A Bolt From the Blue Read Free Page A

tangle of blond locks. In appearance, at least, the pair seemed well suited. Whether she had ever taken notice of the boy, I did not know. But a handsome young painter would be a fine catch for a girl burdened by her mother’s lowly station.
    I frowned a little as I considered this last.
    While washerwomen ranked little better than prostitutes among society’s more downtrodden, I had never understood why they were dismissed as scandalous creatures. Did washerwomen not work long and hard and for meager pay? I could think of far more disreputable ways to earn good coin than scrubbing and carting about baskets of wet clothing that were heavy enough to stagger many a man.
    Perhaps their seductive reputation stemmed from the fact that they dealt so intimately with male garments, routinely touching the same fabric that had had contact with a man’s most private areas. Or perhaps there was another, crueler reason for such universal condemnation. For such women were dependent upon no man for their livelihoods but made their own way in the world. How better to put them in their place again than by besmirching their reputations and reminding them that they were subordinate to the male species?
    Then my frown faded. I was certain that Rebecca did not consider herself any man’s inferior. A large, black-browed woman of middle years with a brash grin and the familiar red-chapped hands and arms of her profession, she wore her starched white wimple proudly as if it were a crown. She’d first come to my notice several months earlier, when she had elbowed me out of the way to get a better look at a dead woman. She had later played a brief role during the Master’s investigation of that same suspicious death.
    As often happened when Leonardo was involved, the unlikely pair struck up a friendship of sorts. Rebecca eventually had taken over the laundering of his clothes, while the Master had used her as a model for a series of sketches of the common folk. It had been in this capacity that I had made her acquaintance.
    As for the fact that she had a daughter but no husband, I found the situation rather less scandalous than amazing. I also knew I was not the only one who secretly marveled that a woman possessed of as few physical charms as she could have found a willing bedmate, let alone produce from that coupling so lovely and graceful a child as the ethereal Novella. The man who had lain with her must have been handsome beyond belief and doubtless blinded by love. That or his sole encounters with her had been in the dark!
    While I had busied myself with such thoughts, Vittorio appeared to regain his usual carefree air in the wake of my assurances. Tucking the bracelet back in his tunic, he stood. Pio, who had been distracted during the course of our conversation by a lark that had lit upon the wall, now looked eagerly at the boy.
    “Come, Pio. We shall leave Dino and his gloomy face to mope here in the shadows while we pay a visit to someone much prettier,” he told the small hound, who gave an agreeable bark. To me, he added, “Unless, of course, you wish to walk part of the way with us?”
    His tone and expression were hopeful, so that I knew he would be disappointed should I turn him down. I reminded myself that I had been ensconced in my spot since early morning. Perhaps it would do me well to shake off the worrisome cloak of the past for a time and enjoy a bit of amusement.
    “I’m sure the Master would not expect me to spend the entire day hunched over my notebook,” I agreed and rose once more. The volume in question I took care to tuck under my arm lest it spur his curiosity. I was certain that Vittorio would not ask to see my work unless I first offered; still, I had to be on my guard, as this day’s sketches were ones that I was loath to share.
    “I’ll go with you as far as the workshop,” I offered instead, “else I know I will never hear the end of your complaints. But I wonder, Vittorio, if your feet are as swift