A Name in Blood by Matt Rees Read Free Book Online

kiss at an old woman hauling a basket of figs
towards the market in the Campo de’Fiori. ‘Who can be unhappy in Rome?’ The little man was missing a few teeth from tavern brawls. Those that remained shone through his ginger
beard. ‘Well, late sleepers don’t catch any fish. I’m off, ragazzi .’ He shambled towards the Corso.
    Onorio picked up a fig that had dropped from the old woman’s basket and rubbed it against his doublet to clean it. As he chewed, he put his arm across Caravaggio’s shoulder.
‘You didn’t pay him.’
    Caravaggio took the remainder of the fig and ate it. ‘Once I started on the wine, it slipped my mind. Anyway, maybe he forgot.’
    ‘Michele, this isn’t you. You get carried away by your anger sometimes. God knows I wouldn’t crucify a man for that. But don’t pretend that you want a fight with this
thug.’
    Caravaggio’s smile was reluctant. ‘If I’m to take advice on my comportment from you of all people, cumpà , I must be way off track.’
    ‘Stay at home and work.’ Onorio slipped his hand under Caravaggio’s arm. ‘Is it money you need? I can lend you the ten scudi for Ranuccio. To get him off your
back.’
    ‘I’m not short.’ Caravaggio pulled a leather purse from his doublet and shook it. ‘Plenty in here.’
    ‘Then in the name of the Blessed Virgin, pay the bastard.’
    Caravaggio’s lips tightened, as though he felt a familiar pain. He gripped Onorio’s forearm and his grin opened up. ‘You’re right. I’ll find him at the tennis
courts this afternoon and give him the money.’
    ‘I’ll see you there.’ Onorio wagged a finger and shook his head with relief. ‘You know I wouldn’t have stood by and let you fight the Tomassonis alone, bello. ’
    ‘I know it.’
    ‘I’m going to Santa Maria della Consolazione. The masons are coming in to replace some of the stonework. I’d better be there to oversee it, or they’ll be dropping marble
down the hill as if it were the criminals who used to be tossed off the Tarpeian Rock there. Come and see the work.’
    ‘No, I have a model coming to my place. Ciao, cazzo. ’
    Caravaggio’s mouth was dry and his belly grizzled at him for food. Below the Trinità dei Monti, he stopped in the Tavern of the Turk. He drank off a mug of thin beer and took a hunk
of dark bread and half an onion. He came out onto the piazza at the foot of the slope under the Trinità, rubbing the cut surface of the onion on the bread to flavour it. He chewed hard as he
went up Via del Babuino.
    Rome roused itself around him. A heavy-set old carpenter who had modelled for his St Peter crossed the street, on his way to his workshop in the Via Margutta. He hefted his toolbox against his
thigh and waved to Caravaggio. ‘Michele, what’re you painting now?’
    ‘ Salve , Robbè. I’m doing a Magdalene with her sister Martha.’
    ‘You don’t need an old bald fellow with a white beard and a big strong chest to model for you again?’
    Caravaggio pointed beyond the piazza to Santa Maria del Popolo, which housed his Martyrdom of St Peter . ‘Everyone knows I already crucified you.’
    His appetite was satisfied and he wanted to get home to prepare his pigments for Prudenza’s arrival. On the right of the canvas, he had painted Fillide as the Magdalene in the moment of
her conversion. He wanted to balance his composition with Prudenza as Martha, inquiring and cajoling her immoral sister. He looked forward to telling Fillide that she would be displayed in the
gallery of the great Aldobrandini family alongside the woman whose face she had tried to scar. He would paint until the afternoon, then take the money he owed to Ranuccio – at the tennis
courts or at Fillide’s rooms. I’ll throw the money at him, he thought, so he knows I don’t believe he won it fairly. He’ll understand that it’s beneath me to
fight a man such as him. That alone will be worth ten scudi to me.
    At the burnt sienna towers of the Church of