A Name in Blood Read Online Free PDF

the light of the candle. A brittle, drying substance encrusted it, the same earthy shade as the ochre and umber pigments
ingrained on his palm.
    ‘You’re bleeding, girl,’ he said.
    ‘Fillide came at me with a knife.’ Prudenza’s hair slipped loose from the braid that ran ear to ear. It dropped in long, russet arabesques among the breadcrumbs.
    Onorio squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’re lucky to have come away with your life, if that bitch was in earnest.’
    ‘I am lucky.’ The girl’s breath was fast, as though she felt the threat still. ‘She came at me with a knife and I tried to fend her off, but she cut me here on the
wrist.’
    ‘Was anyone with you when she attacked you?’ Caravaggio lifted the bloody hair to tuck it into her braid.
    ‘I was in my own house. She burst in and attacked me. She cut the corner of my mouth and when she saw that I was bleeding, she cursed me and ran off.’
    He noted that she had answered a different question. He turned his cup of wine on the tabletop. ‘Why are you looking for Ranuccio?’
    ‘I need his protection.’
    The girl was seventeen years old and had come from Tuscany just a few months earlier. Each man looked at the others in silence. They had been in Rome long enough to know that a whore needed more wits than this to survive.
    Caravaggio spoke low, ‘I don’t think you—’
    ‘He’ll look after me, Ranuccio will. He loves me.’
    The look, shared again by the men. It was as though an Inquisitor had called out a sentence on the girl. When a whore believed she was loved by her pimp, she was as lost as a heretic with his
tongue in a clamp riding the tumbrel. They were both on their way to the flames.
    ‘I’ll talk to Fillide, my dear.’ Caravaggio knew better than to ask what had come between the two women. Ranuccio’s name was all the explanation he needed. The man was a
procurer and a fornicator. Something about the girl disturbed him. At first he thought it was her fatal naiveté. He moved the candle in front of the girl’s face. No, he told
himself. It’s that she wants love, and unlike other whores she sees no impediment to receiving it.
    Prudenza wrinkled her nose. ‘What’re you doing with that candle?’
    ‘Will you come to my home?’
    ‘I’ve got to find Ranuccio.’
    ‘Not now. Tomorrow.’
    The urgent surge of her breasts slowed. She’s going into professional mode. ‘I need a model,’ he said. ‘I’m going to paint you.’
    A thought dawned in her eyes and she smiled with triumph. ‘You’re him , aren’t you? The one that painted Fillide. Onorio, why didn’t you tell me this was the famous
one?’
    ‘Did you say “infamous”? You’re quite right, puttanella .’ Onorio pushed himself to his feet, ready to depart. He pinched her cheek.
    ‘I live on the San Biagio alley behind the Palace of Florence. Ask for Michele who rents from Signora Bruni.’ Caravaggio put a few coins on the table for the waiter. He opened
Prudenza’s hand and rubbed her palm with his thumb. Here’s a girl most would say is unworthy of love , he thought. Just as I am. Those who chose a low path in life were
denied its highest aspirations. But Prudenza dared to expect love, as if whoring hadn’t robbed her of innocence. She was still pure, without knowing how. He smiled. What about you, Michele? Can you find a last sliver of your unsullied core? With a shock that made him frown, he wondered if he would
know how to recognize it, were he to come across it. He folded her fingers around a thin gold scudi . ‘Don’t show that coin to Ranuccio.’

2
    M artha and Mary Magdalene
    A trio of skinny harlots gyrated their hips at the corner of the Corso. They called out their crude welcome until Onorio emerged into the lamplight. Recognizing him as an unloved customer, one
of the whores bent her backside towards him and suggested he kiss it.
    ‘I’ll bite it, you nasty little strumpet.’ He spoke with some humour, but the girl backed away, all