she reaches the door she can already hear her girls quarrelling. The atmosphere inside is more oppressive even than in the streets. No one greets her. Orazio broods in a corner and the boys loll about, their work abandoned. Giulio leaves the kitchen as she enters without meeting her eye. He has been avoiding her – doesn’t want to explain about the cross. She doesn’t need him to tell her. She knows what became of it.

Her moment of weakness has cost her dear. How she regrets giving such a delicate mission to Giulio, who is so young. It was her mistake. She unpacks the shopping and opens the back door, hoping for a whisper of air, but the stink of the drain is worse than the heat.

Artemisia bursts in with nothing but a black look for Zita as she pours herself a drink from the ewer. Swilling it back, she slams her cup down and leaves the kitchen. Zita follows her out, standing in the doorway, watching as she takes a lump of pigment from a jar and sets it on the mortar, grinding it with force.

She has barely said a word to Zita in the days since Tassi came, and goes about with a manic fervour, the only one of them who seems unaffected by the oppressive weather. Zita can feel the force of her hatred in her silence. She can’t blame her, wishes she could explain why she left her alone with that man, but she is knotted in a tangle of secrets and lies and remorse.

When she had returned that day, she had found Francesco alone in the studio and asked him what happened, where Tassi was. ‘Haven’t seen him,’ he’d said. ‘She’s upstairs changing. Had a nosebleed.’

‘He hit her?’

‘What are you talking about? It was an accident.’

She’d found Artemisia on the landing with a bundle of linens in her arms. Zita could see the bloodstains. ‘Did you have a nosebleed? Francesco said –’

‘What does it look like?’ Artemisia hissed, holding out the bloody bundle.

‘Did he…?’

‘He didn’t do anything.’ She began to go downstairs, turning back to say, ‘Can’t you stop interfering and leave me alone?’

Zita had looked into Artemisia’s room. It was spotless. The bed was freshly made and the floor pristine, still slightly damp as if it had just been mopped. She searched for signs of what might have happened but found nothing. He didn’t do anything. Perhaps it was true.

Orazio had cornered her, probing her for information, as she’d known he would. ‘How did the lesson go?’ She had nothing to tell him – she wasn’t there.

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